Stories from a HARD PLACE

 An hour past the Ol’ Scratch tavern on 11, Jacob, Brian and Clyde turned off the main road onto a two-wheel trail that threaded itself through the trees opening onto a farmyard.

It was quiet but filled with hope.

By 6 p.m. John had worked himself into a frantic state. He was shaking and sweating.

Mary Lou watched as she shook The Judge’s hand.

Wincing again, he thought of the song that had forced its way out of him yesterday. He tried to play it, but it would not come.

He kicked the heap of useless timber, then picked it up and flung it across the room. It slammed into the framed photo of his icon, Robert Johnson. It crashed to the floor—bits of glass and wood scattering everywhere.

Once, the lonely house had been painted light green and white, but now much of the paint was peeled, flaked off, revealing weathered grey boards. Some windows still held glass, reflecting a washed-out and colourless sky.

He walked alone down a dirt road on a quiet, moonless night. He came to a sign he could not read. It pointed back to the way he had come.

He sighed. It had been a long day, and there was always more to do. His mind wasn’t on the farm, though. The past few days, he had thought about Billy a lot. It wasn’t fair.

He held it up in both hands and looked it over. Was it smoking? It seemed blackened, as if it had recently been in a fire. There was a faint smell of burnt wood in the apartment, though he couldn’t be sure.

He had had a dream and had let it go. And the dog knew it.

Matt walked across the crisp marble, each footfall echoing loudly around him. Behind a long counter that looked as if it had been carved from a single block of white stone, a young, clean-shaven man stood expectantly.

Though he ignored it, the guilt was always there.

“Next time,” he would tell himself.

Three days later, Matt still had not heard from Allen.

“If you don’t have any answers and the questions keep adding up, you have to take a moment and decide if you are facing the right direction,” 

Many people talk about the night Bob Dylan played at Ol’ Tom's Backroom but no one ever mentions the night John 'Whitey' Burnett woke the devil and made him cry.

Many people talk about the night Bob Dylan played at Ol’ Tom's Backroom but no one ever mentions the night John 'Whitey' Burnett woke the devil and made him cry.