The Devil and Preston Black (Murder Ballads and Whiskey)

by Jason Jack Miller

  "And when I left. . ." Her stare drifted a bit. "All my life they told us the West was a horrible place and people died because they didn't have enough to eat. And I went and thought, I'm the poor one, where are the others like me? It wasn't what I expected. Outside was so much more. . . The sestra did a very good job of protecting us. Once I was out I had to make my own way and I guess that's why I stayed away."

  "So your parents died in the revolution?"

  She laughed like she had to shake away bad thoughts. "Of course not. You never heard of the Velvet Revolution? No, after I was born my father ran off to Italy to find a better job. My mother fell in love with a man who already had a family. She left me with Barnabite Nuns at the Church of Saint Benedict. Cabbage every day. But there I learned Latin and German and Russian. Somehow I got the idea that speaking many languages improved my chances of finding a family."

  She looked into her drink. "When a man and a woman came to look for a child I would say 'dobré jitro' and then 'dobroye utro' and finally 'guten Morgen'. That's how I ended up in Munich, a hol i ka turned Fräulein." She switched accents like I'd switch chords. "It's easy for me to forget how very fortunate I was."

  I almost said something little, a sympathy or whatever, but she went on. "In the orphanage, we learned first to grasp the world through language–-for us—the language of Bible. But the regime didn't approve, and forbade this. To release my frustration I conjured up demons to attack StB agents, a practice I enjoyed very much."

  For a long time neither of us said anything. Sometimes she'd rest her head on my shoulder, then she'd just swirl her drink, forever around and around. When she finally finished her drink she took my glass.

  "No more," I said.

  She stood and said, "One more," then returned to the kitchen. While she poured the drinks I took off my Vans and set them over by the door. She returned, handed me the tiny glasses, then she undid the clasp on her skirt and let it drop to the floor, exposing thigh high stockings and garters. She took her drink from me, then unbuttoned the top and bottom two buttons on her gray shirt. She tapped my foot with hers. I uncrossed my legs and she sat down again, this time leaning right against me. I rested my arm over her shoulder, and she took my hand into her shirt and placed it on her belly. Her smooth skin felt warm, like August at nine PM.

  Her small fingers clasped my forefinger and made small circles around her belly button. Her cultured ways made me self-conscious. My fingers were calloused from playing and my knuckles were scabbed from scraping the track bar when me and Pauly changed the Jeep's tie rod the other day. Never in my life had I felt so strongly that I wasn't good enough for somebody. I forced the rest of my drink down.

  Dani didn't seem to mind, holding my forefinger like a pen as she continued to write half notes between her belly button and the top of her panties, whole measures on the black lace whorls that separated my fingertips from her skin. When she slid my finger to her other thigh I figured this was only the first verse. Her breathing changed. Half notes became quarter notes. She arched her head back, looking for a kiss. She wrote measure after measure until the staff was full.

  I wanted to add a verse of my own.

  "Not yet," she whispered.

  Guiding the pen to the page she continued to write. Little by little the chorus revealed itself to me. And as she pushed me into her panties I wondered if we were headed toward the bridge. She arched her head back again and found my mouth, singing lyrics directly into me. She twisted, took my glass, mostly empty, and set it on the table behind me. One by one she undid my shirt buttons.

  She straddled me, rocking and rocking before finally settling upon my still-buttoned fly. Gently, back and forth, establishing a tempo. Writing her song with her thighs, and with the in between. Rocking still when she found my belt.

  I undid the last of her buttons and slid her shirt off of her slender shoulders. Kissing her neck, her throat and the soft skin above her breasts elicited a half smile from her thin lips. In the broken light of the stained-glass lampshade I found her eyes, pupils wide in a bed of amber. She pulled my shirt over my head, then my t-shirt. She guided my hand toward the clasp on her bra. The more she took off, the more I could see that she wasn't a goddess. She was just a girl.

  Dani reached behind me and turned off the light. She slid off of me and stood—now the brightest light in the room. She whispered, "Are you going to let me rewrite your song, Preston Black?"

