The Revelations of Preston Black (Murder Ballads and Whiskey Book 3)

by Miller, Jason Jack

  “What do you think, Pres?” Pauly tried to light a cigarette but his hands were shaking too bad. “Still got it?”

  “Yeah, Pauly. You’re not going to tell your sponsor about this, are you?” I watched the bearded guy until he faded into the darkness.

  “No way. What happens in the van in a dark alley in Kentucky does not come back to the Mountain State with me.”

  “You’re going to hell for that, you know?” Katy said with a smile. She made a right turn on red and we passed the front of the old theater. I watched it, trying to remember every single thing that happened behind those doors before Katy built up even more speed.

  Pauly said, “I know,” folded his hands behind his head and lay down in the back seat.

  “Nobody on earth except for Katy Stefanic ever ate at a Waffle House because they wanted to.” Pauly’s anger came out a little at a time, like bees from a hive on a summer morning. “Don’t act like this happened accidentally either. The way I see it, I’m driving, doing the sound, playing bass on a few songs, and playing security with those Westboro Baptist wannabes. How am I not getting more of a say in where we eat?”

  “Don’t act like you cast a tiebreaker with your one vote.” Katy tossed him the keys and bounded around the van. She waited for me to slide out of the passenger seat. “And I drove tonight.”

  “Did we vote?” Pauly took a cigarette out of the pack and slid it behind his ear. “Pres, did you vote for this? Just because we’re in the South don’t mean we have to eat at every Waffle House we see. What about a pizza? We’ll order when we get to our hotel.”

  I had my mouth open to say something, but Katy struck fast, like a cat. “Because it’s going to be on the interstate and we’re going to get stuck at a Krystal because you know there’s no such thing as good pizza along an interstate.”

  “Better than white gravy,” Pauly said.

  I’d been asleep. Waking up in the Waffle House parking lot surprised me about as much as waking up on Mick’s floor would’ve. Which was to say it didn’t surprise me at all. My legs still weren’t totally beneath me. I leaned against the van and yawned while Katy weaseled a hug and a kiss out of me. Even I-65 was quiet except for a stray semi here and there. In this part of the world people went to bed early. I said, “No, Pauly, I didn’t vote. I wouldn’t mind if we skipped all this and found a hotel to be totally honest. Don’t put me in the middle.”

  “Driver votes twice anyway. You know the rules by now, Pallini. Took me two cheese steaks to figure out your system. You’ll eat good in Nashville.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the yellow-and-black-checked interior of the only thing keeping me from getting a full seven hours tonight. “I promise.”

  “Hear that, Pallini?” As I held the door for him, I caught a whiff of bacon, maple syrup and floor cleaner. “Besides, you got a week off while we hit the studio. Then when we see you in Atlanta you’re going to be hugging all over us, like, ‘Man, I missed you guys so much… What would I ever do without you in my life?’ So savor the moment, brother. Enjoy your waffles.”

  While Pauly followed Katy to an ice-cold, rock hard booth, the jukebox sucked me over like some kind of musical black hole. By now I knew to totally disregard the Waffle House songs in the first row, like Mary Welch Rogers’s “Waffle House Thank You.”

  From the booth Katy asked if I wanted ‘savory’ or ‘sweet.’

  “Savory. Thanks, chicita,” I said without thinking. I ran through the rows of songs, putting together a little playlist in my head. Most people didn’t realize it, but song order played as important a role as song choice. “No Beatles?”

  “Pres, give it a break, will you? There’s a whole ’nother world of music out there waiting to be discovered.” Pauly’s head swiveled, looking for the young waitress while he mentally subtracted dimes off her potential tip for making him wait.

  “Jackson” came through the shitty speakers first. I looked at Katy and smiled but she rolled her eyes. I said, “You’re hotter than a pepper sprout, you know that, my love?”

  She smiled an acknowledgement. “Haven’t heard that one yet.”

  “Any requests?”

  “Yeah,” Pauly said. “Sit down so we can eat.”

