The Devil and Preston Black (Murder Ballads and Whiskey)

by Jason Jack Miller

  Jamie sat silent while I waited for reassurance. Finally, he said, very earnestly, "Did you make a deal with the devil?"

  I felt a little dizzy, like the first time I got busted for underage drinking. My face got hot.

  "Hey," he said, slowing the car to a near stop. "Easy, son. I'm just kidding."

  But I didn't recover so easy. Not after last night.

  He said, "It's over now, isn't it? You got your song, you got your guitar, you got a great story to tell. Hopefully you learned a little about yourself."

  "That's not fucking funny," I said, forcing a look of anger and disgust on my face.

  "Aw, Pres..."

  But I couldn't hold back my smile. "Serves you right."

  He smiled and slapped my knee, then let the car drift toward home. Maybe he didn't think my joke was as funny as I did. He didn't say anything until we got to the highway. "Ain't many left like them, Preston," he said, switching topics like a snake changes skins. He revved the engine a few times and hit the concrete at the speed of light compared to the slow two days we just spent up on the mountain. "Wires are going to kill what's left of guys like the Currences. Phone lines, power lines, TV cables and fiber optics. Mark my word, in another twenty-five years you'll only be able to read about guys like them in books."

  When I thought about it my eyes drifted to the side view mirror like any minute now one of the Currences would come strolling down the hill and give me a dire warning about heading back to the dangers of the modern world. I told Jamie, "That's sad. So it's like their house, their farm, all of it will return to the earth unless somebody writes it down? Sounds like something Dani said the other night?"

  "Dani's the girlfriend? Was she the one on the phone this morning?"

  "No, she's not a girlfriend. I wanted her to be, but..."

  "But?"

  "It's difficult." Words raced through my head, but they obviously weren't the right ones. And I didn't want to talk about Dani. I said, "I wonder how trilobites Pancake wrote about managed to make their mark. If I died right now any record of my existence would be gone in a matter of years. Not centuries or decades. The music I've been playing is like a hobby because I got nothing to show for it. Unless I do something to affect another soul my time here would have been better spent flipping burgers or pouring Slurpies."

  "You're young. Maybe creeping up on thirty is getting to you?"

  "I don't know, man. I just don't want that song to be the only thing left of me." We rushed through the colorless world. Rain washed salt and ash from Jamie's Subaru, stripped the landscape of snow. Brown rivers and streams flowed past gray houses and fields.

  Jamie tried to make me feel better. He said, "Songs connect people to parts of themselves they didn't know they'd lost. They hear a few notes and it reminds them of Christmas Eve or their senior year in high school. Songs keep track of who we are when we can't keep track of the time ourselves. Whenever I hear John Denver, the sun is shining and I'm bringing my son home from the hospital."

  On the other side of the window I saw a world that didn't stop turning while we were locked away. Electricity still hummed through overhead lines. As we climbed up the big mountain past Seneca Rocks Jamie said, "Look, you're playing Friday, right? That'll be an important night for you. Get some of your material out there. See how people react to it."

  "You think you'll be around Morgantown Friday night?"

  "Hadn't planned on it. But I hadn't planned not to be. If you're inviting me I'll do my damnedest to be there."

  "Well... Don't go out of your way or anything. But if you are in town..."

  "You seem nervous."

  "You can't bomb with material that's been tested and proven. There's a reason somebody yells 'Freebird' every time we play. Even if they are trying to mess with us." I rolled my window down a hair to let some air in. After I finally built up a little courage I asked, "What do you think about what Ernie said? About the devil?"

  "Belief is a powerful thing. It can heal the sick, keep folks alive long after they're dead. Like Elvis. Look, I once met a fellow who told me playing fiddle was forbidden on the Sabbath. Said if you made music after midnight the day before Sabbath the devil'd get into the fiddle and it'd play all by itself. The only way to get it to stop is to burn it. So every single week, for the rest of his life, he made a big deal about putting the fiddle away early so God would know he still honored all the commandments."

