Candlemas Eve

by Sackett, Jeffrey

  All but Tom Mahoney, the bass player, who alone of the band had the common sense to save and invest money rather than spend it. It was he who had purchased a failing disco five years before and had managed in that short time to transform it into a popular night spot for devotees of heavy-metal rock. He continued to function as Simon's bassist, but he was frequently heard to comment that when they finally went bust, he at least would have his club to fall back on. Mark Siegal, the drummer, rejoined that, considering Tom's prodigious intake of alcohol and drugs, he would more likely need something to fall into. Inspired by the quip, lead guitarist Carl Strube produced a crudely fashioned but effective drawing of Tom stumbling down a flight of steps into a dark cellar, and thus the nickname "Tom's basement" was born.

  Whenever they were preparing for a tour, Simon and the band used the large, reverberative dance floor as their rehearsal site. The club did not open to the public until eight in the evening, and until then it was regarded as Simon's preserve, Tom's ownership notwithstanding.

  Tom Mahoney leaned his tall, lanky form against the piano, tuning his bass to the keyboard as Larry Herricks, a fine pianist with an atrocious singing voice, plunked apathetically upon the appropriate keys. Herricks scratched a pimple beneath his scraggly black beard, yawned, and said, "Where the hell are they, anyway?"

  Mahoney brushed back the graying blond lock of hair which was constantly slipping down over his eyes and grinned at Herricks from his boyish face. "Relax, Larry. It isn't even one o'clock. It's gotta be a six-hour drive from that old house of his."

  "Yeah," Herricks grumbled, "but he was supposed to be here at noon. I got better things to do than fart around here waiting for him to show up."

  Mahoney, eternally cheerful, and thus a source of irritation to all who knew him, shrugged. "Maybe he hit traffic. Don't worry about it. He'll be here soon enough. Hey, you want a beer?"

  Herricks yawned again. "Sure. Why not."

  As Mahoney swung the bass guitar strap over his head and placed the instrument carefully into a standing holder, the door of the club swung open and Carl Strube and Mark Siegal entered noisily, laughing over a shared and doubtless inconsequential joke. Strube's jet black skin was glistening with sweat, and he wiped his face with a handkerchief and said, "Tommy boy, you gotta do something about your thermostat!"

  "Why? What's the matter with it?" Mahoney asked.

  "It's colder than a witch's tit out there, and it's like an oven as soon as you walk into this building. Shit, I started sweating out there in the hallway before I could even get my scarf off!"

  "Sorry," Mahoney shrugged, not caring in the slightest.

  "Hey, watch that witch's tit stuff," Mark Siegal warned. "Simon told me on the phone that these chicks he's bringing with him say they're witches, real witches." Siegal unbuttoned his raggedy old sheepskin coat and pulled it off, tossing it unceremoniously onto a nearby chair. "I don't know if they're serious or not, but let's kind of be polite, okay?"

  Strube punched him good-naturedly, but forcefully, in the arm. "Aw, Markie doesn't want to hurt nobody's feelings."

  "I just know how to behave around women, that's all,"' he said.

  "Yeah, right. That's why you never have any!"

  "Yeah, yeah, fine," Herricks grumbled, "but where the hell is Simon?" He snorted back some phlegm which, he claimed, had been inhabiting his sinuses since 1969. "I mean, shit! We gotta go out on another fuckin' tour in a couple of weeks, I gotta tell my old lady to amuse herself while I go out to rehearse—God knows who's plowin' my furrow right now—I didn't plan to see fuckin' twelve noon for another two weeks, and here I am, sitting here with my fin'er up my ass, listening to this Boy Scout tune his fuckin' bass!" He snorted again and then rubbed his nose. "I'm, like, really pissed off, you know?"

  "Ah, Larry," Mark Siegal said sadly, "I have never ceased to be impressed by your articulation and vocabulary."

  Herricks harrumphed. "Hey, listen to NYJew over here."

