The Revelations of Preston Black (Murder Ballads and Whiskey Book 3) (27 page)

Since I couldn’t leave, I sat on the
edge of the stage and watched Nadhima out on the dance floor, as she connected
my piles of salt with chalk lines. She had all kind of accoutrements in a
circle around the mound of salt in the center: a red candle, a green candle,
and a black one, a silver cross with some kind of vine or root bound to it with
twist ties, a string of rattlesnake vertebra with the rattle still attached at
the end, a skull from a small rodent, like an opossum or groundhog, and two
sachets of scented powders—one that smelled like rose petals and one that
smelled like feet. While I watched, she opened the sachets, bent down, and
sprinkled a bit of powder from each onto the floor at her feet. Before standing
she made a cross in the powder with her pinkie finger. When she caught me
watching, she called me over with a wave of her long finger.

“Put this into your pocket, hear me? Don’t
take it out and don’t let it go through the wash, neither.”

I stuffed the rough patch of
snake-skin into my front pocket.

“And this here’s your hot foot powder
and goofer dust,” she said, passing me a sachet. “Go on over to the door and
make a big old ‘X’ there too. Just like this one. That’ll trick ’em real good.”

So I did exactly what Nadhima asked as
she lit the candles and spilled more powder across the floor. Just before
heading back to the center of the room, I helped Jamie get my Fender Twin through
the door and over to the stage. Jamie said, “Go ahead and start setting up.
Like you’re playing a show. I want to watch Ms. Nadhima.”

“Why am I setting up?”

“Because Simoneaux says you’re playing
a show.” He patted my shoulder and commandeered my old spot at the edge of the
stage.

When Nadhima threw powder into the
candles, green sparks rose from the flames.

I choked on the smoke as I looked for
a power outlet. The smell hit me as I plugged in, and I gagged a little. It
smelled like old laundry. And by “old laundry” I mean mostly dirty socks and
underwear. Jamie sat there watching everything. I swore he didn’t blink once
the whole time. Simoneaux came back in, pulled the blinds down and flipped the
light switches, transforming the juke joint into one of those places where time
never crawled forward ever again. He gave Nadhima a wide berth while she
worked.

I miked my amp and Pauly’s and set up
the vocal mics and the mic for Katy’s fiddle. When I finished, I sat on the
edge of the small stage with Jamie. Figured he’d tell me when the time came to
get out of the way. It had gotten a lot warmer in the place since we woke up.
And I grew more tired. And bored.

As the noise and pyrotechnics drew
down, Simoneaux asked if I’d intended to eat.

“Didn’t plan on it.”

“Don’t know when you’re going to eat
again. When we get back I’m open for dinner. I want y’all up on that stage.”

“Playing for the dinner crowd? Not
sure they’re going to like our kind of music.”

“Your kind of music?” he said, as he
grabbed my wrist. “What kind is that?”

He twisted my hand palm up and placed
an old silver dime into it.

He said, “Only one kind of music. I
ain’t never heard a disc jockey say ‘shut your radio off because this song is
only for a certain kind of people.’”

“Yeah, I didn’t mean that.”

“Just busting your balls. Put that
into your pocket and don’t take it out. That there’s a Mercury leap year, okay?
You want to bet on a slow horse you better have the odds in your favor, right?”

I studied it for a second and put it
into my pocket, right next to the snakeskin.

“Tell that cousin of yours to set the
tables and chairs back up out here. Tell him don’t pay those lines no mind.”
Before I could reply, he said, “Me and your uncle are going to finish Dhima’s
Drivin’ Away Spell by dropping some of her things off over at the cemetery. You
kids get ready to play. My nephew, Calvin, works the bar, so y’all don’t have
to worry about none of that. George lends a hand sometimes, but felt his time
would be best spent at home tonight, praying. And Sissy and her brother,
Marcus, come in at five to work the kitchen. All I want you kids doing is
making music, hear me? Get ’em dancing. Music is power and it’s the only
defense you got. When I get back I’ll join y’all. Going to be a long night.”