  I kissed her neck and shoulder, gently tugging her toward her bedroom door.

  "Preston?" Dani looked up at me with serious eyes.

  "Yes... If that means you want to be with me..."

  She kissed my chin, then my cheek.

  "It does." She slid her hands along my waist, pushed my jeans and boxers to the floor. Nothing left to hide.

  Her room smelled and looked exactly like I thought it would, like nothing could ever go wrong on this big four-poster bed. Like clementine and mint and anise. She threw back a heavy, embroidered throw and down comforter, scattering little pillows, all purple and green with gold tassels.

  I fell into a clump of over-stuffed pillows with Dani on top of me. Even before I could slide her panties aside she reared up, like a cat upon a mouse. Her breathing and focus let me know I had catching up to do. With the tips of my index fingers I unclipped Dani's thigh highs from her garter and slid the garter and panties off of her hips and down her legs. She lifted herself for a moment and found me again as she kicked them off of her ankle.

  I focused on a window, seated at the end of a deep dormer, and tried to think about Duane Allman or the cafeteria from my high school. Anything to curb my excitement. She kissed my neck, my chest. She bit at my earlobes and lower lip. Beyond the window I could make out a few stars. "Slower," I said, my voice barely a whistle in the wind.

  She never looked at me, but I couldn't look away. Her hips pulsed, fluid contractions that came from deep within her. She squeezed herself around me. I tried to assert myself and change the tempo. "Slower."

  Her breath, like a huff of steam from a boiling tea kettle, blew onto my neck. The scent of clementine and mint and absinthe lingered beneath my nose. Dani angled herself further forward and pushed her hips faster. The smooth skin between her breasts glistened with a touch of perspiration.

  I scolded myself for letting my focus drift and directed my attention back toward the window. The stars didn't seem to be moving fast enough. After all the insecurities I felt tonight, the least I could do now was hold on as long as I could.

  Dani smiled, said my name, then muttered something in Czech. The sound came from her throat, from somewhere deep inside her. The tone sounded familiar, but the words were ice in the desert. The way she said them made me lose it.

  Synapses fired electric light into my skin and bones. She raised an eyebrow, kissed me, then rolled her hips forward twice, almost like taking a bow. Then, letting go herself, she sighed a sigh that filled my head, her breath filled my lungs. She fell onto my chest.

  "Preston?"

  "Yes, Dani? Danicka. I like that better, I think."

  "I like the way you say it." She pushed her hair behind her ear, then sat up without getting off of me, asking, "If wishes were real, what would you wish for?"

  I didn't say anything, thinking maybe she was being rhetorical. I closed my eyes.

  "Preston." She forced my attention, holding my chin in her hand.

  "I don't know." I didn't feel like talking. This was time to sink into the bed, drunk on love. "What do you mean?"

  "For example, how would you change things, if you could change things?" she asked very earnestly.

  "Why're you asking me now?" I tried to put on a face that hid my confusion and rested against the headboard.

  "Maybe I don't do this kind of thing very often and want to know you a bit better. Why do you need an explanation?" She pushed me back into the pillows.

  "Really?" I wanted a quick shower and a long night to dream.

  "Really. Before I s
ay 'goodnight' I want you to tell me three things. Three things you would change." She laid her head on my chest. Her thick hair fell onto my neck.

  "Three wishes?"

  "No, it doesn't have to be a wish. Just something you want. Save wishes for things you know will never happen."

  "I don't know." I thought about it for a second. My life had been changing so fast I found myself wanting quite a bit. Too much to boil down into three easy statements.

  "I wish I could find my dad, I guess. So I at least knew where I came from. That's easy."

  Part of me felt afraid to say these things out loud, like not telling anybody what you wished for when you blew out birthday candles. But I wanted to feel safe with Dani, like she could be different and I didn't have to put on an act.

  "Maybe I wish Stu'd come back. I don't care how he gets back, I just want him back. Because then all this uncertainty about the band wouldn't matter and Pauly'd see that we can take it to the next level and all the mistakes he's making if he gives up." I found the stars again, but not the same ones I'd seen earlier.

