So here we were, at this little club (or a juke joint, as one might refer to it) called Red’s Lounge, on the corner of Sunflower Avenue and Martin Luther King Boulevard in Clarksdale. I entered it quite reluctantly, not knowing what to expect given the kinda sketchy people hanging out outside. As a matter of fact, I had no idea what to call sketchy in this part of the world. The sun had set not long ago and we came down with our rented pick-up truck, a white Chevrolet Colorado, which blended in quite well in the southern States. Andrew, the owner of the guesthouse where we stayed in Vicksburg, drove a Chevrolet Silverado. He said when he saw our car, he was really unsure whether we were the guests of the night or simply locals passing through.
The “hotel” where we were staying in Clarksdale was only a few minutes’ drive away. It was a historical shotgun shack (might be around 100 years old?) at Shack Up Inn, a nowadays quite popular place to stay in Clarksdale, ranked high on a Google search. In our shack Fullilove, there is an out-of-tune piano and some out-of-place pictures and decorations that reminded us of a time we didn’t know. It’s not very sane to visit the South without the sea at this time of the year. The sun started dancing around long before our waking hour. Yet the striking contrast between nature's temperature and the manmade (excessive) coldness made the sultriness seem more bearable. The staffer at the reception table light-heartedly informed us at check-in that we were allowed to loan a guitar from the collection on display. I didn’t take one, for I don’t play any blues tunes. But I fancied the idea that some man or woman had played one of those guitars on one of those porches many years ago, and the same songs are still being played today, with alterations and improvisations and all but they never went missing. They were never lost and hence the people who created them were never gone. The person singing the song is, at the moment of singing, the sum of everyone that has ever sung the same song in the history of the existence of the song. How miraculous is that. I don’t even know why I had the idea to do a blues road trip; some do it as a pilgrimage but for me it was just another tour of discovering what I knew too little. Doesn’t mean that I ended up knowing much - just knowing one more thing or word or name or song or place would render it meaningful enough. Learning gives you the ephemeral burst of satisfaction that for a brief moment you could say you know, as if that would count for eternity. We entered Red’s Lounge and were surprised by how red it actually looked (because of the lights, that is). It was smaller than I expected; smaller than most of the bars I’ve been to. We were asked to pay seven dollars’ cover each, and then we sat ourselves at the far end of the room at a long table against the wall, which was still within 5 meters’ distance from the stage. There were a few tables and other seats closer to the stage, and most of them were already taken. The red lights might have induced me to look at the same people in a different light; they all seemed mellow and at home. Maybe they were literally at home. Different people in the room took turns to take the stage and each sang a few songs. They changed roles and many of them played harmonica (and so heartbreakingly well). The bassist, a black man with a narrow white beard and wearing a hat that concealed the upper part of his face, seemed to have a physical condition that hindered his ability to keep his neck up straight. It was hard to guess his age. Initially I thought him to be really old. Then at some point he took on the role of singing too and he looked up a few times in spite of his physical condition and revealed his eyes. There was a certain sparkle in his eyes, kind of a combination of self-assuredness and perspicaciousness and high-spiritedness and playfulness. I don’t know what he sang but he sang the best blues I’ve ever heard. I guess most of the patrons there are either musicians themselves or regulars so it was extremely easy to identify strange faces. Two of the many musicians, one old and one young (certainly too young to sing among the others), came to us at different times and asked each of us how we were doing and where we came from while heartily holding both of our hands. It was hard to be there and not feel content. Maybe it was the singing and dancing of neatly-dressed old-aged people full of youth. Maybe it was the white and black men joking about and with each other. Maybe it was the harmonica. Who knows. I always say, a large part of understanding a language is understanding the culture. It was so true. Many times I couldn’t understand a simple “how y'all doing” not because I didn’t know the language, but because I’m used to a culture where people I know don’t even ask me how I am doing, not to mention people I don’t know. One unthinkable thing happened when I was standing in front of the Business & Money section at the Amazon Bookstore in New York near the corner of 5th Avenue and West 34th Street - a young man standing beside me asked casually, you read any of these books? I was a bit taken aback and then took a few seconds to browse through all the books in my sight again to evaluate exactly how many I have indeed read. Uhm.. a few, I answered reluctantly, have you read lots of them? Yeah, I just like to come here sometimes and try to stay at the forefront (or something to this effect). Right, I said. Then without making any further remark he vanished, perhaps because I wasn’t being such an excellent conversation partner under the circumstances. I stood there for another long minute, stunned by how simple it could all be. A big black man with sunglasses and a cane walked to and fro inside the bar a few times. I guess he was not entirely blind but couldn’t see well. He knew almost everyone and was ready to laugh at every joke that was told on stage. We were under the impression that he was actually the legendary Red (now that we know about this place). He wore a T-shirt that wrote on the back: backed by the river and fronted by the grave -- Red’s What does that mean? We tried to decipher this piece of code for some time. The river must be the Mississippi River, very obvious. I was quite certain that it meant we, as mortal human beings, are all going to die sooner or later. The grave (death) is in front of all of us, whether we like it or not. But we are nurtured by the mother nature, embodied by the Mississippi River, long and winding and passing through ten states and bearing witness to the history. So before we die we have to appreciate what we have and live fully. It seemed like a sound theory. Later another musician solved the puzzle. It was simply describing the location of Red’s Lounge. Behind the bar there is a small river that’s definitely not the Mississippi River. Its name might be Sunflower River. Right across the street which Red’s is facing, there is a cemetery - Heavenly Rest Cemetery. As simple as that.
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