The Devil and Preston Black (Murder Ballads and Whiskey)

by Jason Jack Miller

  His words hung there like exhaust from a coal truck.

  He said, "I'm going to grab myself a stout. What's your tipple?"

  Katy shook her head. She was wearing a little red dress that buttoned down the front. She had my black scarf wrapped around her neck.

  Jamie wished me luck like he really, really meant it, then ducked inside. He had his canvas bag and a mic boom with him.

  Katy looked up with eyes that didn't waver. Whatever she thought, she thought. She had total confidence in whatever decision she'd made. She finally said, "We just came from Mick's, you know. Jamie and me went in halfsies on your guitar and amp."

  I rubbed my eyes.

  She handed me the receipt. It was Mick's handwriting. The payoff amount for the Martin loan. "Yeah, Jamie said he warned you he'd buy that old Tele. Mick said we had to come down here to collect it from you." She didn't say it with a smile.

  "Why would you do that?" I said. It was barely a whisper.

  "I don't know, Preston. I really don't have a freaking clue." She looked up at a tram on the rail above. "Jamie said it wasn't your fault. He said you were 'under the influence' like I'm supposed to know what that means."

  I laughed defensively.

  "And he said you needed this." She handed me the rattlesnake beads that had been in the Martin. "He said to put them in your pocket and don't ever take them out. Jamie convinced Mick you were all right for the most part. He said you just needed a little kick in the ass to get through all this."

  I gave the beads a little shake.

  "And this is from me." She wrapped an violin string around my left wrist. "Silver," she said. "To keep the devil away."

  I held Katy's string to my cheek. It was warm. "Katy... I barely know you guys. I haven't done anything at all to prove I'm worth any of this." I rubbed my temples.

  She turned toward the street and looked up at the low clouds. "I know you haven't. Maybe we just like you."

  "Well, I'll pay you back, every cent. I swear. There's no way..."

  She looked at me like she'd counted to three and made up her mind. "I don't want any money. Preston, I can't believe I'm about to say this..."

  I waited.

  "You're going to be huge, right? That's the plan." It wasn't a question. She said, "Maybe you're meant for more than all this. And maybe I want be a part of it. Like I really want a PhD in child psych or whatever. So consider it collateral or something."

  She took my hand. "Jamie believes you can make something of yourself. He says you have a gift, which is total bull because he told my mom the same thing about me and look where I ended up."

  I didn't know what to say, not that she was giving me a chance to speak.

  "I'm not convinced you're anything special yet. I want you to prove it to me. Right now. Mick said I could call the cops immediately after the show if you blow it."

  "Katy, I have to tell you everything that happened. There has been some crazy stuff going on."

  "I don't want to hear about it. Not now anyway. Jamie told me everything I needed to know."

  As soon as she finished her sentence Stevie Croe and his girl stepped onto the curb. "Hey, Pres." He grabbed my hand for a quick handshake, then hugged me, and nodded at Katy. I put my hand on Katy's back, just above her waist. We followed Stevie and his girl inside.

  While Katy hung up her coat I went to find Mikey. I asked about a second mic and told him what was going on. He went back and told his sound guy. I looked for Jamie, but didn't see him. As I pushed my way to the stage he materialized at the sound board, tightening the arm on his boom. I wanted to tell him how much his help had meant to me. But he nodded like he knew. When the house lights dropped I lost him. The crowd noise grew from a simmer to a boil.

  Mikey pulled a second mic over to mine.

  "Ladies and gentlemen!" The crowd responded with a staccato burst of applause. It was too early for drunken applause. Mikey said, "You all know we're here tonight because you put us here."

  Somebody shouted, "Play some music, douchebag!"

  Mikey laughed and said, "And my mom's here, so...Watch it."

  That he wasn't a great front man seemed funnier to most people than the words themselves. I pushed toward the stage. In a moment of panic I realized Katy wasn't with me. I spun to look for her and almost knocked her down.

  "I'm right here," she said. She looked tiny in between all those people.