  Ethnic slurs from Herricks were not good-natured, and Siegal bristled. "That's NYU, asshole! Don't get bitchy just 'cause you couldn't read well enough to graduate from high school!'

  "Ahhh, fuck you," Herricks muttered.

  "Don't get your hopes up," Siegal rejoined.

  Mahoney ambled back from behind the bar with a six-pack of Old Bohemian beer in his hand. "Anyone want a brew?" he asked, smiling.

  "Yeah, sure," Herricks muttered. Mahoney tossed a can toward him and he appraised it disgruntledly. "Warm Old Bohemian!" he spat. "Hey, thanks a lot, Tom! What does this shit cost you, a buck a six-pack? Where's the Heineken, the Miller, the Beck's, that British ale you're always pushing?"

  "Old Peculiar Ale?" Mahoney asked innocently.

  "Yeah, that shit. Old Bohemian! Christ, this stuff tastes like hippopotamus piss!"

  Siegal turned to Strube with a grin. "Didn't know Larry drinks hippopotamus piss, did you?"

  Strube gazed at Herricks appraisingly. "Don't surprise me none."

  "Ahhh, fuck you guys," Herricks muttered as he pulled back the pop-top and poured the amber liquid into his mouth. "A brew's a brew."

  Strube, Mahoney, and Siegal smiled despite themselves. The four of them had shared the road with each other and Simon for the past decade, and they knew each other well. It would have been impossible for any four men to share the same cramped quarters, to drop their heads upon each other's shoulders in rumbling, screeching buses in the early hours of the morning, to drink from the same bottles of warm beer, to share the same women on occasion, without a spirit of camaraderie to develop. The fact that Herricks was an antiSemite who disliked blacks and Irish Pollyannas did not keep the Irish bass player, the Negro lead guitarist, and the Jewish drummer from feeling a bond with the perpetually curmudgeonly piano player. And, were the truth forever unspoken by the latter to be known, the feeling was reciprocated.

  "What time is it?" Herricks muttered morosely.

  Mahoney glanced at his watch. "'Bout quarter after one."

  "Well removed from the witching hour," Gwendolyn Jenkins said as she breezed into the room ahead of Adrienne Lupescu and Simon Proctor, "but 'tis as good a time for conjuring as any."

  Strube, Herricks, Mahoney, and Siegal spun their heads around at the sound of the unexpected female voice and then gazed at her in the silent, portentous manner exhibited universally by males when confronted by striking females. Gwendolyn had taken the time to purchase—or rather, Simon's plastic money had purchased—a few items of clothing less concealing and austere than those which she had worn when she first approached the door of the Proctor home in Bradford. She wore skintight dungarees which hugged her long legs and curvaceous hips, both of which were accentuated by the high-heeled boots which reached to midcalf before bending over in soft leather folds upon the top of the boot. She wore a dark green leotard above the wide leather belt which circled her waist, and the bra which she had condescended to don thrust her large breasts impertinently outward. She gazed at the members of the band with eyes wide with amusement, as if her ability to excite them sexually was known, understood, evaluated, and dismissed as irrelevant.

  Simon Proctor entered the room immediately after her, and Adrienne Lupescu, looking nerve-wracked and ill at ease, followed hesitantly behind him. "Hiya, guys,"' Simon said. "Sorry we're a little late. We hit some traffic, and we wanted to stop and pick up a few things." He was carrying his guitar in an old, faded case, and he placed it gently down upon the floor. "These are the two girls I told Mark about on the phone. This is Gwendolyn, and this is Adrienne."

  "Good day to you, sirs," Gwendolyn said casually. Adrienne smiled weakly and nodded.

  "This blond Adonis over here is Tom, our bass player," Simon said with a gesture to Mahoney. "This scrawny little runt—"

  "Hey, thanks, Simon, thanks a lot!"

  "—is our drummer, Mark. That's Larry at the piano, and Carl over here plays lead." He grinned at Gwendolyn. "Lead is a bit beyond me, I'm afraid. I'm mostly rhythm."

