The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart

by Glenn Taylor

  Ace sat up while he still slept. Choking air, he went to the kitchen, knocking his right kneecap on the doorframe. Still, he did not wake up. Not until he had the Ajax canister in his hand, held up above his head. Only then did he open his eyes. He looked at the cabinet in front of him. He couldn’t remember opening it or grabbing the Ajax. He breathed deep and heavy and wondered at his sleeping intentions. If he had to put money on it, he’d have bet he was about to pour scrubbing powder down his throat to scare off the snake that had clogged it.

  ‘Ace,’ somebody yelled outside. ‘Ace!’ His heart hadn’t slowed and he was yet to catch his breath. He cracked the kitchen window.

  In the driveway, Zizi stood shivering, holding a cordless phone. ‘It gets static out that far. Come take it in the house.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Phone for you.’

  In that moment, Ace could not recall having ever once received a phone call in the thirteen years he’d lived there. He slipped on some shoes. It was cold out.

  He took it from her and sat down on the back stoop. He took another deep breath. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Two words for you?’ a man’s voice said.

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Two words for you? Self-defense? That’s all ol Charles Lively had to say to keep you from killin him? I thought you was cold-blooded. Thought you could drown a glass a water.’

  Ace tried to do some math. He couldn’t figure who’d still be alive to speak to him that way. Lively had to be long dead, way he lived.

  ‘Mouth too rotten to talk?’ the voice said.

  ‘Now you look here.’

  ‘No, you look here.’ It was Warren Crews. Ace had heard it in that enunciate of hate. Real hate. ‘I wasn’t even going to mess with it no more. But then you come on to town with the cocksuckin tree huggers. You go on over the hill to your shithouse and walk around inside of it. They’ll put a feller our age in the penitentiary, don’t matter his state.’

  Ace stood up, yelled into the phone. ‘You been in there Warren? You just get out? You listen to me you goddamned son of a bitch—’

  Warren Crews hung up the phone.

  Ace jumped up and down on the stair then. He rubbed at that knee he’d knocked, cursed in an unknown tongue. He had on a holey T-shirt and boxer shorts. Wingtips with no socks.

  Zizi watched him out the window. She opened the back door. ‘What in the hell is going on Ace?’ she said. She shivered in the open doorway.

  ‘Oh, just go on back in to your eight ounce bottle, Zizi.’

  The skin on her neck drew in. She looked behind her to see if anyone had heard, then thought better of that. Albert hadn’t been to the house in a month and Sam slept in his sealed off study. Zizi cracked the screen door and took the phone from his hand. She looked at Ace, then away from him, and shut the door.

  He went back inside and ran a bath of Epsom salts.

  In the tub, he gargled and spit salt water. Swashed it over those sore gums. The pain had come back in recent days, the old ways of the mouth. He knew that mouth was what brought the dreams, what put him in a foul mood. The throb brought all of it down on him. He’d let himself say something he never should have to Zizi. And it wasn’t just the once. He’d been saying things to Sam too. Things he shouldn’t, like, ‘You’re a goddamned professor and you don’t even push your boy at college?’ It was as if the words came out before he thought of them these days. The throb in the gums caused it. But he’d not see a dentist. He’d not go under that gas again.

  He thought how nice it would be to just stop talking. To just sew his mouth shut and clog up his ears with cornbread crumbs.

  He got out of the tub and into the bed.

  It was Yellow being gone.

  It was the boy being out in the streets.

  It was the television thrown away.

  It was winter. He’d just have to get through winter and things would be all right.

  THIRTY

  A Man Took It All To The Stage

  It was Saturday, May 29th, 1993. Memorial Day weekend. Ace got up at 7:00 and swashed antiseptic mouthwash until it burned too bad to hold. His gums still throbbed when he laid down his head, but the swelling had shrunk since winter. He pulled on his white dress shirt and buttoned it slow. In front of him on the bureau were his teeth in a dry highball glass. He’d quit putting them in, even for work.

  Ace looked at the dentures and thought to himself, ‘This is the last time you’ll see those teeth.’ He left them where they lay. Sitting down on the bed, he pulled back the sheet, and fished his arm in for the money roll. This time, there was no peeling of bills from the Pulitzer round. He took the whole wad out, unrolled it, and folded it flat under his right shoe insert.

