The Revelations of Preston Black (Murder Ballads and Whiskey Book 3)

by Miller, Jason Jack

  “Yeah. I got you. No more ‘Hellhounds on My Trail.’”

  “Every time you close a door or burn a bridge you’re pushing yourself toward something greater.” She sat up, then faced me. “Besides, not everybody gets to fall in love with their best friend.”

  As a peace offering, Pauly said, “You guys should go back to opening with ‘Strawberry Fields.’”

  “Feels like it’s time to move forward, doesn’t it?” Katy stood up and kissed the top of my head. “You guys pay, and we’ll leave when I get back.”

  I watched her walk to the bathroom. I could watch her walk just about anywhere.

  Pauly said, “She’s right. Your dreams are coming true, even if you don’t totally see it. Muscle Shoals? Skynyrd and the Allmans? You kidding me?”

  “You need to join us, man. I don’t know why you won’t. I used to stay up all night dreaming about this kind of stuff with you right there. This is for you too. You busted your hump as much as me or Stu or anybody.”

  “No, Pres. You booked the gigs and found money to advertise and buy strings and a new PA. You taught me the bass lines for all our new songs. You kept gas in the Jeep. Don’t think for a second I feel like I’m missing out on something. You guys deserve this, and I’m more than happy doing what I’m doing now. Driving. Being on stage for three or four songs. I’m very happy and I’m very happy for you.” He waved for more sweet tea and said, “I have to hit an A.A. meeting anyway. Then I’m going to see a buddy of mine near the Tennessee River in Versailles before heading home to take care of bills and wash clothes. We’re going to fish for a day or two.”

  I said, “One song so you get an album credit?”

  “My sponsor says I can’t.”

  “How’s that different than joining us onstage?”

  “My sponsor says I can’t get in the frame of mind that I can make a living doing this. Driving the truck pays the bills and keeps me insured. It’s a real nice living.”

  “Yeah, I got you.” I set my phone on the table and checked for texts again. But Pauly looked at me like he knew and I hurried up and put my phone right back in my pocket. My face must’ve gotten red because my cheeks felt warm.

  “Still waiting for John Lennon to get back to you?” He didn’t look at me when he said it. He swirled the ice around the bottom of his glass over and over again. “You and this devil shit. Look at where it’s gotten you with these church people. Is this really what you want your career to be?”

  “I don’t believe you.” My heart fell. I reeled to find a way to defend myself.

  “Somebody ran you off the road and put you in the hospital. I remember that night like it was last night.”

  He threw his knife and fork onto his plate and pushed it all to the clean part of the table. “Yeah, and my BAC was twice the legal limit when it happened. I practically had more vodka in me than blood. And the car was covered in salt and ash. It could’ve been red under all that crud for all I know.”

  “What about how I paid for Mick’s Caddy? You know I didn’t have that kind of money.” I tried to monitor my words while the waitress came over to clear the plates. I didn’t want her knowing my business, and the fact that I didn’t want her knowing planted a tiny seed of doubt into my head.

  “Want me to call Mick and ask him? Let all that go. The devil? Hellhounds? Same shit, different year. Except this time you’re going to bring Katy down with you. Checking your phone for texts from John Lennon and Joe Strummer? C’mon, man.”

  “I can’t believe I ever told you any of that.” And it was true. I felt like an asshole for opening up to him about those things. “I only told you because I’ve never kept anything from you. I thought it could make things right after everything that happened.”

  “Well, you need help. When you snap from all the shit in your head at least somebody will be able to tell the doctors what you had flowing through your brain before you went over the edge.” He pulled thirty bucks out of his wallet and set it on the table. “I got dinner tonight.”

  I studied his face for a long time. Finally I smiled and said, “Fuck off, Pauly.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  A thousand rocks to make a road, and still I go alone,

  A thousand more to build a bridge, a union made of stone,

  A thousand more to raise a dam, though the river wants to be free,

  A thousand more has the mountain, and the mountain will always be.

