Dirt Road

by James Kelman

  Declan had begun on the next song, a join-in one about the railroad. A few people knew it. The old guy with the fancy waistcoat punched the air with his fist clenched, caught up in the story and angry.

  Seeing people angry about a song. Ye didnt get that much. Murdo had never heard the song before but thought of the train cars down from Chattanooga having to cross the Tennessee River on boats. Ye could imagine all sorts.

  When the song ended Declan adjusted the mic a little, and called to the man with the fiddle-case: You want to help me out here Chess! Then he introduced the song while Chess approached the stage:

  Any Macphersons in the company? It came out like “MacFIERCEsons” the way he said it. There were a few jeers and laughter in reply but no Macphersons. My mother was a good Appalachian girl, he said, Macphersons was her people, come from Scotland some time. All dead, most of them, far as I know. Hanged them. Damn near wiped them out altogether huh! That’s what the next song’s about. Guy robbed the rich to feed the poor; yeah, Robin Hood. Was Robin Hood Scottish? No sir, he would not wear no green uniform! Declan chuckled into the mic. Scotch joke right?

  A few in the audience laughed but most seemed not to know anything, but Murdo knew. Robin Hood couldnt have been Scottish because he wore a green uniform. Protestants blue and Catholics green. Murdo looked to see Dad. It was the kind of stuff he hated. And hearing it out in the open made it strange-sounding and childish.

  Chess was now on stage and with his fiddle at the ready. Declan pointed at the slogan on his baseball cap: Duncan Bizkitz Outlawd! Them’s the politics I respect! Old Duncan now, he was a good old boy, fought a good fight and what happened to him? turned him into a goddam franchise.

  Applause and some laughter.

  Yeah, now, you all know another Macpherson? General James B?

  People were quiet. The younger guys in the kilts and Glengarrys were staring at him.

  Yeah, nothing worse than a Civil War, brother against brother. James B fell in the struggle for Atlanta, killed by men under the command of the bold John Hood; a hard man, a one-legged man; them two boys both Scotch descended, one north, one south, same class at West Point. Macpherson had the brains, helped Hood pass his exams. But Hood had the savvy. Declan spoke into the mic: You talk about your Beauregard and sing of General Lee;

  but the gallant Hood of Texas he played Hell in Tennessee.

  Yeah! called somebody, and another gave a loud piercing whistle, some scattered applause but then silence. And Declan continued: Another of the bold fellows there, Ould Paddy Clebourne from County Cork, Irish as the day is long. And a Protestant! Yeah. Some man the ould Paddy fellow. You all know he annoyed the bossclass? Asking them to emancipate and arm the slaves? Declan paused. Confederate Army General asking them old armymen to dish out guns to the slaves, free them and their families. Yessir, aint that a man.

  Declan chuckled, glanced about the audience. Moral to that story: life is complicated. Okay! Listen up now, this is the bit makes me smile, some of them rebel boys – Scotch, Scotch-Irish, Ulster-Scotch, whatever you want to call it – they put their own words to this song. Folks been trying to track them lyrics down, cannot trace a single line. The men are gone so’s the words they wrote, commemorating the time they shot down James B. Macpherson, made him one Union soldier that did not go

  marching through Georgia.

  He had sung the last line and it was to a tune Murdo knew from back home to do with Protestants fighting Catholics. Declan looked about the audience again. No sir, he said, they stopped him dead in Atlanta.

  Declan did his stagey growl into the mic: Good talking here in my home state. Cant get talking this way in Texas boy they would string me up. All them songs are histories. Lyrics I sing written by whoever, I dont know, tune goes back seventeen hundred or thereabouts. Right Chess?

  Chess nodded, adjusting the fiddle.

  “Macpherson’s Farewell”, said Declan leaning in to him, and added, Shoulder to shoulder.

  They exchanged looks then Chess did four scrapes of the bow. Four scrapes. How did that work? Sad but not sad, not like for crying. This was straight-talking how Chess played it: here is the story this is the story, and in Declan came with it:

  Fareweel, ye dark and lonely hills,

  far awa beneath the sky

  Macpherson’s time will not be lang,

  On yonder gallows high.

