Hang Down Your Head

by Janice Macdonald

  I must have slept, eventually because I woke to my alarm clock at six-thirty feeling only minimally refreshed. My bangs, however, were sticking straight up like those little eavestroughs that teenaged boys like to affect with hair gel. I showered away the sophomoric hairdo and let tepid water sluice over me until I felt moderately awake. I had a feeling this was going to be a day in which I’d need all my wits, but I wasn’t sure they were all going to be in working order.

  Once dried, braided, and breakfasted, I tried to find some sort of useful armour in my closet, but the closest thing I found was a blue-striped jersey sundress and a white cotton cardigan. I would need the sweater once I was in the Centre, even if it seemed impossible to consider someplace cool at present. I smeared sunblock on my legs and face to protect against a sun that was getting progressively more brutal with every passing summer, and after a quick pickup and clean, I grabbed my pack and my water bottle and headed off to work.

  The water was a good idea. I had already consumed half the bottle by the time I’d gone two blocks and hit the corner of 111th Street and 87th Avenue, where the Telus Centre pushed out its albatross glass angles at the world. It was going to be a scorcher. There had been talk on the news of potential tornadoes, but I wasn’t overly concerned. An enormous tornado in 1987 had killed and destroyed, and a few other twisters in outlying areas also wreaked disaster, but on the whole we Edmontonians didn’t think of ourselves as living in a tornado zone. The whole climate of the world was changing, but it takes a while for us to catch up, I guess. People in England still think they live in a temperate climate regardless of the inches of snow they receive and winter storms they suffer.

  I took another swig from my nearly depleted water bottle and headed into the much cooler building, thankful I had my cardigan. I refilled the water bottle at the first electrically cooled drinking fountain, and then made my way around the maze of hallways to the doorway to the Centre. I pulled my key lanyard out of the side pocket of my backpack and opened the door. The lights were already on, so I figured Paul had once again beat me in to work. I couldn’t see him behind the counter, though.

  “Hello?” I called. It’s funny how something like murder can screw with your sense of general well-being. Last week I stayed here in this room until ten one evening, working alone with no fear whatsoever. Now, at eight in the morning, I was nervous because the lights were on. It was with great relief that I heard Paul answering me from the back room. I removed my foot from the doorway and let it close behind me.

  Paul had the coffee going, which smelled divine. I set my pack down by my carrel, and my water bottle on the coaster on the bookcase next to the desk. I went back of the counter to kibitz with Paul a bit and pour a cup of coffee.

  “I had to head down to sign a statement after Dr. F came back to spell me off,” Paul explained. “What a weird process, eh? I’ve never had to do that before.” I thought of all the various statements that I, the most law-abiding citizen I know, have signed over the years, and mentally shook my head in disbelief. “It wasn’t much like the movies, though. I was expecting all sorts of guys with shoulder holsters typing with two fingers, you know? It’s pretty high-tech there, streamlined.”

  I wondered what Keller would think of his station being referred to as high-tech. He’d likely be pleased, in that it would strike him as an intimidating thing. Paradoxically, the level of computer efficiency had likely calmed Paul down considerably. It’s all in what you’re used to, I guess.

  I headed back to my little corner of the ethnomusicology world and unlocked my drawer. I pulled out my laptop and its power cord and set it on the table area of my carrel. It didn’t take long to go through the initializing, and pretty soon I could download my campus e-mail. I pulled out the crossword from my pack and was filling in “eighty” for “A score less than one hundred” as I waited. As soon as I could get into my word-­processing program, I turned on the CD player sitting on the high carrel shelf, and flicked open the CD tray. I pulled out Dave Van Ronk’s Ballads, Blues and a Spiritual. I have always loved Van Ronk’s voice, a sort of gravelly thrumble. I maintain that Tom Waits would be nowhere without Van Ronk to carve the pathway for him. Of course, that could also be true for Rod Stewart and Kim Carnes, who I had long suspected were the same person (of course, once I heard Bonnie Tyler, I realized they were both her). Van Ronk was more melodious on his Folkways recordings than on, say, his renditions of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weil songs. There was a decided edge to all his work, though. Irony seeped through his lyrics and styling just as anger swept through Woody Guthrie’s phrasing and righteousness through Pete Seeger’s verses. Folk music was a breeding ground for revolution, not that anyone seemed to be listening anymore.

