“Down at the Crossroads” – a short story by David Rudd

“Down at the Crossroads” was a finalist in our recently concluded 71st Short Fiction Contest, and is published with the consent of the author.

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Alejandro Aznar/via Pexels.com

Down at the Crossroads

by David Rudd

…..Don Bradshaw had been surprised to encounter a medicine show on the outskirts of Kansas City. Lots of razzmatazz with music and sideshows (acrobats, freaks, and the like). At its center stood a wagon plastered with images of Dr Cornelius Mandelbaum. Famed for his miracle cures throughout Europe, he was now bringing the U.S.A. his famous elixir.

…..Don must have been the only person unaware that the show was there. He’d not seen the leaflets bombarding the area. Likewise, he hadn’t witnessed the sideshows making their way through the streets of KC, drumming-up publicity. He’d deliberately been avoiding any disturbance, isolating himself so he could concentrate on his latest composition: a jazz suite.

…..He’d ended up at the medicine show after taking a walk, partly for inspiration and partly for a much overdue break. In the event, the break turned out far longer than he’d intended. Don had meandered back, enjoying the sounds and smells of the countryside. Then, at a lonely crossroads, he’d encountered a fiddler.

…..The man was a rare sight to behold, sporting a pegleg. Don hadn’t initially noticed this, for the man danced so animatedly to the tune he was fingering. It was a catchy piece. A jig, Don thought, though he wasn’t too familiar with that type of music. As he approached the man, Don found himself falling in step with the tune’s captivating rhythms.

…..Immediately the fiddler noticed Don, he stopped playing. However, like a disk on a turntable, his pegleg caused him to rotate a while longer. He was an old black man with a grizzled beard. He fixed Don with a steely eye.

…..Before Don could speak, the man had chucked his fiddle in its case and was away across the fields. Don stood alone, though the dance tune still played in his head. He shouted after the fiddler, but to no effect. For an old man with a wooden leg, he was unexpectedly agile. Why on earth, Don wondered, was he playing here? There was no collection cup, unless he used his violin case as one. Anyway, the crossroads was deserted. The crowds were up at the medicine show.

…..Don continued home, the myths about meeting the devil at the crossroads crowding his mind. He’d recently heard a bluesman singing just such a song, but at present couldn’t recall it because of this insistent melody filling his head. Once again, he found himself walking in step to its rhythms.

…..Don himself was classically trained (at Juilliard, no less), but the first time he’d heard jazz –West End Blues by Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five – he’d become a convert. The composition he was currently working on – by far his most ambitious – attempted to capture jazz’s evolution. Inspired by Ellington’s Symphony in Black, Don was trying to chart the shift from worksong, through ragtime and blues, to a more polyphonic ensemble piece, before letting some soloists rip free. The last section, on which he was currently working, was the most daring, rich in more classical influences like Stravinsky, Ravel, and the Gershwins.

…..Back at his lodgings, Don tried to expunge the hillbilly infiltrator by playing some jazz standards by Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young. Unfortunately, the opposite occurred. The dance tune’s rhythms and accents saw off all competition. Likewise, when he returned to his score, the time signature kept reverting to a jig. The proverbial earwig came to mind, which crawled into your ear and warped your hearing.

…..He gave up for the day, taking himself down to Sandy’s Joint, his favorite bar. It was where he occasionally sat in with Wayne’s Boys, the resident trio. Don was hoping that the alcohol and lively jazz would dislodge his jiggy earwig. But, just like the carousel he’d watched at the medicine show, the tune cantered round his head all evening. For once, Wayne’s music jarred. Even talking was difficult. He left the bar early and crashed out.

…..Sleep, though, gave no respite. He dreamt he was still at the club, everyone jitterbugging to Wayne’s Boys. It was not their usual music, however. It was that hillbilly ruckus, the dancers writhing and sweating as they tried to keep up. It was like that crazy mania that had afflicted people in Europe: Tarantism. Don awoke with aching limbs and a throbbing head, not at all ready to meet the day.

…..What was worse, he was giving a music lesson that morning: teaching classical piano – his bread-and-butter – although of late he’d found it increasingly hard preventing his fingers from hitting inversions and confusing his students. This said, today’s problem was of a different magnitude. In the end, he pled a migraine and gave a refund.

…..As he traipsed back to his lodgings, his feet again fell into the jig’s rhythm. This time, however, instead of cursing it, Don wondered whether he might be able to use it. Wasn’t Western Swing a mix of jazz and hillbilly? Could he compose something similar?

…..Back at his digs, Don checked he was alone in the house. Then he set to work, letting the earwig breathe for once. He transcribed the tune on his landlady’s piano, sketching in some variations to conceal its origins, and, he hoped, to dilute the tune’s claustrophobic grip. Unfortunately, with more oxygen, the hokum nonsense only grew more powerful, bouncing round his cranium like a cat on speed.

…..Utterly depressed, Don was at his wits’ end. That night he was meant to be playing with Wayne’s Boys. Clearly a non-starter. They’d get nothing but “The Earwig Jig” all night long. Aside from that, as he now realized, playing in public might be a no-no. If that devilish fiddler at the crossroads had infected him, others were also likely to be afflicted, weren’t they? It’d be worse than sneezing over an audience when you had flu.

