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I’m going to get me a mama
Lord I ain’t never seen.
I went to the depot
And looked up on the board,
It said there’re good times heah
But it’s better on down the road.
He played quite well. J.P. listened and drank out of the bottle. Through the window he could see the black-green of the pines spread over the hills and the moon low in the sky and there was a river winding out of the woods across a field and he saw the moonlight reflecting on the water.
Where was you, mama,
When the train left the shed?
Standing in my front door
Wishing to God I was dead.
“You do all right,” J.P. said.
“I reckon you can pick, yourself.”
“Play another one.”
“No, I’m getting down pretty soon.”
“Take a drink.”
“Much obliged,” he said. He drank out of the bottle. “Play one yourself. I’d like to hear.”
J.P. took the guitar from him. He leaned back against the wall of the vestibule, slightly bent over the guitar, and moved the callused tips of his fingers over the frets. The trainman drank from the whiskey and listened.
I’m going to town, honey,
What you want me to bring you back?
Bring a pint of booze
And a John B. Stetson hat.
“That’s good. You got a nice style,” the gandy-walker said. “I ain’t heard good twelve-string guitar like that in a long time.”
J.P. set the guitar down and took a drink.
“You must be one of them professionals,” the gandy-walker said.
“I used to be a farmer.”
“You from around here?”
“A little further north. Up by Arkansas.”
“I worked in Arkansas. I railroaded all over the country. I was all the way to California once. I heard a lot of good picking, but you’re good as any. Where did you learn?”
“From a bum in a Salvation Army camp.”
