I took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. I sang, "Preston Black couldn't sleep the whole night through. Preston Black couldn't sleep the whole night through. He'd lay in bed 'til the morning came, but the devil'd visit him just the same. Preston Black couldn't sleep the whole night through."
At the end of that measure I slid up the neck and pounded out an A minor 7, putting an exclamation point on the melody. I did the same with the E, strumming so hard I cut my right pinky and ring fingers on the strings. Just like Joe Strummer. The hot tubes released their fury into the composition.
Katy responded by playing an Irish-sounding reel to compensate for my lack of delicacy. It surprised me a bit. I looked over at her and smiled.
I yelled more than I sang. My voice strained and cracked like my old amp. "Preston Black went down to the crossroads. Preston Black went down to the crossroads. Tried to make the devil a deal but the bitch said he didn't have a soul to steal. Preston Black went down to the crossroads."
I stepped away from the mic, absolutely beating music out of my old Tele. Sweat dripped onto the stage. Katy's bow sawed the air, her head bobbing and dropping with dips and shifts in the riffs she plowed through. Maybe she had demons of her own to exorcise.
I came back to the mic and took an extra beat or two to catch my breath, hacking out the A with staccato chops of my fist. I closed my eyes and spit out the last verse. "Preston Black wrote his own sad song. Preston Black wrote his own sad song, he knew if he didn't do it the devil would, and she'd already taken everything she could. Preston Black wrote his own sad song."
I jumped away from the mic like it was a crate full of black widow spiders. Katy turned toward me, her fiddle screaming like a mother over a lost son. Screaming like a cougar cornered in a wild hollow. Screaming like a storm pushing its way over her mountains. The wailing bursts from her fiddle pushed light away from the stage, brought time to a halt, infected my blood with a tinge of something Jamie called 'chills of hilarity'. It felt like I mainlined the song straight into my blood.
I looked for Dani through all the fists in the air. The light from the stage cast the audience in an orange glow. The movement from the crowd had the same effect as a bonfire. I found her dark, unblinking eyes and I improvised.
"Preston Black went toe-to-toe with the devil..."
I stopped playing and muted my strings, letting Katy's wild creation run rampant through the hall all by itself. "Preston Black went toe-to-toe with the devil."
A wave of feedback caught in the old Twin's tubes. I let it boil and bubble. As the teapot screamed I sang, "If I don't have a soul to steal then we sure as hell don't have a deal. Preston Black went toe-to-toe with the devil."
I kicked the mic stand off the end of the stage and slid right up to Katy. But she didn't back away, throwing wild jabs with her bow to keep me back. She wasn't about to let me put her in a corner. She came out swinging haymakers.
I gave Katy a nod. One more measure. A whole life for a few notes. And when I hit the last chord the train stopped so fast the caboose didn't know what was coming. I yanked the cord from the Tele and dropped it to the floor. I slung the guitar behind me and yanked Katy out of her moment. She put her arms around my neck, violin in one hand, bow in the other. She kissed hard, like a bee stings. She looked up at me. I pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear with my finger.
The noise from the floor blew like a nasty wind coming down Cheat Canyon. Like a semi through my bedroom. I'd never heard anything like it from this side of the stage. I let Katy go but held onto her hand. I put my left hand up over my head. She took a slight bow.
Mikey jumped onto the stage from the floor. He kissed Katy on the cheek, then grabbed my hand. He stepped up to the mic and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, let them hear..." but the crowd didn't need prodding.
He hugged me. Into my ear he said, "Unreal, man. You are unreal. You still inspire me to want to be better. That's all I was hoping for tonight."
I put my Tele in its case and waved one more time. I gave Katy a kiss and said, "I'm sorry. I'll do whatever I can to make it all up to you."
She nodded and gave a little smile. "I know." She stepped toward the edge of the stage. I grabbed her wrist and turned her toward the crowd. The other guys from the band came up and congratulated us.
Too busy trying to hang onto the moment to appreciate it, I watched the crowd scatter, either looking for drinks or the bathroom. I wanted somebody to come up to me and grab my shoulder and tell me how great it was, but I knew the experience meant a lot more to me than it did to most of the kids here. They were ready to move on. Katy bobbed her way back toward the soundboard and her uncle.
