Crawlin' Chaos Blues by Edward M. Erdelac

Crawlin’ Chaos Blues
    By
Edward M. Erdelac
    Damnation Books, LLC.
P.O. Box 3931
Santa Rosa, CA 95402-9998
    www.damnationbooks.com
    Crawlin’ Chaos Blues by Edward M. Erdelac
    Digital ISBN: 978-1-61572-257-0
    Cover art by: George Cotronis
Edited by: Lisa J. Jackson
    Copyedited by: Lisa J. Jackson
    Copyright 2010 Edward M. Erdelac
    Printed in the United States of America
Worldwide Electronic & Digital Rights
1st North American and UK Print Rights
    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any form, including digital and electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the Publisher, except for brief quotes for use in reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
    For Chester
    “This is where the soul
    of man never dies.”
    Crawlin’ Chaos Blues
    ‘It’s like a spirit from some dark valley, something that sprung up from the ocean–like Lucifer is on the Earth...’ – Howlin’ Wolf, 1968.
    Don’t nobody remember King Yeller. The Delta folks don’t like to talk ‘bout him like they do Muddy or BB or Robert Johnson, though I ‘spect he was as good as them if not better. I don’t know no white folks ever heard of him. They ain’t a page on him in all the blues books ever written.
    I ‘spect I’m the only one alive knows why.
    I met him in sixty-four in Chicago. In them days, the draft was in full swing, and I didn’t see no way out of it, so I figured I’d do some drivin’ around before Uncle Sam come callin’.
    I’d always wanted to hear that ‘lectric blues played, so I filled up the tank of my daddy’s ’52 Catalina, bought me a sack of tamales and a jar of moon off my cousin, and drove up there from Quito, Mississippi. I got to Maxwell Street on a Saturday when the Jew Town market was open. The sidewalk buskers and the gutbucket players paid the shop owners out they tips to run extension chords from the shops to they amps, and you could hear that ragged, powered sound goin’ all up and down the market like a rattletrap Ford with a cryin’ drunk at the wheel, crashin’ into the songs of the Gospel singers, street hustlers, and the yellin’ of the rummage sellers. A lady drummer let me blow my harp with her and her husband for pocket money. She told me ‘bout a place called Silvio’s on Lake and Kedzie where Howlin’ Wolf played on the weekends. I went over there to see him.
    I seent King Yeller when I pulled up. He was a little younger than me, skinny, high yeller, and red headed; a sharp dresser. A more troublesome lookin’ nigger you never did see. Had shifty, light-colored eyes and a way of talkin’ out the side of his mouth. When I first seent him, he was leanin’ on a beer sign watchin’ that Lake Street L clackin’ overhead, one bent Kool stuck in his lips, beatin’ out I Ain’t Superstitious as best he could on a rusty ol’ National with a pocket knife for a slide.
    “What we got here?” he said, when I come up on the curb.
    I figured he meant to hustle me and I wasn’t ‘bout to have it.
    “You got Harpoon Elkins here,” I said.
    “Harpoon,” he grinned, trying my name out. It wasn’t my Christian name sure, but I didn’t wanna go throwin’ that ‘round Chicago anyhow. “See you got Mississippi tags,” he said, noddin’ to my car.
    “Tha’s right,” I said.
    “You up from the Delta?”
    “Quito,” I said.
    “Man, I ain’t never heard of no Quinto.”
    “Quito. What that got to do with me?”
    “Ease up now, blood,” he said. I seent he had that pocket knife still between his bowin’ fingers.
    “Sound better you used a bottleneck,” I said.
    “My uncle taught me with a knife. You play the