by Poppy Brite
The kids who came here were of a more artistic bent, clothed in bright ragtag colors or ripped T-shirts and combat boots or chic, sleek black, according to their various philosophies and passions. Some dyed their hair and cropped it, some let their hair grow long and tied it with colored ribbons, some simply shoved it behind their ears and didn’t give a shit, or pretended not to. There were poets and painters, firebrands and fuckups, innocents and wantons. There were Missing Mile townies and college kids from Raleigh and Chapel Hill, the ones with legal IDs and money for beer, the ones who paid his bills. There were younger kids furtively fumbling with flasks, adding liquor gotten from God knows where to their Cokes from the bar. Unless this was done in a particularly obvious or obnoxious manner, Kinsey usually turned a blind eye.
He had just hooked up a new keg of Budweiser when Terry Buckett sat down at the bar. The band had done their sound check earlier, and it was obvious they’d been practicing; they were tighter than ever, Terry’s voice clear and strong, R.J.’s bass line thunderous. “What do you call that style of music?” Kinsey had asked after listening to a couple of numbers.
“Swamp rock,” Terry had said with a grin.
Now he grinned up at Kinsey again, stoned and amiable, muscular drummer’s forearms propped on the bar, tie-dyed bandanna wrapped around his dark curly hair. “Noodle soup, huh? Where’d you come up with that?”
“A cookbook called The Asian Menu,” said Kinsey. “With certain variations.”
“I’ll bet. Well, let’s give it a try. Gimme a Natty Boho too.” National Bohemian was the Yew’s bar brand. At a dollar-fifty a bottle it was a hot seller. Kinsey opened a frosty bottle and set it on the bar in front of Terry, then started preparing the soup.
“Talked to Steve and Ghost today,” Terry said.
“Yeah? They call the store?” Steve and Ghost were the two members of the band Lost Souls?; the spray-painted lyric WE ARE NOT AFRAID was from “World,” the song they always used to close their set. Steve played a dark, fierce guitar; Ghost had a voice like golden gravel running along the bottom of a clear mountain stream. A couple of weeks ago they had returned from a gig in New York and promptly left town again for a cross-country road trip in Steve’s old T-bird. San Francisco was their ultimate destination, but they would plan their route as they traveled, and they might be gone for as much as a year.
“Yeah. The new guy answered, and Steve goes ‘This is John Thomas from the IRS calling for Mr. Buckett.’ I about pissed myself when he handed me the phone. That little bastard …” Terry laughed and shook his head.
“Are they doing okay?”
“Sure. They’re in Texas now. Steve said they played at a coffeehouse in Austin and the folkies loved ’em. Sold some tapes too. Maybe I ought to check out Austin. You ever been?”
“No. One of my favorite underground cartoonists came from there, though. Bobby McGee.”
Terry frowned. “McGee? Wasn’t he the guy who …”
“Yup.”
“That house is still standing out on Violin Road,” Terry mused. “I was only eight when the murders happened, but I remember. They say it’s haunted.”
“Of course they do. It might even be true. But his comic Birdland was brilliant, right up there with Crumb and—”
“Didn’t he leave one of his kids alive?”
Kinsey served Terry a steaming bowl of noodle soup. “Yes, he left a kid. A five-year-old son, I believe. And no, I don’t know what ever happened to him.”
“I bet he was fucked up real good,” said Terry, slurping thoughtfully.
“Excuse me. Could I get a bowl of that soup?” said a quiet voice from the end of the bar.
Kinsey turned. Neither he nor Terry had noticed the boy before; the bar was crowded and the kid fit right in, tall and slender, plain black T-shirt tucked into black jeans, wavy ginger-blond hair grown long and pulled back in a ponytail from a bony, almost delicate face. A battered gray backpack was slung over his shoulder. He looked about twenty and carried himself like someone maybe even younger, unsure of his welcome and not particularly wanting to be noticed.
But his eyes were arresting: a transparent, icy blue, large and round, irises rimmed with a thin line of black. They seemed enormous in the thin face. Waif-eyes, thought Kinsey; hunger-eyes.
“You new in town?” Terry asked through a mouthful of noodles.
The boy nodded. “I came in on the bus about an hour ago.”
“That’s new, all right.” Terry offered his hand. The boy looked confused for a moment, then reached out and shook. “I’m Terry Buckett. I run the record store here, in case you need any sounds. Everything from Nine Inch Nails to Hank Williams.”