I wanted to see Jamie, too. I was sure he had something to say. And I needed the approval. But Dani cut me off on her way to the exit. She looked at me and said, "Very good, Preston. The little boy is all grown up. Pauly was always a lot easier anyway. Na shledanou."
I followed her onto the sidewalk. "Dani!" Going from the room's heat to the night's cold gave me a deep shiver. "Leave Pauly the hell alone."
She ignored me and continued toward the intersection. The red from the stoplight cut through the deep fog and reflected off of the wet street. Patches of snow in the gutter and on grassy spots reflected the red up to the sky. Brake lights cast red sparks onto the faces of the drivers in the cars behind them. The fog was too dense for them to do anything but crawl.
I jogged to try to get ahead of her. "Stop!"
I stepped in front of her. She didn't look at me. Still jittery from the rush of performing, I grabbed her wrist.
She screamed, "Don't you touch me!"
I tried blocking her path, but she made a quick right onto the Westover Bridge to dodge me. "Dani, you listen to me…"
Inflamed with rage I sped ahead of her. Cars stopped at the light on their way up Pleasant, but the drivers ignored us.
I didn't dare touch her again, but was powerless to do anything else. A tiny voice inside me said just give it up and go back inside. "Dani."
She pushed past me. I couldn't see the river below for all the fog, but I heard it washing past the bridge supports. A tugboat pushing empty coal barges rounded the bend by Star City. Its spotlight split the fog like a hatchet splits a log.
I ran on her heels. The sound of our footfalls crunching in the old snow and crusted salt was the only other sound until I yelled, "You're unreal, you know that? The difference between me and you is that I was at least loved by somebody. But you're like a tiny little stone that keeps getting pushed downstream, getting passed around from man to man because you feel like you're controlling something. We are not the same. You don't know how to love anybody because nobody's ever loved you." I jabbed the air with my finger.
For the first time tonight she stopped and let me face her. She raised her hand behind her head to slap me. I caught her by the wrist. She smiled, then tried to pull away.
She pushed me with her left hand, then boxed my ear again and again when I didn't let go.
Still gripping her right wrist with my right hand, I tried to block with my elbow. Her nails dug into my forearm. Blood trickled out of burning cuts.
She screamed, "Help me! Please, he's going to kill me," and backed toward the rail that separated the sidewalk from a long drop into the Monongahela River.
I released my grip on her, but she clung to me like a scab to a cut. I tried to twist her off of my arm, but she kept a fierce grip with both hands. She pulled a mask of terror over her face, eyes widened like she was really facing her own death.
I twisted myself out of her grip and she slapped me, her ring cut my cheek. I used my elbows to block her blows and backed away. My ears rang from being hit so many times. Blood dripped onto my white t-shirt. "Fucking stop! You're fucking crazy." I yelled and grabbed her wrist again.
"Preston... I know what it's like for you. Who else can understand?" Her voice wavered and cracked as she wrangled herself free. She said, "Mám toho plné zuby! You accuse me of these horribl
e things, saying I'm the devil. But I'm just a person, like you—a lonely, sad person." Now crying, she said, "I'm just a girl who knows what it's like to have nobody. And now I don't even have you."
She tried to embrace me and I backed away. "Preston," she cried, "I just want to touch you. Please. I want to feel your skin."
She reached her hand out, trying to caress my cheek. "Let's make this work, Preston. We can have our own family."
I stopped fighting and tried to see her as a person again, and not a monster.
"Jump with me. Nemožu bez tebe žít. And I don't want to live without you." She thrashed and struggled. If anybody else had been on the bridge to see, it would've looked like I was pushing her.
Gravity pulled her toward the river. Pulled me toward my wet grave. My prophesized end. I clamped onto wrist with both hands. She released me. He fingers relaxed but I held on. The weight of her body felt heaviest where my ribs met the railing. I couldn't take full breaths.
I said, "If I jump I'll die. But I bet you won't. You'll pop up somewhere else. Maybe even right back here."
She smiled and said, "I'm sure the large part of me is Danicka Prochazka. Maybe the small part of me must be the devil. "
"All I have to do is let go."
She said, "Do it then."
My fingers relaxed. In that moment her expression changed to a look of self-satisfaction, like she knew all along. She disappeared into the fog without a sound. I stood, waiting to hear the splash her body would make when it hit the water.
This is when I'm supposed to do it.
Cold water and a muddy grave. Dying in the dark. Just like the song said. I stood up, composing myself. I wiped my hand through the cold water on the rail and patted it on my face. The cold felt good.