  Farewell. Getting put to death on the gallows. This became a fight too. But what was the fight? Murdo didnt know. But that is what he heard. Tough was Macpherson’s life and tough how he led it. Murdo knew the tune well but this was different how Chess played it and the song like how Declan Pike sang it. It was a thrilling thing and not a lament like a farewell: more of a big and loud “Cheerio guys”, a shout: “Cheerio guys!”

  Just dealing with the problem, that was Macpherson. Hullo and cheerio. Up on the gallows awaiting the drop. People waiting to buy yer fiddle. Guys ye knew. Ye were maybe having a beer with them the night before. Now here they were, wanting yer stuff. Oh you’re going to be dead in a minute so give me yer fiddle. Fuck you. Maybe yer clothes too, jees, the olden days; people had nothing. You go your way they go theirs. Families and friends split down the middle, you go one way yer pals go another.

  Ye expected one thing in music then it was away someplace else. How did it happen? But it did. Everything was in that song how these two guys played it, and the men fighting and the women suffering and all everything that happened, all just stupid. They were telling ye and if ye didnt like what they were telling ye then hard luck.

  It was special, so so special. Murdo was lucky, how could he be so lucky like just being here and just like everything, everything. He was wanting to play, it would have been good to play. He got up onto his feet and that was that, not looking at anybody; kept his head lowered, stepping to the side of the area, having to go round the back to get out.

  There were plenty gaps in the audience. Less people here than Murdo thought. Maybe a few had gone earlier. He didnt look too closely in case Dad was looking, he just needed away.

  *

  Stalls and tents mostly were closed now; people shifting things into cars and pick-up trucks. The places doing business were for food and drink. The busiest cooked bar-b-que. Folk sat inside or on chairs outside, having a smoke and drinking beer, laughing and talking. Their voices carried. People had gone home and would return for the Hielan Fling. Most but not all. Ones who had traveled a distance would be staying during the in-between time.

  Today was the first gig he had been to in ages. Since before Mum died. And being in the audience was good. That strong effect it had inside ye. The music into the body, connecting ye. Sound wasnt just mental it was physical, made up of these tiny wee particles just like anything else; yer hair and yer teeth, yer socks and shoes; yer entire body: sounds were part of it.

  The field at the other side of the Gathering area. Murdo had been walking and arrived here without knowing. Earlier on boys and a couple of girls were playing football. At one stage the ball trundled towards him and he did six keepy-uppies, then passed it back. The boy who collected it did a weird flick trick with the ball between his ankles, then kneed it to one of the others who trapped it on the upper part of his foot. So ha ha to you!

  It was true but, Murdo wasnt good at football. Dad was a lot better. Dad played for actual teams when he was a boy. He used to come out with other dads. They played in a patch of spare ground down the street where they lived. The boys and the fathers together. That was fun.

  It was still hot and Murdo had the jacket slung over his shoulder. He only brought it for the pockets. He reached the fence at the far end of the field. There was a break in it. He could walk through. Beyond was a clump of trees. Ye could cut through here and be away altogether.

  The sound of a helicopter; there in the sky circling. Where had it come from?

  He kept walking. Cattle! Cowboys riding through gulches and canyons. In the old days in Scotland ye got cattle drovers
from the Highlands driving the herds down to the big Glasgow market, cutting open the veins in the cattle to let out blood for food; mixing the blood with porridge oats.

  Cattle look at ye. Captured and chopped. What happened to the horns and tails? Hamburgers and sausages. A lassie in school said how all the disgusting bits made hamburgers. She was a veggie, but what she said was right enough. She had her own style, and her own laugh too; a real laugh, sounding like a gurgle or something, and ye could make her laugh.

  That certain way a lassie laughs. Guys can make them laugh. Ye make a lassie laugh, that would be special.

  Imagine walking through the trees. Imagine he had brought the rucksack and his stuff was all inside, so ye could just like head off into the mountains. Maybe that was the way to LaFayette, marching to Georgia, that would be him, and Murdo laughed. There by himself, he did, he just laughed; not for long.

  What time was it anyway? Who knows. There was a lot going on about America and a history to this place too, the south. Horrors. Ye just didnay think about it.

