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Praise
“Sheree Renée Thomas gives us a whirlpool of poem and story, a ‘wild and strangeful breed’ of cosmology that maps each star from Machu Picchu to Congo Square, from Legba to Medusa.”
—Tyehimba Jess, author of Olio, winner 2017 Pulitzer Prize
“Through the lyrical lens of Thomas, this extraordinary collection carries us into the ancient, past and future of cosmic beings and humans enhanced by power inherited or genetic engineering. Filled with mesmerizing stories of a mysterious hole swallowing a town, night’s refusal to lift over a river city, mutating water, hunger for Freedom, downloaded souls, music, music, music and so much more. An amazing book worthy of re-reading.”
—Linda D. Addison, author of How to Recognize a Demon Has Become Your Friend, recipient of the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award
“Nine Bar Blues is a song of deep folklore and apocalyptic myth. Here in these pages are women seized with second sight. There is loss and longing, days without sun and nights without dream…the balm of music and unfathomable magic.”
—Sandra Jackson-Opoku, author of The River Where Blood is Born, winner American Library Association’s Best Fiction of the Year Award
“Sheree Renee Thomas continues to demonstrate why she is one of the preeminent voices, a true griot, of the Black Speculative Tradition. With her well-crafted stories, her latest offering, Nine Bar Blues: Stories from an Ancient Future, will join the great tradition and pantheon of writers such as Walter Mosley’s Futureland and Jewelle Gomez’s The Gilda Stories.
—Reynaldo Anderson, co-founder of the Black Speculative Arts Movement
“Nine Bar Blues is a wondrous, musical delight. There’s a transporting magic in every story, no, every page of this book. Be prepared to be stunned and to feel joy in equal measure.”
—Rion Amilcar Scott, author of Insurrections, winner 2017 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize
Copyright © 2020 by Sheree Renée Thomas
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews.
For more information:
Third Man Books, LLC, 623 7th Ave S, Nashville, Tennessee 37203
A CIP record is on file with the Library of Congress
FIRST USA EDITION
For more about the book: http://thirdmanbooks.com/ninebarblues password: thomas
ISBN: 978-0-9974578-9-6
Design and layout by Caitlin Parker
STORIES
Aunt Dissy’s Policy Dream Book
The Parts That Make Us Monsters
Who Needs the Stars If the Full Moon Loves You?
Shanequa’s Blues–or Another Shotgun Lullaby
Madame and the Map: A Journey in Five Movements
Origins of Southern Spirit Music
Space music’d be really something …
but they don’t have no gravity up there.You couldn’t have no downbeat!
Miles Davis
The whole of life itself expresses the blues…in words and songinspiration, feeling, and understanding.The blues can be about anything pertaining to the facts of life.The blues call on God as much as a spiritual song do.
Willie Dixon
The funk is its own reward. George Clinton
ANCESTRIES
In the beginning were the ancestors, gods of earth who breathed the air and walked in flesh. Their backs were straight and their temples tall. We carved the ancestors from the scented wood, before the fire and the poison water took them, too. We rubbed ebony-stained oil on their braided hair and placed them on the altars with the first harvest, the nuts and the fresh fruit. None would eat before the ancestors were fed, for it was through their blood and toil we emerged from the dark sea to be.
But that was then, and this is now, and we are another tale.
It begins as all stories must, with an ending. My story begins when my world ended, the day my sister shoved me into the ancestors’ altar. That morning, one sun before Oma Day, my bare heels slipped in bright gold and orange paste. Sorcadia blossoms lay flattened, their juicy red centers already drying on the ground. The air in my lungs disappeared. Struggling to breathe, I pressed my palm over the spoiled flowers, as if I could hide the damage. Before Yera could cover her smile, the younger children came.
“Fele, Fele,” they cried and backed away, “the ancient ones will claim you!” Their voices were filled with derision but their eyes held something else, something close to fear.
“Claim her?” Yera threw her head back, the fishtail braid snaking down the hollow of her back, a dark slick eel. “She is not worthy,” she said to the children, and turned her eyes on them. They scattered like chickens. Shrill laughter made the sorcadia plants dance. A dark witness, the fat purple vines and shoots twisted and undulated above me. I bowed my head. Even the plants took part in my shame.
“And I don’t need you, shadow,” Yera said, turning to me, her face a brighter, crooked reflection of my own. “You are just a spare.” A spare.
Only a few breaths older than me, Yera, my twin, has hated me since before birth.
Our oma says even in the womb, my sister fought me, that our mother’s labors were so long because Yera held me fast, her tiny fingers clasped around my throat, as if to stop the breath I had yet to take. The origin of her disdain is a mystery, a blessing unrevealed. All