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April 7, 2006
Singin' the dead man walkin' blues in Nye
It was cold out, abnormally so, and dark. Dark as the devil's own heart. I was standing in the middle of Highway 95 just north of Beatty at precisely the halfway point between Pahrump and Tonopah. The wind picked up, sudden like, and it whistled an old blues tune, the kind Muddy Waters used to sing. Not electric Chicago blues; these were the six-string and a harp Mississippi Delta blues: "Well I woke, woke this mornin, started feelin' 'round, feelin' 'round, feelin' 'round for my shoes. "Yeah, you know I got them, baby. I got them dead man walkin' blues." I was in my green bathrobe, tan slippers. I was wearing a houndstooth hat, one that Bear Bryant might have worn. My hair was long, white as Mount Charleston snow and in desperate need of a good shampooing. I needed a shave and a haircut. I needed two bits. I was carrying an old, olive drab Underwood typewriter, the C key was missing and it needed a new ribbon, but I held it tight to my chest, like it was priceless. The antique school bus was distant in the horizon. The faded yellow, 32-seater was the only vehicle on the two-lane highway as far as the eye could see in either direction. It headed to me, slowly but surely. I clutched my old typewriter and waited. The bus came to a clean stop not two feet from where I stood in the middle of the highway. The bang and swoosh of the airbrakes jolted me, but I did not flinch. The driver, wearing a gray suit, black sunglasses and a Mormon haircut looked just like the all-work, no-play FBI agent he was. He didn't smile. He didn't nod. He didn't move. I walked to the door. He wouldn't open it; he simply stared straight ahead, lifeless, like a mannequin. I walked around the bus. The wind whipped in anger and hail began to pelt me, though it didn't sting even a little bit. I noticed every seat on the bus was filled. I recognized the faces. These were some of the people I've written about for more than a decade. Some were dead and some were not. Some used to be elected officials and some still are - for the time being. Others worked for past and current elected officials. None of them were smiling. None would look at me. All appeared to be sadder than a funeral. I tapped the window where one shorthaired lady we all know sat by. She ignored me but I was insistent with my tap-tap-tapping in the hopes she'd respond. She did. She raised her fists, which were trapped in a set of handcuffs, and smiled a mean, yellow-tooth smile as she slowly raised her long and skinny middle fingers and pointed them in my direction. I went to the next window and tapped. The man with the white cowboy hat hissed like a snake; his tobacco-stained grin was sinister, his rummy eyes wet and red. I recoiled and ran around to the other side of the old bus, desperate in my search for a friendly face. The Las Vegas-based attorney wasn't it; neither was the bald guy who died a few years ago - he didn't look any deader than the rest of them - and the man with the discolored neck and upside down cop's badge pinned to his greasy forehead definitely did not offer the friendly face I so wanted to see. The one thing they all had in common, other than a ghostly pallor and somber disposition, was the handcuffs. Every single one of them was handcuffed; I could see they were by the way they tried to hide them from me. The bus driver/FBI agent stuck his arm out of the window and beckoned me with a robotic wave. Obediently I walked to the door of the bus and waited. The door opened and two Asian women wearing impossibly bright white nurse's uniforms carried a desk off the bus. The driver/FBI agent brought a chair and set it in front of the desk. He took the old typewriter from my arms and put it on the desk. One of the nurses put in a new ribbon. I sat down and the other nurse washed my hair, cut it and gave me the best shave ever. The bus driver/FBI agent put 1,000 sheets of typing paper on the desk next to the typewriter. He gave me two bits to use as a paperweight. The three boarded the aged school bus. The driver/FBI agent started the motor, released the airbrakes, made a U-turn and headed down the road. South. Three past and present town board members sitting in the back of the bus turned and waved, forlorn and as best they could with their restraints. I sat at the desk in the middle of Highway 95 just north of Beatty at precisely the halfway point between Pahrump and Tonopah. I rolled a sheet into the typewriter, pulled my reporter's notebook out of the left pocket of my green bathrobe and began writing about the day that changed Nye County forever. The sun peeked through and warmed me as I typed in a fever and subconsciously sang like Muddy Waters: "Well I woke, woke this mornin, started feelin' 'round, feelin' 'round, feelin' 'round for my shoes. "Yeah, you know I got them, baby. I got them dead man walkin' blues." Write to Doug McMurdo at dmcmurdo@pvtimes.com. |
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