Valentine's Blues from Texas and the Great Beyond

It’s not even a tone, more like a pulsing; a spot on the dial where one moment there is a faint sound and the next there isn’t, then there is, then there isn’t. It could almost be Morse code; something, nothing, something, nothing, di, di, da. I bend down closer to the dashboard speaker and try to focus on it. Gradually it becomes a voice, then I realize it’s a woman’s voice, but still far too faint for me to understand anything she’s saying. But she’s saying something and for me. It’s a human voice, and even if I have no idea what she’s saying, I can hear the sympathy and warmth in it.

Stevens taps on my shoulder. I look up. “You shouldn’t do that,” he says. “You may need to start driving any second now.”

So I sit up and put my hands back on the steering wheel. The minutes pass and slowly it gets louder until I can start making out her words.

"Because we’re all just trying to get back home. Isn’t that all that any of us are doing? Trying to get home."

And hearing her say that, I’m thinking to myself, well, I can’t speak for the fellow next to me, darlin, but it’s all I’m trying to do, I’m just trying to get home.

"Home, it’s a word we say all the time, but do we ever really think what it means? Home isn’t just a place we go to eat and sleep. It’s really the place where we come from and where we will all ultimately return. That means it’s not really an actual physical place. It’s really a spiritual place, because it is where ultimately our body and soul go to reunite with the rest of the universe. Your little gray home on the Wabash is simply a temporal representation of that great final reunion with the Sun!"

"Oh, man,” I say.

"What is that?” demands Stevens sharply, his voice teetering on the edge of disgust.

"Some lady on the radio,” I say. I’m about to add, she sounds like a sweetheart, but I don’t. I’m not going to share that with Stevens.

"Sweetheart? Are you nuts? That spook? That’s Rose Dawn, the clairvoyant.”

"The what?”

"She has a program on that Mexican station. Goddamn spook, she talks to the Great Beyond and gives answers to listeners’ questions. Rose Dawn. She’s a crazy bitch. The woman is disgusting.”

"We need to have faith that it’ll all work out. We’re all, each of us, just pieces in a grand celestial mosaic."

"Turn that shit off,” shouts Stevens.

"Fuck you,” I say. “It’s my radio.”

"It’s not your radio. This is a stolen car.”

"Yeah, well, I stole it, so shut up and if you don’t like it, then get out!”

"We’re all of us broken, so it doesn’t matter. Find your strength in knowing that!"

"I hate that crap!” fumes Stevens. “All that Celestial Hey Diddle Diddle! She’s the worst.”

"We’re all imperfect and that makes us perfect. We’re all damaged and that makes us strong."

"Unity of opposites, you’d think the crazy bitch invented it,” sneers Stevens.

"Well, I’d rather listen to her than that phony goat gland doctor,” I say.

"Hey, don’t you go disparaging Doctor Brinkley. He’s doing a marvelous service for mankind.”

"What? Transplanting goat scrotums?”

"That’s a legitimate business, but, more importantly, he makes folks understand that their Number One Priority isn’t over the rainbow, it’s right between their legs.”

"Shut up, I’m listening!”

"I’m hearing you out there, your voice calling from the other side. I’m listening, please speak to me. Do you have a message?"

"Yeah,” I laugh. “Get me the hell out of here!”

"Did you say you want to get out? Then be free!"

That instant, the marshmallow fog vanishes and, with a giant bump, we land on an asphalt roadway, right in the path of a blue Plymouth, coming at us from the opposite direction. We both swerve to keep from hitting each other. He hits his horn and lets it blast for at least ten seconds as he heads past us. Up ahead, I see a road sign that says Tupelo ten miles.

(Excerpt from Friend of the Devil,  available on Kindle)

Texas Bluesman Explains Why He Won't Gun Down Everyone Who Pisses Him Off

I walk straight through the house without looking at anything, past the dining room all set up for supper, and the living room with all the golden chairs and couches and lamps and all the historical paintings of Brinkley and his dick. I can hear the Mexican servants hurrying to catch up. One of them runs past me to get the door open before I get to it. As he pulls it open for me, a glass door opens in one of the ante-rooms next to the circular staircase. Two heads cautiously peek out. It’s Rose Dawn and The Great Koraan. The moment he recognizes me, his face reddens. Then I hear Rose Dawn cry out, “Herbert?” But I don’t stop.