  Inside the main house, he called Louise and told her to bring the property deed papers to the show that night.

  ‘Why?’ she asked.

  ‘Just bring the papers,’ Ace said.

  He sat at the electric typewriter in his Advertiser office rubbing his tongue over his gums. He looked down at the police reports St Clair had given him that morning. Larceny. Battery. He put his fingers to the keys of the electric typewriter, but he didn’t feel like writing any of it. It was the Saturday of the big event. The sun was shining outside. The whole family, all souls dumped in the tri-state, were meeting at six at Camden Park for a concert. Camden Park was of the amusement variety, run-down rides that spun you sick. Six bands scheduled from all over, including the Kozmanauts. Some called it a revival, others a carnival.

  He pulled a folded paper from his back pocket. On it, he’d written in inkpen the made-up Police Blotter he’d been working on since he took the job in 1984. It was just what he did sometimes. Made up things to write about when the real stories became too much. Over the years, he’d crossed out parts and re-written them. But until that morning, he’d never typed them out at work.

  He loaded a fresh piece of paper and put down the headline. Outlaw rides off, leaves city dwellers for sunny Mexico. He tested his typing skills. Ninety-year-old fingers could still get the job done if they’d been trained by Dorothea. He really banged it out. He knew when he turned it in later, Dave Pace wouldn’t even look at the thing.

  At the end, he’d stopped, still not having written what he truly wanted to say. It couldn’t be done. Like he’d told Joseph Mitchell that day in New York City, ‘There ain’t no real when it comes to writing.’ He pulled his hands back, then put them on the keys again and typed, Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.

  Sam had been in the Camden Park parking lot since six a.m. He’d loaded his Volkswagen van with the unassembled backdrop pieces and three student volunteers. Gary, Jason, and Brandie. All morning and afternoon, they staple-gunned and nailed together and painted the mountain scene. The mountaintops had been shaped with a variable speed jigsaw and a detail sander. It was beautiful, painted green. Deep green. Sam had done something to be proud of.

  He drove the last nail at five. At five-thirty, the opening band set up, and at six the Stetson-hatted singer said, ‘Welcome everybody, we’re Nehemiah’s Blowtorch.’ They opened with ‘Sweet Home Alabama,’ only they replaced the state’s name with ‘West Virginia.’

  At seven, Sam looked at his wristwatch. Albert still hadn’t showed. Zizi was too happy to be cold sober, and the rest of the band had walked out the main gates and disappeared inside a patch of trees across Route 60. They were scheduled to play at nine.

  A section of the parking lot the size of a football field had been cordoned off for the event. Folks were filling it up.

  Ace walked up to Sam. He’d heard something from a Kentucky harmonica player that confused him. ‘Sam,’ he said. The sun was lowering behind Ace, bouncing off the worn top of his fedora, reflecting off the chrome cars of the Big Dipper coaster as it rattled in the distance. ‘I gather you had a chance to meet most of the musicians this afternoon?’

  ‘Most.’

  ‘You meet a band leader from
Fairmont named Hambone?’

  ‘Yes.’ Sam took bites out of a ketchup-smeared pronto pup between words.

  ‘He say anything about a famous fella sittin in on piano this evening? Fella from Fairmont. Johnnie Johnston?’

  ‘Did this piano player used to be with Chuck Berry?’ He scraped his teeth over the stuff stuck to the stick.

  ‘I’ll be damned,’ Ace said. He shook his head and laughed. He wasn’t looking at Sam then or any one of the folks gathered around them, some dancing to the music, some not. He rubbed at the stubble on his jawbone. ‘Well, bring it on, I reckon,’ he said.

  At eight, he found Johnnie behind the stage, smoking and waiting to be called up for two songs with Hambone and the Virginia Slims. ‘Johnnie,’ Ace said, walking up to him. Johnnie Johnston looked good. He wasn’t overly wrinkled or fat for a sixty-eight year old man. He dropped his cigarette on the pavement and cocked his head at Ace.

  ‘Yes? Who is asking?’ But he thought he might know. He just couldn’t say it out loud.