“Hank Williams, Senior,” Kinsey interjected.
“Senior, absolutely. For Bocephus you have to drive to Corinth—he’s a little too ail-American for us. Who’re you?”
“Trevor Black. I usually listen to jazz.”
“Got some of that too.” Terry grinned at the boy. After a moment’s hesitation, the boy smiled tentatively back. Terry’s friendliness was hard to resist; he would keep talking until a person starting answering, even if it was just to shut him up.
Kinsey set a bowl of soup in front of Trevor Black—the name seemed vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t think why—and collected the boy’s dollar. “I usually buy new customers a beer. If you’re under twenty-one, I’ll buy you a Coke.”
Trevor tucked a neat bundle of noodles into his mouth. “I’m twenty-five. But I don’t drink. I’ll take a Coke.” He chewed the noodles, then frowned. “This tastes just like Oodles of Noodles.”
Terry snorted. “Kinsey practices what you call ‘found cuisine.’ ”
“The broth is homemade,” Kinsey said coolly. “Would you like your dollar back? Either of you?”
Terry just waved an impatient hand. Trevor seemed to consider it for a moment, then shook his head. “No. This is fine.”
“So glad it meets with your approval,” Kinsey muttered, turning away to get the kid’s Coke. Behind him he heard Terry snort again. Kinsey closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. It was going to be a long night.
An hour later Gumbo was churning away onstage, Trevor Black was still perched on his stool nursing his third Coke, and the bar was a scene of utter chaos.
Kinsey had gotten a local kid called Robo to collect money at the door. Robo, at eighteen, was well on his way to becoming Missing Mile’s resident stewbum—he got his nickname from the bottles of Robitussin he shoplifted from the drugstore—but Kinsey figured he was just capable of counting dollars, stamping hands, and managing not to pocket any of the band’s proceeds as long as Kinsey slipped him a couple of beers during the show.
The club was packed. Terry and R.J. Miller, Gumbo’s bass player, had sat in with Lost Souls? a number of times and were already known as solid players. The guitarist was a glam-rock dynamo, a kid named Calvin who in fact bore a strong resemblance to the Calvin of comic strip fame, but punked out and tarted up considerably. Gumbo served up a foot-stomping set, hot as Tabasco, intoxicating as Dixie beer.
Since the band started, Kinsey had been drawing constant cups of draft, popping endless bottletops. Just before eleven the keg of Bud ran dry. Kinsey ducked into the back room and walked a new one onto the dolly. The kegs were heavy and awkward, and when he was in a hurry he usually managed to roll them off the dolly and right onto his toes.
“Shit!” he said loudly as this very thing happened. As he jerked his foot away, the keg teetered and threatened to tip. Kinsey grabbed at it. If it went over, the beer inside would foam unmercifully. Customers were lined up three deep at the bar, waiting to be served, and last call was just an hour away. Silently he cursed the treacherous Rima, wishing he had busted her after all, if only for the cheap satisfaction it would give him right now.
Then suddenly someone was beside him, wrestling with the icy keg, pushing Kinsey toward the taps, the cooler, the impatient mass of drinkers. “Go wait on them—I’ll hook it u
p. I know how.” Skinny arms wrapped around the keg, heaving it into place; deft long-fingered hands were already tapping the valve. Trevor Black. Kinsey wondered if the kid really was twenty-five. He still looked more like nineteen, and the Yew could get busted if an underage person was caught serving beer. Kinsey shrugged and put it out of his mind. Taking the risk was better than losing business.
Fifteen minutes or so into the rush, Kinsey could tell Trevor had done this kind of work before. He was quick to figure out where everything was; he was able to duck and dodge around Kinsey without getting in his way. Since he didn’t know the prices, he just served drinks as fast as he could and left the register to Kinsey. Dollar bills flew into Kinsey’s hands. The tip jar jangled with change. At last the flood of customers flowed to a trickle, then stopped altogether: everyone was drunk and dancing, getting into Gumbo.
Kinsey went up front with a round of Natty Bohos for the band. Terry flashed him a big smile and did a little flourish on the drums. The club was hot and steamy, smelling of sweat and beer and clove smoke; the faces of the dancing kids were slick with light, lost in musical rapture.
