You the devil then who’s gonna bring me back to drinking? After all this time? You the devil who’s gonna bring me back to all that foolishness I put down weeks and weeks ago?
I ain’t no such kind, A.D. said. Not a one. I hadn’t noticed before, but A.D. had carried up the rifle from the basement, and as he picked up the long barrel and clacked the butt end against the floor, Jessico gave out a slight shiver. He then touched the bottle to his lips and hesitated before singing out sharp and clear with a sad whispering of words. Tilting his head, A.D. listened, but straightened back up when Jessico had finished, before shaking his head amidst the wondrous silence. That ain’t it, A.D. said.
I knowed, I knowed it, Jessico said, as soon as I sung it, and then he took a long drink before closing his eyes. After gulping low and lean, he sighed and sung out again, keeping his eyes closed all the while, swaying as he got into it soulfully. I had to sit on the staircase because I was so taken by the sweet misery of his tale, of the voice and wandering melody, of the whole tragedy of it, that I hoped its harmony might never end.
Well, that ain’t it neither, A.D. said.
Jessico stopped and opened his eyes for his tears were now mixed with sweat. He looked at A.D. and wiped his mouth and smiled his diminished smile as he shook all over to feel it, the spirit coursing through him, coursing wild and free and entire.
Again, A.D. said and set down to watch, leaning his head against the couch. As he did, old Jessico sung out with a different tune, something about a graveyard or horse thief, and the song was so pretty and so choice, even A.D. seemed to waver now exhausted by the full day of emotion and wandering.
Though as Jessico finished up and looked at A.D. he knew it weren’t it neither, and surely felt the same tiredness in him, too, in trying to rack his brain for the song he’d sung in the basement, the same one that had A.D. so hot and forged on finding it. Of maybe even claiming it as his own, for he still wished to give Ms. Clara May Staunton a song. Even though he knew as well as I that she was gone and that she’d never hear what he’d found for her.
Again, A.D. said.
I knowed it. I knowed it as soon as I seen you. I knowed it was my own final test and deliverance come back to me for sure, Jessico moaned. My Calvary. You my Calvary, son! You been sent here to do this to me. And at the very end at that, at my very end. And he started again, wavering a bit and halting, but as his deep rich baritone rose and crackled louder on the higher notes, he had to drink to soothe his burning throat, pouring through the whiskey as it slobbered down his chin and neck and chest as he sang again along another divergent line. Along another set of tales and fractured tunes, and it happened this way for an hour or more. And either the fear in Jessico’s soul, or the liquor washing through his skin kept him from remembering that particular song A.D. so desired, and as I left, creeping up the stairs, they were still occupied upon that manic pursuit.
I HADN'T SLEPT ALL DAY AND THE TRIALS AND TRAVELS of the night poured through me as I slumped onto Jessico’s brass bed, swallowed up amongst his silk and satin finery. Closing my eyes was a gift I hadn’t expected, and I don’t think I heard another peep from them nor the world the whole night. My sleep was so dark and my mind so heavy that even in the morning when the sunlight swept across the lintel and splashed upon my skin, I didn’t want to acknowledge where I was and what I’d done. O but as soon as I felt the soft rich sheets and puffed up pillows, I knew it had not been a dream at all. None of it. I was here. I’d had to run from my life again as I’d done in Bristol, and I was sorry for it all over again. I shook my head and rubbed my eyes and wondered where A.D. and Jessico had ended in their pursuit of that song, the one A.D. so desired. Yet as I sat up and turned to the window, and heard the first faint birds singing, and the call of the hands on the boats far off in their offing, with the strung lines and sails fluttering in the first sharp breeze—and then as all of Annapolis come muttering back to life, to a new life and day upon the cold, slick bay—I almost didn’t want to know where they’d ended up for fear of their conclusion.
