"What's up man?" I asked.
"I don't know," he said. "I've just got a feeling."
"Like what kind of feeling?"
"Crossroads," he said.
What's that mean?
"There was this blues dude -- Robert Johnson--got to the crossroads, met the devil, and they struck up a deal. Sold his soul to the devil for some guitar licks."
"Yeah?"
Jonesy stood up and tucked the Bible under his arm. "I'm just wondering if I need to strike me up a deal," he said.
From Sunrise over Fallujah by Walter Dean Myers, Scholastic Press, 2008, page 28.
I have been running into the folklore of Johnson and his meeting with the devil at the crossroads quite frequently lately, particularly in the research I did for Stories from Songs. Possibly the most interesting contemporary reworking of this legend can be found in the manga Me and the Devil Blues: The Unreal Life of Robert Johnson, Volume 1 by Akira Hiramoto (Del Rey, 2005, English translation by David Ury, 2008). Highly recommended.
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