I took another step, careful not to get anything beneath my heel. Birds took wing as I neared and settled down just as fast behind me.
I thought about what Tommy said about lingering on the crossroad and started running.
Another boom rang through the sky. I refused to even turn around and ran with my head down, careful not to slip, ignoring the occasional squish beneath my heel.
Ray watched me through his window. He yelled, “Where’s the fucking fire, dude?”
He was on the verge of cracking open another beer but couldn’t focus with me blazing down the highway like Jerry Reed.
Vance stared at me like I’d sprouted another eye in the center of my forehead. He popped open a new beer, tried to chug it real fast, and ended up spilling a good bit of it down his shirt. “You came running out of there faster than a bird dog after a limp chicken.”
“Put the rest in the trunk,” I said, careful not to look over my shoulder. “And I’m driving. All I need tonight is to get pulled over with two semi-intoxicated minors and a half a case of beer at six in the morning.”
While I got settled and adjusted the mirrors and fooled with the radio they chugged. Then they each cracked open another beer. “C’mon. Finish it and let’s go.”
They finished and tossed their empties into the field, then pissed into the mud. As soon as they got settled we drifted into the dark Mississippi morning, windows down to blackbirds singing. Barns and homes and shacks emerged from the murky black horizon. I kept my foot on the pedal and an eye out for cops. The kids fell asleep and the bulk of the Mississippi miles—up to Senatobia, over to Holly Springs, at least—went by fast.
Just outside Corinth, Mississippi, we hit a truck stop to freshen up. While I waited for the boys to join me back at the car I got my first text of the day. Ben telling me how Jamie and Rachael were headed down.
Right before I could text him back “I’m Only Sleeping” streamed out of the shitty aluminum speakers hanging over each of the pumps. And I didn’t think it was weird because it was the first Beatles song I’d heard in a long time. It felt weird because it was a weird Beatles song to hear anywhere. It was one of the songs I worked on with a voice coach right before we first went into the studio. My favorite part of the song was when John yawns right before the reprisal of the first verse. Like a little bit of the real John slipped through George Martin’s creative grasp. Whispering in my ear. And right then and there I decided to do something I hadn’t done in almost a year.
I texted him.
For a long time I stood there waiting for the phone to buzz to life in my hand. It almost scared me that it didn’t. Like, if I waited long enough I’d have my answer one way or another, and once I knew, I could never go back to not knowing. I’d learn that Pauly’d been right and all the shit that happened last year happened in my head. Like all that shit in Pink Floyd – The Wall. So when the boys came back with a fistful of beef jerky and a few Red Bulls, I didn’t make a big fuss. I just got in the car and drove as fast as I could while they goofed off. I decided I didn’t want to know if it all existed in my head. I decided it was okay if I’d been a little off my rocker, because I felt a whole lot better now.
Once we hit the Alabama border the day got warmer, the sun higher. The radio stations grew more distant except for the ones with the 24/7 preachers squawking. Almost as soon as I put it out of my mind the phone vibrated. I hated to admit it, but the validation gave me a little rush of adrenaline. With an eye on the road I scrolled through my messages. My heart pounded in anticipation. I knew I’d been vindicated, and I knew not to tell Pauly or anybody this time. I’d never make that mistake again.
Except it was Ben.
I nodded, grateful for the reality check, but didn’t text him back. Grateful I had guys like Pauly and Ben to keep me grounded, especially since Katy let me fly as high as I wanted. When the sun fully hit my eyes the tears finally flowed. The weight of her disappearance hit me all at once. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing her. But I pulled the visor down and cupped a hand above my eyebrows to let the boys think it the bright light made me tear up. My reality is an ugly reality.
I didn’t know what I’d do without her. When I met her last winter I thought I’d started living the life I’d been meant to live. I thought I could finally grow up. But she loved me exactly as I was. She didn’t expect me to change.
My phone buzzed again and I knew it was Ben scolding me for taking too long getting back to him. Without really looking, I hit reply and started to type.
But the number wasn’t his.
The text came from John.
