Sweeter Life (3 page)
Po had been a fixture of Wilbury for as long as Cyrus could remember.
Most adults crossed the street rather than pass him on the sidewalk; most kids spent at least some part of their childhood tormenting him. Not that Po was the kind to get angry or chase. He was a retard, that’s all, more funny-looking than ugly. He wore hand-me-down grey suits and battered brogues. Could be the shoes were hand-me-down as well because he had a hotfoot kind of walk, all scrambled and unsteady. He sure did a lot of walking, though. You never saw him when he wasn’t cruising the streets in that hoppy hurried gait of his. And if he ever saw a piece of paper on the sidewalk or grass—a gum wrapper, newspaper, bus ticket, anything—he would stoop down without missing a step and try to toss the offending piece of litter onto the road, often having to circle back two or three times before it was properly disposed of in the gutter. That’s what he was doing now, making sure the sidewalk in front of the Vogue was free of ticket stubs.
Cyrus liked Po, or rather he liked the idea of Po, that at least one thing in Wilbury was different and off-kilter. When Cyrus imagined New York or Chicago, he pictured a crazy carnival of sight and sound and character—the kind of place where a guy like Po would fit right in, the kind of place that Cyrus couldn’t wait to explore.
After a minute or so, Cyrus moved farther along the street to Star Radio, a fusty repair shop for all things electrical—radios, TVs, vacuum cleaners. There in the window, on sale by consignment, was a Les Paul Standard. Cyrus knew it had to be a 1953 or 1954 model because the pickups were black plastic rectangles instead of the later and more common humbucking pickups, which were chrome-plated. It had a Tune-O-Matic bridge and a gold top. Between the pickups someone had stuck a small decal for STP oil treatment. The guitar rested on a rickety metal stand.
Cyrus had been eyeing the Les Paul for nearly a week. He couldn’t figure out what it was doing in Wilbury, in Star Radio of all places. Everyone played a Les Paul—Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Jeff Beck—the Stradivarius of rock-and-roll guitars. Its appearance in town had started him really thinking about what he wanted in life. And the answer, more and more, seemed tangled up with that golden instrument.
While Cyrus stood there, Geordie Jackson came out and smiled at him. Geordie was a great big slab of a man. He coached the local hockey team,
the Wilbury Wings. He kept his red hair trimmed in an armed forces buzz cut, the kind of bristly thing you could scrape your boots on.
“Can’t help noticin’ you got yer eye on that there guitar,” Geordie said. “Come and see how she feels. Belongs to the wife’s kid brother. Up and joined the navy a while back. Don’t think he ever played it much.”
Cyrus lifted the instrument from its stand and cradled it in his arms, surprised at the weight of it, as if it were made of pure gold. When he crouched on the floor and started tuning, he noticed a small crack in the head between the first and second tuning pegs of the treble strings. “Look,” he said, not critically but softly, like a doctor exploring a wound.
Geordie leaned over and made a farting sound with his lips, a little blooper. “That there’s just a little nick, Cy, what we call a surface crack. Happens all the time and such. But you know, between you and me, that’s gotta knock the price down some. Reece, that’s the wife’s brother, he was say-in’ how he wanted $170, as high as maybe $200 for the thing, but that seems a bit steep to me. And beings as it’s you and a good kid and all, and how I knew your old man real well, I’d say $150 would wrap it up—the case, the cord there, the strap, the whole kit and caboodle. I’d even throw in the stand while we’re at it. I got no use for it.”
Cyrus stood again and looked out the window as a milk truck rattled past. Then he closed his eyes and pictured Ruby standing in the kitchen. He imagined himself in a suit at graduation. Finally he turned back to Geordie, patted his pocket and said, “You take a cheque?” Ten minutes later he was outside again, holding a case so heavy and solid it made him feel serious and grown-up and real.
School was out of the question now, of course, so he headed straight over to the Three Links Hall where he and his band, Bluestone, had a rehearsal space. Byron Young, Janice’s dad, was some grand poohbah in the Oddfellows and for five bucks a month rented them one of the spare rooms upstairs as long as they didn’t rehearse on lodge night. It was cool beyond belief to have their own private hangout.
