The Devil and Preston Black (Murder Ballads and Whiskey)

by Jason Jack Miller

  She said, "I'm sorry tonight is your last show. Unless you have plans after maybe we can go out for a drink and talk..." She pulled me into a small kiss, then said, "And then talk some more."

  I forgot about the cold, about Pauly and the Uncle Mason record. Her kiss helped me forget why I'd been so sad. Like that kiss was the only thing I'd ever wanted. Like I'd been living my whole life for that kiss.

  In the basement Stu banged his drums. Pauly yelled into the mic, "Preston Black, please report to the stage. Mr. Preston Black. That is all."

  "To je jak když hrach na ze haze." Dani took a long pull on her cigarette and smiled. "I'll wait," she said, leaning against the railing.

  I'd hoped for one more kiss, but she'd turned toward the street and pulled out her phone.

  The lights were off, our gear was stashed and the brothers of Delta whatever were tucked safely into their beds. Pauly followed a group of girls up the street to get phone numbers. Purple streetlights buzzed. Falling icicles tinkled onto slippy sidewalks. We stood out there in the cold like we were waiting to be invited back inside. Stu ran his fingers along his scalp like he'd been expecting to find a lot more hair up there. "Bring your girl, man. It's no big deal."

  Up the street Dani's silver car sat in the shadow formed where a big holly blocked the streetlight. I tried to see her through the dark windshield. Stu was right about my priorities tonight and he knew it. And he knew I knew. But I figured being on stage with him was a better goodbye than watching ESPN and eating greasy pepperoni rolls at Casa D'Amici. "Yeah, but what kind of goodbye is it with a sober Pauly?"

  I pointed at her car up the street and said, "Besides, this whole thing is new. I want to make sure I'm taking all the right steps. She's too good for me. I'm not ready for her to figure that out."

  Stu said, "Not to be nebby, but why didn't she come downstairs?"

  "She came down. After that break?" It came out a little more defensively than I would've liked.

  "I don't know. Maybe I missed her. I just kept seeing the same hoes over and over. I thought you would've pointed her out to me." Stu looked big tonight. Pumped up like an action figure. He said, "You going to call Larry up again? Is he still drumming in town?"

  "Larry Benco? No, he's horrible. He couldn't keep time with a pair of stopwatches. Besides, he's a little old. And he has no idea who Rise Against are. I'm thinking about auditioning a few guys—younger guys—maybe trying to play with a few different people 'til you get back. Try to tweak our sound a little."

  "Well," Stu said, "maybe you should just try to hook up with another band. Might be easier?"

  "What about Pauly?"

  "I don't know if his heart's in it."

  "Bullshit. He's in it as long as I am." Then I thought for a second and added, "Did he say something to you?"

  Stu avoided the question. "Well, you do what you want. What if I don't come back? I don't want you wasting your time waiting for me."

  I got angry and scared. "What the fuck are you talking about? Don't say shit like that, man. You'll be back. I'm serious. Don't say shit like that. Ever."

  Stu put his hands up, a surrender. "Dude, chill. I'm talking about staying in this time, not taking frag in Marjah. I'm thinking about having a career and making money."

  "Don't tell me Pauly's in your head. He's all about the money. I tell him all the time we're good enough to write and record our own stuff but he doesn't listen." I started to shiver. "No, I'm holding your spot 'til you get back. Any drummer we get's going to know up front the gig's only for a year."

  Stu didn't say anything for a long moment. He just looked at me. "Well, don't forget the packages. Beef jerkey, Cool Ranch Doritos and Dairy Mart pepperoni rolls. I don't care if it all gets smushed and crushed. And magazines. I can't ask my mom to get them for me but a perv like you should have no problem."

  "Same as boot camp."

  "Exactly."

  "You know, I still have all your letters."

  "I knew you would, you sentimental fuck."

  "You're looking and talking more like a soldier and less like my drummer."

  "I'm not your drummer. You're my guitar player." He laughed. "And I got to get back in the right frame of mind. That's all."

