Grave Digger Blues (Bare Bones Edition)

By Jesse Sublett III

Crime fiction author and musician Jesse Sublett has been compared to Tom Waits, James Ellroy, Otis Rush, Michael Connelly and Denis Johnson. Not surprisingly, then, his new ebook, Grave Digger Blues, is a blast of surreal, post-apocalyptic noir, laced with blues poetry and actual songs and poems, the hardest of the hardboiled, the darkest of all noir fiction around today.

The novel is set during the last weeks of the world, boom times for two-legged and four-legged predators alike. Dual protagonists drive the narrative--The Blues Cat, an itinerant, doomed jazz musician, and Hank Zzybnx, a private detective haunted by the benevolent ghost of Marilyn Monroe, fragmented memories of the war in Murderstan, and a grifter mother who hated him before he was born.

It's a dangerous and strange world, but shot through with bizarre beauty and dreamlike weirdness. Grizzly bears and alligators have invaded the cities, walking catfish prowl the exurbs.

The best bar in town is the Morgue, so-named because its previous incarnation was the cold storage of the dead; now its industrial sized refrigerator serves an even more noble purpose: sweet relief for the last survivors of the rotting Republic.

After the Republican coup, when the wacked out right-wingers blew up the White House, the federal government was replaced by a corporate board of directors, but some of the plotters have fallen on hard times. Dick Cheney is a drag queen... Newt Gingrich is a security guard at Wal-Mart who moonlights with a circus strangling puppies, but the big attraction at the sideshow is a Reagan-faced monkey who quotes lines from Reagan's most famous speeches. Thus the chapter titled "Morning in America."

Note: This is the Bare Bones Edition of this book. Other editions of this book were published in November 2012. One edition includes over 100 photos, drawings and original music. The Blues Deluxe Edition for the iPad includes these illustrations plus over an hour of audio, including audio versions of selected chapters, plus demo versions of the original songs in this eBook.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jesse Sublett III
• Release date: Jan 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301180387

Jesse Sublett III

Author, musician and artist, Jesse Sublett has been a force in the music and culture scene in Austin, Texas since the late 1970s, when his band, the Skunks, were the vanguard of the new music scene there. Best known for his crime fiction series of Martin Fender novels, Jesse has also received high praise for his memoir, "Never the Same Again: A Rock n' Roll Gothic," with its riveting account of his life as a struggling musician, cancer survivor, and the murder of his girlfriend by a serial killer. Jesse also does ghost writing and has written extensively for nonfiction television.

Book preview

GRAVE DIGGER BLUES

JESSE SUBLETT

Copyright Jesse Sublett 2012

Bare Bones Edition (no photos or music) Published at Smashwords

©2012 Jesse Sublett

ISBN: 9781301180387

Published by Smashwords

All rights reserved. Copyright also extends to all lyrics and musical works included in this work.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

SOME SELECT TITLES, ALSO BY JESSE SUBLETT

CRIME FICTION NOVELS:

Rock Critic Murders

Tough Baby

Boiled in Concrete

NONFICTION BOOKS:

Never the Same Again

History of the Texas Turnpike Authority

Thank you for downloading this eBook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form, with the exception of quotes used in reviews.

Other editions of this book were published in November 2012. One edition includes over 100 photos, drawings and original music. The Blues Deluxe Edition for the iPad includes these illustrations plus over an hour of audio, including audio versions of selected chapters, plus demo versions of the original songs in this eBook.

Cover design by Ricardo Acevedo, http://intherastudios.com

Author photo by Todd V. Wolfson. facebook.com/toddvwolfson

All song lyrics in the book are by Jesse Sublett, copyright Jesse Sublett, Big Striped Cat Music, BMI.

