O my little Lucy. I had time to consider their faces, or what used to be their faces, the ones I remembered. The soft sweet lips of my wife. The dark curious eyes of my baby girl. And I remembered my life then and how it had all flowed quiet and simple and sweet, like I’d always hoped, with Annie teaching me to read at church Sundays, and at night by the lantern. Then at home, us making dinner together and settling little Lucy on our laps as we listened to the woods and crickets and wind crossing the fields, soughing the crops. And as I considered it all, I realized I’d never allowed the sounds of that life to return to me before. Hell, I’d never had the occasion. At the Peabody there was always music to mend my mind, to take it off into heights and pursuits unseen. But I guess my leaning now was for seeing all that I’d lost return to me, to feel that perfect center of my life again, a center I’d never really left behind, even after all those years.
The land certainly wasn’t something I couldn’t leave behind. The land was just fine, and had fit me all those years just right, and as I thought about it now, I seen it still fit me. As I watched the fields and valleys slip past, I drove without thinking. It was so familiar. I drove and A.D. played and it was as a dream, the scenery and his music, like something buzzing at the edge of my mind. I drove in the shadow of the mountains right into Bristol without stopping. Then right on through State Street that was still as sharp and busy as I remembered. Till I come out the western end of it a few miles toward the parcel I’d kept with my beautiful wife, and which was still stretched out as it had been before I left.
Though it was changed, of course, from that time, from that life.
The place was lonesome now, and weedy. The small weather-rotted shack had sunk into a sad compilation of boards and busted-out windows. But as A.D. kept right on playing, I stepped out to see it in its entirety and to remember. Ah, mine, I muttered, and watched a patchwork of fields stretch off for miles beneath the blue hazy ridge. Always above me. Always there. Watching. The mountains never too big nor beyond your thinking, and yet never too small nor meddling neither. I remembered how it often felt when you walked with the land, that you took it with you wherever you went. How the land did not overpower me none in its making, nor underwhelm me neither in its silence. Rather it fit me just right and always whispered and eased my mind to know I could be so entwined with such a thing of beauty and strength. With how the leaves burned through their colors come fall. Or how the snow swept soft amongst the sorghum. With all the pretty birds chirping away as you stretched out into it with your life, and how the land was poised upon each wayward thought. Always still and waiting and true.
When I thought of it all, I recalled how difficult it was for me to know I was a black man in a state with white people who refused my kind. Even as the land held me and gave me all it had to give, and more—so much more—and another solemn wave of sadness stole through me like a breeze.
O but I loved it. I did, and loved it still as I looked upon it. Because it was mine. Even if Annie and Lucy had long since gone and the house had been worn to dust and the crops tilled under, with the echo of all those sharecroppers folded into one long stitch in the soil. I still loved it and felt it all anew as I followed the crumbled stone wall I’d built with my own hands—for it was mine.
But then listening to A.D. tinkle on with his song, with the sentiment and loss that tale wove, the sound swept through me and pushed against the whole of my heart, and before I even noticed it, I’d picked up the other guitar (the black one, dinged a bit, but serviceable) and stepped through my front door’s ruined jamb. Standing in my soured drawing room, I gazed upon the open sky, at a collection of dusty birds’ nests strung where the rafters once hung, and I could hear A.D.’s song as a refrain of the land even as I watched the stars fall out one by one in the dusk. I could hear him singing and playing and the notes that lifted from my own strings were not of me anymore. They weren’t from my hand nor hope nor sorrow, but from my own sweet Annie and Lucy girl gone away now for sure. They were from my girls, from when I was here—when we were here—and as I played and carried on with A.D.’s sad strumming, I wept for wherever my girls could have gone.
