FIC: A Hundred and Six Miles (Blues Brothers, gen, Elwood)
Title: A Hundred and Six Miles
Author: Drea (bluerosefairy/d_generate_girl)
Rating: Borderline R. Because no matter what the MPAA thinks, there’s got to be foul language in this, seeing as Elwood has a fuckin’ problem with watching his fuckin’ language.
Fandom/Pairing: The Blues Brothers. Fairly gen, though sure, you could read certain bits as slash. I do.
Disclaimer: Do I look like John Landis? Does my bank account resemble Dan Aykroyd’s? Is my last name Belushi? No? Then I don’t own Jake or Elwood. Don’t own any of the songs referenced either - they belong to their original artists. No, really, nothing but love for everyone who owns this stuff. Don't sue.
Spoilers: Major spoilers for both movies - “The Blues Brothers” and “Blues Brothers 2000”
Notes: This is the very long-time-in-coming result of converting swirl_girlx into a fellow Blues Sister. The more-svelte Jake to my more-vocal Elwood, we’ve been on a mission from God ever since. She’s confirmed the fact that no, people will not sell you their children, no matter how many times you ask or how harmless (read: adorable) you look. And for mack_and_mabel, who not only wanted to read this, but beta’d it like nobody’s business. She’s to blame for my idea of how Jake really went out, as well as Sam Borstein. Miss you, chica!
Summary: The thoughts of one Elwood J. Blues, eighteen years after his original mission from God. About the band that’s been his whole life, the kid he has no idea what to do with, and most of all, the brother he never should have had.
Elwood: It’s a hundred and six miles to Chicago. We’ve got a full tank of gas, half a packet of cigarettes, it’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses.
Jake: Hit it.
- from the original motion picture, “The Blues Brothers”
I. “And three He lead away . . .”
It didn’t hit him until later.
Wasn’t when he got out of the joint, or during that long night by the side of the road. Wasn’t when he went to see the Penguin, or when he left with the stupid kid she’d saddled him with. Wasn’t even when he got to Willie’s, and after a short conversation, his old drummer took one look at him and shoved him toward the pullout couch in the office, telling him to “get some fuckin’ sleep”.
No, it was when the place was black and shut up, empty of beer-swilling perverts or girls for them to ogle. It was when Elwood was lying on the pullout, trying out a tape of B.B. King tunes in a borrowed player and earphones to drown out the kid‘s television-watching. Christ, they’d always loved B.B. King, singing along to the one LP Duck managed to sneak into the slammer. During “When My Heart Beats Like a Hammer”, Jake would always mug through the line about not meaning a woman any harm and crack the place up. And he realized it then.
Jake was dead.
Jake wouldn’t be throwing himself in front of crazy chicks with flamethrowers. He wouldn’t be playing air drums or chain-smoking his way through record after record, throwing out the ones he didn’t like no matter how much money he’d spent on them. He wouldn’t be sitting shotgun in the Bluesmobile, yelling at Elwood for driving too fast and calling him “motorhead”.
He was just gone.
He’d heard the warden’s words, but they just didn’t mean anything. And come on, how screwy was that - old Ozkerwitz from the property room making warden? Jake would have laughed himself sick to see it. And as terrible as he felt about it, Elwood almost laughed himself sick when Willie told him how Jake had gone out - one too many Orange Whips at a bar, tried to hitch a ride with a trucker (because the idiot had never bothered to learn how to drive), and fell off the back somewhere around Highway 61 and the Missouri city limits.
And Jake wasn’t the only one. Curtis was dead, too. The guy who taught Jake and Elwood everything they knew about the blues, down in that musty old basement with his beat-up guitar and secondhand harp. The guy who really took care of all the kids who came through St. Helen’s, playing them Elmore James and Willie Dixon records. The guy who everyone in the old neighborhood knew on sight, cause of his original black suit and glasses. Shit, man - Curtis, who was shot point-blank in the chest by some of the same hoodlums he’d watched grow up.
Curtis was old, but he wasn’t stupid. And he threw a damn good left hook. But that meant jack shit to the gangs around Calumet City, the street kids who wanted to prove they were just as tough as any Chicago kid. The little shits who acted the same way Jake could’ve ended up, if he hadn’t had Curtis and Elwood to steer him straight, and blues tunes to belt out his anger and fear to.
Even Mercer was gone, the overgrown ape. Jake’s parole officer, who liked Jake and Elwood despite their felonious past. Elwood still remembered him waving to them from the balcony of the Palace Hotel Ballroom, in his three-piece light blue suit. He was a sharp-dressing cat who snuck them Robert Johnson and Memphis Slim records every time he came to Joliet. Elwood would’ve been happier with his harp (which Cropper slid him a year later on his way out), but Jake just whined that he’d keep him up all night playing it.
And what Jake wanted, Jake usually got. He didn’t know how Jake managed it - a corner cell, with a record player and a window, for just Elwood and him. That was Jake for you, though. He knew everyone in the Illinois penal system, and was owed a favor or two by most of them.
There was a reason they called him “Joliet” Jake Blues.
Out in Chicago and back home in Calumet City, they knew Jake as “Elwood’s brother, Jake”. Not in the joint. In there, he was “Jake’s brother, Elwood”, and it only took one mention of Jake’s name to make sure no one laid a hand on his kid brother. Jake’s influence went so far that even when he got out eight years later (Elwood had the longer record, and got 20 years cause he was the driver of the car), they let Elwood keep the corner cell till the day he was paroled.