  "Sometimes I forget I don't know you as a soldier. You keep that part hidden from me and Pauly. But I see it when you're with the guys from your unit. I feel like the stories we have can't compete with your army stories—"

  Stu cut me off. "That's bullshit and you know it, man. You think I tell army stories when we're in the shit waiting for a patrol to come back, or waiting for air support? Fuck no. I tell them about the road trip to Huntington when we told Pauly we were going to Seattle and how he didn't know the difference because he'd never been out of Morgantown. Shit like that."

  He put his hand on my shoulder. "Listen, I tell band stories over there to remind myself what I'm fighting for. I tell army stories back here so I don't forget what it took to win it."

  "Sorry, man. I'm going to miss you. That's all." We both watched Pauly come down the hill waving his phone to show us the numbers of the girls who'd never take his calls.

  "I know."

  Pauly lit a smoke and said, "Let's go, bitches." He got into the Jeep and turned the key. Just before pulling the door shut he yelled, "Don't forget about mom's water pump tomorrow."

  "I know," I held my hand up. "Just give me a fucking minute here."

  I shook Stu's hand. Really I wanted to hug him. "I had a lot more I wanted to say."

  He smiled. "Put it in a letter."

  "Last time you left the weather was like this. We got pizza and your family came over. It felt different."

  "Afghanistan is going to be a lot different than Iraq," Stu said. "But you'll see me before you know it." He let go of my hand, went around the Jeep and got in. Pauly turned on the dome light and lit a smoke for Stu. They laughed, and Pauly flipped the light off.

  Slush and old, ashy snow crunched as they drifted down the street. It wasn't very often the two people in this world I felt closest to went off without me. I didn't like the way it made me feel. The future, which had once been full of shows and songs now seemed quite empty.

  My phone buzzed to life. A goodbye from Stu. But instead of his name in the display, it read Unknown Number.

  The text said,

  I replied,

  A small beep came from Dani's silver Mercedes, a car that looked like something the Sean Connery-era James Bond would drive. It sat up the intersection like a bullet just waiting to be fired, with its little round headlights and curved hood. Pauly and Stu weren't coming back, so I put my phone away, walked up the hill and got in.

  Before I had my seatbelt clicked she took off, racing down University toward High, red lights suddenly becoming green as she sped beneath them. Old buildings collapsed beyond my window, neon signs little more than streaks of magenta and electric blue. Brake lights on the cars ahead of us were just propositions, which Dani ignored. She hit the bridge over Deckers like a fastball into a catcher's mitt. The Mercedes begged for third gear, screamed for fourth. Then, just as suddenly, Dani hit the brake to swing onto Dorsey, skidding on a little ice. She smiled as I steadied myself on the dashboard.

  Forcing myself to look relaxed, I sank back into the leather seat. It felt more comfortable than my own bed. "Nice car. So you're not a student I take it?"

  "TváYí se jako by neuml do pti po ítat. You're sweet. I received the car as a gift. Payment, I should say. You don't want to hear about the paperwork just to get it over here." She stroked the steering wheel like it was a sleeping kitten. "Maybe you can drive it when you're sober."

  I knew Dorsey, but not many of these side streets. Always considered this a richer part of town, even if I'd never been around real wealth enough to know what real wealth looked like. The wraparound porches and ivy-covered trellises and stained glass windows were a far cry from the patch house duplex I grew up
in. I rationalized my feelings of unworthiness by telling myself I was an artist, and that some things were more important than money, and... Whatever.

  From Dorsey we made a right then another quick right. The blacktop ran out, and the little Mercedes bounced along on a brick-paved road. The brrrrr of the bricks shook my head, getting lower in pitch as Dani slowed to a stop. In the chilly glow of a dusk-to-dawn light I could make out the back of a large Victorian. "We're here."

  "This is your place?" I shut the car door and looked up. The bulk alone amazed me.

  "No," she laughed and gathered her scarf. "I rent a room."

  I held my guitar in front of me and let her lead. Inside, the old house smelled like wood smoke and a little like cloves. Heat from big radiators made me sweat. I unbuttoned my coat. The building felt safe, like the Fortress of Solitude. Nobody slammed doors or said filthy things in a house like this. Things were always Pee Wee's Playhouse and Laffy Taffy here. This was the kind of place I always dreamt about growing up in, although anymore I confused dreams with wishes so easily that I kind of lost track of which I'd been doing.

