by Alan Baxter
“You miss him too?” he asked it one hot afternoon, and it cawed a sad and lonely note.
The ingredients of the ’shine were tricky to source, his income from working the rail maintenance yards and a handful of gigs playing to rowdy bar crowds not likely to make him rich any time soon. Especially hard to find were the strange herbs Grandpa only ever whispered about. He finally discovered them in the third town he tried, nearly an hour’s drive from home, in a small, gloomy store where the aged proprietor frowned and scowled as he paid.
*
The first day the ’shine was ready, Clyde was filled with nerves. He knew Grandpa’s nectar would have been no rotgut. No throat-searing jet fuel. The man surely made ’shine as fine as his music and Clyde wondered if his own effort would be as far from Grandpa’s as his guitar picking was.
He sipped and paused, and then a wide smile split his face. It tasted better than the most expensive booze he’d ever had. It was perfect. Crow sat on one curling copper pipe and bobbed his head in agreement, croaked a song of celebration. Clyde turned his grin up to the bird and said, “He’d sure be proud of us.” And he drank again.
Something snaked through him from his legs up into his groin and gut. A creeping, subtle touch like slipping into a warm creek in high summer. The spread of warmth added power to his mind, seemed to caress him, hold him tight like loving arms. It was more than simple alcohol and Clyde leaned back and sighed. Crow chuckled laughter and Clyde realised he was mimicking perfectly his Grandpa’s reaction to the day’s first sip. He remembered a conversation from years past.
You always look so damned relaxed when you take that first hit, Grandpa.
The old man had looked serious down at him and said, It’s my curse, son. Don’t be fooled.
Clyde suffered a moment’s fear, took one shuddering breath, but Crow laughed again and he shrugged, let the puissant heat envelope him.
After a few more sips, he picked up Grandpa’s old rosewood guitar. So relaxed, he had never played as well before, never made the instrument sing like he did that night as his fingers danced and swept with ease. He sounded a lot like Moonshine McCreary as he sat playing into the russet smudge of dawn while Crow bobbed and laughed along.
*
Clyde began to get better gigs in bigger venues. Places with posters of the greats who had played there before him plastered on the walls, instead of hub caps and beer stains. Where people came from far out of town, drawn by the talent on offer. And he finally balled up the courage to ask Melanie to come listen to him play.
“Well, finally!” she said, smiling at him over the counter.
“I just . . . I guess . . . ” He kept his eyes on hers, resisting the temptation to stare at her full curves.
“It’s fine. You were scared and that makes me feel special. But I’m glad you finally asked me out. Just promise you’ll take me for pie or something afterwards.”
Clyde felt red surge up his cheeks and she giggled. “Of course!” he assured her.
“I can’t wait to hear you play. You must be much improved since the school band.”
“I play a lot better since . . . ” He wasn’t sure what he almost said. Since Grandpa died? Since I drank his ’shine? “Since then,” he finished lamely.
“I’ll bet you do. Now get, I’ve customers to serve. Pick me up?”
“I will. At seven thirty.” He turned and smiled an apology to the grinning, red-haired woman next in line.
She winked and actually pinched his cheek.
*
Melanie beamed and nodded encouragement from the corner of the low-ceilinged bar. The heat was close, and beer and whiskey filled the air with their tantalising aromas. Cigarette smoke curled and lazed around the crowd, catching here and there in the downlights, then lost again in the gloom as Clyde warmed up with a couple of songs of his own composition. But he intended to transcend his former self with this performance.
“My next song is an old favorite,” he said, reaching into his satchel at the side of the rickety wooden stage. He pulled out a clay bottle and lifted it in a toast. A ripple of laughter and soft applause travelled the crowded bar. “My Grandpa made this famous.” He swigged. “And this song too!” He stared past the bright lights along the stage edge, into the sea of expectant faces. The world only extended as far as the wooden walls, microcosm, nothing beyond. He took another hit, gestured again with the ’shine, and grinned.
