The Drowned Forest (11 page)

“Yeah, but … I don’t know. I don’t know about catfish or stupid swallows or seaweed. I don’t know what they meant when they were here, and I don’t know what it means that they’re not here.”

Nudging the fallen nest with my toe, I say, “Just weird is all.”

“What isn’t weird anymore, Jane? C’mon, let’s stick to the plan. Let’s get back in the circle, okay? She might come any second.”

So Tyler steps back into the magic circle and plays the song again. I sit down beside him and keep watch, but you’re not coming, are you, Holly?

When Tyler finally gives up, I say, “Maybe she doesn’t trust us anymore, after last time.”

“Then let’s just say the prayer.”

“But Auntie Peake said we had to pray over Holly.”

Tyler slumps down. “Well, what then?”

“We have to be patient. She’s lost. She’s scared. We were here once and—in her mind at least—we ran away from her. We have to keep playing, show her she can still trust us.”

After another minute of rest, Tyler stands up again and keeps playing. He plays to the sinking sun. He plays while our stomachs cramp from hunger, and after my skin feels gritty and gross with dirt and sweat. Our protective circle has almost blown away. Finally, he sets the guitar down and says, “I don’t think she’s coming, Jane.”

“What time is it?”

“Ten after five.”

I sigh. I promised LeighAnn I’d have Tyler back for band practice at five thirty. As much as I hate leaving, it’s pretty clear nothing is going to happen here tonight. “We’ll come back tomorrow.”

“Jane, I—”

“And the next day and the next day. As long as it takes until she knows she can trust us again.” The words hurt. I want to hold Faye. I want to hear Yuri’s laugh and sleep in my own bed. I want to go home tonight, and as I say the words, I feel that hope drift away like a dandelion seed. But it doesn’t matter, Holly. I offer my pain up to you, a sign of my devotion.

Fifteen

Back at Stratofortress’s house, I show the band my torn blister. I show I can still play through the pain. They all grin, and Max claps me on the shoulder. And I’m grinning too, even though it’s stupid.

But you know what, Holly? I sort of get why you were impressed with Ultimate Steve that night he cut off his finger and finished the gig. Sometimes there’s nothing keeping us going except mule-headed cussedness. It’s not pretty, but it’s respectable.

Then everything changes in an instant. Stratofortress gets ready for practice. Ultimate Steve sits down behind his drum kit, then whips around to look at me. “What … what did you do?”

“Nothing.” I sit on the couch beside Britney. “What are you talking about?”

He tips one of the cymbals toward me, light from the ceiling fan reflecting off its bright yellow surface. “You cleaned them.”

“Well, yeah. Just … so?” I can feel everybody staring at me.

“How?” Steve snaps. “What did you do to them?”

“Nothing! I shined them a little. Vinegar and, and aluminum foil.”

I glance at Tyler for support. Tyler tugs on his hair and says, “Jane, we have a gig tomorrow! Tomorrow!”

“So what? They’ll look nice for the show now.”

“They’re not supposed to look
nice
!” Steve yells, twisting the word “nice” into a barbed fishhook. “They’re supposed to look like crap. That’s how you know they sound good. They’re supposed to look scuffed and scratched from every song they’ve ever played. You clean them, you mess with their mojo.”

“Their huh?”

“Mojo! Their magic.” Leaning close, he taps the cymbals with his drumstick, then pushes the pedal that makes the two little ones clap together. “These aren’t pots and pans, okay? I’ve had these cymbals since I was sixteen. I traded my entire comic book collection for them, everything, even my Wolverine and Deadpool stuff, like my entire childhood for them.”

“But I didn’t do any—”

Steve cuts me off. “I’ve played them every day since then. My sweat is in these things. My blood is in these things. That gives them mojo. That makes them more than what you can see or hold.”

I start. It’s almost exactly how Auntie Peake described the river earlier today. “I … I’m sorry,” I mumble. “I didn’t know.”