  "I can buy that, and it's not the belief I have a problem with. But that's not what I'm asking you. I want to know what you believe, deep in your heart. Do you feel the devil's real? Is he a trickster or a demon with horns and a split tongue or what?"

  Finally, a question he couldn't answer so easily. He let his reply slow-roast, like a Thanksgiving turkey. After a minute, he said, "I have to think about all that I've seen and experienced. One time I saw a guy on the railroad chop off a blacksnake's head. It crawled away and squirmed and didn't die until after the sun went down, just like the superstition says. And I swear I remember seeing my great-grandmother get milk from an ax handle when I was a kid. I remember that day on the farm like it was my birthday."

  Jamie let a quarter of a mile slip by before going on. He said, "The devil... I suppose the devil is whatever it wants to be. Like the Bible says, the devil's like a pissy cat looking for the next mouse he'll devour, though not in such certain terms. The devil's an unclean spirit working within the children of disobedience. The Bible says the devil leads men to sin then opposes all of God's efforts to save them from sin. He tempts those who lack self-control and when he fell to earth he hit with nary a splash."

  "Nary a splash?" I said, trying to ease Jamie into a lighter mood.

  "With nary a splash," Jamie said. "And about Satan... Satan was lifted up because of his beauty. Satan has the power of death. Satan is the deceiver of the whole world. Sorry you asked yet?"

  "No, it's all good. It's all just Biblical warning and all that. None of it means anything."

  "Well, let me help you out then. We know the devil is beautiful, the devil tempts with sin—drugs, alcohol, food, wealth, sex. The devil probably doesn't have horns, wings or a tail..." He grew angrier.

  I shook my head to let him know he could stop. And I thought about what he said, because I respected him and I knew he wouldn't mislead me. I really let my mind work his words over. Finally, I said, "Maybe I did make a deal with the devil. I don't know anymore."

  By the time we got to Davis I was pretty tensed up. Maybe it was being in the car, being out of my comfort zone for so long. My shoulders hurt and my stomach knotted. My mind took to worrying, about Pauly, about Mick, about Dani. The song stuck with me a little more than I'd let on.

  Jamie's wife had a late lunch on the table for us so we didn't go the fire hall hungry. But I couldn't eat, and asked Jamie if he minded if I went downstairs to play instead. Jamie's studio felt like Mick's shop minus the responsibility. My mind ran through lyrics and snippets of the stuff I'd been working on. I pulled out my notebook and wrote down everything that came into my head. I wished Pauly was here.

  Jamie came down after he ate, set up the mic and started tuning. He said "You got chords there?"

  I shared my notebook with him.

  "Let's play each one twice, the second time we'll roll tape."

  We ran through "Kill Every Sparrow" first. I wrote it about how people didn't have control over the stuff that happened to them. The lyrics needed work, so before putting it on tape Jamie helped me with a few tweaks.

  We did two more. The next one didn't have a title, but I wrote it about a girl, a different girl. About how I'd cut out pictures from old magazines and put them into notes I'd give her between classes. Pictures of beach houses or the New York City skyline. Jamie said I should call the song "Trilobites," because it sounded like the Pancake story.

  For the last song I wanted to do something else from my notebook, but Jamie objected. At first, he politely said I had better songs. When I didn't follow he started
getting specific without getting specific. He said, "Maybe something from this weekend," and, "Is there something more relevant, more personal?"

  I shrugged.

  He said, "We have to record the song. You have to put a stamp on it, son. Make it yours."

  "I can't."

  To his credit, he let it go. Maybe he was right, and maybe I knew it, but now wasn't the time. So we did my third song, which I called "Twickenham." The mediocre mid-tempo riff sounded too much like Social D. I wrote it about George Harrison after seeing the abuse he put up with while recording Get Back.

  I considered doing the Preston Black song as a fourth cut, but by the time I changed my mind Jamie started transferring files and fiddling with levels and all that, so I figured we were done. He burned me a disc, then said we'd leave in a bit, and that Katy would meet us later.

