by Alex Bledsoe
* * *
The Pair-A-Dice door opened, and Mandalay entered, followed by Bliss and, lumbering uncomfortably, Bronwyn. Bliss and Bronwyn looked around nervously as they took off their coats, but Mandalay had the serene expression of a girl going to church … or an execution.
Three men stood and offered their chairs, which the women took. They were near the front, close to the stage, and the expectation in the room grew exponentially until the air vibrated with it. Mandalay sat with her hands demurely in her lap, holding her purse, like a girl at church. With her presence, it was now all over but the singing.
* * *
“And there she is,” Bo-Kate said. She looked back at Byron. “Are you ready?”
“Sure. You still want me to play ‘Rough and Ready’?”
“That’s your signature tune, isn’t it? People who don’t even know who you are know that one, don’t they?”
“I don’t know,” he muttered. “I been out of circulation for a while.”
She patted his arm. “And here—I want you to use this.” She held up the pick he’d given her at the fire in the woods.
“Why?” Byron asked.
“It’s absorbed sixty years’ worth of magic, that’s why.”
He took the pick and twirled it slowly in his fingers. It felt no different from any other guitar pick. “So it’s magic now, huh?”
She patted his chest. “Just like you, baby.”
35
There was no announcement or obvious signal, but almost as soon as Mandalay sat down, silence spread through the crowd. Beer bottles settled onto tables, chairs stopped scraping across the concrete floor, and eventually all eyes turned to the back of the room.
Byron and Bo-Kate emerged from the kitchen. He held his guitar at his side like a gun, had his leather jacket zipped halfway up, and his hair was perfectly styled into a ducktail, gleaming with the vintage Brylcreem he always carried. He met the gaze of every Tufa he could, drilling into them with the contained fury he felt for every last one of the smug sons of bitches.
Bo-Kate gently touched his back. “Wait here,” she said softly. “I’ll call you up in a minute.”
She walked to the stage and stepped up to the microphone. As if she did this every day, she said casually, “How’s everyone doing out there? Don’t forget to tip Rachel and Arshile, it’s all that keeps a roof over their heads.”
No one laughed.
She wasn’t fazed. “I guess, given how many people are here, everyone knows how important this is. That’s good; y’all ain’t as dumb as I remember.”
Again there was no response.
“So, here we are. Y’all know what I want: your agreement that I’m in charge. That we change the name of this place from Needsville to Scarborough. That Mandalay give up her position, either willingly”—she smiled and winked at Mandalay—“or not.”
Mandalay said nothing, and her expression remained neutral.
“Now, I know one big thing many of you are worried about is that, with me being gone for so long, I might not know enough about you people to lead you. Well, I know more than you think. For example, I know that Big Sam Washburn over there lost all his money at that Cherokee casino over in North Carolina and had to beg his mama for money so Little Sam and his brothers and sisters could eat.”
Everyone turned to look at a disheveled, corpulent man. “That ain’t—,” he started, then stopped.
“And Ellie Shannon, what were you doing parked at Curtis Stock’s house in the middle of the night when his wife was off seeing about her mother?”
An attractive woman in her thirties just stared, her mouth open. A man with a thick mustache got to his feet and whipped out a big Case knife. He glared at his wife. “Is that true, Ellie? Is it?”
Two of his friends grabbed him by the arms and pulled him away before the woman, red-faced with shame, could reply. Another man, the aforementioned Curtis, slid down in his chair.
“And how many of y’all know that Carney Tesla is cooking meth up in that old farmhouse out back of his property?”
“That’s a damn lie!” a man shouted, but he lacked conviction. It was a minor taunt, anyway; whatever the law might say, the production of meth was considered, like moonshine, no one’s business except the seller’s and the buyer’s. Still, the Tesla family was noted for its public propriety, and this airing of their dirty secret would have repercussions in their immediate circle.
