Hellhound 7: Tell Everyone

DAY--EXTERIOR PARK SQUARE

Another area of Memphis, this near the border between black and white sections. Johnny, Robert, Booker, and two other black men are lingering in the sunshine--passing a bottle around, making tipsy remarks to the passersby, pushing each other in good fun, etc. All this casual activity is pantomimed because the soundtrack is playing Johnson's odd, upbeat, near-theme, "Dust My Broom." Johnson finally takes up his guitar to play something, and we jump cut ahead to:

ANGLE ON JOHNSON

Him playing that very song, the last couple of verses. During the lapsed time Booker has found a passing woman to dance with him; Johnny is handing his hat around to pull in cash from white passersby, but very few stop to listen or contribute. In the background, however, one smallish white man in a suit has paused with evident interest. Johnson ends with a fluorish.

FIRST BLACK MAN (as he receives Johnson's guitar): I guess you ain't lost you' touch.

JOHNSON: I keep tryin' to get right.

SECOND MAN: You pert' near bad's anybody I ever seed. You play wid Charley Patton 'fore he passed?

JOHNSON (bored response): Run wid him some down Clarksdale an' Belzona.

JOHNNY (plucks a dime from his hat): Lookee this. White man the soul o' gen-u-rosidy, ain't he.

The white man from the background has now come forward; he is a salesman type in a clip-on bow tie, his speech fussily proper.

WHITE MAN (to Johnson): You're pretty good with that, young man. Ever cut any discs?

ANOTHER ANGLE

Johnson immediately assumes a "new" persona aimed at whites--sullen, silent, seeming not too bright. Johnny listens in silence but mounting interest.

JOHNSON: Whut?

WHITE MAN: I was wondering if you've ever made any 78 records.

JOHNSON (avoiding looking at him): Nossir, I jes' play.

WHITE MAN (a bit frustrated): Well, would you like to make some then?

Johnson just shrugs.

WHITE MAN (peevishly): Look, I'm not trying to sell you funeral insurance or something, for God's sake! My name is Vincent Tuttle. (pulls a card from his coat pocket) Here's my name and address. (pointing at card) I'm serious. I work for this company, the American Record Corporation. We've been cutting... er, race records for you people for almost 15 years--Bessie Smith, Leroy Carr, all the big ones record for us.

Johnson still hasn't looked at him, hasn't paid any attention to the card Tuttle has been offering, so Tuttle has also been talking to Johnny part of the time.

WHITE MAN: Don't you understand? I'm offering you a chance to become famous among your people!

JOHNSON (rousing at last): Uh-huh. What it gonn' cost me?

WHITE MAN: Why, nothing. ARC'll be recording over in Texas in a couple of weeks. We'll pay your way over, plus, say... (craftier now) five dollars a song. And if your session's any good, well...

Johnny is clearly excited about all this, and he nudges Robert into responding.

JOHNSON (shrugging again): I'll think on it.

He turns on his heel and walks away, retrieving his guitar from the man who has been chording on it. Tuttle, taken aback at first, then calls after him.

WHITE MAN: Hey, I don't even know your name! Who are you?

Robert pays no attention; Johnny answers instead.

JOHNNY: Name' Robert Johnson. An' he the bes' there is.

WHITE MAN: Is he as slow as he seems?

JOHNNY: Nossir, jes' cautious. I know he be int'rested.

Johnny plucks the card from Tuttle's hand.

JOHNNY: We be callin'.

After his retreating back, Tuttle calls out once more.

WHITE MAN: Tell him party blues always sell pretty good...

Then Tuttle glances around, sees the other faces watching him--black, brooding, unfriendly--and nervously scuttles off.

DAY--INTERIOR BARBER SHOP

Lucky himself is the only person visible this time, seated in his front barber chair, reading the city's black newspaper and keeping a weather eye on the street outside. From an open door at the rear of the shop come the outcries and spirited remarks of a noisy crap game in full swing. Suddenly the front door bangs open. Lucky jumps with a start, but it's only Robert and Johnny.

JOHNNY (gangster-films voice): All right, youse guys--dis is a raid.

Johnson laughs aloud, but Lucky waves his arm irritably.

LUCKY: Funny man. Why'n'chu go hustle a high-yaller gal or somepin'.

Now Johnny dances over, grabs up Lucky's broom, and charges around the shop furiously, sweeping all the real or imagined dust and hair, keeping up his patter all the while.