Outside, the night air is cool and sweet. The dark sky is bright with a sliver of moon and thousands of stars. My mind goes back to all those ancient-pretending paintings of Brinkley and it almost feels like what I just walked out of was Babylon itself. For a moment, I think about Hamer and find myself wondering if it was a mistake to have left him with those people. But that thought only lasts a moment and then I’m just glad to be away from them.

She called me Herbert in front of her husband and the Mexican servants. No telling who else knows it now. Great. This thing is starting to happen even faster than I’d expected. As I walk along the road toward town, I notice someone walking towards me from the opposite way. Even before I can make him out, I guess who it is. It’s that other guy. He sure does have a way of showing up.

I try to walk past him, but he keeps trying to block my path. For some reason he’s boiling angry. “You fucking asshole,” he shouts in a high-pitched voice. “What’d you have to do that for? I hand it to you on a fucking silver platter. Couldn’t you just let it happen? We’d have won. You’d have walked free. But you couldn’t do it. Why? Didn’t you see his pain? Don’t you see how the man was suffering? Why couldn’t you just let him do himself? Why do you have to play God.”

Fuck you,” I say. “I don’t believe in God.” That gets me so ticked off, for a second I actually consider taking out Old Lucky and going back and shooting him. But I don’t. If I shot everybody that pissed me off, there wouldn’t be a whole lot of people left. I don’t really hear what he says after that, except that I shouldn’t expect the next round to be any walk in the park.

By the time I finally get home to the rooming house, Jack is asleep on the rocking chair out front. As gently as I can, I pick him and carry him inside and put him down on his bed. Then I sneak into the kitchen to see if Mrs. Gruner might have put anything aside I could eat.

(Excerpt from Friend of the Devil, available on Kindle)

The Devil Knows You Were in Knoxville

I take another big hit, like all the talk he’s putting down is just so much street patter, but the whole time I’m wondering to myself, how the heck does this evil cat know I was ever in Knoxville?

Stevens laughs. ”Oh, I know all kinds of things about you, my friend. Your name is Lowell George, isn’t it? You were second trombone for that lush dance orchestra that plays at the Starlight ballroom at the Van Buren Hotel. What’s its name?”

Stevens takes a big long hit. For the longest time he holds it in his lungs while keeping the burning reefer in his right hand as he flexes his wrist, like there’s a point he’s about to make as soon as he lets the smoke out of his lungs. I stare out the window at the marshmallow fog and wonder how I’m ever going to get out of this one.

“The Ray Covington Melody Makers,” I say like it was a long time ago. But he doesn’t seem to hear me. His mind is his own lungs all packed full with Harlem’s Best marijuana smoke. Stevens begins exhaling and immediately breaks into a hacking fit as he tries telling me something. “Huah, huah!,” he coughs. “But… you… can’t…huah, huah, huah, get…out of it…until, huah, huah, huah,…you get…into it!” he declares. “Huah, huah, huah! Am I right, Mister Lowell George?”

“Oh, you are most definitively right,” I answer, rejoicing that he only seems to know my alias.

I put my hand out for the stick, but instead of handing it back to me, Stevens takes another massive hit, again holding it in his lungs but then almost immediately letting it out as he turns to me and says, “Now is your name Lowell George, or is it Herbert T. Barrow of Eagle Ford, Texas?” He hands the three-quarters castigated reefer back to me with a flourish worthy of a cavalier with a big plumed hat.

“Either name works fine for me,” I say, like there’s nothing particularly amazing about this last feat of his. “But I’ve been thinking of calling myself Lawrence “T-Bone” Dupree. What do you think of it?”

“Oh, I like it,” he says. “I like it a lot. That’s a real bluesman’s name, not one anyone would associate with a bank robber and escaped convict.” (Excerpt from Friend of the Devil, available on Kindle)

Enter Bonnie Parker with a Double-barrel Shotgun

A few minutes later I see this little mom-and-pop grocery store with a Socony Gas sign hanging like a banner from its eaves and two pumps in a little island out front.

