by Lewis Shiner
Cole appeared and put his arm around his shoulders. “Good band, huh?”
“I can barely hear them,” Alex said.
“Wait till the old folks clear out.”
“Where did all these women come from?”
“The band, mostly. And some friends of friends. I had them put the word out to all the good looking, available women they knew that there was going to be free booze, music, and lots of single rich guys.”
“You dog.”
“Are you all right? I mean, is this just nerves, or something worse?”
Alex drained his glass and felt the alcohol go from his empty stomach to his crowded head. “You don’t like Callie, do you?”
“Nothing against her. She doesn’t seem to care much for me.”
“You think I’m making a mistake?”
“You’re in love. That makes me happy. I’ve been waiting for it to happen as long as I’ve known you.”
Alex supposed it was the best answer he was going to get.
By nine, most everyone over thirty had left. The band took a break and Cole escorted him out to the street for “air.”
“What’s this about?”
“Nothing, really. Getting your surprise set up.”
“I thought we decided not to do the girl and the cake.”
“Did we? I guess I forgot.” Cole looked at his watch. “We can go in now.”
A new drummer and guitar player were on stage. The drummer was stomping his bass drum and adjusting the snare height or Alex might not have noticed. They looked oddly familiar. Before he could make the connection, Cole said, “I brought your bass. It’s onstage, in tune. Let’s go. The Chevelles are back.”
Holy shit, it was Mike Moss and Gary Travis. Mike was wearing khakis and a striped dress shirt, his hair already starting to recede. Gary had a short black beard, shaggy hair, worn jeans and T-shirt. “Where the hell did you find them?”
“It wasn’t easy,” Cole said. “Mike is married and living in San Antonio. Gary was on a farm in Granbury. Mike hasn’t played in two years. We’re going to sound like shit, but I don’t care.”
Alex’s buzz had left him reckless and ready to go. He got up and slapped hands with Gary and Mike and then strapped on his old Gibson eb-0 bass. He looked for Callie and couldn’t find her in the crowd.
“It’s your party,” Cole said. “What do you want to do first?”
“I don’t know.” He barely remembered their set lists. “How about ‘Laura Lee’?”
Cole was right, it was terrible. Nobody in the band cared, and the audience certainly didn’t. They danced and yelled and shouted requests, and if it was something the band used to do, they tried to play it.
During “You Really Got Me,” he finally located Callie, standing at the back of the room with folded arms. He grinned at her and winked. She looked away and walked to the bar.
He told himself not to let it get to him. Her mood would surely pass, and Cole had worked so hard to set this up. Who knew if he would ever play with a band again? Thinking that, he called for “Last Time,” hoping she’d get the message.
They did two more songs after that, then Cole called Jesús up and handed over his Strat, and they sang “Cielito lindo,” and Jesús played a solo that brought tears to Alex’s eyes. When it was over he did all the right things, hugging and thanking everyone before he went to look for Callie.
He finally found her outside, smoking. “What’s wrong,” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Look, it’s fine. It’s a very macho thing, you guys up there preening and stroking your phallic symbols. This is your party. I don’t have to dig everything you do.”
“Sorry. I thought it might turn you on.”
“Oh, I’m sure there are plenty of girls in there who are hot and wet over you.”
“It has been known to happen,” Alex said.
“Oh, that’s nice. Remind me of all the floozies you’ve fucked on the night before our wedding.”
“Maybe it’s not too late to call it off,” he said, and walked away, rage making his teeth rattle. He ordered another screwdriver. The Stone Brothers had started again, and cranked the volume, as promised. A girl standing near the stage, tall, dark haired, wearing a tight, red knit top, looked at Alex. She smiled shyly and looked down. Goddamn, Alex thought. There was a time he could never have passed that up. He drank off half the screwdriver and made his way to the table where Cole and Gary and Mike were waxing nostalgic.