CHAPTER FIVE
Road shoulder sidewalk, drinking water from a jar.
Clothes in a trash bag, his knees are both scarred,
From the roadside prayers that get him through the day.
But while he looks for answers, more problems roll his way.
“Asphalt” Music and Lyrics by Preston Black
As soon as I got to the hotel I panicked about all the things that I still had to take care of, like calling the label and the studio and explaining everything that had happened with Katy. Meant to hold off calling the venue in Atlanta until the last possible moment because knowing that we had a gig was the only thing keeping my head right. But Pauly’d already taken care of all that stuff. Basically, he acted as our manager and followed up on the missing person reports and contacted newspapers and news media outlets in Huntsville, Birmingham, Atlanta and Nashville. He showed me all the notes from the lawyer he and Ben had talked with and where he’d been vigilantly updating Facebook and Twitter. I hugged him and for a second he just stood there, not totally sure what to do. After a pause, he put his keys into his pocket and held me.
“We’ll find her, brother.”
I took a quick shower and changed clothes since mine were muddy and smelled like swamp. So I pulled the dry cleaning bag out of the closet and tossed everything in. Pauly and Ben had packed everything else, including Katy’s stuff, even though I liked seeing her things, which made it seem like she wasn’t gone. But I could still smell her in the room. Before I shut the door I thought of my last morning in bed with her and the way she looked in the gauzy sunlight.
Pauly tooted the horn from the other side of the lot. He leaned out of the door of a new white rental van, squinting into the bright sunlight. He gave me a, “c’mon,” and stamped out a cigarette with his boot. The redbuds and magnolias that ran along the highway had begun to bloom. The air didn’t smell so much like winter this morning. I wondered if the change meant anything.
“Where’s Ben?” I asked as I got into the van.
As soon as I shut the door he pulled forward.
“On his way to Versailles. My buddy lives there. A guy from driving school. I see him whenever I’m down this way.” Pauly waited for traffic to clear. “There’s breakfast.”
A grease-spotted brown paper bag sat in the center console. “Chicken and biscuits?”
“Yeah, but don’t be looking at them all pie-eyed like that. One of them’s mine.” He reached for it as he pulled onto the street. “Andre’s going to set us up for a while. Said we can use his house as a base of operations.”
“How well do you know this guy? Like, can we totally trust him?”
“You tell me, Preston. He’s a pastor at a neighborhood church and he’s been to more A.A. meetings with me than you. I spent last Christmas down here with him and his family. When you were up in West Virginia running them mountains Andre and his old man took me fishing with them down in Mobile.” He jammed on the gas mercilessly. “We can trust him, man. Don’t you worry.”
“Sorry, I didn’t know.”
“It’s fine. Shouldn’t have barked like that. But you need to accept that we’re doing our best. Ain’t me or Ben ever dealt with anything like
this, but Ben has a plan. Sat up all night talking with Rachael and writing everything down. Said you could explain it to me if you felt like it. And I know you haven’t dealt with anything like this either and I know it’s hard to share control of a situation like this. But Andre’s all right. Lives with his wife and her mom.”
So I didn’t ask him about it anymore. I ate my sandwich then tried to nap, but had no luck falling asleep. Staring out the window took a lot less energy anyway. Nothing to see but low Alabama hills covered with scattered pines that occasionally parted to give glimpses of the wide Tennessee River. Pauly gave me control of the radio, which let me know it was okay not to talk about it anymore. When the hills started to look like miniature versions of the mountains back home, I asked, “What did Ben say, exactly?”
“That Rachael said you had to talk to somebody who’d know, but finding her was only going to be a little easier than finding Katy.” He took a deep breath, held it, then slowly let it out. “Said it would be scary and you weren’t going to like it. Said it would hurt. Ben asked if he could be the one, and Rachael said it had to be you.”
I tried to take everything in. I knew Rachael hadn’t been as cryptic with Ben as Ben had been with Pauly. It seemed like the only piece of the puzzle missing was who exactly she wanted me to talk to, so I asked.