JOHNNY (self-importantly): We is conductin' im-portant bizness in this here ee-stablishment, so don' you gimme none o' you' nappy jive. (bowing, gesturing Robert into the vacant chair) Whatcha need, Mist' Johnson, suh--shoeshine, man-ee-cure, process, pick a li'l number? (points with broom to the noisy back room) Roll the bones? Letcha deal go down for Georgia Skin?

Finally he runs out of breath. Robert is chuckling and Lucky laughing so hard now he can't rise from the chair.

LUCKY: Ee-nuff! Lord, you gonn' make me dis'member my bizness...

ANOTHER ANGLE

Lucky gets up and goes over to rummage among the creams for hair and skin, emerging with an envelope.

LUCKY: Mist' Charlie here for you, Robert--li'l dude name' Turtle or somepin'--and' lef' dis.

Johnson seems surprised, but Johnny looks knowing as Robert takes the letter, examines it as though it might hold a snake inside, then tears the envelope open. He shakes out green cash and a note. Manwhile, the crap game at shop rear has yielded up a pale, freckled black with reddish hair, who shakes his head ruefully.

JOHNNY (keeping one eye on Robert): Hey, Red, how's the highroller?

RED: Shee-it. Cleaned me up one side an' down th' other. Seed so many snake-eyes, thought i 'uz gone whiskey-blin'.

LUCKY: Siddown, son, I give ya a li'l trim, on the house.

RED: Practice some other nigger, you ol' buzzard--I'm gonn' check up on Annie, see has she got any coins. Them johns o' hers are the poorest excuse for spenders I ever seed!

LUCKY: Run yo' mouf on out. God sho' don' like ugly!

CLOSE ON ROBERT AND JOHNNY

Johnny peering over Johnson's shoulder, waiting while Robert tries to sound out the note from "Turtle." But Johnson gives up and passes it to his friend.

JOHNSON: You the smart one, John. Read me. What's this money?

JOHNNY (reading and answering): Say here American Record Corporation want you to cut some de-mos--meanin' records I 'spect, over to Texas... San Antone, Robert, an' money's to pay you' ticket.

JOHNSON: The man don' give up, do he. Well, I ain't in'trested. Send it back to 'um--or mebbe we buy us a good time right here...

JOHNNY: Wait up. Is you crazy? Peckerwood gonn' pay you to get famous, an' you sayin Nossir?

JOHNSON: That's all bullshit. I study to this wid other musicianers Mist' Charlie done talk up, taken roun', an' stole offa. What I need wi' that? We be doin' all right.

CLOSE ON JOHNNY

He is very enthusiastic, working to convince Robert.

JOHNNY: Lookit now. Here's front money an' you be paid there too. All's you do is go t' Texas an' play. Where's the stealin' in that? Hell, you stealin' from them. You allus makin' music anyways--let 'em pay you for it. Peoples gonn' know you from Fannin Street to Chi-cago--Blin' Lemon have nothin' on you. (as though announcing) Robert Johnson, King o' the Blues.

ANGLE ON THE TWO

Robert now thoughtful.

JOHNSON (catching on): You done this wi' that Turtle fella, ain' chu? (reaches up to touch his lucky neck-bag) Well, all right, you an' me go to San Antone--see all them see-noritas up close, mebbe fin' young John hisself a Mex'can mama.

Now Johnny seems embarrassed.

JOHNNY: Aww, Bob, I ain't goin'. They's callin' you. Sho' the chips most for one. I got people to see on down in Arkansas. You go on you'self.

WIDER ANGLE ON THE SHOP

Johnson gives another of his easy-going shrugs.

JOHNSON: You say it. I catch you up come Wes' Helena. (sudden idea) Yeah, an' I may bein' check out Betty Mae too...

He breaks into a grin and a finger-popping sway, singing some improvised workds:

JOHNSON: Be goin' to San Antonio, baby, but I ain' take you...

Lucky has been tidying up his shop through all this; now he opens the steam cabinet and...

DAY--EXTERIOR TRAIN

Steam billows from a braking engine at the San Antonio station. Johnson and another black man disembark from the "Colored Only" car; Robert wears a dusty suit and carries a paper valise and his worn guitar. He steps down into the confusion of a Mexican-American city--Spanish insults hurled about, few black people, no one meeting him. He wanders through the station and out into the afternoon heat; he looks about blankly with no real notion of where to go or what to do...

((More to come soon.))