Nine Volt Heart

by Annie Pearson

  “Stalker?”

  “This guy has been haunting the Internet, says he’s my brother. Puts notes on fan sites, pretending like he knows me and knows my business. He’s the same one who jammed me for all time over Dominique.”

  Karl knew the story: When I got busted for screaming at my wife, this guy had news on the Internet before I even got out of jail. It was his blog postings that made people believe I’m a scum wife-beater. He wrote (I quote): “Dominique screamed, ‘You hurt me, you bastard.’ I can’t say I blame him. If it was me with that witch Dominque, I’d of hit her too. Then she called the cops to take my brother away.” End quote. It’s the “too” that’s wrong, and the “brother” part. Both weren’t true.

  “The same guy’s still bugging you?” Karl said.

  “It’s like he is always lurking nearby. He’s who posted lyrics and guitar tabs on the Internet from our show in Bergen. He started trouble for that woman in Nashville whose only sin was going on a date with me. He posted the news that I’m recording in Seattle before I got off the plane. What can you do?”

  “Not a hell of a lot. Have Martha report the theft. If this guy doesn’t threaten you overtly, there is nothing the law can do. How is he posting?”

  “The webmasters don’t know how to trace him. They just pull his stuff off the pages, after it’s already too late.”

  “Is he one of those guys claiming to be your brother? I’m still battling with a few who filed claims when your uncle died.”

  “I told you to let them have whatever they want.”

  “As your attorney, I’m not letting you give away the farm. These guys all have ruthless ambulance chasers for lawyers, while I am just a calm, noble-minded protector of your interests. Maybe we can find out if one of them is your close buddy.”

  “Something vile gets spit on me every time he shows up. He could be standing by me or in the bushes watching right now. And holding onto Beau’s steel guitar.”

  “Have Martha call the police about the guitar.”

  “I know enough to call the police, Karl. I want all the pawn shops checked in case it isn’t my friend the stalker. I want to put out a reward.”

  “I do contracts, Jason. Ask the cops to give you advice when you file the theft report. Please have Martha fax me a copy of the report so I can prepare an insurance claim.”

  “What does insurance pay for the sole family heirloom I have?”

  “Replacement cost.”

  38 ~ “Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key”

  SUSI

  THAT AFTERNOON, ON TUESDAY, I came home right after work, graded papers, and worked my kitchen over. Baking bread, making lasagna, roasting peppers, starting a pot of soup—it all helped me to feel like I could manage a sane life again. I was too tired to think and the repetitive work of cooking felt soothing. I thought that I’d have a little of the soup and then just go to bed.

  Then Angelia showed up. She ate soup and tried to make me talk to her. We sat out on the back deck, getting the last of the April light, and when I had nothing to say, Angelia had no trouble filling in the silence.

  “Musicians are bums, Susi, at least when it comes to love. Being a musician, I know. They can’t talk about their feelings, and they forget about you if they have to decide between playing and love. Playing will win. Lord help me, I will never get tangled up with a musician again. Nope. I’m looking for a lawyer or an accountant or an engineer. If you have to sleep with someone who can’t talk about his feelings, it might as well be someone who will be there the next time you look.”

  Then everyone arrived again, except Paul. Jason was standing at the door to the deck and likely heard us.

  “This is my friend Angelia,” I said.

  “My long lost cousin!” Jason hugged her. “I missed the last family picnic. You’ll have to give me the dirt on all our other cousins and aunties.”

  “What in the world? What’s going on?” Angelia backed up from him, seeming serious. He smiled and shook his head.

  “‘All we do is sit out on the porch and play our songs,’ just as Uncle Tupelo says.”

  “Do you really have an uncle named Tupelo?” I asked. Angelia rolled her eyes and shook her head.

  “See?” Jason said to Ian and Toby. “I told you. She’s like a character in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. She’s neurologically blind to pop culture. Angelia, this is Ian Griffith and Toby Beaumont, who are my brothers as much as you are my cousin.”