I pull up and shut off the motor. The screen door opens and this skinny old guy ambles out in overalls and a beaten-up felt hat. I extract a dollar bill from my pocket and shove it his way. “Fill it up with the cheap stuff,” I tell him. “You got any sandwiches for sale in there?”

“Maw will make whatever you want. Got cold drinks, coffee, too, in paper cups.”

“Fine.”

“Gonna be closing up,” he says. “Didn’t you hear? Barrow Gang’s a comin’ this way.”

“I thought they was in the south,” I say. “I was hoping to stay out of their path.”

"No, no, they’re supposed to be around here,” he says. “There was a whole bunch of state trooper cars drove through here a little while ago. Somebody stopped just now, said they have a roadblock set up.”

“Which way was they going?”

The old boy points south.

“Well, I didn’t see anything,” I say and head inside.

The store is a small unlit room lined with shelves full of canned goods and bags of flour and coffee. On one side of the room, there is a bank of glass cases displaying some forlorn-looking cuts of smoked meat, while a heavyset woman in a white apron stands at the ready behind it.

"What for you?” she asks. I order some baloney sandwiches and ask for a Nehi. She points me to a water-filled tin box where a dozen or so capped bottles sit up to their necks in the dark water. “They’re ice-cold,” she says, nodding toward them. I pull one out and bring it to her. She takes a bottle opener and pries off the cap. “You gonna drink it here, otherwise there’s a two-cent deposit.”

"I’ll have it here,” I tell her. She nods like I made a wise choice. She hands it to me and I take a swig. The jolt of cold sugary sweetness hits me like a bomb blast. After all I just been through, it’s an irrefutable reminder I’m still here among the living. I take another long swallow, then I watch her make the sandwiches, laying down three slices of white bread on the wooden counter, then plopping down a slice of baloney on each, followed by another, then another, and then dressing them with dabs of mustard and mayonnaise and covering them with slices of bread, stacking them one on top of another. The woman wipes her hand on her apron, then cuts the sandwiches diagonally. Suddenly I realize how ravenously hungry I am and that if I could, I’d take them right now and gobble both of them down on the spot. But I don’t, because I’m on the lam and best not to do anything quirky that’ll stick in their memories. No, I’m just a quiet, well-mannered city feller who came and went without giving them no never-mind. Instead I start a conversation.

Man says you got the Barrow Gang coming through?”

“That’s what they saying on the radio.”

“What’d they say?”

“Only that they’s in the vicinity, going to effect a rendez-vous with Clyde Barrow’s cousin.”

“Cousin? Didn’t know he had a cousin.”

“Yes, sir. They say his name’s Herbert T. Barrow and that he’s a bad one.”

“Oh?”

“Mad-dog killer he is, G-men been chasing him all the way from Knoxville.”

“And they think he’s around these parts?”

“Yes, sir. Me and Paw got our guns ready in case they come here. Don’t want no mad-dog killers coming for me!” She nods at a brace of ancient revolvers lying on the glass countertop on the far side of the room and I think that if old Clyde spotted them there he might laugh, but if they was holding them in their hands, he’d likely kill them both without a further thought.

I finish my Nehi, just as she finishes wrapping up my sandwiches in a sheet of white butcher paper. “That’ll be fifty five cents,” she says.

I dig into my pocket and give her the exact change. She puts it in the till and I go back to where the empty pop bottles are sitting, before I go pick up my sandwiches and leave. Then the bell over the door jingles and the screen door opens. The old guy is standing in the doorway with his hands up. “We got company, Maw,” he says like it’s not a good thing. That’s when I see a tiny woman in a long, gaily colored polka dot dress standing behind him with a double barrel shotgun planted in his back.
(Excerpt from Friend of the Devil, available on Kindle).

"Friend of the Devil" - Blues Musician Gives a Lift to the Devil, Who's Late for a Midnight Meeting at the Crossroads.

Stevens takes a look into the backseat and sees my guitar. “So, you’re a musician?” he asks.

I nod. “That I am,” I say.

“What do you play?”

I flash him my entertainer’s smile and say, “I play anything I can get paid a nickel for.”

“Ah,” he says, smiling like it’s a good thing. “I used to play the guitar myself when I was young. Don’t play much anymore.”