“That’s what I keep hearing.”

“Make no mistake.”

So I ate some of the pork with red
beans and rice, washed up and changed clothes then ate a little more. When I
came back out to the front of the house I saw people at the tables. Not my
crowd. For the first time in a long time the idea of picking up my Tele scared
me. Calvin saw me standing there, waiting, and gave me a nod.

I took a seat at the bar next to Andre
and a guy wearing a Crimson Tide basketball jersey over a grey T-shirt. He
drank Tanqueray.

“Jameson?”

Calvin shook his head. He looked a
little like Simoneaux, but much thicker, like he spent all his time off lifting
weights.

“Bourbon, then,” I said as I scanned
the labels. “Whatever.”

“This mean you’re about to get up
there?” He set a pint glass in front of me and poured three fingers into it.
“Uncle Simon said not to let you sit on your ass all night.”

The stage bathed in the golden glow of
several recessed spotlights. Nothing big or fancy. Just a riser and a bunch of
instruments and a dim cross made out of glass tubes. One older lady in the
crowd wore a fancy hat with a peacock feather in the band. Two older men in
suits had their porkpie hats respectfully perched on the back of their chairs.
Younger, less distinctively dressed people filled out the rest of the place.
Cigarette smoke drifted toward the stage lights.

“I’m supposed to remind you that you
have a job to do. My uncle said he didn’t ask for this ‘shit-storm’—his words,
not mine. He said you got to start working that mojo.”

“One more,” I said, before finishing
my drink. “Andre, would you mind seeing where Katy and Pauly are at?”

Calvin poured as I stood. On my way to
the stage I ran through lyrics and chords, trying to think of songs they might
want to hear. As soon as I set foot on the riser the air got thick, like
everybody in the joint stopped eating and drinking at once. I flipped my amp on
and slung the guitar over my shoulder, but didn’t turn around. When I hit the
PA’s power switch my mic started to feedback, forcing me to spin, grab it, and
push the mic stand to the edge of the stage. Now facing the audience, I said,
“Check. Mic check.”

Andre gave me a thumbs-up as he backed
into the hallway. It felt like the Delts all over again. I said, “Um, yeah…”

Somebody in the back said, “Just play
something.”

I squinted, and saw a guy with long
blonde hair and sideburns wearing shades— the only white guy in the room beside
me. I grabbed the neck and chugged along. A slow steady chick-chick-chick-chick
on that D minor seventh.

Then it hit me—
That’s
Duane, man. He came, like he said he would.

In my head I cursed myself. My brain
searched for words to go with the chords.

Stalling.

With a laugh, I whispered, “Shoot me.”

Strumming. Slowing the tempo,
noticeably, but in a controlled way. Nodding my head and closing my eyes.
Slowed by a third. By half.
Steady now.

A fixed tapping on that D minor
seventh until the words came.
Come Together
.

Some of the audience nodded to the
beat. Duane Allman smiled and tipped his glass to me. The rest went back to
their biscuits and beans. But I closed my eyes and leaned into it. Maybe it
didn’t matter what those folks needed. If my hand wouldn’t have instinctively
grabbed that D minor seventh, I wouldn’t have been able to say the song wasn’t
exactly what I needed. A return to what I knew after days of not knowing a
goddamned thing. A taste of familiar in my mouth after days of eating the
bitterness of losing fight after fight.

And when I closed my eyes, I did it as
much to block them out as I did to lock myself into the song. I sang all the
way to “shoeshine” with my eyes closed, my head bobbing to that unmistakable
groove. The slow slink of a single guitar with nothing to hide. The last time I
played alone on a stage like this…

Was when I played for Stu the night
before he left.

The same day I met Dani at the record
store.

