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"The World Don't Owe Me Nothing"
by Honeyboy Edwards
p. 102 - 104:

"Now this guy that Robert was working for, he had a wife. A nice-made woman, nice-looking, brownskin. Robert was rooming with some people over in Baptist Town behind a little old fire station, near where my sister had got killed at. He had a little room in a house over there, at Pelican and Young, for around three dollars a week. And what happened, Robert was whorish. All musicians like women to some extent, but you're not supposed to get too crazy about them. But he was whorish and this man had this good-looking wife, chocolate brown and hair way down to her ass, mixed up with Indian a little some. And she had a sister lived out in Greenwood, near where Robert was rooming at, and every Monday she had to go to see her sister. And would lay up with him all day. She kept doing that every Monday. Th man thought, "You go see your sister every Monday." And someone, his friends, whispered, "She layin' back there with Robert." Robert should have left her alone – he would have lived longer.

When I come back to the Delta, Robert was playing for the same man. And one Saturday a bunch of us went out to Three Forks on a old flat-bottomed truck. We was all high, ready to ball all night long. When we got there, Robert was sitting in a corner with his guitar under his arm. He was sick. And the women jumped off the truck, come in, and said, to him, "Play me 'Terraplane Blues.'" "Play me 'Kindhearted Woman Blues'!" He said, "I'm sick." And they said, "Have a drink of whiskey. Have another drink and you'll feel alright."

But Robert had got poisoned. Robert was crazy about whiskey and this man was mad about Robert going with his wife. He had a friend lady give Robert a glass of whiskey that had poison in it. People would do that. They poison you rather than shoot you, get you in a smooth way. That way people don't know what you done. All the folks kept on hollering, "Play!" "Play!" "Play!" He tried to play once or twice but couldn't and said, "I'm sick. I can't play." They took and laid him across a bed in the back room. And everything got quiet then. Before day, some guy who had a old car carried him back to Greenwood, to his room in Baptist Town.

Robert stayed sick and lying around for two or three days. I didn't go see him Sunday or Monday' I really thought he would be alright. But when I went to see him on Tuesday, he was really sick. I talked to him but he wasn't able to talk. He was bleeding at the mouth, heaving up and going on. There was nothing I could do for him. I was young, I was twenty-two years old, and I didn't know what to do. Folks, his friends, was giving him home remedies, trying to heal him up. People couldn't call the doctor. What black person had any money then? Doctors charged them and there wasn't no money. So he just died for attention. And here I thought he would just get over it.

... Robert's sister come down from Chicago to bury him, but when she got to Greenwood it was too late. The county had already buried him, put him in the ground. Back in that time they didn't let you stay on top too long. They went on and put him in the ground, and she quick had him dug right back up and put him in a casket and put him down in the same place, put him in a decent casket."

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R.J. death certificate:
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