“They still sound all right,” LeighAnn says. “Come on, Ultimate.”

“They’re not all right! The overtones are thinner now, listen.” He keeps tapping the cymbal.

Max says, “Come on, Ultimate, we have to get ‘Cheers’ down tonight.”

Ultimate Steve straightens up, but he’s still not happy. “Spend years getting them sounding just right, years pouring my heart and soul into them, but sure, stick them in the dishwasher. They’ll be fine.”

I decide to make myself scarce during practice, so I take Max’s acoustic out onto the back patio. I try to play, but my hand is cramped into a claw. Instead, I listen to the band and turn the guitar over and over. Its top is blond wood, and the reflection of the plastic skull lights overhead wobbles across its surface.

Of course instruments have mojo. It’s plain as day once you really think. The guitar is just wood and steel wires and empty holes. It’s mostly just air. But you used a guitar to fill people with joy, drop them to their knees as quick as any rifle. Of course instruments are magical, of course they’re more than what you can see and hold.

And of course the river has its own mojo. We’ve felt it before, Holly, swinging out over Swallow’s Nest Bluff. And
that winter afternoon when the frozen pines sang in the
crisp, clean air. And all those fishing trips in Dad’s boat, the never-still surface of the lake rising and dipping like the chest of sleeping Leviathan. Those waters have a deep, slow, quiet power older than any human soul. We’ve always known that, we just never had a name for it.

I don’t notice the band taking a break until the glass door slides open and LeighAnn steps out, cigarette in hand. She says, “Hey. Doing okay?”

I nod and force a smile. “Steve still mad?”

“Oh, yeah. He’d burn your house down if you weren’t staying here.” She sits on the concrete steps beside me and whistles. Her dogs trot up to get petted. “Don’t worry, though. He’ll get over it.”

“You guys are sounding better tonight.”

She shrugs. “It’s coming together, coming together. Now you’re coming to the show tomorrow, right? Even if we totally bomb—”

“You’re not going to bomb.”

“Even if we bomb, Against the Dawn is amazing. Jessie, the singer, we were in a band together back in college. She pulled Against the Dawn together, like, a year ago after moving down to Atlanta, and they’ve already got a record contract.”

“Wow. That’s cool.”

“Yeah, they’re not huge yet or anything, but if this tour goes well, they really could be. You like … what kind of music do you like, anyway?”

“Contemporary Christian. Mostly Christian rock.”

“Oh.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Just, ‘Oh, okay. That’s the music you like.’”

“Nuh-uh, that wasn’t an understanding ‘Oh.’ That was a sympathy ‘Oh.’ Like the ‘Oh’ you give somebody after their grandma dies. That ‘Oh’ was dangerously close to an ‘Aw.’”

She’s grinning. “It was just an ‘Oh.’”

“Not all Christian stuff is lame. I mean, some of it is, but there are lots of bands that are really good.”

“I like some of it. I love some old gospel stuff. But Christian music … ” Her gaze floats around the backyard, searching for the right words. “Christian music isn’t really a style of music like rock or the blues. It’s really more of a song theme, like love songs.”

“So?”

“So listening to it all the time, and nothing else, it’s like listening to love songs all the time and nothing else.”

“So? Would that be so horrible?”

“Yes. Because nobody’s in love all the time.”

“So? Maybe we
would
be in love all the time if we listened to love songs all the time.”

LeighAnn laughs and shakes her head at the same time. “Just so you know, I hated girls like you when I was in high school.”

“Girls like me how?”

“The smiley, sunny Jesus dorks who think that if anything’s wrong in your life, it’s because you aren’t praying hard enough.”

“I don’t think that.”

“Who think life is clear-cut, and if you say it’s not, they decide you’re just on drugs or a sinner.”

“I do
not
think that! LeighAnn, my best friend drowned and turned into a river ghost. I watched her kill her pa-paw; she almost killed me. You seriously expect me to tell you life is clear-cut?”

