We stopped for lunch in the town, trying to salvage something from our day out. La Conner seemed deliberately, artfully cute, as if its whole aim in life was to be admired. The sidewalks were clogged when we tried to move around with the stroller. The restaurants were all jammed with tourists like us. And when we finally found a table, the food was nothing special; we could have eaten better much closer to home. Ian was in a fractious mood by now, and I didn’t blame him. Coming here had been a great idea; it was only the reality that let it down. We walked around for a few minutes longer, staring at the endless gift shops and florists.
I knew this was the time of year when La Conner made its money. This was their season and locals relied on the crowds of visitors to see them through. There certainly wasn’t anything else around here. The locals looked so hopeful and so worried, it was impossible to feel anything but sympathy.
We set off home in mid-afternoon and Ian did his usual trick of falling asleep in the car long before we hit I-5. I leaned back and closed my eyes, behaving just as bad as him. A Kate Bush cassette was playing and the refrain of ‘something’s gonna happen’ kept echoing through my brain like an ominous prediction. I hoped it wasn’t true.
I stirred eventually as we left the freeway and headed across the West Seattle Bridge. Below us was Harbor Island and the waters of the Duwamish River and Elliott Bay. It was industrial, it was humdrum and dirty, but it still moved me. The country was a fun place to visit, but this was my city and my home. Glancing back, I could see the jagged downtown skyline all the way to the Space Needle. The black height of Colombia Center that always made me think of Ozymandias. And Smith Tower, Seattle’s very first skyscraper that now looked like the baby brother of all the others. The ugly concrete of the Kingdome. This place was where I belonged.
I wondered if Ian would feel the same kind of loyalty to the place that I did. Or would he end up somewhere else? As long as he was happy, it didn’t really matter. That was what I wanted more than anything else for his life – happiness. The rest was gravy.
We parked on the street, and I noticed that the Tempo looked fine. We unpacked everything from the trunk, hauling it up into the yard. I was about to lift Ian from the car seat when Dustin said, “Wait.”
“What is it?”
“Someone’s broken a window. Next to the slider.”
He moved slowly back to the car, looking over his shoulder, pulled the cell phone from under the seat and punched in 911.
Fourteen
The police were there in just five minutes, but time seemed to stretch as we waited for them. I gazed at Dustin questioningly. Nick had done this. Was he still in my house? I hated the thought that he’d been inside, that he’d breathed my air, that he’d left his stink on my walls. I handed the patrolman my keys. He unlocked the slider and entered with care, a gun in his hand, his partner right behind him.
In the car Ian slept on, oblivious to everything. Better that way, I thought. I didn’t want him to know about our alarm. Dustin gripped my hand and I realized I’d been holding my breath. He was staring intently at the house, with an expression I couldn’t read.
An age seemed to pass before the policemen came out, their weapons holstered
“You’re clear. There’s nobody in there,” the first one said. “Doesn’t look like anyone entered, just broke the window.”
The other officer, older and quieter, looked at me. “You did the right thing calling it in. We have you flagged in the system, ma’am.”
“We know who did it,” Dustin told him. “The same guy who torched my wife’s car. The one you guys arrested and let go again.”
“We’ll check the neighborhood, sir. If someone can give us a description, fine. If not…” He shrugged. Nick would have been very careful. He’d have made sure no one saw him. “Meanwhile, you probably want to call a glass company. They should be able to get someone out here today.”
Dustin glanced at me. There was an argumentative fire in his eye. I shook my head.
“Thanks for getting here so quickly,” he said finally.
“Like I said, your address is flagged. It’s fine for you to go in now.” He looked at Ian, still asleep and heedless. “There’s a fair bit of broken glass. You’ll need to sweep it all up.”