He’d halfway figured something had happened to Jake when the letters stopped coming. But he’d convinced himself that it was because Jake had hit it big, and started touring the world like they’d always said they would. In his mind, Jake (sometimes with the band, sometimes by himself) was singing to a packed house every night, cartwheeling and jiving to the intro to “Can’t Turn You Loose”. Jake would try to imitate Elwood’s patter, and not quite get it, but it didn’t matter, because Jake made you smile whatever he did.
Jake was the schemer. He was the cocky, devil-may-care, talented as hell lead singer, who you couldn’t help but love. Elwood was the dreamer. The half-assed harp player, background vocalist, and getaway driver who made you laugh despite himself.
Given the choice, he would’ve told God to take him instead of Jake. Because who could honestly see Elwood as the frontman of the Blues Brothers? Without Jake, he and the band were just a bunch of fairly-talented nobodies who couldn’t sing a note of any of the stuff they played. Without Jake, there was no one to tie the songs together and make people listen to them. Without Jake, Elwood’s voice was too deep, untempered and unpolished.
Without Jake, who was Elwood supposed to dance with?
~*~*~*~
II. “Man, you know you’d miss the music . . .”
He had just been bullshitting Cab when he told him about the band and offered to let him join.
Sure, the guy was Curtis’ son, but a police commander? In the Blues Brothers? Jake would have slapped him senseless and reminded him that his record was longer than most Dylan songs and maybe Cab might disapprove of recently paroled felons. Sides, all he’d really wanted was the cash to pay for the new Bluesmobile, and the kid had taken care of that for him.
Not half bad at lifting wallets, but annoying as hell to drive with.
Stupid kid hadn’t shut up the entire ride to Willie‘s, asking questions about who Cab and Curtis were, why the band had split up, and why he couldn’t drive a normal car. He’d told the kid to ask Willie about the band (Willie wouldn‘t say nothin‘ about it anyway), and wouldn’t answer the other questions about Cab and Curtis. And he drove the fuckin’ car because it was the new Bluesmobile and it topped out at 160 mph on regular gas.
He should’ve known it would come up. The kid was rummaging through Elwood’s tapes, pulling out the ones labeled “me and Jake” and pestering him about “who the hell is Jake?”. He’d finally caved, and let the kid stick one in the player - Joliet Penitentiary, October 12th, 1981. Their first gig after they got locked in the slammer, and Jesus, why‘d it have to be that one?
“Jailhouse Rock” started blaring out of the speakers, and Elwood couldn’t stop his wince when Jake’s growl (warden threw a party in the county jail, prison band was there and they began to wail) kicked it all off.
And the kid started in on his questions again. Why’d you go to jail? Who’s Jake? What happened to the band? And Elwood snapped. Ripped the tape outta the deck, tossed it to the backseat, and tuned the radio to the most obnoxious rap station he could find and pretended not to hear the anklebiter’s whining.
He was fuckin’ sick of everything, anyway.
Elwood had planned to just go back to the aerosol factory, but Willie’d offered him a position, emceeing and providing a little onstage security for the club. The girls were pretty good at keeping the customers off them, but he could spot trouble where the bouncers couldn’t. He’d taken it, on the condition that he didn‘t have to sing. He knew it could never match up to performing with Jake and the band, anyway.
He was all set, until Sandra caught him riffing a little on the harp with Junior and Lonnie before the club opened one day. She’d begged and pleaded for him to sing a number - this Taj Mahal song that she sometimes used. One that Jake had used to belt out while they were on the road together.
He was a sucker for a pair of big brown eyes. Always had been. And as soon as he got up onstage, and started the song, throwing a little drawl on the chorus like Jake used to (she left me a mule to ride, the train pulled out, I swung on behind), he forgot it was supposed to be just a one-time thing.
He started imitating Jake - swinging around the pole to tip his hat to Carla, winking at Sandra on the line about coming down to see him sometime, kicking on the “hey, hey, hey”. Then he broke out his harp for the solo, though it had been a while since he’d played that particular song and he was a little flat.
And holy shit. Not only were the customers clapping and whistling (and actually paying attention to the song), but the kid was as well. He’d come down the stairs from the office to hear what the fuss was about, and he’d been completely ignoring the strippers in favor of tapping his foot to the beat. His face was frozen in an expression of jaw-dropping dawning comprehension mixed with shock.
Like he’d been hit by lightning and wanted to try it again.
Elwood knew the kid’s expression well - he used to see it on Jake’s face every time his brother found a new song to add to their repertoire. Right before Jake would sit down and listen to the record over and over to get the vocals down and figure out places where they might be able to add a few dance steps.
As he finished up the number, he slipped to the back of the stage, completely ignoring the cheers. He almost didn’t remember descending the steps, or handing the microphone back to one of the bouncers. Willie was standing there at the bottom of the steps, slowly nodding his head.
“Missed the music, huh, man?”
Elwood couldn’t explain it - it was like someone had lit a firecracker in him. He felt like he was about to start jittering and jiving, like Jake had done in that church when Reverend Cleophus asked him if he’d seen the light. Elwood had not only seen the goddamn light, he’d found God, the Devil, Buddha, and the Easter Bunny as well. Shit, this was what he missed! That rush he got when the horn section hit “Can’t Turn You Loose”, and he walked out with his briefcase and handcuffs. It was like flying, flipping, fucking, and falling all at once, and he couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t just bullshit - he could still fuckin’ do this!
“I wanna sing, Willie. I’ll make up the extra shifts, but man, you gotta let me do a whole set with the band.”
Willie just smiled, threw up his hands, and said “Aw, shit. Here we go again.”
He started doing set after set with Junior and Lonnie that week, falling back into his old performance gags - the briefcase (he‘d given the handcuffs to Jake when he got out of the joint, and he didn’t know where the hell they’d gotten to when Jake died), the patter before each song, even just screwing around on his harp when there was no harp solo to be found in the song. He liked Junior and Lonnie - they were good guys, real fellow Chicago bluesmen - but he couldn’t help thinking about the band.