  Angelia didn’t wait a heartbeat before she had her violin out of its case, and we were playing Celtic and Cajun songs. They ate my food and played music late into the night. Talking during a break, Toby shyly asked Angelia about her background, his dimples growing deeper as they talked.

  “Your classical roots are so obvious—I mean that as a good thing—but how did you come to be slumming in Cajun territory?”

  Angelia said, “I wanted to play the violin because of my mother’s Fairport Convention records, not because of Itzhak Perlman. In my fantasies, I’m Mark O’Connor in reverse. He went from being the world’s greatest fiddle player to recording with Yo-Yo Ma. I could go the opposite direction.”

  While Toby struggled to keep the conversation alive, not realizing that Angelia had already fallen in love with him, I found out that Ian is a bait fisherman. We traded stories about places our fathers had taken us, and it turned out that he spent his honeymoon hiking a trail off Highway 2 that my dad used to love. After we talked steelhead, Ian taught me a song I hadn’t heard before called “Fishin’ Blues.” It was fun to sing, except I had to sing it with Ian, because Jason couldn’t sing it without laughing.

  “‘Bet your life, your sweet wife, Catch more fish than you.’”

  Jason had taken that leather string he wore in his hair on Sunday and braided it around his wrist. I talked to his friends in order to keep from looking at his hands.

  39 ~ “I Ain’t Broken but I’m Badly Bent”

  JASON

  “PRESCOTT PREPARATORY SCHOOL.”

  “This is Angelia Ferran’s cousin, Jason. Can you help me get through to her by phone?”

  “She’s teaching in the music lab right now. May I take a message?”

  “I want her to send me a copy of her grant application. Perhaps you can ask her to send it to me by email. The teachers have email, don’t they?”

  “Yes, though not everyone uses it. I think that Miss Ferran uses hers.”

  “Let me leave my address and phone, in case she doesn’t have them.”

  “Do you want me to send you a copy of the grant, Mr. Ferran? I have the file on my hard disk.”

  “That would be kind. Please have Angelia call me, too.”

  OK, I lied, though I did have familial feelings for Angelia when we played together the night before. She’s quite good. I thought it beneficent that we were almost related, because otherwise it wouldn’t have occurred to me to look for a classically trained musician who could play bluegrass and both Cape Breton and Cajun fiddle styles. Hey, I’m from Seattle. Cajun fiddle players aren’t standing on the corner looking for a gig. You have to know their booking agent. Or pick up her agent by accident in Neumo’s.

  ~

  Although I said before that Seattle is a small town, it’s so tiny that there are only about thirty-four people and they are all vibrating in a tight, intense orbit. When the police came—the day after we called—one was Officer Lee Page, the cop who cuffed me when Dominique called the police last year. He’s big as a linebacker, but has a baby face and a quick smile that his job hasn’t burned down yet.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Taylor,” he said when I showed him a picture of the National Steel from my wallet. I am not, by the way, a weirdo with a guitar fetish. The picture was of Uncle Beau, who originally owned the guitar. Officer Lee was writing down the details as we talked, remaining politely restrained about dealing with me.

  “I got to be a real fan after I met you, Mr. Taylor. My wife loves the new album, so I hear it al
l the time. Reminds me whenever I hear it how you didn’t get a fair shake. When women get mad like that, it’s always best to just get your distance.”

  I explained about the stalker, but Officer Page and his partner didn’t have much to help me.

  “Make sure you have good locks. Get an alarm if you don’t have one already. If it gets to be a problem, you can consider private security.”

  “Like bodyguards?” This was way too much for me.

  “Just protection. My brother-in-law is in the business. I can give you his number.” Office Page said. “You know, I was a big Lost Sons fan in high school. So I like your earlier stuff better than the new album.”

  He left the card with Martha.