I nod and we fall back into silence for a minute. Then I ask him, “So where in Tupelo you going?”

I watch the way he grinds his hairy country face, and I know that means his story is about to start changing. “Ah, yes, well,” he says, “it’s not actually Tupelo proper, but the crossroads just outside town.”

At that, my ears perk up. “The Crossroads? You mean Highway 61?”

“Why, yes, yes,” he says. “Highway 61. I was supposed to meet a man there at midnight.”

“At midnight?”

“Yes,” he says. “That’s when we agreed to meet. But like I told you, I’ve had a lot of problems and now I’m late.”

“The Crossroads at midnight?”

“Yes.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I’ve got to tell you, I’ve been a street singer and traveling bluesman for some years now and I’ve probably had a hundred different cats tell me the same tale about meeting a man at midnight at the Highway 61 Crossroads. I let out a little chuckle. “So what were you planning on doing, Mister Stevens? Selling your soul to the Devil?”

Naturally, I expect him to laugh with me, but instead his jaw drops like he’s in shock.

“Whu, whu, what are you talking about?” he asks.

“Come on,” I say, “Devil at the Crossroads, that’s what you’re talking about, right? It’s only the oldest joke in the world.”

“Joke?” He looks genuinely astounded. “What on earth are you talking about?”

So, fool that I am, I tell it to him. “A musician meets the Devil at the Crossroads at midnight, he hands over his guitar, the Devil fiddles with the tuning and hands it back. From that moment on, the musician plays better than anyone else, and money, women, whiskey, cars and fine clothes all come his way, until the day the Devil comes for him and takes him away.”

Stevens listens in horror. “They tell that story?”

“All the time.”

“They do?”

I nod.

“But you said it’s a joke.”

“It is a joke,” I tell him.

“But jokes are supposed to be funny.”

“You might think it was funny if you heard how bad some of these guys play,” I say and laugh again.

(Friend of the Devil, available on Kindle here)

The Road to Del Rio XII: From Wandering Bluesman to Corporate Singing Cowboy

Just as Herbert T. Barrow might be the last man in the world to see the face of God in anything, even when staring God himself in the face, he is also the last man in the world to see himself existing anywhere on a corporate ladder. He's just a wandering bluesman, playing streetcorners and saloons to anyone with a nickle or dime to put down. True, at the moment, he's found himself a nice little $5-a-day radio gig shilling laxatives and singing cowboy songs over the Mexican Border Blaster, XER, but that's all it is. Every day he rides a taxi across the border into Mexico, does his show, collects his five bucks, rides the taxi back to Del Rio and that's pretty much that.

When Part II of Friend of the Devil opens,  Herbert is standing in the local offices of his employer, the Royal Consolidated Chemical Company, summoned by Christine, the imperious, just-out-of-secretarial-school receptionist and so far, the only person from the company he's ever actually met. She tersely informs Herbert, that from now on, he is to submit for review a playlist of the songs he's going to sing five hours before each day's show. This strikes Herbert as odd, since up until now no one from the company has shown even the slightest interest in what he does on the air. In the world of border-blaster radio, only one thing matters; how well a performer can "pull mail." A singing cowboy might well be the best yodler on the planet, but unless he can persuade listeners to order products and send in money, he's useless to them. Apparently Herbert, or 'Cowboy Slim Gatlinburg,' as he calls himself, pulls in mail just fine. Though Christine invokes the name of their never-seen boss, Mr Klingman, Herbert guesses it's merely something she's concocted to exert control over him and other would-be minions. Instead of writing anything down, he reels off a list of made-up song titles, and before she can say anything, Herbert bids her a good day and leaves.

Once outside, standing in the bright Texas sunshine, Herbert sees it's noon and time for lunch and strolls over to the Tastee Diner for a bite. Along the way, he greets people on the street he knows. At this point Herbert has been living in Del Rio about three months. Things have been going well for Herbert, so well, he's almost allowed himself to forget the craziness he'd gone through riding with Bonnie and Clyde, being pursued by Texas Ranger Captain Frank Hamer, as well as a band of fortune hunters and always with God and the Devil nearby, watching over it all, and betting on what they think Herbert might do next. But as tempting as it might be to dismiss it all as nothing more than a very bad dream, Herbert knows with complete certainty that these last three months of peace are nothing more than a between-the-rounds respite and that it's just a matter of time before Mr. Stevens and the Other Guy start it all up again.