  ‘Chicky Gold the Harmonica Man of the West Virginia Shine Guzzlers,’ Ace said. He stood as straight up and down as he could. Had his muscles flexed under his clothes.

  ‘Sheeeeeeeeeeeee-it,’ Johnnie said. He smiled and they hugged, clapping backs hard.

  When Johnnie got carried away with the back-clapping, Ace said, ‘Watch it now. I’m a cold-blooded old son of a bitch.’

  Did they ever laugh then until Johnnie got called up to twinkle keys on Ray Charles’ ‘Georgia.’ Ace watched him from the front row of the three hundred or so in the crowd. Johnnie played beautifully. Out among the sweaty, couples slow danced while the sun hung orange, then dropped behind the hills. The drunk ones among them played grab ass.

  After ‘Georgia,’ Johnnie called Hambone over to his piano. He whispered to him and Hambone walked back to his microphone. ‘We have another special treat for you folks. Mr Chicky Gold the Harmonica Man will be joining Mr Johnston for this next number.’ He looked down at Ace. ‘Mr Gold,’ he said, waving him toward the stairs.

  Ace didn’t speak into the microphone when he replaced Hambone at the stand. He pulled it from its holder, and stuck it to his Hohner. He was checking for feedback, wrapping his long skinny fingers around the whole deal. He looked back to Johnnie, who had just finished telling the stand-up bass player, ‘Walking twelve bar, C.’ Johnnie and Ace nodded to one another and the rumble came down. Then the piano, then harp. Johnnie sang the first verse, Ace the second. Both closed their eyes and moved in the spasm sway. On the chorus, they harmonized:

  Well, I’ll drown a glass a water

  And I’ll hang a rope

  The devil he done come to me

  Took away my hope

  Well, I’ll put that stick a dynamite

  Right on under your nose

  Cause I done seen the worst a man can see

  That’s just how it goes

  When it was through, those in the crowd who had seen some things in life clapped their hands over their heads hard and howled like dogs.

  Louise came up to tell Ace how good he’d sounded. Ace thanked her, took her to a roped-off section housing junk behind the stage. The sun was being halved by the trees encircling the park. The hills would block it out before long. They sat down inside a retired purple Dodge’em car. Ace said to Louise, ‘Did you bring the papers?’

  ‘Yes.’ She’d gone pale.

  ‘Let’s have a look.’

  Louise pulled them from her pocketbook and spread the creases.

  Ace looked, then bent and took off his shoe. He took from what was under its sole, handed Louise three thousand dollars, in hundreds. ‘I’d like to buy my house from you,’ he said.

  She teared up. Then she nodded okay. It was the right thing to do.

  ‘I’ll die before I let them blast up there,’ he told her. She nodded again. On the back of the papers, they wrote up a little contract, signed it. Louise looked at her money, Ace his deed. She kissed him on the cheekbone, and he thanked her.

  Back at the stage, Zizi came up to Ace with a smile on her face not possible without liquor. ‘You were unbelievable, baby,’ she said, draping herself on him.

  ‘Thank you sweetheart,’ he said. He held her there against him while people knocked into them filing toward concessions. He rubbed her backbone and she was still. Then, Zizi straightened up and ran off, barefoot, ready to hypnotize, harmonize, and praise the skies with the stuff she called Theremin Good Time Music. She had somebody to see first. Ace watched her go. As she ran out the gates and across Route 60, he could see that the bottoms of her feet were tar black.

  Nine o’clock came and went. Flunky Cy, Dale, and Everett had taken their positions in front of the twelve foot wooden mountains on stage. They stood wide-eyed and swallowing hard, dumbfounded as to the whereabouts of their star. Her Wurlitzer glowed under the spotlight. The metal rods hummed electric. Somebody had switched her on already.

  The crowd mumbled and whistled with their fingers in their mouths. It was dark. Some with kids went home.

  Sam looked at his watch and shook his head. He opened up his Volkswagen van and crawled into the back. Pulled the curtain.

  Louise and Larry took the stage impromptu. While Larry tuned his mandolin, Louise moved the microphone away from the theremin. She spoke, amplified. ‘This one’s called “The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart,” and it’s the truest tale you’ll ever hear.’