How good Matt’s signature guitar would sound under “Looking for a Fox”. How surprising a singer Mack was, and wondering what he’d make of “Soul Man”. How Murph and Mr. Fabulous would have kicked up the bridge of “Cheaper to Keep Her” a little more.
It fell completely into place when Buster came up to him one night after a set, holding out Elwood’s battered silver Marine Band harp and asking Elwood to teach him to play.
~*~*~*~
III. “Only one thing I can say about that boy . . .”
It wasn’t the suit that made you a part of the Blues Brothers. It wasn’t the car, or the shades, or the hat. They helped, but they weren’t the defining factor of the Blues Brothers. Having them would mark you as a Blues Brother, but it wasn’t what mattered.
It was the music - always the music - and the brotherhood.
And sometimes the brotherhood bit pissed him off. Elwood supposed he was too used to it being just him and Jake in the Bluesmobile, but every time they set off to find another band member, it seemed to get louder. Mack and Buster chattering about being on the road. Mack and Buster making fun of Elwood’s singing. Mack asking too many questions about what the band was like back in the day. Buster asking too many questions about Jake and Cab and Curtis.
He didn’t know when he’d stopped thinking of Buster as “the kid” and started thinking of him as “Buster”. It might have been while teaching him how to blow the harp. Might have been when they stopped to buy the suits, hats, and glasses for Mack and Buster. Mack had been uncomfortable - he was a jeans-and-t-shirts kind of guy - and kind of shocked at how respectable he looked in the tailored suit.
Elwood wasn’t. Sam did good work.
He’d discovered Sam Borstein (who actually was a Hasidic diamond merchant on the side) back when he‘d lived a block over from the Plymouth, and had been going to him for his suits ever since he was old enough to wear one. Usually had him make two - the other one a size up in the pants, but the same sized jacket for Jake - and the order for three vastly differently-sized suits confused the hell outta him. Sam had been taken aback even more when Elwood gave him Buster’s measurements, asking him the now-familiar question of “this your son?”.
No, the kid was not his, thank you very much, but it got Elwood thinking. He’d almost forgotten Buster was a St. Helen’s orphan, like he and Jake had been. He shouldn’t have been so shocked to see the same behaviors repeating themselves in Buster. Smoking Chesterfields cause the coughing fits they induced got you out of catechism. The reflexive wince when you cursed, thinking you were about to get walloped by the ruler. The fascination with the gritty roughness of the blues, cause it wasn’t some syrupy hymn written before even the Penguin was born.
He’d almost pulled the car over in shock when he’d reflexively thrown the cigarette lighter out the window. First, because Jake used to do the same thing on every car they’d had since Elwood was 17. And second, because he recognized that tone in his voice - the one Curtis had used to use on them. Curtis was like their dad, and there was no fuckin’ way he was going to start acting like Buster’s.
But the stupid little shit had weaseled his way into Elwood’s life but good. He’d brought back the suits from Sam’s, and the look on the kid’s face when he found out that he actually had new clothes was really fuckin’ familiar.
Seems the Penguin hadn’t relaxed her rule on clothing since he and Jake had left - you got two sets of whatever happened to fit you that week, and you had to put them back in the pile when you were done. He and Jake had gotten used to sharing clothes they either stole or bought with their own money, cause it meant nobody else at the orphanage had worn them.
They’d had to learn what it was like to keep something, ‘stead of having it taken away from you.
Nothin’ belonged to you at St. Helen’s. Hell, all he and Jake had owned for the longest time were a couple of old comic books, a bottle of JD Elwood had swiped from Curtis’ stash for Jake’s 16th birthday, and a battered pair of dress shoes they switched out for their sneakers on court dates.
Should have figured Buster never owned a set of clothes in his life. Buster didn’t even have Jake to steal him sneakers from the place up the block. Didn’t have Jake to distract the nuns when he snuck in past curfew. Didn’t have Jake to tell him jokes when he was sick or keep him company in remedial math.
Elwood was lucky. He’d never thought of how bad he could’ve had it without Jake. And so yeah, he’d kind of felt bad for the kid. When Mack mentioned one time while they stopped at a drive-thru for lunch that Buster hated when it got dark, because it meant he’d have to sleep in the backseat of the car or on the floor of some shitty hotel, Elwood decided something. The kid was gonna have as much of a normal life as possible. And if it meant a little extra effort on Elwood’s part, so be it.
Jake would have laughed his ass off to see Elwood taking apart the trunk of the Bluesmobile to fit a small bed and a few drawers into it. Would have rolled his eyes and shook his head, asking Elwood if he was gonna try to fit some plumbing in for a toilet.
But he would have understood.
Cause you didn’t get through St. Helen’s without learning to appreciate a clean, warm bed and a rare moment of peace and quiet. That was the reason they’d escaped down to Curtis’ basement - no one went down there, so there was no one to make noise. A big old space heater and a rattletrap refrigerator made the only noise outside of old blues records and Curtis’ scratchy voice.
It was why they first went down there (well, also because the Penguin was after them about throwing around a baseball inside and breaking a window).
It wasn’t why they kept coming back.
They kept coming back because the old janitor knew a thing or two about loneliness and uncertainty. Knew what it was like to be unwanted. And didn’t mind schooling a couple of white hoodlums in the blues. Curtis would’ve liked Mack, but he would’ve schooled Buster.
The next night, Elwood left a note on the backseat telling Buster to open the trunk and to be careful with the tape of Robert Johnson tunes on the dresser.