VII
A hung man ~ His bare black feet ~ Your dark universe ~ An advertisement for a show ~ Runnymede’s domain ~ A raid ~ An escape ~ Keys ~ Blue boys in the street ~ Jessico’s coupe ~ On to Roanoke and the rising sun ~ He watches me drive
JESSICO HUNG FROM A RAFTER BY A ROPE that swayed as A.D. touched his bare black feet. I stood on the steps disbelieving my eyes and the quiet, almost curious tone A.D. had struck in looking on the man. There seemed not a touch of sadness in him nor anger and when he turned to me, his face blank and long from the night of searching for that song in Jessico’s mind, he wiped his mouth and seemed struck by something else entire than the vision of the man hanged above him. Something that I could not grasp, nor likewise incline, nor hope to ever think or know.
Do you see it? he said.
How can I not? I said and took another slow step into the room. Did he do this?
Well, it sure weren’t me, he said, and his face went dark and ominous as he watched me come closer, stepping softly on the rug before touching my hand to a chair. I swear it, he said and mumbled something low and hoarse to himself and turned again to Jessico’s legs, holding them steady before sending them out again swaying with a gentle push into the room. I’d swear on whatever you want—a Bible, your dark universe, his whiskey, he said—and he watched the man turn a soft circle in the air. I was asleep and heard the dripping of it and just knew, he said. He pointed to Jessico’s right foot where a yellow stain stretched a dried line before dripping to the floor. I heard it and then smelled it. He pointed to the man’s pants and I knew what he meant in often hearing a hanged man evacuates his body in both regards, so that if there were urine then there was sure to be the other mess, too.
Did he tell you?
Tell me what? A.D. was still looking up and as I come beside him, I wanted to touch his shoulder to see if he was as hard and cold as I thought he was in looking upon such a thing and not feeling anything at all. But I held back. For I knowed now what he meant in first asking me if I’d seen it because he wasn’t talking about old Jessico. Not in the least.
Well, I’ll be, I said, because behind Jessico’s swinging legs, as they moved back and forth before me, moving from shadow to lightness, a poster came into focus. It was pasted to the wall and was the thing A.D. couldn’t stop staring at. Couldn’t stop figuring for the life of him. It was of Runnymede and the Piedmont Pipers. An advertisement for a show just commenced in Annapolis in a pavilion of distinguished repute nigh upon the water. Then another line detailed a performance to be held the past night in the old state house.
In the goddamned state house, A.D. said as if following my mind entire, for the governor. He clicked his teeth and pushed Jessico’s feet out a ways so we could step closer and see the announcement in its entire. My Runnymede, A.D. whispered as his finger swept along the raised letters of that sinewy-sounding name: Runnymede McCall. Singer extraordinaire. I didn’t see it until I stepped closer to gauge Jessico and then couldn’t see nothing else, he said. He shook his head and as I reached to grab the poster he made a deep noise in his chest as if to state it should not be touched nor moved in the slightest, this poster, as it was now an artifact in Runnymede’s domain, as I believed he later called it. A domain of his own that we should not encroach upon. O he still thought considerable of that man and saw him as the poster depicted, as if raised from a beam of light. Smiling, singing unto the masses, cavorting as a prince for all to see, and must have stood long and serene envisioning himself in Runnymede’s place, leader of his own such pipers. Commensurate to the king. Revealed for what he knew he was—a star, a noble, an artiste—but in seeing me again on the stairs, he must have remembered he was no such thing. We were no kings or pipers. We were scoundrels. Runaways at best, and I could see where his eyes had been rubbed red from crying to know what had befallen him since he’d first spied old Runnymede onstage. I could even hear the hurt in his voice as he straightene
d himself up and spoke to me, all low and desperate like, but with a feeling I hadn’t heard. What have I done to get myself here? he said, as I pushed him away from fixating on Runnymede’s smiling face. What have I done?
You’ve done what you’ve had to, I said. You’ve learned.
Learned what? To run? To hide? Truly—what have I learned? And he turned with such a collapsed face I had no idea what to tell him nor how to assuage his concern. And yet, as sure as we were standing there, upon the door behind us, a great lurking shadow rose into shape. Then a strange shuffling of feet murmured as of a rushing tide not six inches from where we stood. While in the next instant, a thunderous rattling shook the wall and window and all my thoughts fell to dust.