Jesse Sublett, photo by Todd V. Wolfson

Jesse Sublett is an author, musician and artist currently based in Austin, Texas, where he lives with his wife, Lois Richwine, a son, Dashiell, and three cats. He writes fiction and nonfiction, poetry, music, journalism. His published novels include Rock Critic Murders, Tough Baby and Boiled in Concrete, published by Viking Penguin USA between 1989 - 1992. His nonfiction books include History of the Texas Turnpike Authority and Never the Same Again: A Rock n’ Roll Gothic.

Jesse’s formed the seminal punk rock band the Skunks in Austin in 1978 with cohorts Bill Blackmon and Eddie Munoz. Jon Dee Graham replaced Eddie Munoz on guitar in 1979 and the trio still performs several times a year to their intensely loyal fan base. Jesse still performs, most often as a solo blues singer.

Follow and/or contact Jesse at jessesublett.com for updates and links to his new music and new books and other works. Digital versions of his work are available on Amazon and the iBookstore or iTunes. Some of his other works, including Rock Critic Murders, are available as an enhanced iBook for the iPad, with music, video and graphics.

Jesse’s memoir Never The Same Again chronicles his first two decades as a musician in Austin and Los Angeles in the blues, rock and punk scene, and the traumatic ordeal of his girlfriend being murdered by a serial killer in Austin in 1976. In 1997, when he was diagnosed with Stage 4 throat cancer and given a four percent chance of survival, Jesse decided to reinvestigate the case and write about it. He also rededicated himself to writing and playing music, and beat the odds. The story is riveting, sad, funny, tragic, life-affirming.

"Never the Same Again is a harrowing, wrenching, spellbinding work of great candor and soul. Read it, think with it, dig it."
 James Ellroy (L.A. Confidential, American Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand)

Never the Same Again is an important work. Jesse Sublett's pursuit of his dreams -- undaunted by societal standards of success and failure -- is the true chronicle of a generation. Making choices, taking chances and then facing the consequences, however bizarre and unexpected they may be, Sublett takes us on a ride through life that is crazy, funny, and sometimes deeply tragic, but ultimately, an inspiring and always highly readable survivor's tale.
 Michael Connelly (The Black Echo, The Lincoln Lawyer )

@Jesse_Sublett

soundcloud.com/jessesublett

reverbnation.com/jessesublett

jessesublett.tumblr.com

This book is dedicated to Lois.

Table of Contents

LAST DETECTIVE AT THE END OF THE WORLD

NOBODY KNOWS THE TROUBLE I’VE SEEN

TROUBLE

THE HEADLESS SUPERMODEL

RUN

MORNING IN AMERICA

GRAVE DIGGER BLUES

WALKING CATFISH BLUES

SLEEPWALKING BLUES

BLUES IN THE AFTERNOON

BLUE, BLUE SKY

HEARTBREAKER

The Last Detective at the End of the World

Everything around him was turning to shit.

The world rattled like a garbage truck and the wind howled like a wounded dog, but Hank Zzbynx knew he wasn’t in hell because they’d be playing Beatles music down there, 24/7.

And he really hated the Beatles.

A woman collapsed in the crosswalk. A Lincoln Navigator ran over her and kept going.

Not many people had cars or jobs or money anymore, but Hank Zzbynx had lots of work that summer, the last summer on Earth. Every other private eye he knew would’ve killed for one measly case. Then again, killing was just about the only work left.

Hank wouldn’t kill just anybody. He was picky about his clients, too. Both sides had to check out before he took a job, but he rarely had any down time for introspection or soul searching. There was always another scummy son of a bitch out there who needed killing.

He’d never been a good sleeper anyway, but he never had dreams at all, good or bad. Never. Some losers out there didn’t have a pot to piss in, but every night they got in bed with their own private movie. Hank had nothing, a black screen. Like everybody else in the world had a wings or a tail except for him.

He’d been mugged by women nine times the last two months. Here in the end times, a lot of women seemed eager to prove that they had even greater capacity for violence than men. Maybe it had always been that way.

He could never bring himself to hit back, much less shoot. Just couldn’t. He always figured if there was a god, she’d be a woman, a figure of feminine perfection and mystery. Like Marilyn Monroe, only ten or twenty stories tall.