“I will, officer,” I said quickly. I just wanted to be in my own house again, to try to find something close to normal. But there wasn’t any normal now. Coming right up to us in the grocery store, taking my car, showing he could enter my house. He was taking away all my safety, all my freedom - inch by inch, bit by bit. He knew exactly what he was doing. And I had no idea why. I looked over at my house. Could I feel safe in there again? Locking all the doors and windows? Checking them however many times a day? Keeping the world and its evil away from my son? Christ, was this what I’d come to?
The patrolman held out my set of keys. “Just call if you need us, ma’am.”
I swept and vacuumed while Dustin changed a squalling child dragged from the comfort of his nap. By seven the glass had been replaced, and we were a hundred dollars poorer for calling out the glazier on a Saturday. We sat on the couch, feet up on the coffee table and sharing a bottle of Henry Weinhard’s, as Ian pushed a plastic garbage truck around the floor.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “This has turned into a pretty shitty day.”
“I’m just worried about this guy Nick,” Dustin told me. His tone was low and serious and he was staring at a spot on the wall. “What if he decides to hurt you or Ian?”
That was the question: What was he going to try next? It wasn’t as if he had anything to gain from all this. Carson was his target, since he wanted a thousand bucks from the older man.
After Dustin had gone down to Spiro’s on California for takeout pizza, he’d used his cell phone to call and check on us while he waited. I’d hovered in the kitchen, gazing out the window and through the back door, making sure I was never more than three paces from the knife drawer.
“I’ll be careful.” I took another sip of the beer.
When he returned, I asked him, “Do you want some music?”
“Sure.”
In my office, I scanned the shelves of LPs. There was only one album that could cure my mood right now and give me a leap heavenward. I pulled out Gram Parsons’s Grievous Angel. I needed to hear him singing with Emmylou, the sublime harmonies that could always make me feel better, even on the saddest songs. We both stayed silent until the needle clicked into the end groove of the first side.
“Is that the guy they burned out at Joshua Tree after he died?” Dustin asked and I smiled inside. He’d been listening after all, as I’d given him some music history lessons.
“Yep.”
“Country heartbreak, but good.”
“You want heartbreak? Take a listen to this.” I found the box of cassettes, rummaging around and glancing at the handwritten labels until I found the right one. “There’s nothing else like this. It’s like the guy channeled a whole lifetime of pain into this.”
It was, too: Charlie Rich doing “Feel Like Going Home.” Not the schmaltzy version that was released, but a demo; just voice and piano, with all the ache and weariness contained in three minutes. A friend in Nashville had made me a copy. There was more soul in that piece than in the entire Motown and Stax catalogs. It was the song I wanted at my funeral.
“Man,” he said when it was done. “Don’t you have anything happy?”
From there it grew, surviving beyond Ian’s bedtime and story. I played Big Star, Emmitt Rhodes, Fairport Convention, U-Men, some stuff Elvis had recorded for Sun, and dug my way through the Seventies and Eighties with John Martyn, Rich Kids, Dwight Twilley and all sorts of obscure and strange records that meant something special to me.
By the time we finished, I felt exhilarated. It was exactly what I needed to dispel the mood that was weighing me down. We’d done this a few times before Ian was born, simply spent a night on music. It reminded me how much I loved it all and why. Music - mu
sic that mattered, that touched me. It filled me up and made me spark. I cleared the empty beer bottles off the coffee table and looked at the stack of album sleeves and cassettes sitting on the floor. They could wait until the morning.
And for the last three hours I hadn’t given Nick a thought. Now it flooded back in, like the gates had been opened. If he was waging a war of nerves, he was winning. I didn’t know how much longer I could take all of this.
I woke feeling a little fuzzy. It had been a while since I’d drunk three beers in one night. But I felt happy as I cleaned up and filed the records away. I was going to make pancakes with lemon and icing sugar, drink coffee, read the New York Times and the Seattle Times and just be lazy.
It was clean and clear outside, the third of April. I was mixing up the batter when the phone rang.
“Hey, it’s Carson.”
“Hi,” I said warily. From Carson, it was only a small jump to Nick in my thoughts. “How’s things?”