Jessico? A voice bellowed from the street. Jessico Ayles? I know you’re in there! I know you’re in there this instant!
Well, it didn’t take long to realize old Jessico hadn’t just hung himself to be with the good lord. Looking out the front door’s little brass window, I seen not a few blue boys gathering in the street with their guns and batons raised as if planning to do what they could to bust in on Jessico’s distilleries. They probably meant to roust him out of the ranks of the living too, if they could have managed (though I suspected they’d be disappointed in that regard). Course I about froze to see the mean-set faces on display and to realize in just a second they’d find two fugitives to boot to bring back to Baltimore to hang for whatever we were accused of doing, and my mind felt constricted to think on it. It was as if the whole world had narrowed, and yet, when I looked on A.D., I seen his cool calm face and the way he grabbed the rifle from the wall, raising it from where he’d leaned it the night before, and I wondered if he meant to shoot our way out. But then he made the slightest motion with his arm and I heard a jingling in his fingers and knew it was something else entire that had come over him, a plan for our escape.
Keys, A.D. said and he raised his hand to show me the brass set before turning down the back hallway. I got the keys to Jessico’s coupe.
WELL, I’D THOUGHT HE’D START FOR BALTIMORE straight away, to get at that old John Hill Carter with the gun. But after we climbed out the back and hurried a few blocks to where Jessico must have assured A.D. his coup was parked, I understood more perfectly what he’d figured.
The song, I said as I eyed him and he watched behind as I headed out through a maze of muddy streets.
That’s right, he said, the song, and he relaxed a bit and stopped watching now that he thought it was clear enough to breathe again. Since he figured the police hadn’t thought we’d be there to begin with and wouldn’t of missed us anyways with us headed south instead of north. To Roanoke, he said, where Mavis has it. At least, that’s what Jessico professed and was insistent.
I watched him then as I had occasion to for we were the only car in sight and the road was still empty that early. What? I finally said. What was he insistent about?
About everything. Every last thing, and then he paused to touch the door, smoothing his hand along the leather insides before touching the seat again.
What things?
The truth, he said, mostly, and he looked at me and then out on the road, searching for something he thought would appear laid before us. The answer to whatever Jessico had meant for him, perhaps. Or something else that I do not know. Something strange and furtive that I’d never thought of or hoped to find. Jessico wanted to tell me the truth, A.D. said, after I’d put the car in full and plunged on the accelerator. At least, as he saw it, he continued, leaning to one side, pushed by the speed. To have someone listen to him for once was all he wanted. And yet after all that singing and carrying on he still couldn’t find it no more, what I wanted. He couldn’t reach in to get it no more. That song.
But he tried?
O he tried, A.D. said and shook his head thinking, before tapping his hand on the rifle’s long black barrel still clutched in his hands. I suppose I didn’t help much being so enchanted by it, or fixated, as it were. So I told him, Relax, and set the gun against the wall. But I don’t think that helped. The drink was in him by then, after being so long without, and the last thing he remembered was he gave it in a bundle to old Mavis, with all his other writings. That’s why he gave me this by way of appeasement, and he nodded to the keys and car and rifle. Which he set down on the floor all casual and simple like, and I wondered again if he’d ever in his life carried one. He had the barrel pointed up at me, so I had to reach over and face it toward the passenger side door instead.
Appeasement, I muttered, and looked at him and thought on it. O I knew he was still a kid. Sure. He was just as green as could be, even though he’d lost all that he’d lost, read all that he’d read, and thought all that he’d thought, and I didn’t even need to ask why. Why this traveling? Why such a fuss over one song? I already knew what he meant to do with it once he found it. Why it meant so much to hear it and then to give it away in the next second to the dead and gone Ms. Clara May Staunton, since he’d never had the chance to give her anything before, anything but his heart and soul. He needed that connection, with all the emotion he still had left for her. He needed to give her the song. And yet, as we raced on, and drove down into the blazing sun, I wondered if he did find that song, if that would be the end of it for him? Or if it would only open up something else inside him, something I couldn’t imagine. Like another passion or need that I hadn’t yet considered, so I just set it aside awhile and drove.
