by Greg Jolley
Israel walked over to Uncle Tim, adjusting his dour expression into a pursed smile.
“And?” Uncle Tim asked.
“Bunch of sods.”
“Come on, sad eyes, let me buy you lunch.” Uncle Tim pulled his and Karen’s rental car keys from his pocket.
“If you’re buying. And, we switch topics.”
“Is there another topic?”
“How’s the pool business?”
“Neglected. I need to interview some help.”
“Got any leads? Let me drive.”
Uncle Tim handed over the keys.
“There’s a guy. Knows the maintenance side, but he’d have to learn the business and... Well, then I could focus on the designs and installs.”
“Who is he?”
“Brian.”
Israel scoffed.
“I know, I know. Flighty Brian, but… he’s my nephew and we came to the states together. Five hundred years ago.”
The two men climbed into the rental.
They drove slowly across the fenced back lot, past security at the gate, and out on the city streets. They talked about Karen’s schedule, that evening’s show, the next town and venue, t-shirt design, Karen’s website, and her mystique and what they could do to enhance and share it with a wider audience. And increase revenues.
BROTHERS & FRIENDS WERE finishing the extended first bridge of their fourth song, a slow take on Boz Skagg’s ‘Loan Me a Dime’. The guitarist and the piano player found a groove and entered a melodic beck-and-call exchange. The band was grinning, sweating, focused, and swaying.
The audience was weaving and bouncing, a merry sea of movement in front of the stage. Many were poised to join Karen in the singing of the first verse as happened on the album. What came through the auditorium sound system was a velvety young woman’s voice humming the lyrics instead of singing them.
The humming was deep hues staying within the lyric phrasing. The lighting crew swept the stage with an amber beam helping the audience look for the singer. When the light swept to stage right, a hand pulled the curtain back at stage left and Karen stepped out on stage humming into her headset mic. She walked slowly to the area between the drum riser and the piano player. Pale, pale Karen was wearing a grandma sweater, a dairy blue summer dress, was barefoot, and cradling her big white Gretsch guitar. The guitarist at center stage turned and nodded to her. He sang into his mic sideways, adding the lyrics to Karen’s harmony.
When the first verse ended, the audience was cheering and the band was indifferent as was their style. The guitarist patterned the melody for the first break, and Karen reached into the pocket of her dress and slid a glass slide on her ring finger. The piano player laid out crisp accents, without flourishes, and the spotlights centered on him and the guitarist. The two of them established and repeated the melody, trading off on the key notes. Twelve bars later, Karen joined in taking up a lower octave and playing stretched, sliding notes that lay under the sharp and crisp lead guitar. The bass player crossed in front of the drums and began to weave and bob, smiling, sweating, and exciting the audience.
The drummer sang the second set of lyrics. Karen walked to the stage wing and disappeared. She handed the big white guitar away and accepted her violin from Uncle Tim. She stayed in the shadows, listened, and watched.
The guitarist moved to center stage and began to solo in an amber and royal purple glow from above. His playing was confident and explorative. He found a variation of the melody and began to swing about in a dance that was intense and full of joy.
After three rounds of twelve bars, he turned and played to Karen, who had already joined in, her violin’s wireless mic turned down. The crew at the mixing board raised her volume, and she and the guitarist began to play to one another. The full call of her violin brought much of the audience to manic delight. It was now a happening, another Karen event, that didn’t overshadow the band, but changed it, widening the song. She stayed in the shadows, her bare right foot marking time, her eyes to the guitarist’s left hand, and her head tilted toward the piano player.
The song slowed to a strolling pace, and Karen took up underpinning lines. The song didn’t end, but unwound in different directions and crisp muted sparks.
She did not play during the following two songs before intermission.