X
In the relics ~ To his own satisfaction ~ The dream was of the land ~ The last carnival of Revelation ~ Auditioning in the hat factory ~ There ain’t but one other ~ Covered in moonlight and dust ~ Mr. Jimmie Rodgers ~ Heaven then the sound ~ The pearls
A.D. WAS GONE IN THE MORNING. When I turned over in the grass and looked, I couldn’t see one trace of him. I called out and heard nothing, only the sound of the cicadas in the early dawning. We’d set up camp right there on my old land, but not in the house as it was too close to the road, and I feared someone driving by and suspecting something in seeing us sprawled out in the relics of that broken down frame. So instead, I’d hefted our few things and guitar cases and a bucket of well water still fine enough to drink to a stand of stunted oak a ways off from the road where I thought we might better hide ourselves and where me and A.D. kept at it for three solid hours playing. O we went on into the darkness and the hooting of owls, before sitting down together by the edge of the fire to rest.
I’d meant to ask him about the guitars then and why these were the ones he wanted for the rifle, when I knew all along he wanted to kill old John Hill Carter, but I’d already listened and knew. That song was in him now and it wouldn’t leave and he didn’t need anything else since he’d found it and worked on it to his own satisfaction. Hell, he hadn’t even eaten any of the potatoes I’d found growing wild from the edge of my old garden. I’d roasted half a dozen on hickory sticks and eaten my fair share, and hoped to dream that night of something particular, of my family perhaps, and their freedom, but it weren’t no good. The dream was of the land and always had been. Now here we were and what I wanted to tell A.D. filled my whole heart concerning my Annie and Lucy girl, and where we should start looking for them. But he was already gone. I seen the car gone, too, from where we’d stashed it behind some old paving brick and barrel staves, and it made me lonesome to feel myself on my own land again without anyone to appreciate it, to walk with me and recollect all that had happened here. But after a moment, I figured right where he’d went. He’d only been bellyaching all night about getting some fancy new paper and a pen to commit his new song to posterity, and of course an envelope to carry it all around official like so he could address it to his dearly departed, to Ms. Clara May Staunton (as sad and misbegotten as that sounds). So grabbing my guitar, I slung it over my shoulder, and played my whole way into town on the walk.
It was only three miles and I figured in my happiness now, in returning home, that if they were to arrest me here, then I could at least play myself up to the gallows and be done with it for good. So I kept at it the whole time and even as I graced the sidewalks and kept playing, the people milling about and bustling from store to store with their arms full of packages eyed me and my coloredness and just smiled to hear me play, and I was confused to be such a pleasurable sight for them. It was unusual and suspicious, and I had a mind I was in the wrong town to begin with, that somehow I’d walked down another street entire, into some other Bristol in another part of the world. Until of course I seen the poster in the window of the local Mercantile. Then it was easy enough to figure out. It was all there in black letters:
AN AUDITION: FOR THE VICTOR TALKING MACHINE COMPANY TWO WEEKS ONLY!
I couldn’t hardly believe my eyes to see such a thing and know we’d just come across a song as powerful and alive as that, and all the while it was just setting on the edge of A.D.’s fingertips—and mine—since I’d played along with him enough to know it by heart. And by the dates displayed, I figured it was already the second week of an open tryout so that a feeling like a fiery excitement grew in me to see it. Well, I knew right away A.D. had seen it too, and that he was already there probably waiting to play. For it seemed a Mr. Ralph Peer was auditioning musicians of all kinds for the rights of publishing. And as the townsfolk stream
ed past and stared at me, working the strings and sweating as I set to my music, they must of thought I was just more of the musical kind traipsing through their town to make their mark and didn’t think nothing of it.
Shoot, they must of thought it most natural to see me there, too, and it eased my mind to think of my past deeds going unnoticed and unseen, that I could set right out in public and play as I wanted. My fingers practically flew across the frets then teasing out the lead I wanted to play for A.D.’s re-working of that song. And sure enough, some folks even give me a few nickels they liked it so much, and I would have tipped my hat to them if I’d had one, but knew right away where to find my A.D.
