West Seattle Blues

by Chris Nickson

  “Didn’t back then. I was just back from the service, looking good, and this guy went and ruined it. Figured I’d never get laid again. Instead, it turns out the girls liked a little mystery.”

  “What happened?” I pressed record and kept my eye on the dial.

  “Just some shit in a bar in Tacoma.” He shrugged. “Someone said something, I said something back, and the next thing I know a guy’s coming at me with a switchblade.” He smiled. “He came off worse. You don’t mess with someone just back from Korea.”

  Everything was recording fine. We were good to go.

  “It’s been quite a while since you had any hits. So why do you want to tell your story now?” It was as good a place as any to begin.

  “I guess I thought it was time.” I looked at him, not believing a word of it unless he was about to tell me he was terminally ill. “A couple of bands have covered some of my old songs in the last year,” he explained. “It got me to thinking.”

  Now I was more interested. “Who’s doing the songs?”

  He named them. Both had fans in the No Depression movement, the new country-rock revival that was beginning to take hold. Alternative country, they called it, and that pretty much summed it up. The spirit of old country welded on to the attitude of rock. Not that the two were that far apart, really. So Carson Mack could be riding a small wave, after all.

  “Have you heard what they’ve done?”

  “Yeah, they sent me a couple cassettes.” He shook his head. “Kind of surprised me. They rocked that stuff up; it was like hearing something completely different. You know, like it wasn’t mine.” He shook his head in amazement. “I can play them for you later, if you like.”

  “Okay,” I agreed. “So what brought you out to Seattle? It’s a long way from Nashville.”

  When Carson smiled, he looked his age, with sixty years etched into his skin, but he carried it gracefully. He wasn’t handsome in any conventional sense, but he had the look of someone who knew life and could withstand all its knocks as long as he had a drink or two inside him.

  “Call it a long story,” he replied. “You ever been divorced?”

  “No,” I laughed. “I haven’t even been married that long.”

  “You take my advice and stay that way.” He sipped from the cup. “I split up with my second wife, and I just wanted out of Nashville. It’s a small place when you get down to it, all music and everyone knows everyone else. So people just take sides.”

  “Seattle’s pretty small in a lot of ways.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” he allowed. “I needed to get out of there. It was all getting on top of me. I grew up in Idaho, so out here sounded fine to me. That was back in ’82 and I’m still here. Haven’t found a good enough reason to move on.”

  “Must have cost a lot to buy down here.”

  “Nah, it was cheap back then.” He glanced around the room, a wry smile on his face. “Can’t say I’ve done much to the place.”

  That was true. It was as battered as Mack himself, but it looked solid enough; down here it would need to be, with those winter winds and tides.

  “You made money back in Nashville. You had hits. You wrote some for others.”

  “I did okay. They dressed me up in those wide lapels and had me wear a pompadour. But what they did to my songs, I don’t know. It was like they took them and just covered them with sugar. That’s the music business. It’s a crock of shit. Sometimes you get something from it. But when it dries up, you’re out. And all this crap that passes for country nowadays… why the hell would anyone need to wear a cowboy hat?”

  I certainly didn’t have the answer to that. I was warming to him, though. He wasn’t pushing a new album. All he had was his story. No, it would never be a book, but I was enjoying listening.

  “Did you like Nashville?”

  “Some years, yeah,” he answered after a little thought. “I liked being able to go into a bar and sit down with some other singers and just trade songs. That was always a blast. A couple drinks and music, and we’re all trying to impress each other. Or the time I went out for a drink with George Andersen.” He smiled at the memory.

  “What happened?”

  “I got home three days later. My wife had called the cops. She thought I was dead somewhere. She must have thrown sixteen plates at me in that kitchen. I couldn’t even remember where I’d been.”

  “Bad?”

  “Wasn’t too long after that she filed for divorce.” He rubbed a hand across his chin. “Probably the best thing for both of us. Hey, did you know that Willie almost recorded one of my songs.”

  “Willie Nelson?”