As Brothers & Friends walked arm-in-arm off to stage left, Uncle Tim greeted Karen with a hug in the opposite wing. The two of them followed a flashlight backstage to the table Uncle Tim had requested. There was a pitcher of ice water and a tray of sliced fruit. A tech approached with his hands out to Karen, and she handed over her violin. She was sweating, smiling, and silent. Brothers & Friends were with their entourage amidst the equipment trunks and their own buffet. Karen chewed honeydew melon and kept her eyes on the tech with her violin. She appeared unaware of the come-join-us calls and gestures from the band. Israel stood between the two gatherings, smiling to both.
Ten minutes later, Uncle Tim retrieved Karen’s violin and used a towel to wipe chilled perspiration from her face and neck. She washed her hands in the pitcher of ice water and toweled them off. Israel walked over.
“They’re having fun. Tossed out the set list. Going to start with the Floyd’s ‘Time’ and then wander off from there.”
Karen nodded and rechecked the tuning of her violin.
The backstage lights dimmed, and the band headed out stage left. They began the next song, and Uncle Tim and Israel walked away from Karen as she began to play. Two-thirds of the way through the long, wandering song she turned up her volume. The techs at the mixing board caught it and panned her playing slowly from left to right, sweeping through the auditorium. There was a brief roar from the crowd as they heard her join in. For the remainder of the night, she used her volume control to choose when to play and when to listen. Brothers & Friends performed an encore with Karen listening closely, her violin lowered. The concert ended way past midnight. An hour later, Karen and Uncle Tim were aboard an Amtrak, and Israel headed south to the airport.
Uncle Tim got Karen settled in her cabin and unpacked her suitcase.
“Girl, you need a shower,” he told her, kissing her forehead.
Karen arched an eyebrow and grinned.
Uncle Tim left to find the diner car and then his own berth.
Karen showered and washed her hair, pulled on pajamas, and climbed into her bed. The train car swayed and rocked through the night, through open lands, towns, and freight yards. Karen slept deeply and still. Like always, she held her coconut-scented bar of surf wax in her hands under her chin and breathed from it through the night.
Karen rejoined her band, Wyde, three days later. They were playing a college auditorium in another California coastal town.
Freshly painted, she changed in the green room she shared with the percussionist, pulling on the night’s outfit that she had purchased earlier in the day. The corn silk dress was shin-length and looked like an antique, but smelled clean. She turned off her airbrush compressor on the floor of the cramped and cluttered room. Karen ignored the mirror in the brightly lit vanity and headed off barefoot to find the instrument tech.
Uncle Tim saw Karen exit the short hall and cross to the tech area backstage. He was standing with a security guard who was telling him something about another fan abduction. Karen gracefully squatted in front of the technician holding her silver dobro in his lap. He was restringing the instrument and talking to Karen, who was listening closely to him.
“Are you listening, Mr. Danser?” the security guard asked. “We’re getting a bigger police presence the next two nights.”
“Okay,” Uncle Tim absently replied, watching his daughter.
Karen was studying her violin held in brackets on the workbench. The technician said something and Karen smiled, unclasped her violin, and took it.
There was a group of kids around the buffet table. They were the children of the crew and band members. Karen walked in their direction nestling her violin unde
r her chin. Crew and techs were between her and the children, and she wove through the adults without paying attention to them. She stepped up to the youths and drew her bow, offering them the start of a song. She lowered to one knee to be at eye level with them. Two more children wandered over looking tentative. Karen played a fugue from one of the band’s songs. Most of the children smiled as she played; others look enthralled and curious. Uncle Tim couldn’t see his daughter’s expression, but that was okay; her notes and tones were happy and sincere.
SECURITY WAS ON THEIR toes that night, many assigned to keep an eye on the audience rather than the stage. At the backstage entrance, a guard was working a clipboard and checking press credentials. There was a small line before him and many of the faces were familiar. A new person, probably a local, stepped up. The guard raised the guy’s credential and studied both sides.
“Nice try, boy-o,” he told him. “Those credentials are outdated. Le-o-nard-o? You also an artist? As in con?”
“Well, no, I’m—” Leonardo started.
Israel leaned in. “Everyone’s an artist these days. Turn him back.”