  So I spent the rest of my quarters playing “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed,” some Hank Williams, Kris Kristofferson, and Deana Carter. Then to throw everybody off I played two more from ‘back in the day’ for Katy—Reba’s “The Night the Lights Went Out In Georgia” and No Doubt’s version of “It’s My Life.”

  I spun, looking for the restroom. The night manager pointed off to the right and I had to shuffle all the way to the end of the counter before I could see the door. The thing I loved most about Waffle Houses was how they crammed two thousand square feet of interior into a thousand square foot exterior. I knocked on the door twice then pushed it open with my foot.

  The condom dispenser had Bible verses written on it. I read them while the hot water ran. When I saw steam I lowered my face to the sink and sucked up as much as I could. Going from the warm stage to the cold street played havoc with my sinuses.

  I tried to blow mucus out of my throat and ears, then squirted soap onto my hands, lathered up real good and scrubbed my face. It felt so nice to get rid of the funk in my eyes and the little bit of old sweat that clung to my hairline.

  I pulled a long strip of paper towels out of the dispenser and patted my skin and hair dry, then used it to pull the door open. Before stepping out of the bathroom I checked my phone. Nothing except Twitter updates and mentions.

  As soon as I came around the corner I saw my Arnold Palmer waiting for me. Katy and Pauly had been fighting about something. Probably money.

  Pauly pointed at my crotch and said, “Kennywood’s open.”

  I checked my zipper and gave him the classic, “So funny I forgot to laugh,” then sat down and said, “What’s going on here?”

  “Nothing,” Pauly said. “Nothing at all.”

  Katy bit her lip. I knew a lie when I heard one.

  I said, “Well, somebody had better start talking.”

  She said, “The theater had all kinds of returns when these Holy Roller nutjobs showed up in town this week. And they refunded a bunch of tickets today.”

  “Whatever,” I said, disgusted. “What about merch?”

  She shook her head.

  “So we didn’t sell anything? Stickers?”

  “Preston, we’re covering our expenses.” I tried to say something else but she cut me off. Her worry fell away, like she finally remembered that she was Katy Stefanic and she sure as hell didn’t get bothered by stuff like this. “Look, this is our first disappointing night. No big deal. Spring break happened last week and Easter’s coming up. Plus it’s the tournament and both Louisville and UK are still in it. You know how Morgantown gets when WVU is playing basketball this late in the season. I don’t know, Preston, but it’s no reason to panic. Because you’re going to get Pauly all fired up and next thing I know I’m dealing with two crybabies the whole way to Nashville instead of one.”

  “So we’re supposed to suck it up? Can the label help us out? With getting our money, I mean?”

  Katy sipped her tea.

  Pauly didn’t say anything either, but he hadn’t done much to hide the fact that this last leg of the tour had worn him out. The miles didn’t hurt so much as the hours. I didn’t ask him to burn vacation days to shuttle me and Katy around. He volunteered. Said we couldn’t afford union labor. And he probably did save us thousands of dollars. But I felt like he regretted it. Or resented it. He still walked with a limp from the accident last winter, and I cringed whenever I saw him popping ibuprofen like Tic Tacs.

  “Forget about it, okay?” Katy kissed me on the cheek.

  “Yeah.”

  The waitress set my food on the table as I tried to let go of my anger. I patted Katy on the knee and smiled. “Okay.”

  My order never changed unless I wanted sweet instead of savory, and as the smell o
f smothered, covered, diced and topped hash browns hit my nose I found myself wishing I’d gotten waffles and bacon instead.

  Pauly didn’t say a word as the waitress set his plate down.

  “T-bone?” She said the ‘T’ so it rhymed with ‘hay.’

  Pauly nodded.

  I said, “Don’t hear you complaining anymore.”

  “I’m not,” Pauly said with a big smile.

  They both dug in. Having just awoken, I wasn’t as hungry, and took the opportunity to break down the show like we always did once we were back on the road. I believed the analysis made us play better, gave us a sense of what worked and what didn’t. “What do you guys think about what went down tonight?”

  “Preston…” Katy put her fork down. “Not now, okay? Don’t talk like somebody who left the mountains just to climb more mountains.”

  Not the response I expected.

