by G A Chase
Though she didn’t need the reminder, she placed the three-by-five card with her set list alongside her guitar case. She needed to reduce her music to its most basic elements, and though she bristled at her lack of progress, she knew that meant sticking to other artists’ songs. Even worse than that, it meant sticking to strictly instrumental numbers. Just me and the strings.
“Classical Gas” had been the first piece she’d mastered on Cecile. She started off slowly, hoping to lose herself in the soft tones of her mellow instrument. Like an old friend serenading her, the piece formed under her fingers as it always had, but playing in public wasn’t about staying within her comfort zone. As the number picked up speed, she relied more heavily on the golden pick between her thumb and index finger. She could feel the energy of those around her funneling through her fingers to the pick, which moved at lighting speed over the strings. As with playing under the curse, the power was addictive. She transitioned to Paul Simon’s “Anji” without realizing it. By Link Wray’s “Rumble,” she had a young kid banging on a five-gallon bucket as accompaniment. She didn’t need the help, but his youthful, uninhibited energy fit in well with her strumming.
When she finally set the guitar down, the pick was blazing hot between her fingers, and Cecile’s strings looked like frayed twine. The applause was loud and heartfelt, but adulation wasn’t her goal. She had felt the crowd’s energy flowing through her like electricity through a wire. The performance had melded them to her, and as it did, she came to know each person on a level that transcended the lives they knew.
An old man with a beat-up trumpet approached her as the crowd thinned out. “Pretty good playing for a little white girl. You are the one who performed in front of Jackson Square, aren’t you? I kept expecting to see you play again. Did the man offer you fame and fortune?”
Lincoln Laroque’s help in securing Polly Urethane and the Stripper’s gig at Jazz Fest had indeed come on the heels of her solo exhibitionism.
“Something like that,” she said.
“Since you’re back here, maybe that wasn’t the success you were seeking.”
The event had shown her how a large crowd could act like jet fuel for her playing, but the barrage of emotions made it hard to define who she wanted to be behind the guitar. “Every gig is different. So long as I’m growing as an artist, I enjoy the diversity.”
He pulled out a bent-up card and handed it to her. “Come by on Friday at midnight, and give the doorman this card—if you’ve got the nerve.”
She read the heading on the tattered business card: Cutting Heads.
* * *
The warehouse on Rampart Street wasn’t in the best part of town. Kendell seldom had reason to wander beyond the Bywater, and never at night. Had it not been for the ever-present homeless population, who always had her back, she wouldn’t have found the nerve, but she knew her constant companions would always keep an eye out for her safety. She swung her yellow Vespa around the corner of the nondescript warehouse and parked it with other bikes and scooters.
What am I doing here? Music had held a unique magical attraction to her for as long as she could remember, but never before had that passion led her to reckless endangerment.
An old man sat on a stool leaning back against the corrugated metal wall. “Have you got the chops to enter?”
“I suppose we’ll find out.” She pulled out the creased business card and handed it over.
He hitched his thumb toward the door. “Don’t take it too hard if you don’t last long. Few first-timers do.”
She wasn’t sure if he was trying to intimidate her or ease her upcoming self-doubt. “What are the rules?”
“Anyone is free to challenge anyone else. If you don’t accept, you’ll be asked to leave. Lose a competition, and you can hang around to learn something or try again.”
She clutched the handle of the guitar case. “What about the stakes?”
“The one challenged gets to set them. People play for anything from a buck to an instrument, but it has to be something you have on you. We don’t want to hunt people down for nonpayment.”
She wished she’d brought more things a musician might want, but that would have made her more of a target in the iffy neighborhood. “Who decides the winner?”
“The crowd has a say, but to relieve undue popular bias, the old bluesmen make the final decisions.”
“And so long as I don’t refuse a challenge, I can stay as long as I want?”
He leaned forward, causing the wooden stool to land with a crack on the cement sidewalk. “Them’s the rules. As you’re a first timer, stick close to the door, and you can watch for a while to figure out who’s who in there. The closer you get to the center of the warehouse, the more intense the competition.”
He opened the metal door for her. The wall of sound inside made concentrating hard. With so many instruments playing so many pieces, the scene more accurately resembled a battle than a concert. She looked away from the activity to mentally catch her breath. A line of floats from the Krewe of Boo filled one wall. Though much simpler in design than the tractor-drawn trailers used for Mardi Gras, the dayglow-painted sides and paper-mache goblins gave the small floats a feeling of whimsy missing from the more commercial floats. Paintings were stacked against the sides of the oversized wagons, rope harnesses hung from the rafters, and the whole place smelled of cannabis, incense, and sex. The space evidently had many uses. She couldn’t count the musicians facing off against each other. Between the noise and the crowd, she wondered how anyone could identify the activities as competitions.