  "And the last thing, I think, is that somehow I'd like to be a part of music forever. Real music, the kind people never forget. I'm afraid life—real life—like jobs and taxes will tear me away from what I love. I'm afraid if I lose music I'll be just like everybody else. And that scares me." I forced a laugh. "Is that too much to ask?"

  "No, it's not too much." She laughed with me, gently pulling my face toward hers. "Polib m."

  And we kissed again. If I didn't know any better, I would've sworn right then and there that she loved me, too. I'd never been kissed like that.

  She didn't cover herself when she left the room. I sat on the edge of the bed while she went into the bathroom and ran the hot water for the shower. After a few minutes she called for me.

  The steam went into my lungs easy, like a shot of Jameson. I wiped moisture off of the mirror and looked at myself, not proudly, but not regretfully either. But when I saw the extra toothbrush and the bottle of Prada I felt a little shame. I didn't know French, but I knew POUR HOMME.

  Danika remained silent while we showered. She gave me a big, soft towel and told me to get some sleep while she dried her hair. She kissed me and said she'd join me in a few minutes. And when I returned to the bedroom I saw a hundred things I didn't see before—a pair of cufflinks and another bottle of cologne on the dresser. I cracked her closet door open and found a white dress shirt and a pair of neckties, one gray and one red. I probably could've found more, but didn't want to.

  When she returned I pretended to be asleep. With my back to her I watched stars through the dormer window, still thinking that they were moving too fast.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Pauly met me down at Mick's. I hated leaving Dani's so early, but she had work to do and I promised Pauly I'd help him put the new water pump in mom's car. He nebbed about Dani all morning. My head hurt too bad for his crap, but I tried to hide my hangover.

  Pauly had a way of turning a two hour job into an all-day thing. He lollygagged, going to three auto stores to compare prices before going back to the first one, which he knew was cheapest anyway. The whole time I forced ginger ale into my belly to keep from puking. When we finally got to the house he took his time at lunch, acting like he'd never eaten a freaking meatball before. Then he bullshitted with his pap while I finally went out and got started pulling the bad water pump out.

  When Pauly came out he just kept giving me shit for being hungover. Besides the hangover I felt cranky anyway. Instead of being able to sleep the way I wanted to, weird dreams hassled me all night long. Dani sleeping next to me should've been all the sedative I needed, but instead I had to walk Joe Strummer's dogs for hours and hours. I knew he was asleep inside his big estate, about to die, and I was afraid to take the dogs back because I didn't want to be the one to find his body. When I tried telling Pauly about the dream he kept getting hung up on the fact that they were Joe Strummer's dogs and asked me how I knew.

  By the time we'd gotten the water pump in we'd talked about English Bulldogs and pit bulls and how purebreds were really inbred, and all kinds of other, mundane stuff, but never really about the dream, which was the whole reason I'd brought it up in the first place. When we finished up and headed inside to wash up I didn't have much left to say on the subject. Or anything subject.

  "You want to eat?" Mom already had her waitress apron on, like if we sat at the table long enough she'd fill up our coffee cups, pull out her pen and pad and ask what we were having. Pauly's grandpap slept through the news in the other room.

  Pauly said, "No time, mom. I just came back in for my birth certificate. I got to bring it in with me tomorrow. We have to get to Mick's before he closes then I have to get ready to go to a meeting. My sponsor gave me shit for missing last night to play a show."

  "Did you tell him it was Stu's last show?" I could've eaten, especially since I knew she didn't mean she'd be cooking. But ever since Pauly's child support and clothing vouchers ran out, dinner meant going to Mountaineer Doughnuts while mom worked and getting her discount. I said, "What's your hurry anyway? Why can't we just run it up to Mick's tomorrow? I have lessons, so I'll be there all day."

  "Rent's due, and I'm counting Stu's drums as part of what you owe me." Pauly pulled his coat on and stuck a Camel in his mouth. "My sponsor says I got to start being on top of shit like this."