“Yeah, well … maybe you’re not that bad. But you can still be pretty obnoxious.”

“Naw, you like me despite yourself. Admit it.”

“I like you despite
your
self.”

We both chuckle, then fall quiet. I slide my fingers up and down the guitar strings. It sounds like some creature yawning and stretching itself awake. LeighAnn says, “I got kicked out of church for having blue hair.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I’d just broken up with this guy … okay, he cheated on me, and I told him I was ready to forgive him, then he dumped me.”

“Ouch. Sorry.”

“Definitely not my best moment. But anyway, I was angry and, I don’t know, I wanted to be different. So I dyed my hair blue. Then at church, Deacon Andrews—jackass—pulled me aside and said I couldn’t come back until it was a normal color. That just made me even madder, so I just never went back.” She grabs a stick and throws it for Cookie. I get the feeling she’s waiting for me to say something. She’s daring me to say anything.

I want to tell LeighAnn God loves her. That He will leave His flock of ninety-nine sheep to search for the one that has gone astray. When it’s found, He’ll rejoice more of that sheep than the ninety-nine. I want to tell her that more than anything, but I don’t know if I believe that anymore, Holly.

“That wasn’t right of them,” I say, and at least I know it’s the truth. “They shouldn’t have treated you like that.”

“Thanks.”

“So … what’s your favorite gospel song?”

LeighAnn shrugs, flicking her cigarette butt into the yard. “‘Uncloudy Day’ is good. ‘Down by the Riverside.’ My mom loves Dolly Parton, so ‘Coat of Many Colors’ was, like, the first song I ever learned to sing.”

She’s grinning now. I ask, “Think you can teach me one?”

LeighAnn lights another cigarette, letting it bob in the corner of her mouth. She strums the first few chords of “Down by the Riverside,” correcting herself, making sure she’s got it right in her head. Then she says, “All right, so you already know the G chord, so you start off with that. Then D seven, then back to G, then a regular D chord. See how it’s different from D seven? You have to move all your fingers, but see how that D is the only note that changes in the chord?”

Just then, Tyler raps on the sliding glass door and motions for LeighAnn. She hands the guitar back to me. “Back to practice,” she says with a tired sigh.

Alone again, I try to play the new tune. My fingertips start bleeding again, and my knuckles have started to swell. But even though the song is slow and unsteady and full of leaden notes, if I listen close, I can just sense the mojo underneath.

Sixteen

I sleep with my hand wrapped in a hot towel. It’s supposed to ease some of the stiffness, but the aching still wakes me up several times during the night. It doesn’t help that bruises still cover my arm from where you touched me, Holly.

Dawn breaks. After Stratofortress leaves for work, me and Tyler return to the river, waiting for you. Standing inside our circle of chalk and lime, I stuff my hands into my pockets without thinking, then yelp as another blister tears. My finger starts bleeding and oozing clear liquid. I want to wash it off in the lake, but I’m afraid. I can imagine a soft clay hand grabbing my wrist while I do. Instead, I rinse it with a little water from the bottle I brought. I let it bleed on my shirt and keep watch while Tyler plays “The Drowned Forest.”

He plays the same song, over and over. Sometimes I pray, too, the words scattered through the brambles by the wind. There’s still no swallows, and I don’t see the plants growing like before.

We have to get to the Bandito Burrito early, for a sound check before the gig, so after a while Tyler says, “We might as well go. I don’t think she’s coming today.”

We leave, but we’ll be back tomorrow, Holly. We aren’t giving up. Please, please, you can’t give up on us either.

Tyler is nervous about the show, even though he won’t say it. When we get back to Stratofortress’s house, Against the Dawn’s CD,
Rooster
, is playing so loud I can hear it before stepping through the front gate. Tyler, Max, and Ultimate Steve are loading gear into the Florence Utilities van. LeighAnn pulls me into the bathroom for my first haircut in weeks.