~*~*~*~
IV. “He heard one call his name . . .”
“Uh, Elwood, I think we’ve got a rebellion on our hands.”
Of course. Of course they all wanted to quit. Maury’d fucked up the booking again - and what was it with having to play country-western songs on the fly? They’d had to pile into the Bluesmobile, all eleven of them, and drive the thirty-five miles past Yazoo City before breaking down. They’d gotten stuck in the middle of nowhere, and it was pretty much all Elwood’s fault. Mack was just saying what he’d known himself for the past thirty-five miles.
He couldn’t blame them, not when they were right.
Christ, why did he have to be the one in charge? All the guys were looking to him to convince them this wasn’t just some crazy mission doomed to land them right back in the joint again. Mack and Buster were looking to him to convince them they hadn’t put their faith in the wrong person. They all wanted reassurances - some kind of motivational speech to make things all better.
Elwood had always left the motivational speeches up to Jake. Because Jake could always find the right words. Nobody’d ever teased Jake about having a funny voice and sounding like a walking encyclopedia. He’d just light up a Chesterfield and talk between drags about anything in the world, his soft drawl at total odds with the rest of him. The way he talked about the music was like it was a living, breathing thing - and he didn’t stop til you saw it the way he saw it. Sometimes he didn’t even pause for breath, just driving his point home like the bass line of a good song.
Elwood? Elwood had trouble not stuttering when you asked him a question. He was no leader, and the guys knew it as well as he did. Saw the challenge in their eyes and the plea in Mack and Buster’s. Saw in everyone else’s eyes what he’d never needed to see in Jake’s.
Don’t let us down.
The problem was, he’d gotten used to letting people down, ever since he was a kid.
It had started when he was five. The Penguin had called him into her office and told him to quit hanging around Jake - that Jake would come to a bad end, and so would Elwood if he continued to be Jake’s friend. He’d quietly told the old hag to leave him alone, and went back to playing catch with Jake out in the street. The disapproving shake of her head had stayed with him, no matter how many times he threw and caught the beat-up baseball Jake weaseled out of one of the bigger kids.
She hadn’t breathed another word about it, until he sat in her office eight days ago. Said she was sorry to hear about Jake - sorry, his ass. Didn’t make her any less right.
He had let her down. Let Curtis down when he stopped writing him from the joint, mistakenly believing that Curtis didn’t want to be reminded of how much Elwood had colossally fucked up. Let Jake down, most of all. What kind of guy doesn’t know when his partner, his best friend, his brother, for Chrissakes, was dead?
It didn’t surprise him that he’d let the band down, too. He didn’t know what to tell them - just stammered something about not blaming them - and had wandered off to sit on some old hollowed-out log near the edge of the woods. Hadn’t really noticed he’d taken out his knife and was messing around with a twig he’d picked up.
They’d taught all the guys on Elwood’s block in Joliet a bit of woodcarving a few years back. He liked it. Kept his mind off things, and the rhythm was almost like countin’ the beats on a song. He’d made a whistle (sounded like Jake’s bird call when you blew it) for one of the guards, and pretty soon, he’d made a nice little bit of change making duplicates for the other guys.
“This is not being a very good mentor.”
The kid was standing there with his arms crossed, looking again to Elwood like he was supposed to have the answer to everything. Mentor? He didn’t even know what the word meant, and he didn’t really care.
But Buster just kept yammering away at him. Finally, he started listening - and nearly sliced his finger open.
“ . . . no pharmaceutical product could ever equal the rush you get when the band hits that groove. When the people are dancing and shoutin’ and swaying, and the house is rockin’ . . .”
Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ.
His words - no, Jake’s words that Elwood had repeated half in joke to Willie - coming from Buster. The kid had ditched the sarcasm, and his voice was filled with honest-to-God conviction. Like he actually knew the truth in what he was saying, and shit, Elwood supposed the kid did, after the stunt he’d pulled at the Cynthiana gig.
Both him and Mack had asked, cajoled, and finally threatened Buster to stay in the back of the stage with Murph and Willie, in case Cab and the cops showed up and bullets started flying. And what did the little shit do?
Walked to the front of the stage, dug right into Elwood’s briefcase, hooked up his harp, and tore into the solo from “Riders”.
Elwood and Mack had wondered where the hell the sound was coming from, and finally looked down in disbelief. Buster was ignoring them both, and doing a fairly decent job on the song. Losing some of the slides and quick staccatos cause he couldn’t hold his breath for too long, but nailing the pitch on each note.
Elwood had to smile when the kid hit the final slide. Didn’t stop him from grabbing the harp and briefcase from Buster when the song ended and stashing it next to the front seat of the Bluesmobile. Kid needed to keep his grubby paws to himself - and maybe Elwood would think about getting him his own harp.
But the kid had a taste for the spotlight now.
“The music, man. You know you’d miss the music.”
Elwood supposed he had the same problem. Couldn’t just walk away. Couldn’t keep going the way he was. And no Jake to fight his battles for him.
He got up, went back over to the boys, and let loose with everything he’d kept locked inside for eighteen years. All the big words and ideals he’d learned reading the encyclopedias in the prison library. All the names of the great blues artists who’d come before him, the guys he and Jake had grown up listening to. Everything he’d come to despise about the music trends over the past decade.
Everything the guys would be giving up, should they walk away now.
And when he was done, he turned around and started walking toward Louisiana, his new brothers in blues by his side.
~*~*~*~
I. Taj Mahal, “John the Revelator”.
II. Elwood (Dan Aykroyd), to Willie Hall about the band; later Buster (J. Evan Bonifant) to Elwood.
III. Paul Butterfield Blues Band, “Born in Chicago”.
IV. Blues Brothers Band, “Riders in the Sky”.
Feedback is, as always, loved and hugged and squeezed and called George.
