Long Black Curl

by Alex Bledsoe

  “Maybe I’m gay.”

  “You’re not gay,” she said with a knowing chuckle. “I’ve seen how you watch me and the other girls.”

  “Maybe I’m just very, very hard to live with.”

  “Maybe. I’m guessing you have a broken heart, though.”

  “And what makes you say that?”

  “Most guys, when they stare at my ass, they look like they do when they get their steak. You look like you’re remembering the best steak you ever had.”

  He gazed at her with surprise. “That’s a very perceptive thing to say.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and went to put in his order. He finished his whiskey and watched the TV, muted but with the closed captions on, mention the latest political snafu threatening to ensnare local politicians. But his mind was a million miles away, soaring on night winds.

  * * *

  He arrived home a little before midnight, tipsy and sad and annoyed. His cat Cecil purred around his ankles as he turned on the lights, locked the door, and tapped the touch pad to bring up his laptop screen. He glanced at his e-mail, decided nothing needed his immediate attention, and dropped heavily onto the couch. Consuela had been in today, and everything was neat, tidy, and smelled like potpourri.

  His cell phone buzzed. He recognized the number. “Hello?”

  “Hey, baby,” Lisa said. “You still awake?”

  “Still, but not for long.”

  “I wanted to let you know, I saw that preacher on the subway again.”

  “The Diana Ross one?”

  “Yes.”

  Jeff smiled. The oddities of New York never ceased to amaze him, such as this subway preacher who kept muttering, in some thick accent, “Jesus and Diana Ross.” It had become a great inside joke for him and Lisa, a phrase that never failed to reduce them both to giggles like small children. They’d spent endless hours parsing out the possible meaning, to no avail. “He’s still at it, huh?”

  “Yes, but I figured it out tonight. We had it all wrong. He’s not saying, ‘Jesus and Diana Ross,’ he’s saying, ‘Jesus died on the cross.’”

  Jeff barked out a surprised laugh. “No way. How did we miss that?”

  “I know, right? It’s so obvious.” They both laughed, and then Lisa added, “Do you want some company tonight?”

  He sighed. “I’m sorry, Lisa. It’s one of those nights. One of those crazy, crazy nights.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” she said, missing the Eagles reference, which didn’t surprise him. “Want to just talk?”

  Lisa was a librarian at the local branch, who helped him track down old CDs and albums from other far-flung institutions. She thought they were for some kind of professional research. She’d never believe the truth, of course: that he sought for the lost pieces of his soul that resided in this old music, and that even though he knew it was futile, he could never stop trying. “Nah, thanks, though. I’ll see you.”

  “Okay,” she said, disappointed. She was a pretty woman in her thirties, with that angular Manhattan attitude that was both attractive and, to a country boy like Jeff, also off-putting. He could never quite shake the sense that she was laughing at him, even though he was a powerful music executive and she was a lowly librarian.

  He stared at the black TV screen for a long time before he stretched out on the couch. Cecil crawled up onto the small of his back, and in moments, both of them were asleep. The cat dreamed of mice, which he’d never seen; Jeff dreamed of wings, which he’d never see again.

  22

  Jefferson jumped as the phone on his desk buzzed. He nearly spilled coffee on his lap, which would ruin his Earnest Sewn jeans. He knew he didn’t have any appointments this early. He pushed the response button and snapped, “What?”

  “Touchy,” Janet said. “Stay up late last night?”

  “Just the usual.”

  “Uh-huh. How many fingers of vodka am I holding up?”

  “Did you actually want something?”

  “There’s a couple of people to see you,” Janet said. Her voice sounded odd.

  “They have appointments?”

  “No.”

  “Then tell them to make one and come back. Jesus, I nearly poured hot coffee all over my balls.”

  “I think telling me that counts as sexual harassment.”

  “My balls would certainly think so.”

  “I think you might want to see them, though.”

  “Why?”

  “Well … I think they may be relatives.”

  “Of mine? I don’t have any relatives.”

