Free If Jack's in Love by Stephen Wetta

balmy nights and the neighbors cruised past, appalled. Frankly, up to the time Snead came around I hadn’t exactly thought of Pop as an advocate for civil rights. Not that he was a bigot: he wasn’t, and considering where he came from, that was quite an achievement. It’s just I never got the impression he cared one way or the other. He was too busy not paying the bills and scrounging for work. Then one day Mom raised concerns about what the neighbors might think if Snead kept coming to the house, and that’s when Pop took a stand.
    â€œLet ’em think what they want, they don’t like us anyway.”
    He was having fun, maybe more fun than he’d had in years. Snead and Pop sounded right good together, if you like homemade blues. And soon it got to be something more than music. Something else was happening. Maybe it was because Pop was as much an outsider as Snead, even though he never had to ride at the back of a bus. I once heard Snead tell Pop, “It’s what they do to your head, that’s how it works. It’s when they don’t have to tell you you don’t have rights ’cause you don’t think you do nohow.” Whenever they got tired of jamming, they’d set their instruments aside and begin to speak about life, money, philosophy. In the early hours of the morning they’d be out in the yard speaking in deep voices, with their cigarettes glowing among the lightning bugs. I could hear them through my window when I woke up in the dark.
    A white T-shirt and blue jeans was Snead’s uniform. I never saw him in anything else, and he always kept a cigarette between his lips, to the point I wondered if it was the same one all the time. It never seemed to burn down, and I never saw him take it away. It hung on his lips even when he played the guitar. He used to bring his records over and Pop would fetch Stan’s stereo player and we’d sit in the living room listening to Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry. Snead’s blackness would fill the room. Ashes from his cigarette would fall on the rug, giving Mom a fit. The way he squinted over his smoke caused monstrous wrinkles to appear on his face. I had seen him crunch beer cans in his fist. He looked mean, but he was nice enough.
    One evening when he was over and I was still awake, I asked him about Gladstein.
    It happened that Snead, with the well-known Snead practicality, had bought himself an industrial buffer, and some of the stores in the shopping center had contracted with him to wax their floors. He had a regular gig cleaning Gladstein’s shop on Saturday afternoons: waxing, buffing, squeaking a wiper along the window. I used to pass the shop when Snead was inside swinging his buffer: Gladstein would be behind the counter, straddling the three-legged stool and giving him an earful.
    â€œYou know Mr. Gladstein, don’t you?” I said.
    Snead squinted over his smoke. “Mojo Man.”
    â€œMojo Man,” I repeated.
    â€œYou know the song.”
    I guess he meant “Got My Mojo Working.” We had just listened to it. But what was it supposed to mean? Had Gladstein gone to Louisiana and got himself a mojo hand?
    Pop was grinning, trying to figure Snead out.
    â€œCat’s got magic,” Snead said.
    â€œGladstein does?”
    â€œKeeps dogs in his back room. I have to clean their shit up, smells like a goddamn kennel.”
    â€œWhat kind of magic does he do?”
    â€œListen to me, little Witcher, I don’t go poking my nose into what shouldn’t be poked into. See no evil, dig? I stay clear of jive like that.”
    That’s all he said. It was frustrating as hell.
    â€œYou mean he has magic rings?” I said.
    â€œWhat?” Snead gave me a look. “It’s past your bedtime, little Witcher.”
    He turned to Pop. “Cat’s got diamonds in the store, rings and shit. Some of ’em worth more than five thousand