He didn’t remember how he got home. In keeping with tradition, he and Callie had already made plans to sleep apart. Cole wanted to surrender his bedroom, but Alex insisted on taking the living room couch.
He gave up on his restless sleep at 11 the next morning. His head felt like a balloon in a vice. His stomach, which hadn’t had anything in it other than vodka and orange juice for 24 hours, was okay as long as he didn’t think about eating.
Nobody suggested that the wedding might be canceled. Callie was long gone, taken by her bridesmaids for brunch and hair and nail appointments. Alex wouldn’t see her until her father waddled down the aisle to give her away. The momentum seemed unstoppable. The flowers were ready to wilt, the reservations past changing, the multitudes of guests all assembled.
And so, running on two pieces of buttered toast and two cups of coffee, Alex found himself at 5:20 in the afternoon standing in front of the altar at Christ the King, a 30-foot-high medieval icon of Jesus staring down at him with two fingers raised in benediction, wearing a rented charcoal morning coat, striped trousers, and tan vest, watching Callie walk toward him, looking more beautiful than he’d ever seen her. She’d opted for no veil and her dark eyes burned into his for the entire length of the church. What he saw there, more and more clearly the closer she came, was hunger, passion, need, and it was all for him. She moved like a big cat, slow, sensuous paces, as if at any moment she might break into a run and take him to the ground.
His doubts boiled away in the heat of his desire.
They’d booked the reception into the Royal Coach Inn on Northwest Highway, a labyrinth of half-timbered buildings that included a tower, formal gardens, and multiple swimming pools. A dj had set up at one end of the enormous function room, and the buffet line and tables were at the other. During the planning stages they had argued long and bitterly over their first dance, finally compromising on “When a Man Loves a Woman” by Percy Sledge.
Now, as they swayed together, barely moving, as he felt the heat of her body and smelled the sweet skin of her neck, he surrendered the last of his pride and said, “I love you.”
“I love you too,” she said. Her arms tightened around him and her fingernails dug into his neck. “I want to always feel just like this.” Her breathing stuttered as she started to cry.
“Okay.”
“Always?” she said. “Do you promise?”
“I promise,” he said, and lifted her and spun her around and around.
*
All through the wedding weekend, Cole had the conviction that if he turned around, Madelyn would be there. The worst was the reception, watching Alex and Callie together. For all her many faults, the passion that she and Alex shared was undeniable. Cole was sick with jealousy, not for the woman, but for the feeling.
More than once he’d considered borrowing Jimmy’s car and confronting Madelyn. He’d looked up the store, which was in the new mall at Preston Road and the LBJ Freeway in far north Dallas. If she wasn’t there, she’d be at her parents’ house. His fantasies invariably seized up at the first sight of her, swollen with his child, no warmth for him in her eyes. Smarter than he was, more determined, more in control of her emotions. What chance did he have?
Alex and Callie spent the night at the Royal Coach Inn, doubtless setting the sheets on fire, and took a limo early Sunday afternoon for the brand-new dfw airport, bound for New York and then Paris. Cole ate wedding leftovers at the Montoyas’ and caught a ride back to Austi
n with Jimmy and Amanda.
*
The first time Cole saw Valentina was when Bugs Henderson called her onto the stage of the Armadillo World Headquarters during his encore. It was August and broiling hot inside the old National Guard Armory. Cole was driving the bright blue 1969 Chevy Nova with the 307 V8 and Muncie four-speed that he’d bought the week after Alex’s wedding. He was bored and restless and on his own on a Thursday night. Bugs had been playing a lot of Texas-style blues, with a few departures like “Public Execution,” the hit single by Mouse and the Traps that he’d played lead on back in 1965. The sustained guitar notes and the cymbal crashes echoed brutally off the brick walls and the shallow inverted V of the metal ceiling. Bugs was a grizzled veteran at 30, and the crowd, sitting on stained carpet pieces on the concrete floor, was small.