“And there’s more,” Bo-Kate assured them; Carolanne Pollard, seated with her parents, sank in her chair, aware far too late why Bo-Kate wanted her aid. “Lots more. I’d love to spend the next hour regaling you with it, but I reckon I’ve proved my point. But I’ll leave you with just one more thing.”
She looked straight at Bronwyn Chess and said in a mock-concerned voice, “Bronwyn, honey, does that preacher husband of yours know who the father of that baby really is?”
Bronwyn’s face turned white with rage. She grabbed the edge of the table, intending to launch herself at Bo-Kate, but Bliss held her arm, and Mandalay turned to look a warning at her.
Bo-Kate said. “And now, I’d like you to meet my special guest.” She stepped aside and gestured for Byron to come up.
He worked his way to the stage. With each step, his leg iron squeaked and the heel brace struck the concrete floor with a solid thunk. He stood beside Bo-Kate and glared out at the Tufa.
“This,” Bo-Kate said, “is Byron Harley. You heard me right: the Byron Harley, one of the guys who created rock and roll, who supposedly died in this very county sixty years ago up on a lonely mountainside. And he’s standing here right now because the night winds blew him right to me.”
Faint murmurs of disbelief went through the crowd.
Bo-Kate looked at Mandalay. “Have they ever done anything like that for you, Little Britches?”
Mandalay said nothing. She couldn’t claim she knew Byron Harley was stuck in slow time, because until the other night, she hadn’t. She clenched her hands into fists of frustration, but kept her face neutral.
“I didn’t think so,” Bo-Kate said. “That must mean they approve of me, and what I want to do. They must want me to be in charge, because they gave me proof of their goodwill.”
“How do we know he’s not just some look-alike you brought from Nashville?” Bronwyn demanded. “Or does he only talk when you stick your hand up his ass and move his lips?”
“I talk,” Byron rumbled.
“See?” Bo-Kate said. “He talks, and he also sings. And what better proof than that, right?” She stepped aside and gestured to him.
He shifted until his feet were spread enough to bring him down to the microphone’s level. He looked out at the expectant crowd, and despite his anger, his sense of abandonment and dislocation, he felt the old rush of excitement that hit at the beginning of every show. He said softly, “One, two, three, four…”
Then he fiercely strummed with the pick Bo-Kate gave him.
My baby fights like a junkyard dog with a bone
My baby hits like a bullet from Al Capone
My baby screams like Fay Wray in a monkey’s paw
But when the lights go down, none of that matters at all.
Some girls like it soft and sweet
And some like it hot and heavy
But my girl likes it the way I do
Like Teddy Roosevelt, rough and ready.
He glanced to one side and saw the delight on Bo-Kate’s face. At the front of the crowd, the little girl, the one who scared Bo-Kate so much, kept her expression blank, but her two minders were clearly concerned.
Byron laughed contemptuously and snarled into the next verse.
My baby likes me when I make her scream real loud
And kiss her the way a thunderbolt kisses a cloud
She says she’s mine forever, and nothing’ll tear us apart
And I know she holds the key that starts the engine of my heart.
Then he roared then, a cry of such rage and anger t
hat he worried he might pop a vocal cord. But all the emotions he’d kept tamped down, waiting for this chance, came out in a rush. He wanted to swing his guitar into the first row of black-haired, white-teethed faces, then wade into the crowd with the mike stand like a club. He didn’t care if he died—he would take as many of them with him as he could.
* * *
Snowy and Tain sat together, she with her chair leaned back against him, and he draped an arm over her shoulder. They held hands, and if anyone looked too closely, they’d see that both their knuckles were white with the intensity of their grip. Tain’s lip was still swollen, and the skin around one eye was bruised.
She glanced occasionally at Byron, but mostly watched Bo-Kate. She was now terrified of her cousin, not because Bo-Kate had beaten her up, but because she had killed Nigel—a sweetheart, and the closest thing Bo-Kate had to a conscience. Canton and Snad came to the diner and told her, after they’d hidden the body in a cave to await the ground’s thaw. They were unsure how to feel about it themselves: family was always primary, but sometimes that loyalty left a rotten taste behind it.
