Seaweed on the Street by Stanley Evans Page B

Ray?”
    Somebody said, “Aw, he went home. His rheumatics is acting up. Guy’s great, ain’t he, playing like that with his problems?”
    I didn’t wait to reply. I brushed through the crowd to the exit. The street was empty in every direction. To my left was a row of stores with boarded-up windows, but that direction led into an industrial area. There were more lights and activities the other way, so I sprinted to the corner. Down the street, rock music blared from a tavern. Patrons had spilled outside and were drinking beer on the sidewalk. Ray Smith came into view as he passed through the crowd and turned another corner. I was panting when I caught up with him.
    Ray stopped walking and we gazed at each other across the chasm of age and experience and male loneliness. His eyes were empty, and suddenly, I didn’t have anything to say.
    â€œI been thinking about that stuff, all that old misery,” he said finally. “I just didn’t want to hassle with it.”
    â€œYou’re the only real lead I’ve got. I guess I’m pushing you too hard.”
    â€œYeah, man, I can’t blame you for that. You’ve got a living to make.” Ray switched the clarinet case from one hand to the other. “The thing is, I can’t tell you much about Marcia, even if I wanted to.”
    Ray resumed his walk. I fell into step beside him. “Funny,” he mused. “Stuff that didn’t bother me none when I was younger, it keeps me awake nights now. Conscience. It’s a bastard, ain’t it?”
    â€œMan does what he thinks is right at the time,” I said. “Looking back, you think about what you could have done better. That stuff can drive you crazy if you dwell on it.”
    â€œYou tell me how a man can stop dwelling on it? I get to tossing and turning with my aches, and the pain in my mind, the pain in my joints, I dunno which is worse.”
    â€œI tell you something,” I said, and pointed to his clarinet case. “You can play that thing.”
    He smiled at that. “Yeah, I’m starting to get it, after 60 years. It’s in my fingers, the music. I think of the note and there it is.”
    â€œI used to go to blues clubs in Chicago, years ago,” I said, walking slowly to match the old man’s halting stride. “South Halstead Street. You know it?”
    â€œKnow it? Brother, I lived it. Knowed every one of them rooms. I gigged with B. B. King, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy. I go way back, man. I sat in with all them dudes.” Ray’s face softened. “Them niggers give you a hard time in Chicago, an Injun guy from Canada?”
    â€œNothing serious. They knew I was a music lover.”
    â€œMan need to be serious, he mess with you,” said Ray, eyeing my shoulders.
    We came to a side-street hotel. Ray stopped walking. It was a roach joint, one step up from a homeless shelter, and it was named The Astoria. To enter you passed through a battered door sandwiched between a taxi office and a newsstand. A sign said: rooms $18. transients welcome. Visible behind a glass panel was a grubby, pint-sized hall and a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
    â€œThis is it,” said Ray in a thin voice. “I get tired of crime on tv, I just look through my window, watch the real thing.”
    â€œNice meeting you, Ray.” I found a 20 in my billfold and handed it over.
    Ray looked at the money but he didn’t take it. “I got something for you, mister, but not much.”
    He turned his back on the hotel entrance as if hating the sight. “Marcia, the last I seen of her, she was living at Point Matlock. You know where that is?”
    I shook my head.
    â€œSouth of town,” he explained. “A little old army fort. Bunch of artillery installations and houses was built for the military, years ago. In them days the government was worried the Russians would come down from Alaska, claim the whole coast. Then