  “Yeah, he liked the tune. Man, he did it well. But it didn’t work out in the end. Story of a songwriter’s life - down there, anyway.”

  I spotted the Martin D-28 acoustic guitar propped in the corner. It was a beautiful instrument, an old sunburst finish, well-polished, with years of scratches on the pick guard.

  “Do you play much?”

  “Some days. I still write songs, although they’re pretty much just for me lately. It’s not like anyone’s knocking down my door to buy. You know what’s strange?”

  “What?”

  “I was offered a gig the other day. First time since I moved here.”

  “What did you say?” If there was a gig, it would be a good hook for my article.

  “I’m thinking about it,” he replied. “A place called the Tractor Tavern. You know it?”

  “I do, and it’s good.” It was a funky bar over in Ballard with a good sound system and a taste for roots music. That type of venue was just right for someone like Carson Mack.

  We carried on in stops and starts. For me, an interview was more like a conversation; it took odd turns and byways. He made more coffee and talked a little about his past. Working here and there, everything from laboring jobs to picking apples in Eastern Washington when he was trying to get a break. He’d been around, he’d lived, and it felt there was some deep sorrow buried inside him. After ninety minutes I wrapped it up. There was plenty to transcribe, some of it worthwhile. Definitely ample for a feature in The Rocket.

  “Let me know if you take that gig. If we time the article, it’ll help bring people in to see you.”

  “To watch the broke-down old wreck?” But his eyes twinkled a little as he said it. “I reckon I’ll probably do it, just to see if I can. Been a long time, that’s all.”

  Back home, Ian was napping and Dustin was completing his reports on the computer, ready to upload and send. Until he was done I couldn’t begin typing, so I made coffee, then sat and thought about the last thing Carson Mack had said. And that explained the sadness in his soul.

  “You know, I didn’t tell you before but there was another reason I moved up here,” he confided. “When I was seventeen, I got a girl pregnant in Boise. She wouldn’t marry me, but I paid my support. All the way through till my son turned eighteen. I heard later that the boy had moved over here. I thought maybe I’d try to find him and make up for some lost time.”

  “Did you?”

  “Never have.”

  His voice had sounded so bleak as he spoke those last two words, as if he’d hadn’t managed to complete his life, and he stared off to somewhere I couldn’t see. I liked him for that.

  “What do you think about dinner out tonight?” Dustin asked. He’d finished work, sitting on the couch and watching contentedly as Ian nursed at my breast. I kept up three feeds a day, along with all the solid food. It was good for the immunity, everyone said, and that seemed to be true; he’d hardly been sick a single day since he was born. We’d hit a good balance, and I knew I was lucky working from home. I wasn’t like most moms, having to express gallons and keep it in the refrigerator.

  “Sure,” I answered, mystified. “Did I forget an anniversary or something?”

  “Got the half-yearly bonus from work in the mail,” he told me with a wide grin. “So we can celebrate. Might be the last one, if I switch jobs.”
r />   “I thought we were going to put that toward the new bathroom,” I said, then shut up. Christ, I was turning into a real housewife. There had to be more to life than a tub and new faucets. Like a little fun. Enjoyment. Good food. Since Ian was born we hadn’t gone out too often. “Yeah, let’s go,” I said with enthusiasm. “Where do you have in mind?”

  “Phoenecia?” he suggested.

  “Must have been a good bonus.” He knew it was my favorite restaurant, right on the Alki Beach, looking out at the sand and the water. We only went there for very special occasions, or if we had visitors – we’d taken Dustin’s mom there when she visited. It was the kind of place that made me feel like a real grown-up instead of a big kid wearing adult clothes.

  “Reasonable,” he said.

  The meal was excellent; it always was. Mediterranean food, but not something that was simply Italian or Moroccan. The items on the menu were more complex, more original, than that, blending flavors and ideas to make something that pulled the best from different cultures. It was like a visit to tastebud heaven. We finished with the house specialty, rose-petal ice cream, a small bowl for each of us and a tiny scoop for Ian, who smiled and shouted with joy in his high chair. After the food, we strolled along Alki. During the summer the sidewalks here were packed with rollerbladers dodging between pedestrians, while teenagers cruised the strip and people tried to stake out a little territory on the sand and work on their tans. But on a dreary March evening it was quiet, just hardcore joggers timing their runs and people walking their dogs.