Pauly shrugged. “Somebody named Jane. Henry’s sister.”
I dozed off right before we hit Versailles and a change in speed and direction woke me up just as fast. I stretched as the mountains speeding past my grimy window got a little taller. As farms gave way to a small town. Strip malls and stoplights and churches. Methodist churches. Baptist churches. A.M.E. churches. A Piggly Wiggly instead of a Kroger’s. Pauly navigated side streets until the tiny town turned into rows of houses in too much disarray to be called neighborhoods. Everything looked like it had been built in the forties and renovated in the seventies. Shotgun shacks rubbed elbows in the shade of old sycamore trees, and every corner had its own bar. The sidewalk had been heaved up in many places where the trees decided to crack their knuckles. Kids shot hoops into rims with no nets. Old tennis shoes had been slung over power lines by their laces. Dogs sat next to the trees they’d been tied to, their upended bowls the only things emptier than their bellies. Old Ford Thunderbirds and Lincoln Continentals as long as railcars sat on blocks in front of boarded-up storefronts.
I saw Ben’s Jeep in front of a small double-barrel shotgun shack wearing a coat of fresh white paint, which made it stand out a little from all the other houses on the street. In the front yard there stood a dead tree, about chest high, that had all its branches trimmed down to nubs. Each nub held an upturned glass bottle—blue or green—just like the tree at the cemetery last night. Ben was nowhere to be seen.
Right next door a man with skin the color of coffee with too much cream stood on a patch of mud between a juke joint called “Creole Royale” and the sidewalk. He lathered sauce onto random chicken parts cooking on a big steel drum that had been split right down the middle. The juke joint behind him, that looked a little like an old service station, had a corrugated steel roof, whitewashed wooden siding which had faded to grey long ago, and neon beer ads in the windows. A pair of little white signs hanging next to the door said “Beer and Soda for Sale” and “All sandwiches served with Coke and fry” in bright red letters.
“Pres, there’s the blues guy I told you about.”
“You never said nothing about a blues guy. I would’ve remembered.”
“That’s right. Meant to tell you about it last night, but you already done run-off into the wilds of Mississippi.” Pauly got out of the van and waved. “Simoneaux. How you doing?”
Simoneaux raised a pair of tongs into the grey sky and waggled them. “You eating?”
“No, Nadhima’s making lunch. Maybe tonight?”
“Who you got there with you?” He sounded like the Cajun folks we heard in NOLA when we passed through last fall.
I turned and waved. He cupped a hand over his dark eyes like somehow that’d help him see me more clearly.
Pauly said, “My brother. The guitar player.”
“Tell him I’m a father of five, can drink a six-pack by seven. That my mama gave birth to me and raised me in crawdad heaven, but all this red clay up in here didn’t make me no redneck.” He swatted smoke away from his face as he said it.
Pauly looked at me. “You get all that?”
I smiled and gave him a big wave.
“I don’t see no git box. Tell him come over tonight and listen to some real good music.” He continued talking like I’d stayed in the van. “Elmore James played here in 1955. Lots of magic still left up in this joint.”
“You giving him a free pass because he’s my brother?” Pauly came around the van and hopped onto the sidewalk.
“No. He gets a pass because he’s a guitar player.”
I laughed to put him at ease.
Pauly pointed at the house. A gesture meant to get me inside before things could drag on. His friend waited for us on the porch. Pauly said, “Andre, this is my brother, Preston.”
I shook his hand as he said, “Andre Betters.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said. “Appreciate your hospitality. Don’t want to put you out.”
“Ain’t the first time we played host to invaders from the North, probably ain’t going to be the last. I’m sure we’ll survive.” With a smile, he stuck his hand into the pocket of his blue coveralls. The little bit of grey at his temples indicated he had more years on him than Pauly and me.
“Let’s meet the rest of them,” he said, gesturing for us to step on inside.