  Mikey said, "Tonight's a really big night for us. You all know we're hitting the road. Maybe we'll see some of you guys in Panama City or on San Padre over Spring Break. After that we're heading out west. When we get back to town in August we'll be bringing a new record with us."

  The way he smiled reminded me of the time he learned Randy Rhoads' "Dee" all on his own. He sat down and busted it out note for note in that little practice room at Mick's. And when I told him what a phenomenal job he'd done I saw that same smile.

  "We have copies of our demo for sale back at the merch table. We have t-shirts, too, and stickers, so make sure you help us out. Eric doesn't want to run out of gas or Dr. Pepper somewhere in West Texas."

  I stood at the edge of the stage and surveyed the crowd. The faces looked so different than the people we always played for. I didn't know if I'd be able to connect with them. I looked for Stevie. When I found him I looked for Jamie. Instead, I saw Dani at the bar. She was rubbing up against the guy from the Met. She had her hair up and wore a gray dress open almost down to her belly button and had on high black boots. It wouldn't be a party without her.

  Turning my back to Dani and the crowd, I took my phone out of my pocket and scrolled through my texts to look for the last one John had sent. I hit OK, then scrolled down to CALL.

  It rang.

  When the ringing stopped I expected John to say something. When he didn't, I said, "Just wanted to thank you and let you know I was going to be okay. And I wanted you to hear this."

  I said "Don't hang up," then set my phone on the floor in front of a monitor.

  Katy watched me and raised an eyebrow. She said, "You'll tell me later?"

  I shrugged. "Tell you later."

  Mikey went on. "When I knew we were kicking off our tour here there was only one guy in this whole town I wanted to play with. You've seen this guy everywhere, mostly rib cook-offs, for some reason. He's the one who flipped you off when you yelled 'Freebird!'"

  Ted lit up the Shoot the Duck sign. Seeing that brought a big smile to my face.

  I got real close to Katy and raised the mic up to her violin. "The first two are in A minor. You tuned up?"

  She looked at me like I'd sprouted antlers. "Please."

  "Just like up at the café. I have a cheat on the floor. Chords and lyrics."

  "Yeah, I got this." She smiled. I got caught up in the moment and wanted to kiss her, but didn't.

  Mikey said, suddenly a bit more seriously, "This guy saved me. He gave me music, so I guess you could say he gave me my soul. My life. I don't know what I'd be doing without him. Please welcome my good friend to the stage. Mr. Preston Black."

  The crowd responded with a round of polite applause. I knew how I felt about opening acts, now I knew what it felt like to be one. I picked up the Tele, plugged it in and fired up the Twin. My belly fluttered and my hands shook. I suddenly had to pee real bad. I took a deep breath and stepped up to the mic.

  "Thanks, Mike. You really shouldn't give me so much credit, though. Everybody in this room knows that there aren't many bands that make it as far as you have."

  I strummed a few times, then flipped the pickup switch to the neck. "Well... I've played in a band for so long I didn't think I could do it alone. So I've asked a friend to join me tonight. Please welcome Davis, West Virginia's own Katy Stefanic on violin."

  She got some hoots and a few whistles as she joined me at the second mic. I turned the Tele's volume knob up a hair and gave her a G. While she tuned, I lowered her mic a little, then said, "I don't plan on saying much tonight. But I want to let yo
u all know how I ended up here."

  I gave her a D. She stepped back from the mic and nodded.

  "A few weeks ago I found a record at Isaac's up on Pleasant. Right next to Mick's. I was flipping through LPs and found this old record that had been pressed the same year I was born. On the back of the sleeve I saw my name. As a song title. I thought it meant something. I thought, maybe the songwriter was my dad just because we had the same last name. I knew it had to mean something. So I bought the record even though my track looked like it'd been worked over by a horny alley cat."

  I plucked an A.

  "So I started looking for the song. I had to know what the song said."

  From an open D string I hammered onto the E, then picked the C before strumming a few times.

  "In the process I found out a little about the place where I was born."