Sitting on the edge of the tub with a towel around my neck, I say, “Make them wispy, not, like, raggedy-looking.”

“Don’t worry.” LeighAnn’s cigarette flares in one corner of her mouth; smoke jets out her nostrils. She snips at my bangs, hair falling to the pink tile. “This is going to look great. Wispy bangs look so good with a rectangular face like yours.”

“I just don’t want people to think I’m deranged or anything. I mean, it’s bad enough I’ve worn the same shirt for three days.”

“Are you kidding?” LeighAnn snorts. “Going to a show in clothes you’ve worn for days? That’s rock ’n’ roll. You’re just a poser until you’ve crashed on at least a few couches and smell like an old lady’s foot.”

“I don’t smell like—”

“Shh … don’t move.” LeighAnn makes a few more snips, then pulls the towel off my shoulders. “Okay, have a look.”

I look in the mirror. Behind me, LeighAnn purses her lips. “Maybe we should thin them out a tiny—”

“No, they’re perfect. Just like they are. Perfect.” They really are, longish and side-swept.

“Ahhh!” Grabbing my shoulders, LeighAnn shakes me hard. “Your first real rock show! Are you excited?”

“Yes, yes.” I wiggle out of her grip. Part of me is excited, practically straining through my skin to jump around and be loud. Another part of me feels guilty about the first part—enjoying myself while you’re still lost under the water. But I think it’s important to support Stratofortress after they’ve helped me so much.

Brushing stray hairs off my shoulders, LeighAnn says, “Now, all through the show, you’ve just got to be on top of it. Holler, bang on the table, flop around a little. Make it like every song we play is better than sex in a Mustang.”

“Gross.”

“Or holding a bake sale or reading to blind orphans, whatever. But you have to show the rest of the audience how great the band is. If the cute girl thinks they’re great, everybody else will, too.”

“Got it.”

With all the equipment in the van, there’s barely any room left for people. I ride sitting on top of an amp. With the window slid open, I can feel the cool dry air on my face. I can taste the pine trees on the wind. Night presses downtown, squeezing every light into a diamond.

The Bandito Burrito stands in that crummy shopping center near UNA. Greasy yellow light oozes across the parking lot, and the air inside smells like burnt flour, but some college kids survive on their two-dollar vegetarian burritos and nightly gumbo of music acts.

“Jessie! Hey!”

On the little stage, Against the Dawn gobbles enchiladas while doing their sound check. Jessie wears green plaid board shorts and a black T-shirt. Hopping down to give LeighAnn a hug, she says, “Hey, guys. Thanks for coming through for us.”

“No problem. How’s the tour so far?”

“Pretty good. Birmingham was hell, but other than that, pretty good.”

“This is Tyler, our new rhythm guitar. And this is Jane. She ran away from Sesame Street and lives with us now.”

“O … kay. Hey.”

“Hi,” I say.

“So, I’m getting a drink,” LeighAnn says. “But you’re still staying with us, right?”

“Yes. You don’t know what I’d do for a shower right now.”

I follow LeighAnn to the bar, where she spots somebody else she knows. “Landon, you made it! All right, man.” She hugs a curly haired guy with John Lennon glasses. The girl
he’s with scowls, but LeighAnn doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.

Landon says, “Thanks for emailing me. I couldn’t believe it when you said Jessie already has an album out and everything.”

“I know. Isn’t it awesome?” LeighAnn turns to the waitress and says, “Give me a Naked Pig and Mountain Dew for her.” While she’s catching up with Landon, the waitress opens a bottle of Naked Pig Pale Ale for her, then hands me a fizzing Mountain Dew.

“So what are you up to?” Landon asks.

“Uh … still at the bank.” When she says it, LeighAnn glances everywhere except into Landon’s eyes. You can tell she hates saying that.

“Oh. Well, how’s the band? What is it, Secret Fortress?”

“Stratofortress.”

“Right, right. Well, how’s it going?”

“Okay. We lost our rhythm guitar. We’ve just got a fill-in for tonight.”

