I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t speak. The whole world seemed to stop, and I felt myself grow cold.
Jenny . . .
The day before what would have been graduation for the four students, there was a memorial service in the auditorium at the school. I couldn’t get in, and I watched the ceremony, along with several hundred other people, on the big-screen televisions they had brought out and set up on the front lawn. The colours were bleached out from the sun, and the sound wavered, but it was more than I could take.
I think I was the only person alone at the service. Everyone else was clustered into small knots of grief—girls in sunglasses holding one another as they cried black streaks down their faces; boys who had no knowledge of loss awkwardly circling one another or uneasily cradling one of the crying girls, unsure of what to do with their hands, unsure of what to do with their mourning.
In the heat of my car, sweat beading on my face, I wept.
I drove down to Dallas Road, pulled into a parking slot and turned off the engine. The water was a blinding sheet of light in the afternoon sun.
I sat there for the longest time. I tried to understand, but nothing made sense. I wanted to think that I had imagined the whole thing, that I had dreamed the whole trip home, but it was easier to believe what I knew to be true than to try to deny it, to accept the reality of that night, the dark ride, taking her home.
It didn’t make any sense, but I knew it was the truth.
Later that night, I drove past her house, parking a little way down the block. The gates were open, and the driveway was full of cars, the house brightly lit. In the yard were the same constellations of mourning I had seen at the school. I almost went to the house, into that field of loss, up to the door itself, but stopped myself. What would I have to say?
How do you mourn someone you never knew?
I had never felt so alone.
The next day, the day of the funerals, the newspaper printed their graduation photos, along with their yearbook entries and remembrances of their classmates and friends.
Jennifer Carmichael. Honours student. Valedictorian. Planning for a career in medicine. Full scholarship to McGill . . . What was the phrase she had used? Scholarships out the wazoo.
To be honest, the photograph of her wasn’t very good. It showed a very formal young woman, almost stern, in a dark gown with her mortar cocked back on her tied-back hair. I tore the article and photograph out and laid them on my desk.
That night, just before dark, I went to the cemetery. I brought flowers, and carried them by my side along the winding paths.
It wasn’t hard to find her grave. There was a pile of flowers, an easel with a photograph of her. In this one, she was laughing.
The earth on the grave was slightly rounded, the turf still rough. There was no headstone, only a small marker.
Carmichael, Jennifer.
I stood beside her grave, trying to make everything make sense. It didn’t work.
I set the flowers down gently with the others.
“Thank you again for the ride,” she said from behind me as I stood up.
Of course I hadn’t heard her coming, but I wasn’t surprised to hear her voice.
“It was nothing,” I said, as I turned toward her.
In the half-light of the dusk she was radiant, burning with an inner light so bright I could barely look at her.
“No,” she said. “It was something. It was everything. You got me home.”
I nodded. I couldn’t do anything else.
“I was hoping I would see you again. I wanted to do something to thank you.”
“I’ve got so many questions,” I started.
“And I don’t have any answers.” She smiled, and the brightness burned my eyes.
I had to turn away.
“Here,” she whispered, and I was aware of her near me, her presence. I felt her lifting my hand, opening my fingers, without any sense of her touch. There was no physicality whatsoever, just her burning presence. And a cold weight in my hand. “I want you to have this.”
I lifted it up to look at it in the half-light. It was a silver pen, cool and smooth.
“But what . . .”
“Not everybody would have stopped that night. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have made it home.”
I wanted to argue with her, but I couldn’t.
“It’s a fountain pen. It was a graduation gift from my grandmother. Maybe you’ll be able to use it.”
“But I . . .”
As I spoke, I could feel her presence all around me, a warmth that chilled me, and, for only the briefest of moments, the touch of her lips against my cheek, and her whisper in my ear. “Use it.”
And then she was gone, and I was utterly alone.
I was up before my parents the next morning. I skipped breakfast, and was on the highway before there was any other sound in the house.
I averted my eyes as I passed the Malahat summit, kept my gaze fixed on the taillights of the car in front of me until I was well past the pullout and the viewpoint, and the spot where the car had left the road.
I spent the morning retracing my steps from earlier in the week. I stopped at the Duncan and Cowichan school board offices and withdrew my resumes from their consideration. I requested my application at the Nanaimo District office be destroyed.
And then I started for home, the fountain pen on the passenger seat next to a new black notebook.
I was almost to the summit when I saw the scene of the accident. The fencing had been replaced, but no one had painted it yet and it stood out like a wound on the landscape. On the edge of the road, the too-narrow shoulder above Finlayson Arm, there were four white crosses, sunlight playing across them. Heaped around them were wreaths and flowers, gifts and ribbons.
There was no room to stop, and I don’t know what I would have left if there had been.
How do you remember someone you never really knew?
I pulled in at the viewpoint at the summit. There were a couple of carloads of tourists taking pictures against the backdrop of the mountains and the water. It was a glorious day.
I put on the Grateful Dead CD I had been playing that night and I took off my seatbelt.
