Rollins - Black Coffee Blues, Part 1

Table of Contents

Thanks: Stan, Gary I, Joe Cole, Mitch Bury of Adams Mass

JOE COLE: 4.10.61-12.19.91

I started work on Black Coffee Blues in the late eighties. I wanted to make a book that would be great to have along with you on a long trip. If you were stuck in some moving vehicle, far away from familiar surroundings, this book would come to your rescue.

I am fascinated by the effect exhaustion has on me. Ever since I started touring in 1981, sleep has been an elusive and much sought after quantity. I wanted to collect writing from the ends of tours when I was hammered by fatigue. When I am exhausted and overworked, I tend to drop my defenses and let it rip. I thought that other people might find themselves at this point too, no matter where they might be, and that this book would do the trick.

Living on the road can be a hollowing experience. The scenery is constantly moving and loneliness can be a hell hound on your trail. Alienation and isolation have followed me my whole life. I cant think I am the only one out there that feels this way.

Writing, music and speaking dates are for the most part the way I communicate with people. Its from the written word that I can speak to you with the most clarity and unguarded honesty. It is the medium I prefer over the rest. In my opinion, it is silent communication and unknown acknowledgment that is best. Like when two people at a record store are both looking through the John Coltrane section and they nod and smile at each other. If that instance could be a language, it would be the one I try to speak every time I write.

This book and Do I Come Here Often? (Black Coffee Blues Part II), are my attempts to do for you what Henry Millers Black Spring did for me ever since I first read it many years ago. I rarely went on the road without one of Millers books in my backpack. A man I never met kept me company and became my traveling companion and friend.

In my mind I am always moving. When I am sitting on an airplane I am thinking about a place I have not been for a while. When in the farthest reaches, I think of the streets I grew up on.

For me, this book is like the letter you write to someone that you regret sending seconds after it falls into the post box because it is so honest and revealing that you are mortified by the thought of having it read. Even though you mean every word of it, sometimes you can mean it too much. Its conversations you have with yourself about how you would deal with having the person who dropped you walk into the room at that moment. Its walking late at night in the summer, listening to the insect choir and smelling the trees. These are the voices that I hope speak to you in this book.

#1: I got a letter from a girl today. She told me how she had talked to me at a show and that I was really nice to her. She said that she was really let down. She was hoping that I would be a mean son of a bitch. Next time I see her Ill kick her ass so shell cheer up.

#2: I got three letters today telling me that Im God. Why cant I pay the rent?

#3: He wrote me. Hes doing twenty-seven to life. He wants to know if I can send him something to read so he can pass the time.

#4: She wants to fuck me. She knows I get letters like this all the time. She knows what she wants. Its me and she wants me to hurry up and get to her town.

#5: She wants to kill herself. She wants to tell me all about it. She has been considering a few different methods and would like to know what I think of them. She likes my work and respects my opinion. She wants me to select the method I find the most fitting and shell go for it that way. She says that it would be an honor to be dispatched by me. I told her to go die... of old age.

#6: He doesnt get along with anyone. He doesnt fit in anywhere. I mean nowhere. Everybody hates him. Maybe everybody in the whole world. For a kid from the Midwest, he sure gets around.

#7: She hates guys. She says they have their brains in their cocks. She says that she can tell that I am different. Im going over to her house tonight to sell her the Brooklyn Bridge.

#8: His name on the streets is Crazy B. Hes wanted on charges in connection with a homicide case in which five people were shot in the head execution style. He is considered armed and dangerous.

#9: He went to work. His boss got in his face because he was latethird time this week. One more time and he would be fired. He pulled out a gun and put five shots into his boss guts. He walked out the backdoor and into the sunlight. It was going to be a great day.

#10: She was a junkie. She told her friends that she was going to get out of it soon. One night she went home and took too much. She died on her kitchen floor.

#11: She had a lot going against her. She was old. She lived alone in a high crime area. She kept a gun that her late husband had given her and taught her how to use as he was gone a lot on business. One night a man broke into her house and came into her room. She shot the man three times in the chest. She called the police. They came an hour later and took her name. They told her that she was a good shot. An ambulance came and took the stiff away.

#12: He came home from work and shot himself in the head.

#13: For years she wanted to die. She never told anybody. It seemed like anything she said prompted her husband to hit her. She had three kids. One of them was retarded. One of the other children tried to fix its face by burning its cheek with a screwdriver held over the stove. Her husband rarely worked. She had to bring home the familys money. One day she was walking to work and got hit by a car.

#14: She couldnt handle her parents. Her father used to feel her up. She lost count of how many times he had grabbed her breasts. As the years went by, he grew more bold. It was impossible for her to have any kind of relationship with a boy. Whenever it got too far along, she would see her father in the boys face and start to cry. She couldnt tell anyone. Like anybody really wants to hear about how your father licks your throat while he rubs his fingers between your legs. Like some guy wants to hear that when hes trying to do the same thing. She graduated from high school and left her parents. You should have seen her leave them. It was magnificent, stunning. Outstanding in every way. Her father couldnt believe it. She told them that she was never going to see them again. Her father yelled at her as she walked down the driveway that she would be back. She never came back. She moved to a big city, made a shitload of money, had a great life and never saw her parents again.

#15: He was from the Midwest. He got drafted in 1968. He was shot and killed in the jungles of Vietnam.

#16: He was a from a middle class home. He was an average student. He graduated and got an average job in the same place that his father worked. He got married to a girl that he went to school with. Together they had two children that looked like two children. He lived the average life of the average middle American.