  That morning, I spent my time working over some live recordings, which took only a certain kind of attention, so I applied visualization techniques while I worked: seeing myself surrounded by the football players who beat me up in junior high but who would keep me safe now, and seeing my guitar come back through the door. Hard to say which image was the most unrealistic fantasy. Before lunch I went for a run, where I settled for my usual visualization of the way Susi’s brow arches up so that she always looks curious and surprised. When I ran, I had an urge in my fingers to provoke that surprise, the same way my fingers want to feel out a melody that isn’t actually playing anywhere.

  ~

  Chas1933: Did you hear Greg Vandy on KEXP last week? He did a short Lost Sons retrospective.

  Sebastián: No I was working that night.

  Chas1933: Well, did you see that post on the Lost Sons site today? Looks like the Rufus estate is about to settle. I’m going to find the attorney and get access to the papers. I’m betting no other archivist has tackled that trail. I heard that Jesse Rufus’s papers have been sealed up for a dozen years.

  Sebastian: I’ve been avoiding the Internet the last couple of days. So I don’t know. There are a lot of liars out there. No reason that anyone should know more about it than you or I.

  Chas1933: It isn’t going to do me a lick of harm to waste time writing to some attorney who has a box full of musical history sitting in his vault and isn’t doing squat with it.

  Sebastian: Go for it.

  Chas1933: Want to hear my other good idea? I’m going to poke around for song rights that have been abandoned by record labels and publishers. I bet I could buy some old lost gems, and maybe find a new publisher.

  Sebastian: Where are you going to look? People aren’t posting them on eBay.

  Chas1933: I don’t know. But I’m going to find out. Shoot, I got nothing but time on my hands.

  ~

  “Karl, can’t you answer my texts, so I don’t have to stop what I’m doing to call you?”

  “It is bad enough with phone calls, Jason. When you’re in town, I have your voice in my head all the time. Like that girl on your fan site who says your songs cause her to have auditory hallucinations.”

  “You were looking at the fan sites? I thought you used the Internet only for Lexis searches.”

  “I have an assistant to do that. I have an assistant to do almost everything, and managing them drives me cuckoo. However, I wanted to see for myself what your stalker was up to. I wonder how he knew I filed to close Beau’s estate? It was just a couple of days ago.”

  “Maybe he works for you. Do you have anyone on your staff that looks like Anthony Perkins in Psycho?”

  “Everyone who works for me had a background check, is bonded, and has too much to do just to keep track of your business. I looked at the stuff this guy posts about you. Even though he uses different names, I think I can see which ones belong to him. This guy is wacko. Listen to what he said this morning.”

  “I think maybe I don’t want to.”

  “He wrote, ‘Since my brother came back home, he’s romancing an angel. She sings like one. She looks like one. After taking us all to hell with the devil he married, now my brother is going to take us all to heaven. Does that sound—”

  “Yikes. How could he know without following me everywhere?”

  “I think you should get personal protection.”

  “Walk around with goons all the time, like Dylan or something? I don’t think so.”

  “OK, you won’t listen to my unsolicited advice. Did you call for a purpose? What am I supposed to tell Dominique about the band name?”

  “Tell her to take a flying leap. There’s a friend of mine who wants research access to Jesse Rufus’s papers. When he contacts you, say yes.”

  “What is his name?”

  “Chas.”

  “Chas what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How in hell can he be your friend if you don’t know his name? You know Quentin Henderson, and you made me tell him no when he asked for access.”

  “I met Chas through one of my blogs.”

  “Where you pretend to be someone else?”

  “Where I pretend to be myself, using my middle name.”

  “That’s not being yourself. Who you are is in fact someone famous—both good and bad kinds—and you can’t hide from it.”

  “So write to Chas1933@jugum.com and ask him his name.”

  “He must be related to your Susi, who also has no last name. Have you got her name yet?”

  “Yes, it’s Neville. I forwarded you the grant application she submitted, so you can read all about her. Check your email once in a while. Or at least get your staff to.”

