A Song For the Road

by Rayne Lacko

  After breakfast the next morning, Ledbetter taught Carter licks and techniques from rockabilly, blues, old-time rock ’n roll, and western swing, playing T-Bone Walker, Buddy Holly, and Janis Joplin albums on a record player sitting on a shelf in the kitchen. Carter decided to make the most of it by choosing one to learn for when he came face to face with Eddie. “Listen close for patterns, boy. You hear how chords tend to move in fourths? Nail that, and soon you’ll be playing any song that hits you right.” Any song? Seemed unlikely, he thought.

  Carter couldn’t believe he’d never noticed those patterns before. Alternating between songs on Ledbetter’s old records and dialing in stations on an AM/FM radio, Carter listened. There they were, loud and clear. His ears were opened. The tough part was wrangling his hands to play what he could see in his mind. He pulled the Martin closer to him, focusing on replicating the music’s exact structure.

  He looked over at Ledbetter with a grin, but he’d nodded off to sleep in his chair. Carter spent the afternoon studying selected songs from Ledbetter’s collection, and painstakingly imitating each and every note, mimicking the artists’ timing. It was powerful, always knowing which pattern came next. He was in control for once in his life. With some real practice, he’d sound as good as any musician. He could accomplish what his father always wanted from him: flawless execution of rock’s biggest hits. Maybe there was a chance he’d make it as a performer after all. Maybe he had a future worth working toward.

  Ledbetter’s callused fingertips stilled Carter’s hands on the strings, surprising him. The man had been dead asleep.

  “You got to connect what’s happening here,” Ledbetter tapped his lined brow with his cane handle, “with what’s going on here.” The old man thumped the top of his cane into his heart, the way a soldier might’ve loaded gun powder into an old Civil War cannon.

  “But I’m finally getting somewhere,” Carter argued. “That was ’flawless execution,’ like Janis Joplin was right here in the Yucca with us,” he said, using one of his father’s favorite phrases. “You’re the one who told me to learn from the masters.”

  “And I stand by word. But you gotta give it your own signature and style.” Ledbetter leaned toward Carter on his cane. “Listen, it used to be that painters trained by making replicas, copying their famous teachers, Michelango, Matisse, Picasso, Rembrandt—all the greats. But does history remember the fakers? No.” Ledbetter pulled a stool next to him and sat down. “You got two choices, boy: you can follow or you can fight.”

  Shaking out his fingers like a wet dog, Carter wondered whether fighting had ever done right by him. All his life, he’d ignored what people told him and tried to do things his way. It brought to mind the “Hour of Freedom” song he’d written on his hand that day he got up the nerve to buy his daddy’s pawned guitar. He wasn’t supposed to have that guitar, and look at the mess of problems it’d brought him. If there was one thing Carter had never done, it was what he was told. Maybe if he’d just listened to his father in the first place, his life would be completely different.

  “I’m near enough a man,” Carter said. “If it comes down to following or fighting, I choose to follow.”

  Ledbetter’s graying head tipped forward, but he nodded like he could see Carter’s point. Arranging his fingers on the strings, Carter tried again. Ledbetter placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder and waited for him to look him in the eye. “You’re wrestling with a pig in the mud and the pig likes it,” Ledbetter said, when Carter finally met his gaze. “When you’re ready to make peace with yourself, with who you are, we can continue.”

  Carter didn’t want Ledbetter to go, but if he kept doing things his way, all he’d end up with is more mistakes and bad decisions. He knew he’d best be moving west soon. Ledbetter rose off the stool and headed out to his trailer. Before he made it as far as the kitchen, Carter spoke up. “I need to find out how much a bus ticket to LA costs,” he said, sliding the guitar strap off his shoulder. “I’ve earned a hundred dollars. That’s plenty for a ticket, right?”

  “Sure, I suppose,” Ledbetter replied, folding back the cuffs of his button-down shirt. “I spent a good while traveling this country in tour buses back in my day,” he said, contemplating an invisible map of the American Southwest in the air in front of him. “Las Cruces to LA is a decent trip. If you like rock formations.”