“Okay, I guess. Look, I’m wondering if I can ask you a favor.”
“If I can.” I wasn’t going to concede too much, knowing Carson had already turned my life upside down in a bad way.
He hesitated for a moment. “Do you think you could swing by this afternoon and listen to what I’m going to do on Tuesday? I mean, you know about this stuff.”
“Sure.” That seemed innocent enough. And I was genuinely curious about the way he’d sound on his own. “What time?”
“I don’t know? One?”
I glanced at the clock. Just after nine. Plenty of time. Dustin could take Ian to the park.
“Just make sure you have the coffee brewing.”
“Thanks,” he said, and I could hear the relief in his voice. It didn’t seem like that big a deal to me. This guy had started playing music when I was still in diapers. Even if he hadn’t done a gig in years, he’d still know what worked.
I pulled up behind Carson’s El Camino and noticed his grandson’s old beater just down the block. It looked as if I wasn’t going to be only member of the audience today. The screen door was closed but the front door was open and Carson beckoned me in.
He was sitting on an upright chair, the Martin guitar on the floor beside him. Jim, his grandson, was next to him, cradling a big Gibson J200 acoustic that had seen kinder days.
When he saw me looking, he said, “This belonged to my father. I found it when I was cleaning out his place after he died. It’s the only thing of his I wanted to keep.” He blushed, the color rising quickly on his pale face. It might have been scratched up but it was still a beautiful instrument. I saw what he meant about the blue inlay and fret markers; they were distinctive and striking. I started to wonder how this guitar had come into James Clark’s possession. It would have cost plenty to buy. “My grandpa wants me to do a couple songs with him,” Jim continued.
“One of mine and one of his. The boy can write,” Carson explained.
I poured myself a cup of coffee, stole one of the Marlboros from the pack on the table, sat back and listened. He played for twenty minutes, giving an unforced, natural, emotional performance. He dug down into himself and his memories to put the words across. Stripped down, the old songs sounded so much better, as if they really meant something. They probably had when he wrote them, before others layered on the strings and took out the heart. When he finished, I was ready to applaud but he held up a hand.
“I wrote this a few days ago about my son,” he told me hesitantly. “I’m not sure I should do it on Tuesday.”
He began to play a series of descending minor chords, and Jim put a few spare notes on top, holding each one until it had faded away. Then Carson began to sing.
It’s a quiet night in Washington,
Just the tires in the rain.
And there’s nothing on the sidewalk
Beyond a rust-red stain.
I’d hoped I could have known him,
But the moments flittered by
To a graveyard and a monument
And a life passed in a sigh.
It moved into the chorus, Jim’s guitar doubling up and his voice adding a cracked, high tenor harmony. If you understood the underlying story, it was a beautiful, moving piece. It was country at its core, but also something more. Something that didn’t need a name.
I let the words and music wash over me and simply carry me away. My eyes were closed by now, and all I knew was what I heard.
Three minutes later, he let the melody drift away into silence and looked toward me.
“You’d better do that,” I urged him. “It’s wonderful.” It was, too. He needed to record it and play it exactly like that. Stripped to the core and heartfelt, with nothing to distract from the raw emotion.
A smile creased his face.
“You like it?”
“If the rest of your new stuff’s as good as that you’re going to need a record deal.”
“See what you think of this one.” He nodded at Jim, and the young man began to strum and play. He was good enough on his instrument, with a clean, neat touch, and his voice was appealing. But the song never seemed to come alive, even when Carson joined in. It would be something to put in the middle of the set, nowhere near as good as the other things he’d already played.
“How was it?” Carson asked.
“Good,” I said, hoping I sounded convincing. I grabbed another of his smokes and lit up. “Have you heard anything more from Nick?”
“Nope,” he said, resting the guitar on top of its old hard shell case. “Why, have you?”
“Someone smashed a window at our house yesterday.”
“Shit.” He took hold of his cane and pushed himself upright, limping heavily as he walked around the room.