Cyrus fired up his amplifier and blazed away for about an hour, trying every lick he knew. Although the Les Paul felt nothing like his Harmony and would take some getting used to, it was a brilliant instrument. The Harmony
was a beginner’s axe, something his uncle had bought for him. It certainly had never made him feel like this, like a star, like a pro. He launched into the opening riff of “Born Under a Bad Sign.” That’s when he noticed Janice standing in the doorway.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. “Get bounced from class again?”
She stepped farther into the room. “Never mind me. What are
you
doing here? And what the hell is that?”
For the hundredth time that morning, Cyrus held the guitar out from his body so he could admire it. “This,” he said, “is a sign from God. Totally freaking me out. And you’ll never guess where I found it. Star fucking Radio. A hundred and fifty bucks.”
“Get out.”
“One-fifty. I couldn’t believe it. I mean I don’t even want to think what it might be worth. It is a sign from God.” And they both laughed then and embraced, the guitar wedged between them.
Janice was the band’s singer and the closest thing he had to a best friend. Ever since the summer, they had been messing around in private, not like love or anything and, from his point of view, not even like major desire, but just because she wanted to and he didn’t mind, because she was soft and sweet and funny and knew him better than he knew himself, because her eyes were so full of mischief and green and sometimes sadness; and even though she was not exactly his physical type—a small-time Janis Joplin was how he thought of her, with her wild halo of red hair, with her freckles and chunky arms and her heavy, mannish way of moving around—the truth was he liked kissing her cheeks, so soft and fragrant, and fumbling around in the dark, and especially the afternoons upstairs in her bed, because, really, when he thought about it, most likely they weren’t, either one of them, going to get much else.
Barely able to contain himself, he led her over to the battered sofa in the corner and sat beside her, still holding the guitar. He looked across the room to the plaque on the wall, the motto of the Three Links Fraternity: Friendship, Love and Truth. Then he kissed her lightly on the temple and unburdened himself of his secret plan. “You are the first to know,” he said.
HANK SOON REALIZED
the radio was not an entire loss. Even the sound of static was preferable to the din of this place—the swearing, the night terrors, the violence, the guards’ squeaky shoes as they paced the corridors. Someone had told him once that radio static was the sound of outer space, a pretty cool idea, so he crawled beneath the covers and gave himself up once again to the electronic hiss. More than the universe, it reminded him of the sound of wind in the trees, waves on a distant shore. And what he wouldn’t give for the accompanying smells instead of this damp stone and mildew and potato rot, all of it topped off with industrial disinfectant. Even here, way up on the third floor, it always smelled as though he was underground.
He shifted a bit in bed, nestling the radio closer to his body. That small movement brought the antenna to rest against the metal bed frame. Like magic, the clot of static suddenly became a voice, low and jive and full of broken parts.
“Howhowhow, you lis’nin’ to the lowdown, brothers and sisters, you lis’nin to the Catfish. Spinnin’ the discs that take the risk. Dishin’ you all the platters that matter. Catfish got the numbers gonna make you feel right. Catfish got the numbers take you awww through the night. And here’s a little number what jus’ come in gonna smooth your creases, gonna move your pieces. A little somethin’ called ‘JimJam’ …”
Organ, bass and drums vamping quietly in the background. And then a different voice, rich and resonant and full of calm.
I’d like to tell you a story now, if I may, about a man,
you know, a man who had all that he wanted,
not on a golden platter but earned by the sweat of his brow, the luck
of his draw, the way he looked at the world and turned
it to his advantage, and how this man, a friend of mine, you know,
a fellow I’d known all my life like I might know my brother,
this man, this friend, he comes to me one day pullin’ at his hair, his face
all crazy, his eyes like to pop right out of their sockets
with grief, and he says to me, “Jimmy, my life is over. It’s ashes. Tell me
what to do now, now that my life is over.
Tell me, tell me now, tell me: What on earth am I goin’ to do?”
The band is right there, loping behind the voice in a rhythm that seems to have a mind of its own.
Now, you can picture it, right? You can see me, how I stared real hard
at my friend—his fancy suits, his Italian shoes,
the diamond pinkie ring—and placed my hands on his head the way
you’ve all seen me do before, you know what I’m talkin’,
waitin’ for the words to come to me, waitin’ for the words, searchin’ for a way
I could help this friend of mine so filled with sorrow.