  MITCH couldn’t argue about lending his phone to call the bus station. It meant getting the boy off his hands. Turned out, a bus ticket to Los Angeles cost little more than one evening’s work in the kitchen. Carter reckoned he’d soon see his father. Even better, it meant he had a head start on paying his mom back for the guitar. The trouble was, the bus company had all sorts of limitations when a traveler’s seen less than seventeen years. The operator told him he needed an adult vouching for him at the start and finish. Even if he had a grown-up he could count on at either end, unaccompanied minors were limited to trips eight hours or less, nonstop, between sun up and sun down. From New Mexico, it was impossible. Carter’s simple plan to get out of The Little Yucca was melting like a popsicle in a hot spell. He couldn’t be stuck. There had to be some other way.

  Carter quickly researched airplane ticket prices, and learned they cost way more. He’d only earned a portion of the money he’d need. Even when he made enough, there was also the problem of how he’d get back to Albuquerque Sunport, the closest airport. Carter had no choice but to collect more kitchen pay, hatch a plan for getting back to the airport, and stay out of Mitch’s way in the process.

  Panicked, he sat and stared at the dusty stage for a long while. Long enough to realize he wanted another crack at it.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  CARTER HAD NO CHOICE BUT TO STAY PUT AT The Little Yucca until he earned enough money to buy a plane ticket, but he sure wasn’t going to squander his time. Mr. Led-better was inarguably the best musician he’d ever met. He wasn’t a bad teacher, either. They may not have seen eye to eye, but Carter reckoned the old man had opened his ears. More than that, Ledbetter had given him hope. Carter’s plan to get his father to sign the guitar to help his mother was good. But if there was a chance he could make a living as a musician, have the future his daddy had groomed him for, he was certain it would be a much bigger help to her.

  It was nearly time to turn in for the night. Carter found Mr. Ledbetter in the kitchen in his saggy bathrobe, stooped at the counter over his collection of vitamins and supplements. Only an hour before he’d rocked The Little Yucca with energy and authority. The tavern nearly shook with the power of his rhythms. “It seems you become a whole new person when you’re on stage,” Carter said, trying to show his respect, “like the music takes over.”

  “Might say I’m reborn,” Ledbetter replied, with half a smile. “Music has a way of suspending time. And it ain’t tightfisted when it comes to handing out second chances.”

  A second chance, that’s exactly what Carter wanted.

  THE next morning, Ledbetter set Carter on a stage stool for the day’s lesson. He had a theory about the spotlight becoming a performer’s shrink, a safe place to unload demons. Carter couldn’t make sense of it. By the way he played his Pimentel, Ledbetter sounded like an angel.

  “You know why my Pimentel guitar sounds so good?” Carter watched him hobble back to a table, coordinating a tall glass of ice-cold lemonade and his cane with an efficient swagger. “Because it’s family-built. A guitar that runs in the family holds a special sound,” Ledbetter added, sliding into a chair.

  Carter swallowed hard. “My dad had this Martin custom-made,” he said, running his fingertips along the stained inscription that read, Creativity, Victory, Heart, and Discipline.

  Ledbetter nodded. “Family, that’s a bond ain’t nothing going to break.”

  Carter tightened his jaw and shook his head. His own family was sure broken.

  “Mitch has a daughter out in Tucson he visits most Sundays,” Ledbetter continued. “She’s a full-grown woman now, owns her own jo
int just like The Yucca. But Mitch still looks out for her, ’cause she’ll always be his baby girl. That’s family for you.”

  If Mr. Ledbetter was trying to make him feel better, it wasn’t working. Eddie Danforth had left him when he was a little kid. He’d plucked the guitar out of his dreams and pawned it. With or without music, Carter still needed his father to look out for him, but where was he? On the other side of the country, playing Daddy to someone else’s kids. Probably already cut an album with them. Now he and his mama needed Eddie’s help more than ever. If there were only two choices, following or fighting, he couldn’t tell which would serve him best. If he followed what was expected of him, he’d be in Reno with his Aunt Syl, and not on his way to getting his father to sign the Martin.