…..Two weeks on, Don had had enough. His head was a wind-up gramophone playing one record incessantly. He’d tried alcohol and reefers for respite, but, if anything, they only amplified its interference. Barbiturates were more successful, but they left him confused and uncoordinated. The question was, how long would this earwig remain stuck in his head? He’d initially thought it might pass quickly, like any other catchy melody. He now had his doubts. Could it be a lifelong sentence? In which case, life was over for him …

…..By the following week, Don was seriously contemplating ways out: poison, guns, knives, drowning? They all required too much preparation. It would have to be spontaneous, if at all. Tramping the rural roads (something he did daily, shunning human contact), he considered throwing himself under a passing vehicle. Each time, though, the fear of ending up crippled – like a certain busker – gave him pause. Aside from that, he still held out hope that there might be a way out. And, at the back of his mind, another idea was formulating. What if this earwig wasn’t a disease? What if it was like a game of tag – something that you could pass on, like a voodoo doll? And yet, his conscience also asked: who possibly could he inflict this on? Ah yes, of course. There was someone!

…..Convinced that the pegleg fiddler must have been part of Mandelbaum’s Medicine Show, Don made enquiries about the show’s likely whereabouts. Harry Barton, owner of the Hottest Dog Diner, near Don’s lodgings, was the only person who had any inside knowledge, for he regularly hired a stand whenever the show passed through KC. According to Harry, it operated around Kansas and Missouri, and wasn’t due back for several months. Don was devastated. He couldn’t last that long! The tune was corkscrewing ever deeper into his brain.

…..Continuing his daily tramps, Don found the prospect of leaping under a passing vehicle increasingly tempting. Then, late one afternoon on his way back to his lodgings, he was passing the Hottest Dog Diner when he spotted a disheveled figure lying in the entrance. The wooden prosthetic identified him immediately. Don prodded the man a few times, thinking him dead, and fuming that he’d no longer be able to wreak revenge on his demonic persecutor.

…..Just then, Harry appeared, about to open up. “Don, isn’t it?” he began, before noticing the inert figure. “Jeeze man! It’s Charlie!”

…..Hearing his name, the figure twitched to life. Harry disappeared into his diner. Don was about to follow him when he realized that this was his chance. Clearing his throat, he gave full vent to that insidious tune. To Don’s surprise, a smile lit up the fiddler’s face. Don was incensed, but then Harry reappeared with a bottle of Mandelbaum’s Miracle Elixir. He presented it, like a teat, to Charlie’s mouth. The man gulped greedily.

…..“You don’t believe in that hokum, do you, Harry?” croaked Don, his throat hoarse from his raucous performance.

…..No sooner had he spoken than Charlie jolted as though electrocuted, and Harry withdrew the bottle. Don, meanwhile, was experiencing his own moment of shock. He’d just registered the fact that he could hear his own voice without any earwig static, just as he could hear the cars, the clopping horses, the vendors’ cries. Then he heard Harry’s response.

…..“As an elixir, it’s a sham, but the alcohol and cocaine work wonders!” Harry held the bottle under Don’s nose. “Here, have a nip.”

…..At that moment, Don spotted Charlie fiddling with his violin case. Don didn’t hesitate. Fingers in ears, scat singing lustily, he scooted off down the street.

…..Back at his lodgings, Don slept a solid sixteen hours before waking and savoring the glorious noise of the city. Strange, he’d thought. Where had that insidious jig gone? And he caught himself struggling to recreate it before … He leapt out of bed. Was he mad? He began yelling nursery rhymes, leaping round his room like a child, now eager to resume life, to resurrect his music career and pick up on his abandoned students.

…..Two days later, Harry contacted him with the sad news that Charlie had died after stepping out in front of a meat wagon. Don felt horribly responsible, although – as he reassured himself – all he’d done was return the poisoned chalice.

…..At the lowkey funeral, Harry and Don watched the coffin containing Charlie and his violin case being lowered into the ground. It was then that Harry told Don about how Charlie had quit the medicine show, claiming that he could no longer play in public. Since then, he’d bummed around the city doing odd jobs, sleeping rough – and, of course, visiting Harry whenever he’d the cash for some of Mandelbaum’s Elixir, which he kept in his violin case.

…..“With his fiddle,” added Don.

…..“No – he’d burned that.” Harry chuckled. “Gotten religion and forsaken ‘the devil’s music’. Felt guilty ’bout some fella he’d wronged.”

…..Don recalled that smile on Charlie’s face when he’d begun yelling the earwig jig at him.

…..As they shared a drink back at the Hottest Dog, Harry chuckled once again. “The way you ran off when Charlie reached for his violin case. Hooeee! Did you think he’d got a Tommy gun in there?”

…..“Something far worse than that,” muttered Don before he turned to answer Harry. “I blame that cursed elixir you poked under my nose.” He paused. “Poor old Charlie. I wish I could have done more for him.”

…..“Well, you could always compose a tune in his memory…”

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Dr. David Rudd is an emeritus professor who, after 40 years, turned from academic prose to creative writing and found fulfilment. He has published some fifty stories and poems. A collection of his short stories, Blood Will Out, and Other Strange Tales was published in 2024 (available from Amazon and elsewhere).

The author wishes to thank David Helme for the initial idea for this story.

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