Bury My Body Down By the Highway Side

By Ray Stoeser and Josh Cuffe

In the summer of 2009 two friends embarked on a road trip through a narrative history of American music.
They visited cities of the dead, sold their souls at the crossroads, dipped their feet in the Mississippi, and made memories with preachers, police, and teachers. Musicians, hippies, and gatekeepers.
And when the dust settled, they discovered more than just music.
They found the Blues.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312401655

Book preview

Bury My Body Down By the Highway Side

Bury my body

Down by the highway side

A Road Tour

of America’s Blues

Ray Stoeser

&

Josh Cuffe

An NBD Book

Copyright © 2014 by Ray Stoeser and Josh Cuffe

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

without the express written permission of the authors

except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing, 2014

ISBN 978-1-312-40165-5

NBD Books

[e-mail]

[e-mail]

In memory of

Raymond Stoeser

1951-2014

Thank you for teaching me to love the Road.

Ray Stoeser

Your enthusiasm and encouragement created this book.

Josh Cuffe

The Blues tells a story.

-John Lee Hooker

Soundtrack

tinyurl.com/burymybody

This soundtrack should be used as a companion to the novel.

Back Stage

The Blues. What is ‘Blues’? When someone asks us what our favorite music genre is, we respond, blues music. The Blues and blues music are analogous, but stand alone.

Blues music, briefly, is the self-examination of Southern Blacks post Reconstruction and is rooted in African spirituals and the painful memories and consequence of working on the plantation.

Blues? Blues is a Lifestyle. A Culture. It is a Woman. Religion. It is Music. Food. It is Blood. Callouses. It is Melancholic. Elation. It is the Burn from vomit. An Orgasm. It is Pain. Blues is Birth. A Crutch. For us, it was a Road.

In two weeks, the Blues changed our lives. It helped forge a friendship underneath the twang of a steel slide, smoking rubber, crackling tobacco, and spicy bourbon. The Blues introduced us to this country, her people, her sins, and her penance. We traveled with demons. We traveled with angels. Legends.

When we decided to venture out into a world we knew nothing about, we made one rule clear: ‘Yes’ is always the answer to a proposed deviation from the route. We encourage you to adopt the same rule when navigating our narrative. Embrace our story with openness. It poses many questions, expresses many concerns, and may generate curiosity and confusion. Let it move in you. This book chronicles our insights—a glance at what is real through the lens of our own subjective eyes and the stories of the people who call the area home. It is our discovery of a foreign America from behind a steering wheel, souls naked to the Blues. We have no intention of inspiring or educating. We just want to tell you a story. Listen. Let the Blues define itself to you.

Opening Act

This story does not begin on the road. Nor does it draw open its curtains to music. This adventure starts with breakfast.

Downtown Diner: Flagstaff, Arizona

Josh weaved a sugar packet between his fingers. Ray traced circles around his quarter-full mug of lukewarm French roast. Joggers dodged sloppy mounds of gray snow as it plopped onto the sidewalk from the plow that sliced down Aspen Avenue. The early morning March sun hovered about 30 degrees from the eastern horizon, shining through the windows. Flecks of light bounced off the polished Route 66 memorabilia. License plates from nearly every state were carefully nailed into the wall.

Ray and Josh initiated this Saturday breakfast tradition in an effort to spark early morning motivation and a productive start on the school work they had routinely ignored earlier in the week. Since it was tradition, the meeting place was always the same: Downtown Diner, 7 E. Aspen.

They would jam, brew, smoke, and drink the Friday evening after a long week of classes, and then, on Saturday morning, work off a hangover with greasy over-easy eggs and hash browns smothered in Tabasco. They would down two pots of coffee, shoot the shit, pay, leave, and then retire to Ray’s apartment to work on homework for the coming week while Coffee and Cigarettes played on a loop. They liked it. It was routine. Safe. Comforting.

Flagstaff was a comforting place. It’s a small mountain town nestled below the shadow of the San Francisco Peaks. A great place for a college student. Laid back enough to find and smoke marijuana relatively hassle free, but stimulating enough to warrant relevant scholarship and activism.

Josh and Ray met through their mutual friend, Patrick. One night, Josh trudged up the intimidating hill of Grand Canyon Avenue on his bike to a party at Pat’s house. It was here Josh met Colin and Ray, Pat’s roommates. Josh and Ray were teammates for a few rounds of drinking games and by the time the beer had run dry, the seeds for a strong friendship had been planted.

After only a few subsequent hangouts, Josh and Ray half-jokingly described themselves as heterosexual life partners. They studied together, invented living room sports during the winter season, brewed beer, watched hours of Hulu and football. They even aligned the days they skipped classes in an effort to maximize time together. Little did they know that the suggestion posed during this routine Saturday morning would forge a friendship unrivaled by the likes of Horatio and Hamlet or Sancho Panza and Don Quixote.