THERE WAS AN OLD HAT COMPANY on the edge of town near the state line (in fact, right on State Street), where Tennessee started south and west of the state of Virginia and made up its own version of a city named Bristol, picking up right where the city of Bristol, Virginia left off, if you can believe it. It was something to see. How those two cities divided themselves, almost as of a heart cleaved in two. But the warehouse when I come up on it was on this side, in Virginia, and lined outside with the craziest acts you’d ever seen. There were great ragged yodelers and flatpickers from down the piedmont as far as the Carolinas and inside Tennessee, and of course all kinds of great ma and pa hillbilly acts from the most remote Appalachian towns. Even little groups of children swarmed about a central singer with them all going choral style and as loud and furious as can be because maybe they’d only ever sung in their own church in the hills for the good lord they whooped it up so fierce and biblical. Then of course there were the more formal, city-styled ladies, the heavy-set ones who’d changed up the opera they must have learned into a hillbilly song that the commoner might take to heart, but it weren’t no use. None of them was gonna hack it. Old moonshine jugmen and queer looking harpists, bass men and fiddlers, squeezebox men and drummers, trumpeters and poets—it sounded as if the last carnival of Revelation had arrived it got so confusing and loud that the whole lot of them was enough to drown out every last thought you could of conjured. It took me a full five minutes to spot A.D. with his red guitar near the main entrance. There he stood, all thin and composed, strumming away as if he hadn’t heard a sound in the world, he was so concentrated and stoic. He might not have even noticed me if I hadn’t touched his shoulder to begin with, nodding at all those surrounding us.
There ain’t but one other here, he said when he spied me.
One other what?
Real deal, he said and winked before nodding through the double doors to one man kind of set apart from the rest. Leaning against a wall, he was thin and had a small-cropped head of brownish-red hair and coughed once into his hand before he twirled his guitar with the other.
Him? I said and stepped toward A.D. all casual like and quiet as I looked at him and A.D. kept his head down strumming soft and concentrated on his strings.
Calls himself a brakeman or something. Had a band supposedly. From right over in Bristol, Tennessee. But then I heard they all just fell apart. Had an argument, I guess. Now it’s just him.
And us, I said.
A.D. smiled and heard me just then as I was running along my notes, running down an accompaniment to the song he’d worked out. That’s right, he said. It’s just him and us from what I can hear. Cause there ain’t no Runnymedes in this whole lot. Not one damn Runnymede at all.
THERE WERE VOICES ON THE OTHER SIDE of a small door. Then we’d hear a man say something and the singing would start or it would end and another act would stroll out quiet and red-faced, as if they’d just lost their first newborn, they looked so sad and defeated. But then the voice would holler Next from the open doorway and another act would hustle in so excited and jubilant that the whole miserable thing would start all over again, and we’d trudge up another spot. It was intolerable waiting like that, but A.D. didn’t say nothing. He just sang under his breath until that other fellow went in and then all of us—everyone in the whole hallway—leaned forward and was astonished to hear what he sung and how he sung it and how it went on and on so light and full and perfect rising up—like he’d just been rustled in from the open range or something. Covered in moonlight and dust. Well, we finally found out the name of this fellow, of the other real deal in A.D.’s mind, when he reemerged, because he was kept inside for nearly an hour, when most everyone else wasn’t in for more than three minutes.
Jimmie Rodgers, he said and shook A.D.’s hand when he come out. For he shook all the hands of all the acts after he come out at the end of his session just as if he’d been pumped full of sunshine he sparkled so much in his smiling. He coughed and stood beside A.D. and was shorter than him and smiled his glowing smile and winked at A.D. with his red droopy eyes looking us over.
What? A.D. said when he seen that quick wink and took offense to it, though I don’t think Jimmie meant nothing by it in the least.
You alright, he said and pursed his lips before wiping them with the back of his hand. I got my eye on you, he said. I got it set.
We didn’t rightly know what that meant, but Jimmie sort of drifted off then without explaining. He was the most curious kind. He just sort of floated on his own euphoria and glee (and on the sweet charms of whatever he’d been smoking). Because he’d just lit his own handrolled cigarette and the sugary aroma wafted above everything else and then he was gone and it was almost our time to shuffle on through.
Well, what’d he mean by that? A.D. said. He’s got something set?
It’s nothing, I said. Maybe he just heard you before and liked it. Maybe he just liked it.