  We started up a flight of stairs. I said, "You never told me what you did for a living." My voice was afraid to do much more than whisper.

  "It's boring. And you didn't come here to talk." Dani softly touched my chin with her thumb. In the mild light of a lonely floor lamp she smiled. "Not this late, right?"

  Not sure if this was a trick, I hesitated.

  The corner of her mouth revealed the tease. "I translate books and contracts. English to Japanese. Czech to German. Mostly contracts. Not the long-lost Božena Nmcová novel I dream of. My legacy will be rewriting invoices so clients can get counterfeit electronics through customs." She led me up another flight of stairs, to a landing below a half-circle of stained glass.

  While she fumbled for the key I held her bag and turned toward an ornate semi-circle window. Venus de Milo rising from a scallop. "You should have a light up here. You'd feel safer, don't you think?"

  "Preston, I was born in Prague before the Velvet Revolution. I studied literature at La Sapienza and linguistics at La Sorbonne and received my Arabic to English certificate at NYU. West Virginia does not scare me." She twisted my lame aside into a lesson.

  I mumbled a frail, "Point taken."

  She stepped inside, letting me hold the door for her. After dropping her coat on an overstuffed leather armchair she tugged the pull chain of a brass bookshelf light and a nearby lamp.

  Shades of stained glass and mica cast the room in a bronze glow. Large shelves held leather and cloth-bound books with titles written in faded gold. It looked as if the ceiling were held up by books alone. I recognized a few names—Kafka and Dante. For every name I recognized there were a hundred I didn't. Joost van den Vondel. Jacques Cazotte. Josef apek. Karel Václav Rais. Charles Baudelaire. My lack of education would've been more embarrassing if Dani hadn't been so far out of my league. Somebody like Stu would've been out the door by now. Pauly wouldn't have made it up the steps.

  "Did you think we came up here to read?" Dani took my coat and scarf. She went into the bathroom, flipped the light on and told me to come in. An old pedestal sink sat across from a big claw foot tub. I set my record on the chair and followed her in. If I pressed my cheek against the small round window I could see the lock and the city around a bend to the north. The lights looked too far away. Not miles away, but years away. Like, I didn't believe for a second I was looking upstream at the same city I grew up in.

  "The light of any city still amaze me. Travel was not convenient when I was young—Prague had many checkpoints. Only when I was twelve years old did I finally see the city at night." She flipped the light off, leaving me with the view of Morgantown and the lock and the Westover Bridge. "Would you like a drink?"

  "Thanks." I joined her back in the main room, and said half-jokingly, "But I already had plenty to drink tonight."

  She smiled, letting go of a little of the sternness she wore all night like brass buttons on a fancy coat.

  I came around the large leather sofa and found her leaning against the counter holding a small, Japanese teapot over a pair of small glasses with heavy stems. She slowly dripped water onto a sugar cube resting on a fork lain across the top of the glass. Little by little the sugar dissolved. "The water releases oils from the absinthe like the drink frees your mind. A metamorphosis, maybe?"

  She rested her elbows on the countertop and put her nose right up to the rim of the glass. Like a little kid peeking into a Mason jar full of fireflies. She placed the tip of her finger into the liquid, then swabbed my lip. Alcohol and the smell of black licorice rushed into my nose.

  Dani put her arm around my neck and pulled me into a soft kiss that lingered on my bottom lip. She handed me one of the little glasses. Cloudy green liquid sloshed up to the rim.

  "Na zdraví. You only ever get one first sip." She held her glass up, and I imitated her. She took off her glasses and set them on the counter.

  The drink was more potent than anything I'd ever put down my throat—whiskey, bourbon, tequila. The closest was this purple stuff this chemistry major made with Everclear at a New Year's Eve party a few years ago. I almost died that night.

  Dani took another sip and smiled, then led me to the leather sofa, dark like coffee, soft as Ovaltine. She took a seat at the other end and put her feet onto my lap. "My little feet are so tired."

  I put my glass on the floor. Her toes curled as I loosened her shoe's black leather strap and carefully slid it off. Little spots of pearlescent red danced beneath her black stockings. Back and forth, like a cat about to nap. She held a sip of absinthe on her tongue before swallowing.