What do you think about going on a road trip? Josh asked as the waitress, Jaime, refilled their coffees.

I’m sorry? Ray said, raising the mug to his lips.

Like a road trip. The Great American Road Trip!

Ray scooped some steamy hash browns into his mouth.

Oh yeah? he mumbled. Got anywhere in mind?

No, not really. We could go anywhere. Never been to San Francisco. I hear the Pacific Northwest is pretty rad. We could chase Bigfoot. Camping trip in Utah? We could do East Coast. Florida. New Orleans. I have family in North Dakota.

Wait. Did you say New Orleans? Ray asked.

Yeah, um, crawfish, Bourbon Street, Voodoo, Satchmo.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love their food. Oh and the jazz and Blues!

Josh’s head perked up. He snapped his fingers repeatedly trying to articulate his excitement. He coughed up some hash browns.

The Blues Highway! What about the Blues Highway? he finally managed to get out.

Oh shit! Like the road music took?

Yeah, Highway 61. It goes north from New Orleans.

Shit, we could hit up like Memphis and Chicago. Those are some pretty musical cities.

I like where you’re going with this. Josh sipped his coffee. So what do you think?

Ray wiped some ketchup from his chin.

I have no clue where to start, but I’m in.

The Planning Process

Every Saturday after that, the boys smashed cheap breakfast, spread Rand McNally maps—the creases wearing thin—across the diner table and meticulously, but not rigidly, planned the trip. The route went through many revisions as Ray and Josh had the tendency to incorporate numerous destinations expanding the scope of their trip.

At times it seemed the only cemented decisions were the departure date, August 1st, and the major hubs they’d hit up along the highway: New Orleans, Memphis, and Chicago. Over coffee, with eggs and hash browns drenched in Tabasco sauce (they took tradition seriously), the studious planners added miles they needed to drive, multiplied the cost of gas, dividing it all by how many shifts they needed to work in order for this trip to come to fruition. The two hoped to spend some time taking the long way back home through the Dakotas, Wyoming, and Utah, but ultimately opted for the more direct route through Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico.

Gives us more time in Blues Country, ’m I right?

It was settled. The two would push through southern New Mexico and Texas to Austin. They would jump over to Baton Rouge and Avery Island, Louisiana; set up camp in the Big Easy; dance with the great Jazz ghosts; plod through the clay of the Mississippi Delta to Sam Phillips’ Memphis; wipe BBQ sauce from their faces and hit the road to the Gateway of the West; take it slow in Chicago; and eventually suck down brews and stogies on Lake Taneycomo with Josh’s dad. The friends could feel the chill from Robert Johnson’s grave beckoning as they chained smoked, pinched pennies, and planned the trip’s remaining loose ends. When they finished for the morning, they would pay their check, pack up their notes, and light an after-breakfast cigarette on their way up Grand Canyon Avenue. The following Saturday, and every Saturday for the next five months, they continued to plan away.

The Day Approaches

A few weeks before they set out, Ray and Josh found themselves in a desperate situation. In the months that followed their initial planning session, they had extended an offer to two other friends, Sean and Will, to join them on the expedition. Sean owned an RV that would suit the road and the travelers’ needs perfectly. With only four weeks before their departure date, the other friends retreated from the plans. And with them went the RV.

Fuck.

With a route and itinerary locked down, the next course of action was a mad scramble for one of the trip’s most vital elements: the vehicle. Ray owned a ‘99 Honda Civic LX.

Far too small.

Yeah, no room for anything. Who road trips in a Civic?

Good point.

Josh owned a more typical road tripping mobile, though still far from desirable. His Toyota pickup could haul a lot of cargo, but the cab would still be uncomfortably cramped.

Wait, man, Josh said one morning at Downtown Diner. My grandmother has this massive GMC van. It’s no VW bus, but it’s big and has a bench in the back that folds down into a bed. She never really drives it.

Ray looked up from his brew.

Sounds good to me. Think she’ll let us use it?

Almost positive.

Sweet! So, um, you said only ‘one bed’ for the two of us? Who gets it when we bring back some honeys from a juke joint?

We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

Josh’s grandmother delivered. The GMC van was perfect. High seats, a fold down bed like Josh had promised, a little better than shitty gas mileage and enough storage space for a guitar, bean bag chair, and cooler—all of the road trip essentials. It was a dorm room on wheels. The outside of the van was a nasty sienna brown. Some dusty Arizona days slowly faded the car into the background. Though the outside was rather bland, it suited them. They could blend in. Let the Blues travel through them rather than they through the Blues.

