A Song for a New Day

by Sarah Pinsker

  “Are you really supposed to have a say in my care?” she asked, as if it had been her plan to go to the hospital.

  “No. I’m not telling you what to do. I’m just saying less paperwork, less chance of your pills getting lost, less delay in getting you out the door after you’re arraigned. Speaking of which, are you ready to go?”

  She wasn’t, but she supposed that didn’t really matter.

  * * *

  —

  Lockup hadn’t been on the list of things Rosemary had been dying to experience in her travels, and afterward it made her list of things she’d prefer not to experience again. Jails had their own exceptions to congregation laws, with the result that she spent the night with thirty other women in a cell that wasn’t nearly large enough for thirty women standing, let alone sitting or trying to close their eyes. Only three others looked like they might’ve been at the warehouse concert, and she was glad North Carolina had recently done away with cash bail, according to the officer who’d done her intake, so she wouldn’t have to worry if they had the money to get themselves out; it was her fault they were there. When Management had shown all that concern about getting Legal involved after the raid in Baltimore, it had been only for her and Luce, not for anyone else who got caught up in their net. She hadn’t even considered that before.

  She carved a few inches out for herself on the questionable cement floor and waited, which was an interesting exercise in itself. She had no idea how to keep her mind occupied with no Hoodie, no phone, no job, no music, no chores. Her foot throbbed, and she tried to get someone to bring her ice, but the request was ignored. Nothing to do but wait and hold on to her space and second-guess her life decisions.

  Waking disoriented her; she hadn’t planned on falling asleep. She started to stand up before her foot reminded her to stay on the floor a little longer. Breakfast was a square eggish patty on square white bread, which she gave to another woman who looked hungrier than she was.

  They’d done away with cash bond, but left a complicated recognizance system. The district court commissioner didn’t like that she had no personal ties in the state. He asked her not to leave the city until her court date; she successfully argued that her job demanded travel, and the restriction was amended to staying in state. It helped that she had nothing on her record, and that the charges were only congregation and trespassing, both level-three misdemeanors; apparently the cop had only said resisting arrest to scare her. Legal would have gotten her out faster, but she hadn’t wanted them to know she had stayed. It was possible they knew already, if they tracked her company Hoodie even when she was on vacation. She still wanted to pretend they wouldn’t do that.

  So she was stuck in North Carolina for the time being. On vacation as far as the company was concerned, which was good, because she was still weighing out the ramifications of what she’d done. She had no way of knowing if anyone had gotten hurt, if anyone had picked up weightier charges, if Tomás would get in trouble—at least he was only seventeen—or his mother had lost her building. Tomás had promised she had others; he’d liked the subterfuge. Rosemary still couldn’t tell if she had the stomach for this, though it still felt better than the alternative. The waste she’d laid to Luce’s life and the scene she’d built so carefully.

  She hobbled back to her room. Arranged to have her pills droned in. Realized she had no ice in her tiny fridge’s tinier freezer, and added a chemical ice pack to her Superwally order. What she wanted to do was go see if Sadie was at work, but that would involve walking. She collapsed on her bed and set her mind to work on a question that had been nagging her: Why was the video labeled “Harriet”?

  The video she watched didn’t provide the answer, but one of the others did. From that drone’s angle, a large “Harriet” sticker was visible on Luce’s guitar case, and after much discussion, the uploaders had decided that was her name. None of them connected her with Luce Cannon, one-hit wonder, and if anyone from Baltimore was watching, they weren’t spilling. It added to the mystery. Between all of the versions, Rosemary counted over three million views. Three million people watching in amusement, or three million people taking it to heart, or some lower number of viewers watching it on repeat as she had done? She had no way of knowing. All she knew was she needed to do something to help; to answer the call to action.

  She had one tiny grain of power: recommending bands to SHL. Two if you counted the trick she’d pulled on the company here. Was there any medium in which she could follow Luce’s instructions? A thing she burned to do? More than anything, she wanted to be a conduit for Luce’s message, to shout it from the rooftops in a way that it might be heard. Maybe, maybe she had a way.

  * * *

  —

  It started with a twofold apology.

  “Baltimore Homelessness Prevention Services, this is Joni speaking.”

  “Don’t hang up. I’m sorry to call you at work.”

  “Sorry? Who is this?”

  “Joni, this is Rosemary. Please don’t hang up.”

  There was a sigh on the other end, but the call didn’t disconnect. Rosemary took that as a positive sign.

  “If you think the statute of limitations on my anger has expired, you’re wrong.”

  Or not. “Look, you don’t have to accept my apology. I don’t think I would, either, under the circumstances. I’m calling because there’s a thing I want to do for Luce, but I need to find her to do it.”

  “I don’t know where she is. She left town right after you killed her space.”

  “I know. I was hoping you’d have a way of reaching her. Somebody has to, right? Somebody knows where to reach her if something happens with the 2020?”

  “There’s a lawyer,” Joni admitted.

  “So you could get the lawyer to pass a message for me?”

