Page 166 of Hang on St. Christopher

“Hey,” I said, and he acknowledged my presence.

I rubbed his neck, drank the coffee, ate the toast, sipped the whisky.

It got boring.

To hell with the minor key, the anticlimax, and the silence. I looked through my Chess Records Howlin’ Wolf singles collection, found “Spoonful,” slipped it out of its sleeve, and carefully laid it on the turntable. I got up and examined the Picassos on the wall.

I liked them a lot. And I liked Chester (Howlin’ Wolf) Burnett singing Willie Dixon’s words and telling it exactly like it was:

Men lies about little,

Some of them cries about little,

Some of them dies about little,

Everything a fight about a spoonful,

Just a spoonful,

That spoon, that spoon, that spoon, that...

I opened the door to the back garden.

A Turner smear of red in the eastern horizon. The sky, the color of a robin’s egg, was frozen with expectation. Night had been vanquished. Nothing could stop the day. The Earth was spinning on its ellipse around the local star, and the morning would come...

Was coming...

I watched the cat stretch and begin a fresh patrol.

I looked through my notebook and removed the last twenty pages, ripping out everything I had learned in the previous fortnight.

I read through the pages, dropped them on the fire, and watched them curl and burn.

I drew a line through the poem I’d written. It was too obvious. Too on the nose. Poetry should make you work a wee bit.

I sat back on the chair and listened to the music and drank.

Howlin’ Wolf singing. Otis Spann on piano. Hubert Sumlin on guitar.

Perfect.

I finished the whisky.

The sun was climbing over the North Sea now.

Britain was in light, Ireland in darkness.

But, who knows, maybe not for much longer.