Rhythm and Bluegrass

by Molly Harper

  His face went slack for a moment, mouth gaping, before he recovered and gripped my hand in his big, warm paw. “You’re the fancy-pants historian lady?” he exclaimed. “Well, what do ya know about that?”

  “Quite a bit, actually, since I’m the fancy-pants historian lady,” I said, chuckling.

  “Well, between the fire and the raw sewage, I guess we’re on even ground with the whole not-great-first-impression thing, huh?” he asked, eyes a-twinkle. Good Lord, dozens of women must have lost their panties to that twinkle.

  Focus, Bonnie. Focus.

  Focus on those strong, warm fingers wrapped around mine and how I could feel every ridge and scar on his fingertips. What did he do to make his hands so rough? And how would they feel, for instance, on other parts of my body?

  “Don’t worry, I washed it after the sewage,” he said, glancing down at our joined hands.

  Focus on letting go of his hand.

  I gave him an awkward smile and relinquished control of his limb. “Oh, no, I was just wondering what happened to Mayor McGlory. I spoke to him just a few weeks ago to set up this meeting. Was he booted out of office or something? And how the heck did you get elected so young?”

  “Tommy McGlory needed to retire two weeks ago after his third heart attack. Nobody else wanted the job. We held an emergency election and I drew the short straw. Sad to say, SpongeBob SquarePants got two more write-in votes than me. But since he’s a cartoon and all, he couldn’t serve.”

  “Some people have no sense of humor about fictitious public officials,” I said solemnly.

  And there went his twinkle again. He was going to have to stop doing that if I was going to string more than one coherent sentence together. And suddenly, I remembered why the name Will McBride sounded so familiar.

  “You’re doing that squintin’ thing again. It’s adorable, but it leaves me wonderin’ what you’re thinkin’.”

  “No, I’m sorry, I was just thinking—your last name is McBride?” I said, shaking my head, praying that tenuous mental connection I was making between my research and the name was the result of misfiring, overstressed synapses. “I’m assuming that you’re related somehow to the family that owned the music hall?”

  He nodded. “My grandpa George built the place.”

  My mouth dropped open. “So you’re going to just bulldoze it for the sake of, what? A tire plant? Chicken processing? Are you going to work for a company that makes those little plastic things that keep price tags on shirts?”

  He mumbled something under his breath.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “ComfyCheeks Underwear,” he said again, a blush staining his cheeks. “We’re in very early, very delicate negotiations with the company to build one of their largest manufacturin’ sites right here in Mud Creek. The whole town is kinda countin’ on it to pull us out of—pardon the expression—the economic toilet. But the management’s only willin’ to discuss plans if they can build on the McBride’s site.”

  “What about the old GPS plant location?” I asked. “Can’t they retrofit the old plant to meet their needs?”

  Will shook his head. “The building’s the wrong size and doesn’t have the right electrical setup. Besides, the music hall’s close to the highway and has easy access to the railroad. And yes, for the record, I would be lookin’ for a job there, too. The mayor’s position doesn’t exactly offer full-time pay. The guys who clean trash off the highway get paid more than I do.”

  ComfyCheeks was one of the largest manufacturers of tighty-whities in the known universe. Their “cheeks at ease” commercials were Super Bowl staples. And they’d just expanded their line into boxer briefs . . . which explained the need for a new factory. So they wanted to destroy a priceless musical legacy to make man-panties.

  And now would be a good time to remember that I was depending on Mayor McBride’s goodwill in order to get access to the building and said priceless musical legacy.

  “Well, I hope it works out for you.” I cleared my throat and attempted a more cordial, less judge-y tone. “And if there’s anything you want me to save for you from the building, just let me know. I wouldn’t want to take anything your family would want to keep as a memento.”

  He shook his head, distaste curling his lips. “I don’t want anything from that place. It’s taken up enough of my family’s time and energy.”

  “All right, then.”