Even now, as the world flushed itself down the toilet, Hank was still fond of women. He liked the idea of women, that they were kinder, gentler, more intelligent, although that theory didn’t always prove out. Relationships were hard to manage in a time of radiation mutations and an epidemic of spontaneous human combustion, so paying for their company was actually a bargain. Lying with a woman for a while, soft skin, face against their breasts, that nice smell they had, it was a nice break from the world.

His mother, beautiful as a daydream, hated his guts, even before he was born.

Biff the bartender said, Couple of heavy characters upstairs to see you, a Mr. Brimstone and some dude calls himself The Big G.

Brimstone was out, but The Big G had a big black cloud of a beard and hair and thick glasses: Jerry Garcia. Hank couldn’t stand the Grateful Dead, either.

I don’t get many hippie clients, Hank said. I don’t do dope cases and I don’t work cheap,.

Money is no problem, Mr. Zzbynx, said a voice from the jungle of whiskers. I’m self-made. Brimstone, he practically invented money, and our associates have more money than you could ever imagine, Mr. Zzbynx.

Rule # 1: Clients who brag about how rich they are always try and stiff you. I’ll need a retainer, Hank said.

An envelope full of cash appeared, along with a Big Chief tablet. Inside were seven names, each one hanging from its own blue line.

Taking action like this is regrettable, he said as Hank reluctantly shook his hand, but it’s reconciliation time.

Rule # 2: Clients always try and bullshit you.

He took the money.

&&

Birds had been falling out of the sky for over a week. Their little bodies peppered the rooftops like a drum solo.

Rivers no longer flowed. Everything was going belly up. Every night there were a few less stars.

&&

Each of the individual contracts checked out. They were all men, and each one was the matrix of some sinister organization or capitalist endeavor. None of them was in the business of murder the way Hank was, but they employed homicide, rape, torture and other vile deeds the same way a carpenter uses a hammer to drive a nail or a cook uses salt and pepper to add flavor to food. It was fair to say that each individual on the list was a cancer on society. Not that there was much of a society left to save anymore, but Hank had standards to uphold. He wouldn’t kill just anybody.

One strange thing about the information the Big G had given him. The information in the Big Chief tablet was all written out by hand, including the name, occupation, address, things like that. Strong handwriting, bold and clear. Next to each name was a single word, like a code name or something, printed with a rubber stamp. All caps.

Seven contracts, seven names, seven words.

Hank did the jobs one by one, one per day, starting with the first one, PRIDE.

PRIDE was a plastic surgeon. He took off running when he saw Hank. Hank hated it when they did that. He caught the man by the hair and slammed his head on the sidewalk until his skull cracked like a melon and his eyeballs popped out of their sockets like flower buds.

Actual flowers had gone the way of the T. rex, the two-dollar bill and free coffee refills. A lot of florists and delivery drivers got jobs running crack and collecting corpses to cook down for biodiesel.

That night he watched the horizon as the moon sank into the ocean. It never came up again.

&&

Actually his real name was Steve. He’d changed it to Hank just before applying for his P.I. license. He just couldn’t see people hiring a detective named Steve.

&&

He never completely believed his mother when she said she hated him, though she always shacked up with guys wanted to us him for a punching bag.

He had no idea how he could remember such a thing, but he knew that when she was nursing him as a baby, she sometimes daubed her nipples with Tabasco, Comet cleanser or rat poison.

&&

The job took exactly one week.

After PRIDE, there was ANGER, ENVY, GREED, LUST, GLUTTONY. ANGER was a beat cop with too many notches on his gun. ENVY owned a luxury SUV dealership.

&&

Hank met Brimstone only once. Handsome devil, shiny black hair, funny little mustache, impeccably dressed. He kept singing We all live in a yellow submarine under his breath.

Hank suspected he was fucking with him.

Do you dream? Hank said.