  Against all logic, music breathed life into old Ledbetter’s singular sound. If Carter followed exactly how the masters played, copying them note for note, would he experience the miracle of rebirth every time he played?

  TO pass the time during Ledbetter’s afternoon naps, Carter wandered the sun-bleached ridges around The Little Yucca, spotting the fossilized footprints of various reptiles and insects. Heading southwest, he scrambled over boulders to discover long, wavy lines where rocks and rubble formed a dry creek bed. If this was what his mom grew up around, it didn’t seem so bad.

  Carter wished he had word whether Mama was okay. He thought about her all the time but always found an excuse not to call. One moment, Mitch would be in too foul a mood to risk asking to borrow his phone. Another moment, he’d picture her reaction if she had any clue of his whereabouts. She’d be in quick need of a heart attack doctor, and she already had more than enough medical bills. But the longer he went without calling, the worse he felt. In truth, playing the Martin made him realize how sad he’d been all those years without it. He wondered how many of the troubles he caused were from not knowing he was just sad.

  Carter sat for hours in the shade of a boulder, practicing his guitar and writing to Kaia Liu, often two letters in a single day. There were too many squabbles in his head, duking it out. Should he play the music he felt bubbling up inside him, or, knowing the most important audition of his life would be with his father, keep practicing ’flawless execution’? Scratching his pen across the page, he let it all out: everything he felt about his dad, everything he’d learned on his guitar, everything he hoped might change, and everything he hoped might stay the same. She couldn’t reply to a single word of it, so he wrote without second-guessing what he knew to be true, real, and necessary.

  At the drugstore, there was a pay phone out back with a handwritten “Out of Order” sign covering the coin slot. The scotch tape holding the sign had clung there so long it’d turned brown as dirt. Carter mailed his letters and stocked up on envelopes and stamps, and treated himself to chocolate bars and issues of Guitar Player and Guitar World magazine. He still needed another three hundred bucks to buy a plane ticket, but it felt good to have a bit of cash in his pocket.

  AFTER a week in Las Cruces, Carter relaxed into the deep cushions on Ledbetter’s settee, writing Kaia to beg her not to tell anyone where he was, hoping it wasn’t too late. My mom would freak, he wrote. Best thing for her right now is peace and quiet. Give her a chance to get back to her old self. It wouldn’t do her any good to be worrying about me.

  It was already the fourteenth of April. It was just past closing time, when Mitch finished locking up and filled the entrance to the kitchen with his imposing frame. “Don’t you think it’s time you called home, son?”

  Carter dug his hands into his jeans pockets and waved his hair out of his eyes with a swish of his head. He tried to act casual about the worry he carried day in and day out. He wanted to talk to his mama like his life depended on it, but he was scared she may not be feeling better and it was easier to imagine her healing up fine. He was scared of what she was going to say about him skipping out on Aunt Syl’s, and he was scared of what he had coming to him for running away. If he could just explain, he’d tell her he didn’t run away. He was running to. “I’ve been busy, sir. Working hard in the kitchen, practicing lots, and writing letters, too.”

  Mitch reached into his pocket and fished out his phone. He held it out and waited, leveling his cold blue gaze on the boy.

  Carter took the phone from him, imagining the heap of trouble he was going to be in for not calling sooner. “Thank you. I won’t be long.”

  “Give her my regards.” Mitch went back into the bar to finish calculating the evening’s receipts.

  Mr. Ledbetter had already turned in for the night, so Carter found some privacy in the storeroom. He dialed the hospital, hoping for something he might consider good news. The attending nurse put him through to his mother’s room, and Carter held his breath, surprised by how excited he was to hear her voice.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  LOLA MAY LEGGITT BOOMED THROUGH THE phone. “Cotton, how you been, darling?” She said everything like there was a studio audience watching and half of ’em were hard of hearing, the other half deaf. What was she doing at the hospital?

  “I’m just fine, Lola. May I speak with Mama?”

  “I’m sorry, sweet pea,” Lola said. “Sandy’s down in rehab. They have her doing exercises to get her strength back. Doctor says your mama’s going to be right as rain and discharged the day after tomorrow.” This was the best news Carter could hope for. “She’s been eager to hear from y’all. How are you and your Aunt Sylvia getting on?”