  The knots left my belly. I went upstairs and threw on my cleanest dirty shirt. After a quick trip into the bathroom to wet down my hair and brush my teeth I felt ready. But when we got to the fire hall I didn't see Katy. Jamie took his time talking to folks, shaking hands while I strolled to the back and peeked down the hall. I wandered back over to Jamie and lingered, waiting for him to tell me what to do.

  But I didn't get very far before running into Katy, her bright, pink cheeks a sign that she'd just come in from the cold.

  I said, "Hey, you survived the storm."

  "It just rained, mostly. How was your trip? Was Jesse phenomenal or what?" She slid off her mittens and shoved them into her pocket. When she pulled her hat off static brought some of her fine brown hair right along with it. I wanted to push the loose strands back behind her ear, but put my hand in my pocket instead.

  "I'll tell you all about it. Where were you planning on settling in?"

  She said, "Anywhere you are."

  I said, "Maybe someplace less crowded?"

  She found one of the firefighters, a guy she either went to high school with or went with in high school, and asked if we could go into the garage. A defensive lineman-looking dude wearing coveralls and a WVU hat, opened the door. He looked right at me, said, "Don't touch anything," then, "Katy Bear, let me know if you need anything else, okay?"

  "Thanks, Alt." She pushed the heavy door shut behind him. A tanker and a ladder truck sat with their backs to us. Helmets and heavy coats hung from hooks that ran along the back wall like a Broadway theater curtain. A faint smell of wood smoke mingled with rubber from the tires and the scent of moisture in the air, perhaps from all the rain outside. Light streamed in through the garage doors' big windows.

  She ran her fingers along the edge of her case, and said, "Do you feel like playing?"

  While we tuned, she asked about the trip, was it far, about what Jesse was like, she didn't know he had a brother, she couldn't wait for Augusta and I should come down, even if I didn't take a class, and a bunch of other words that came flying at me like bowling balls at duck-pins. Then she asked about the song, asked me to sing it. I said, "Not now. Maybe I'll practice it for Friday."

  She asked what else I'd play Friday, and we ended up running through my other songs together. Where Jamie played parts of jigs or reels that kind of fit, Katy played parts that sounded like a synth, or the low drone of a bass to accent what I wrote without trying to tie it to traditional stuff. Her playing sounded more like what I had in mind when I'd written them. Between songs we discussed ideas about bridges and interludes and intros. Then we played them again, incorporating the new ideas. Eventually I had to pull my notebook out and start writing stuff down so I didn't forget.

  After a while we took a break to stretch. She went to the bathroom and I bought us some hot chocolates. The little marshmallows reminded me of the marshmallows from Lucky Charms. I waited for about fifteen minutes before deciding I looked foolish standing there with a Styrofoam cup in each hand before heading back into the garage. She came in a minute or two after me, saying Chelsea'd been sending texts all afternoon. She said Jamie asked where they'd been and if we wanted to grab pizza. She said we should meet him over at Sirianni's. I handed her a cup of hot chocolate.

  The rain had finally eased. Across the street I could hear the river rushing full speed ahead, almost as loud as the cars that went by. The gray sky created premature evening. Streetlights hummed to life. We treaded the thin line between the road and all the snow the snowplows had pushed aside. Jamie waved at us through the window. The low lights gave the interior a golden glow. A haze of frost on the glass and the angels cut into the screen door gave the scene a cinematic quality.

  We sat down at a table for eight, and were—despite the sign that said No joiners—eventually joined by some of the guys from last week and some new people from the fire hall. Twelve total when you counted Jamie, Katy and me. I drank Arnold Palmers like I'd been wandering Moab for weeks, and listened to friendly sarcasm and condescension fly round the room like bluebirds trapped in an attic.

  Katy and I made our own fun, inching our chairs toward the big picture window at the front. She kept asking me about groupies. I thought she was playing along just like the rest of the group. So each time I joked back, or replied no such thing existed, she found a way to rephrase the question. Finally she said, "There must be one special girl amongst the hordes, right?"