  “Small Stones” Music and Lyrics by Katy Stefanic and Preston Black

  “Katy, you sure I’m not dead?”

  Everywhere I looked there were guitars. Suspended above doorways. Painted onto buildings. Onto doors and windows. Instead of honking horns and grumbling busses I heard music. In the air I smelled bourbon and BBQ.

  “What makes you think you’d end up in heaven, Preston Black?” The bright light streaming down from the robin’s-egg-blue sky suited her. Her skin glowed prettier than it ever did beneath a spotlight.

  It felt as if God created a town where people like Katy and me were queens and kings. Instead of a hardware store, Broadway had Gruhn Guitars where I could just pop in and buy a bottleneck slide any old time I felt like it. Instead of a pharmacy, there was Ernest Tubbs’ Record Shop, a hole in the wall selling legacy and tradition as a cure-all to whatever ailed a weary soul. Where Morgantown had clubs with well drinks and wet T-shirts contests, Nashville had The Stage on Broadway and Layla’s Bluegrass Inn and Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge and Legends Corner, where folks could step up to a bar with real music and dreams on tap. Instead of churches they had the Ryman. If man had ever created a more suitable place for talking to God, I’d never seen it. I’m sure Nashville had more than a few real churches scattered around, but they were right to hide their faces from The Ryman.

  And instead of a newspaper, they had Hatch Show Print to tell the folks all about the most important comings and goings in town. An honest-to-God letterpress where people spread ink onto rollers and pulled levers by hand. The walls were covered with the likes of Patsy Cline, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Muse, Wilco, Bill Monroe and His Bluegrass Boys, Mumford and Sons, B. B. King, John Legend, and on and on and on. Posters hung everywhere—I couldn’t see an inch of bare wall that hadn’t been covered. Even the bit beneath a set of stairs that angled up to the ceiling had posters tacked to it. On the opposite side were shelves absolutely drooping with the weight of thousands of plates from artists long-forgotten to radio and TV. Posters hung to dry on clothes lines strung from shelf to shelf. No matter where I turned I saw The Avett Brothers or Willie Nelson from the corner of my eye. Every breath I took filled me with that magical air, and I knew that my voice would sound better than it ever had, if only for a show or two, from having breathed all this in.

  “Doesn’t it feel like we belong here?” I lifted the carton of posters off the floor and tucked it under my arm. Our posters. Posters that had been printed especially for little old Katy and me.

  “The universe knows when you want something. And whether what you want is good or bad, the universe is going to give it to you.” She carefully placed my Hatch Show Print stickers into the little Gruhn Guitar bag with my picks and new bottleneck slide. She bent over to scratch the belly of one of the shop cats—a chubby little orange guy with bright green eyes.

  I held the door open for her and turned, hoping to catch Brad or Jim’s eye just to give them one last little wave or a thank you, but they were back at the presses. Back to work.

  Down the street I saw our shiny white rental van, our home for the last few weeks. My feet wouldn’t move though. “Should I tell Pauly to come up and see?”

  “We’ll be back, Pres.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me down the sidewalk.

  As soon as Pauly looked up I let go of Katy’s hand and slid a poster out to show him. He reached across to unlock the door, and I passed it over to him before setting the rest in the back.

  While I got in, Pauly studied it and even sniffed the ink like when the teacher passed out
fresh Dittos back in elementary school. He said, “Pretty good, I guess,” and nothing more.

  “Brad said they used the same type for that Johnny Cash.” I pointed at the iconic poster displayed in the shop’s window as I pulled the door shut. “But they use it in a bunch of others too, of course. Looks nice, huh?”

  “Looks real nice, bro.” He reached over and turned the radio off.

  I felt like Pauly could’ve acted a little more excited even if he had to fake it. If I would’ve known he’d poop all over my parade I would’ve kept my mouth shut. So I bit my lip for a second, decided not to let him bring me down, and said, “We’ll put some on the merch table and what we don’t move tonight we’ll sell online. You should’ve come in with us. Brad gave us a tour and showed us how to set type and everything.”