  Carter stared at the phone in his hand. His mama didn’t know he was missing. He could spin a tale; it would be easy to lie to Lola May.

  It was lucky Mama didn’t know he’d ditched Aunt Syl, but she was going to learn the truth some time. Carter wagered the news might sound better coming from her best friend. In one breath, he let off the ten-gallon load on his shoulders. Carter stuck with the high points.

  “I’m not at Aunt Syl’s, Lola May. But I’m safe and snug in Las Cruces, New Mexico. I’m even earning wages working in a restaurant kitchen, just down a ways from the Lius.” It didn’t make much sense to call it a tavern or a bar; she might get the wrong impression. “And when I earn enough”—and get the nerve up—’Tm going to knock on my daddy’s front door in Santa Monica and ask him to help us out.”

  Lola May nearly broke the phone in two trying to holler some sense into the boy. “Cotton, you had better be telling a tall tale. Are you kidding me? Las Cruces? How in the name of—” Lola fell silent, without completing her sentence. Lola and silence, those two just didn’t mix.

  Carter dropped his forehead into his hand, and tried to talk to her like a reasonable adult. “I bought my dad’s old Martin guitar out of hock. I know it sounds crazy but I’ve gone back to playing music, Lola. And I’m not half bad, either.” Once he admitted he had the guitar, he needed to make some kind of sense of it for her. Lola wasn’t around much back when his dad was still in the picture, she didn’t know Carter could play. “I’d all but forgotten what it felt like, making six lonely strings work together to create something from nothing. Making music on my dad’s old guitar’s got me thinking he might just help us, if we ask.” The news of his disappearance would be enough to send his mother into a fit of worry, and he didn’t know what she’d do when she found out he was playing his father’s guitar again. Ain’t no way he’d have had the nerve to tell her all that in person. It was bad enough over the phone. “How is Mama doing, Lola? I can’t tell you how happy I am that she’s back on her feet.” Carter wished he’d thought to send his mom a letter.

  “Hold your horses, Cotton,” Lola said. “Now you listen to me. Your mama is going to be worried sick when she hears about the stunt you’ve pulled. I’m coming to get you, you hear? Give me your address.”

  Carter froze. He should have known better than to hope Lola May would soften the blow for his mom. There she was again, acting like she was kin or something. He didn’t want her thinking he needed her help, not when he hadn’t even reached out to his father yet, no
t properly. What he wanted was to talk with his mom. He needed to hear from her directly that she was all right. He needed to explain himself. Buying the guitar and going to see his father was his responsibility. Maybe she’d understand.

  “Cotton, can you hear me,” Lola May asked again when he didn’t reply.

  He wasn’t going to give her The Little Yucca’s address, no way. Carter reckoned Lola could turn two flies circling a cow patty into a melodrama. He tucked behind a stack of bar napkin boxes and whispered hard and loud. “Lola, I need to speak with Mama. When she gets back to the room, have her call me, please.”

  “I’m not going to tell her a word about this. You can do that when you see her, because I’m bringing you home. Now are you going to give me your whereabouts?”

  He ignored her question. “Where will she go when they discharge her? Our house is nothing but scrap and rubble.”

  “I told her I’d put her up in a hotel. But she insists on going to the shelter.” Carter shook his head. Just like Mama, he thought. She had to do everything her way and never ask for help. “Doesn’t want to owe me, she said,” Lola May continued. “I can’t convince her there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her. But you know what they say about Sandy, cain’t never could change her mind. So,” Lola May sighed and fussed like what she was about to say was none too pretty, “I’m going with her.”

  He pointed out the obvious: “You’d just as well stay home with Wayne.”

  “Wayne ain’t home for me, Cotton.” The way she said it, the word home, stung Carter’s ear like an off-key note. He knew shacking up with a bunch of strangers in a high school gymnasium was the last thing Lola May wanted, and yet she aimed to do it. She was putting his mama before herself, and even though he couldn’t make her understand right then, that’s exactly what Carter was trying to do by going out west to find his father. “Lola May, I’m sorry. I—”