  He stared at me. And I stared back. I had no idea how to continue this conversation. He’d left me no verbal detour to take. This was why I envied Kelsey. She was always able to come up with some snarky quip to bring awkward conversations back to some talking point. Well, okay, I envied her for that and the fact that she didn’t have to shop for jeans in the junior boys’ department.

  “I’m sorry,” he told me. “I’m makin’ you uncomfortable. It’s just a sore subject, that’s all. Not your fault.”

  I nodded. “I’m sorry. I feel like we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot . . . a couple of wrong feet . . . We’ve gotten off on a centipede’s worth of wrong feet.”

  “I’ll try to overlook it if you will.” He laughed and the easy smile returned. “I don’t suppose you wanna go out to the site and look around? I don’t feel right lettin’ ya set down stakes in town unless you know what you’re gettin’ into.”

  “Well, Joe Bob was going to come by and pick me up . . .”

  He plopped a Mud Creek Home Repairs cap over his sandy hair. “I can call him and tell him to meet us at your place later. Your landlady knew you’d be comin’ by and left your key with me.”

  My lips quirked. “If this is a ‘take the stranger out of town limits and drop them in the middle of nowhere’ scenario, I think you should know I carry a really large can of pepper spray.”

  He glanced toward my shoulder bag. “Really?”

  “Well, it’s sealant for decoupage. But it still stings like crazy.”

  He snorted. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  3

  In Which Will Drops the Proverbial House on My Apartment

  It was enormous.

  It was a wreck.

  It was an enormous wreck.

  I’d read up on Quonset huts, prefabricated metal buildings manufactured at Naval Air Station Quonset Point in Rhode Island during World War II. After the war, the buildings became popular as school annexes, dormitories, and hospital wards because they were quick, easy, and cheap to construct. I also knew that they were quickly disappearing because most of them were now falling apart.

  I’d seen it before, of course, on a weekend road trip in college, when my roommate insisted on visiting “Kentucky’s unsung musical mecca.” Never room with a theater major, kids. But that had been in the winter, when I was able to blame the gloomy, forlorn state of the building on the cloudy skies and scant patches of ice. Now, the building was naked, unvarnished, and I could see I had my work cut out for me.

  It would be okay, I told myself. I wasn’t afraid of hard work. I had made lemons into lemonade before. And sometimes, I surprised everybody and made grape juice instead. I. Could. Do. This.

  I took a deep breath. Pep talk over.

  I knew the music hall had seated more than four hundred people. But somehow, I didn’t remember the building being so big. You could put a tennis court in that thing and still have room for stadium seating. The shape reminded me of a halved cylinder of canned cranberry sauce—you know, the kind that leaves ridges in the jelly—turned on its side. The wintry-blue metal glinted dully behind a broken neon sign that had once read McBride’s Music Hall in fancy curlicued script. The windows were coated in a thick layer of dust, barely allowing me to glimpse the dark interior. The few remaining tables were topped with overturned chairs, giving the hall a somber feel.

  The building was weathered but whole. The glass-block facade was intact, if dulled and dirtie
d by time. The reports I’d read on the place called it “art moderne,” which is apparently a bit like art deco, only less deco and more industrial. The ticket window had been smashed a long time ago, but it was nothing a decent glazier couldn’t fix.

  My research on the place had been facilitated through my connections at Western Kentucky University’s Folklore Department. I’d earned my bachelor’s there and the staff was more than happy to help an alum, sharing their archived microfiche and oral histories. Locals had called McBride’s “Mud Creek’s hot spot” back when the postwar music scene was booming and veterans and their sweethearts flocked to dance halls to two-step. George McBride built this place when he came back from World War II because he saw the opportunity to provide a venue for Mud Creek. George was a man who appreciated a big impression, so when he ordered his Quonset building, he bought the biggest one available. He was willing to rent the stage to anyone willing to pay twenty dollars, no matter their color or preferred musical genre. His empty wallet and easy manners made him a darling on the country-and-western circuit and what was known as the “chitlin circuit” for early rhythm-and-blues performers.