  “These whack jobs show up and basically take money from our pockets. What else is there to discuss? Until tonight this had been a pretty fun trip.” Pauly put a big bite of steak into his mouth and said, “Look where we’re at, brother. Imagine somebody from New York down here. They’d want to know where to get their passport stamped. It ain’t a big deal.”

  “That’s not really what I meant. I hoped we could talk about the music,” I said. “Besides, we didn’t have any problems like this in Florida.”

  “Well, Florida ain’t exactly the South. More like the biggest island in the Caribbean. Last July I got lost in Miami hauling a load of furniture and I had to find a translator before I could get directions. Got stuck at this bodega. Ate like seven ham sandwiches, no lie.” Still chewing, Pauly said, “Heard the blond guy we saw back in Louisville grew up preaching. One of the guys hanging out by the soundboard said he got all kinds of videos on YouTube, speaking in front of big churches. Said he was on the Today Show with Katie Couric when he was six or seven.”

  Nobody talked while the jukebox skipped to the next song. Like we had to observe the silence too. As soon as “Strawberry Wine” came on Katy chimed in, saying, “The man’s name is Elijah Clay Hicks. He’s a nut.”

  When Katy said the name I flinched. I knew that I knew him, and until she said the name I couldn’t figure out how.

  “Jamie had me out on the festival circuit as a kid. Those things are like bug zappers for attracting the type of people that speak in tongues and blow up abortion clinics. Hicks’s daddy had a big old revival tent where folks would writhe on the ground and handle serpents as part of a network of churches all over Appalachia. Supposedly they hid fugitives from the law, moving them from place to place like some kind of fundamentalist Underground Railroad. That’s how they never arrested anybody for those bombings in Atlanta.” She paused while she poured more honey into her tea. “The club manager said Hicks and his group showed up in town on Wednesday. They went to some of the student organizations and campus ministries at U of L and to a few of the big mega-churches spreading all this stuff about Preston and the devil. I figure they just cost us a lot of the last minute sales we might’ve gotten. It’s not a big deal.”

  “What about Hicks? You know him?”

  “Hicks believed proximity made us a likely couple. Like I should have been queen of his little road show. He pursued me so aggressively I stopped going to festivals with Jamie.”

  “So you have a history?”

  “Preston. Don’t. Hicks and I never shared a pop let alone a moment, although we could’ve made a nice life off those collection plates of his. Hicks is the only preacher I know whose mission work in New York City includes trips to Barneys. And I’ve told you everything you need to know about my past romantic endeavors. Which is everything. If I left anything out it’s because I’d forgotten. That’s it. “

  “I’m sorry.” I stood corrected and took a bite of my hash browns. To deflect attention from my insinuation, I said, “So they take that song literally? And that’s why they were all up in our business? Don’t tell me they’ve got nothing better to do.”

  “They think the earth was created in four thousand years, why wouldn’t they believe you when you sing ‘tried to make the devil a deal, but the devil said I didn’t have a soul to steal?’” She set her knife and fork down like she couldn’t eat with this kind of talk buzzing around the table like horseflies.

  “Because it’s a fucking song, that’s why. There isn’t a real stairway to heaven either. Sergeant Pepper isn’t a real guy.” I gulped down the rest of my tea. “You think it’s over?”

  “We’ll see what happens tonight. Having next week off might make them lose interest. Unless they find out where we’re recording. I don’t know.” She poured maple syrup onto her waffle and cut herself off a few more squares. “We have Nashville then Atlanta then we go home. We have lives to live—they don’t. Those people are dying so slowly they don’t even know they’re dying. Like Tamagotchis. Remember those? They eat and go to the bathroom and die and we can do two more shows with or without them. Okay? It’ll be Easter and we’ll get to see everybody and Rachel will make you breakfast and you can drink all day long with my pap. I’m looking forward to that more than I would a week in Paris or a million dollars.”

  I shook my head.

  “Preston…the only reason we’re here is to do what we’re meant to do.”

  “Yeah. Fine. But I have to say this and then I’ll be done for the night—maybe this is what I meant when I told you guys the hellhounds are catching up to me.”

  “Preston, jeez—”

  Pauly cut her off, “You got to stop with that shit. Move on, bro.”