  I took a deep breath and picked out a slow, soft "Wildwood Flower." At the 'I will dance I will sing' part Katy stepped up to the mic and joined me.

  Right then and there an amazing thing happened. In these kids who threw down Jäger by the pint every Friday night, I managed to induce images of the buckwheat cakes and the lonely hollows they went back to every Saturday morning. I had to let them know that I knew, and playing that song created a common ground. They were mountaineers not just in the hoodies and ball caps they wore to football games. That's why they sang "Take Me Home, Country Roads" every week at the top of their lungs. The hall stood frozen, like in an old photograph. It was so quiet Katy could've played unplugged.

  I dropped the picked melody and played a variation of the chords, and sang, "In a picture I saw what we used to be, and wondered, where did that life go?"

  I turned toward Katy so she knew I was singing to her, too. "When did I wake up in another man's clothes? A John Doe?"

  She smiled and stuck with me like powdered sugar to funnel cake, playing like she knew what I had in mind when I wrote it. By the time we got to the chorus we found symmetry in our new song, neither of us trying to outplay the other. At the end of the final chorus I started to segue like I'd practiced this afternoon, but thought things might fall apart if I couldn't pull Katy along with me.

  When we got to the breakdown I stepped away from my mic and got right next to her mic like we were sharing it. The time I pounded out with my foot got a little louder and uglier. She got right into the mic, her delicate notes growing angry like they knew we were about to make it rain.

  I kicked out the time, the hollow wooden stage bounced like a big bass drum. When I went to my own mic to launch into "My Own Drummer" she abandoned the violin-as-accent approach she'd taken so far and grabbed her share of spotlight.

  Shrill squeals fell from the sound system like Tomahawk missiles. She picked up on the symbolism in my lyrics and played quarter tones that mimicked an Islamic call to prayer. It was angry and sad and she let it get wild like Johnny Rotten in a stolen Camaro, pushing the intensity, convincing me to get louder and uglier.

  I tried to get her attention. "One more time."

  In a weird reversal of roles she was the virtuoso and I was the rhythm section. I was Pauly and Stu, holding it all together while she ran wild through the room punching out windows. I hoped Jamie was getting this all down.

  When we brought it to an end I stepped back from the mic. And I didn't hear anything. For a second I thought I blew it. I thought it was only great in my mind. My ears rang. I had to actually look into the audience to see the wild response, the mouths opened wide, screaming for more of what we were throwing down. Stevie held his girlfriend. His head was down and I couldn't see his face. Katy bowed and for a second I thought I was at Red Rocks or Central Park or the Gorge.

  "Thank you," I said. But I couldn't hear it through the monitors. "Thank you very much."

  After the noise simmered I got up to the mic and said, "That song was for Stu Croe. He died in uniform while serving his country."

  My lips were dry. And before I could let it all get into my head and screw with me I launched into the next song. "Teeth without teeth, laws without claws..."

  Katy looked down at my cheat sheet on the floor. After the first verse I gave her a sign. She joined me for the second measure, playing a slow, deep trill, a lulling undercurrent to the steady dirge I beat out of my guitar. Out in the audience a few people closed their eyes and rocked back and forth.

  "Two foot tall, not a man, nothing at all."

  A couple of kids texted. I saw the blue glow shining onto their faces.

  "Sticks and stones, break my bones, not a clone but you can't fight DNA..."

  I wasn't playing for the kids on their phones. Maybe I finally learned I couldn't change the world with a song. We kept this one short. The applause wasn't as focused as it was the first time, but it felt appreciative. I figured I couldn't ask for more. Not on a night like tonight. I looked for Jamie. I looked for Mikey and his band and their A and R guys.

  Dani had pushed her way into the middle of the room.

  I said, "Thank you. That song's about the night I found my real dad. You can probably figure out it wasn't good."

  We caught our breath. It all happened too fast. Afraid I'd never get to feel this again, I dragged my feet. I flipped the page in my notebook with my toe. Katy looked down at my cheat sheet.