I shook the thought out of my head and
added a premature ‘shoot me’ at the recollection of my dead friend. And the
memory of seeing Danicka fall from the Westover Bridge. Watching her disappear
into the darkness. Whether the reminiscence of “back then” or thinking about
yesterday made me feel this way, I didn’t know. But the last time I played on
any stage, my girl played with me and we were on our way to taking over the
world. Now I was holed up in an Alabama juke joint worried about what would
come busting through that door if all this belief and superstition turned out
to be a lot more than belief and superstition. And because I was into the song,
I didn’t hear the other amp crackle to life.

When the sound of Pauly’s E string
buzzing against the frets hit me, I stood straight up but did not turn around.
Not because I didn’t care. I didn’t turn around, because I knew if I did, I’d
see somebody other than my brother back there. Right then and there I knew I
had to make it real. I knew I had to turn water into wine. So I stopped
playing.

But those low bass notes stuck to my
teeth like black Twizzlers. I nodded in time to the beat. When I stepped up to
the mic Pauly joined me.

Last verse.

Our words fought for space in the PA.
They elbowed and pushed each other as they streamed out of the speakers. His
breath smelled like bourbon. Stunk like mine. To see if it was real I let my
head fall back. And even though it was faint, I felt it. He leaned over and
bumped his head into mine. A small bump. Just a tap.
Such a
Pauly thing to do
.

I smiled as I soloed over the outro. A
few of them bobbed their heads while they lit smokes and drank. I turned to
Pauly and said, “Like John Lennon would, to let us down tonight.”

At the end I paused, used to the type
of applause paying audiences dished out. And the smattering stung, but it
didn’t hurt. I looked at Calvin for a few more drinks. He nodded and I turned
to Pauly. “Your turn.”

“Let’s do ‘Bluebird,’” he said with a
smile.

“No, man. They don’t want to hear any
of my shit.”

He retreated from my blow-off with a
flinch. “Fuck it, then. Do whatever you want.”

I put my hand on his arm. “Sorry, man.
I mean it. I thought you were telling me what you thought I wanted to hear.”

Duane shouted, “Freebird!” and laughed
with the people at the next table.

“Do whatever you want then.”

“Pauly…” I said, hoping to talk it
out. But he didn’t have any fight left in his eyes. I could feel him trembling.
“Let’s do it.”

His arms remained crossed over his
chest for a long, quiet minute. He stepped up to the mic and said, “Katy. Would
you mind joining us up here? Please?”

I looked for her amongst the tables,
back behind the bar. Pauly said, “Andre, would you mind trying again, please?”

I said, “Want to play something until
she gets here?”

“Simoneaux said we all had to be up
here. He said a table with two legs can’t stand.”

So we waited, despite the anxious
conversation from the people on the other side of the dance floor. I tried not to
look, because I didn’t like what I saw out there. They weren’t just bored. They
were
fucking
bored.

“C’mon, boy!” Duane yelled. “You’re
making it real hard to keep this buzz going.”

“Katy?” I said, into the mic. “Why
don’t you put your hair up and join us?”

I turned to Pauly. “‘Beast of Burden.’
She’ll pick it up when she gets up here.”

“No way, man. That ain’t what
Simoneaux said to do.”

I looked back at the bar and held my
palms up. “Andre?”

With a laugh, Andre answered. “She
said, ‘hold your horses,’ and that she ain’t ‘playing a note without changing
clothes first.’”

I turned my back and Andre added,
“Don’t worry, Preston, these folks ain’t going anywhere,” and a few of them
laughed.

“Yeah, Pres,” Duane said, “We ain’t
going nowhere unless you can get us out of these seats.”

“Hell with all this.” My face got hot
and I knew I’d blushed. Like I wanted Duane Allman to see me make a fool of
myself. I mumbled, “Sugarplum fairy, one two three…” and launched right into
“Shake Your Hips.”

I tried to gain a little cred by not
mentioning the Rolling Stones at all. “Here’s a little Slim Harpo. For Duane
back there.”

From the back of the room Duane
whooped and raised his glass.

Pauly said, “Here she comes,” but I’d
already moved into the verse. And before she even made it up to the stage I saw
heads bouncing and feet tapping.