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For me, because I needed to write this.
For you, if any part of this book helps you feel a little more understood.
For my family of friends, who have jump-started my heart and kept it running.
I love you.
But I know that someday,
someday, I’ll offer up
a song I was made to play…
—Chris Pureka, Compass Rose
— Part One —
— Chapter 1 —
November 1994
Little River, NY
I’m standing at the end of my driveway in the dark, watching Mrs. Varnick’s trailer, waiting for her lights to go out, getting really pissed off. I’ve been watching for at least a week and her lights went out at eight thirty every other night. She must have picked up a clear signal on reruns of Lawrence Welk or Hee Haw with her rabbit ears, because it’s a quarter to nine and she’s still plopped in her BarcaLounger in the living room with the TV flickering and every light in the house blazing like she owns the damn electric company.
I decide I’ll wait until nine and then go for it, because she’s deafer than Mozart or Beethoven or whoever the deaf one is, and she probably has the TV cranked up anyway. But it’s freezing, my legs are bare under my skirt, and doing my little so fucking cold jig isn’t getting my blood pumping anymore. So I tell myself Mrs. Varnick must have fallen asleep in her chair. The woman eats dinner at four in the afternoon. She’s got to be snoring away, dreaming about Lawrence and his powder blue tuxedo shirts by now.
Grabbing my guitar, I move in, walking soft, keeping low. The car isn’t locked, but she wasn’t kind enough to leave the keys.
I squeeze my Ren & Stimpy keychain flashlight between my teeth to keep it lit and aimed at the spot my instructions refer to as the “ignition tumbler.” I don’t know why they couldn’t just say “place where the key goes.” Thank goodness I read through the instructions in the library when I copied them. I had to look up most of the terms. So I take my dad’s screwdriver and shove it between the metal ignition tumbler and the plastic of whatever the place underneath it is called. I can’t get the tumbler part to come out and I have to keep prying at it around the edges the way you open up a paint can, all the while looking up to check on Mrs. Varnick every few seconds.
Finally, it pops. I shove the screwdriver into what I assume is the ignition switch, hold my breath, and turn. The car hiccups. I let it go. If I can’t make this work, I’m screwed. I promised myself I wouldn’t get into wire stripping and removing dashboard panels. It’s all too complicated and I have to be able to put the car back like nothing happened. I wiggle the screwdriver. Try again. This time the engine turns and the car starts. Headlights off, I back out of Mrs. Varnick’s driveway, watching her living room window carefully. She doesn’t move.
* * *
By the time I pull into the parking lot of the Blue Moon Cafe, it’s a quarter to ten, and everything started at nine. I run in, guitar case banging against my leg. The tarnished brass clips and peeling bumper stickers snag the top layer of my skirt. Some guy in a leather vest is on stage singing that song about cats in cradles. His voice is nasal. When he breathes, you can hear his saliva.
The place is packed. I stand in the back and look around, trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do—do I get up on stage after that guy is done?—when this girl wearing a knit cap and fingerless gloves hands me a clipboard.
“Sign up here.” She gives me a pen. Her eyelashes are so pale they’re almost white. “We’re supposed to cut the list off at nine thirty, but you’re close enough,” she says, sighing like she’s bored with absolutely everything. “Bring it to me when you’re done.” She points to where she’ll be in the corner of the room.
There are twelve names on the list already, first five crossed out. I lean against the wall so I can balance the board on my knee. The pen barely writes, and it takes forever to fill out April, Little River in the name and hometown boxes, scribbling over each letter to carve an indent into the paper. I don’t put my last name, even though everyone before me has. Sawicki doesn’t have that show biz ring. All the other performers are from Buffalo or Hamburg or East Aurora. I should’ve at least said I was from Cattaraugus, someplace big enough to have its own post office. If the pen worked, I’d scribble over my line and start again.
I don’t have titles for my songs. I try to think of something to call them, but as I’m staring out at the room, running through the lyrics to the first one in my head, I notice that there are a lot of people. Maybe fifty. My legs are wobbly. I want to sit down. I write untitled in both of the song spaces and check a box that says original, leaving the box for cover empty.
When I walk over to give the board back, my stomach flops like a tadpole drowning in air, making me wish I hadn’t eaten so many Pop-Tarts for dinner. The eyelash girl is perched on a stool, hunched over a paperback she’s holding very close to her face. It’s so dark I don’t know how she can even see the words. She must be one of those people who can read no matter what’s going on, because I stand next to her and hold the sign-up sheet out for a whole minute before she realizes I’m there.
“Thanks,” she says, dropping the book in her lap without marking her place. She takes the clipboard back. I hope she doesn’t notice the way my hands shake. “Have a seat. It’ll be a while.” She looks out at the audience—little cafe tables, four chairs around each one. There’s like eight tables out there and every chair is filled. I figure I’ll just sit on the floor against the wall, but Eyelash Girl stands up on the middle rung of her stool. “There,” she points to a table up front, “there’s a seat right there.” She nods at me, waving her finger toward the chair. She expects me to take that seat and I can’t think of an excuse.
I weave my way around the tables, knocking my guitar case against knees and chair backs, whispering sorrys as I go. Cat’s Cradle guy finishes. Everyone applauds politely. He takes a breath we all can hear and says, “Here’s a little ditty I think you guys know.” His first few strums are sour but familiar.
I try to make eye contact with the guy sitting next to the empty chair. He’s too busy talking to the other people at the table to notice me, so I tap the chair leg with my boot. Nothing. I put my guitar case down and fumble with one of the clips, catching his glance in the corner of my eye. But when I look up, he’s back to talking, so I have to sit down and lean over to tap him on the shoulder to ask if it’s okay if I sit. I feel like an ass, since I’m already sitting, but he says, “No problem,” and offers his hand. “Jim.”
“April,” I say, meeting his grip firmly, the way my father taught me—a good “seal the deal” shake. I pull away to position the guitar between my legs so no one can take it. Right before the chorus I realize the guy on stage is trying to play Free Bird. When I look up to check Jim’s reaction to the acoustic crucifixion of Lynyrd Skynyrd, he’s already turned around, busy talking to the woman sitting next to him. His hair is a brown horseshoe with wiry strands spread across the shiny skin in the middle of his head. The remaining total comes together in a long skinny ponytail wrapped in a plain rubber band at the base of his neck. The woman he’s talking to has grey hair like steel wool, braided and not even fastened at the ends, left to unravel over time. She looks like Mothe
r Nature, and the man on the other side of her could be King Neptune with his long white beard and tattered navy cap. They must have come here together and I’m cutting in on their party of three.
I wish, just a little bit, I’d come with someone. I told Matty I had to study for math. I don’t want him to see me play until I’m sure I’m not going to get up there and choke.
“I’ll help you study,” he said, giving me the toothy grin that usually gets him everything he wants.
“We never study when we study,” I told him. “I’m totally failing.”
His eyes flashed with hurt when I sent him away, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what his face would look like if I got on stage and my voice croaked and my fingers wouldn’t move.
I wish I’d brought my dad, but he’s always with Irene and the boy now. It’s his guitar anyway. “Your inheritance,” he said when he handed it to me on my sixteenth birthday. “Music is in your blood, Ape.” I know really he forgot it was my birthday, but I took it just the same. I should have told him about this. Made him drive me. When it’s my turn to go on stage he could whistle with his fingers in his mouth like he used to at my elementary school plays. But I’m sure the boy is busy wetting the bed or picking his nose and Dad and Irene have to be there to watch.
People applaud again. That guy walks off stage. I clap because he’s leaving, and I wonder if that’s why everyone else is clapping too.
Jim turns to me and says, “This is Wisteria and her life partner Efrem.” He leans toward Mother Nature and King Neptune and says, “April,” pointing at me. They wave and I wave back. Wisteria’s cheeks dimple like crab apples when she smiles, and Efrem’s eyes are crinkly and kind.
Before anyone can say anything else, this skinny scarecrow man in a worn out brown fedora gets on stage and reads off the clipboard. His voice is low and whispery. “Next up, Luke Barstoldt from Cheektowaga is here to sing Sweet Baby James, by James Taylor, and Teach Your Children, by Crosby, Stills and Nash, or was that when they were Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, I can never remember.” He shifts around awkwardly, holding his hands out at his sides like a bad stand-up comedian. “Geez, isn’t anyone playing originals?” He looks at the audience like he’s waiting for a response, but everyone is dead silent. “Well, in any case, let’s give it up for Luke.”
I am proud while we all applaud, because I wrote both the songs I’m going to play—one about losing my virginity to Matty, and the other about my father and Irene and the boy—but Luke Barstoldt quickly snuffs out my smug when he starts playing and it sounds like James Taylor himself has blessed the audience with his presence. He has long skeleton hands and his fingers move fast even though everything else about him is slow and soulful.
Wisteria and Efrem are next. They argue with the scarecrow man about their song choice. Scarecrow says because of its length, Canadian Railroad Trilogy should count as both their songs, but they say they should get to play two separate songs. I think they’re all joking, but Efrem gets red-faced. He covers the microphone with his hand and mutters something to Scarecrow. Scarecrow concedes, throwing his arms in the air and walking off stage without introducing them.
Efrem plays ukulele and Wisteria bangs a tambourine against her round butt. She’s a shrill soprano, but his voice is gravel. They sing into the same mic even though there are two on stage. He’s a half beat behind her on the lyrics.
“These guys are here every week,” Jim says, resting his arm on the back of my chair, “and they never get any better.”
I smile and hunch forward, so my back doesn’t touch his arm. “When are you up?” I ask.
“Oh, I’m not playing. I mean, I do play, but not here.”
I don’t know if I’m supposed to ask more or let it go. I let it go. It’s freezing. I pump my hands, trying to trick feeling back into my fingers. “Cold in here.”
“Yeah,” Jim says. “Here’s the trick.” He raises his hand. Eyelash Girl must have looked up from her book at just the right time. She comes over with a small pad of paper and a pen, ready to take an order.
“I’m fine,” I say, because I only have a handful of coins I swiped from the ashtray in Mrs. Varnick’s car.
Jim doesn’t hear me. “Could we have a hot water for her, and a refresh on mine,” he asks.
Eyelash Girl gives him a dirty look and clears his mug.
“This will help,” he says. “Hold it or drink it. Either way. And they can’t charge you for hot water.”
When Eyelash Girl comes back with our mugs, I make a point of saying thank you as sweetly as I can. She gives me a dirty look too, and I decide I will leave her all of Mrs. Varnick’s change as an apology.
I cup my hands around the mug and hold it up to my face, breathing the steam into my lungs, like cigarette smoke, only clean.
“Better?” Jim raises his mug in my direction.
“Much. Thanks.”
“No prob. You gotta learn the ropes. And if you know the ropes, it’s your job to teach them.”
Wisteria and Efrem finish their songs and come back to the table, flustered and blushing. Jim stands when they sit, applauding loudly. “That’s the stuff, man,” he says, and mimes tipping a hat in their direction. When he sits, he crosses his leg over his knee and rests his arm on the back of my chair again. I don’t think he’s hitting on me. I think he’s just less into personal space than I am.
A girl about my age climbs on stage. To get away from Jim’s arm, I rest my elbows on my knees like I’m going to pay super close attention. Scarecrow says, “Next up, Marion Strong singing two of her own songs. Her first is South… followed by North.” He laughs one big open-mouthed haw. “No, seriously, folks, her second song is Awakening. Ladies and germs, the lovely Marion.”
Lovely is a stretch. She looks like she didn’t even try. Stretched out sweater, baggy jeans, dirty work boots. It’s one thing to go for that whole don’t give a shit appearance when you do, but she looks like she really doesn’t give a shit.
Marion strums once and twists the knobs on her guitar. “Alright,” she says into the mic in a soft voice. She strums again. “Alright. That sounds good.” Her face cares. Her face looks like she gives a shit now. She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes halfway. “Alright, here we go.”
She doesn’t just strum out some opening chords. Her song has an intro. It’s complex fingerpicking, not just a running head start on the lyrics. Her hands move furiously up and down the neck of the guitar, and I feel like I’m watching something that’s a little too private. Then she closes her eyes and opens her mouth and her voice is bigger than the rest of her. It’s clear and arched and she’s telling this story about a lover who won’t steer his ship south for the winter. She says she’s done. She’s going to go where it’s warm, but where’s he gonna dock his boat when his sail gets caked with ice and the sea is frigid and choppy? “How will you feel when you’re cold and alone up north when everyone’s south?” she asks, and I want to answer, because I can picture him huddled by an oil lamp in the cabin of an old damp ship, a single tear running down his face. I can see he’s miserable without her and I want to tell her that. There’s metaphor or simile or some term I would know if I paid attention in English. It’s full and beautiful and her guitar sounds like rough and rolling waves. I can’t stop watching her. She ends the song with hard, rhythmic strums, holding the guitar out in front of her like she’s presenting the final reverberations to us as a gift. I strain to keep them in my ears until there’s nothing left to hear.
Her next song is even better. Loud and angry. She pulls sounds from those strings that I didn’t think were possible, like she’s playing two guitars or three. I can’t keep track of her fingers to figure out how she does it. But even if I could—I mean, it’s not like I know enough about playing to pick it up from watching someone else.
I want to hear it all, every word, every note, but I get stuck in my head. I can’t stop thinking about how I have to get on that stage and my songs don’t have similes o
r metaphors or fancy fingerpicking. I can’t stop picturing myself forgetting how to hold my guitar, opening my mouth to squawk like a ragged old crow.
All of a sudden, everyone’s clapping. Some people are even standing to applaud for Marion Strong. I clap hard and my palms sting. Marion bows her head slightly and smiles, her moon face ruddy and shining and gorgeous.
The scarecrow guy gets up on stage. I tap Jim’s shoulder. “Watch my guitar?”
He nods.
I weave through the seats and tables, trying not to look at the people. I don’t want to think about all those eyes watching me, or worse, not watching me. All those eyes looking at their neighbor, widening to say, Who does this chick think she is?
In the bathroom mirror, I stare at my own eyes. I look at them until they sting because I don’t let myself blink and it smells like someone smoked a clove in here not too long ago. When I finally do blink, my eyelashes get wet. I rip a piece of paper towel from the roll on the sink, fold the corner and brush it under my lower lashes to dry them before my mascara runs. I sort through my bag, find my eyeliner and focus everything on lining my eyes with a thin black line. I pretend I’m an ant, following the curve of my lashes, the way we learned to do line drawings in art class. Slow. Millimeters at a time, until I don’t hear the crowd and I don’t hear the music. I just hear my breath. In and out. So warm it fogs the mirror. I smudge the lines with a twisted piece of paper towel. By the time I’m done my body is loose and warm, my head floating on my neck.
I go out and take my seat, trying hard to cling to the calm. My index finger has a smudge of eyeliner on the nail. I fixate on the smudge until the next singer is done, and the next one too, and Scarecrow Man is on stage again.
“Now we have two untitled originals from April.”
My heart squeezes tight like a fist. I flip my guitar case on its back and undo the latches.
The People We Keep Page 1