  I thumbed my way through my copy of The Whole Folkways Catalogue issued by the Smithsonian Folkways people in Washington. There was a lot of protest and political flavour to the collection, even down to the choices of what sound effects were recorded. Of course, there were also recordings of the International Morse Code, The Birds World of Song, Sounds of the Camp, Sounds of the Carnival, Sounds of the Junkyard and Sounds of the Office. I wondered who made those specific choices of commemoration on vinyl. Was it Moe Asch? What exactly was being inscribed for future generations? The sounds of where we got it right as a civilization, or possibly the turning points of where we began to go so terribly wrong?

  Pete Seeger’s contribution to the collection was immeasurable. Of course, if you rounded up all the Seegers and their friends and relations, you’d likely have over half the entire collection. I wondered what it would be like to actually meet Pete Seeger. It occurred to me he might be tired of acolytes.

  Van Ronk wrote his own liner notes for the songs on Dave Van Ronk Sings and I followed along as I listened, checking to see if there were any crossover songs I could use to highlight the essay I was considering about influences within the collection. I noticed that Lawrence Block had written a parody of an old folk tune. He was now, of course, more famous for his various mystery series set in New York—I was partial to the Scudder and Burglar series, myself. Fancy a mystery writer being interested in folk music. It took all sorts, I guess.

  It was almost nine-thirty by the time I looked up again. My water bottle was empty again and the CD had finished. I had two pages of notes with ideas for creating a connecting page on the website for Folkways artists who appeared at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival in the past, with some of their music available for sampling. Then we could add in the musicians to be featured and recorded on the Folkways Stage at this year’s Festival. I knew Van Ronk had been here, as had Peggy Seeger. Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee also played the Festival, along with Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Doc Watson. There was a link that people from around here might find interesting, the sort of thing that I knew Dr. F was wanting. Of course, there might be people I was missing. I made a note to contact the Folk Festival office to see if I could take a look at their archives to cross-reference.

  In order to avoid the embarrassing knee lock of a couple of days ago, I’d made a vow to stretch hourly. In accordance with that, I got up to refill my water bottle. Paul was hunkered over a magazine of some sort at the counter, while Dr. F was working in her office beyond, with the door ajar, and two strangers whom I took to be students were in the Centre. One was looking through a catalogue at the centre table while the other examined the instruments displayed in glass cases along the main wall near the entrance. I sighed, and leaned over to close down my laptop. I’d have to lock it away in my drawer if I was going to move away from my workstation. While neither of these strangers looked particularly untrustworthy, you could not be too vigilant when it came to your laptop. One unguarded minute could mean two months of research and two thousand dollars of equipment gone. After setting my notebook on top of the laptop, I closed the drawer and gave it a quick tug to make sure the lock was holding.

  Since I went to all that work just for a bottle of water, I figured I might as well stretch my legs a bit
and head into the mall for a snack, too. Not even ten yet, and I could see the exhaust from the buses waiting in the transit lane curling and shimmering across the street. I was thankful for the air-conditioning I normally pooh-poohed as being too chilly.

  But it was hot in HUB, likely because there was no way you could keep a four-block, glass-covered street air-conditioned. I could hear fans whirring in the upper-level apartments as I walked along. I moved past Java Jive to the bakery and bought a butter tart, which I justified as being indigenous to the area, even if it was outside my caloric needs. I wondered if there was a song about butter tarts. The southerners knew how to celebrate their “Shortenin’ Bread” and “Jambalaya,” but as far as I could think, only Bill Bourne had immortalized “Saskatoon Pie” and I couldn’t think of any song extolling the pleasures of bannock, pemmican, Nanaimo bars, butter tarts or fiddlehead greens.

