I said, “Coast is clear?”
“You’re good,” Jamie said. Sometimes I think he liked using me as an excuse to trip into deviance.
I grabbed the black metal fence and hoisted myself to the top, then dropped onto the sacred ground between Duane and Berry’s final resting places. When I knelt between them I felt a little sting of guilt. “Should I feel bad about this?”
“Only if you get caught,” Katy said. “So stop screwing around.”
“Right. What’s first?”
Jamie pulled out the little scrap of paper Simoneaux had written the directions on. He brushed the crease out of it, cleared his throat, then said, “Put thirteen pennies on the headstone, and say, ‘Come here, kind spirit, and sell me some of what you got. Please protect me, Katy, Pauly, Jamie, Ben, Rachael, Chloey, Henry and Alex.”
“Now?”
“Sure,” Jamie said. “Then you walk around the grave three times. Clockwise.”
So I put the pennies on the headstone and said the words just as he’d read them. When I finished my laps, Jamie said, “Now you take the dirt from near the head, go down about eight to ten inches. Dig out your thirteen handfuls and say, ‘I’m paying you for what I’m taking, and for your protection tonight. In the name of the Lord.’ Then you drop the pennies in the hole and bury them.”
I took the Jack Daniels bottle from my jacket and unscrewed the lid. I stuck my hand in between the plants and yanked out a big hunk of grass. I dug into the topsoil with the bottle cap, scraping the sides of the hole to loosen the red Georgia clay. Then I scooped it into the bottle a handful at a time.
The dry clay consisted mostly of dust that coated the inside of the bottle, and it didn’t go in as easy as I thought it would. I broke up bigger clumps the best I could and shoved them into the neck. When I finished, I had red clay stuck beneath my fingernails. I turned and passed the bottle through the fence to Jamie. Before I could climb back over, Jamie said, “Preston, would you do me the honor?”
He held his hand through the fence and turned his palm up. I took the two guitar picks, one for Duane’s grave, one for Berry’s, and placed them. As I turned, he nodded. “Thank you.”
The crossroads, and Barbee Cemetery, just south of Lula, Mississippi, were right where I’d left them. But the hundreds of cars lining the road were new. Kids tailgated next to hatchbacks, middle-aged guys wearing Atlanta Braves caps and Arkansas Razorback hats and New Orleans Saints jerseys sat on the hoods of their Navigators and Land Cruisers. Guys walked up and down both sides of the highway making moves on the girls sitting in the front seats of their Focuses and Civics, texting. There were high school kids straight-up blazing right out there in the open. I could smell their skunk weed as we drove past.
“Hundreds,” I said.
The flat landscape went on for miles. Every now and then a row of trees hinted that there was more to this place than fields to be plowed, crops to be tended to.
“Thousands,” Katy corrected me.
Pauly said, “You got to be shitting me.”
When we got to the intersection of 49 and 61, I could see them stretched out to the north and south as well, with their blinkers flashing and parking lights on.
“This is my life,” I said. “My problem. What do these people need to see?”
“Who told them about all this?” Katy asked. It came off as more of a scolding, really.
“I told Ray we were headed back to where it all started, that’s all. I kind of assumed he’d think it was metaphorical.”
Pauly said, “You assumed that kid had a head for metaphor?”
“Okay, everybody calm down,” Jamie said. “No matter what happens they’re going to see what they choose to see.”
“Yeah, but if nothing happens I’m the one that looks like an asshole. If nothing happens, all these people are going to run home and say I’m a fraud and I’m full of shit.”
“If nothing happens, Preston, then we have nothing to worry about.” Katy put her hand on my knee. She wore my green Army jacket over top of her other jacket. I didn’t want to say anything, but it was pretty much what she wore the night they abducted her.
She said, “If nothing happens, we go home and sleep in and eat Sirianni’s and write songs—or not write if that’s what we want. Then Easter Sunday we can eat ham and pierogi until we can’t move. Grandma’s making halupki special for you. You can sleep until April if you want. But let’s get this straight—if nothing happens tonight, we win.”
“Okay.” I pulled her over to me and kissed the top of her head.
“Pull right over here?” Jamie slowed to stop in the median.
“Looks as good as anyplace else.” I turned to take it all in. “Surprised the cops ain’t showed up. Kind of wish they would.”
We drifted into the soft grass between the divided lanes of Highway 61. The rest of the gang pulled in right behind us. Ben got out of the other car first. He couldn’t believe it either. “Preston, you ready to embrace the suck if this all goes south?”
I ignored him as I buttoned my denim jacket up over my hoodie. “What time is it?”
“About ten ’til twelve. What’re you supposed to do?” I could see Katy’s breath when she talked.
“I don’t know, for sure.” Over my shoulder somebody tooted their horn. From the other direction I heard a loud car stereo playing techno. The whole scene pissed me off. This ain’t fucking Bonnaroo, people.
Jamie popped the trunk and I grabbed my guitar. “Danicka said be here before midnight with my guitar, a silver coin, and the grave dust. She said I go to the middle and get started.”
Katy said, “Just like that, huh?”
