The Devil and Preston Black (Murder Ballads and Whiskey)

by Jason Jack Miller

  The bulk of the music came from the girl that stood between them swinging her fiddle bow like a bucksaw. Her exaggerated mannerisms contrasted sharply with the men's stony scowls. Light brown hair streaked with hints of blond fell from a loose bun on her head. Each time she blew a strand away, her nose and mouth scrunched with annoyance.

  When she finished, the audience applauded mildly. Not a single person stood up or even showed a sign that her playing interested them only slightly more than the Sloppy Joes did. These hicks, I thought, wouldn't know music if it knocked their daughter up. So I set my Tele and Jamie's acoustic on the floor and clapped singular claps that punctuated the fire hall's dead air. "Whooo!" I yelled.

  People in the audience turned and looked, just staring, their eyes full of confusion and pity. Jamie picked up his case and clamped my shoulder. The violinist gave Jamie a little wave from the stage, then shrugged her shoulders. "I don't get it, man. She's phenomenal."

  "Well," Jamie said, pulling me toward the back, "Katy plays here every week. And most of the people here in this room can tell just by listening that she's a little off this afternoon Probably thinking about boys or some darn thing."

  "Wait, what?" I couldn't pull my attention away from the stage.

  "She's a little sloppy today. They've heard better from her. She's a student of mine, so I'd know."

  "Wow. So that's sloppy? What does it sound like when she's on?"

  Jamie said, "When she's on, she'll make you cry."

  The trio on stage began another number as Jamie led me down a long hall. Doors to the right opened up into the big garage where the pumpers and ladder trucks slept. Along the left sat a pair of rooms. The first contained a group of kids strangling violins while a big man in a wheelchair patiently begged them to stop. He had a heavy gray beard and wore a Carhartt jacket with a POW/MIA patch on the sleeve. He'd lost both of his legs near the knee. He looked like a mama bird fretting over how to divide one worm with a dozen chicks.

  The next room sat at the end of the hall, right next to the fire exit, Jamie made a left into a small, wood-paneled room. Across from the door stood a pop machine with old glass soda bottles trapped inside. Jamie hung his coat on the back of a folding chair as three guys tuned.

  I waited anxiously for Jamie to introduce me to Earl. Before I could take off my jacket the banjo player, who looked very much like a turtle stuck halfway in his shell, said, "Is this the city boy?"

  "Hector, be nice, now," Jamie said.

  The mandolin player had wavy red hair and round glasses. I knew right away he wasn't Earl Black. Jamie said, "That there's Tim." Rather than reach across Hector to shake my hand, Tim just nodded.

  Jamie stood directly behind the guitar player and gave the big man a good pat on the shoulder, then said "This here's Carter O'Dell. Sit where you can keep an eye on him. He'll show you chord changes and whatnot. Hector, why don't you switch him seats?"

  "C'mon. You know how I hate sitting with my back against the door," he said.

  "He needs a clear run at the window in case his wife shows up," Tim deadpanned. He clipped an electric tuner to his mandolin.

  Jamie lifted his old violin out of its case. Near the bridge the luthier carved a delicate oak leaf and acorn. The wood had been worn smooth where it rubbed against his chin. "I'll be right back. Have to find some rosin," Jamie said and flitted out of the room like a squirrel in search of a nut.

  "Fiddlers and their superstitions," Carter O'Dell said as he tapped Jamie's guitar case with his foot. "What're you waiting for, boy? Pop her open and show us what you got." He watched as I unlatched the clasps on Jamie's old guitar case. I lifted the lid. The smell of old wood, like my grandpap's attic, made a beeline to the part of my brain that missed Captain Crunch and Super Friends on Saturday morning.

  "Wow." I held the old Martin, all too aware of how close the chairs were. "Never had much of an interest. I always wished my amps went up to eleven."

  I sat on the folding chair, put my head beneath the soft leather strap, then strummed an E. The thick strings bucked beneath my fingers like an angry bull trying to throw a rider. The body of the guitar wriggled beneath my arm like a kid about to get his first hair cut. Switching to a D minor diminished the guitar's liveliness a little, but sonic waves continued to pour out of the wood and into my ribs.