Author: Drea (bluerosefairy/d_generate_girl)
Rating: Borderline R. Because no matter what the MPAA thinks, there’s got to be foul language in this, seeing as Elwood has a fuckin’ problem with watching his fuckin’ language.
Fandom/Pairing: The Blues Brothers. Fairly gen, though sure, you could read certain bits as slash. I do.
Disclaimer: Do I look like John Landis? Does my bank account resemble Dan Aykroyd’s? Is my last name Belushi? No? Then I don’t own Jake or Elwood. Don’t own any of the songs referenced either - they belong to their original artists. No, really, nothing but love for everyone who owns this stuff. Don't sue.
Spoilers: Major spoilers for both movies - “The Blues Brothers” and “Blues Brothers 2000”
Notes: This is the very long-time-in-coming result of converting swirl_girlx into a fellow Blues Sister. The more-svelte Jake to my more-vocal Elwood, we’ve been on a mission from God ever since. She’s confirmed the fact that no, people will not sell you their children, no matter how many times you ask or how harmless (read: adorable) you look. And for mack_and_mabel, who not only wanted to read this, but beta’d it like nobody’s business. She’s to blame for my idea of how Jake really went out, as well as Sam Borstein. Miss you, chica!
Summary: The thoughts of one Elwood J. Blues, eighteen years after his original mission from God. About the band that’s been his whole life, the kid he has no idea what to do with, and most of all, the brother he never should have had.
Elwood: It’s a hundred and six miles to Chicago. We’ve got a full tank of gas, half a packet of cigarettes, it’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses.
Jake: Hit it.
- from the original motion picture, “The Blues Brothers”
I. “And three He lead away . . .”
It didn’t hit him until later.
Wasn’t when he got out of the joint, or during that long night by the side of the road. Wasn’t when he went to see the Penguin, or when he left with the stupid kid she’d saddled him with. Wasn’t even when he got to Willie’s, and after a short conversation, his old drummer took one look at him and shoved him toward the pullout couch in the office, telling him to “get some fuckin’ sleep”.
No, it was when the place was black and shut up, empty of beer-swilling perverts or girls for them to ogle. It was when Elwood was lying on the pullout, trying out a tape of B.B. King tunes in a borrowed player and earphones to drown out the kid‘s television-watching. Christ, they’d always loved B.B. King, singing along to the one LP Duck managed to sneak into the slammer. During “When My Heart Beats Like a Hammer”, Jake would always mug through the line about not meaning a woman any harm and crack the place up. And he realized it then.
Jake was dead.
Jake wouldn’t be throwing himself in front of crazy chicks with flamethrowers. He wouldn’t be playing air drums or chain-smoking his way through record after record, throwing out the ones he didn’t like no matter how much money he’d spent on them. He wouldn’t be sitting shotgun in the Bluesmobile, yelling at Elwood for driving too fast and calling him “motorhead”.
He was just gone.
He’d heard the warden’s words, but they just didn’t mean anything. And come on, how screwy was that - old Ozkerwitz from the property room making warden? Jake would have laughed himself sick to see it. And as terrible as he felt about it, Elwood almost laughed himself sick when Willie told him how Jake had gone out - one too many Orange Whips at a bar, tried to hitch a ride with a trucker (because the idiot had never bothered to learn how to drive), and fell off the back somewhere around Highway 61 and the Missouri city limits.
And Jake wasn’t the only one. Curtis was dead, too. The guy who taught Jake and Elwood everything they knew about the blues, down in that musty old basement with his beat-up guitar and secondhand harp. The guy who really took care of all the kids who came through St. Helen’s, playing them Elmore James and Willie Dixon records. The guy who everyone in the old neighborhood knew on sight, cause of his original black suit and glasses. Shit, man - Curtis, who was shot point-blank in the chest by some of the same hoodlums he’d watched grow up.
Curtis was old, but he wasn’t stupid. And he threw a damn good left hook. But that meant jack shit to the gangs around Calumet City, the street kids who wanted to prove they were just as tough as any Chicago kid. The little shits who acted the same way Jake could’ve ended up, if he hadn’t had Curtis and Elwood to steer him straight, and blues tunes to belt out his anger and fear to.
Even Mercer was gone, the overgrown ape. Jake’s parole officer, who liked Jake and Elwood despite their felonious past. Elwood still remembered him waving to them from the balcony of the Palace Hotel Ballroom, in his three-piece light blue suit. He was a sharp-dressing cat who snuck them Robert Johnson and Memphis Slim records every time he came to Joliet. Elwood would’ve been happier with his harp (which Cropper slid him a year later on his way out), but Jake just whined that he’d keep him up all night playing it.
And what Jake wanted, Jake usually got. He didn’t know how Jake managed it - a corner cell, with a record player and a window, for just Elwood and him. That was Jake for you, though. He knew everyone in the Illinois penal system, and was owed a favor or two by most of them.
There was a reason they called him “Joliet” Jake Blues.
Out in Chicago and back home in Calumet City, they knew Jake as “Elwood’s brother, Jake”. Not in the joint. In there, he was “Jake’s brother, Elwood”, and it only took one mention of Jake’s name to make sure no one laid a hand on his kid brother. Jake’s influence went so far that even when he got out eight years later (Elwood had the longer record, and got 20 years cause he was the driver of the car), they let Elwood keep the corner cell till the day he was paroled.
He’d halfway figured something had happened to Jake when the letters stopped coming. But he’d convinced himself that it was because Jake had hit it big, and started touring the world like they’d always said they would. In his mind, Jake (sometimes with the band, sometimes by himself) was singing to a packed house every night, cartwheeling and jiving to the intro to “Can’t Turn You Loose”. Jake would try to imitate Elwood’s patter, and not quite get it, but it didn’t matter, because Jake made you smile whatever he did.
