by William Gay
Inside it was hot and loud and smoky. One enormous room with booths set about the walls and a bare wood dance floor where bodies jerked spasmodically to a bluesy shuffle amplified from a raised bandstand.
They found a corner booth and Crosswaithe wended his way to the bar and bought two bottles of beer and wended his way back through a crowd that seemed a cross section of Harrikin society. There were fat men in baseball caps turned backwards and overalls stained with deer blood or blood from more dubious sources and rawboned Marlboro men in cowboy hats and girls in beehive hairdos and formal gowns and girls in jeans and boots. Some of the men were carrying pistols, for Crosswaithe could see more than one imprinted against fabric pockets and once he bumped against one in a jumper pocket that swayed heavily and the man carrying it pulled away and eyed Crosswaithe with a long speculative look.
Let’s get the bottle and go find a motel room, Carmie said. Head out for Florida in the morning.
Just a minute, Crosswaithe said. Did you see that guitar? He must have went down and met the devil at the crossroads for one like that.
The lead guitar player of the band was playing a National steel guitar that Crosswaithe drunk as he was had to feel in his own hands. He drained his bottle and set it aside and rose and picked his way around the crowd’s perimeter to the bandstand. He stood with his hands in his coat pockets letting the wave of rehashed Lynyrd Skynyrd wash over him until the band took a break between numbers and the man leant the guitar against an amplifier.
Mind if I fool with your guitar?
The guitar player had pale shoulder-length hair and he smoothed it back both-handed and looked at Crosswaithe. It was my daddy’s and I don’t want it busted over somebody’s head. Can you play one?
I tried a lot of years.
Hell, sit in with us then. We need all the help we can get around here.
Crosswaithe began tentatively with the band feeling its way behind him, bass and drums and second guitar looking for a way into the song then falling silent one by one. There was no way in. The song was a scratchy old 78 from the bottom of someone’s trunk, his fingers feeling around and into a past that was realer and more imminent than the present, his fingers exploring the cracked linoleum and raw pine boards and faded rose wallpaper of Robert Johnson’s fabled kitchen. They read Son House’s “Death Letter Blues” and halfway through a song by Reverend Gary Davis the old magic seized him, a tide of power that rolled over him and made him omnipotent, invulnerable to kryptonite and bulletproof, someone who could make or destroy worlds at his whim or simply bend them to his liking the way his fingers bent the snaking strings.
When he handed the guitar back the man just looked at him. Goddamn, he said.
At least they didn’t throw bottles.
Where’d you learn to play like that?
All over the place, Crosswaithe said. Is there a pay phone here?
There’s one here but it’s outside. For some damn reason they put it on the porch.
At the bar he exchanged a five-dollar bill for quarters and went out the door into the cold. In the phone booth he stood for a moment with the receiver in his hand waiting for the number to rise up from his subconscious the way he knew it would do. When it did he put in money and dialed, and in San Francisco, in a room he’d never been to, a room his mind had imbued with myth, a phone began to ring. It rang and rang. At length he hung up and tried for another number. This one came harder but it did come. The phone was picked up on the third ring.
Hello?
Richie?
Who is this?
Billy Crosswaithe.
Crosswaithe? Goddamn. Where are you, are you here in town?
I’m in Tennessee.
What are you doing in Tennessee?
Freezing my butt off and thinking about warmer climates, Crosswaithe said. What’s going on?
You mean in the six or seven years it’s been since you called? I don’t know if there’s time enough to tell you all that.
Just in the few minutes before you answered the phone, Crosswaithe said.
I was working. Are you in Nashville, is that what you’re doing in Tennessee? Are you famous yet?
Not yet.
I keep waiting to see you on the cover of Rolling Stone or to read a record review somewhere.
Any day now.
There was a quickening of interest in Richie’s voice so that Crosswaithe wondered for a cynical moment what he had ever done to make Richie think that something entertaining was going to happen just because he had called. Things happen around you, Richie had said once long ago. You never know what’s going to happen next. As if Crosswaithe’s life was a story Richie read a chapter of every few years.