The hiccups continued. Money was a constant concern. Josh worked for a miser at a do-it-yourself pizza place in Flagstaff who never ended up paying Josh for multiple grueling shifts. Ray’s wallet collected moths and his brain collected dust along with the books he shelved and re-shelved at NAU’s Cline Library for pennies above minimum wage. They scrounged for every damn dime. Josh worried he wouldn’t even be able to fund the fuel to make it out of Flagstaff, as Ray, just days before they set out, backed into an illegally parked vehicle and was forced to hand over one thousand dollars to repair the dent.

It seemed like ages since the friends first mentioned the road trip idea, but the time between the first suggestion and the actual departure date was closing in rapidly, and neither of the two men was willing to let anything keep them from leaving. Despite seemingly insurmountable financial obstacles, the boys prided themselves in deciding to embark on the journey ‘no matter what.’

Fuck it! It doesn’t matter how much money we have on August 1st. We’ll turn around when we need to. If we don’t go now, then who knows when?

Even if we go with nothing, we’ll still have one helluva time.

Let’s do it.

A Birth

Their GMC van sat parked in the driveway. Ray put on Bob Dylan’s Bringing It All Back Home as they gathered the last few necessities for the trip: a flask, lighters, bandanas, and a toothbrush. The tan, six-cylinder Vandura was a packing marvel. The cooler full of ice, lunch meat, cheese, and fruits; a brown bean bag; and a rustic guitar were carefully organized around the bench. Clothes hung in the far back and cigarettes were stashed appropriately in the center console. Josh rigged a sound system at the front of the dash and affixed it to the power inverter. A Route 66 ashtray was nestled between the speakers.

Before we do anything else, Ray said, We have to name our Bluesmobile. It just wouldn’t be a proper Blues trip if we didn’t.

Agreed. What should we call it?

Her.

Ok, what should we call her? Betty? Frankie? Big Bertha?

Ray chuckled. Good names, but random. It needs to be appropriate. Like Lucille. Or Bessy? Oh! Or Willie Mae, like from that Johnson tune.

They sat in deep thought, rattling doomed ideas back and forth. They could hear the faint music coming from Ray’s room as they stood on the balcony looking out over the ponderosa pines.

You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last

But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast

Yonder stands your orphan with his gun

Crying like a fire in the sun

Look out the saints are comin' through

And it's all over now, Baby Blue

Ray and Josh looked at each other and knew. Neither spoke. They were ready.

Wal-Mart

Well, they weren’t quite ready. After conducting an inventory, the two realized they needed clothes. They assumed Baby Blue would more closely resemble a sweat lodge during some stretches of their journey. (A lack of air conditioning was one of Baby Blue’s only flaws.) In order to compensate for the clothing they would sweat through, the two headed off to the 24-hour Wal-Mart to stock up.

Flagstaff’s Wal-Mart sat at the southern border of the city—close enough to assist the perpetual influx of college dorm-bound first years, but far enough away from the hub of the city as to not anger Flagstaff’s latte yuppies. One thing nearly all Americans can relate to, regardless if they’ve travelled across the United States, is how strange Wal-Mart is after 10 pm. The troubadours walked into the Wal-Mart and immediately shattered the melancholy monotony with their playful chatter. But as they stocked up on twelve dollar jeans and three-for-one Hanes V-necks, the eerie ambiance became too overpowering to ignore.

A child looked up from a clothes rack holding a nude, headless Happy Meal Barbie. Some mysterious, red, sticky syrup was splashed across her face. Her eyes—large, black, bottomless pits followed Josh and Ray as they weaved through the aisles. She resembled more a modern Daedalus than a child, standing as a portent to the naive travelers, warning of some unknown danger awaiting the two.

Whoa! Josh said as he nearly ran into her. They stared at each other for a moment. Neither spoke. Neither moved.

Check out this deal on socks! Ray said from the other aisle. Josh broke the line between their eyes.

Oh yeah, be right there. Josh scrambled over, shaking his head free. I need underwear, too.

After they had picked up what they needed, they walked to the cashier. The cashier gazed forward, unfixed, mindlessly scanning USBs. The beep resounded in the empty store like a struggling EKG.

I can’t wait to hit the road, Ray said.

Tell me about it.

Bar I : On the Road

I got ramblin’, I got ramblin’ on my mind

Ramblin’ on My Mind – Robert Johnson

July 31: Departure

It was 75 degrees. A light breeze rustled the Aspen leaves and the smell of mesquite wood chips from a neighbor’s barbeque drifted in through the open window. The boys sat in Ray’s room indulging on an old vinyl Robert Johnson. They even thought they could hear Baby Blue’s cold