  “Well, they have the same skin and black hair.”

  Jefferson’s head cleared at once, and he felt a surge of both panic and, far worse, hope. “What are their names?”

  “Bronwyn and … Junior.”

  He frowned. He didn’t know either of them. But then again, he couldn’t be sure that losing the memory of specific Tufa wasn’t one effect of his exile. Many of those consequences had revealed themselves only over time, such as the subtle magic that kept people from noticing that he didn’t age. It diffused through everything connected with him: pictures, videos, interviews, personal relationships. Even people who were now elderly didn’t register that he looked exactly the same as he had decades ago.

  He opened his desk drawer and positioned the gun he kept there. It was usually merely for show, but in this case, he was glad he kept it cleaned and loaded. He had no idea what this was about, but if two Tufa had come all the way here, after all this time, he wasn’t about to be caught undefended. “Okay,” he said. “Send them in.”

  The first thing that registered was Bronwyn’s near-term pregnancy: her belly preceded her, and she had the pained, slightly annoyed look he’d seen on lots of heavily expectant women. For an instant, he wondered if this was all a paternity shakedown, but when he looked at her face, he realized he truly didn’t know her.

  The man with her was tall and handsome, with unruly black hair and a permanently suspicious glint in his eye.

  “It’s okay,” Jeff said to Janet. “These are people from back home.”

  Janet nodded, rolled her eyes a little, and closed the door.

  He stepped around the desk. “I’m Jefferson Powell.”

  “Junior Damo,” the man said, and they shook hands.

  “Mrs. Damo,” he said to the woman.

  “Bronwyn Chess,” she corrected. “I used to be Bronwyn Hyatt.”

  “I know the Hyatts,” Jeff said; then the name registered. “Bronwyn Hyatt. Deacon Hyatt’s daughter. You were a war hero, weren’t you?”

  “I was in the army, we’ll leave it at that,” she said.

  “So you two aren’t a couple, then?”

  “No,” they said in unison.

  “That’s not what we’re here to talk about,” Bronwyn added.

  “So this isn’t a social visit?”

  “No.” She looked around. “Excuse me, but I have to sit down.” She lowered herself into one of the guest chairs.

  “Can I get you anything?” Jeff said.

  “A can opener,” she said wryly. “No, thank you, I’m fine. I’m supposed to feel like this, apparently.” She settled into the chair, then said, “We need to talk to you about Bo-Kate.”

  Jeff jumped as if he’d touched the subway’s third rail. It was a name that hadn’t been uttered aloud in his presence for longer than he cared to remember. Of course, it sounded in his head every day, and he would often wake from dreams of being with her, calling her name in his mind if not actually aloud. But this wasn’t a dream, or a memory.

  “I haven’t seen her or spoken to her in longer than you can imagine,” he said. “Well, okay, you can probably imagine it, but it’s still been a long time. The last I heard, she was in Nashville. I have no idea if she’s still there.”

  “We know where she is,” Junior said. “She’s back in Needsville.”

  They all waited as this registered. Finally Jeff said, quietly and deliberately, “How is that possib
le?”

  “We don’t know,” Bronwyn said. “But she’s already killed Rockhouse Hicks. She burned down Bliss Overbay’s house. And she wants to kill Mandalay Harris and take over as leader of all the Tufa.”

  “We need your help dealing with her,” Junior said.

  Jeff just stared at them, letting this information sink in, unable to believe at first what he was hearing. He wasn’t even sure which bit appalled him the most: Bo-Kate being on a murder-and-arson spree, that she’d somehow been able to return to Cloud County at all, or that the Tufa had asked for his help. At last he said, “I appreciate you letting me know what she’s been up to, and I’m real sorry to hear about Rockhouse, but to put it simply … you motherfucking sonsabitches can do your own dirty laundry. You kicked me out, remember?”

  “We know,” Junior said. “But we’re still your people.”

  He wanted to laugh at them, to throw them out of his office, but he’d negotiated with too many lawyers, agents, and promoters not to see where this was going. “All right, I’ll nibble. What makes you think I can help?”