  Larry could pick that mandolin. It was something. The crowd listened to the words, stood still. Louise sang holier than Hazel Dickens.

  Miners stayed poor loading that coal

  Till Trenchmouth Taggart come to save their soul

  He stood his ground and took his stand

  An eye for an eye with that green-fisted man

  A few rows from the stage, Ace nodded a thank you to Louise, daughter of his first and only love. She nodded the same back.

  When Zizi still did not show, Ace climbed the stage stair for the second time that night. A few folks applauded. Everett unfolded a beat-up chair for him, and Ace sat down, put the microphone to his lips, and closed his eyes again. Though he could carry a note, he wasn’t known for his singing. He’d never attempted a cappella. Not until then. ‘Well, lovers is right?’ he sang, low. He opened his eyes and leaned back toward Everett. He whispered to him, ‘Get on the other mic and answer me, “Oh yes we right.”’ Everett did as he was told.

  ‘Well, lovers is you right?’ Ace sang. It carried across the quiet crowd with the weight only old men possess. He watched Brandie get into the Volkwagen.

  ‘Oh yes we right,’ Everett sang.

  Ace dropped right in, ‘Daddy killed a rabbit brought it home, children got choked on a rabbit bone. Shake it to the river boys, shake it to the river.’

  After a couple verses, he’d waved the crowd into answering.

  ‘Oh yes we right,’ they called out softly, a little ugly.

  ‘Newborn baby born last night, walkin talking ’fore daylight. Carry to the mountain boys, carry to the mountain.’

  Johnnie Johnston leaned against his Cadillac backstage, touching his handkerchief to his eyes.

  Ace had brought it all to the stage, and before he pulled out his harp to blow until he was sapped, he leaned his head back and sang out one last verse: ‘Tri-state women read and write, Mingo women bite and fight. Carry to the mountain boys, carry to the mountain.’

  When he finished his harmonica solo, having played two and a half minutes of it with his nose while standing and dancing a stomp, the crowd roared for him. It was then that Zizi ran up on stage. She stubbed her toe on the last stair and fell. Caught herself with her hands and stood back up. A couple people laughed.

  ‘You alright?’ Ace rubbed her back again as she moved the mic stand back by the theremin.

  ‘Fine,’ she said. Her laugh had a bad sound to it. Like quiet hysteria.

  ‘I’m Zizi Kozma!’ she yelled at the people.

  The Kozmanauts played two son
gs, ‘A Charge to Keep I Have’ and ‘He Will Meet Me at the Portal,’ both poorly.

  The band called for an early break, but Zizi wouldn’t get down. She wanted a solo.

  People filed away as the theremin virtuoso stood before her machine and stroked at the air with those delicate fingers. It was ‘Amazing Grace,’ and she harmonized along with the electricity, soprano-high and lonesome. None there had seen anything like it before, and they stared.

  Ace heard somebody say ‘Police’ behind him. He turned and saw the cruiser inching folks away, parting them. On stage, Zizi and her theremin belted out, simultaneous, ‘He will my shield and portion be.’

  Ace walked toward the cruiser. On his way, he watched Brandie step from the side door of the van. She was mad, pulling strands of her hair out of her mouth and screaming, ‘You fucking pervert.’ Inside, Sam shook his head and wondered at how nothing ever meant anything.

  Officer St Clair put it in park and stepped out. ‘Now hold on Ace, the boy is okay. He’s fine,’ he said. He pushed down on his gun belt, picked at his crotch.

  Ace’s mouth had things to say that his brain hadn’t thought of yet. ‘You hold on, now. I know he’s fine. I ain’t worried about Albert. I got something to tell you.’

  It occurred to Officer St Clair that the old man wasn’t like most. He was hard to figure. ‘Alright,’ he said.

  ‘Glove box. Thirty-eight,’ Ace told him.

  Officer St Clair cocked his head back. ‘What’s that now?’

  ‘It’s my pistol.’ Ace’s whole body hummed. ‘I made my mark on there.’

  ‘Did Hodge call you?’ Hodge was the rookie officer who’d just arrested Albert across town. St Clair asked the question despite knowing there was no way Hodge could’ve reached Ace. The bust had only been an hour prior.