When Kinsey made his way back through the crowd, Trevor was leaning against the cooler drinking another Coke. His smile was tentative, barely a flicker. “Was that okay? To just jump in like that?”
“Absolutely not. You’re fired.” They stared at each other for a moment; then Kinsey’s mouth twitched, and all at once both were laughing. “Seriously, do you want a job? You can keep all tonight’s tips, and I’ll start you at four-fifty an hour.”
Trevor shrugged. “I have stuff to do in Missing Mile—I don’t need a job right away. And I’m not really a bartender. I’ve just filled in for one a couple of times.”
Kinsey raised an eyebrow. “You could’ve fooled me. Well, you can fill in some here if you want. Pick up a shift every week or so.”
Trevor stared at the floor. “Maybe. It depends.”
Kinsey decided not to ask what it depended on. He seemed to have wrecked the moment of camaraderie already. Trevor was an odd bird, his conversation seeded with chill winds and ice pockets. Kinsey searched for a neutral topic to dissipate the tension. “So, if you’re not a bartender by profession, what is it you do?”
Trevor kept looking at the floor, scuffed the toe of a ratty black sneaker over the worn boards. “I draw comics.”
Kinsey had thought the name was familiar. “Trevor Black … Didn’t you have a page in Drawn and Quarterly?” This was an underground comics magazine featuring some of the newest, most bizarre talent around.
Trevor looked surprised, then a little disconcerted, but he nodded. “Yes. That was me.”
“It was a good strip. You know, it made me think of—”
A second wave of beer drinkers descended upon the bar clamoring for Natty Bohos. Trevor turned away to serve them so quickly that Kinsey wondered whether he was glad to get off the subject. As Kinsey rang up their purchases, his mind lingered on the comic. It had been an odd, brief tale, an epiphany of sorts, something about a flock of birds rising from a man’s charred corpse like a feathered, jewel-eyed soul. Kinsey had been about to say how much the comic’s style had reminded him of the late Robert McGee, the sharp inking and clean, graceful lines. He was sure Trevor had read Birdland. Possibly he knew McGee had died here. Kinsey might even tell him about the time he’d fixed the McGees’ car, just before the tragedy.
But the band was winding down. The rush went on until last call, and then it was closing time, money to count, spills to wipe up, hundreds of cups, cans, bottles to find and empty and sort for tomorrow’s recycling pickup. By the time they finished it was after three.
Kinsey popped a beer, then picked out a tape and stuck it in the little cassette player behind the bar. Miles Davis, something from the fifties. The sound of the trumpet filled the room, easy and slow, smooth as eggnog spiked with whiskey. Trevor put his head down on the bar. Kinsey leaned against the register and closed his eyes.
The music ended and an announcer’s voice came on, part of the tape, which had been recorded live on Fifty-second Street in the golden bebop days. The voice was deep, white, and juicy, and somehow seemed a distilled essence of its time; you could easily picture the guy in his sharp suit with its deep-cut lapels, hair slicked back, cool ofay cat. “Well! Yeah! Miiiiles Davis. Remember, you still have plenty of time to get to Birdland—”
Kinsey heard a strangled sob. He opened his eyes and stared at Trevor, who was rolling his head back and forth on the bar, his hands clawing at the scarred wood. His lips were pulled back over his teeth, and tears poured from his eyes. Kinsey could actually see them forming salty little pools on the bar’s varnished surface. He moved toward the boy. “Hey, Trevor? What—”
“I don’t have plenty of time to get to Birdland!” Trevor cried. His voice sounded as if it were being pulled out of him, dragged over hot coals and rusty nails, tortured out of his throat. “I don’t have any time at all—and I’m scared—”
“Birdland?” Kinsey said softly.
Trevor caught the puzzled inflection. He looked up at Kinsey, the pale flesh of his eyelids swollen, his clear eyes naked and wet and terrified. And suddenly Kinsey knew that face: a five-year-old boy, in bad need of a haircut by some standards, too thin and hollow-eyed by any, standing on the side of a country road staring first at his mother, then at his father.
“Trevor McGee,” said Kinsey.
“Oh, goddamn …” Miserably, Trevor nodded. Then he was sobbing again. Kinsey went around the bar, put a cautious hand on the boy’s trembling shoulder, felt the muscles bunch up and flinch away from his palm.