  M
ark Siegal came forward and smiled. "Hi. Nice to meet you. Simon tells me you have a whole collection of old songs about witchcraft that'll go good with the act."

  "Witchcraft, and other things," Gwendolyn replied, smiling a bit coldly at the short, sallow-skinned man. "We sing songs of mystical events and old times."

  "I think maybe we can adapt some of them to rock," Simon explained to the others. "You see, Gwen and Adrienne here are practicing witches, I mean, real witches, you know? The PR value of that alone is tremendous, if you think about it."

  "Real witches," Herricks grumbled. "Give me a break."

  "You believe not in the dark powers?" Gwendolyn asked haughtily. "Are you all like Simon, mere charlatans?"

  "No, honey," Herricks replied, "we're all like Simon, musicians trying to make a buck."

  "Come on, now, Larry," Carl said. "You gotta believe in witches."

  Herricks looked with irritation at the black man. "Yeah? Why?"

  " 'Cause there must have been somebody somewhere with magic powers who turned you into such an idiot."

  "No," Siegal said matter-of-factly. "It's natural."

  "Hey, fuck you guys," Herricks muttered.

  "Enough, enough," Simon said. "Listen up. I want you to hear a few of their songs and play around with them a bit, rock 'em up a little. Then we'll start working on some sort of vocal arrangement for the girls."

  "How many of their songs have you heard?" Carl asked.

  "Only one"—he ignored Herricks's groan—"but it was really terrific. Tom, I left their instruments in the trunk of the car. Go get 'em, would you?" He pulled his key ring from his pocket and tossed it to the blond bassman, who went out toward the main entrance.

  "I assume that we'll be dealing with folk songs, right?" Carl asked.

  "Basically, yes," Simon replied. "But I figure, hell, if the Byrds could make a best-selling rock single out of Seegers 'Turn, Turn, Turn, ' we should be able to make some good stuff out of these songs of theirs."

  "Simon," Herricks said, "I ain't had nothin' to do with folk music or anything even near it for nearly fifteen years."

  "Yeah, right. Who has? Nobody. I know I sure as hell haven't. But I honestly think it's worth a try." Simon paused as Tom Mahoney entered, carrying the lute in one hand and the harp in the other. "Thanks, Tom."

  "Excuse me Gwendolyn, is it?—but is there an Irish harp in this case?"

  "Nay, 'tis a Welsh harp," she replied.

  "But they're pretty much the same thing, aren't they?"

  She shrugged. "I know not, having never seen an Irish harp."

  He placed the cases down beside Simon's guitar. "My mother used to play the Irish harp, when I was a little kid. I always loved it."

  "Well, I hope you'll be finding this as pleasing," she smiled. He smiled back, liking her enormously. "I'm sure I will." Herricks snorted. "Fuckin' Sunday school around here. Any more good manners and I'm gonna puke!"

  "Well, that'll refresh things," Siegal said.

  "Ah, fuck you," Herricks grumbled.

  Siegal deadpanned to Strube. "His brilliant retort has stung me into silence."

  Gwendolyn knelt down beside her instrument and opened the case. Adrienne sprang to emulate her with a startled overaction, as if she had eagerly been awaiting a cue. The two women took their instruments from the cases and proceeded to tune them to one another.

  Mahoney grinned. "Hey, it's just like my mom's!"

  " 'Tis not surprising, Tom," Gwendolyn said. "The Welsh and the Irish are kindred races, united by a common dislike of the English rulers."

  "Yeah, but at least Ireland is rid of the Brits, except in the north."

  She paused for a moment. "Indeed," she said noncommittally.

  "Play that one you played the other day," Simon said eagerly, "the one about the druid's daughter." He grabbed a warm beer from the piano top and sat down in one of the folding chairs which Tom Mahoney had placed at random around the large room.

  "Nay, Simon," Adrienne said softly, "but we shall sing another, by your leave."