  When I was a kid, coming to Alki had been a treat. It had once been the getaway over the water for rich Seattle families. They built small homes here. Even in the 1960s it had still seemed like that, separate from the city, hidden and secret, almost tucked away outside of time. Back then, the houses were still rickety beach shacks dotted along the road, the businesses just little drugstores and cafes, mom-and-pop places that never changed from year to year. Now almost all of that was history, swallowed up by the big condo buildings that ate into the skyline; there were so many places to eat that choice was impossible. Welcome to the new Seattle, still America’s most livable city - as long as you had money in your pocket.

  The light was blinking on the answering machine when we arrived home. Ian had fallen asleep in the car and Dustin took him off to bed.

  “This is Carson Mack,” the voice on the tape said. “Can you give me a call?”

  The phone rang nine times before he answered, sounding out of breath.

  “I was down by the water,” he said. His words were slurred, as if he’d had one shot too many.

  “You called me.”

  “Yeah.” He paused for a moment, as if gathering his thoughts. “I checked you out with a couple friends of mine. You’re the one who found that guy’s killer.”

  Craig Adler. It had happened six years before and it had been more luck than anything else that I discovered who’d murdered him. I was a journalist and I’d decided to look into his death for a story. The way it ended had cost me a year of my life in trying to feel sane and calm again. My relationship had ended, and there’d been once or twice I’d wished my life had, too. Since then I tried to forget it ever happened. But other people remembered. And I really didn’t want to talk about it.

  “Yeah,” I admitted. “That was me. But please don’t make too much of it.”

  “I was thinking,” he plowed on as if I hadn’t said a word. His tongue stumbled here and there. “Maybe you could look for my son, if he’s still around here.”

  Three

  When I didn’t reply, he continued, “I got a little money. I’d pay you.”

  “It’s not that,” I told him quietly. “I’m a writer. That’s what I do. If you want someone found, hire a detective.”

  He sighed. “Look, is there any way you can meet me tomorrow? I’ll lay it all out for you.”

  I thought about it. Dustin would be back at work so I’d have Ian with me.

  “How about the Cat’s Eye?” I offered. “Say eleven? I’ll listen to what you have to say, but I’m not a detective. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  The Cat’s Eye Café was on Fauntleroy Avenue, close to Lincoln Park and the Southworth ferry dock. It was no more than ten minutes from home. But every journey with a small child became a huge adventure: diaper bag, food, sippy cup, something to amuse him, stroller. By the time I’d parked in the dirt lot and unloaded, it was eleven on the nose. Yesterday I’d seen a dirty El Camino pickup near the house on Beach Drive. Now it was parked next to my Horizon. Carson, I figured, and he was sitting inside, a cup of coffee in front of him, staring at a menu and looking out of place among all the kitschy cat items that filled the small wooden building.

  I hadn’t told him that we were regulars here. Carla, who’d once owned a coffee cart outside Tower Records, had bought the place back in 1991. Since then, she’d put her music days behind her. Now her routine was work, seven days a week. No social life, no boyfriend, and she looked to be thriving on it. At first she’d complained about all the cat stuff around, the Kliban cartoons, the Felix clock with swiveling eyes. But these days she seemed to be blind to it.

  Carla was sweating over the grill, making eggs and hash browns. She said ‘Hi,’ waved to Ian, and mouthed ‘later.’

  It took a while to settle Ian in a high chair and have him entertained with a piece of toast, juice in his cup, and a steaming latte for me.

  “I not going to apologize,” I told Carson as he stared at my son. “I’m a mom. Comes with the territory. You ever want to see me, sometimes he tags along, too.”

  “I remember.” He turned to face me. “They grow up too fast. All mine are bigger than me now, even the girls.” His eyes were bright, his speech clear. No sign of a hangover. But living alone, what else did he have to do in the evening but drink?