  Declan Pike’s playing was excellent but that other side too, how he performed and how some didnt like it. That was politics. Some clapped and thought it was great. Others didnt seem to, maybe they hated it. Imagine hating music. It wasnt music it was what ye said. But if what ye said was in the music, if it was part of the music, so like it was the music… So then they would hate the tune, hate the words and hate the singer.

  *

  Murdo strolled towards the marquee. A big truck was parked behind it. Guys were unloading musical equipment in through a rear entrance. A Scottish Country Dance Band was providing the evening music. Murdo heard music, not via the speaker system but from inside. The session: he had forgotten about it; scheduled between the afternoon and evening events. People chatted by the front entrance. More smokers. It would be good to smoke. Ye could just disappear and nobody worried about how come ye were disappearing: Oh he’s away for a smoke. That would be great in school. Imagine the teacher. Where is everybody? Please sir away for a smoke.

  The session took place not on stage but in the audience area. Chairs had been shifted to create a space. Declan was there on guitar, sitting on a chair and finger-picking. Chess Hopkins was with the guy in the fancy waistcoat and other older people. They hadnt long been started and people had drifted away, including the family. Murdo moved to a chair on the fringes. Declan sang another then passed his guitar to a man who sang a folky song about animals. It was good fun for a session. He did another then Declan took back the guitar, did a country-style song with little flourishes here and there. He laughed a lot in his playing and ye felt ye were sharing a joke with him. Some players never smile let alone laugh. He looked for Chess at the end of it. You about ready? he asked.

  Yeah, said Chess then hesitated.

  He was looking for the fiddle. Murdo had seen it; it was near the raised platform, placed parallel to its bow on a chair. He waited a moment but Chess wouldnt see it from where he was sitting. Murdo rose to collect it, also the bow which he held upright while walking. Fiddlers were fussy how ye held the bow. Murdo once got a severe row about it. A fiddler with a bad temper, it wasnt unusual.

  Chess watched him. Murdo handed them over. Chess said, Thanks son.

  I saw them when I sat down, said Murdo.

  You did huh. Well I’m glad you did.

  Instead of going back to his old seat Murdo sat on the edge of the main group. He had a fiddle at home but for learning only. Nothing like the one belonging to Chess. What was it about fiddles? His made ye smile! Macpherson on the scaffold. Imagine ye were there and he threw it high in the air. Whoever catches the fiddle gets to keep it! Everybody scampering about.

  A couple more drifted in. Younger ones were way to the side. Four of the kilted guys in the Glengarrys returned to their same table, not far from the raised platform and talking quietly, not to distract from the music. This was like back home. Nobody expected people to stop talking, just not to be rude. Only if they had too much to drink their voices got loud. Then it was hopeless.

  Another one new to Murdo. So much of this was new to him. Soon enough Chess was in on the fiddle and Declan was whistling. The song called for whistling. There was religious content but it was okay. More joined in on the chorus which amounted to whistling the tune. Not as easy as ye might have thought. People had a laugh doing it. Good fun. The young ones at the side were trying to whistle and stare each other in the eye at the same time. What ye noticed with a song like this was how it brought people into the company. At the end ye seemed to know the ones sitting next to ye.

  A discussion started about the song led by the bald guy with the wee white beard and the fancy waistcoat. He said it was an old tune from bygone days; somebody else said it was new. They looked to Chess Hopkins for an answer but he didnt give one. Declan was yawning, leaning his elbows on his guitar. He yawned again, then made to rise from his seat.

  Chess called to him: You know “Bonaparte’s Retreat”?

  Declan was in the act of bringing something out of his side jacket. I got to have a smoke first.

  Guitar’s only an add-on anyhow, said Chess.

  Oh you think so! said Declan in the stagey growl he used in his performance.

  It’s a distraction.

  Declan grinned, raising the guitar over his head, seeing a place to lay it. Declan hesitated, seeing Murdo who wasnt too far from him. He gestured with it towards him. Murdo shrugged, took the guitar from him.