“Oh. Where’d Patterson go?”

They talk for a while, then spot more people they know. I see Britney standing by herself and drift over to her. “Hey.”

“Hey.” She gives me a hug. “So you excited?”

“Yeah. Crowd isn’t very big, though.”

“It’s okay for a Thursday gig.” Britney shrugs, surveying the twenty or so people lumped around tables. Most of them are probably just here to eat and really don’t care about the band. But Max explained it to me earlier. Against the Dawn is paying for this tour out of their own pockets, so they can’t afford to lie around hotel rooms in between big weekend shows. All week, they’ve been playing in little restaurants and coffee shops, scrambling to get enough gas money to make it to St. Louis tomorrow for the LouFest music festival.

Me and Britney find a table near the stage. The waitress comes by, and Britney orders the sweet potato burrito; I nurse my Mountain Dew. We both cheer as Max adjusts the microphone.

“Um, hey. We’re Stratofortress.” The mike turns his voice into a hollow rasp. A blue piece of paper crinkles in his hand. “So, um, before I get started, the management asked me to tell you that, in accordance with the Alabama Clean Indoor Air Act, smoking is banned in all indoor workplaces including bars and restaurants, excluding designated hotel and motel smoking rooms and limousines under private hire … ” While going over the necessary signage for designated outdoor smoking areas, Max shakes a Winston out of a half-empty pack and lights up. “ … Shall assess a civil penalty not to exceed fifty dollars for the first violation, not to exceed one hundred dollars for the second violation, and not to exceed two hundred dollars for each subsequent violation.” Stuffing the paper into his shirt pocket and swinging his guitar up, he blows a gray curl of smoke into the stage lights. “But, you know, I won’t tell if you don’t.”

That gets a few laughs from the guys beside the wall. Then Max starts belting the lyrics for “Molotov in Your Pocket” with just Ultimate’s drums behind him. Then all three guitars come in at the same moment, and purple veins bulge from the sides of Max’s neck. His body jerks hard, side to side. This isn’t the Max I’ve been staying with. It’s not even the Max I’ve watched fuss over songs in practice. This beast couldn’t practice a song any more than I could practice crying or laughing.

Tyler misses a chord. He recovers quickly, though, and if I hadn’t heard the song a million times, I probably wouldn’t have noticed. Then he misses the same chord again, and this time, LeighAnn glances over, annoyed. When the song ends, she walks over and talks to Tyler. I can’t hear what she’s saying, but Tyler nods. Downstage, Max pants into the mike and says, “Okay, this, um, this one was inspired by Dr. Phil. I was watching his show once, and he said, ‘Cheers to a new year and another chance to get it right,’ and I thought that was too good a line for Dr. Phil to have, so I stole it.”

They start playing “Cheers.” Before long, the momentum of the song sweeps me along and I stop worrying. As I open my mouth to holler, Tyler messes up again. Then he stops dead, and the other instruments clatter to a stop after him.

Feedback whines as Stratofortress glances at each other, trying to get on cue. “If it was perfect, it wouldn’t be rock ’n’ roll,” Max chuckles as they start up again. But Tyler has that deer-in-headlights look now, and his right hand is stiff against the strings. He loses the song again, and boos rise from the crowd. The table beside the wall starts chanting, “You suck! You suck! You suck!”

This time, Max sets down his guitar and walks offstage. He comes straight for us, and at first I think he’s coming to yell at me. Instead, he grabs Britney’s beer and drinks. “It’s not that bad,” she says weakly, almost drowned out by the chanting.

Max doesn’t answer. He goes back on stage, not looking at Tyler, and when he steps to the microphone, he sounds like nothing’s wrong, like he’s having the time of his life. “Okay, thanks for having us. We’ve got one more for you. This is ‘Catatonic State Marching Band.’”