The man who’d given her the card on Chartres was sitting on the hood of a rusted, broken-down taxi, looking out at the action. “Give it some time. You’ll figure out where you want to be. The drummers stick to the back area. Otherwise, it’s just a mixture of instruments. Those who’ve been doing this for a time will form up groups for more intense competitions. Don’t fall for it, though, if they invite you to join. They call it strip shredding. I’ve had to round up more than one overcoat for some poor naked girl who didn’t have the chops.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
He pointed toward a teenage boy who was adjusting his strings. “When you’re ready, you can start off challenging Slick. He likes playing for dollar bills. The kid’s got skills, but he hates feeling pressured. By waiting for others to make the first move, he gets to keep the wager limited. Just watch out when he starts pulling his double-or-nothing routine on you. It violates the rules of the challenge as he’s both requesting and dictating the stakes, but you have the right to say no in that situation.”
She took her time, watching the musical styles of those playing around her. Loud head-slamming guitarists who played with testosterone and little else tended to compete with each other. The way they jumped and cavorted reminded her of playing under the influence of the curse. She could have blown them all away if she had just one of the baron’s cufflinks, but that wasn’t how she wanted to be remembered. More classically trained musicians found benches in the ghoulish art floats so their refined licks could be appreciated. Though they had skill, she didn’t hear much passion.
Interspersed between the players, each decked out as a stage persona, were old men in rumpled street clothes. Though they didn’t seem so destitute as to appear homeless, their weathered faces and worn suits contrasted starkly to those trying to outdo each other in every way possible. She watched one old man step between two headbangers. Instead of being thrust out of the way for his impertinence, the two guitarists respectfully set aside their instruments to listen to his judgement. Polite applause went up from the audience when he indicated the winner.
Slick hadn’t paired off yet in competition. Like her, he seemed to be taking the temperature of the room and distinguishing the real competitors from those just out to strut their stuff.
She tried to stay out of his eyeline while she moved closer. “Care to show a girl what you’ve got?”
Without
turning to her, he pulled out a crumpled dollar bill from his jeans and tossed it on the floor. “You start.”
Not having heard him play, she wasn’t sure what to lay down. Then again, she was the one doing the challenging. She plugged in her black electric guitar to the nearest available amp and plucked out a riff from “Come as You Are.”
She only made it a few bars in before he picked up the musical phrase and added in some rhythm guitar.
By not singing along, she had the freedom to let her guitar emulate the words. With a generic pick between her fingers, she began playing with style.
Instead of competing, Slick seemed intent on discovering the limits of her skills. By taking both rhythm and lead, he left her to explore other aspects of the song. Kurt Cobain’s soulful voice wasn’t one that she could copy, but her fingers discovered on her strings the feeling he poured into the lyrics.
Just when things were getting interesting, a man pointed his cane at Slick. The competition had ended, and she’d lost, not that she disagreed with the ruling. The kid had a subtle style that stayed with Kendell even after the sound of the guitars faded away.
“Congratulations,” she said.
He picked up the two bucks. “Push yourself harder, not louder. Steer clear of the metalheads. And whatever you do, stay out of Reggie’s way. He’s got a wall full of guitars he’s won off the uninitiated.”
“Thanks for the advice.”
She held her own in the next competition but still lost another dollar in the end. Most of the musicians in the room seemed more intent on discovering their opponent’s vulnerabilities than taking what meager possessions they had on them. At least, that was her impression for the first hour.
The loud metalheads were the first to sit in the stands or find the door. That type of playing, especially in competition, had a way of fraying strings and muscles. Next to go were the classically trained. She sympathized with their haggard expressions of frustration. They probably were better skilled than most in the room, but the bluesmen weren’t looking for technical proficiency. Playing with soul took more than hitting the strings just right. In fact, that usually resulted in pretty stale renditions.
Kendell was in the thick of it when she heard haunting strumming from the center of the room. Listening to someone she thought must be an old-time bluesman, she dropped the riff she’d been playing.
She felt as if she was being pulled in by a magnet as she squeezed between the onlookers to see a busker working his magic on a beat-up thrift-store guitar. The instrument had to be older than the boy playing it. She thought at any minute he would strike a string so hard the bridge would come flying off the bottom.
She calmed her thoughts in an attempt to read any dark energy that might explain the music, but the competition ended too soon. Without realizing what she was doing, she slung her guitar into place. “I’d like to see you do that again.”
Before he accepted her challenge, his previous victim handed him his guitar as payment.
“I only play for instruments.”
Looking at the cheaply made guitar with more lacquer missing than covering the wood, she wondered why anyone would challenge him for such a piece of crap, but from the half dozen guitars behind him, she knew better than to underestimate her opponent. At least I didn’t bring Cecile. “Doesn’t seem like a fair trade.”
“Little girl, this here’s a Kalamazoo KG-14. Story goes, this here box was owned by Robert Johnson hisself. Now, as the man died poor and unappreciated, no one knows for sure, but from the way she cuts heads, the legend has taken hold. Either that or I’m just a damn fine guitar player.”
Slick leaned in next to her. “I warned you.”