  “You keep in touch with them?”

  He picked up the cat-shaped salt shaker and began to move it around the table. Ian’s eyes followed it carefully, tracking every zigzag and halt.

  “Just Christmas cards and phone calls. But I always kept up my child support, with every one of my kids. That was something I could do.”

  “More than plenty of men.” I took another sip. “What’s the story on the missing son?”

  Carson reached into the breast pocket of his denim shirt for a smoke, then thought better of it when I shook my head. “Like I said, I was seventeen. I was a senior in high school. Darlene was a junior. She was the wild one, you know? The one all the boys wanted. Wouldn’t do anything her daddy told her. We dated a while. My folks hated her and hers hoped I’d straighten her out a little. Instead I got her pregnant.”

  “That must have caused a ruckus.”

  He chuckled. “Ruckus don’t even start to cover it. I was scared shitless, but I was willing to drop out of school and marry her. That was what her parents wanted. Mine, too, after awhile. She said hell no, and took off. Ended up settling in Missoula, Montana. Sent me a letter to say she’d had a boy and named him James David Clark. Clark was her last name. I had an address so I sent her support checks. I felt that was my duty, same way as when Uncle Sam wanted me to go over to Korea. And she cashed every one of those checks. About twenty years back, she sent me a letter saying the boy had moved to Seattle. That’s the last I ever heard from her.”

  “What did you do to look for him?”

  He reddened. “Nothing, not back then. I was kind of riding high in the music business and figured there’d always be time. But, a few years after I moved up here, I took a day to look into it. I had a buddy back in Nashville, worked for the Social Security Administration, who helped me out.”

  “What did you find?”

  He reached down and produced a thin manila folder from a bag on the floor. Ian kept his eyes on Carson, so attentive it was almost scary, as if he was recording every action and gesture.

  “Not a whole hell of a lot.” He put the file on the table. “It’s all in here.”
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  “You haven’t tried again?”

  “No,” he answered simply. “Didn’t seem to be much point.”

  “So why now?”

  “Because of you.” The words made me frown, as I definitely didn’t want that responsibility. “You sound like you’re good at finding things out. Maybe it’s all fate, you doing this piece on me.”

  “No.” I was adamant. “Get it out of your head. That’s not what I do, Carson. I said that to you last night.” I eyed the folder. I wasn’t sure I wanted to pick it up, as if even touching it would commit me to something I wouldn’t be able to do.

  “Just take it.” He was gazing directly at me and I could see the pleading in his eyes. “Look at it and tell me what you think. I’ll pay you.”

  Ian was leaning forward, extending his hand to try and grab the folder. If he was telling me to go for it, too, what choice did I have?

  Ian became tetchy, not wanting to settle. It was one of those days that I hated, the ones I just knew would end up giving me grey hairs before my time. He burbled and cried all the way home, then screamed and howled as soon as we were inside the house. I tried to calm him then let him roar for a while to exhaust himself. By the time I settled him in his crib, I was ready for a cup of coffee. I even brought out the pack of cigarettes I kept at the back of a kitchen drawer and smoked one on the deck. My nerves felt shredded and raw. I loved him but I’d be glad when he was a little older and the two of us could talk things through without all the yelling.

  Times like these I started to feel certain that I wasn’t one of nature’s moms. I couldn’t handle everything with a smile on my face, juggling three different things at once and making it look easy. Sometimes just getting through until bedtime seemed like a hopeless task.

  I settled on the couch and opened the file. There were three sheets of flimsy carbon paper. Carson was right; there wasn’t a whole lot there. It looked as if he’d merely checked the White Pages then called his friend in the SSA to discover James David Clark’s social security number and brief employment history.

  Clark had been born in Missoula, Montana on July 9, 1950. According to the records, he’d held a job there for a couple of years at the end of the Sixties, then in Spokane in the early Seventies. That was it. No marriage or death certificate. No address or phone number. If he’d actually moved to Seattle, he’d kept a very low profile for a long time.