Another swell of appreciation swept the room and, as the heady liquor found his gut, Clyde experienced that warming flush once more. His put the bottle at his feet and began picking out the notes of Grandpa’s “Black Wings of Loss”, and the sensation flooded his fingertips and his guitar, and rolled out across the patrons like a wave.
Faces in the audience tipped back in rapture, silhouetted bodies swayed and rolled in the darkness, and Clyde bathed in their adoration. It was a palpable thing, thicker in the air than booze and smoke, every bit as physical as the ’shine that warmed his throat and stomach. His guitar sang like the Heavenly Host and his voice was low and perfect. That sensation of drag against his spirit he felt whenever Grandpa had played for him flowed back now, multiplied a hundredfold and more. Everything he gave to the people at his feet they fed back to him amplified and purified, and he rode it like the surge of the finest cocaine. Every nerve thrilled and sang to his ministrations, every soul in the room vibrated in time with his, and fed him.
Before he knew it, three hours had passed, his clothes stuck to his skin with sweat, and he was through his repertoire and gently free-styling a last few melancholy licks. He smiled and let the music slip away. The clientele seemed to rise as if from a dream and they threw rapturous applause at him. He thanked them and sipped more ’shine only to find the bottle empty.
A voice from the crowd called out, “You were the ghost of your Grandpa tonight!” and the applause redoubled.
When he stepped from the stage, Melanie looped her arms about his neck and breathed hot against his throat. “I don’t want pie,” she whispered. “Take me somewhere private.”
*
The shack was the only place he knew. He couldn’t take her home where his pa would be full of rancour and questions, and his car was too seedy for the space he felt they needed. When they reached the wooden veranda, Melanie jumped and cried out in surprise.
“Don’t mind Crow,” Clyde said. “He was Grandpa’s pet. Guess he’s mine now.”
Crow dipped his head and his obsidian eyes glittered in the night.
*
The more Clyde played, the better he got, always fuelled by Grandpa’s secret blend. And the people’s love for him grew, but none so much as Melanie’s. As his star rose, the ’shine took back so much more than he ever gave out. Over time, the example of Mel right before him made his choices impossible to ignore. He watched her wither as she loved him, lose weight, lose interest in all other things. He didn’t send her away in anger as his grandpa had him, though he knew full well he should. Her love was sweetest of all and he simply couldn’t stop.
The bars filled up with adoring fans, crowded ever tighter in the hot, aromatic darkness. Every gig had queues of folk disappointed outside, turned away from a venue already breaking safety codes with numbers. People drew comparisons between his skills and Moonshine McCreary ever more regularly, and soon began to accuse him of being even greater than that great man. He moved from bars to theatres and the lights grew ever brighter.
Articles state-wide lauded his virtuoso talent. A national magazine ran a feature article on the boy who played with a skill and maturity unbelievable in someone only twenty-four years of age. He often cited his losses - mother at age five, grandfather so recently - both such great influences on him, as informing his grasp of the soul of the blues. But he knew it was a lie.
And every time he played, every time he basked in that adoration, he ignored how much it was costing them. Whatever the ’shine catalysed in his spirit, that drew such sweet energy from the crowds, it did
n’t come without a price. Every little bit of succour he received was a sliver of their very souls, made so clear by Melanie’s constant waning presence at his side. Yet he gladly played on.
She quit her job, as he was making good money, playing every night. She talked of marriage and how she had to make sure he stayed hers forever, even while her forever became a shorter and shorter span of time. He knew when she finally creased up and gave the last of herself to him, he would simply find another. He could pick and choose from fawning women, currently held at bay only by Melanie’s constant, scorching gaze. He knew too he should resist that, but the ’shine was blinding to his morals even as it was nectar to his soul.
He remembered Grandpa’s words as he sipped that day’s first draft.
It’s my curse, son. Don’t be fooled.
Grandpa had insisted his family not come to all his shows, not put themselves out, and he had steadfastly refused to play at home except in the most exceptional of circumstances. When I’m home, just let me be a man, not a bluesman.