  “I could, but I still don’t know why I would. What could you possibly offer her that she hasn’t already turned down?”

  “A way to do it without selling out. A platform. Have you seen her vid at Graceland?”

  “Her what?”

  “I’ll send you a link. Borrow a Hoodie and check it out, and then call me back if you’re willing to help me reach her. And again, I can’t even tell you how sorry I am for what I did. You said I couldn’t fix it, and I can’t, but maybe I can make something else happen. Watch and call me back if you’re willing to let me try.”

  Rosemary hung up. She still wanted Joni to like her again, to forgive her, but she’d settle for a return call, for now.

  35

  LUCE

  Crying in the Wilderness

  Nobody answered the door at the Athens venue and Silva couldn’t get ahold of his friend who’d gotten us the gig. We’d planned on splurging on motel rooms, but the motels we found said we had to have booked in advance to clear their background checks. We ended up spending the night in the van, which we figured we’d be doing more of in the future, so we might as well get used to it. In Dahlonega we played to a cold and empty campground, where at least the owners were enthusiastic; they fed us and let us stay for free.

  After those shows, we headed back to Nashville for a couple of weeks while Silva lined up some Tennessee shows. The Knoxville mansion show went well, except that the PA picked up police radio and broadcast it through every silence between songs. They said it was a bug and a feature, an annoyance that kept them apprised if the cops were headed their way. I didn’t think they had that much to worry about in any case; they were obviously rich enough to buy their way out of any trouble.

  A pounding rain caught us as we left Knoxville, and continued into the mountains. It thankfully put a stop to our random police encounters; they didn’t want to stand around getting wet while they asked us questions about nothing, I guessed. I’d bought new tires for the van, and they seemed grippy enough, but it made me wonder where we should be when winter hit. Not these mountains. Not up north.
r />   After all the back rooms and basements, I would’ve thought I’d seen the worst venues the country had to offer. I’d never played this particular barn, though, and this particular barn smelled like the cows had only recently vacated, and left a present on their way out the door. It was a modern milk cow shed, with rows of pumps and gutters running full with rain and manure. How could they not even have bothered to flush them out when guests were coming? I couldn’t imagine an audience would want to sit there to listen any more than I wanted to smell that while I played. Its only selling point was a roof.

  “Really?” I asked Silva.

  “A gig is a gig, right?”

  I sighed and followed him, choosing my steps with care. We walked out the other end of the barn and down a set of limestone steps set onto a hill, slippery even with the single galvanized pipe railing. I picked my way carefully behind Silva, with Marcia behind me. The gig bag on my shoulder was waterproof, and so was my amp’s case, but it was going to be a long way down wheeling that heavy thing, not to mention Silva’s amp, which did not have a case. Also not to mention that it would be an even longer trip back up if it was still raining. Still thinking, my head down, hood up to keep the water off my face, I ran straight into Silva when he stopped.

  “Ta-da,” he said.

  I’d been concentrating so hard on the footing, I hadn’t noticed we’d arrived at another building. Looking down, the ground still looked the same, grass clinging for purchase as its substrate became mud. We stepped into an older barn, though, or a new barn designed to look like an old barn, since this one didn’t smell like cows. The tin roof amplified the rain to a near deafening volume, but there were no leaks. Fall dampness pervaded everything—rain was the overwhelming scent now—but the metal folding chairs laid out in neat rows were dry. So was the stage, an honest-to-goodness raised stage at the far end of the building. Lights hung from each support beam, and a couple of high-end speakers pointed out toward the audience seating.

  “It’s a real venue.” I took it all in. “You were messing with me?”

  Silva grinned.

  “A real venue in a cow pasture,” Marcia said. “How are we supposed to get my drums down here? Or your amps?”

  Silva was still smiling. “There’s a driveway that leads down to the side door. I thought it would be more fun to bring you down this way.”

  Marcia leaned against a post and examined the muck on her boots. “You mean we didn’t have to walk down the Staircase of Doom? Or get soaked?”

  “I’m still stuck on you making us think we were going to play in that cow palace. I’m not sure we’re at the point in our relationship where you can drag me like that. You can bring the van down. I’m not going out in that monsoon again.” I tossed the key at him and he snatched it out of the air.

  “Fine, fine. It was worth it.” He disappeared into the rain.

  I shook my head again. I wasn’t really annoyed; more relieved, really. Relieved I hadn’t sunken to playing for a mooing audience. Relieved we didn’t have to breathe cow for two hours. Underneath that, a little pleased to have people back in my life who felt comfortable enough to prank me. Nobody would go to that trouble if they didn’t care.

  “You must be Eric Silva’s new band,” somebody called across the room. An older man, in his sixties maybe, wearing jeans and a Hawaiian shirt.

  “Yep,” I said.

  “Welcome to Music City. Have you played here before?”

  “Years ago, with a different band.”

  “Glad to have you back, then. I’m Dave.”

  “Is this your place?”

  “Yeah. The dairy is my cousin’s, but he let me build this place. It looks like a barn to any drone passing overhead, and it’s too far out in the country for anyone to complain about noise.”