Brimstone laughed. A dream is just the brain moving furniture around. My advice is be glad you don’t have to put up with that racket.

My advice to you, said Hank, mind your own fucking business.

&&

GREED was a techno wizard on the ruined stretch of banks and zillionaire pimps and gamblers that inhabited what was left of Wall Street. LUST was in advertising. GLUTTONY had figured out how to sneak corn syrup into the water supply.

SLOTH was a hoarder and video game geek, morbidly obese. Hank found him blasting a pump shotgun at squirrels as they climbed up on a bird feeder Hank had seen advertised on TV as 100 percent guaranteed squirrel-proof.

Not a living bird of any kind within ten thousand miles.

Hank shot him in the mouth, his front teeth flying out on the ground like dice on a crap board.

Incredibly, the big tub of lard got up and fired the shotgun at Hank. Hank tackled him and they wrestled on the ground with the stinking dead squirrels until Hank was able to choke the son of a bitch by stuffing one of the dead critters in his mouth.

Why, he wondered, is the last job always the hardest?

&&

When he went to the bar to get his money, Biff told him Big G and Brimstone skipped town. Left a hell of a big bar tab behind.

Listen, Hank, said Biff, them two were no choir boys.

Dick Cheney, the nation’s former shadow president and chief inquisitor, was on the stool at the end of the bar, as usual. Several years ago, after the big Republican coup, he’d taken to dressing exclusively in drag.

The crooked scowl on his hateful smirk marked with waxy lipstick, he’d sit there, nursing fruity drinks in a little cocktail dress and high heels, using the bar phone to issue urgent instructions to the White House:

We need to launch a preemptive stealth bomber attack across the Canadian border immediately…

Water-board those sonsofbitches…

Stuff like that.

Hank was downing his third shot when Cheney took the stool next to him. Walking his nubby fingers up and down his thigh, the old queen said: "Check this out . . . no panty line whatsoever."

&&

He finally got Brimstone on the phone around midnight.

It figures you’re gonna try and stiff me, he said. Why do assholes like you have to be so predictable?

Hank, you can have all the money in the world, said Brimstone. But who would you spend it on?

What’s it to you, shit bird?

Point is, Hank, we’re running out of time. The end is at hand, as they say. I only took your call because the old man and I wanted to reward you for doing such a bang-up job. Now close your eyes and say goodnight.

And the last pay phone in the world went dead, shortly after Hank said, Fuck you, you ‘Yellow Submarine’ singing piece of shit.

&&

The noise all around him was excruciating and at least it wasn’t the Beatles, but he hurt all over, like a motherfucker.

Cars sinking into the soupy pavement, skyscrapers collapsing. Bodies flying out of windows. So this was it, The Big Fuck Off, as predicted.

Hank cocked his gun and stuck it in his mouth.

Then he was tumbling through space. Out here the noise morphed into a heartbeat, right next to his ear.

A light touch on his forehead. Warmth, no more pain.

He opened his eyes and saw Her.

A love goddess as big as the Empire State Building, yet she hugged him close, like they were made for each other’s arms.

Wow. Are you really Marilyn Monroe?

I really am, she said. And I’m here to love you, Hank.

She kissed him on the lips.

Well, she kissed him all over.

I know what you want, Hank, she said. "

Yeah?

She folded him into her heavenly breasts, and he kissed them and climbed their lofty peaks, and all that stuff…

… and when he was tired he lay himself down between them, happy as he had ever been. Ever.

Marilyn, he said, and it had become difficult to speak, there’s so much of you. I’m having trouble breathing.

Just relax, Hank, she said, and she pulled his head ever deeper into her bosom.

Is this a dream or is this the end of the world and everything is dying?

Hank, she whispered. Let me put it this way, baby. Life is just the dead on vacation.

Wait a minute, baby...

Shhh, she said. Just close your eyes and love me.

He released his eyelids. Night fell like a warm blanket. He went to sleep inside her and they floated away in a dream.

Yeah,