“I don’t know. I have to read something too.” I gulped down the rest of my coffee and set the cup on the hood. “You think this is a waste of time?”
“We’ll see. What do you do with the coin and grave dust?”
“She said they’re for protection.”
Ben said, “From her?”
“I don’t know.”
Katy stood there, expecting a little more from me.
I shrugged. “Maybe this will all be over tonight.”
“Maybe?” She kissed my cheek and I set my guitar in the grass.
“Well, I don’t know what you all are going to see.” I crossed my arms. “I think it’s going to be a discussion. Like a negotiation.”
“Preston,” Rachael said my name like it was a placeholder to hold the conversation until she could take a sip of hot tea. “Don’t you have to give something up in a negotiation?”
I took a deep breath as she went on. “What will you put on the bargaining table? Considering how much everybody has already lost.”
Nobody said a word. Except me.
I replied, “I don’t know if you all know how much Katy, and by extension, all of you, have done for me. Pauly knows, because he’s known me his whole life. Jamie knows. He saw what happened with Ernie Currence down at his farm, and he knows Mick, so he probably has some backstory that you all don’t.”
I couldn’t exactly turn and look Rachael in the eye, but I tried my best. I said, “Maybe you don’t remember the first time I met you, but I sure do. We played Scrabble at your mom and dad’s house. That night I found out about Stu’s death and Pauly’s accident within minutes of each other. A monumental night. If there’s a bigger word for that kind of night, I don’t know it. And the major difference between my life then and my life now is Katy. The show at The Stink doesn’t matter if I’m on stage by myself. And therefore, nothing matters if I’m by myself. The best thing about the life we have, for me, isn’t about the music at all. It’s about waking up with Katy and sharing quiet moments with Katy and going to McDonalds’ drive-thru in our pajamas on a Sunday morning. It’s about the surprise of feeling her hand in mine when I don’t expect it. It’s about having somebody ask you if everything’s okay when you wake up with a nightmare at four in the morning.”
In a way I felt like I’d gotten too far ah
ead of myself. But in a way, it didn’t matter. “So what am I going to put on the table if I have to put something on the table to get things back to the way they were? To make sure Pauly can live the life he wants?”
Everybody waited.
“I’m going to give Danicka back her music. I’m going to tell her to shove it. I’ll work construction if I have to, but I’ll still be able to make Katy happy. Because I believe I make her happy. This thing we got—making music as a couple—is a rare thing. It doesn’t bother me that interviewers always ask about being in a relationship even though there are things we’d both rather talk about. I don’t see us as Johnny and June for a lot of reasons, although there are a lot of similarities there, too. But it comes down to being able to wake up with her every day.”
I knew nobody would be able to say anything after all that. So I just left it out there to the stars. Katy slid her hand into mine. I knew if I stopped to think about what I’d said it would really get to me and bring me down. So I didn’t, and it took a lot of effort to keep the things I said out of my head.
Thank God Pauly was there to put everything right back in.
“You’d give all this up for me?” He dumped out his coffee and lit a cigarette. “Then you are fucking stupid.”
I pulled Katy closer to me. She took a deep breath and leaned against me. I kissed her, then said, “Do you think this is stupid?”
“No, Preston.” She kissed me back and I closed my eyes. She let go of my hand before backing away.
When I walked into the intersection, a fuss washed through the people lined up along the sides of the road. The noise went out along the highways, like ripples from a stone thrown into a pond. And when I strummed, the crowd plopped down into the grass in the median, on car hoods and in truck beds. The alternating yellow, red, and green light barely broke through the darkness.
For a second I thought I should say something, maybe apologize in advance to the people who came out tonight. When I looked at the Post-it notes stuck to the top of my guitar I figured Katy was right—I didn’t owe anybody. Dani never said if I had to read while I played or if it even mattered, so I strummed lightly. Over and over I told myself you don’t owe them. “I’m going to recite a little bit of the one hundred and thirty-sixth Psalm here. So bear with me for a bit.”
I cleared my throat, and said, “Give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever.”
Strumming made it feel natural to want to give the verse cadence, like a song. I fought the urge. I didn’t want this to be anything at all like the music I loved. “Give thanks unto the God of gods, for his mercy endureth forever.”
Saying the line made me think that it provided a clue to the state of the heavens. “God of gods” meant that there had to be more than one, making me question everything else I ever learned in catechism.
Or it meant I’m about to come toe-to-toe with a lesser god.
And the possibility of seeing Danicka for what she really was scared me.
“Give thanks to the Lord of lords, for his mercy endureth forever.”
I shook my head and tried to turn my back, but they’d surrounded me. They were everywhere, watching. These last few days made me realize that all I ever wanted to do was be free to write and play my music and here I was, on display, showing the world my fears and weaknesses. Public therapy. Katy would say I already did that in my songs. Put too much of myself into them. And I figured no matter what happened tonight, I’d lose.
If the devil didn’t show, they’d call me a fraud.
And if the devil did show…
“To him who alone doeth great wonders, for his mercy endureth forever.” I kept my voice low because I didn’t want to end up hoarse.