Little does Herbert realize that the clockwork, corporate and celestial, has already started turning around him.

Following is an excerpt from Friend of the Devil, available on Kindle.

“What do you want, Mister Stevens.”

“Besides that song, nothing much. Wanted to say hi and to tell you there’s no hard feelings and that, you know, I still owe you a favor, anytime you might want to collect on it.”

“So, are you and, that guy, still got a bet going on me?”

Stevens frowns. “That guy? Are you talking about God?” The way he says it suggests he half expects the man might come suddenly and smite us both silly.

“He never gave me a name,” I tell him.

Stevens chuckles. “Well, you know, he has lots of names.” He fingers his beard reflectively, then adds, “but don’t we all?”

“Answer my question.”

“Oh, we’ve always got a bet going over this or that. The fate of the world can be such a complicated thing.”

“Plus the side bets.”

“Oh, yes,” say Stevens, his eyes twinkling like he’s glad someone’s finally gotten this colossal joke of his.

“And so that’s where the real action is, isn’t it?”

Stevens smiles.

“Does he understand that?”

“Hey!” Stevens rolls his eyes as might a young girl. “I have no idea,” he says. “When somebody’s eye is always on a bunch of sparrows, it’s hard to tell what else they might or might not understand.”

I don’t say anything. He looks like he’s about to leave. But then he turns back and asks, “So, are you going to sing my song or not?”

“It’s your song?”

“You said it yourself, man pays the money, so it’s his song,” he says.

The Road to Del Rio II: Highway 61 Crossroads, Mississippi

This is the second stop of our trip through the Southlands with fugitive bluesman Herbert T. Barrow.

Three days and nearly a thousand miles out of Knoxville, Herbert T. Barrow is driving north through Mississippi and still no sign of any cops on his trail. Are they real or just part of his hopped-up, reefered-out imagination?

Herbert's plan is to head west through northern Louisiana and keep going till he gets back home to Eagle Ford in West Dallas and then keep his head down until everything cools down enough that it's safe to start playing the joints in Deep Ellum. But it doesn't quite work out that way. A couple miles before he's supposed to make his turn, he makes the mistake of picking up a country preacher who's hitch-hiking and obviously having a difficult time of it. Suddenly, for no great reason at all, Herbert agrees to give the preacher a ride to, of all places, a crossroads just outside of Tupelo, where, he says, he was supposed to meet someone the previous midnight.

Being a bluesman, Herbert has heard the legend of the Devil at the Crossroads countless times from his

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black colleagues. It was something he considered kind of pathetic. The black bluesmen needed to make up stories about themselves to increase their 'badness.' Herbert is a staunch atheist and he detests talk about the Devil almost as much as he hates talk about God. He wonders if the legend could have gotten so far that the crossroads could now be attracting white country preachers eager to strike a deal with the Devil.

Here is Robert Johnson's original version of Crossroads.

Following is an excerpt from Friend of the Devil, right at the moment Herbert and Stevens arrive at the Crossroads:


Hillbilly boy standing in my headlights, tall, skinny, with eyes as big and wild-looking as a jackrabbit’s, and seeing him, I’m thinking, man, if he’s the Devil, then I’m Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

He stands, feet slightly apart, hands half-clenched into fists, like he’s expecting a fight. But seeing how his shoulders droop, it’s obvious he already knows the outcome, because if anyone was ever born already defeated, it’s got to be him. Bet he isn’t twenty five, but life has already worn him down to a nub. Wife, kids, the work that he either can’t find, or, when he does, never pays enough to separate him from worry. And being what he is, he got used to cutting corners here and there and probably got caught at it more than once, because he’s got that same broken look as half the boys did back at Eastham Farm.

And this is the guy’s got something for Stevens that’s more valuable than gold? Shit, he don’t look like someone you’d bother crossing the street to collect money from. He’s just some poor, dumb hillbilly with nothing in his hands but his fists. Then I notice there’s something lying at his feet, something half-wrapped in a scrap of burlap, something small and inconsequential. But then why is it there and why has he elected to stand his ground directly behind it?