  “Wish I could’ve been there,” Pauly said in a tone flatter than a buckwheat cake. He looked over his shoulder then studied his mirror before pulling onto the street. He got up a little speed, looked over to his right, and said, “So that’s where Margaritaville’s at? Thought Buffett lived in Key West.”

  Since I didn’t know whether or not he was being serious, I ignored the comment. “How did the A.A. meeting go, anyway?”

  “Pretty good, I guess.”

  And I’d always have that discussion as my parting memory of Broadway. A little part of me ached to stay and it pissed me off that I had to cater to Pauly’s whims all because he was doing us a solid. I vowed right then and there to never have to owe anybody ever again. Maybe the road had worn me down a bit, but I decided if I couldn’t afford somebody, I didn’t need them. I’d drive the van, do our own sound. We could sell merch online for all I cared. The knot in my belly killed what remained of our morning in Nashville.

  “I went and filled up too. Gas is outrageous anymore.” Pauly drifted left, depriving me of a last good look at The Ryman. “Sometimes it’s tough feeling good about going to meetings on the road because you don’t know anybody. One of the old-timers talked about gratitude and how you express it through action. I never heard that before and kind of liked it.”

  “That’s great, man.” His apathy ate at me and I tried real hard not to say anything, especially after all that crap in Louisville.

  He inhaled, like he had something else to say, then released his breath without saying anything. Riding in silence suited me just fine. I looked for the river and the stadium where the Titans played, but Pauly’s driving disoriented me.

  Once we hit the interstate, Pauly said, “There’s something else I wanted to talk about more than anything.” He cracked his window in anticipation of lighting a smoke. “I mentioned the incident at the show last night when I shared. They knew who I meant. It’s not Westboro Baptist. They said this group’s real militant, which we knew.”

  Pauly drove on, letting the news hang for a minute or two. “They call themselves Circuit Riders. The leader is a guy named Zebadiah Boggs. They are big in Tennessee. They mainly run in Alabama, Georgia and up through Kentucky to West Virginia. Boggs used to be a Texas lawman before he got reprimanded for using traffic stops as opportunities to witness. So he enlisted in the Army after the attack on the American embassy in Kenya in 1998, figuring he’d have a chance to kill Muslims. But he got into too much trouble and got something called a ‘Big Chicken Dinner’ for bad conduct. Bad conduct discharge? Guess that makes sense. Anyway, he’s supposedly trying to convert or kill ten thousand heathens. Homeland Security calls them a legit domestic terror threat.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah, it ain’t good, bro. His right-hand man rode with the Pagans for years before becoming a government snitch. Albert Gallatin Ashby—A.G. for short. He got busted up in Rocky Point for helping distribute coke and oxy. Got saved in prison. Boggs picks his guys based on tests of Biblical faith. Like how the Bloods and Crips have to shoot somebody in broad daylight or whatever? Boggs is into stoning big time. They have to murder a witch or an adulterer or some other kind of non-believer.”

  Katy spoke up for the first time. “Did he say witch specifically?”

  Pauly nodded.

  “Hypocrite,” she said. “Doesn’t he know that Leviticus specifically prohibits tattooing?”

  “I don’t know, Katy. Sorry.” He looked in the rearview when he spoke to her. “You can ask him when you see him.”

  “Maybe we can get them to change a bunch of water into wine tonight?” I tried to blow off the severity of the threat by making light. But Pauly’s words had heft.

  “I’m just saying they’re legit. They are the ones responsible for sending those nail bombs to all those abortion clinics a few years back. Then Hicks’s church sheltered the fugitive on its property while the manhunt was on. Like Katy said, his old man has camps and farms and warehouses in all these old towns down here. The guy that told me this used to be a federal agent. Said they’re very slippery.”

  “Well, they can protest and pray all they want because eventually that’s going to be more publicity for us. Especially if the media paints us as an underdog. Just wait.” I cracked my window and watched the rest of Nashville fly by. Cars and trucks filled with people that got to call this place home. I could see me and Katy living here one day. “Where we headed? I want to get back to the club and forget about this shit.”