What’s going on in your life, Richie?
Crosswaithe listened awhile. Richie had a computer company, he had started on a shoestring but things were beginning to boom. Crosswaithe glanced at his watch. He stared out the glass into the world of night. All the world there was a black vacuum sucking whirling snow up into it.
When Richie fell silent Crosswaithe said, I called Robin a few minutes ago but nobody answered. Has she moved?
For the first time Crosswaithe’s radar detected caution, hesitation. Robin’s in Tupelo, Richie said.
In Tupelo, Mississippi? What’s she doing there?
Well, Father’s there. He’s old. He’s a lot older than he was the last time you called. He’s not able to care for himself and Robin moved in with him. She is a nurse, you know.
I know. Do you have the number there?
There was silence for a time. Finally Richie said, Of course I have it, but I don’t think I’m going to give it to you.
Why not?
Why not? I don’t think you’re good for her. I know damn well you’re not good for her. She has problems and you make them worse. You turn up every few years and knock her off balance. We’ve been through a lot and I love you like a brother but frankly I think you ruined her life a long time ago. I think she expects things from you that you’re not capable of doing. She was just a kid, for Christ’s sake, what, sixteen years old?
I just wanted to talk to her.
Come on out and talk to me. We’ll go out on the town like we used to. Set em up and knock em down. It’s warm out here.
Hey, Crosswaithe said. I’ve been meaning to call and tell you this. You remember that time we went up to Woodstock looking for that place Dylan lived after the motorcycle accident?
Yeah. Then we made a pilgrimage to Big Pink.
I saw him.
You saw Dylan? What, in concert? So did I, several times.
No, not in concert. In New Orleans. He was coming out of a bar on Bourbon Street. I was drunk and he was drunk or on something and I bumped into him.
You actually bumped into him? What did he say?
He said, Hey, man, watch where you’re going, or something like that.
Hey, man, watch where you’re going, Richie said, laughing. That’s real profound. How would you interpret that, what do you suppose it means? Did you ask him anything?
No. He had his, whatever, entourage. He was with that Byrd, Roger or Jim McGuinn. His eyes looked stoned, out there.
I’d have asked him something.
He wouldn’t have known.
The hell he wouldn’t.
You know how we always thought he had a handle on things? How he knew where the answers were in the back of the book? He doesn’t. He’s just wandering around this sideshow like everybody else. Trying to make it through to daylight the best way he can.
The hell he is. He knows.
He doesn’t know, Crosswaithe said. And you can take that to the bank.
Listen, about Robin, she’s been through some rough times. The messy divorce, and then a messier custody trial for her son because of her drinking problem. She’s got everything under control now, but I don’t know if you ought to talk to her.
Divorce, Crosswaithe thought. Child, custody fight. Drinking problem. How time flies.
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br /> I don’t see how talking to me could make it any worse.
Just don’t promise a bunch of shit you can’t deliver, all right? Do you have a pen?
I can remember it.
He hung up and dialed the number. He wondered what time it was in Mississippi. Early, late, ten years ago, twenty years ago. He suddenly noticed that his knuckles clutching the phone were bloodless and white and he loosened his grip. When the voice came on he felt it like a physical shock, a palpable and three-dimensional remnant from his past.
She recognized his voice immediately. I don’t think I want to talk to you, she said. Anyway I don’t have time. I was up with Father, he’s frail and sick.
Crosswaithe thought of Father, frail and sick, remembering the violent weight of him, the strong carpenter’s arms closed on him in a headlock, remembering the smell of him, Old Spice and Red Man chewing tobacco and the smell of violence, like the smell of an enraged animal.
I just woke up this morning wanting to see you, Crosswaithe said, hearing his voice but not the words, Crosswaithe on automatic pilot, hearing the buzz of his voice but seeing a Mexican hotel room with panic spreading, blood spreading in the center of a white sheet like a malignant flower blooming, her abortion turning into a car crash. Today just seemed different, Crosswaithe went on. I knew I’d have to call you before the day was over. Why do you suppose that is?