Israel walked away in search of Karen. He could hear her violin but she was, as usual, nowhere in sight.
“Sorry, got the wrong one. Gimme a second?” Leonardo asked.
The guard looked Leonardo over. He certainly had the reporter look. One camera in his left hand and two more hanging from his neck. His free hand was working inside a worn shoulder bag. He pulled out a curl of documents and rolled them out. Prior press passes were clipped to the top of documents that looked like magazine and newspaper articles.
The guard watched him stir through the bag some more. Two other reporters queued up, faces he remembered from prior tour stops. One of them raised his press pass, and the guard waved him in around Leonardo.
The guard glanced at the next offered pass and saw the current year, not noticing that Leonardo had his thumb over the photo.
LEONARDO WATCHED KAREN DO a rare thing. He raised his Nikon and captured her stroll into the spotlight, heading for the center mic and the lead singer, Kendal, who was beckoning to her while the pianist soloed. She stepped to the mic and Kendal extended his arm out to Karen, seeming to embrace her without actually touching. Karen began to hum, tracing the notes of the lead singer’s voice. She didn’t trace every line, often leaning back to let the color and phrasing of the singer’s voice describe. She leaned in on ending notes and the second and forth lines of the chorus. On the last note of the last line, Karen swung around, stepped out of Kendal’s spotlight, and began to play.
The band was bouncing, grinning, and ignoring the audience—their playing was ecstatic, and they each looked delighted and focused.
Wyde performed their encore in subdued tempo with acoustic instruments. Karen’s touch was sparse, figuring the deep lines, the bass lines. That night her playing stopped with the end of the song. The audience was chanting and clapping, hoping Wyde would do a second encore, or to have Karen grace their final moments with her violin as they departed from the amphitheater.
The main curtain swept across the stage. Karen switched her wireless mic off. She was hungry and followed her band mates to the catered dining area. The instrument tech approached her gently, and she handed him her violin, which he carried away held in the caress of his two hands. Uncle Tim wandered through the clusters of press, family, crew, and musicians. Karen was eating a wedge of watermelon and enjoying Sej’s two bouncing and chattering young sons. Uncle Tim guided her over to Israel who was on the edge of the post-show party.
The three of them sat down in old wooden chairs, Karen with a paper plate of fruit, sliced cheese, and bread rolls. She set a bottle of water between her bare pale feet.
“Just got off the phone with Mr. Betts’ manager,” Israel told them, referring to the songwriter and guitarist Dickey Betts. Israel was pleased with Karen’s bright grinning response. “I think we’ve scheduled a meet-up and a closed-door session. He said that if there are sparks and colors—his words—we, well Karen, might book some studio time.”
Karen bit and chewed a banana.
Uncle Tim leaned forward and followed her gaze. She was studying a guy with a camera who was watching her through the lens. She raised a slice of banana with her plastic fork and winked, and the guy captured it. The photographer started toward them, and Uncle Tim straightened in his chair. The guy stopped a few feet away and lowered himself to his knees, his camera eye-level with Karen. Uncle Tim relaxed. He continued watching the guy while giving his ear to Israel, who had changed topics.
“The head of venue security says we’re having a safe night. A few fights and the like. No fan abductions. The state police aren’t as confident. One of them has suspicions. Talked about a possible ‘serial thing’. Thinking it might be band focused.”
Israel stopped talking. He recognized the photographer. It was hard not to remember the long surfer hair and handsome tan face. Same guy he thought security had tossed. He stood and walked over, waving his hand.
The photographer leaned back on his haunches and continued clicking off shots of Karen.
“Hey, that’s enough. Let the girl enjoy her meal.”
The camera was lowered, and the guy studied Israel, his expression flat. Then the right side of his mouth twisted, forming a crooked, appeasing smile. He tried to look around Israel to Karen who had a wedge of watermelon held beside her smile. With his view blocked, Leonardo lowered the camera into his side bag. He stood and turned his eyes slowly to Israel’s hand on his shoulder.