The sketchbook was new; I had bought it at Opus the day before, looking for something with lots of pages, lots of space.
I had taped the newspaper article, with her photograph, on the inside of the front cover.
I opened up the book, unscrewed the cap from the pen, and began to write.
It was just getting dark when I saw her, a little past nine o’clock. . . .
Tom Chesnutt’s Midnight Blues
For Marla
What’s the worst thing you can imagine? The worst punishment someone could wish on you? To forever be cut off from those pretty young girls, the ones who look at you like you’re a god? To wander the world looking for peace, but never knowing a moment’s rest? To have your finest song never be heard?
“Can I get the houselights up?” Tom Chesnutt muttered into the microphone as he fumbled with his guitar strap. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Hank, can you bring up the lights?”
Cheers washed over him as Hank brought up the bar’s main lights. The crowd was on their feet—they had been for most of the night.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, for the figures on the other side of the spotlights to start to come into focus.
“This is an old song,” he said into the mic, almost as an aside, as he tightened the G string. He made it sound off the cuff, but it was the way he introduced the song every time he played it. A couple of people cheered; they’d seen the show before, or recognized the words from the record.
“It’s nice to finish a night like this with an old song,” he continued, looking down the guitar’s neck. “A song everybody can sing a
long to.” He ran his pick lightly over the strings, listening to the tuning in the monitor. It was fine, but he fumbled with the keys a little longer. For effect. Playing it out.
More of the crowd cheered—people were starting to figure out what was coming. The sound of the crowd had changed; it was darker now, lower than it had been when he first took the stage. Two hours of cheering and drinking and smoking had taken their toll.
“It’s been a good night for me, Victoria.” The crowd exploded with the mention of their city’s name, same way they always did. “Hope y’all have had a good time too.”
He shook the neck of his guitar decisively and straightened up in front of the mic.
“This song’s called ‘Jolene.’”
The crowd roared, and Frank started beating out the rhythm heavy, almost a Bo Diddley beat.
Tom let the guitar hang loose around his neck, curled his right hand around the microphone and leaned in, closing his eyes as he sang against the backbeat.
From www.thewebmusicguide.com:
Tom Chesnutt – singer, songwriter, guitar
Born in Santa Fe, NM, but based for most of his career in Spokane, WA, Chesnutt met with early success as a songwriter, penning tracks which included “Love and Smoke,” “Brokedown in Your Eyes,” “Right Child” and “Tell-All Eyes,” which charted briefly for Stanza in 1987. His early albums, though critically well-received, sold poorly. After a brief hospitalization following the death of his fiancée Emily Grace in 1999, Chesnutt burst to national prominence with the album Emily’s Song. Recorded in three days, the album is widely regarded as a dark masterpiece in the tradition of Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks and Neil Young’s Tonight’s The Night.
He’d got to the bar a couple hours early, same as he always did. The place was a crappy little club right on the water that had once hosted bands, before they discovered that there was more money in techno and drunk university students. Now, the only time they cleared the DJ and his equipment off the stage was for a Very Special Event—namely someone the owner or promoter really wanted to see for themselves.
Tom didn’t mind that: Very Special Event. Had a nice ring to it.
He had wandered around while the guys loaded in and got set up, watching the pretty girls and the pretty buildings, the boats and the water. He had to stop to rest a couple of times; two nights without sleep and he was running on fumes. He got back to the club for a quick soundcheck, then he sent the boys off to find some food while he bellied up to the bar.
The bartender, a kid with a shaved head and a pierced lip, was still setting up, but he was kind enough, thank you very much, to provide a bottle of Maker’s Mark and a glass. Tom’s needs were simple.
“Water water everywhere,” he muttered as the bartender turned away. “Only whiskey fit to drink.”
He drank slowly but steadily, savouring the flavour and the burn of the whiskey, relying on it to cut through the last of the pills, bring him down a couple of notches to let him play.
When he poured the first glass, his hand was shaking so bad he thought he might actually spill. A couple of drinks later and his hand was perfectly still, the jangle gone from just behind his eyes.
“Better living through chemistry,” he muttered.
The bartender glanced down at him and Tom shook his head. “Just talking to myself.”
Emily smiled at him from the empty bar stool to his right. “Is that what this is, you and I? You still think I’m some sort of projection?”
“Or psychosis,” he muttered. The words could have stung, but he offered them up with an easy familiarity. He and Emily had been having this conversation for a good five years now. Since the night after she had died.
“I can’t say it’s good to see you,” he lied, glancing toward the bartender, who was shelving glasses and sniffing like he was fresh from Colombia. It was good to see her, everything considered. She was just as beautiful as she had ever been, just as funny. It made him miss her even more, her showing up every third day.
“You’re such a sweet talker,” she said, breaking into a grin. “You knew I’d be here: that’s why you started in with the whiskey rather than popping another handful of pills. Think you’re getting some sleep tonight?”
