The Talisman

SINGS
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    1
    Jack swung back toward the black man, his heart hammering in his chest.
    Speedy?
    The black man groped for his cup, held it up, shook it. A few coins rattled in the bottom.
    It is Speedy. Behind those dark glasses, it is Speedy.
    Jack was sure of it. But a moment later he was just as sure that it wasn’t Speedy. Speedy wasn’t built square in the shoulders and broad across the chest; Speedy’s shoulders were rounded, a little slumped over, and his chest consequently had a slightly caved-in look. Mississippi John Hurt, not Ray Charles.
    But I could tell one way or the other for sure if he’d take off those shades.
    He opened his mouth to speak Speedy’s name aloud, and suddenly the old man began to play, his wrinkled fingers, as dully dark as old walnut that had been faithfully oiled but never polished, moving with limber speed and grace on both strings and frets. He played well, finger-picking the melody. And after a moment, Jack recognized the tune. It had been on one of his father’s older records. A Vanguard album called Mississippi John Hurt Today . And although the blind man didn’t sing, Jack knew the words:
    O kindly friends, tell me, ain’t it hard?
    To see ole Lewis in a new graveyard,
    The angels laid him away . . .
    The blond football player and his three princesses came out of the mall’s main doors. Each of the princesses had an ice cream cone. Mr All-America had a chilidog in each hand. They sauntered toward where Jack stood. Jack, whose whole attention was taken up by the old black man, had not even noticed them. He had been transfixed by the idea that it was Speedy, and Speedy had somehow read his mind. How else could it be that this man had begun to play a Mississippi John Hurt composition just as Jack happened to think Speedy looked like that very man? And a song containing his own road-name, as well?
    The blond football player transferred both chilidogs to his left hand and slapped Jack on the back with his right as hard as he could. Jack’s teeth snapped on his own tongue like a bear-trap. The pain was sudden and excruciating.
    ‘You just shake her easy, urine-breath,’ he said. The princesses giggled and shrieked.
    Jack stumbled forward and kicked over the blind man’s cup. Coins spilled and rolled. The gentle lilt of the blues tune came to a jangling halt.
    Mr All-America and the Three Little Princesses were already moving on. Jack stared after them and felt the now-familiar impotent hate. This was how it felt to be on your own, just young enough to be at everyone’s mercy and to be anyone’s meat – anyone from a psychotic like Osmond to a humorless old Lutheran like Elbert Palamountain, whose idea of a pretty fair work-day was to slog and squelch through gluey fields for twelve hours during a steady cold downpour of October rain, and to sit bolt-upright in the cab of his International Harvester truck during lunch hour, eating onion sandwiches and reading from the Book of Job.
    Jack had no urge to ‘get’ them, although he had a strange idea that if he wanted to, he could – that he was gaining some sort of power, almost like an electrical charge. It sometimes seemed to him that other people knew that, too – that it was in their faces when they looked at him. But he didn’t want to get them; he only wanted to be left alone. He –
    The blind man was feeling around himself for the spilled money, his pudgy hands moving gently over the pavement, almost seeming to read it. He happened on a dime, set his cup back again, and dropped the dime in. Plink!
    Faintly, Jack heard one of the princesses:‘Why do they let him stay there, he’s so gross , you know?’
    Even more faintly still: ‘Yeah, rilly !’
    Jack got down on his knees and began to help, picking up coins and putting them into the blind man’s cup. Down here, close to the old man, he could smell sour sweat, mildew, and some sweet bland smell like corn. Smartly dressed mall shoppers gave them a wide berth.
    ‘Thankya, thankya,’ the blind man croaked monotonously. Jack could smell dead chili on his breath. ‘Thankya, blessya, God blessya, thankya.’
    He is Speedy.
    He’s not Speedy.
    What finally forced him to speak – and this was not really so odd – was remembering just how little of the magic juice he had left. Barely two swallows now. He did not know if, after what had happened in Angola, he could ever bring himself to travel in the Territories again, but he was still determined to save his