  Before the interstate was built, the highway through Mud Creek was a vital artery between Nashville and Cincinnati. In those days, artists needed to tour to attract an audience and sell records, and acts big and small had to make gas money somewhere between the Apollo in Harlem and the Grand Ole Opry in Tennessee. McBride’s was the place to see and be seen.

  “Your dad took over in the late 1970s, right?” I called over my shoulder.

  When Will didn’t answer, I looked back to see that he was keeping his distance, leaning against his truck, sunglasses hiding his eyes. He stared at the ground as if the sight of the building was somehow painful.

  “Will?”

  Will cleared his throat. “Yeah, a bit before I was born. Gran was getting sick and Grandpa George took her down to Florida to retire. Other bars opened in town. The buildin’ started to show its age and Dad threw good money after bad tryin’ to patch it up. The crowds started shrinkin’. And then, in the eighties, everything changed. The bands wanted big stadium gigs and videos on MTV, not some dinky little stage with ‘character.’ Every once in a while, one of the greats would show up for a visit out of respect for my grandpa, but by the time I was a teenager, they were retiring and dying off, so that came to an end.”

  He kicked some gravel with the toe of his boot. “Dad just couldn’t draw the big crowds. Even the little names didn’t want to play here anymore. Dad tried to limp along, but he shut the doors in . . . 1995, I guess. He died a few months later, and we had to hand the property back to the bank.”

  “I’m sorry, Will. Really, I am.”

  Will shrugged. “Ancient family history.”

  I stepped closer, shielding my eyes against the glare of the late-afternoon sun as I peered through the front windows. The dimly lit interior walls were cedar, covered in posters and black-and-white photos. In the back of the hall, an enormous stuffed black bear stood guard near the entrance to the dressing rooms. Just inside the door, I could see a faded, peeling poster advertising a Johnny Cash performance. The historian in me itched to barge in and carefully remove the yellowed poster from the wall. Sunlight and unregulated air were top enemies of historical documents. And that poster had been exposed to both for more years than I cared to think about.

  But I knew that if I walked through the door now, I wouldn’t stop with just the poster. I would stay at the music hall, sorting and sifting in a historian fugue until I came to hours later, discovering I was hungry, filthy, and standing in a darkened building with no power in the middle of nowhere.

  The room was practically frozen in time. The bar and stage were still intact. The grill still had tickets hanging over it, for cripes’ sake. Someone had been waiting a very long time for their cheeseburger basket. How could the McBrides not have done anything to pack this stuff up and save it? I glanced over my shoulder toward Will, and given his forlorn expression, I didn’t have the heart to ask him.

  “It’s going to be a lot of work, pickin’ through all that stuff,” he said.

  “I’m not worried,” I told him. “I restored a train car diner in Possum Trot that had been abandoned and then occupied by about fourteen generations of raccoons. A little cleanup doesn’t scare me.”

  His smile was sad and a little lopsided as he pressed the keys into my hand. “Well, I’m glad somebody’s gonna get some enjoyment out of it.”

  “Depending on what I find, I imagine that a lot of people are going to get some enjoyment out of it,” I told him. “I hope that I find enough artifacts to share with museums all over the state.”

  “Artifacts? A bunch of old posters and junk?”

  “Well, we can’t all go looking for the ark of the covenant,” I told him.

  He groaned. “Aw, you can’t go around makin’ Indiana Jones references and not expect me to ask you out.”

  “It’s very tempting,” I assured him. “But right now, I just want to get to my apartment, change out of my smoky clothes, and perhaps eat food that I didn’t buy from a gas station.”

  Will absently rubbed a hand across the back of his neck and gave me what I could only describe as a “bad news” face. “Yeah, about that. Your new place isn’t exactly an apartment.”

  It turned out that leaning my head against the cool glass of the truck window, while soothing, was also a very effective way of accidentally falling asleep in the truck of someone that I didn’t know that well.

  I jerked awake as Will made a sudden right turn. I wiped at my cheeks, praying I wouldn’t find evidence of drool on my face.

  “Hey there, Sleepin’ Beauty,” he said, grinning at me. “You’re a mumbler.”

