Where is the Crossroads?

I was on YouTube listening to Robert Johnson's Crossroads.

The comments were mostly silly. 

Some guy finally asked, Where is the Crossroads? Here's my reply,

" @Money Sniper  

Ain't nobody from round here gonna tell some stranger where the Crossroads is!

But there are folks in the French quarter who will be happy to take your twenty bucks and draw you a map to the Mississippi Delta area and then send you down some long dirt road. Yeah, there will be roads that cross, but ain't none of em the Crossroads.

Why don't you move to the Delta, find the woman that's cooking for everyone, and tell her that you're here to find the Crossroads. Just say it to her once, then never repeat it. 

 for the next few years,  learn how to sing & play real blues by watchin the ole timers. Gain their trust.

One summer evening an old man will come to your house carrying a brown paper bag - you'll hear his boots on the porch and see his silhouette through your screen door. He won't be moving or talking.

 That's when you'll know that it's tonight.

 You've been waiting for this but now you're terrified.

This man must be invited in, given a place to sit at a table, and given a glass of cool water.

He'll be wearing an old black suit and a ragged Panama hat.

 Don't talk to him, other than to say, "Bonjou papa saj. Tanpri antre lakay mwen."

Then show him where he will be sitting.

Sit in silence at the table with the man. 

Be patient.

When the time is right, the man will raise the brown paper bag while he stares at you with his ancient yellow eyes. 

Still staring at you, he will reach into the bag and pull out a simple empty bowl made of wood. He will offer you the bowl. Take it. 

The man will sip the cool water for the first time.

Still staring at you, he will reach into the bag and pull out a used wine bottle with a worn off label and wax drippings at the top, hardened to form a seal.

There is a dark liquid inside.

The man will place the old bottle on  the table and push it toward you. 

Put both hands around the bottom of the bottle, bow your head, and say with closed eyes, 

"Mèsi papa saj."

The man will sip the cool water for the second time.

The man will lean back in his chair, looking far beyond you. He pulls out a crumpled pack of Pall Mall cigarettes and pulls one out with his lips. A flame from a silver Zippo lighter, dented, seems to appeat in his hand as he lights his smoke. 

A couple minutes into the cigarette, the man will clear his his throat, sip the cool water for the third time, and speak broken english with a voice that seemed to come up from a gravel road. He will tell you what you will see, but not at what hour. But he will talk about in what order you will see these things, their meanings, and what you must do.

Then the man touches the waxy bottle and says, "Bwè pitit gason saj mwen an."

(He wants you to drink the dark liquid)

You scrape the wax seal off and pour some of this brown liquid into the wooden bowl. The brown liquid seems to have slimy solids and small twigs and broken & dryed leaves in it. It has a strong scent of garlic and compost.

You take a good gulp, cough, spraying the liquid and the solids everywhere including the man's old black suit. 

You're mortified. But the man just takes another drag, grins for the first time, and motions for you to drink from the remaining sludge in the bowl.

You look at the bowl and quickly turn and vomit on your wooden floor.

You think you heard the man chuckle. He lights up another Pall Mall, savors that first drag, picks up his glass of cool water and slams it down hard on the table, the glass breaks, water is shooting straight up, the cigarette - wet & broken - when the man yells in English, 

"DRINK ALL!"

"NOW!"

"I NOT COME BACK!"

He's not buffing. You have never seen this man before, and you will never see him again.

You spit some of the vomit still in your mouth onto your floor, grab the bowl and pour it as far back as you can. Then you grab the waxy bottle and pour the liquid into the back of your throat.

When you wake up, it's dark. You're not sure what day it is. Is the sun rising, or did it just set?

 The last thing you remember is the hardy laughter from the man when you picked up that bottle.

That bottle.

What *was* that disgusting stuff?

The sun is rising.

 I'm thirsty, and I'm starving.

I'm lying here on this lonely, dusty road. I can feel the dust in my mouth. My left shoe is missing, along with the old man. My guitar! It's forty feet away near a ditch. And I'm pretty certain that I pissed my pants.

 There's dried blood all over me but I am not cut. Sticky dark red blood on my face and hands.

I follow my tracks.

I see other tracks in the dust - a rooster? A snake? hooves?

My tracks turn into tire tracks. So I follow them for two hours to my little town.

People are stepping out on their front porches to look at me; hobbling with one shoe, dried blood on my face and hands, and in my hair? on my tongue? 

And my black acoustic steel string slung over my shoulder. I grabbed my left pocket! It's there. My chrome slide.

Everyone on their porches watching in silence as I entered my old house.

The cook that I met about 3 years earlier brought me pancakes, fried eggs, grits, bacon, and 2 gallons of satsuma juice - more food than her family ate in a week.

I must have slept for 2 more days. When I woke, the sun was setting. Someone had cleaned my face and hands.

My thoughts were haunted. I felt the urgent need to get away.

I grabbed my guitar and anything else that would fit into my backpack. 

It was about 10pm, and I threw everything into my 1981 white cadillac and drove East. Toward Atlanta.

.

I never returned to the Delta.

I paid my dues.

Pay yours.