Free Nighthawk Blues by Peter Guralnick

recognize Hawk. He greeted him with a big wave as Hawk rolled up and laughed as the car shook for a good minute and a half after the ignition was shut off. Hawk slowly got out and hobbled over to the gas pump, resting on the right front fender and slapping hands with the shaven-headed man, who was grinning from ear to ear. Jerry stayed in the car while the men conversed, waiting to purchase gas himself. His tank was practically on empty, since he had passed up a purchase at the last station, not realizing that Hawk would go this long between stops. Hawk brought four dollars’ worth this time, and he used the men’s room only briefly, but Jerry couldn’t seem to get the attendant’s eye. Some kids drove up, and he filled their tank. A lady got a dime stuck in the pay phone, and the man went to see about that. For five or ten minutes he looked around under the hood of Hawk’s car, doing God knows what. Then he busied himself with straightening out maps and bringing the calendar up to date in the glassed-in office. Finally Jerry could stand it no longer and leaned on the horn. The man barely glanced at him. “Ain’t got no time now, ain’t got no time,” he said dismissively, as Hawk emerged from the station, and they laughed and chatted some more. Only after he had sent him on his way with a wave and a slap on the hood of the car did he finally acknowledge Jerry’s presence.
    “You do sell gas here, don’t you?” said Jerry sarcastically. The man laughed.
    “What do you want?” he said. Jerry asked him to fill it up with high-test. “Ain’t got no high-test. Just ran out.”
    Jerry stared at him in disbelief. His head hurt. He was tired of nursemaiding, he was tired of Hawk, he was tired of all this shit.
    “What are you talking about?” he exploded. “You expect me to believe this shit?”
    The man shrugged. “Suit yourself, mister.”
    Jerry watched Hawk’s dust. He looked down at the gas gauge and calculated that there had to be a gas station up the road somewhere. He switched on the ignition.
    “Now you better stop bothering this man,” said the attendant in a quiet voice.
    Jerry looked up. The man was smiling, but his smile was chilly. “You got no call to be harassing this man. He ain’t broke no laws. He ain’t never did nobody no harm. Why don’t you turn around and go back where you come from?”
    Jerry felt like crying. “But I’m a friend of Hawk’s,” he vainly protested.
    The man regarded him with scorn. “You ain’t no friend of Hawk’s,” he said. “Hawk told me who you was. You ain’t no friend of his. Now why can’t you leave that old man alone? You gotta squeeze the last dollar out of him, you ain’t got enough already—”
    Jerry threw up his hands helplessly. To go without sleep. To put himself out for this ungrateful old man. To subject himself to abuse on top of everything else from this shaven-headed guardian. He was tempted right then and there to abandon the whole thing, to let Hawk go home and die any way he liked. Why not? In the end it would come to the same thing. No matter what he did there was no way he could influence Hawk’s course of action. And Hawk, he was sure, would seek out an audience as long as there was breath in his body. But it had gone too far, he was in too deep to back out now. Somehow he felt his and Hawk’s fates were forever linked, at least until one of them kicked. He waved to the attendant and moved on out into the passing stream.
    At the last stop he confronted Hawk directly. He jumped out of his car and blocked the driver’s door before Hawk even had a chance to get out. “Come on, Hawk,” he pleaded, as the young kid with floppy blond hair gaped at them. “You know I’m gonna keep on following you no matter what you do. You know, in a way I think you’re counting on that. You’re not so stupid,” Jerry said, and thinking about it made him even angrier. “I think you’re just taking advantage of me. You know you’re sick.