I don’t know, unless it’s because you’ve used up all the people wherever you are and need to move on. Maybe it’s because you’re a cold-blooded bastard who uses people then flushes them like toilet paper. Could that be it?
Maybe, but I don’t think so. I think I just want to see you.
There was silence for a time. What’s the matter with you? she finally asked, and this time there was a different tone to her voice, perhaps imperceptible to one less attuned than Crosswaithe: here was malleable clay to sculpt, a slate upon which to write.
I don’t know exactly, he said, and a part of him seemed to split off from the whole and watch cynically, a tiny Crosswaithe standing with head cocked sidewise and a look of sardonic amusement on his face, a look that said, there he goes again, where does he get this stuff? can you believe this guy?
It’s no one thing, Crosswaithe said. I just can’t seem to get my life together. Things were running along pretty good and then it all just blew apart. My wife divorced me but I could handle that, the worst thing was my son. I’ve got this six-year-old the sun rises and sets on and I just lost a bloody custody battle. I’m not even certain about any kind of visitation rights. I guess I just don’t know where to turn.
Crosswaithe recounting this tale felt his vision blur, felt real pain for the fictional son he had lost, for a dizzy moment lost control over which emotions were real and which manufactured, what events were true and what dreamed.
Don’t bullshit me, you can’t manipulate me, he imagined her screaming. But she said quite calmly, This doesn’t sound at all like you, Billy. Are you leveling with me?
Listen, I was thinking about driving down to Natchez, he said. If I stopped in Tupelo do you think I could see you?
No. I don’t have the time or inclination for this.
Just for a little while.
If I said yes I’d be a fool, she said. If I said no I’d be a liar. I prefer to be neither.
That’s good enough for me,, Crosswaithe said, and broke the connection. His face felt hot and flushed and he leaned it against the cold glass. I heard the news, there’s good rockin tonight, he said aloud.
At the bar he drank a cup of coffee. There was a subtle difference in the atmosphere of the room. An undercurrent of unease, he could smell violence like the scent of ozone in an electrical storm. In the far corner a fight erupted in a cascade of overturned tables and flying bottles and spread toward him like ripples on water. Hey good buddy, a voice said. He turned. It was Chessor with the checked cap with doglike earflaps. He put a proprietary arm about Crosswaithe’s shoulders. Let’s get drunk and kill somebody, he said.
Crosswaithe twisted away. He drained his coffee cup and set it on the bar and started toward the corner Carmie was in. Halfway there someone hit him in the side of the head and he went down and went the rest of the way to the door on his hands and knees, through a forest of denim-clad legs, buffeted by thrashing bodies, the brawl following him like a plague.
He was already in the truck with the engine running when she came out. She got in and offered him a half-pint bottle. Get you a drink, she said. You’ve got blood on your mouth.
He took a drink and rinsed it around in his mouth and rolled down the window and spat bloody vodka onto the snow.
Did we eat today, she said. I’m beginning to feel awfully peculiar.
I think we had a steak somewhere this morning.
We never did make it to bed though, and that was sort of the point of this whole thing. Why don’t we find a warm motel and a warm meal and a warm bed and start out for Key West in the morning?
Why don’t we, Crosswaithe said.
HE BACKED THE TRUCK carefully up the incline to the loading dock at PETTIGREW MAGNAVOX. It was drifted with snow and the rear wheels began to spin sideways, whining wildly on the ice. The hell with it, he said. He got out and slammed the truck door and lowered the tailgate. He got the two-wheeler lifted and the television set onto the tailgate but he couldn’t get it turned properly and he couldn’t decide what to do with it. His hands were freezing and finally he lowered the two-wheeler back onto the bed of the pickup. You heavy son of a bitch, he told it. Carmie stood in the snow watching him.