  "Well, sure," Simon said. "Play anything you want. "Have you heard of shapechangers?" Gwendolyn asked.

  "Shapechangers?" He thought for a moment. "You mean like werewolves, stuff like that?"

  "Werewolves are shapechangers," Adrienne agreed.

  "An example of one," Gwendolyn said. "To become a wolf or a bird or a cat, 'tis all the same to a shapechanger." She plucked a few mellow chords on the harp, and Adrienne echoed them on the lute. "Here is an old song about two shapechangers." She cleared her throat and then began to pick out a sprightly Celtic air, again echoed harmonically by Adrienne's lute. They began to sing, their voices bouncing around the delightful melody.

  "She danced into the meadow, as white as any milk,

  And he ran into the meadow, as black as China silk.

  Alack-a-day, the girl did say, you coal black smith.

  Heed well my warning song.

  You never shall have the maidenhead

  Which I have kept so long.

  I'd rather die a maid.

  Ah but then, he said, you'll be buried all in your grave.

  'Tis better than loving a musty, dusty, crusty, fusty Coal black smith.

  A virgin I will die."

  The melody was light and breezy, and a brief interlude between the opening verse, which soon proved to be a chorus, and the next vocal section was so infectiously pretty that even Herricks began to tap his foot to the rhythm.

  "She became a duck, a duck upon the lake.

  She thought that she was safe until

  The smith became a drake.

  She became a rose a-growing in the wood,

  And he became a bumblebee and

  Stung her where she stood.

  She became a fish a-swimming in the brook,

  And he became a wiggly worm and

  Catched her with his hook.

  Alack-a-day, alack-a-day, you coal black smith.

  Heed well my warning song.

  You never shall have the maidenhead

  Which I have kept so long.

  I'd rather die a maid.

  Ah but then, he said, you'll be buried all in your grave.

  'Tis better than loving a musty, dusty, crusty, fusty

  Coal black smith.

  A virgin I will die."

  They began to play another dancing interlude, and Mark Siegal leaned close to Simon and said, "It's beautiful, honest to God it is. But it doesn't sound like material for rock and roll to me.

  "I don't agree," Tom Mahoney said. He was standing behind Mark and Simon and had overheard the whispered comment. "The melody's great. All we gotta do is syncopate it and buzz up the interludes."

  "Shhh," Simon said. "Let them finish."

  "She became a nun, a nun all dressed in black,

  And he became a hermit monk and

  Prayed her to come back.

  She became a star, a star up in the night,

  And he became a looking glass and

  Kept her in his sight.

  She became a tree, a withered tree and grim,

  And he became a furry bat and

  Lighted on hey limb.

  Alack-a-day, alack-aday, you coal black smith.

  Heed well my warning song.

  You never shall have the maidenhead

  Which I have kept so long.

  I'd rather die a maid.

  Ah but then, he said, you'll he buried all in your grave.

  'Tis better than loving a musty, dusty crusty, fusty

  Coal black smith.

  A virgin I will die."

  Another musical interlude, but the bright major chords slipped into dark minors, and the bright and sprightly melody assumed a gradually dark and mournful aspect. And then they concluded the song.

  "She became a corpse, a corpse all in the land.

  And he became the coffin wood and

  Held her in his hand.

  She became the dust and mingled with the ground.
<
br />   And he became the moldy clay and

  Smothered her all around.

  She became a soul when the kirk did ring its bell,

  And he became Belzebub and

  Dragged her down to hell.

  Alack-a-day, alack-a-day, you fair young maid,

  Who would not be my wife.

  The flames will burn the maidenhead

  You guarded all your life.

  You're welcome to your pride.

  Is it better then to find yourself Satan's bride,

  Than to love a musts dusty, crusty, fusty

  Coal black smith?

  A virgin did you die."

  The lute and the harp descended sadly to the final resolving note, and as its last echoes faded, Adrienne looked at the musicians hopefully and asked, "Did it please you?"