“To him that by wisdom made the heavens—”
Off in the distance I heard a commotion. The noise came from afar, but to me it sounded like people talking in the back of a quiet theater. Just inaudible whispers at first, but the warnings being yelled down the road got progressively louder.
“Heads up!”
I changed chords and slowed the tempo so I could hear.
“Watch your feet.”
I held my breath.
“Off the road, there.”
I softly plucked the low E.
“Holy shit—”
Katy and the rest turned. I figured it was Danicka, and prepared to step aside.
People pressed themselves in between the vehicles along the berm, clearing the highway for something dark and slow. Like a shadow.
Something that shook the ground, like a steady pounding on a bass drum. I didn’t see headlights. I didn’t hear the tap of her old diesel engine.
The surprise on the faces of the last few rows of people made it impossible to know what to expect. Those who stood farther off craned their necks. Flashes of white light lit the night as people took pictures. Little red LEDs glowed as people videoed with their phones.
Because I couldn’t move, I was the last one to see the magnificent black bull stride beneath the traffic signal as the people parted. Yellow light splashed across the pavement as the bull walked right up to me. The light turned red as the animal circled.
I could smell the sweat and manure on its hide. I felt its hot breath on my hands as it sniffed me. It lifted its head and its snout came to just below my chin. I took a step backward as it snorted and blew mucus into the night.
It stared at me for a long moment. Then, as quietly as it came, the bull turned and resumed its tour.
People at the other end of the intersection cleared a path, same as when the animal arrived. A tense silence lingered after it crept back into the darkness.
I looked at Katy and shrugged.
After an anxious moment I heard whistles and howls coming from the darkness. A wash of applause that lasted a minute too long considering what was about to go down tonight. I looked at Katy. “What time?”
She said, “Midnight exactly,” as the applause diminished.
My hands were shaking.
“Preston?” Jamie said, getting my attention as he strummed an imaginary guitar.
I continued. “To him that stretched out the earth above the waters, for his mercy endureth forever.”
The verse went on and on until the words meant nothing to me. My eyes got tired from reading in the dim light. My hands got sore.
I looked for stars. Looked at the people who came out to see something they might not even be able to fully describe later. Nothing changed but the words.
“The sun to rule by day…”
In the distance I heard cars starting and saw the sweep of headlights as people got bored and decided to head home.
“The moon and stars to rule by night…”
There were new faces in the first few rows. I turned slowly as I read, completing one revolution per verse, more or less.
“Oh, give thanks unto the God of heaven, for his mercy endureth forever.”
Over and over and over and over, counting second after second for the next hour with each word I read, until Katy finally said, “Five ’til.”
I continued, quieter now, with an ear open for whatever came next. “His mercy endureth…”
And right on schedule a murmur came from up the road. Once again the crowd cleared a path. Their collective tone came off sounding a little less surprised this time.
I heard the click-clack of claws before I saw the large black dog trot around the legs of the folks closest to the intersection. It ran a wide circle, stopping to sniff the ground and coffee cups and fast food wrappers. Nobody reached out or called to it.
Then, just like the bull, it headed off to the north.
This time they didn’t applaud. People returned to their Monster Energy Drinks and their iPhones. Texting and playing Words With Friends as I went back through the verse.
“With a strong hand, and with a stretched out arm…”
Katy leaned against Pauly. Rachael and Chloey were wrapped up in a big old Mexican bl
anket from the back of Ben’s Jeep.
“And slew famous kings…”
I yawned. In the distance I heard birds. Aside from me and my guitar they made the only other noise.
“And brought out Israel from among them…”
Off to the west lightning flashed from a distant cloud. Faint blue bursts without sound seeped through the blackness. I watched it for the better part of forty minutes while my fingers blistered and bled. When they hurt too bad to play, I tuned my guitar to an open E and pulled the bottleneck slide out of my coat pocket. I didn’t like the sound it made.
Sounded like an invitation to trouble.
“But overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea…”
In the distance red brake lights disappeared into the horizon as more people left.
“Who remembered us in our low estate…”
After what seemed like another hour, I expected somebody to tell me the time had come to head back to the hotel. To call it quits. Maybe I would’ve even welcomed it. Maybe I’d gotten in over my head, and figured I could pull out before I embarrassed myself. Or worse.
But a black horse coming across the muddy field changed my mind. I didn’t react as it passed. And as it returned to the night, I found it easy to get lost in the meditation.
“For his mercy endureth forever.”
At three a.m. a black lamb bolted out of the field from over by the cemetery. By now most of the people had gone. A few dozen stragglers sat in truck beds and on car hoods on the medians and shoulders. It didn’t feel like a party anymore.
It finally felt like a ritual.
“For his mercy endureth forever.”
At four, a black rooster strutted onto the pavement. It lingered for a long time, scratching the blacktop and walking small circles. Crows gathered in the trees at the edge of the fields. I could hear them cry between verses. I kept expecting the rooster to respond, but it left quietly, without paying anybody any mind at all.
The Revelations of Preston Black (Murder Ballads and Whiskey Book 3) Page 29