  “You know her better than anybody,” Bronwyn said.

  “I haven’t seen her in a coon’s age. A very long coon’s age. How could I know her anymore?”

  “Because she hasn’t changed that much,” Junior said.

  “In that case, your best bet to stop her is to shoot her on sight.”

  “That was my suggestion,” Bronwyn said. “I was overruled.”

  Jeff leaned back in his chair, using body language that conveyed his total dominance of the situation. It worked with musicians, and often with lawyers. He had no idea if it would with Tufa, but he figured it couldn’t hurt. “So you need me so that no Tufas will get their hands bloody, is that it? I’m like the hired gun who comes in, does the job, and then gets run out on a rail by the hypocritical townspeople.”

  “It won’t be like that,” Bronwyn assured him.

  “Uh-huh. What have you got to trade?”

  Junior and Bronwyn exchanged a look. Bronwyn said seriously, “Amnesty.”

  “Nice word. Explain exactly what it means.”

  “You get to come back.”

  Luckily Jeff had many, many years’ experience keeping his emotions off his face, so he didn’t show the volcanoes that went off inside him. “What makes you think,” he said deliberately, “that I want to come back?”

  Bronwyn said, “Because I know a little of what you feel. I was in Iraq, and I thought I was going to die there. That terrified me. The thought of never riding the wind again, singing, or playing, of never being home … those things scared me a lot more than the thought that I’d actually die.”

  He laughed. “And you think that’s how I feel?”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “You want to know how I feel? I loved that woman more than either of you will likely love anyone. I did horrible things because of that love, but I never felt more alive than when I was with her. Then you banished us from Cloud County. That was okay, I could live with that. But you also banished us from each other. Yeah, you didn’t know about that, did you? I don’t know if it was an accident, or if ol’ Rockhouse just threw it in to fuck with us that much more. But we couldn’t be with each other out in the world. We couldn’t find each other, contact each other, or anything. If I tried to call her, it wouldn’t go through. If I sent her a letter, it disappeared. If I went somewhere I knew she’d be, we couldn’t connect. Oh, we could hear about each other. I knew she was a big promoter in Nashville, I even represented some of the artists she promoted. But we could never communicate directly.”

  He looked distant, and anguished. “We were both at a Beyoncé concert, both of us backstage, in the same goddamned room, even. But we couldn’t see each other, or hear each other, or find each other.” He smiled coldly and shook his head. “You know what? Fuck you both. Bo-Kate is your problem, not mine. And my life is here now.”

  “Selling musicians instead of being one?” Junior said.

  “Now you’re insulting my profession? You really don’t know how to motivate people, do you?”

  Bronwyn put her hand on Junior’s arm. “Let’s go. I’ll leave my cell number with your secretary. We’ll be in town until tomorrow morning. Call me if you change your mind.”

  Bronwyn pushed herself up from the chair with a grunt of annoyance. They had just reached the door when Jeff said, “Let me make sure I understand your offer. I help you deal with Bo-Kate, and my exile is over, whatever the results of that. I mean, you’re getting my best effort, not a guaranteed result. Are we clear?”

  “Yes,” Bronwyn said.

  “And I’m allowed back unconditionally and without any reservation. It’s like it never happened. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “So I’ll be able to sing, and play, again?”

  “Yes.”

  Something struck him. “Can Bo-Kate sing and play?”

  “She can. We have no idea how.”

  He nodded. “I’ll think about it. But don’t get your hopes up.”

  They left, and Jeff went to the window to stare out at Manhattan as he thought of mountains and guitar strings beneath his fingers.

  * * *

  “What are you doing?” Melanie said sleepily, and stretched on the bed. Her long legs slid against the sheets, inviting his gaze with their linear perfection. One thing about a model, Jeff thought: they knew how to present themselves in every situation. “Wishing we’d bought that weed from those guys at the club?”