Valentina woke them up. She was five-ten in her bare feet, with glittering straight black hair down her back. Her cutoff jeans and cutoff T-shirt exposed a lot of lanky, dark brown body. She plugged a bright blue electric violin into the cable that a roadie offered her, and then licked her soft, oversized lips. She and Bugs conferred briefly and then tore into the Bobby “Blue” Bland classic, “Further On up the Road.”
Cole was not usually one for fiddle players, but Valentina played in the mariachi style, rich and sonorous, and when she stepped up to the mike she wrapped instinctive harmonies around Bugs’ sandpaper voice that conjured vistas of beauty and loss. Cole couldn’t stop imagining the possibilities. From there they went to “Stormy Monday Blues,” and Valentina played a solo that reminded him why they talked about Jimmy Page’s “violin tone.”
The re-energized audience crowded in front of the stage, yelling until Bugs and Valentina came back one more time. They closed with “Cielito lindo,” as if they’d heard Cole’s silent request, and when they were done the house lights went up.
Cole headed for the dressing room, and passed Jim Franklin in the hall. He was balding and shaggy-bearded, dressed in loose jeans and an Armadillo T-shirt of his own design. Cole had known him at the Vulcan, where he was part-owner and primary poster artist, and now he was in the same position with the ’Dillo.
“Hi, Cole,” he said. “How’s it going?”
“I have to meet her.”
“Let me guess. That would be Valentina, right?”
“Where the hell did she come from?”
“She showed up from El Paso a month ago. She’s been playing around, looking for a steady gig.”
“She’s amazing.”
“You haven’t seen anything yet. She plays the harp, you know, that little Mexican harp? And guitar and mandolin. And sings. Well, I guess you heard her sing.”
“Introduce me, will you?”
Franklin walked him to the dressing room, where Bugs was in the process of rolling a plastic garbage can full of ice and Lone Star out into the corridor. Twenty or so people had crowded into a space that might comfortably hold half that, in cooler weather. Most of them orbited Valentina. Franklin eventually caught her eye and beckoned her over.
“It’s ten million degrees in there,” she said when she’d pushed her way out. She mopped the sweat off her face with both hands.
“I want you to meet Cole,” Franklin said. “He’s an old friend from the Vulcan days, and one of the better guitar players in town.”
“Hi,” she said. The wattage of her gaze didn’t go up or down when she looked at him.
“You’ve made a conquest,” Cole said.
“Not a battle I was fighting, I assure you,” she said. Before he could recover, she said, “Who do you play with?”
“I’m, uh, considering my options at the moment.”
“Ah, unemployed. I can dig it.”
Cole felt the moment slipping away from him. “I think we should start a band together.”
“Well, you’ve got a lot of balls, I’ll give you that. Why would I want to be in a band with you?”
“If we can borrow a guitar from somebody, I’ll show you.”
She looked at Franklin. “You’re sure he knows what he’s doing?”
Franklin nodded, and with obvious reluctance she fetched a guitar case from the dressing room. Cole grabbed a folding chair and she handed him a nice spruce-top Guild D-series acoustic and said, “Please don’t fuck it up.”
Cole checked the tuning and made a minute adjustment to the D string, mostly for show. He played the insistent flamenco strum to “Malagueña” and started the first verse, “Que bonitos ojos tienes.” It was a song of seduction, the singer enchanted by the woman’s beauty and yearning to kiss her lips. He’d done well with it before. As he started the second verse he looked up at her, inviting her to join in, but she stood with her arms folded across her chest. He had the bystanders on his side, though, he could feel it, especially when he broke into falsetto on the chorus like Trio Los Panchos, and followed it up with a languorous lead with lots of finger tremolo. The last verse was the killer, “Si por pobre me desprecias,” if because I’m poor you disdain me, I don’t offer you riches, I offer you my heart. He wrapped up with a big flamenco finish and everybody applauded.
Except Valentina. “All due respect,” she said, “if I wanted to play ‘Malagueña’ I could have stayed in Mexico.”