  Tim tossed me his tuner. "Get yourself straightened out there." He noodled while I tuned, piecing together a little something that sounded like "Blackbird" meets "Bron-y-aur." Hector plucked rebuttals to Tim's twiny chirps.

  Carter O'Dell rocked back in his chair, lifting its front legs off of the floor; his big hands clamped his Gibson's neck like he wanted to choke it. He thumbed the low G and picked out a simple bass line, a little glue to hold Hector and Tim together. Carter gave me an exaggerated nod, my cue to come in as soon as I tuned.

  I watched his fingers for a few measures then joined in, picking out bass notes on the E and A strings. The notes came right out of the Lydian or Mixolydian mode, and once I chugged right along with Carter he played the full chords while continuing to walk along with the bass. My brain figured out the simple pattern before my fingers did. Bass-chord-chord. Bass-chord-chord. Bass-chord-chord. Boom-chuck-chuck. Jamie's Martin thumped like a bass drum kick.

  At the end of the measure Carter left me high and dry to play a variation on the melody Tim had started us out with. Carter's Gibson had a crispy tone, like wind chimes. Just like that Tim went from melody to rhythm, accentuating my downbeats with palm-muted strums. The sudden shift in dynamics—Carter's transition from rhythm to lead and Tim's move to percussion—made me think, Holy shit, that's sweet. I let a little smile slip out.

  Carter took the melody and twisted it, building rooms onto his foundation, turning it into a house. He hammered-on to a minor fifth, and now Tim's melody sounded a little heavier. Hector put a metallic exclamation point on it by playing a droning minor chord. Tim picked up the subtle key change and chucked out the new chord. I looked at Carter.

  "A minor," he said.

  At some point Jamie came back. Standing just over my shoulder he entered the song little by little. The whining fiddle filled the space in our tune like rain water fills a rocky riverbed. Hector backed off just a bit, assuming a more rhythmic role to let Jamie take the lead. Where Carter's guitar, or Tim's mandolin had been able to change the mood from jubilant to melancholy, Jamie's violin added nuance. Taking a pick to a hunk of marble that'd been hacked at with a chisel for too long.

  Tim's head bounced, his glasses slid further down his nose as he tore through a frantic solo. I switched my A minor to an A minor seventh to give it a slightly funkier sound. Beneath the volume of our song Carter mouthed the words, 'one more time'.

  I attacked the strings with my Dunlop HEAVY pick. The fierce vibrations radiating from that old slab of wood shook my fillings, for crying out loud. I looked for the cue to end.

  A false silence filled the room as all the strings were muted to a stop. Phantom notes kept my ears ringing just a bit longer. Residual echoes went out into the universe, putting a firm time stamp on this musical event.

  "Not bad," Big Carter said. He ran through a few warm-ups, his fingers bounced over the heavy strings like water droplets falling from treetop leaves. I silently chorded an F. My hands had grown so used to an electric guitar that I felt kind of weak, like my pointer could barely keep the low E down. My calloused fingertips felt like they'd been living easy for too long.

  "It's a little different being in the background," I said, mostly just to have something to say.

  In a drawn-out, exaggerated kind of way, Tim said, "Leave rhythm for the drummer, huh? Then give him five bucks and thank him for the pizza."

  Before I could defend myself Tim let loose another. "What about the kid who tells his mother he wants to play lead guitar when he grows up? She laughs and says 'you know you can't do both.'"

  Carter said, "Har har."

  Knowing I'd been busted, I laughed. "No, I'm havin
g a hard time wrapping my brain around the dynamic. All this time I thought I knew music. It kind of bugs me finding out how far I still have to go."

  Jamie said, "Not always a bad thing."

  Before I could add to my defense Jamie said, "Let's keep it going. 'John Henry,' key of G? One, two, three, one two three."

  Carter kicked the door open with a bass-filled run. I watched his fingers, trying to decipher the transitions he used to walk from chord to chord. By the time I had "John Henry" down Tim called out the next one, "Greenbrier River."

  We went around the room like this for the next few hours—them shouting out tunes I never heard of, me trying to keep up. My hands throbbed, the old Martin reminding me song after song who was boss. And I forgot all about the Sloppy Joes and the girl playing the violin. I even forgot about Earl Black for a second. For the first time in years music coursed through me, rather than through an amp and away from me. My mind rewrote every song I knew, rearranging them with chords and bass notes. I tried to predict how it'd sound, just me and a guitar doing all the songs that we did as a band. I wondered if somewhere in the old notebook I used for songwriting I'd find my very own "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" or "Story of My Life."