And it wasn’t easy, let me tell you, but finally, you know, I said
to him: “It matters not what you have done,
but if what you say is true, if this life is indeed over,
then it is time to move on, time to end
this life and somehow, someway, choose another, find that place
you can call your own. And if you can’t look forward,
then look back.
Maybe it’s true. Maybe it’s true your life
is over. Maybe you don’t have no future at all.
But we’ve all got a past. Look back, I tell you. You gotta, you gotta look back.”
Just like that the voice and the music come to an abrupt halt, waiting through two full bars, though it seems but a minor skip of the heart. Then:
I know what you’re all thinkin’. I can hear you in my head.
You’re sayin’, “Be fair, Jim, you gots to be fair.
You’re Jim, you’re big, and things have been easy for you ’cause you got talent.
You got the soul and the spirit and the gift of music.”
But, oh my my, lookit here, lookit here. Gonna turn in a big wide circle
just like so, and you tell me just what you see.
You see any sign of talent or spirit or soul or musical genius?
Well how could you? ’Cause when you get down to the basic
equation, down to the root of the matter, what I got is Jim.
You see talent? I ain’t got talent, got Jim.
You see soul? Well fiddlesticks. I ain’t got soul or spirit
or even what some folks’d call e-mag-ination.
Lookit here, ain’t got no luck or mojo or black cat bone,
no John the Conqueror root. No friends in high places,
no siree, no nothin’ for a rainy day. This right here,
this here what you see is all I got.
Jim is Jim, it’s all that I am and all that I ever will be.
A deep breath then, a pause to let the music settle back a notch to a more casual cruising speed. Hank can hear the musicians getting playful, tossing things back and forth, snippets of melody, sketches of groove. Background singers coo softly, “All I’ll ever be … all I’ll ever be …”
The voice returns, sounding friendlier somehow, not so strident.
I know what’s makin’ you scratch your head, what’s prickin’ your behind.
It’s the music you find so hard to swallow, the tunes,
the riffs, the grooves, the holy roar. And don’t forget The Solo.
Once again the band starts goosing the groove, the drummer in particular really laying into that snare drum now. Suddenly the rhythm is not so complicated. Hank can tap his foot.
We always come back to The Solo, don’t we,
always come back to this same place in time.
We watch where it wanders, see where it ends up,
passin’ between us some sweet currency,
ever movin’ yet never changin’,
perfect, immutable, not of this earth
and yet, and yet.…
Here’s what I want to make clear to you now,
the single thing you should hold to your heart.
Time runs both ways, backwards and forwards.
Our lives will end and start over again—
oftentimes where you least expect it,
not in death but a new kind of life.
And The Solo itself’s neither here nor there.
A joyful noise, yes, that much is certain,
but anythin’ more is too hard to make out.
Better to ask yourself: “Where does it come from?
What sets it free? Why does it wind
like a river between us, liftin’ us up
where we most want to be?”
And the search for the reason,
the search for the meanin’ that has brought you this night
to this tent in the trees has brought us much closer—
it will
bring
us much closer if you step up dear friends
and stand nearer to me. The music is nothin’,
a sound still resoundin’,,, a spirallin’ shell
that still echoes the sea, but you must now forget it.
A whole other lifetime. The meanin’ is you
comin’ here to see me touchin’ you—and all of us
standin’ together. You’ve suffered my children,
now come unto me.
When the song ended, Hank immediately turned off the radio and rolled onto his back. He touched the cool chrome of the antenna to his lips. The music or story or whatever you’d call it was unlike anything he’d ever heard before, and yet it felt familiar to him, like something you were supposed to remember but, for the life of you, couldn’t.
CYRUS DIDN’T GET HOME
until ten o’clock that night. He and Janice had talked for hours. They got takeout. They worked on tunes. Then he hitched a ride as far as the marina. From there he could see, out along the beach where bonfires dotted the sand, smelt fishermen dragging the silver from the water with their nets. The sky was clear and moonless. Even at Orchard Knoll, he could smell the heady perfume of wood smoke and frying fish and the sweet musk of a dying lake.
He’d been tempted to bring the guitar home with him, afraid to let it out
of his sight for even a night; but he knew its presence in the house would bring too many questions, Ruby always quick to notice something different. So he left it at the hall instead, pinching himself all the way home, his heart so light he was barely touching the ground. It was only as he walked up the driveway and saw Izzy’s car that he remembered she had been invited for dinner.