Without Nigel’s influence, there would be nothing stopping Bo-Kate, and the cold, calculated amusement Tain saw in her eyes reinforced that. Bo-Kate would be happy if the whole crowd burst into a riot and left her the only one still standing.
She looked at Byron onstage. She wondered what sex with him would’ve been like: he was so huge, and the weight of his body pressing down would’ve been overpowering in the best way. He could’ve turned her anyway he wanted, easily pushed her into any position, and would’ve been impossible to resist. Ordinarily such thoughts would send her into a tailspin of lust, but this time, it was no more than a wistful longing that faded almost at once as her body registered Snowy’s presence anew.
She squeezed Snowy’s hand even harder and wished they were back home in bed. For all her protests about wanting to be free to have other men, she found herself wanting only him. His total acceptance of her was something she’d never experienced before, and it was like a cool shower on a hot day.
“Can we leave?” she asked softly.
“Not right now,” he said, and kissed her cheek. “But soon, I promise.”
* * *
Byron finished with a flourish, the kind of wild-eyed spin the girls loved, using his leg iron for momentum and stopping with his weight on his good leg, his bad one out straight behind him. And even though these were rednecks from the future, the crowd went as wild as any other he remembered. Good music was, evidently, timeless.
He smiled, tossed his hair back from his face, and looked over at Bo-Kate. She did not look happy, or angry. She mainly looked a little puzzled.
36
As the applause died down, the muttering began. The consensus was clear: Bo-Kate had done a pretty fucking good job making her case. If she wanted to lead, then maybe they should let her. She couldn’t be worse than Rockhouse, and Mandalay had made no effort to stand up to her. When the vote came, it would be a landslide.
Bronwyn and Bliss exchanged a look. Both thought the same thing: that their faith in Mandalay, as strong as it was, might have been misplaced.
Mandalay sensed all this around her. She had anticipated it, and had a plan. She opened her purse and closed her small hand around the small semiautomatic pistol she’d stolen from her father’s pickup.
Before she could withdraw it, though, Bronwyn firmly grabbed her wrist, and the older woman spoke softly and urgently in her ear.
“No, Mandalay. If it needs to be done, I’ll do it. It’s my job. I already have blood on my hands.”
“Let go,” Mandalay said, equally firm. “This is between Bo-Kate and me.”
“It’s between Bo-Kate and all of us.”
“No!” Mandalay snarled, and wrenched free. She stood and aimed the gun straight at Bo-Kate twenty feet away.
Everyone saw this and stepped quickly back, clearing the space between the two women. Bo-Kate’s puzzlement vanished, replaced by a smile. She put her hands on her hips and stepped away from Byron, presenting herself as a clear target.
The room grew hushed.
“Well?” Bo-Kate said at last. “Are you going to do it?”
Mandalay did not answer, and the gun did not waver in her hand. Brownyn and Bliss stood beside her, unsure what to do, knowing only that this was their place, whatever happened. Junior Damo stood close, but not quite in the line of fire.
“I took a shot at you, you know,” Bo-Kate said to Mandalay. “And I meant it. It was only your dumb luck that I missed. Is that thing even loaded?”
Mandalay pointed the gun at the ceiling and pulled the trigger. In the silence, in this room perfectly arranged for acoustics, the sound was unbearably loud, and each person watching flinched. Dust trickled down from the hole in the plaster.
Mandalay took three steps closer to Bo-Kate. Then she said, “You just want to lead the Tufa so you can destroy them, Bo-Kate. You have no love for them, for the music, or for the night winds. You won’t be happy until the Tufa lose everything that makes them special, and fade into memories and songs. Then you’ll have your revenge, won’t you?”
“Hey, I’m not making anyone do anything they don’t want to do. If you people don’t want me, I’ll leave.”
“This isn’t about what they want,” Mandalay said. “It’s about you, and me. Who we are, what we want, and what we’re willing to do to get it. You were willing to kill me.”