  We took a break while Carter and Hector packed up their instruments. I stretched a little, standing to shake their hands and shake out my legs. Carter leaned in and said, "You might be more valuable if you come prepared to sing a few next time. Singers are a rare thing around here, and Jamie says he heard you can sing."

  After Carter shut the door Tim and Jamie made the circle a little tighter. "Without Hector we'll be able to hear ourselves think. Let Tim and I play a few bars of this next one. Join in when you think you know it.

  "Key of D," Jamie said. He slid his bow across the strings and began playing a melody that reminded me of the first warm day after the snow's finally all gone. Then Tim joined, and music crawled around the room like a vine that produced a little white flower every so often. I couldn't figure out where to begin.

  I didn't enjoy this one as much. Without a crutch I kept falling over. Besides, my mind kept drifting back to Earl Black. I didn't want to miss him. And to make that point I stood up when the song ended. I flexed my fingers a few times, a not-so-subtle hint that my hands were achy. Jamie rested his fiddle on his lap and said, "I guess that's a wrap?"

  "I have to get a move on, too," Tim said, wiping his glasses on his shirt. He pushed his folding chair toward the wall, picked up his case and set it on the chair. He wiped down his strings with a chamois and put his mandolin down to rest. As he put on his jacket, he said, "Preston, it was really nice meeting you. I hope we'll see you up here again." After a bit of a thoughtful pause he added, "And I hope things work out for you today."

  My eyes found Jamie's. He gave me a resigned look.

  Tim patted me on the back as he stepped past. He shook Jamie's hand before slipping out the door.

  The room seemed really big with just Jamie and me in it. I put his Martin down and slid the pick into the strings before shutting the lid.

  Jamie asked, "You ready for this?"

  "I guess so. I came all this way, right?" I had more to say, but decided to hold it. I ended with, "What's the worst thing that can happen?"

  "I know you've probably spent a lot of time thinking about this moment." He coughed into his fist, perhaps taking an extra second to find words. "Whatever happens, it doesn't change who you are. You have to remember that. The Preston Black I met this morning doesn't change because of what happens today, okay?"

  He made such direct eye contact that I eventually had to look down at my feet. I figured he sought some type of sign from me that he wasn't about to make a huge mistake. "I promise." I extended my hand. "And thank you. I mean that."

  Jamie took my hand. His shoulders dropped, perhaps relieved to have had my word. He stepped into the hall, shuffled a few steps, then turned around. "You know, my son never had an urge to touch a musical instrument."

  The long hallway had fallen quiet except for the music from a pair of violins in the main hall, intertwined like blackberry brambles. Jamie led me toward the music.

  In the big room the snack bar had been shuttered. No Sloppy Joes for me today, I thought, my belly rumbling. All the folding chairs but one had been leaned against the wall in rows. A pair of basketball hoops had been lowered, the scoreboard glowed, HOME 0, VISITOR 0. Neither bonus arrow glowed.

  In the center of the floor the girl I'd seen on stage earlier faced the big guy in the wheelchair from the clinic down the hall. The girl stopped when she saw me and Jamie come in. Her eyes were the kind of blue Miles Davis must've dreamt about when he recorded "Blue in Green." The drums on that record sounded like rain on a city sidewalk.

  "Sorry to interrupt you all." Jamie put his hand on my shoulder, gave a little pat, then said, "I'd like you all to meet somebody. Preston, this is Katy Stefanic. Katy's mother is my baby sister."

  She clutched her fiddle with the crook of her arm and slid her bow alongside it. She smiled, her big eyes seemed to glow a little. "Nice to meet you." Her hand felt warm and dry. Not hot, like Dani's. She put her violin into its case on the floor, then took the man's.

  "I heard you playing earlier. You sounded really good." Saying it reminded me that I'd made an ass of myself.

  Katy blushed, then softened my embarrassment by saying, "I started young."

  My mouth dried up as the man turned toward me. I straightened myself and tried to stop my hand from shaking. I tried flexing my fingers a few times. I thought for sure I'd cry, and swore I'd hate myself if I did. But I could already feel it in my throat.