  Declan had reached into the pack for a cigarette then strolled to the exit. The woman was there who had been in Dad’s company earlier. She and Declan exited together. Murdo sat with the guitar on his lap. He knew the makes of the good ones. This wasnt one of them. Yet it was very very good, just like whatever, it didnt have a name.

  People were waiting for Chess. Murdo saw how they paid attention. When he was ready he spoke out the corner of his mouth: Old Napoleon now watch him go, he’s on the retreat again.

  Murdo knew the tune but different to this. The funny thing here was the actual feel Chess was getting. Murdo wondered what it was, but then obvious, it was Scottish. Was it Scottish? Murdo hadnt heard it played this way before. But he knew it and knew what to do with it. He was keeping time, tapping his fingers on the body of the guitar and whatever like he was ready to play, and he was ready to play, he was. Chess looked the question at him, how if he did want to play then that would be fine. Murdo slipped the strap over his shoulders. A wee rhythm just, to let the fiddle go. Murdo played that in, keeping it on keeping it on, watching and hearing what Chess did and going with that, a swing forwards now the fiddle was freed up.

  Chess didnt look anywhere. Some look at things and some dont; some close their eyes. Chess didnt close his but neither did he look at anything. His playing was different. Maybe an older style. Murdo didnt hear playing like this much. But he liked it; there was a swing and a swagger, just happy who ye were, that was Chess and his baseball cap. He wasnt a busy type of player but he did stuff and ye could see how his head and his upper body, his neck, that control he had. Everything was measured. Ye knew he could burst out. Any time, he could explode right out. He didnt.

  Murdo kept it on except a point when he veered off a fraction, brought about by something Chess did that knocked him out, but it was only that fraction and he got through. The guitar was a help, whatever it was. It had a mark like a signature so probably it was hand-made.

  The tune ended. Chess nodded to Murdo who grinned. He caught sight of Aunt Maureen, hand to her mouth and gazing at him, sitting with people near the back of the marquee. Uncle John was there but Dad wasnt. Chess chuckled, tucking the fiddle under his arm. He wagged the bow at Murdo. I know what you did!

  Yeah I missed that wee bit.

  You did too!

  I caught it though.

  Yeah you caught it, you caught it. Chess wagged the bow at him again, called to the old guy in the fancy waistcoat: Hey now Bill he aint heard of no Bonaparte! Who in heck’
s Bonaparte, that’s what the boy wants to know!

  Murdo knew fine well who Bonaparte was.

  Dad was by the marquee entrance. Murdo hadnt seen him arrive. So during the song. So he must have heard a little of it. He wouldnt have been too surprised. Maybe he would have been. He didnt come much to gigs. Uncle John would have enjoyed hearing Chess. That old style making ye think of ancestral relations from bygone days. Mum too, she would have liked it.

  Chess shifted on his chair and called to his wife Clara who was one of those at the back: Hey Clara you going to sing one?

  Clara looked like she was surprised by the question. Chess said, What d’you think, you want to do one here? Maureen’s nephew from Scotland?

  Chess winked at Murdo. Clara leaned to say a word to Aunt Maureen then rose from her chair. She stepped along the row to the side and walked down and along to sit closer to Chess, within the main body. She smiled at Murdo. You doing okay son?

  Yeah.

  Thought you might want to sing, Chess asked.

  Okay.

  “When I Die”? Chess knocked up the side of his baseball cap, scratched at the side of his ear and said to Murdo, “When I Die” son you know it?

  Eh…I’m not sure.

  Chess nodded. You’ll get it.

  Murdo glanced at Clara who smiled.

  I dont play on this one, said Chess.

  You dont play on it? said Murdo.

  Chess said, I sing a little. He glanced sideways, laid the fiddle and bow on the empty chair next to him. You’ll get it, he said then looked at the ground, composing himself.

  Also he was waiting for Clara. Her eyes were shut. Then she moved her head side to side and seemed to relax. She began the song and immediately was there in it, her voice so distinctive, so clear, so powerful. The word “steel”. “Steel” for strength, staying strong; strong from the beginning and strong at the end: wherever that was. This voice would not stray, it was there on the path. She had “steel” and she gave this to the song. Chess entered from the beginning, replying “when I die” to each sung statement; Clara repeating the “when I die” to begin her next statement: