Читать книгу Magic City Gospel - Ashley M. Jones - Страница 8

(I’M BLUE) THE GONG GONG SONG, OR, AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL

Ike Turner sailed the ocean blue in nineteen hundred sixty-two.

Brown baby boy with a guitar for a ship—the treble clef shining black as a sail. Ike, make like a sailor and break the waves of water, waves of sound.

On the horizon, amber waves of Anna Mae. The plump promise of fruit in her dark Tennessee body. Nutbush woman, wild with the blues, Ike dreams of you feverishly. That big, wailing mouth. Those legs—shotguns waiting to be loaded up with bullet beats. Ike imagines the way they would feel in his hands, the click of a calf, the smooth, ample ankle. Anna Mae is much softer than she looks from far away. Easier to press a thumb, a fist, into.

What good is an explorer if he doesn’t keep his discoveries down? Ike Turner gave you a name, America. It alliterated and it sold them records, baby. Tina Turner, baby. He found you, baby. He made you live.

When he speaks, you will listen:

“I brought you in this world and I can take you out. Bit by glistening bit. You would have gotten hit with something, anyway—smallpox would have made it over the ocean without me. I built your immunity, baby. Thank me for your scars. Doesn’t matter what you call me, I made you sing. From my mouth comes gold.

Tell me you can hear a jukebox playing ‘Proud Mary’ without something buckling in your highbrow hips. Tell me something doesn’t stir you to gyrate to ‘The Gong Gong Song.’ I’m ringing your bell. I’m making you dance. You ain’t got to love me, baby, but you better know who I am.

I’m Red, White, and Blue. Shoo Bay Do Bay Do Bay Do.”