Jake was the schemer. He was the cocky, devil-may-care, talented as hell lead singer, who you couldn’t help but love. Elwood was the dreamer. The half-assed harp player, background vocalist, and getaway driver who made you laugh despite himself.
Given the choice, he would’ve told God to take him instead of Jake. Because who could honestly see Elwood as the frontman of the Blues Brothers? Without Jake, he and the band were just a bunch of fairly-talented nobodies who couldn’t sing a note of any of the stuff they played. Without Jake, there was no one to tie the songs together and make people listen to them. Without Jake, Elwood’s voice was too deep, untempered and unpolished.
Without Jake, who was Elwood supposed to dance with?
~*~*~*~
II. “Man, you know you’d miss the music . . .”
He had just been bullshitting Cab when he told him about the band and offered to let him join.
Sure, the guy was Curtis’ son, but a police commander? In the Blues Brothers? Jake would have slapped him senseless and reminded him that his record was longer than most Dylan songs and maybe Cab might disapprove of recently paroled felons. Sides, all he’d really wanted was the cash to pay for the new Bluesmobile, and the kid had taken care of that for him.
Not half bad at lifting wallets, but annoying as hell to drive with.
Stupid kid hadn’t shut up the entire ride to Willie‘s, asking questions about who Cab and Curtis were, why the band had split up, and why he couldn’t drive a normal car. He’d told the kid to ask Willie about the band (Willie wouldn‘t say nothin‘ about it anyway), and wouldn’t answer the other questions about Cab and Curtis. And he drove the fuckin’ car because it was the new Bluesmobile and it topped out at 160 mph on regular gas.
He should’ve known it would come up. The kid was rummaging through Elwood’s tapes, pulling out the ones labeled “me and Jake” and pestering him about “who the hell is Jake?”. He’d finally caved, and let the kid stick one in the player - Joliet Penitentiary, October 12th, 1981. Their first gig after they got locked in the slammer, and Jesus, why‘d it have to be that one?
“Jailhouse Rock” started blaring out of the speakers, and Elwood couldn’t stop his wince when Jake’s growl (warden threw a party in the county jail, prison band was there and they began to wail) kicked it all off.
And the kid started in on his questions again. Why’d you go to jail? Who’s Jake? What happened to the band? And Elwood snapped. Ripped the tape outta the deck, tossed it to the backseat, and tuned the radio to the most obnoxious rap station he could find and pretended not to hear the anklebiter’s whining.
He was fuckin’ sick of everything, anyway.
Elwood had planned to just go back to the aerosol factory, but Willie’d offered him a position, emceeing and providing a little onstage security for the club. The girls were pretty good at keeping the customers off them, but he could spot trouble where the bouncers couldn’t. He’d taken it, on the condition that he didn‘t have to sing. He knew it could never match up to performing with Jake and the band, anyway.
He was all set, until Sandra caught him riffing a little on the harp with Junior and Lonnie before the club opened one day. She’d begged and pleaded for him to sing a number - this Taj Mahal song that she sometimes used. One that Jake had used to belt out while they were on the road together.
He was a sucker for a pair of big brown eyes. Always had been. And as soon as he got up onstage, and started the song, throwing a little drawl on the chorus like Jake used to (she left me a mule to ride, the train pulled out, I swung on behind), he forgot it was supposed to be just a one-time thing.
He started imitating Jake - swinging around the pole to tip his hat to Carla, winking at Sandra on the line about coming down to see him sometime, kicking on the “hey, hey, hey”. Then he broke out his harp for the solo, though it had been a while since he’d played that particular song and he was a little flat.
And holy shit. Not only were the customers clapping and whistling (and actually paying attention to the song), but the kid was as well. He’d come down the stairs from the office to hear what the fuss was about, and he’d been completely ignoring the strippers in favor of tapping his foot to the beat. His face was frozen in an expression of jaw-dropping dawning comprehension mixed with shock.
Like he’d been hit by lightning and wanted to try it again.
Elwood knew the kid’s expression well - he used to see it on Jake’s face every time his brother found a new song to add to their repertoire. Right before Jake would sit down and listen to the record over and over to get the vocals down and figure out places where they might be able to add a few dance steps.
As he finished up the number, he slipped to the back of the stage, completely ignoring the cheers. He almost didn’t remember descending the steps, or handing the microphone back to one of the bouncers. Willie was standing there at the bottom of the steps, slowly nodding his head.
“Missed the music, huh, man?”
Elwood couldn’t explain it - it was like someone had lit a firecracker in him. He felt like he was about to start jittering and jiving, like Jake had done in that church when Reverend Cleophus asked him if he’d seen the light. Elwood had not only seen the goddamn light, he’d found God, the Devil, Buddha, and the Easter Bunny as well. Shit, this was what he missed! That rush he got when the horn section hit “Can’t Turn You Loose”, and he walked out with his briefcase and handcuffs. It was like flying, flipping, fucking, and falling all at once, and he couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t just bullshit - he could still fuckin’ do this!
“I wanna sing, Willie. I’ll make up the extra shifts, but man, you gotta let me do a whole set with the band.”
Willie just smiled, threw up his hands, and said “Aw, shit. Here we go again.”
He started doing set after set with Junior and Lonnie that week, falling back into his old performance gags - the briefcase (he‘d given the handcuffs to Jake when he got out of the joint, and he didn’t know where the hell they’d gotten to when Jake died), the patter before each song, even just screwing around on his harp when there was no harp solo to be found in the song. He liked Junior and Lonnie - they were good guys, real fellow Chicago bluesmen - but he couldn’t help thinking about the band.