  In the last few months’ travels, I’d discovered that people had endless creativity when it came to carving out space for music. I told him about the 2020; he frowned sympathetically.

  Silva backed the van up to the side door, and we went to drag the gear inside. The soundcheck went quickly and proved Dave a good engineer. After that, there was nothing to do but wait to see if anyone showed up in the rain.

  I was curious to see who our audience would be. In this age of flying under the radar, it was hard to tell who to expect. The venues had their own methods of spreading the word, their own local networks. In several places, I’d played to only a handful of listeners, but I didn’t mind. I’d play to whoever wanted to listen.

  People began trickling in. This audience fell on the older age of the spectrum, like the antique store had. There were probably twenty of them visible from the brightly lit stage as we picked up our instruments to play. Silva had said to expect a musician’s crowd, and we’d rehearsed based on that knowledge.

  I was so caught up in the joy of playing again that it took me a few songs to notice that the audience wasn’t really responding. A smattering of applause, but it felt polite. Obligatory. I tried not to let it bring me down. The rain added a cool ambience, and the barn was cozy and dry. We sounded good. Don’t take it personally.

  Dave had said to play for an hour, but by thirty minutes I felt like we’d overstayed our welcome. Metal folding chairs become instruments themselves when people start shifting in them. I couldn’t figure out why they were bored.

  “Should we cut it short?” I whispered to Silva between songs. “I don’t think they’re into us.”

  “Finish the set. They paid, so we should play. And Dave’s enjoying himself, and it’s his place. Play to him.”

  It was an odd feeling. I tried to put myself fully in the music, as I usually did, but there was a part of me observing us critically. We weren’t doing anything wrong; it just wasn’t our night. Only toward the end did I start to feel like there was somebody out there for us. The stage lights were bright enough that we couldn’t see into the crowd, but for the last three songs one person made up for the others with their enthusiasm. It cheered me, and gave me the energy to finish on a high note.

  There was no other band following us, so we didn’t need to hurry to strike our gear. I hopped down from the stage to hang out by the merchandise table, which looked lonely in the corner. Nobody headed that way. Instead, they were rearranging the chairs into a circle. Chatting, then sitting down again, pulling cases out from under their seats. It suddenly became clear.

  I walked back to where Silva and Dave chatted. “What kind of music do you usually have here?”

  “Old-time and blues.”

  So that was the problem. They’d been polite, but we were just the opening act for a jam session. They wanted to play, not to listen. They probably weren’t even into the kind of music we were playing. Oh, well. A practice in front of people wasn’t a bad thing. A fiddle tune picked up, and I turned to listen.

  They were excellent musicians, and their instruments filled the room in a way that felt organic.

  I reminded myself that I needed to try to win every crowd, but I wasn’t always going to succeed.

  We packed our gear into the van, careful to be quiet so we didn’t disturb the musicians, though they didn’t look like anything would distract them. When our instruments were stashed, we went back in to graze at the potluck table. I filled my plate and leaned against a beam to listen while I ate.

  Someone approached from the direction of the music.

  “Hey,” said Rosemary. “I missed most of your set trying to find this place, but you sounded great. I don’t know why they weren’t into you.”

  “It happens.”

  She shrugged and smiled. “I wasn’t too obnoxious, was I?”

  “No—I guess I appreciated someone cheering for us. Um, what are you doing here?”

  “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for months. Nobody would give me your phone number, which I suppose is fair, but I finally convinced Joni to
give me your lawyer friend’s contact info, and he said he wouldn’t give me a way to reach you, either, but he’d tell me where you were playing, on the condition that if I went to see you I couldn’t bring any device with me—I’m noncomm for the night.”

  My lip twitched at her use of the phrase; it sounded too casual from the person whose Hoodie recording had killed my venue. She must’ve mistaken it for a different objection, because she rushed to add, “Sorry. I know noncomm is a philosophy, and I know I’m basically the antithesis. I shouldn’t have said that. I meant my Hoodie and my phone are both back at my place. No chance I’ll lead anyone here other than the people I came with. I’m still horrified that I did that, even accidentally.”

  It still hurt too much to talk about the 2020. “How did you get here? Don’t you need a device to operate most cars these days?” I’d only recently learned that, riding around Nashville in Marcia’s little self-driving Chauffeur.

  She waved in the direction of the musicians. “My friends Nolan and Sadie brought me. Nolan has a car, and he wasn’t hard to convince after I found out there’d be a jam.”

  We both watched the fiddlers through their next song.

  “So, Rosemary, are you still working for them?” I didn’t even want to invoke the name, lest I bring them down upon this lovely space.

  “Yeah, but that’s what I wanted to talk—”

  “You didn’t drive all the way out here to convince me to play for those bastards. Tell me you didn’t.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  I turned my attention to the casserole on my plate. “I’m going to eat my dinner now. Thanks for coming. Have a good drive back.”

  “I didn’t come out here to convince you to play for them.”

  “‘For them’ or ‘for us’? You can’t distance yourself if you’re still working for them after what you did.”