  Jamie grabbed my shoulder again, then slid his hand to the nape of my neck to keep me from bounding forward. "Earl, this is the guy I told you about."

  I leaned forward and took his hand. The touch sent a jolt through me. A jolt of what, I didn't know. Maybe a little anger, a little sadness. Joy. "Preston Black, sir. Nice to meet you."

  He flinched a little when I said my name. I thought it was certainly a sign of guilt. A multitude of questions and accusations flooded my head. Before I could get any of it out Earl said, "Just like the song, huh?"

  "Yeah. I brought the record along..." I handed it over to him.

  He looked it over real good and slid the vinyl out, just like Jamie had. He said, "That's me, alright. I'd get up, but..." He studied my face.

  I opened my mouth, a placeholder for the things I meant to say, but Earl cut me off.

  "I'd get up," he said again with a bit of a stammer, rushing his words, "...but a little incident I had on a trip overseas keeps me in the chair. Something that probably happened long before you were born, in fact. But if I had a son he'd be a lot older than you are, ten years at least. Jamie told me that's why you're here."

  I cringed when he said that.

  "It's okay. I can see why you'd think that, with the song and all. But, uh... When I left Vietnam, like this, I married my sweetheart. We didn't make it last, not without me being able to... I served in Ninth Division, in Tan An Delta. Anyway, I thought the leeches would get me. But it was a grenade. Spent a few years wishing it would've killed me."

  I let my eyes drift to the big scoreboard. Still read HOME 0, VISITOR 0.

  "I'm sorry, Preston," Jamie said. "I could've told you, but I think it's better to have seen it for yourself."

  "No, I understand. It's all good," I said with a forced laugh. But my odometer had been set back to zero. "Hey man, it's nothing. When I saw the name, I just thought..."

  Earl handed me back the record and said, "If Black wasn't such a common name up here I'd say we could've been related. Who knows, maybe we're cousins?"

  "Yeah."

  Earl looked at me like I just had my bike stolen. "I am sorry it didn't work out like you hoped."

  Katy came to stand beside me. "No news isn't bad news." She handed Earl his black violin case, which he set on his lap.

  "I suppose." I couldn't find much more than that to say.


  "Thanks, Earl," Jamie said. Then the two of them headed toward the door. Katy lingered next to me for a second, then fell into step behind them.

  "What about the song? I'd still like to hear the song, if you don't mind," I said, trying to get something to take home with me.

  "That was a long time ago," Earl said.

  "Please, man. I don't have any family pictures, no birth certificate. You can give me something real."

  Earl glared like a possum that'd been poked with a stick.

  "Sorry. I'm not trying to provoke you."

  "It's not my song, that's why. I didn't write it. I heard it from a great uncle fifty years ago and slapped my name on it."

  He said, almost more to Jamie than me, "What was I supposed to do? I can't drive a truck, can't work in a mine or railroad. What was I supposed to do?"

  The air suddenly felt thick and awkward, like sitting too close to a bonfire. Jamie shoved his hands into his coat pockets and wiped an invisible smudge off of the floor. Katy was about to push the door open for Earl when he turned around and started to sing.

  "Preston Black couldn't eat and he couldn't drink, Preston Black couldn't eat and he couldn't drink," his frail voice wavered. "But he'd sit at the table all the same, waiting for handouts from whenever they came."

  He cleared his throat, then finished the verse. "Preston Black couldn't eat and he couldn't drink."

  I knew he wasn't singing about me. At least that was what I kept telling myself.

  "Preston Black didn't have a mom or a dad, Preston Black didn't have no mom or dad. Didn't know when he'd been born, didn't know when he'd die, didn't know nothing about the how or why. Preston Black didn't have a mom or a dad."

  I silently recited the verses, doing whatever it took to etch the song in my mind. I looked at Earl.

  Earl looked at the floor. "Preston Black never sang in church, Preston Black never sang in church. Though he knew the words to every song, the preacher told him that he didn't belong. Preston Black never sang in church." He grabbed his chair's wheels and gave them a few pushes. And the dirgeful groan that came from his throat reminded me that I was getting everything I asked for by digging up old graves.