  I said, “Berry Oakley told his wife he had hellhounds on his trail the week before he died. Tell me that ain’t coincidence. Besides, how can I let it go? You walk with a limp you’ll never get rid of. Stu’s gone—”

  “You think the devil did that?” Pauly’s voice got real loud. He pounded the table so hard the silverware jumped. “Am I supposed to sit here and believe your situation caused my accident? I fell off the wagon, man. Stu’d just died. A freak accident. There ain’t nothing mysterious about it at all. Katy said she never even saw the woman you’re talking about and she played at The Stink with you that night. Get out of your head, man. Live in reality.”

  “You told Pauly you didn’t see her?” My face burned.

  Katy looked at Pauly like she would’ve stabbed him with her fork if she could’ve gotten away with it. She turned to me and said, “I told you I didn’t want you opening with that song because you’re perpetuating this whole thing in your head. Robert Johnson had hellhounds on his tail, not you.”

  “Trail,” I corrected her.

  “Whatever, Preston. You have to learn to separate who you are on stage from who you are with Pauly and me. I know you feel like you have an image to maintain, but trying to live up to it is stressing you out. You can’t be two different people. Most of us have a hard enough time being one. Your drinking is borderline out of hand and the not being able to sleep is from the anxiety of touring and writing. Not hellhounds.”

  “You know,” I said, pushing my plate away, “I had people tonight wanting to grab a drink with me after the show. And I wanted to join them. They paid money to see us and I feel like I let them down.”

  I raised my finger to let them know I had more to say because if I didn’t either one of them would’ve jumped in. “And I’ve never been subjected to as much scrutiny and ridicule as I have been since last March. I never had people call me ‘fraud’ or ‘carpetbagger’ until the record came out. Accusing me of being disingenuous. Accusing me of ‘riding my student’s coattails’ or ‘appropriating Appalachian culture.’ You know that all those statements are from reviewers, right?”

  “Bloggers, Preston. Big difference. Remember that. And I told you to stay off Twitter, didn’t I?”

  “Doesn’t matter. When we were playing Motley Crüe covers at Squares or The Stink we never got this kind of shit.”

  “No,” Pauly said. “It sucked even wor
se. People fucked with us all the time. They threw shit and heckled us. Playing at China Palace #1 and having people tell us to shut-up because we were giving them indigestion. Playing down at the riverfront—remember that? You said, ‘What do you want to hear for an encore?’ and that guy yelled, ‘You. Drowning.’ It ain’t all exactly how you remembered, Preston.”

  I held up my hands and tried to wave him off. “You can’t compare because we weren’t playing our own songs. My songs. Anymore I don’t know if I can even trust what people are telling me. When the record came out I got a hundred phone calls from people wanting to buy me a drink and asking if I wanted to hear their demo. People from high school who wouldn’t look at me twice if they saw me walking up Pleasant after leaving Mick’s. So I understand that the hellhounds on my trail aren’t really hellhounds. Believe it or not I’m not stupid. But when I sing that song I’m thinking about the fact that my life isn’t my own and things are happening in a way I can’t quite control. Can you give me that? Please.”

  “Preston, how much control do you think any of us have over our own lives?”

  Katy took my hand and put it onto her lap. She ran her little fingers down mine, calming me while she talked. “I didn’t start living until I gave up on the sure thing. Until I decided to dream this dream with you the world felt like a very dark place. Sometimes I feel like I’m flying. Sometimes I feel like I can look down on all those people who are too afraid to follow their dreams and I want to reach out to them. But I know if I reach out to too many, they’ll just pull me right back into the darkness.”

  She rested her head on my shoulder. “It’s been a phenomenal year and it’s winding down. Think about how excited you got when you heard we could book studio time in Muscle Shoals or when you heard Hatch Show Print could print posters for the show tonight. You’re here. We’re doing it. And it’s really hard right now because we’re at the end of the first part of this long trip. People are going to talk and criticize. But fans are going to still come out and adore everything we do. I bet you could talk to a hundred people and thirty will hate The Beatles. So you can’t worry about stuff like that.”