“Don’t touch me!”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“No, I just can’t—”
They stared helplessly at each other. Trevor’s face was flushed, slick with tears. Everything in the way he held himself—arms crossed over his chest, shoulders hunched—screamed Don’t touch me as loudly as Trevor’s mouth had done. But his eyes were five years old again, and begged Hold me. Hold me. Help me.
Trevor might hate him, might even think Kinsey was hitting on him, but that was just too bad. Kinsey could not ignore such pain. “I remember you,” he said. “I was the mechanic who fixed your parents’ car. I wanted to help you then, and I want to help you now.” Before Trevor could flinch again, Kinsey wrapped his long arms around the boy and held on tight.
He felt Trevor’s body go absolutely rigid, felt him try to pull away. If he had kept trying, Kinsey would have let him go. But after a few seconds of struggle Trevor sagged against Kinsey’s chest.
“I remember you too,” he said. “You recognized my dad … but he was ashamed of himself … ashamed of us …”
“You poor child,” Kinsey whispered, “you poor, poor child.” The thin body was all sharp angles, all elbows and shoulder blades; it felt as fragile against him as that of a wounded bird. Kinsey imagined Trevor’s fear unfolding like treacherous wings to carry him back to that house, back to the strange and painful year 1972, to the death he no doubt thought he had deserved.
At last the crying faded to an occasional long tremor that jerked through the boy like an electric current. He had been leaning hard against Kinsey, his sharp chin digging into Kinsey’s shoulder. Now he pulled away and slumped on the bar stool, swiping at his face. Kinsey decided not to give him time to be embarrassed. “Let’s go.”
Trevor gave him a half-wary, half-questioning look.
“You shouldn’t be by yourself tonight,” Kinsey told him. “You’re coming home with me.”
He expected argument, maybe refusal, and he was prepared to push the issue. But if anything, Trevor looked relieved. Kinsey wondered whether the boy had been planning to hike out to Violin Road, to sleep in that bad memory of a house. The house of Trevor McGee’s thwarted doom and, perhaps, of Trevor Black’s impending destiny.
Trevor slung his backpack over his shoulder, turned off the bar lights, and followed Kinsey out of the club, down
the bad end of Firehouse Street, into the silent silver-lit night.
Four rings. Zach counted them with his teeth gritted, his free hand viciously shredding a fundamentalist tract he’d picked up somewhere, Tomb of the Unborn.
Then the gentle click of a lifted receiver, muted Dixieland jazz playing in the background. “Hi, this is Eddy Sung.”
“EDDY FOR CHRISSAKE YOU GOT TO HELP ME I GOT TO GET OUT OF—”
The Dixieland changed abruptly to grinding industrial hardcore. “I’m sorry I’m not here, but if you leave your number I’ll call you back as soon—”
“AWWWW SHIT, GODDAMMIT, EDDY, PLEASE BE THERE!!! PLEASE PICK UP!!!”
A squealing snatch of violins; then Eddy’s answering machine beeped in his ear. Zach took a deep sobbing breath, resisted the urge to slam his own phone into the cradle hard enough to crack its casing, and tried to speak calmly. “Ed—I’m in trouble. You always said you coveted my apartment, well, call me soon enough and you might get the goddamn thing.”
He hung up, spun aimlessly in the middle of the room for several moments. The computer screen caught his eye, still pulsing like some obscene digital orifice. Yes, you could fall headlong into that screen, that alternate reality like a cradling mouth or womb, never coming up for air, never realizing that so slowly, so smoothly you took no notice, it was chewing and digesting you …
No. Blaming the computer for his troubles, that was like a terminal lung cancer victim blaming a pack of cigarettes or, worse, his faithful old Zippo. It was a tool and he had chosen to use it. His troubles were with They whose clammy suckered tentacle grasped the other end of that tool. William Burroughs had advised him to know what was on the end of his fork, but had he listened? Of course not—and now the dirty tines were on the verge of impaling his tongue.
But in that direction madness lay.
He leaned against the doorjamb that led into the bathroom—with its polished sea-green tiles and its skylight in the ceiling high above the tub, taking a shower here was like standing beneath a sunlit waterfall, and where would he ever find such a place again? A green waterfall of a bathroom—an apartment with all his things in it, a block from the wondrous bazaar that sold everything he needed, two blocks from the bank of the Mississippi that coursed through the city like a throbbing brown artery?