  "Preston Black." Dani rested her cheek against the leather cushion.

  "That's me." My old buzz, now reactivated, dribbled into my head, down my spine and through my limbs like splashes of dusty sunshine through the windblown leaves. It took a minute to realize Dani had been waiting for me to go on.

  "Not much to say, especially if you've seen me play. Speaking of which, you didn't come downstairs and watch the rest of our set?"

  "I went for a coffee," she said unapologetically. "You had been saying?"

  "Oh." Her forwardness tripped me up, my mind drifted a second. "Well, anyway, I was born and raised here. Raised by Pauly's mother."

  "And what about your parents?"

  I picked my glass up and swirled the drink around in it. "Nothing like building up to the tough questions, huh? My mother died when I was a few months old. Car crash on her way to work at the mall. Sometimes I think I remember her, but probably... I was probably too young." All the sad talk distorted my mood. "She had me when she was, like, seventeen.

  "And my dad... The bastard left my mom before I'd even been born." I laughed and poured a big swallow down my throat. "That makes me the bastard, I guess. But I think I finally found him, though. I have a bone to pick."

  At the risk of sounding too angry I paused to rethink my next words. "But I don't know if I have a bone to pick as much as I just want to look at his face and see if I can see any of myself in there. Like, after so many years of not knowing, to wake up one day and finally know... For me it's like being able to hear after years without sound. And then, maybe after the newness wears off I'll get mad, thinking about how I'd been cheated out of a big part of my life. You know, I'll probably want to yell and punch him right in the mouth. I don't know. But I just want to have that option. Sometimes I think Pauly'd like to take a shot at him, too."

  While I talked I ran my finger along the arch of Dani's foot. Her toes curled like old guitar strings. She crossed her legs at the ankles, an invitation for me to start playing with her other foot.

  While waiting for her to speak up I finished my drink. But the lull in conversation got to me. So I went on. "Pauly's my best friend, but I'm afraid things are changing fast. I always felt like he held me back musically but I stuck with him for all these years like I had to take care of him. Now Pauly's tryin
g to get sober and Stu's leaving and I have ideas, a notebook full of songs we never played. I'm not sure when I'll play for an audience again."

  "Just find another drummer, right?"

  "I know. Except something tells me the credits are going to roll soon. I'm not sure Pauly's heart's in it anymore. He never loved it like I did. And because I didn't try to get myself a better gig I'm the one left out in the cold."

  "You should remain hopeful though, right?" Dani let out an earnest pause. "Growing up, I didn't understand the idea of Communism. When I think of Prague now, I think of all the colors and lights and the Žižkov tower at night and the red tile roofs. It's hard to forget the city's past. My childhood is the gray Vltava and dark, quiet, streets and cellars. Like it was always winter when I was little."

  She swirled the slurry of sugary liquid around the bottom of her glass. "They made us march in parades and we had to wear red scarves around our necks. So, gray and red."

  In one swift motion she tilted her head back and drank the rest. She smiled and said, "I'll prepare another?"

  I handed her my glass.

  "Luxury things were rare. Later I learned that nobody had rich foods and fine things—not just us. I counted every penny and learned appreciation little by little. You have nothing, then suddenly, you have a little. When I smell clementines I think of Christmas and my childhood memories get a little brighter." She returned to the couch. This time she sat closer to me, and after handing me my drink, shook her hair free from a pair of silver barrettes. "Back in Prague I knew quite a few hopeless young girls. That's where I learned all about those ugly qualities that separate a child from an adult. Sranda jak v márnici."

  I shook my head.

  "It's like 'having fun in a morgue,' so, a little sad."

  "Your parents didn't spare you from all that?" She'd diluted the absinthe even less this time.

  "Prague was a very sad place when I was born. Thinking and speaking against the party was illegal. Living in the Panelaks was only a little better than living in a barn stall. But the people were always hopeful and remembered that life is short. Just after my mother had me, Prague said goodbye to the Communists. They came together, shouting 'This is our city.'" Dani told the story as if she'd memorized it from a plaque in front of a museum.