His pad looked only a little bigger than the first apartment Pauly and I had shared back in Morgantown. It smelled of new paint and incense. A flat-screen TV stood against the wall where a fireplace should’ve been. The comfortable little living room gave way to a long hallway filled with the rich smells of a cooking lunch. A little bit of fat, a little bit of spice and a few things that made me hungry without needing to know what they were. Before everybody got settled I meant to ask Pauly if it’d be impolite to get a hotel room. I didn’t like inconveniencing these people any more than I liked not being able to be alone with my feelings about this whole fucked-up situation.
Andre drifted toward the hallway and introduced me before I could get Pauly away. “Preston, I’d love for you to meet my wife, Sabra.”
She looked like Jasmine from Aladdin, with skin a few shades paler than Andre’s and wide, dark eyes. She wore jeans and a pale blue button-down shirt accessorized with a stethoscope like she’d just gotten home from work at the hospital. I smiled, and started to introduce myself, when she cut me off with a quiet, “I’m sorry,” and anything else I would’ve said after suddenly sounded ridiculous. She hugged me, then led me by the hand. “Pauly’s always talking about his brother. Figured it was high time we met you.”
I said, “Wish it’d been under better circumstances.”
Before I even got all the way into the kitchen, Sabra said, “Mom, this is Preston. Pauly’s brother.”
The thin woman washing dishes at the sink looked a few years older—but not many—than Sabra. She had smooth skin and bright eyes, and her hair was pulled back into a bright red scarf. She wore a long white dress with tight sleeves that went down to her wrist. “Nice to meet you,” she said with an accent more Caribbean than Southern, and held her wet palms up apologetically. “Don’t be a manouche. Sit.”
“Thank you all for your hospitality. Sorry to inconvenience you like this.” I took a seat at the small table next to the black-eyed peas and fried okra, and couldn’t help focusing on a tiny, makeshift altar between the stove and the fridge. A Jesus statue stood on a swatch of sparkly purple cloth, about to ascend into heaven. Next to him sat a Mason jar filled with brown seeds or spice and a wooden cross that had several strings of beads draped over it. A bowl of fresh cut redbud blooms and a bowl of cherries rested at the Son of God’s feet.
; When Sabra kissed Pauly’s cheek, she caught me looking at the altar. I turned my head.
Pauly set a box of chocolates on the counter near the altar. “Thanks for cooking, Nadhima. Really appreciate it.”
“Can I help?” I said.
“Just enjoy lunch, because something tells me you may not like dessert so much.” Nadhima turned to Sabra and said, “Go get the boys. Tell them it’s ready.”
Nadhima wiped her hands on a towel and sat at the table across from Pauly and me. “Preston,” she said, taking my hand into her own. “You the kind of man who makes it rain by screaming for rain?”
I didn’t know what she meant, whether she spoke metaphorically or not. Far as I could tell I had no control over anything. I looked away to avoid answering.
“For this to work, you’re going to have to be. Hate to see anything happen to that poor girl.” She set a plate of cornbread in front of me and tsked as an expression of pity. As she spooned okra onto my plate, she went on, “Leviticus says ‘a woman that hath a familiar spirit shall surely be put to death,’ so don’t expect them to suffer a witch to live. Not for a second. Those folks don’t play.”
I pushed my plate away from me. Not as a sign of protest or rudeness, but I couldn’t eat. Not now.
“Put food into your belly to clear your head.” Nadhima laced her fingers together, permitting me to see the remains of a fading henna tattoo on her wrist. She said, “I know you don’t have an appetite. If it makes you feel better, none of us do.”
I almost asked her to clarify, but she cut me off. “That’s something the angry boy digging the grave ought to explain to you.”
I looked at Pauly. He just said, “This is all Rachael. What she said to do.”
“Everybody quiet now.” Nadhima bowed her head and took my hand again. “Oh, Father, lord of Heaven and Earth, we pray to thee, extend your right hand and bless all elements in the earth and in the sea and in the sky, and all the creatures—your children—and hallow them in thy name. Grant that this meal make for health of body and this water for health of soul, and let us prepare for the return of our lost little girl. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”
The Revelations of Preston Black (Murder Ballads and Whiskey Book 3) Page 9