  Into the mic I said, "But I found love, too." My light, little chords tinkled like sleet onto a sunny window. It wasn't "Layla," but then again, neither was anything else Clapton ever did. I sang, "Now, Alice couldn't climb out of the rabbit hole. Dorothy couldn't ride another tornado back over the rainbow, and I can't go back to a world without you in it."

  I listened for Katy to join in because she hadn't yet. When I turned I saw her violin tucked neatly beneath her arm. Her head was tilted toward me so hair fell across her cheek. She was listening.

  "What if I could go back to the day the music died, and send the plane away with no one inside? Would you give me another chance?"

  I looked for a response from Katy, but I figured her presence was her response. I turned toward her and sang the chorus. Like I said, it wasn't "Layla." But it was mine. It was something new.

  "Hey, hey little bluebird, why don't you stay? I thought I heard you singing, I thought I heard you say, that you loved me..."

  It was an apology and a confession. Maybe something from mass had stuck with me after all these years.

  "Went down in the morning, to where last I heard your song, the sun came up and then the stars, and I knew that you were gone."

  It felt good to confess, to be rid of all the shit I'd been carrying around. It was about time I took a fresh start.

  "I never said I love you, I know now that was wrong, I don't know where to find you, I hope you hear this song."

  The last few verses, even though they were symbolic, didn't really seem to matter to anybody except me and Katy. I'd planned to play this long, instrumental interlude thing, but seeing the audience fade made me cut it short.

  At the end I took a little bow.

  I started to get scared. My heart palpitated, my tongue might've even gone numb. I felt I'd lost the crowd to make things right between me and Katy. I decided to cut out the middle and go straight to the end. A big end.

  I let the air leave the room. It was still mine for a few more minutes.

  "A funny thing happened with the song from the back of the record," I said, looking for Jamie. "A friend of mine did a lot of research to track down somebody he thought could help us with the lyrics to "The Sad Ballad of Preston Black." And from the second this guy started singing I knew the song was about me. My life in verse. The song said I'd made a deal with the devil."

  I wiped sweat off of my brow with my forearm.

  Looking for Dani, I said, "All kinds of bad stuff came raining down on me. And just like the song said I would, I found the devil herself."

  I looked over at Katy. Her fiddle was propped on her shoulder like an AK. She was ready to go.

  "I'm going to sing that song fo
r you now, the song that kicked this crazy journey off."

  I took a deep breath.

  Maybe it was cliché to start soft and let it build, but that was what worked. "Stairway." "Everlong." "Two Step." I didn't really see myself having a choice. So I sang the first verse a cappella. Just like Ernie Currence sang in his kitchen, except in tune. I slapped my knee with my hand and sang, "I never knew my mom or a dad. No, I never knew my mom or dad. Didn't know when I was born, didn't know when I'd die, didn't know nothing about the how or why. Preston Black didn't know his mom or dad."

  The ironic thing was the way they ate it up. Their attentiveness was obvious, because I'd seen a lot of crowds who could give a shit. And I wondered how many of them believed my story, and how many of them thought it was bullshit, but liked it anyway.

  I continued a capella, but this time Katy played, squeezing out a dissonant drone from her fiddle like fingernails down a chalkboard. She twisted the minor key, giving the song a gothic stain.

  "Preston Black couldn't quench his thirst. Preston Black couldn't quench his thirst. But he'd go to the bar every night and be dry again by the morning light, Preston Black couldn't ever quench his thirst."

  Katy built on the song's melody, playing notes complementary to mine but never the same note. Her tones and my words filled the space above the crowd with strange, new chords. Smothered them with noise.

  While Katy played I turned around and eased the Twin's volume up. I looked for the sound guy, maybe trying to tell him I was about to drop bombs. When he nodded I got ready for the next verse.

  "Preston Black loved to sing in church. Preston Black loved to sing in church. Though he knew the words to every song the preacher told him that he didn't belong. Preston Black loved to sing in church."

  At the end of that verse I started picking out the melody. The Twin's hot tubes gave me a little fuzz. But I wanted more. I pointed to Katy's mic and pointed up with my thumb. The sound guy nodded.