The Road to Del Rio: First Stop - Knoxville, Tennessee

When Friend of the Devil opens, the narrator, Herbert T. Barrow, is already three days out of Knoxville, Tennessee. He'd been playing in a "society orchestra" in one of the town's posh resort hotels. Life had been pretty lush for Herbert. The pay was steady, he was living rent-free with the other orchestra members in the bunkhouses behind the hotel. But then one day he spots two men he thinks he recognizes from the prison he'd snuck out from. Suddenly Herbert was out the door, and behind the wheel of a stolen Ford with a radio that doesn't work, heading for the nearest state border. Adios Knoxville.

At the time,1933, Knoxville was the biggest city in eastern Tennessee. Unlike most of the south, Knoxville was highly industrial, and a manufacturing center since before the Civil War. With its large German and other immigrant population, Knoxville had never been a supporter of slavery or the Confederacy. Things boomed after the Civil War, but by the end of the 1920s, manufacturing was dead and Knoxville was on its way to becoming what John Gunther was to say was the "Ugliest City in America."

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Which isn't to say that Knoxville didn't have its nice side, which was where Herbert T. Barrow had been hiding out. Even with the Depression, Knoxville's posh nightspots and resort hotels never stopped drawing well-heeled vacation-goers. The Ray Covington Orchestra, which Herbert played trombone in, was just one of several "society" orchestras playing the ballrooms and nightclubs.


Below is an excerpt from  Friend of the Devil. Stay tuned, Friends and Neighbors! Our next stop will be Highway 61, Mississippi, heading north.

I take another big hit, like all the talk he’s putting down is just so much street patter, but the whole time I’m wondering to myself, how the heck does this evil cat know I was ever in Knoxville?

Stevens laughs. ”Oh, I know all kinds of things about you, my friend. Your name is Lowell George, isn’t it? You were second trombone for that lush dance orchestra that plays at the Starlight ballroom at the Van Buren Hotel. What’s its name?”

Stevens takes a big long hit. For the longest time he holds it in his lungs while keeping the burning reefer in his right hand as he flexes his wrist, like there’s a point he’s about to make as soon as he lets the smoke out of his lungs. I stare out the window at the marshmallow fog and wonder how I’m ever going to get out of this one.

“The Ray Covington Melody Makers,” I say like it was a long time ago.

Friend of the Devil. A Friend of Mine?

It’s 1934 and Herbert T. Barrow is a jazz musician on the run from the laws, but he’s a man with a plan. He’s heading down to Del Rio, Texas to get a job shilling products and singing cowboy songs on XER, the “Border Blaster” radio station located just across the river in Mexico. XER is the most powerful station in the world, owned by J.R. Brinkley, Del Rio’s celebrated “goat gland” surgeon, who uses the airwaves to talk up his miracle sex cure. But when he’s not, the air time is up for grabs to a colorful assortment of preachers, pitchmen, clairvoyants and yodelers, each working his own con. Herbert hopes to join their ranks, hiding in plain view and living the high life as a singing radio cowboy. Only it doesn’t quite work out that way.

While driving through Mississippi, Herbert makes the mistake of giving a ride to a hairy-faced country preacher named Stevens, who tells Herbert he’s ten hours late for a midnight meeting at a crossroads. Being a musician, Herbert knows the story of the Devil at the Crossroad and assumes it’s all a joke. But Stevens is serious. He’s got an important debt to collect and though he’s penniless, promises something extremely valuable to Herbert if he gets him there on time. For reasons not even Herbert understands, he decides to do as Stevens asks. Driving down the road at breakneck speed, they push the morning back into the night before, arriving at the Crossroads just an hour after midnight, where some grisly business is exacted.

Had Herbert been any other man, he might have figured out that Stevens was actually the Devil himself. He might even have figured out that the young man he picks up soon afterwards, who seems to be carrying the world’s sorrows on his shoulders, was, well, the Other Guy; Stevens’ opposite number. Herbert might even have put two and two together and realized the two had been compulsively running wagers since the very dawn of humanity. But Herbert T. Barrow is an atheist, and his refusal to believe is far stauncher, more unbending, and more abstruse than anyone either deity has ever encountered.