  “Are you still seeing her?”

  “We rehearse at her house every night. You should come sit in. It’s just your style. We don’t hardly even use electricity. We start recording tonight.”

  “Oh shit and shoepolish. Let me fax you a release for her to sign.”

  “Lord, Karl. Do I need a note from my attorney to play guitar in the company of friends?”

  “Yes, you do. Friends or strangers, it’s all the same from my viewpoint.”

  40 ~ “That High Lonesome Sound”

  SUSI

  ON WEDNESDAY, I HAD to take a nap in my car during lunch break. I fell asleep at my desk during the notation test in Music Appreciation, but I don’t think anyone noticed. Zak was absent again.

  When I got home, I just went to bed for a couple of hours and got up feeling much better, just in time to let my new friends in. Toby brought pizza from Pagliacci’s, and Ian brought new strings for my dad’s Martin. Jason seemed moody and almost unpleasant, but when I asked, he looked at Toby and sighed.

  “We want to record the sessions,” Toby said.

  “But you have to sign something if we do,” Jason said. “If a label picks up our work, you need to have agreed to what we’re doing.”

  “That’s cute,” I said, thinking of what I knew about how easily record labels ignore or break contracts. “So am I in your band now?”

  Jason looked at Toby and Ian, who both said, “Yes.”

  “What’s our band’s name?”

  Toby said, “We will have to think of one.”

  “I can’t sing in bars,” I said, as if that’d ever happen, but the whole idea seemed so cute. “The smoke hurts my throat.”

  “That won’t be a problem,” Jason said. “Smoking has been banned almost everywhere we play.”

  After they were so nice as to let me be in their band, they decided that the sound shattered on the glass bookcases, which would have to be muffled while we recorded. So we draped my entire living room in quilts, like building forts on rainy days in the second grade.

  When Angelia came later in the evening, she and Toby tuned with each other instead of with the piano.

  ~

  On Thursday, Jason took greater pains than he had before, over every little thing. While we waited for him to position mics and approve everyone’s tunings, I asked Toby to go with me on Sunday night to play bluegrass gospel. He’s such an excellent musician that I thought he might enjoy it as Jason had. Toby shook his head, saying he didn’t do church and he had to finish his laundry and jamming wasn’t his s
tyle, though I don’t know what he thought we’d been doing all week if it wasn’t jamming.

  Jason fussed more, changing guitars and stopping everyone multiple times in the first song we tried to do together.

  Ian said, “Take it out of the bag, man. Or go home.”

  What Ian meant, it turned out, was that Jason had a new song but felt nervous about wanting us to learn it. It had Celtic influences, so the tonal range and rhythm were easy for me, but we had to work through the whole piece a dozen times to get it the way that he liked. The lyrics were about rusty angels and poems for which rhymes could not be found. On the page, they made no sense, but that’s true for half of the history of lyric song in the west, isn’t it? Once the layers of music were added, it was rather pretty in a spooky sort of way.

  When I was making more coffee and the others went out onto the deck to take a break, Angelia came up behind me.

  “I’m not used to musicians who can express themselves, Susi.”

  “That’s what music is about. Communication.”

  “Horse pucky. You might say that in music appreciation, but you know it isn’t true. It’s about movement. Getting high. What we’re doing here.”

  “All we’re doing is enjoying ourselves with music.”

  “Excuse me for snorting when I laugh. This is just sex and drugs and rock-and-roll, Susi.”

  “That’s crazy. There’s no sex, and certainly no drugs. And we aren’t singing rock-and-roll. It’s folk music.”

  “You don’t see what’s going on? Jason has us all enrolled in a weird sort of foreplay. We are supposed to make sure you get high on music so he can have sex with you.”

  “We are just singing his pretty little song.”

  “That song is about you, Susi.”

  “It is just some images and sounds. It doesn’t even have a chorus.”