All those times he had played for Clyde and then grown angry, sent him away with shame in his eyes. Why did Clyde not do the same with Mel?
So many past comments from family about how Clyde must have the metabolism of a racehorse, given all he ate yet remained as thin as rope. But now his body began to fill out even as Mel’s continued to waste away. What soul remained untarnished in Clyde ached with the knowledge that everything he built was blacker than Crow’s glossy wings.
But still he could not stop.
Until Melanie finally died.
She had insisted he play for her some more after a particularly crowded gig. “Something just for me, sweetness?” she cajoled on the porch of his shack.
And he played. Not for her, damn his soul, but because he knew the sweet perfection of her spirit would be drawn into him and make him even higher. And as she slipped away, as his fingers coaxed the music and the last of her swept into him, her finality hit him like a wave. Crystalline, jagged grief momentarily made him pause, sliced through the velvet redolence of his ’shine-induced delirium. As she expired, Clyde tipped back his head and howled. And Crow laughed.
Clyde carried her skin and bones to his car and hurried to the hospital, but she was cold when he got there. The staff wanted to know what she had taken and he assured them nothing had passed her lips but a bit of liquor. They called the police, who took his statement and then sent him away.
“Go and sleep, Clyde,” the sergeant said, one warm, reassuring hand on his shoulder. “You need to rest. Big show at the Emporium tomorrow, right?”
*
While grief still fired his soul, Clyde powered through benighted streets and out into the swamps. He grit his teeth and growled against the physical drag that tried to cease his actions. He grabbed one clay bottle and jammed a rag into its neck. Flame surged into the darkness and he launched that bottle into the shack’s open door. Fire blossomed and Clyde ran for his car as the stockpiled liquor blew with a soul-shattering blast. All the ’shine he had went up and the reconstructed still went with it.
As he drove for home, a weight lifted from his soul, but a terrible guilt settled in his mind. He had taken too much for too long, and it had cost Melanie her life. But at least it was ended now. If nothing else, her loss had given him the brief clarity of grief and thereby the power to act. He lamented his Grandpa with a bleak stain of disappointment. That man had enjoyed his ’shine and his success for decades. Clyde wound down the window and sped along the empty highway, revelling in the bright, fresh sensation of new-found freedom as tears for Melanie streaked his cheeks.
A flurry of black feathers burst into the window and battered his face, sharp beak and claws sought his soft flesh and eyes. Crying out, one arm striking at the bird, he tried frantically to steer with the other. His tires hissed and skidded and began to slide on roadside gravel. He screamed as the car lifted and spun sideways, then everything was whining metal, smashing glass, and fire.
*
A shiny crow hopped around the twisted wreckage at the roadside as it burned. The night-black creature skipped sideways towards the flames and plucked once, twice, three times, at something on the edge of the carnage.
As blue and red lights appeared over the horizon, the crow dragged a scorched and tattered notepad free of the crash and left it in plain sight on the edge of the blacktop. Then it flew up into the cypress branches above to wait.
The Beat Of A Pale Wing
Carly followed ‘big silver’ Silvio across the Volcano dance floor, past the bar and through a heavy door marked Private. She smirked to herself at the faces they passed, all the associates frowning, suddenly concerned at the presence of the big boss. His slick, black hair, designer suit perfectly hugging his large, athletic frame, and his hard, expressionless face all spoke volumes. The regular club punters had no idea of the power walking among them.
The door led through an office and out back to a large warehouse. Three men stood on cold concrete, expectant. The one in the middle - tall, thin - lifted his sharp chin in greeting. “Big Silver, so good to see you, boss.”
“You can make this happen now, Magic?”
Carly rolled her eyes. He never was much for pleasantries.
Magic Bertoli tipped his head to one side, a strange affirmative. His blond ponytail swung free. “Of course. For you, no problem.”