At last he leaned his back against the truck railing and braced his feet against the television and shoved. It went freewheeling off the icy tailgate and slammed onto the asphalt, striking on one corner and settling heavily onto its back with the screen collapsing inward and snow drifting into it.
Jesus, the girl said.
Crosswaithe was shaking with silent laughter.
What the hells the matter with you? Carmie asked.
Oprah Winfrey came out of that thing when it hit like a bat out of hell, he said. Did you not see her?
You’re crazy as shit, the girl told him.
At least that crazy, Crosswaithe agreed.
WHEN HE PULLED INTO the hospital parking lot the girl was asleep but she awoke and looked wildly about. Where are we? This is not a motel.
I have to see somebody a minute.
Who?
My ex-wife.
Weeks seemed to have passed since he had left her at six o’clock in the morning but here the clock hands seemed not to have moved at all. His coffee cup was still in the wastebasket, the machines that lived for her had not missed a beat, van Gogh’s sun-flowers tilted toward a sun that had not moved in the sky. He studied her face remembering for a moment things she had said and the nights when she had clung to him with sweet urgency, like drowning, like dying. What’s it like over there? he asked her silently, but her face had no secrets to tell him and if she knew what it was like over there she was keeping it to herself.
Outside he stood on the concrete steps breathing deeply, sucking his lungs full of the cold air until he could feel the oxygen run in his veins like ice. Snowflakes melted in his lashes, on his face, he could feel them in his lungs.
The girl was asleep with the bottle of orange vodka clasped loosely in her hands and her head resting against the window glass where she’d jury-rigged a pillow with a folded sweater but halfway to Waynesboro she awoke and looked about as if she’d see where she had got to. Crosswaithe was thinking about where the old man leant again: the beech with the rifle propped against him and the world going to ice when as if she’d read his mind or simply judged what he’d be thinking she said,
I guess Daddy’s about snowed under by now.
All day long Crosswaithe had wondered how the girl could switch back and forth from beer to vodka with no apparent sign of it but now it seemed to have caught up with her. Her voice coming out of the darkness was slurred and a
fter a while she began to chuckle softly to herself.
Crosswaithe lit a cigarette from the dash lighter. The snow blew into the headlights and went looping weightlessly away and the road melted out by the lights looked like a tunnel into a perpetual ice storm.
The last few weeks with Daddy were just hell, Carmie said. Pure hell. He stayed on to me all the time. Like I had give him that cancer or could take it away if I wanted to and just wouldn’t. He used to call me names with his talker, bitches and whores, worse names than that. If I was a whore he made me one, didn’t he?
Crosswaithe could feel her eyes on him demanding an answer but he didn’t say anything. He cranked the window down for the cold air to clear his head.
Can you keep a secret? she asked.
I’ve already got more than I need, Crosswaithe said. I’ve got secrets people have given me I haven’t even taken out of the box yet.
Finally I took his talker away from him and threw it in the stove. One day he was mouthing names at me while I was changing his sheets and I just picked up a pillow and laid it across his face. Just to keep his mouth from working. But then I caught both sides of the pillow and leaned on him as hard as I could. He fought awhile but he was real weak and after a little bit he just quit.
I’ll bet he did, Crosswaithe said.
They were coming into Waynesboro, strings of neon night lights, no other traffic about. On the square there was a bus station with a running greyhound outlined in blue neon and he pulled the truck up to the curb.
Why are we stopping here? What’s this place?
Go get us a couple of cups of coffee. I’m running down or something. Driving through this shit’s hard on the nerves.
Can’t we get some at the motel?
We’ve got to find one first. Crosswaithe was fumbling out money. He handed her a five and she got out bunching her shoulders against the cold. Keep the heater going, she said.
She was halfway to the bus station when he leaned across the seat and called her back. He slid two one-hundred-dollar bills from the rubber-banded money and pocketed them. He reached the money to the girl. Put this in your purse before I lose it, he said. We need to hang on to it.