“I’m sure it was him. What I don’t understand is why.”
“Maybe he thinks the two guys you talked to revealed something.”
I shook my head. “No, he must be able to figure out that I’d have told the police everything.”
“I honestly don’t know, then,” he said. “I wish I did. Maybe he just thinks you’re vulnerable.”
I’d been called plenty of things in my time, but never that. It shook me. I’d never considered myself weak. I’d never been weak. I’d made sure of that. But I was a mom now, with more to think of than myself. Vulnerable, maybe that was what I’d become. Maybe Nick sensed the new weakness. He must have, and the bastard was playing me like a damn violin. I didn’t know what he’d gain from it, though, except a little pleasure. But perhaps that was the kind of thing that he got off on. Mess with a woman’s head and terrify her? There were plenty of guys who thought that was fun. I wasn’t going to play along with that game though. He scared me right through to my heart, but I was never going to let him see it. Ever.
I glanced at young Jim. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged helplessly. “All I’ve heard is you guys talking about him.”
“He hasn’t come looking for you?”
“No.”
“That’s something,” I said. I took another look at the blue guitar. “What do you make of this, Carson? It looks pretty expensive.”
“Got to be,” the older man agreed with a nod. “Gibsons don’t come cheap and that’s had some work to put all that blue in. Someone has some skill. The only place I’ve seen instruments like that is down in Nashville. Some of the rich guys would have their guitars customized.”
“Do you think you son could afford something like this?”
“Nope.” He shook his head for emphasis. “He must have stolen it somewhere.”
“Better keep it safe,” I said to Jim.
“I told you guys about what I found in the old case, right?” the young man asked, and I remembered him mentioning it. Carson nodded, but Jim wanted to tell the story, anyway. “It was pretty beat-up and ratty, so I thought I’d throw it away. But there was a thousand dollars in hundreds in a slit in the lining. I figured that and the guitar was my inheritance.”
> I raised my eyebrows and stared at Carson.
“The same amount Nick wants from you.”
“Could be a coincidence.” Carson shrugged, but his eyes weren’t so certain.
“Maybe. Who knows?” I finished the cigarette and made my way to the door. “You guys are going to sound great on Tuesday. When Carson looked doubtful, I added, “I mean it, you are.”
“Hold on,” James said. “I’ll walk up with you.” We climbed the stairs up to the road. “Do you really think it was okay?” he asked. “I know I’m not as good as he is.”
“He’s been doing it most of his life, remember.”
“Yeah.” He brushed the hair away from his face. “I mean, I know it’s a great break and all…”
“He wouldn’t do it if he didn’t believe in you,” I assured him.
“I guess.”
“Just get yourself onstage at the Tractor and enjoy it.”
“I will. Yeah.”
“I meant it. That really is a great guitar.”
“Plays like a dream.” It was now safely packed into a brand-new hard-shell case, the metal of the edges still shiny. “I had to clean it up after I brought it home.”
“Your father hadn’t looked after it properly?”
“There was crud up around the frets. Didn’t look like he’d changed the strings in years. I don’t know how he managed to play a gig with it, because I had to lower the action. Anyway, it’s good now. Tuesday will be the first time I’ve played it in public.”
“You’ll be fine, both of you.”
“Thanks.” He ambled away, round-shouldered, then drove off, the engine roar sounding loud on a quiet Sunday afternoon. I turned the Tempo around and headed back to Fauntleroy.
The Cat’s Eye was quiet, as the lunch crowd had long since moved on. A few stragglers from the beach hung around. Carla was cleaning up, ready to close in an hour. She worked harder here than when she’d own the espresso cart outside Tower Records. But she seemed happy enough, face breaking into a grin when she saw me.
“Where’s that boy of yours?”
“Home with his pop, I hope.”
She began grinding beans for my latte. I didn’t even need to ask for it. Carla had known me for a long time.
West Seattle Blues Page 16