“Hey, bro, glad you found your pass, but enough,” Israel said. “Thank you. Let’s let Karen have her space,” he added in his best professional but friendly tone.
Leonardo didn’t reply. He stared at Israel’s hand on his shoulder. Israel looked too, and decided not to lift it; not until the guy turned.
Israel glanced at one of the security guards who was approaching, crossing toward them in a sure and, so far, calm manner. When he reached Leonardo, Israel lifted his hand. He offered Leonardo a second professional smile as the security guard escorted him away.
Israel turned around. Uncle Tim was still sitting. The guitar tech was walking away, empty handed, and Karen had again disappeared; the only hint, the only trace of her was the plate of fruit rinds on the old wooden chair.
The next morning the air was cold, the motel pool was warm, and chlorine formed a low cloud of fog just above the water. The surface was smooth except for silent small explosions of falling rain. Beyond the pool and the motel office, the rising sun was an orange bulb swept by long pink clouds. The sparkles in the water glimmered with gold light.
Brian sat up on his queen-sized air mattress, bundled his blanket to his side, and rolled off into the water. He swam the length of the pool underwater, surfaced, and climbed out, his big body dripping water in rhythm with the rain. He pulled the air mattress out onto the pool deck and opened the air valve. As his bed deflated, he gathered up his blanket and zip-lock bag. After drying off with a motel towel at the umbrella table, he pulled on his clothes over his swimsuit. He folded up his bed and blanket and carried them and his zip-lock bag from the gated pool area.
It would be another long day of driving, followed by an evening watching and listening to his cousin, Karen, play. His truck was tuned up and full of fuel, thanks to the money Uncle Tim had wired via Western Union. Uncle Tim had added a fair amount to cover Brian’s travel expenses. As the gold sun rose into the flickering roadside trees, Brian relaxed into the driver’s seat. His zip-lock bag was on the passenger seat under the list of towns where Karen was appearing and his collection of maps. The map on top was new; Brian had bought it while filling up the truck. It was open and folded over providing the route to the next concert.
Brian’s thoughts turned to a flow of images of his son: walking him to school, Sam trying to help him clean the huge reflection pool at Hillcrest Cemetery, the two of them at home floating in the pool and chatting and laughing. The
slide show made him frown—he missed his son—but he let the images play, painful as they were. The slide show he wouldn’t play was the confusing one titled, Divorce. A sadness entered the truck cab expanding like an oppressive heat, and Brian turned from the Sam photos to those of peaceful, idyllic underwater swimming.
The morning passed into afternoon. Brian remained underwater in his thoughts, but he kept an eye on the odometer, fuel gauge, and out over the hood, keeping the truck moving safely up the gray road. There had been so many pools throughout his life. Some warm, some cold, some filled with seawater and others made immaculate, sparkling clean and clear by his own hands. He swam through as many of them as he could remember, his back to the bottom, his eyes to the shimmering window to the sky and real life above the surface.
Time and many miles passed and early evening arrived. There was little traffic. He had the slow lane mostly to himself save the big eighteen-wheelers. They seemed to be taking turns passing one another in a kind of win-lose dance performed on the rolling pavement.
He stopped at a gas station in another town that didn’t have a name that he could see and entered the diner for a late lunch. He was offered coffee and a menu. As the waitress headed off, he opened the zip-lock bag and set out his collection of letters. The old ones were bound with a shoestring. The new ones were in envelopes taken from motel rooms the past two nights. He took a stamp out for each from the tiny booklet in his wallet. He put stamps on the new blank envelopes.
He wrote on motel stationary while he ate. He wrote of swimming and different temperatures and clarities. He described someone disturbing the water as she entered the pool. He wrote of the first sighting of the other swimmer’s shadow on the pool bottom. He stayed within the word movie until the other swimmer was beside him, matching his stroke and pace, in alignment. Then he lifted his pen, the film unfinished, and the next scene unclear.