Katy called my name from down the street. Her umbrella bobbed in the glow of a green light. I headed down to her, blotting my cheeks with melting snow from the rail.
She held my other shirt folded under her arm. I lifted the bloody t-shirt over my head. She buttoned up my flannel while I pressed the t-shirt against my face.
She brought me under the relative warmth of her pink umbrella and said, "Is that it?"
"That's it." I lied. It wouldn't be over for me until I heard the splash.
I rested my good cheek on the top of her head. She didn't say anything else about it.
I didn't either.
EPILOGUE
Derek Duffy signed Katy and me to a two record deal. Said we should call ourselves Kill Every Sparrow. He loved the whole 'mythos' I'd created for myself. Said alt-country would love us, too. Blacksnake Recordings, a Backside Records subdivision, released Live at The Stink, recorded by Jamie Collins as a promotional EP.
Katy and me went on the road, playing all through May in places like Falls Church, Virginia and Boone, North Carolina and Boulder, Colorado. We made a few more records, started splitting our time between Davis and Nashville.
And I'm still waiting to hear the splash...
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Where to start?
Probably with my uncle, Mike Rega. He played drums in a band with his dad and his sister, and every time we saw them play, I knew I was on the wrong side of the music.
But it was Jeff Sabarese who put a Gibson Futura in my hands and introduced me to Jimmy Page and Randy Rhoads.
What happened next?
I rolled into Micarelli's Music and dropped ten bucks on a Japanese Strat. Only took three years to pay it off. Carl Micarelli was not pleased.
After that, Lou Rega showed me how to form barre chords and the rest is history.
And by history, you mean...
I mean Phist, the most awesome band in the Albert Gallatin Area School District for one month in 1993. And if you were one of those lucky enough to catch us at Tri-Valley High School's Winter Carnival, or our New Year's Eve show at Swaney's Roller Rink, then you know nobody brought it harder. Shout out to Aaron Barnhart and the Schiffbauer brothers—Jarrod and Josh.
And since then...
Well, there's Little Mike Rega, who is kind of a musical kindred spirit to me. Except he doesn't get Wilco like I do, for which I forgive him.
So where'd all the traditional stuff come from?
In 2003 I had the pleasure of participating in a workshop on Appalachian Culture and Music with Gerald Milnes, the Folk Arts Coordinator at Davis and Elkins College. He talked about witches, signs, hexes and where they all came from. Then he broke out his fiddle and invited those of us with instruments to join him. That single evening impacted my writing more than any other over the last ten years.
One of the themes of the book is family? Talk about your writing family.
I'm very happy to have the friendship and support of three great writers—Mary SanGiovanni, Christopher Paul Carey and Dr. Michael A. Arnzen. They are the ones I hope to impress with my writing.
And Pauly is based on your brother?
Mike is nothing like Pauly, although he did ride his brand-new sled down the stairs one Christmas morning.
Who do you write for? Who inspires you? Motivates you? Takes care of you? Who's your best friend? Who is the music in your life?
That would be my wife, Heidi, who lifts me up, and helps me stay there.
Did you write all these questions yourself?
Of course, I did.
Special thanks go out to Jim Sherraden and Brad Vetter of Hatch Show Print for you tremendous patience. I think a book should be judged by its cover.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jason Jack Miller hails from Fayette County, Pennsylvania, as in, "Circus freaks, temptation and the Fayette County Fair," from the song "Cigarette" by The Clarks. He is a writer, photographer and musician who has been hassled by cops in Canada, Mexico and the Czech Republic. An outdoor travel guide he co-authored with his wife in 2006 jumpstarted his freelancing career; his work has since appeared in newspapers, magazines, literary journals, online and as part of a smart phone travel guide app. He wrote HELLBENDER during his graduate studies at Seton Hill University, where he is now adjunct creative writing faculty. He's been a whitewater raft guide, played guitar in a garage band and served as a concierge at a five star resort hotel in Florida. Now he's an Authors Guild member. When he isn't writing he's on his mountain bike or looking for his next favorite guitar. He is currently writing and recording the soundtrack to his novel, The Devil and Preston Black. Find him at http://jasonjackmiller.blogspot.com. Tweet @jasonjackmiller.
The Devil and Preston Black (Murder Ballads and Whiskey) Page 29