How good Matt’s signature guitar would sound under “Looking for a Fox”. How surprising a singer Mack was, and wondering what he’d make of “Soul Man”. How Murph and Mr. Fabulous would have kicked up the bridge of “Cheaper to Keep Her” a little more.
It fell completely into place when Buster came up to him one night after a set, holding out Elwood’s battered silver Marine Band harp and asking Elwood to teach him to play.
~*~*~*~
III. “Only one thing I can say about that boy . . .”
It wasn’t the suit that made you a part of the Blues Brothers. It wasn’t the car, or the shades, or the hat. They helped, but they weren’t the defining factor of the Blues Brothers. Having them would mark you as a Blues Brother, but it wasn’t what mattered.
It was the music - always the music - and the brotherhood.
And sometimes the brotherhood bit pissed him off. Elwood supposed he was too used to it being just him and Jake in the Bluesmobile, but every time they set off to find another band member, it seemed to get louder. Mack and Buster chattering about being on the road. Mack and Buster making fun of Elwood’s singing. Mack asking too many questions about what the band was like back in the day. Buster asking too many questions about Jake and Cab and Curtis.
He didn’t know when he’d stopped thinking of Buster as “the kid” and started thinking of him as “Buster”. It might have been while teaching him how to blow the harp. Might have been when they stopped to buy the suits, hats, and glasses for Mack and Buster. Mack had been uncomfortable - he was a jeans-and-t-shirts kind of guy - and kind of shocked at how respectable he looked in the tailored suit.
Elwood wasn’t. Sam did good work.
He’d discovered Sam Borstein (who actually was a Hasidic diamond merchant on the side) back when he‘d lived a block over from the Plymouth, and had been going to him for his suits ever since he was old enough to wear one. Usually had him make two - the other one a size up in the pants, but the same sized jacket for Jake - and the order for three vastly differently-sized suits confused the hell outta him. Sam had been taken aback even more when Elwood gave him Buster’s measurements, asking him the now-familiar question of “this your son?”.
No, the kid was not his, thank you very much, but it got Elwood thinking. He’d almost forgotten Buster was a St. Helen’s orphan, like he and Jake had been. He shouldn’t have been so shocked to see the same behaviors repeating themselves in Buster. Smoking Chesterfields cause the coughing fits they induced got you out of catechism. The reflexive wince when you cursed, thinking you were about to get walloped by the ruler. The fascination with the gritty roughness of the blues, cause it wasn’t some syrupy hymn written before even the Penguin was born.
He’d almost pulled the car over in shock when he’d reflexively thrown the cigarette lighter out the window. First, because Jake used to do the same thing on every car they’d had since Elwood was 17. And second, because he recognized that tone in his voice - the one Curtis had used to use on them. Curtis was like their dad, and there was no fuckin’ way he was going to start acting like Buster’s.
But the stupid little shit had weaseled his way into Elwood’s life but good. He’d brought back the suits from Sam’s, and the look on the kid’s face when he found out that he actually had new clothes was really fuckin’ familiar.
Seems the Penguin hadn’t relaxed her rule on clothing since he and Jake had left - you got two sets of whatever happened to fit you that week, and you had to put them back in the pile when you were done. He and Jake had gotten used to sharing clothes they either stole or bought with their own money, cause it meant nobody else at the orphanage had worn them.
They’d had to learn what it was like to keep something, ‘stead of having it taken away from you.
Nothin’ belonged to you at St. Helen’s. Hell, all he and Jake had owned for the longest time were a couple of old comic books, a bottle of JD Elwood had swiped from Curtis’ stash for Jake’s 16th birthday, and a battered pair of dress shoes they switched out for their sneakers on court dates.
Should have figured Buster never owned a set of clothes in his life. Buster didn’t even have Jake to steal him sneakers from the place up the block. Didn’t have Jake to distract the nuns when he snuck in past curfew. Didn’t have Jake to tell him jokes when he was sick or keep him company in remedial math.
Elwood was lucky. He’d never thought of how bad he could’ve had it without Jake. And so yeah, he’d kind of felt bad for the kid. When Mack mentioned one time while they stopped at a drive-thru for lunch that Buster hated when it got dark, because it meant he’d have to sleep in the backseat of the car or on the floor of some shitty hotel, Elwood decided something. The kid was gonna have as much of a normal life as possible. And if it meant a little extra effort on Elwood’s part, so be it.
Jake would have laughed his ass off to see Elwood taking apart the trunk of the Bluesmobile to fit a small bed and a few drawers into it. Would have rolled his eyes and shook his head, asking Elwood if he was gonna try to fit some plumbing in for a toilet.
But he would have understood.
Cause you didn’t get through St. Helen’s without learning to appreciate a clean, warm bed and a rare moment of peace and quiet. That was the reason they’d escaped down to Curtis’ basement - no one went down there, so there was no one to make noise. A big old space heater and a rattletrap refrigerator made the only noise outside of old blues records and Curtis’ scratchy voice.
It was why they first went down there (well, also because the Penguin was after them about throwing around a baseball inside and breaking a window).
It wasn’t why they kept coming back.
They kept coming back because the old janitor knew a thing or two about loneliness and uncertainty. Knew what it was like to be unwanted. And didn’t mind schooling a couple of white hoodlums in the blues. Curtis would’ve liked Mack, but he would’ve schooled Buster.
The next night, Elwood left a note on the backseat telling Buster to open the trunk and to be careful with the tape of Robert Johnson tunes on the dresser.
~*~*~*~
IV. “He heard one call his name . . .”
“Uh, Elwood, I think we’ve got a rebellion on our hands.”