O I drove and drove, because he had no clue as to how or what driving even was. He’d never done it and was as quiet and focused as I’d ever seen him. Watching as I fooled with the clutch when I had to shift, or my hands, as I turned the wheel when a tree trunk sprung up in the way, or when an apple cart was turned over in the road. Or my feet, when I pushed the pedals and accelerated or braked. It was something to truly behold. I’d never seen his mind so hard at work, configuring the operation of another man’s actions as he was with mine and that automobile. All, of course, except for the guitar, when he watched me play, when I’d first learned him how at the Peabody. And as I thought on it, I got a feeling then very deeply in my bones to strum those strings. To play a chord or two, to pass my fingers though a slow progression and be back in my element, in the music, to get this road back into Virginia behind us. Because I knew that it not only went into the heart of A.D.’s current needs and aspirations and fears, but that it also drove straight through my own store of sorrow and neglecting and dreaming. That it led us on into every last thing I’d once hoped to find and to finally flee. That it led straight into the heart of the blues and covered us up in it, drowned us in it. But still we kept driving. Still we kept moving faster and faster, trying to swallow it all up.
VIII
Richmond and its heaventree of stars ~ Tobacco barns and maypoles ~ Popes Creek and a man of my color ~ Old John Hill’s ancestral home ~ I give him his chance ~ Another suspicion entire ~ The flames ~ The moths ~ The world’s fevered passing
NOW? HE TAPPED HIS FOOT AND WATCHED ME. Now can I try?
No, I said and pushed on into the darkness, driving down on Richmond, which was lit up and expansive. Like a heaventree of stars. It was something I hadn’t expected. As if the town, which was big enough as it was, had a carnival or grand revival or something going on at this late hour to make it even bigger and grander in its illumination, so that I wasn’t sure what to focus on. With the lights of it reflected up into the air, and the wind lifting voices and music as harmonious and dreamy as you could imagine, it seemed we drove on a world turned upside down and reflected in the ether. It was so otherworldly and strange that even A.D. had to pause in his excitement to watch the wonder of it, leaning his head out all the while looking up.
Old John Hill Carter might be here, A.D. said as his mouth gaped to see it all with the tobacco barns and maypoles and street signs spread out as we come around and started eastward away from it. He tapped his foot again for he’d wanted to try driving. But I’d refused for fear for our
general safety and didn’t let up till Richmond was thirty miles behind and we were on the outskirts of Gum Spring past midnight.
It was a small bit of a town and not so far from Annapolis as a map was concerned, but we’d lost considerable time crossing the Chesapeake near Popes Creek where there was once a horse ferry but that now took cars across for a dollar. I knew it was there because I’d passed over it seven years before and was amazed I’d recollected it at all in the diverse paths and circuits I’d taken in getting out of Bristol to begin with. It was a mystery that was stored up inside me, I suppose, in each thought and doubt, and I swore even as we done it, as I moved through the same motions, but in reverse this time. As if retracing those thoughts and memories now but backwards was all we could do, and I had to shiver to think on it the farther we went.
I had taken us in a not altogether haphazard way, steering clear of the straight route east through the City of Washington where I thought they might be laying for us. Going south wouldn’t of hurt none as they probably thought our inclination was to head north anyways, where it was a bit easier for a man my color. This path didn’t entirely satisfy me, obviously, but it didn’t entirely un-satisfy me neither. Still, it did trouble me, I assure you, and I guess A.D. might have seen this a little (if he saw anything of the kind, the fellow, who was still so dead set on killing old John Hill Carter, that I wondered if anything distracted him in the least), for it strained him to think on any other agitation. Of course, he still remembered my stories on Bristol, even though he said it couldn’t of been helped coming this way. Not since Roanoke was where we had to go to get Jessico’s song, and in this comment alone he seemed to consider my needs just a bit, and I thanked him quietly, nodding my head.
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