Big Silver pulled his phone from a pocket and dialled. “Bring them around,” he said after a moment and hung up.
Magic gestured to the two burly men with him. They went to roller doors leading into the warehouse space. One pressed a button to winch it up while the other casually tucked a hand into his jacket. Trustful as ever.
A sleek black car purred along the alley and into the building. As the roller door rattled closed behind it, the car stopped and a hulk of a man, stretching the seams of a black suit, unfolded himself from the driver’s seat. He moved around to the trunk of the car and popped it open. “Where do you want them?”
Big Silver looked to Magic who gestured to the ground right by the car. “Just leave them there.”
The big man grunted and reached in. He straightened with a limp, ashen corpse in his arms, a bullet hole like a tiny red flower in the centre of the man’s forehead. He dumped the body on the floor. It rolled, revealing an ugly exit wound in the back of the skull. The Hulk pulled another corpse from the trunk, similar, though smaller and older, bearing a comparable mark of execution. He dumped that body beside the first.
Big Silver turned to Magic. “All good here? You can live up to your name right now?”
“All good.”
Big Silver pointed to the car, addressed the huge man who drove it. “Take that to the yard and have it crushed, then get yourself somewhere safe and burn those clothes.”
“Yes, boss.”
“No fuck ups!”
“No fuck ups, boss.”
Magic’s cronies wound up the roller door, let Hulk drive away. Carly frowned, bothered that such a nice car was being junked. Still, it was details like that which kept Big Silver at the top of this particular game. He turned to her, took her chin in one manicured hand and kissed her.
“I have to go and see some men about some business,” he said.
Carly’s eyes tightened, her annoyance instant. Her long brunette hair sported an expensive new cut. She wore a brand new dress and knew she looked great in it, her tall, gym-fit body a damn fine piece of work. All for nothing, again. “I thought we were going to enjoy the club tonight. You said . . . ”
“I know what I said. Things change.”
“Okay.” She knew that seeing men about business meant seeing whores in a strip club. She also knew it was pointless to argue.
“You stay here and have a nice time.” He turned to Magic. “You’ll look after my little lady, right?”
Magic grinned broadly. “Of course. Miss Carly doesn’t pay for drinks at my club, boss.”
Big Silver nodded and left
without another word, strolled through the still raised roller door and into a car at the end of the alley.
Magic waited for his men to close the place up and cocked a thumb back over his shoulder. “Take the lady out front, make sure she has anything she needs.”
They nodded and led Carly away. As they shut the connecting door behind themselves, leaving Magic alone in the warehouse with the dead, Carly said, “You boys go on, I know my way. I want to use the bathroom.”
When one of them cocked an eyebrow, she added, “I hate using the bathroom out there, with all the coked-up bitches gossiping.”
The men laughed and went through into the club. Music boomed briefly through the open door, before returning to a muffled thump as it closed. Carly flicked an eye towards the private bathroom, waited a moment to be sure, then picked her way back to the warehouse door. Fuck Silvio if he was going to leave her alone again. She would finally get to see just what Magic’s skills really were. A part of her wondered if he was so good at disappearing people because he ate them.
The door to the warehouse was solid wood on the bottom half, four square panes of glass making up the top. The glass had been painted over, obscuring the view, but a small area a couple of inches across had been scratched or chipped away by something. Carly pulled a tissue from her bag and spat on it, polished the grime away from the gap in the paint. She crouched to peek through.
Magic was on hands and knees, meticulously chalking strange designs on the concrete in a triangle around the two stiffs. The designs were quite simple, but he took patient care in their placement. When he was happy with his work he moved several metres away and chalked a circle, smaller, around himself. Carly took her phone out to video the procedure.
Magic stood in the centre of his circle and pulled a heavy, dark figurine on an equally heavy-looking chain from inside his shirt. He held it aloft and began to intone a strange phrase. It was a language Carly couldn’t comprehend, yet he repeated it over and over and the words slowly sank into her memory, heavy with relevance she couldn’t explain.