  “Can’t go back to the club yet. Going to take you guys to lunch. Prince’s Hot Chicken. Saw it on the Food Network.”

  Katy piped up. “Oh, no. I can’t eat anything hot and get phlegmy before tonight. What else is there?”

  “You can get mild, your worship.”

  I smiled because Pauly did his best Han Solo impersonation. Trying to lighten the mood.

  “Take me back to the club then and we’ll order something,” she said. “You wanted pizza, right? So bad you couldn’t stop talking about it all night.”

  “We’re already on this side of town so let me at least run by and pick up some for myself.” Pauly stammered a bit when he said it, and that gave him away. And he knew that I knew.

  I said, “What is it? No fucking around.”

  Pauly checked his mirrors, crossed an empty lane of traffic and rolled his window down. He raised his voice over the road noise and wind. “Can’t go back to the venue. Not right now anyway.”

  Katy looked way more agitated than I felt, and said, “Why not?”

  “When I dropped the trailer off the manager said they got a bomb threat.” With an apologetic shrug he popped a cigarette into his mouth, lit it and inhaled deeply. “I guess technically you guys got the bomb threat.”

  He blew smoke out of the window and took another deep drag. He held it, exhaled it then threw the cigarette onto the highway. He rolled the window up, shook his head like he didn’t really want to say more, and muttered, “The bomb squad has its dogs there now.”

  I hid my face in the clean white towel.

  They were all still back there, no matter what I did. I could hear them. Over the faint hum of my in-ear monitor—IEM—I could hear people from the audience headed to the bar, out to the street to smoke. They were bored. And I felt like a coward for letting Katy hang out there by herself while I regrouped. Smoke from some real kind bud floated up to the stage. I closed my eyes and inhaled as much as I could.

  Pauly’s voice buzzed to life in my IEM. “You’re getting slaughtered.”

  Laughing, I adjusted the earpiece to make like I couldn’t hear him. I found him off in the back behind the mixing board and mouthed, “You want to join us.”

  He laughed into my IEM and turned his little desk lamp off.

  So I shrugged, pointed at my amp, then my earpiece and pointed down. I twisted the old Fender Twin’s volume up to about seven and a half to really juice the tubes. Hot static dripped onto the floor like melting wax. I let my Tele feedback for a second before stepping right back to the mic.

  “A minor,” I said to Katy, before busting out an angry pentatonic riff, rocking a steady chugging low G that I hammered onto A over and over again. So
me of the guys in the crowd recognized “Whipping Post” immediately. “Hold back for a few measures though.”

  She didn’t like the improv. And I knew I’d hear about it later. But we were losing these guys, fast. Probably all the extra security on the way in. The cops on horseback. People loved having their shit searched before a concert. Waiting in line for an extra forty minutes. Fuck those protesting pricks out front. I let the crowd talk for a minute, letting word get around.

  Just wait, I thought, smiling, making eye contact with the fans right up front, I’m about to turn this motherfucker right on its ear.

  I stepped up to the mic. In my head I rewrote “Rocky Top” for tonight’s crowd. I sang the verse in a monotone that mirrored the staccato bursts of noise from my amp. For a second I could’ve sworn somebody tossed firecrackers into the room the way they got to their feet and smiled.

  Katy raised the bow to her strings and I told her to hold, then gestured for the crowd to take the chorus. They belted out the lines just like they did for a Vols game, and ended with a burst of rapturous applause.

  Katy took over with a wail from her fiddle that they could’ve heard all the way back into Kentucky. Maybe even all the way back to West Virginia. She wiggled her head as her little fingers arpeggiated along her fingerboard, working that black Mod mini dress she picked up at that vintage shop on Carson Street back in Pittsburgh. The silver bracelets dangling below her rolled-up sleeves reflected the light like a million little stars. Her purple nails danced across the fingerboard like butterflies hopping from flower to flower. She hacked at the strings with her little bow in long, swooping arcs.