Sure, A.D. said, he liked it. But I don’t think he was sure about anything other than that song. I’d never seen him so concentrated with how he set his eyes forward after that. He looked at the last one to go in before us and then as that one come slumping out after only a minute of the most god-awful cackling, sounding more like a cat being dragged over a pincushion, the voice called out Next and A.D. was in before I even realized it sauntering up to Mr. Ralph Peer and pumping his hand in greeting. Hi, hi, A.D. said and he was smiling like I never seen him smile so that his whole body seemed to be smiling. Mr. Ralph Peer was much smaller than A.D. and there weren’t anything but one blond-haired lady in there with a clipboard and two other fellows crawling around on the floor looking over a host of wires and readjusting a microphone. So that finally I pulled A.D. away to where I thought Mr. Peer wanted us to stand because he was holding up both palms as if to push A.D. back.
Fine, fine, Mr. Peer said and readjusted his black-rimmed glasses as he looked over the two of us, for we were as disheveled and homely as you’d think. A.D. was covered in the dust from our travels and the campfire soot was in the creases of his sleeves, while I was just as rumpled as a potato sack. But I felt better seeing A.D.’s energy and the general setup of all those wires and microphones. The excitement had built up inside us so, I could almost feel it permeating the walls and covered-up windows. Until Mr. Peer shook his hand in the direction of those two fellows who had to flip a few switches to get something rolling. Then Mr. Peer just looked at us and nodded. Well, that was all A.D. needed, for he knew exactly what to do and started up the introduction with a few notes, and it was heaven then the sound. After one and then two strummed chords, I come in under him all smooth and sparse with my lead just as he starts the first lyric, and it all went perfect. There weren’t any other motion in the room. Just the swaying of our bodies so that I didn’t even hear the song, or anything else for that matter. It was just like we were driving down the ridge in the light, with the mountains all blue and misty above us, just a motion of substance blurred into their beauty. Just a shape hovering there. I looked at A.D. and his eyes were closed and his neck arched so that I knew he was singing, even if I couldn’t hear him. Even if I couldn’t hear anything but my own heart—but by then I couldn’t even hear that! It was just a softness. The world, the room, even Mr. Peer’s sharp face dissolved from view so that there was only my Annie and
Lucy girl in the air. I swear, I seen them! As if swaying beyond me in the dusted-up windows, they smiled down at me, it was so golden the sound. It resonated beyond my hearing and knowing and glowed as if pearls themselves were being pulled one by one from our fingers and throats. O and I didn’t even know what to do with my hands when we finished and the last sad note resonated into the stillness. But when I seen Mr. Ralph Peer reach back to a wooden folding chair without looking, as his small little fish mouth kind of opened and closed without speaking—all while searching with his hand for something to support himself—I looked at A.D. to know we’d done it. We’d set that old boy back on his heels in his silence to hear us.
XI
Nothing but whiskey ~ The pressing into grooves of voice and guitars ~ The radio ~ A blind trace in the larch ~ The anonymity of their art ~ The Hardy Family ~ Up into the ridge ~ Into the ghostworld then ~ Some dark idea or order ~ Their echoing conclusion
WELL IT WEREN'T NOTHING BUT WHISKEY AFTER THAT. All night I followed A.D. from bar to bar as we heard Jimmie Rodgers was out somewheres stalking the Bristol streets and that he had a habit of moving on and through if you weren’t sharp enough to see. So when we finally did catch up with him, it was in one of the last places we looked. Though as we shuffled towards him all quiet and reverent, as if approaching some newfound god in the wilds of Africa or Arabia, we realized it weren’t even him to begin with. But only another fellow who only looked like him, and who’d been at the auditions too, and who’d already taken up in styling himself after Jimmie and everything he did. Sure, he had the look down pat. He had the same short brownish-red hair and scruffy wide boots, the same half-smirk on his face and rumpled up shirt. Wobbling up to us, he yodeled all the while with a whiskey bottle in his hand and a rolled up cigarette on his lips.
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