“God willin’ and the creek don’t rise,” he said, taking another swallow. “She’ll be here.”
She made a production of looking around the empty bar. “I dunno, Tom. The prospects for a Jolene here . . . they’re not filling me with a whole lot of optimism.”
“She’ll be here,” he stressed. “There’s always a Jolene.”
“What?” The bartender asked from a few feet away.
“Nothin’.” Tom waved it away. “Just goin’ over the set list in my mind.”
“You gonna do ‘Jolene’ tonight?” the kid asked, upping him considerably in Tom’s esteem.
“God willin’ and the creek don’t rise,” he repeated, slinging his feet over the empty chair beside him, leaning back to take a hearty swallow of bourbon straight from the bottle.
Jolene.
She had come by the merchandise table after the show at the Creekside Tavern. She waited for most of the line to clear out before she approached him. Always a good sign.
“Mister Chesnutt.” She was bubbling over, her hair damp from dancing and sticking to her pale, pretty face. Her body was swaying to some internal music as she spoke. “I just wanted to tell you how much I loved the show tonight.” She pushed a CD across the table toward him, and he uncapped his marker.
“Well thank you for sayin’ that,” he responded, laying on the country charm extra thick. “And you can call me Tom.” She smiled and he fumbled with the CD booklet. Usually he just scrawled his name on the hard plastic shell, but when he wanted to spend a little extra time, he went for the booklet.
He glanced up, did a quick surveil: Emily was at the bar across the room, keeping company with a couple of good ol’ boys.
He paused with his pen over his picture on the CD sleeve. “And what shall I call you, darlin’?”
There was a beat, a moment’s silence. “Call me Jolene,” she said.
He raised his eyebrows. “Honey, that song was a hit before your mama was born,” he said as he autographed her CD and slid it back across the table toward her.
“Almost,” she said, with a twinkle and a smile he could feel in his stomach.
“Now, Jolene . . .” He glanced up at Emily, safe out of earshot, as he spoke. “What say you stick around for a bit? Maybe we can have a drink once this place clears out some.”
She didn’t answer, but the smile she gave as she turned away said more than enough.
From “The Weary Warrior of the Road,” Monday Magazine:
Chesnutt won’t discuss the mental breakdown which resulted in his forced hospitalization following Grace’s death. “I think I’ve said enough about that for a lifetime,” he says with a chuckle.
The accident and the hospital stay resulted in Emily’s Song, the legendary album that has kept Chesnutt on the road since its release more than four years ago. “I don’t even know if I have a house anymore,” he laughs. “The mortgage payments keep coming out of the bank, but the place could have blown away for all I know.” The singer hasn’t been to his Spokane-area home more than a few nights since Grace’s death. “It’s too hard,” he says. “There’s really nothing for me there. Not anymore.”
No one really notices when he takes the stage. The room isn’t full: lots of people outside smoking, hanging out, enjoying the cool summer evening breeze off the water. He’s got no use for introductions, so when he picks up his Martin, people think he’s a roadie or a guitar tech.
Without any sort of fanfare, with the houselights still up, he starts to tap the body of the guitar just above the strings. Tap tap. Tap tap. Two fingers, nice and soft.
People start to turn toward t
he stage as the sound carries out to them. The band is standing at the side of the stage, waiting.
He loves this part, the way the evening starts to take shape. It’s one of the few things he still loves, these days.
Tap tap. Tap tap.
Over the speakers, over the monitors, the tapping sounds like a heartbeat.
Tap tap.
Somebody whoops. Nice to know somebody’s buying the records.
Tap tap.
Eyes closed, he leans into the microphone, whispers the word “Jolene” and the place crackles with a sudden electricity. People come to their feet, crowding to the stage. As he sings the first words of the song, just the name, over and over, in a whisper, the band files in behind him.
Tap tap.
And just as the first chorus comes around, he turns to Frank and nods. The drummer kicks into “Right Child” and the band is right with him, right on the money. Smooth as an old dollar. Smooth as a well-told lie.
From www.thewebmusicguide.com:
Tom Chesnutt—Live at Slim’s
This album does little more than capture another night on the road for wandering troubadour Chesnutt and his crack band. It is anything but perfunctory, however. From a haunting, acapella opener of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene,” a harrowing set drawn largely from Emily’s Song, through an intense, full-band encore of “Jolene” again, this is a transfixing set. Chesnutt sounds like a man possessed. Despite his well-deserved reputation as a songwriter, Chesnutt gets good mileage from several well-chosen covers, including a countrified stomp through the Rolling Stones’ “19th Nervous Breakdown” (which Chesnutt introduces with a meandering story about time spent in a mental institution, finishing “And when you’re faced with a two-hundred and fifty pound coloured orderly with a sixteen inch needle in his hand, the last thing you wanna say is ‘Yeah? And what are you gonna do about it?’”) Conspicuous by its absence is the title track from Emily’s Song: Chesnutt, despite his near-constant touring, has never performed the song live.
Seven Crow Stories Page 2