I wonder why they’re giving up on “Cheers” halfway through, but then I see. They play “Catatonic State” so simple and fast, it would be hard for anybody to notice if Tyler did mess up. He could stop playing altogether and people would barely hear it under Steve’s exploding drums. Still, the “You suck” chant keeps going, underneath the song.

It’s a couple college boys behind us. I turn around and glare at them, and I hate them. I want to throw my drink in their faces. I want to smash the glass against their heads. I know it’s not right, but it would feel so good to hear their smug, stupid chant shatter into shrieks. It would feel good to watch them skitter backward like crabs.

Then a gray-goateed man comes up—he wears a greasy apron across his huge belly. He slaps one bear-paw of a hand on the college boys’ table, says one word, and they shut up. But they’re still snickering, and I still hate them.

Stratofortress makes it to the end of the song, Max tells people to stick around for Against the Dawn, and they get out of there. Me and Britney cheer as they walk offstage, but everybody else ignores them.

When Steve comes to our table, Britney says, “That was …
you recovered really—”

Steve shakes his head. “Baby, leave it alone.”

“Well, I mean, with ‘Catatonic State,’ I think you really got back—”

“Just leave it alone, okay?” he snaps. Then he hugs her and sighs. “Come on, let’s go sit with Max and LeighAnn.”

I glance back and see them sitting at the shadowy back of the room, already drinking. “Can’t they come up here?”

“No. I don’t want to be up front right now.”

While we move to the back table, Tyler motions to me from near the stage. He has his guitar case in his hand. “I’m gonna go. Do you need anything out of my truck?”

“What? No. Come watch Against the Dawn with us.”

“No, I messed up. I … ” He looks ready to cry. “I’m gonna go. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”

“What? Where you gonna go? Your truck’s back at Stratofortress’s house.”

“I’ll just walk. I have to get out of here.”

“No. Tyler, please. Come watch Against the Dawn with us.”

“No, I messed up. I … they don’t want me, right now.”

“Tyler … ”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” And he’s gone.

I go sit with Stratofortress. For a long time, nobody says anything. Nobody looks at each other or around at the crowd that saw them bomb. They all stare at their drinks or hands or the table.

“Well … ” Max mutters. “Nobody burst into flame while onstage. If you look at it that way, it was a success.”

We snort and chuckle. Steve says, “I don’t know. Halfway through, I was sort of hoping to burst into flame.”

We laugh out loud. LeighAnn hugs Max. Stratofortress is still embarrassed, still angry, but at least they can lift their heads up now. I try a bite of Britney’s sweet potato burrito. It’s just as vile as it sounds.

Then the music crashes down like a wave. No intro. No warning. Against the Dawn jumps into “Boomtown” with both feet, then “In a Brown Beat Coat.” Stratofortress didn’t do much to excite the crowd, but Against the Dawn makes up for it, barreling through one song after another with barely a breath in between. Then Jessie stops to tell a long story about not being allowed to drink Cokes growing up because she was Mormon. Except one day, she snuck into the woods with a neighbor boy to trade peeks at her underwear for a can of Coke.

“
Tony left me. He went on home, but I was too ashamed. I stayed in the woods, those tall pines all around, that sweet taste still in my mouth.” She cracks open another beer, drinks deep, and wipes the foam off her chin. “I cried. Just sat on this old tree trunk and sobbed and prayed to God to forgive me while it got darker and colder. But even while I was praying, there was part of me that just wanted another Coke. And I knew I was a bad girl and I was going to Hell.”

Tugging her guitar strap down so her bass shifts onto her back, Jessie starts singing, “Oh darling, oh darling, don’t tell me no lie. Where did you sleep last night?” Staring up at the lights, she answers her own question—a one-girl call-and-response. “I slept in the pines where the sun never shines and shivered when the cold wind blowed.”

Only the guitarist accompanies her as she moans, “You’ve slighted me once, you’ve slighted me twice. You’ll never slight me no more … You’ve caused me to weep, you’ve caused me to mourn, you’ve caused me to leave my home … ”