  Bill Bourne was someone I hoped the Centre would decide to record. A native Albertan, he had toured with the Tannahill Weavers before settling into a solo and occasional duo career. His was a voice born for the blues, but that wasn’t his sole interest. He covered the gamut in terms of musical styles and his eclectic interests in music were eclipsed only by his talent for different styles. I saw him in a coffee shop concert once, claiming that he was just picking up the fiddle and begging us to forgive his efforts. Then he proceeded to play three lovely reels, accompanying himself while he sang one of his own songs. If that was an example of Bourne’s learning curve, I figured he could play anything within a week.

  I moseyed back down to the Centre, drinking a quarter of my water on the way. I stopped to refill the bottle before heading back into my carrel. I didn’t want to have to lock everything back up just for another refill right away. I was wiping the moisture off the bottom of the bottle with a gathered bit of my skirt as I pushed the door open with my back, so I didn’t see who was in the room at first. As I turned to release the door, I looked up to find Steve and Iain standing at the counter, looking straight at me. For a moment I froze, and then, realizing my sundress was hitched up, I dropped my hands to my side, almost spilling my water bottle in the process. I swear, I am getting more graceful every day. They’ll be reopening the Miss Edmonton contest before you know it, just to honour me.

  Iain looked down at his shiny shoes, likely to hide a grin. Steve didn’t bother to hide his amusement.

  “Hey, Randy,” he drawled, “got your own portable waterpark? Not a bad way to counter the heat.”

  “Hey yourself,” I responded. “What are you boys doing back here so soon? Did you realize this is the only place in town with appropriate air conditioning?”

  “It’s not bad at that,” Steve nodded. “I’m assuming it’s set this low for the tapes and LPs? How the heck do you stand it?” I pointed to my chair, on which were layered about four different sweatshirts and cardigans. Steve laughed. “Actually, we were wondering if we could drag you away for a little while to aid us in our investigation.”

  “Aid us in our investigation” was a euphemism for “we just don’t have enough evidence to arrest you outright yet”; any dedicated fan of police shows knew that. That interpretation must have flashed across my face, because Steve laughed again.

  “Randy, you are not about to be thrown in the hoosegow, I promise. We just need you to help us out a bit in terms of day-to-day time frames for everyone on this end of things.”

  Paul appeared out of the back area just then.

  “If you want,” he said, “you can stay here, and we can close the Centre for lunch early. Dr. Fuller has gone out to meet with a graduate student over in the Tory Building and I have to hit the music library before lunch, so you’ll have privacy.”

  I smiled at Paul, silently thanking him for letting me avoid the oppressive heat out there beyond the Centre’s hermetically sealed door. Steve and Iain seemed to sense the positive aspects of this arrangement, too, because they readily agreed. Paul offered them coffee before he left, closing and locking the Centre’s door behind him. Iain took him up on it, but Steve shook his head.

  “How can you drink anything hot on a day like today?” he asked his partner.

  Iain shrugged. “It’s the same thing as drinking tea in India or the Middle East. You produce a layer of sweat, which cools you; additionally, your innards are at the same temperature as the air around you, rather than at such a different level. It makes it easier to move around and besides, I’m used to it. Myra has a pot of coffee or tea going at all times at home.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Steve countered. Each of them pulled up a chair at the central table, and Steve indicated I should sit there as well. I was relieved that neither pulled out a notebook right off, or I’d have felt my work sanctum turn into an interrogation room.

  “This is about the Finster murder, as you probably figured out,” Steve began. “We have two or three lines we’re pursuing, but we can’t ignore the Folkways connection, especially as there was the purported meeting with Dr. Fuller planned and the impromptu meeting with you that you detailed in your statement on the day he was murdered. So, we’d like each of you to give us as much background as you can on the Centre, and the connections you can see between Finster, his sister, his mother and the bequest that she made to the Centre.”