  "Take it outside," Mom said, whisking him away like a dust kitty. "Don't you light that in this house."

  "Yeah, anyway... We're rolling." Pauly grabbed the doorknob, lit his Camel with his free hand, and flung the back door open to the cold evening. A rush of February wind brought cigarette smoke and the buzz of the dusk-to-dawn light back into the house.

  "Sorry." I apologized for him and put my arm out for a hug. "I'll stop up later this week."

  "You boys be good." She leaned in and kissed my cheek. "Remember, the devil is a tempter, and an enemy of souls."

  "He sure is..." I replied. I liked her better as a Catholic. As far as I could see the benefits of being born-again hadn't kicked in for her just yet. I mean, she lived in a shit house, had a shit job and she sure as shit wasn't glowing or walking on water.

  I buttoned my coat and went outside. My heart sped up when I saw I'd missed a call. I hoped it was Dani, but Mikey Kovachick, a former student, left the message wanting to see us about a gig. I put the phone away and followed Pauly to the Jeep.

  The driveway's cold gravel and old snow crunched beneath my feet. Beyond the city, spread out below like buildings from a model train set, the winter evening arrived with a smear of magenta and crimson gels. February fooled you into thinking winter would end soon. Each sunset felt like a little white lie, hinting at a spring that remained too far away. I told myself it couldn't look like this in New York or LA. I pulled on the Jeep's cold handle and wondered if the only reason I liked this town was because I thought one day I might leave it.

  "So Pauly, I've been thinking about the band." I pulled my sleeves down over my knuckles. My breath clouded the windshield, and I wiped it clear with my elbow.

  Pauly tried his hardest to get warm air out of the cold engine. He pumped the gas pedal and twisted the heater knobs, each time holding his hand over the vent like he was using the old Jedi Mind Trick. Nothing ever moved fast enough for Pauly. Wheezy heaters, red lights and little old ladies were all the same to him.

  I made my pitch. "Like, who says you have to be from L.A. to make it? Look at some of these douche bags getting recording deals nowadays."

  The Jeep lurched into drive. It needed transmission fluid. We drifted down the hill.

  I lifted my collar and tried to hide further down into my coat. "You know, I would've died for Joe Strummer or Eddie Vedder. Those guys are legendary now because they're real. They aren't just guys who want merch money and pussy. Who's the realest band playing right now?"

  I waited for Pauly to answer, but he focused on the road. Passion made me talk with my hands
. "I say somebody like Radiohead. Or Wilco. But shitty bands still keep getting deals." I added my own exclamation point by chopping the dashboard with the side of my hand. "And we don't even do any originals. So what does that make us?"

  Pauly turned onto Richwood, then made a left onto Darst. If there'd been more snow on the steep hill we'd be dodging sleds and snowballs. But anymore the winters weren't like the ones back in the day. Either too warm or too cold, but never the same.

  "Like, what if instead of just looking for a drummer until Stu gets out, we get us another guitar player too? Get away from the covers and challenge ourselves and really try writing our own stuff?"

  Pauly waited for traffic to clear before making the right back into town. Steam from the old buildings along High and up at the university rose into the cold dry evening. White puffs from brightly side-lit chimneys and smokestacks rose into the dark blue sky. Streetlights were as bright as the first stars that poked through the sunset.

  "Even if we can't get both a guitar player and drummer one or the other is fine. I'll sing and play drums if I have to. Like Phil Collins. People like the covers, but maybe we could take a few weeks and reinvent ourselves or something, maybe kill Pipeline—at least 'til Stu comes back. And when Stu comes back I'll go back to playing guitar or whatever and we can start working originals into our sets."

  A trickle of heat seeped from the vent. I held my hands over it and went on. "This time it can be—I don't know—an organic experience where we move forward as a band, rather than a group of individuals doing their own thing just to make some cash. We write and record, write and record."

  I waited for Pauly to say something. Anything.

  "Well, what do you think?" I asked after a few seconds more.