  “Ugh, sorry,” I said, scrubbing at my eyes with the backs of my hands. “It’s been a long day.”

  “I would hope so. I don’t know if I want ya in my truck too much longer if vehicle fires are a regular thing for ya. But we’re comin’ up on your place anyway.” He nodded toward a blurry collection of outbuildings just beyond the windshield.

  I blinked rapidly to get my contact lenses back into place so I could see. And when I could finally focus, I wished for semiblindness again. At this point, I knew better than to expect a cute little apartment building, but I wasn’t even looking at a building. I was in a trailer court. Surrounded by trees, with no grass to speak of, the park was lined with old silver Airstream trailers. They were neatly kept but showed their age, their dull, battered metal glinting in the sun. There were no flowers or potted plants or plastic flamingos in the yards. Was there some sort of homeowners association that forbade that sort of thing, in order to protect the residents from the horrors of pink plastic birds?

  The sign to the right of the entrance read FERNWOOD ESTATES. I snorted. Why do trailer courts always have such lofty names? I wondered grudgingly. It was always something like Rolling Acres or Peachtree Trail. It seemed a little pretentious. Then again, Kelsey’s apartment complex in Frankfort was called Quail Cove, and I’d never seen a quail there. Or a cove.

  This was what I got for searching for an apartment online. I should have known something was off when the ad didn’t include pictures. The wording of the post was awfully vague: “Efficiency, one-bedroom with eat-in kitchen. Scenic views. Reasonable rates.” The ad never stated that it was an apartment, but it certainly never stated that it wasn’t.

  I cleared my throat. “Nothing in the ad said anything about a trailer park.”

  Will smirked as he parked in front of Lot 45. “Would you like me to drop you at the Mud Creek Four Seasons?”

  I rolled my eyes. “You know, sarcasm is the lowest form of humor.”

  “Well, it’s a hell of a lot funnier than interpretive dance.” Will cackled. “And by the way, it’s wit.”

  “What?”

  “The quote. It’s ‘sarcasm i
s the lowest form of wit.’ It’s from Oscar Wilde,” he informed me.

  My eyebrows lifted.

  “Yeah, we managed to study literature at Mud Creek High School. Between the animal husbandry and weldin’ classes, of course. And for the record, sarcasm isn’t the lowest form of wit. Armpit fart noises. That’s the lowest form of wit.”

  I stared at him for a long, silent moment.

  “I’m allowed to have layers,” he said defensively.

  Chuckling, I shoved the truck door open. And I wouldn’t be cowed by the idea of living in a trailer. My reaction wasn’t a matter of middle-class snobbery. Point of fact, my parents’ first married home was a pink-and-white rental trailer with purple gingham curtains, where they lived while waiting for base housing to open up. One of the few fun stories my mom shared with me when I was a kid was about my dad taking a shower at the trailer one morning and screaming for help. The shower nozzle had risen farther and farther away from his head, and for a panicked moment, he thought he was shrinking. It turned out the wood underneath the shower was rotting and the unit was sinking. After Mama stopped laughing at him, she helped him up and called their landlord.

  Will handed me the keys and I unlocked the door. These days they made “mobile homes” so nice you couldn’t really tell they were anything but cute little ranch-style houses. But this was a classic Airstream Bambi. Everything was so close I could practically touch it from the front door.

  My landlady, Mrs. Smallwood—or at least, someone who worked for her—had made a lot of effort to make the trailer homey. Handmade petit point pillows with homespun idioms like “Stitch ’n Bitch” and “Martha Stewart doesn’t live here” decorated the blue corduroy foldout couch. A pretty blue glass pitcher rested on the kitchen counter, pinning down the renter’s agreement and the rules of the trailer court. And on the trundle bed, situated ten feet from the door, was an enormous fluffy comforter with a roaring University of Kentucky Wildcat in the middle of it.

  I could stand in my kitchen and touch both walls with my palms. Still, it was meticulously clean and smelled like freshly sprayed Febreze. It felt a little like living in a metal tree house. Too high off the ground and too small, but sort of cozy and like you were living somewhere out of the ordinary.