Easy Does It

By DHMcCarty

Editors note: Ezekiel Rawlins was the character played by Denzel Washington in the movie based on Walter Mosley’s great book, ‘Devil With a Blue Dress’. I stole the name but not the character.

Couple of years ago, I moved to Western North Carolina. Rented a cabin in the mountains about 9 miles east of the small resort town of Cashiers. Oh, the fourth day or so I was there I was out shooting the sights with my camera when an old black dog showed up to say welcome and get some scratch. He followed me around for a while until I heard someone playing the Blues on an acoustic guitar. He trotted off through the trees only to reappear about 5 minutes later, sit back on his haunches and give me a look. I hadn’t figured out yet what the look was all about. So I gave him a look back.

I knew what my look meant. “What is it? You trying to tell me something Old Boy?”

Old Boy turned and trotted away through the trees only to reappear in another five minutes. He must have been checking the time.

“You trying to show me something?”

I don’t speak dog with any kind of fluency outside of an occaisional howl at the moon and he wasn’t offering up anything resembling English, so I went with the body language.

“Where you want to take me?”

He turned and headed back into the woods and I followed suit. He stopped to see if I was following, turned and kept heading through the trees. He seemed OK so I guessed I made the right choice.

We hadn’t gone more than 100 yards when I saw a clearing through the trees. A Depression era dogtrot house on piers with a covered front porch and homemade bentwood chairs. An elderly gentleman was sitting on the steps playing a well-worn pinetop guitar.

I stopped at the edge of the clearing and leaned against the trunk of a live oak. I didn’t want to intrude. The dog settled down in front of the steps. Old Boy turned his head toward me and then back to the guitar player.

“I know you’re there, I just can’t see you too well. Why don’t you come up here on the porch and have a sit. Tony asked if he could bring you up and meet me. He likes to play Welcome Wagon.”

I strolled up to the porch and sat down across from my host.

“My name is Ezekial Rawlins. My friends call me Easy. I’d be pleased if you called me that. I know you heard me playing. You like the blues? I can play a little country but most the time I just play the Blues. Good Lord didn’t gift me with a beautiful voice like Reverend Al or Marvin Gaye but you don’t need pipes to sing the Blues and anybody can play em. What’s your name my friend?””

“Names Daniel. I live in that cabin just up the hill. Moved in there 4 days ago.”

“I figured that’s who you were. Tony told me there was somebody living there. I know you aren’t from around here, you don’t talk the ‘Hill’ talk. That’s OK, Daniel, I don’t either. I was born, raised and educated in Southern California. I was working on my Masters at UCLA when Uncle Sam came calling in 1964. Probably could have gotten a deferment but my Father wouldn’t hear none of it. He said, ‘Son when your country come callin’, you pick up the damn phone.’ He drove me down to the Marine Corps Recruiting office in his old International pickup truck that afternoon. He pulled up a chair in front of the door and wouldn’t move until that Sargent had my name in blood.”

He chuckled and picked out a riff of 5 notes.

“You said you couldn’t see me too well but you look right at me when you talk.”

“I can see shapes, just not the features. I know you’re a white man by the way you walk and your inflection. That can be a blessing in disguise. You let time tell the story. Get people sitting on your porch, listening to you play and soon they start talking their history. Most of the time I start, like I did with you. People get comfortable, they talk.”

“I was in the Marine Corps myself. Only two years though. Got me the GI Bill. I got lucky and missed out on Nam by the skin of my teeth.”

“Yeah, well praise God, Daniel. I almost didn’t make it out of there. 20-year-old Navajo boy named Tony Dele wrapped a belt around my leg, threw me over his shoulder and ran through a hail of bullets for a half mile to an evac site. I was in a hospital for 4 months. I was that boys Staff Sargent when he got to Nam. I figured he was green for about 5 minutes. He didn’t say much but you could see it in his eyes and in the way he moved. He had the instincts of a tracker. He wore the veil. Every dog I have owned since that day, I have named Tony. Dogs are like braves, they will never leave your side if there is danger.”

“That’s a good story Easy. Good people make good stories.”

“So true my friend. Do you play Daniel?”

“No Easy, always wanted to but never had the gift. I tried from time to time but it is not in me.”

“Bullshit” He chuckled. There was no malice in the statement. “Sit right there.”

Easy pulled himself to his feet and through the screen door. He walked with a severe hitch to the right leg.

He was back in 3 minutes with a scratched and faded guitar that looked as though it came from the bargain bin at W. T. Grant’s 50 years ago. Probably did.

“Might not look like much but let me tune this up. This was my first guitar. I’m going to lend it to you. I learned on this guitar at Walter Reed. Louisiana boy named Shug gave it to me and taught me a half-dozen chords. Made me practice with my eyes closed. He would place my fingers on the frets and have me go from one note to the next back and forth till it was instinct. It’s got history, patina and miles in it. That guitar is like a familiar lover. Treat it right.’

Easy tuned up that old guitar and picked out Robert Johnson’s ‘Hellhound on my Trail’. He had a voice that had been filtered through rancid coffee grounds and 47 miles of Barbed Wire. It was magical.

He chuckled.

“You got it in you. You wear the Blues. It seeps out of your vocal chords. You wear it in the curve of your back. . . .its sweet sadness. Not but 12 chords Daniel. But there ain’t no shyster luring you down to a crossroads to light up your spine with a lightning bolt. Robert Johnson didn’t tell that story. Envy made that up. Wishin’ and hopin’ and too lazy to practice.

. . . .Now watch where I put my fingers.”