  “You really think that Finster’s death has something to do with the Centre?”

  “Well, I’d be a lot happier if he hadn’t been discovered with a reference to Tom Dooley tacked onto his body,” Steve said.

  “I looked it up,” Iain added, “and the story is actually about a fellow called Tom Dula who sounds like a real asshole. He was having affairs with two separate women when this Laurie Foster is supposed to have come and told him she was pregnant. She was a third girl, a mountain girl with no money or name. So he kills her, possibly with the help of one of his lovers, and is tried for it. All this happens during the Civil War, while other men are out getting killed for their country. He gets hanged for the crime, and then ends up immortalized for it.”

  “That is just one version, Iain. Other historians say that Dula, a Civil War hero, came home to find the love of his life had married someone else and not waited for him. However, the former girlfriend became terribly jealous when Tom took up with young Laurie and killed her, leaving Tom to swing for her crime, which he did because of his undying love for her. Some say he had no idea Laurie was carrying his child.”

  “Are you sure they weren’t glamorizing him for the sake of a good song?” Iain insisted.

  “It’s no worse than what they were doing in England in their early ballads,” I countered. “After all, it’s not until the rise of the middle classes that the law becomes a positive thing. Until the majority of folks actually have something they don’t want stolen, it’s the highwaymen and scoundrels sticking it to the Man who are the folk heroes. Think about it; Robin Hood, Jonathan Wild, Dick Turpin. What about ‘The Highwayman’? How many girls saw themselves as Bess, the landlord’s daughter, ready to warn her love, the highwayman? There was even a romantic drawing of her in my Childcraft poetry volume, as I recall. It’s more than just falling for the Heathcliff bad boys of the world; it has to do with getting back at the overlords and sheriffs who made their lives miserable. I can imagine the Appalachian mountain folk, who would be suspicious of outsiders, would feel pretty much the same way about the circuit judge who came in to try one of their own, no matter what he’d done.”

  “That’s a nice evaluation of the reasoning behind folk ballads, but how does it help us understand the motives behind killing David Finster? Have we checked to see if he was having an affair or three?” Iain made a note, presumably to check into Finster’s love life, while Steve wiped his brow, even in this air-conditioned hideaway from the heat. “If anything, he was the overlord. He was worth millions, and from all accounts, he certainly didn’t make himself loved by his workers. He blocked efforts at forming a union until it was impossible to resist; he never offered a yearly bonus; he offe
red the lowest range of benefits possible in the construction business.”

  It seemed to me an odd coincidence that he was working on the LRT stops that connected the university to the rest of the city at the same time as his mother was donating all her funds to the same university. Of course, he must have had bids in for the contracts long before she died. After all, building projects don’t just happen overnight, even though the buildings themselves seem to get slapped up pretty quickly.

  Nothing was making the LRT move quickly, though. I had read recently that, if the English-French Chunnel had been built at the same rate as the Edmonton LRT, it would have taken 184 years to cross under the Channel. I shook myself out of my reverie and tried to answer the questions.

  I started with Dr. F, with whom I’m sure they could tell I was tremendously impressed. She had offices both here at the Centre and in the Department of Anthropology, and she was a world-renowned expert in Indian music. Her husband, a professor of mathematics, was also employed at the university. She had known both Moses Asch and Lillian Finster, but as far as I could tell, she wasn’t personally the reason why either of them made their bequests to the Centre. I figured I might will the university money because of her, supposing I died with money. She was charismatic and highly persuasive, and I could certainly see how she managed to gather the music she did, charming every one she spoke with. I guessed that Edith Fowke and Mike Seeger and the other musicologists who went before must have all had that same talent, to engage the person who would be taped and make him or her feel like the most interesting human being in the world. The trick was to actually feel that way when talking to people, I supposed. Whatever it was, talking with Dr. F was an experience which often left one winded but always rather elated.