Colorblind

by Peter Robertson

  “This is for you to keep. Please don’t insult me by offering to pay for it and please don’t ask me to explain why it is numbered 42, because it simply is. I’m going to let you listen to the other songs Mr. Mac recorded when he was here, but I’m not going to give you a copy of the recordings. I truly don’t know what he would want me to do with his songs. I’m naturally assuming that these were in fact recorded by your Mr. Logan Kind, and that he is as dead and as gone as you have informed me he is. I also assume that you will confirm the identity of the artist when you hear these. I do realize that assumptions are seldom made wisely.”

  And then Templeton Rowley placed the blank disc in an expensive-looking single CD player. The first track opened with acoustic guitar—two mysterious chords alternating, and an ascending pattern plucked between them. I waited until the vocals began purely as a formality. Templeton Rowley was watching my face intently. I nodded slowly and he looked away satisfied. In truth I could have informed Rowley that we were listening to Logan Kind with the first few notes. I could have told him this with utter certainty.

  The first track ended.

  Together we listened to all eight songs. Anita returned with an empty tray. She looked at the untouched drinks and shot Rowley a brief reproachful look. Then she wordlessly removed both glasses. Rowley took the first disc from the player. I handed him my copy of volume 42 and, after tearing the plastic away, he cued up the two Willie Mac songs.

  We listened again in silence.

  Afterwards I had a question. “What made you pick these two songs for the collection?”

  He was quick to answer. “These were the first two we recorded. I told Mr. Mac I would use only two and these were the first ones he played for me. Later he mentioned there were others he wanted to play, and he asked me if I would be willing to record them for him. I told him I would be more than happy to.”

  “Can I ask you about the payment?”

  “I pay one thousand dollars per song. I have always paid one thousand dollars. If someone were to ask me for more I would probably refuse. But they never have. When they ask me for less I always shrewdly counter with my offer of one thousand dollars, which they have always managed to find a way to accept. Once again let me be clear, sir. This is not, nor has it ever been, a money-making proposition.”

  “You paid Willie Mac the two thousand?”

  “I did. I offered him my personal check, which is how I prefer to make payment. He asked me instead for cash, which I did not have on me at the time.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I went to the bank the next day and withdrew the cash. I placed it in an envelope and bribed a cabdriver to take me to a house in the Ninth Ward, a flooded property on a block of Lizardi close to the levee. It was on the 700 block. I forget the exact address. I knocked on the door and I waited for an answer. I should mention that Mac had given me the address and I had written it down. It was in the late part of the morning. As I say, there was no answer, which was not terribly surprising. The place was in decay and it was hard to imagine anyone choosing to live there. I placed the envelope in a mailbox outside the premises and I left before my very nervous cabdriver took the full fare I had foolishly paid in advance and drove away. I can’t say I would have blamed him. The drive there was truly alarming. Only one road and one bridge over the canal at St. Claude was open to get to the Ninth. The street had been battered into submission less than two months previous, with overturned cars, trees picked up and thrown onto the side of buildings, a waterlogged mess of soggy dereliction. The house in question looked to be at least intact. I do remember that as I stood outside I distinctly heard the sound of gunfire.”

  “Why did you go?”

  “Because I said I would. As I told you, this was the address that Mac had given to me the day before.”

  He paused.

  “Would you care to listen to the other songs again?” he asked me.

  “I would be honored,” I replied.

  “Anita will be bringing more drinks when the sun goes down.”

  “More iced tea?”

  He might have shivered there and then. “Certainly not. Perish the thought, sir.”

  Before Templeton Rowley and I parted, I told him most of what I knew, which wasn’t much, and most of what I thought, which was only slightly more substantial.

  I told Rowley I would contact Margot Kind through her website and tell her about her brother’s last songs. He told me that he would write to her because he did not care much for the Internet. I pulled up her home page on my phone. There was an address listed in the North of England, which I carefully wrote down for him.

  Mr. Rowley had bought and paid for the two songs on his compilation. He offered to show me the contract. I told him it wasn’t necessary. He had undeniably acted in good faith, as I suspected he usually did. His family may have disowned him but he struck me as an honorable man who passionately loved his adopted city, was fiercely protective towards its music and kept his word. Together, he and Margot Kind would have to work out what to do with the other eight tracks.

  I had a vested interest. But it wasn’t my place to mediate.

  “I will write to Ms. Kind this evening.” Rowley told me. “Her late brother’s songs will see the light of day if I have anything to do with it. You have my word on that.”

  I found myself believing him.

  “I might even make some money.” He spoke these last words wonderingly.

  “You very well might.” I had no choice but to agree with him.

  He smiled a sly smile all to himself. “My family will be ever so delighted.”

  Later I got up to leave. He walked me to the front door. I spoke first in parting.

  “You didn’t ask me what I thought of the songs.”

  Rowley shook his head ruefully. “It wasn’t required. I took the liberty of watching your face as you listened. You were simply transported. I’ve often found that a love of music does that.”

  I could only agree with him. “Logan Kind only made one record when he was alive. It’s very much loved. The sound on that first record was stunning, but your recording might be even better.” I extended my hand. “Thank you so much, Mr. Rowley.”

  He beamed at me. His grip on my hand was a hard metal clamp.

  “You are most welcome, young man,” he said.

  * * *

  My car was a sauna. I opened all the windows and the sunroof as I drove away from the diner.

  First thing tomorrow morning I would go to the house on Lizardi where there would assuredly be nothing for me to see. The years had unhurriedly bypassed that part of the town. The floodwaters had destroyed in an angry rush. I would either find ruin or reclamation. My money was on the former; but all trace of Logan Kind would surely be long gone.

  But then, you never know.

  I told myself that anything I did recover would go to the people I thought most deserving. I did understand that this notion was more than slightly subjective, and thus highly elastic.

  The most I allowed myself to hope for would be an afterimage of an afterimage, a lingering remnant of a life’s abrupt closing.

  This journey south had been a fool’s errand because all the intuition that had driven me on two previous occasions had been patently false in this instance. I now knew a few things that I hadn’t known before. But the reasons why Stephen Park and Logan Kind died were still largely hidden, or at least they were hidden from me.

  The drive took me back along St. Charles into town. There was a streetcar ahead of me and I slowed down to keep pace with it. When it teasingly stopped alongside the hotel’s tall columns I did the same. The afternoon trade had been replaced by a horde of younger college-age kids and a smattering of sun-stunned tourists. They were drinking harder and louder. The waiters were working faster, doubtless making much better tips, but looking a whole lot more irrit
ated in the process.

  My route took me down two sides of the square. Mel’s old bike was still chained to the fence. I braked. The flowers in the basket were mostly brown flakes and several had fallen on the ground.

  I was finally hungry enough to go to the restaurant on Frenchmen that Nye had told me about. It was closed for a private event.

  The house on Elysian Fields would be vacant in the morning. In the courtyard I found the caretaker still looking at used car ads. She had narrowed her choices down to two gently used Toyota Camrys. I handed her my credit card and we settled up. When I asked if I could reimburse her for the stolen chair she had the nerve to giggle at me.

  * * *

  The café nearby was still open in the early evening.

  There was still time for one last meal.

  I ordered a plate of boudin and grits and a cup of coffee.

  I gave my name.

  The girl behind the counter was a different one. She consulted a long list.

  “We already have a Tom ahead of you.” She told me with a bright smile. “What’s your last name?”

  “It’s Frost,” I replied.

  And I smiled right back.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Peter Robertson is a native of Edinburgh, Scotland, and currently lives near Chicago.