She’d left the gold guitar pick at home. Flashing such an expensive and powerful object would have only made her a mark for the competitors—or someone less respectable when she left the warehouse. Her goal was to learn what she could do, but for the kid to have won so many high-priced guitars, the wreck he was playing must have had some magic in the strings. The deck was stacked, and all she could do was play the hand she’d been dealt.
She figured any established piece of music would only look like an opening chess gambit that had too many ways of being countered. She attempted to replicate the notes Cheesecake made when Kendell had been gone for too long.
Reggie added in a polyphonic counterpoint as easily as she might switch from strumming to picking.
Classically trained. She built a melodic counterpoint that switched the random notes into something that began to resemble a song.
A half hour passed, with each of them modifying, cutting, and expanding the piece and neither admitting defeat or claiming victory. Three bluesmen stood nearby, but they also reserved judgement.
At last, Reggie strummed three hard notes to announce the end, took off his guitar, and handed it to her. “Congratulations. You beat me fair.”
You’ll probably claim to be playing B. B. King’s Lucille next time. “It was an education.”
* * *
Back in her apartment, Kendell tried a few numbers on the old guitar. It played well enough for a beater. It couldn’t match Cecile for sound quality, and it would never hold up to intense use, but it had a uniquely tortured tone. As she caressed its battered top, she wondered if a guitar from a famous musician would be obvious to anyone or would appear no different from a dime-store find.
Myles leaned against the doorframe of her bedroom. “That has to be the ugliest instrument I’ve ever seen.” For all his ability to read past energy, he had no clue about what made a musical instrument beautiful.
“I won it last night at Cutting Heads.”
He walked over and sat on the bed next to her. “I’ve heard a few of the bar band members mention that place. From what I’ve gathered, it can be kind of rough.”
Once the competition had started, she hadn’t given much thought to her safety. “The regulars there are serious about music. Anyone unfamiliar with the place, thinking they could walk in and make a quick reputation for themselves, would be delusional.”
“Forgive me for asking, but is that guitar something I should congratulate you on? Seems like I should be asking what the runner-up took home—worn-out strings, maybe?”
“Very funny.” She handed him the beat-up instrument. “Tell me what you see.”
He turned it from side to side while peering into the sound hole. “Well, I can tell you it’s been played by a lot of people. I guess it doesn’t take much psychometric skill to see that, though.”
Their relationship had been better since their late-night talk on the veranda, but when it came to delving into the past, he was still like someone home from the hospital and not willing to get back on his feet.
“I’d never push you,” she said, “but I thought we could take one of your spiritual journeys with this thing. I don’t detect any dark energy like with the Malveaux-curse objects. And I understand musicians, so I can figure out what we might witness. I can help, but only if you want me to.”
His knuckles turned white as he gripped the guitar neck like a snake he was trying to keep from biting him. “What are you hoping to discover?”
“In all likelihood, we’ll just see a series of street performers, but the guy I won this from said it belonged to Robert Johnson. Honestly, I don’t believe that’s true, but I am curious.”
He eased up his grip and started inspecting the scratches and dents. “And if it is true, and he really did sell his soul to the devil? Once a person dies and crosses from Guinee to the deep waters, any human energy left in an object is locked in place. For me, reading that energy is like witnessing a recording of events. The experience is still very emotional, but the person involved isn’t present. That’s not the case if that person is still in Guinee.”
“That’s two pretty big ifs. First, this probably is just an old beat-up guitar with no historical significance. Second, even if it did belong to Mr. Johnson, and he really did sell his soul to the devil, who’s to
say he ended up in Guinee? Besides, Guinee was never the problem. The loas of the dead that guard the afterlife have been good to both of us. And now that Baron Malveaux is trapped in the voodoo totem, he’s no longer a threat to you.”
The way Myles ran his hands over the beat-up wood led her to guess he was still searching out any vestige of hostile energy. “Isolating one individual would be tough.”
“He didn’t play like other musicians. What recordings remain of his are filled with pure, distilled emotion.”
Myles set the guitar against the bed. “Assuming the most unlikely case and we do meet him, what’s your plan?”
Rescuing the bluesman from a fate worse than death hadn’t entered her thoughts. “He wouldn’t be in the same category as the baron’s women. They were held against their will. He sold his soul for the recognition he currently enjoys.”
“There’s a lot of words in that sentence that sound like loopholes to me. He died poor and unappreciated. If he’s in Guinee, his current reputation might not matter much to him. Though I don’t consider the place hell, having been trapped there, I can see how others might. I don’t want to end up pissing off another devil.”
Kendell’s focus was refined by Myles’s arguments. “I won’t lie—saving souls excites me. I can’t do it alone, though.” She pulled out the golden guitar pick. “It’s not exactly an invitation, but the loas have expressed their gratitude. That has to count for something, should we get into mischief.”
* * *
Kendell lay on her bed next to Myles with the guitar on top of them. She held his hand. Cheesecake snuggled up against their feet. In the past, Kendell’s biggest concern had been letting Myles down by not being able to let go of her life the way he’d explained, but her attention wasn’t turned inward at present. Even before their souls bonded in the realm beyond life, she could feel his anxiety as if it were her own.