Of course. Of course they all wanted to quit. Maury’d fucked up the booking again - and what was it with having to play country-western songs on the fly? They’d had to pile into the Bluesmobile, all eleven of them, and drive the thirty-five miles past Yazoo City before breaking down. They’d gotten stuck in the middle of nowhere, and it was pretty much all Elwood’s fault. Mack was just saying what he’d known himself for the past thirty-five miles.
He couldn’t blame them, not when they were right.
Christ, why did he have to be the one in charge? All the guys were looking to him to convince them this wasn’t just some crazy mission doomed to land them right back in the joint again. Mack and Buster were looking to him to convince them they hadn’t put their faith in the wrong person. They all wanted reassurances - some kind of motivational speech to make things all better.
Elwood had always left the motivational speeches up to Jake. Because Jake could always find the right words. Nobody’d ever teased Jake about having a funny voice and sounding like a walking encyclopedia. He’d just light up a Chesterfield and talk between drags about anything in the world, his soft drawl at total odds with the rest of him. The way he talked about the music was like it was a living, breathing thing - and he didn’t stop til you saw it the way he saw it. Sometimes he didn’t even pause for breath, just driving his point home like the bass line of a good song.
Elwood? Elwood had trouble not stuttering when you asked him a question. He was no leader, and the guys knew it as well as he did. Saw the challenge in their eyes and the plea in Mack and Buster’s. Saw in everyone else’s eyes what he’d never needed to see in Jake’s.
Don’t let us down.
The problem was, he’d gotten used to letting people down, ever since he was a kid.
It had started when he was five. The Penguin had called him into her office and told him to quit hanging around Jake - that Jake would come to a bad end, and so would Elwood if he continued to be Jake’s friend. He’d quietly told the old hag to leave him alone, and went back to playing catch with Jake out in the street. The disapproving shake of her head had stayed with him, no matter how many times he threw and caught the beat-up baseball Jake weaseled out of one of the bigger kids.
She hadn’t breathed another word about it, until he sat in her office eight days ago. Said she was sorry to hear about Jake - sorry, his ass. Didn’t make her any less right.
He had let her down. Let Curtis down when he stopped writing him from the joint, mistakenly believing that Curtis didn’t want to be reminded of how much Elwood had colossally fucked up. Let Jake down, most of all. What kind of guy doesn’t know when his partner, his best friend, his brother, for Chrissakes, was dead?
It didn’t surprise him that he’d let the band down, too. He didn’t know what to tell them - just stammered something about not blaming them - and had wandered off to sit on some old hollowed-out log near the edge of the woods. Hadn’t really noticed he’d taken out his knife and was messing around with a twig he’d picked up.
They’d taught all the guys on Elwood’s block in Joliet a bit of woodcarving a few years back. He liked it. Kept his mind off things, and the rhythm was almost like countin’ the beats on a song. He’d made a whistle (sounded like Jake’s bird call when you blew it) for one of the guards, and pretty soon, he’d made a nice little bit of change making duplicates for the other guys.
“This is not being a very good mentor.”
The kid was standing there with his arms crossed, looking again to Elwood like he was supposed to have the answer to everything. Mentor? He didn’t even know what the word meant, and he didn’t really care.
But Buster just kept yammering away at him. Finally, he started listening - and nearly sliced his finger open.
“ . . . no pharmaceutical product could ever equal the rush you get when the band hits that groove. When the people are dancing and shoutin’ and swaying, and the house is rockin’ . . .”
Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ.
His words - no, Jake’s words that Elwood had repeated half in joke to Willie - coming from Buster. The kid had ditched the sarcasm, and his voice was filled with honest-to-God conviction. Like he actually knew the truth in what he was saying, and shit, Elwood supposed the kid did, after the stunt he’d pulled at the Cynthiana gig.
Both him and Mack had asked, cajoled, and finally threatened Buster to stay in the back of the stage with Murph and Willie, in case Cab and the cops showed up and bullets started flying. And what did the little shit do?
Walked to the front of the stage, dug right into Elwood’s briefcase, hooked up his harp, and tore into the solo from “Riders”.
Elwood and Mack had wondered where the hell the sound was coming from, and finally looked down in disbelief. Buster was ignoring them both, and doing a fairly decent job on the song. Losing some of the slides and quick staccatos cause he couldn’t hold his breath for too long, but nailing the pitch on each note.
Elwood had to smile when the kid hit the final slide. Didn’t stop him from grabbing the harp and briefcase from Buster when the song ended and stashing it next to the front seat of the Bluesmobile. Kid needed to keep his grubby paws to himself - and maybe Elwood would think about getting him his own harp.
But the kid had a taste for the spotlight now.
“The music, man. You know you’d miss the music.”
Elwood supposed he had the same problem. Couldn’t just walk away. Couldn’t keep going the way he was. And no Jake to fight his battles for him.
He got up, went back over to the boys, and let loose with everything he’d kept locked inside for eighteen years. All the big words and ideals he’d learned reading the encyclopedias in the prison library. All the names of the great blues artists who’d come before him, the guys he and Jake had grown up listening to. Everything he’d come to despise about the music trends over the past decade.
Everything the guys would be giving up, should they walk away now.
And when he was done, he turned around and started walking toward Louisiana, his new brothers in blues by his side.
~*~*~*~
I. Taj Mahal, “John the Revelator”.
II. Elwood (Dan Aykroyd), to Willie Hall about the band; later Buster (J. Evan Bonifant) to Elwood.
III. Paul Butterfield Blues Band, “Born in Chicago”.
IV. Blues Brothers Band, “Riders in the Sky”.
Feedback is, as always, loved and hugged and squeezed and called George.