“What do you want to play?”
“I’m not sure I’ve heard it yet.”
Okay, Cole thought, one more roll of the dice and I’m out of here. He started into “Time and Tide,” the song he’d written on the back of Tupelo Joe’s lyrics. He played it straight, Tim Hardin style, laying the words out there for her to take or leave, and this time he connected.
“You wrote that?” she said.
Cole nodded.
“You got more like it?”
Cole nodded again.
She took a business card and a Bic pen out of her guitar case and scrawled a phone number on it. “Call me. Tomorrow afternoon is good.”
“Okay,” he said, and traded the guitar for the card.
A male voice in the crowd said, “Sure would admire a look at that there piece of paper.”
Valentina smiled in his direction. “You’re wasting your time, brother. I play for the other team.” She put the guitar in its case and walked away to wolf whistles and applause.
“Nice audition,” Franklin said.
“Did she mean…”
Bugs Henderson’s drummer popped a beer near Cole’s ear. “Yep,” he said. “She’s a carpet muncher. Hell of a waste, ain’t it?”
*
Cole double-checked the address and verified that the run-down two-bedroom bungalow in South Austin was Valentina’s. Peeling wood siding, set well back from the street in an acre of weeds and sycamores. A woman with brown hair like a haystack, wearing an oversize T-shirt and the remains of the previous night’s eyeliner, unlatched the screen door for him. “Mind the cats,” she said, and wandered away. Valentina sat in the living room on a thrift-store couch covered with a Mexican rug, reading the Statesman and drinking iced tea. All the windows were open and a couple of oscillating fans tried to push the air around. Valentina wore blue jeans and a black T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up and didn’t seem fazed by the heat. She apologized for not having a sidewalk and insisted on helping him carry in his amp, after which she brought him a glass of tea with a slice of lime in it. A cool politeness had replaced her belligerence, leaving her the same distance away. Finally she sat on the couch and Cole sat on top of his amp and they got their guitars in tune.
“So what’s your idea for a band?” she asked.
“I can’t put it in words too well. If you take Big Bill Broonzy and Tim Hardin and The Beatles and Trio Los Panchos and Judy Collins and Don Covay and Led Zeppelin and Don Gibson, and you take that place where they all overlap, that’s where it’s at.”
“Acoustic folk music, is where that is.”
“But folk music that kicks ass, and knows how to drive a tractor, and speaks Spanish, and has missed some meals. And that you can dance to.”
“Bass and drums?”
“Definitely.”
“Pedal steel?”
“No. Not unless you play one.”
“I can. But I can’t afford one. All originals?”
“Maybe half and half. Do you write?”
“Some.”
“Can I hear one?” Cole said.
She played something called “Take Me with You” that sounded like the Sir Douglas Quintet, with some New Orleans and some rockabilly thrown in. Driving rhythm, great hooks on the chorus, a bridge that suspended everything, including a D9, while it swirled around for eight bars before the beat came back strong.
Cole was too knocked out to play along. “Have you recorded that?”
“Not yet,” she said.
“That’s a top ten record. Jesus Christ.”
This time when she smiled it was for real. “Your turn.”
They traded originals for close to an hour, then threw a few obscure cover tunes at each other. He guessed a couple of hers and she knew all of his. “My old man owns a record store in El Paso,” she finally admitted. “I don’t stump easy.”
The girl with the haystack hair stuck her head in. “I’m going to heb. You need anything?”
“I’m good,” Valentina said. “Thanks.”
When the front door closed behind her, Cole said, “Is she your…”
“She’s my roommate,” Valentina said. “If we’re going to work together, and that’s still a big if, you’re going to have to learn to mind your own business where my sexuality is concerned. I’m not some exotic subject for your anthropological study. And if you’re nursing some Pussy Galore fantasy of me saying, ‘I guess I never met a real man before,’ you need to wake the fuck up.”