“I still am,” Bo-Kate hissed.
Mandalay took another three steps and put the end of the barrel against Bo-Kate’s sternum. Someone in the crowd gasped. Mandalay looked into the older woman’s eyes.
“I can kill you,” Mandalay said.
“Then do it.”
Mandalay grinned, cold and malicious and harder than any child’s face should be able to convey. She stepped back and lowered the gun. “But I’m not like you, Bo-Kate Wisby. So I won’t.”
Then she extended the gun, grip first, to Bo-Kate. “Now it’s your move.”
The two women looked at each other. Then, with a raw scream, Bo-Kate grabbed the gun, aimed it at the girl, and squeezed the trigger.
At the last second, though, someone knocked her arm up. The bullet struck the ceiling.
Jefferson Powell didn’t say a word. He wrenched the gun from her hand and tossed it to Junior. Then he pushed Bo-Kate backwards ahead of him into the empty kitchen.
He slammed her against the wall beside the pantry. She started to speak, but he grabbed her by the throat. She’d forgotten how physically strong he was. She tried to pull his arm away, then to kick at him. He squeezed until she couldn’t breathe. But there was no hatred in his eyes, only anguish and, behind that, the kind of love that nothing, no horrendous behavior or blatant betrayal, could ever change.
“This is over,” he said. “We don’t belong here anymore.”
Fury at his words replaced her fear, and she clawed at his face. How dare he say they didn’t belong? They belonged more than anyone!
He punched her in the stomach, then pushed her toward the door. She gave no resistance as he shoved her outside.
* * *
Bliss and Bronwyn said almost in unison, “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Mandalay said. She turned to Junior, and he quickly offered her the gun. She took it and passed it to Bronwyn, then grasped his right hand in both of her own.
“Junior,” Mandalay said.
“Y-yes, ma’am?” he stammered.
She looked up into his face, his eyes, his soul. She saw the small, trembling center of him hidden behind his paper-thin bluster, and within that, the core of manipulative power that flickered like a pilot light awaiting a surge of natural gas. She also understood that at this moment, with a word, she could either stoke it, or put it out forever.
You have until the full moon to find your opposite number, the night winds had said, or take the crown yourself. “You want to take Rockhouse’s place and help me lead t
he Tufa, Junior?”
“I…”
“Shit or get off the pot, Junior. Right now.”
She’d never seen anyone look so frightened, but he managed a nod.
“You’ll have to listen to me, you know. You’re not Rockhouse. I will always be stronger than you. Are we clear on this?”
Again he nodded.
“Good. We’ll talk more later.”
She released his hand. She wondered if she’d just made the expedient decision of a leader, or the cowardly choice of a child afraid of taking on adult responsibility. There was no way to tell until the damage was already done.
She turned to the rest of the Tufa. “Is that all right with everyone? Things go on like they were. Only difference is Junior instead of Rockhouse. What do you say?”
There were gradual murmurs of assent. If anyone disagreed, they were too frightened of the possible consequences to speak up. Still, the tension in the room remained cranked to the sticking place by the showdown between the two women. Folks glared at each other, and spoke in urgent, soft voices that were somehow worse than yelling. If everyone wasn’t careful, the lid could still blow.
* * *
While Jeff took Bo-Kate away and Mandalay spoke to Junior, Byron was forgotten. He looked out across the crowd, everyone speaking at once, some people arguing and shoving each other. He realized that, whatever future he’d potentially had, it was gone now. Like Donna. Like Harmony.
It was time for him to go as well.
He lifted his guitar and dug in his pocket for the real pick he’d used at the campfire. That day she’d brought him out of the woods, he deliberately gave her the wrong one from the stash he always carried. It was an impulse born of his instinctive mistrust of strangers, particularly attractive women with their own agendas, but now he was glad he’d done it. If that pick had absorbed something from all that time, he suspected he knew what would happen when he played with it.