Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.02.2006, Side 40

Not a Standard Night at the Movies:
The Októberbíó Iceland Film Festival
louder as he goes through the script, “He beat one of my balls
off.”
That I laugh proves I am both a horrible human being, and
that I can’t follow a script, as again, he was going straight from
his comic.
“Sure did. I ain’t got but one. One big one. It works. I got
26 children. Uh huh.”
“How many grandchildren do you have?” I ask, following
the script of the Jay McInerney interview I read years ago in the
New Yorker.
“I can’t tell you that, they’ll all want to get paid. Heh heh
heh. Yeah.”
T-Model has a great bunch of lines, but I have read them
all, and my frustration is obvious—even blues standards are
supposed to have some improvisation.
I mention Roger Stolle, and T-Model smiles. “Roger knows
all about T-Model. He’s gonna bring me something to drink
tonight.”
“Roger told me that you had some stories, that all you told
were stories he could not repeat or write down. I can tell you
that anything you want to say, I’ll print in my magazine,” I tell
him.
“Yeah, I know you will.”
“Anything you want to tell me.”
“Oh you’re talking to a man. I ain’t no boy. Everybody like
this old man. Everywhere I been and went to everybody got
something nice to say about this old man.”
I return to the old script and ask something like the story
McInerney asked. “Where have you been since Fat Possum put
out your records?”
“Yeah. Whew, I been all over the world. All over. Overseas.
Everywhere. I probably got married overseas about nine years
ago. To a white woman. My first time. She’s waiting for me.
She’s still waiting for me.”
T-Model is in his comfort zone, and he takes his first sip
of corn liquor of the night. He hands it over to me, and I take a
sip, feeling it immediately in my eyes and the back of my head.
He waits. I wait.
We’re supposed to talk about women, now. Every interview
I’ve seen has references to T-Model “riding em hard,” or to how
his 80-year old member “can still raise” with the right woman. I
say nothing, and I notice that he’s wincing.
“Whew. It’s hot in here. I gotta stand. Ah my leg’s
all messed up. A tree done fell on me. Thank the lord I’m
still living. If he’d have let that transformer short out, that
would have left me. That tree was that big (shows girth of 30
centimetres with his hands). Tree got knocked over in a heavy
wind and landed right on me. About five years ago.”
“And you keep on touring? Didn’t you drive three hours just
to play tonight?”
“Yeah. I ain’t quit.”
“I would take a break if a tree landed on me.”
“I’m a man, not a boy.”
I acknowledge that he is a man, not a boy. And point out
that as I would not tour after a tree landed on me, I am a boy.
“Feel my hands,” he says suddenly.
“Yeah, I saw you doing this to that woman. I thought it was
just a pick up line.”
He keeps them out.
“Well… Okay,” and I reach out and his right hand. The
size of a skillet, it is the exact texture of a former girlfriend’s
grandmother’s cheek. I also had to touch that person’s skin to
acknowledge how smooth it was.
“Well, you don’t seem like you’ve ever worked. They’re
so smooth. I thought you said you worked since you were six.
That’s 77 years of hard labour.”
“Well, you take care. Don’t be ramming em into things.
Scarring em up.” T-Model leans close to me, “I keep em like
that so when I feel a woman’s titties I don’t scratch em. Ain’t no
bunions or nothing on them. That’s my pickin hand right there.
It’s all soft. Ain’t nobody else’s hand that soft.”
T-Model’s eyes glaze over a little. He looks towards his
Fender amp and puts his hand on his leg.
“Let me get over there and get me a stool and let Black
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