  Jeff sat on the edge of the bed, gazing out the window. “It’s not a good idea to buy weed from strangers, especially in Manhattan.”

  “They’re not strangers. They’re our new friends with weed.”

  “If you’re so desperate, look in the top drawer.”

  “I’m more desperate to know why you’re still wide awake. Usually you’re fast asleep before I stop breathing hard.”

  “Thinking,” he said. “About my hometown.”

  “Down South?”

  “Yeah. Some people from there came by today and invited me to come back.”

  She smiled the same half smirk that teenage boys masturbated to all over the world. “That explains it.”

  “Explains what?”

  “Why your accent was so strong tonight. You must’ve said ‘y’all’ a dozen times.”

  He slapped her bare behind. “I’d mock your regional culture, if you had any.”

  She play-pouted at him. He kissed her. Then he walked to the window and gazed up at the starless city sky.

  “I thought you said you didn’t want to go back,” she said as she sat up.

  “I said that because it was better than the truth. Until today, I thought I couldn’t go back.”

  “So that’s good news, right?”

  “Maybe. They also said my ex-fiancée is causing trouble, and they want me to help get her back under control.”

  “Why is that your problem?”

  “I’m not sure it is. That’s part of what I’m thinking about.”

  She got out of bed, unself-conscious as only the truly beautiful can be when they’re naked, and came up behind him. She put her arms around his neck and kissed his shoulder. He felt her breasts against his back. “Tell me about it.”

  “About what?”

  “Well … about her.”

  “Her name is Bo-Kate.”

  Melanie laughed. “That’s an unusual name. What does she look like?”

  “A lot like you—tall, slender, with dark curly hair and a great pair of tits.”

  “So you have a type, then?”

  “I do.” He turned and kissed her again. “We met when we were little kids, but we didn’t start dating until we were teenagers. You can’t imagine how beautiful she was then, all smooth and soft, like something on a vine just at the right point of ripeness. The first time I saw her naked, she was coming out of a pond where she’d been skinny-dipping. It was like seeing something elemental.”

  M
elanie nipped at his earlobe. “I see it’s a vivid memory.”

  “Well, to be fair, you’re adding to the 3-D effect.”

  “Tell me more about her.”

  “We couldn’t keep our hands off each other. Every chance we got, we’d get together. We skipped school, we ignored our friends, we ignored our families. That was a mistake. You see, we came from opposite sides of our community. We weren’t supposed to fool around, let alone fall in love.”

  “A blood feud, like the Hatfields and McCoys? Mmmm, that’s kind of hot.”

  “You can joke about it if you want, but believe me, it’s pretty fucking serious when you’re in the middle of it. And it wasn’t just our families. It was the whole Tufa community. Nobody wanted us together, and we couldn’t stay apart.”

  “So what happened?”

  He looked back out the window. This high, it was almost—almost—like riding the night winds. His voice grew heavy with unaccustomed emotion. “They … banished us, I guess you’d call it. They told us never to come back. And we lost … we lost a lot of the things that were important to us.”

  He fought to hold it back, but the emotions were too strong. There was no one way to describe to this beautiful woman the things he’d lost. How did you tell someone what it was like to hear music, to feel it and be around it constantly, yet be unable to make it? To have hands that once mastered the intricacies of twelve-string guitars now useless when any instrument was placed in them? To never be able to harmonize, to hear pitch accurately, to stay on beat?

  And there was simply no way to describe Tufa flight to a non-Tufa.

  Melanie turned him to face her, and wiped the tears from his cheeks. “Wow, Jeff. I’m sorry I brought this up, I didn’t meant to upset you.” She paused, then asked, “Do you still love her?”

  “No,” he said without hesitation. “She’s a monster.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t see as I really have a choice. And they know that, which pisses me off. I don’t like being manipulated.”

  “Because you’re a manipulator?”

  He looked down at her and smiled. “Do I manipulate you?”

  “I’m a model, it’s my job to be manipulated.”

  “You think you’re on the clock when you’re with me?”