  It took me a while, but I finally got what she had been getting at. It stunned me a little. I thought about Dani and the way she treated me. I said, "Maybe 'hordes' is a bit strong. Been a while since there'd been a 'horde'. But there had been one... I thought it would go somewhere. But she broke it off. So, no, there's nobody."

  Something about the way she looked at me changed. Her eyes got excited. "Then this means you owe me a real date when we get back."

  When the check came we just split it all twelve ways. I dipped into the cash I had left on me to pay for mine and Katy's, but Jamie said he had ours. I asked him to let me get the tip then, and he agreed. Then Katy suggested we head over to the Purple Fiddle for drinks, but Jamie said we had a long day and ought to be getting back home. Katy asked me if I felt like I'd be up for something else.

  I told her I did, and asked Jamie if he minded.

  He said he didn't and that the door would be open.

  Katy sang Elton John all the way to Thomas. I could only laugh. We swung through town, but couldn't find a parking spot out front. She pulled into the post office lot down the street and locked up. "You just want to leave our instruments in there? I thought..."

  "They'll be fine." She grabbed my hand and lead me onto the big front porch, past the kayak and stuffed moose head and show fliers and the sign that said 'Hippies use back door'. String band music came through the walls. We went through the crowd, straight to the back, past old glass cases filled with t-shirts and books. Katy 'procured' us a pair of Hornsby's Ciders.

  She stopped and said hi to the guys in the band then snaked past tables of dreadlocked trustafarians and locals. I followed, part of her little 'here I am' parade.

  "The locals seem easily impressed by Katy Stefanic," I joked.

  "Jealous much?" She slid into an old wooden booth near the front door.

  I sat across from her.

  "Mr. Touchdown City doesn't like to share the spotlight, or whatever..." She smiled.

  "A few people you know from high school does not a spotlight make." I smiled back.

  We talked and drank another round. But I couldn't hear her so well, and I really craved the conversation more than anything else. And maybe the more I talked, the less I missed Dani, and realized maybe there wasn't all that much there between us. Dani and I both mourned for a family we'd never had. Katy had never known a life without family. The way she spoke, the way she looked at people without assuming they were out to get her, the way she forgave and forgot, these were all things I found myself falling in love with. I didn't feel like I had to rehash the disastrous events of my childhood with Katy. Caught up in the emotions I'd been feeling, I asked her, "Is there someplace quieter we could go?"

 
We settled our tab and went back outside. The air smelled like spring. It sat heavy in my lungs, like each breath contained equal parts mountains, river and water dripping over moss. Above, the sky had cleared. A big moon bounced light off of the puddles and melting piles of snow. Either it was the big blue sky or Katy that made me believe I could jump and not have to worry about ever coming down. I opened her door for her. She started the car while I walked around to the other side.

  Deer lined both sides of the road on the trip back to Davis, so she drove cautiously. Jagged pine trees on the ridges of distant mountains stood out like shadows on a sidewalk in June. Instead of going back into town, Katy made a right onto the road that went to Blackwater Falls. "You said you wanted to go someplace quiet."

  "I meant get a coffee or something. Maybe pie?"

  "Trust me."

  She made a left just before a gated road. The arrow on the sign indicated we were heading toward the lodge. She went slow because there were deer everywhere, peeking out of trees like their evening had been ruined by the passing car. Dense forest blocked out the moonlight here and there. When we came around a bend with a wide view of the sky, it looked like we were driving into full sunlight almost.

  "I think we just passed the lodge." Lights from the parking lot disappeared down the road behind us. When all traces of civilization had vanished she pulled over on a wide shoulder. The trees fell away, exposing a thousand shades of blues that changed with distance. Cobalt, navy, sapphire, cerulean, midnight, indigo and colors not yet named tinted mountain ridges lined up like records in a bin at Isaac's. The rush of water drew my eyes to the canyon floor where a thin sliver of moonlit river unspooled like a roll of aluminum foil between the steep walls. I shut the car door behind me and leaned against the hood. Katy stood next to me.

  "You're a long way from home, Preston Black." She slid right up to me, almost like the breeze had blown her over. "Sometimes I dread Sundays knowing I have to drive back to town."