The road to is set with traps. There is Clyde, his trigger-happy young cousin and his crazed, alley-cat girlfriend, Bonnie Parker. They both know they’re doomed, but hope bringing Herbert into their gang might at least get them back in the public eye and allow them to go out in a blaze of glory. Then there’s Hamer; Captain Frank Hamer of the Texas Rangers, the toughest, meanest, and possibly only honest lawman in the entire state of Texas. He’s determined to put Bonnie and Clyde in their graves any way he can, including bushwhacking them. Killing them is just business, but somehow, his quest to nail Herbert becomes deeply personal, even after Herbert saves his life.

Having been made pawns in a contest between the gods, Herbert now finds himself battling Hamer to the death on the streets of Del Rio. But just as things couldn’t be more grim, Herbert finds an unlikely ally; a pregnant, underage radio clairvoyant named Rose Dawn, whose sneezing fits can level a building.

Friend of the Devil by Brendan McNally buy it on Kindle

Devil at the Crossroads? Boring!

As a bluesman wandering America in the 1930s, Herbert T. Barrow was one of the few white men to hear the story of meeting the Devil at the crossroads. But it wasn’t something he paid much mind to. The way he saw it, half the black cats he knew told that yarn about themselves and a lot weren’t all that hot guitar players. But the real reason was that Herbert Barrow was an atheist. He didn’t hold with God, the Devil, preachers, or spook-talking hoodoo men of any stripe.

But then one day, against his better judgment, Herbert gives a ride to a country preacher who it turns out happens to be on his way to those same crossroads. But he’s not there to sell his soul, he’s there to collect one. The problem is, he’s already ten hours late for his midnight meeting and needs Herbert to drive him fast as he can to get him there on time. Again, against his better judgment, Herbert obliges.

What he witnesses there at the crossroads and over the next few days would probably have convinced anyone else that God and the Devil were not only real, but also running extremely convoluted wagers with each other over how quickly virtuous men succumb to temptation. Anyone else might have been shocked to learn that, while the Devil was unmistakably evil, his opposite number was mostly uninvolved and distant. But of course, all this is missing on Herbert T. Barrow, whose refusal to believe is unwavering.

All Herbert wants is to get through Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas and not stop until he reaches Del Rio, on the Mexican border. While the rest of America is caught in the grips of the Great Depression, Del Rio is an oasis of prosperity and hope. That is because Del Rio is home of the Brinkley Hospital, a world famous sexual rejuvenation clinic. Dr. JR Brinkley, its celebrated founder, has developed a revolutionary method of transplanting the testicles of goats onto those of well-heeled human patients, giving them new lease on virility. Or so he says. 

To get his message out, Brinkley has built the world’s most powerful radio station across the river in Mexico. Most of the time, its million watts are delivering his folksy lectures about sexual health. The rest of the time it’s being rented out to hucksters, preachers, clairvoyants and yodelers, all with their own messages of hope and transformation and all of them there for just one reason; money.  

Despite his background as a reefer-smoking, tea-shade-wearing, jazz-playing viper, Herbert’s plan is to enter their ranks as a singing cowboy. But besides God and the Devil, a couple other things stand in his way. First is his adoring younger cousin Clyde and second, Clyde's alley-cat girlfriend Bonnie. They’re young, hop-headed, crazy in love, meaner than snakes, and can’t be convinced that Herbert wouldn’t be the perfect third wheel to their criminal outfit. Then there’s Hamer, Captain Frank Hamer of the Texas Rangers, a natural-born killer and possibly the only honest lawman in Texas. He’s pledged to hunt down the Barrows and isn’t stopping till he has every last one of them dead. Unfortunately that includes Herbert.

In a series of battles that stretches across the South, the Midwest and onto the streets of Del Rio, Herbert finds himself up against God, the Devil, Frank Hamer and assorted bloodthirsty minions. Time and again, he manages to survive, only to see things get worse and worse. But just as his situation is looking hopeless, he finds a powerful, unexpected ally; a pregnant, underage, bible-reading radio clairvoyant named Rose Dawn.

Friendof the Devil is available as an ebook on Kindle.