Sweeter Life Read Online Free Page A

mildew and potato rot, all of it topped off with industrial disinfectant. Even here, way up on the third floor, it always smelled as though he was underground.
    He shifted a bit in bed, nestling the radio closer to his body. That small movement brought the antenna to rest against the metal bed frame. Like magic, the clot of static suddenly became a voice, low and jive and full of broken parts.
    “Howhowhow, you lis’nin’ to the lowdown, brothers and sisters, you lis’nin to the Catfish. Spinnin’ the discs that take the risk. Dishin’ you all the platters that matter. Catfish got the numbers gonna make you feel right. Catfish got the numbers take you awww through the night. And here’s a little number what jus’ come in gonna smooth your creases, gonna move your pieces. A little somethin’ called ‘JimJam’ …”
    Organ, bass and drums vamping quietly in the background. And then a different voice, rich and resonant and full of calm.
    I’d like to tell you a story now, if I may, about a man,
you know, a man who had all that he wanted,
not on a golden platter but earned by the sweat of his brow, the luck
of his draw, the way he looked at the world and turned
it to his advantage, and how this man, a friend of mine, you know,
a fellow I’d known all my life like I might know my brother,
this man, this friend, he comes to me one day pullin’ at his hair, his face
all crazy, his eyes like to pop right out of their sockets
with grief, and he says to me, “Jimmy, my life is over. It’s ashes. Tell me
what to do now, now that my life is over.
Tell me, tell me now, tell me: What on earth am I goin’ to do?”
    The band is right there, loping behind the voice in a rhythm that seems to have a mind of its own.
    Now, you can picture it, right? You can see me, how I stared real hard
at my friend—his fancy suits, his Italian shoes,
the diamond pinkie ring—and placed my hands on his head the way
you’ve all seen me do before, you know what I’m talkin’,
waitin’ for the words to come to me, waitin’ for the words, searchin’ for a way
I could help this friend of mine so filled with sorrow.
And it wasn’t easy, let me tell you, but finally, you know, I said
to him: “It matters not what you have done,
but if what you say is true, if this life is indeed over,
then it is time to move on, time to end
this life and somehow, someway, choose another, find that place
you can call your own. And if you can’t look forward,
then look back.
    Maybe it’s true. Maybe it’s true your life
    is over. Maybe you don’t have no future at all.
But we’ve all got a past. Look back, I tell you. You gotta, you gotta look back.”
    Just like that the voice and the music come to an abrupt halt, waiting through two full bars, though it seems but a minor skip of the heart. Then:
    I know what you’re all thinkin’. I can hear you in my head.
You’re sayin’, “Be fair, Jim, you gots to be fair.
You’re Jim, you’re big, and things have been easy for you ’cause you got talent.
You got the soul and the spirit and the gift of music.”
But, oh my my, lookit here, lookit here. Gonna turn in a big wide circle
just like so, and you tell me just what you see.
You see any sign of talent or spirit or soul or musical genius?
Well how could you? ’Cause when you get down to the basic
equation, down to the root of the matter, what I got is Jim.
You see talent? I ain’t got talent, got Jim.
You see soul? Well fiddlesticks. I ain’t got soul or spirit
or even what some folks’d call e-mag-ination.
Lookit here, ain’t got no luck or mojo or black cat bone,
no John the Conqueror root. No friends in high places,
no siree, no nothin’ for a rainy day. This right here,
this here what you see is all I got.
Jim is Jim, it’s all that I am and all that I ever will be.
    A deep breath then, a pause to let the music settle back a notch to a more casual cruising speed. Hank can hear the musicians getting playful, tossing things back and forth,