Syn had been oblivious to it all. She’d dragged Brandt, her small hand gripping his wrist, from booth to booth, through the fun house and its mirrors. Long faces and short bodies, endless legs and his mind traveling the length of her ‘til they spun out and away again, ending in front of an old tent. The doors to that tent flapped loudly in the stiff breeze. The sign said simply, “Fortunes.”
They’d stood there a long moment, and then Syn had lurched forward. Inside was a single table, a crystal ball resting on wooden feet in the center. Syn had approached it fearlessly, dragging Brandt like a faulty anchor. With a quick motion she’d spun him before her and pressed him into the chair, leaning over his shoulder gently, her lips so close to his ear as she whispered that he felt her hot breath, felt little sizzles of energy as the LSD sparkled through his senses.
“Find out the future, Brandt. Find out how famous we will be. Find out if you get lucky tonight.” Her tongue had traced his ear then, and Brandt looked up.
There was an old woman seated across from him that Brandt hadn’t noticed when they’d entered. She was cloaked in dark colors and slumped in her chair, eyes hidden by the deep folds of her robe. All Brandt remembered were those deep, piercing eyes. And the card. The woman had long, slender fingers, bony and blue-veined. Her nails were too long, curled under and yellowed. She had flipped the card, a single card, before a word was spoken. Before Brandt could protest that he did not want a reading, before Syn could cajole him into it, before reality could truly solidify in any real way, the fingers flipped, and the card turned.
The Fool. Inverted. Head down to the ground and ass to the stars. Brandt had stared, mesmerized. White-faced clown, idiot-savant, stepping into the void, long-fanged dog dangling from its grip on the fool’s ass—and the cliff. Forever. Everything and nothing, cost and lost in a single false, clueless step.
He’d staggered to his feet, turned to the door and fallen, Syn’s hand on his shoulder. That had been all it took, that slight imbalance. He remembered her cursing, his feet tangling and the ground rising much too quickly as he threw his hands out in a futile gesture of denial. His chin had connected with moist earth, his eyes flashing with the strobed images of The Fool, and the ground, spilled drinks, and flecks of cotton candy filling his vision. He’d crawled forward, trying to drag himself free of the crackling grip of the visions, the melting images of reality and the sudden pounding of pain in his head that threatened to cancel consciousness absolutely.
One hand at a time, fingers gripping the dirt and dragging him forward, he’d moved from the tent and rolled to his back, closing his eyes to clear his thoughts. Syn was over him in seconds, face too close, voice too loud, and slender fingers slapping him sharply on the cheek. She’d spoken to him, but her words were slurred, lengthening impossibly and blurring to incomprehensible noise. He didn’t know if it was his mind, or hers, that was snapping.
Brandt had opened his eyes then, and seen it. Far above him, looming like a monstrous insect. The Ferris wheel, so small and insignificant as they’d approached the carnival, loomed immensely, the image so powerful that it nearly stole his breath. Brandt had watched, mesmerized. Horrified. His angle allowed a clear view of the bottoms of the seats as they spun down—feet, legs, and then faces. He’d watched, and again, Syn’s hand cracking into his cheek, leaving white-to-red splotched images of her touch as the odd, disjointed music of the carnival played in the background. The wheel had spun, and Brandt had seen the image clearly: the noose, dangling from the framework, and The Fool, dangling from the end in a St. Vitus Dance to oblivion.
Then it was gone, so many shadows, spinning up and away with the motion of the wheel, and spirits, LSD, and noise. He remembered Syn helping him clumsily to his feet, scolding him for being a “weird fuck,” and the staggering return trip to the streets, to a dirty taxi neither of them could afford, and home, the images replaying relentlessly in his mind.
Brandt shook his head and the alley came into focus. Shadows shifted, emptied of nothingness to be filled with slowly moving figures, bright-eyed wraiths shuffling from the darkened corners, a single unit of disjointed members. There was no threat in their approach. As they drew nearer, Brandt was able to make out the central figure through the glistening salt-haloed lenses of his tears.
Darker than the others, arms elbow-bent and pressing the harp to his lips, the man stopped directly in front of Brandt. An old black man, his hair the gray of dark thread dipped in white paint, eyes not quite white any more, and glittering with captured firelight flickers. No words, necessary or offered. Music, and Brandt could not move, did not want to, and the tears flowed in a constant stream.
The notes flowed free and clean and when they stopped, they echoed through Brandt’s mind. Brandt closed his eyes then, ignoring those who had gathered, guitar death-grip-clutched in straining fingers gone white from the effort of not failing. He wanted to memorize the melody. He wanted to make the notes his own, take them and dissect the pattern, find a way to bend fingers/mind/soul to that deep sadness. They leaked through him and away, soaking into the grimy concrete floor of the alley and ringing in his ears, half-faded remnant of unrequited dreamsong.
The alley slipped away again. Brandt was sitting in a room, clutching the guitar, a guitar, too fat somehow and clumsy. It was his old room, his fucking room in that nowhere life he’d left to launch a nowhere life of his own. He could hear Hank Williams Sr. wailing on the eight-track in the next room, could hear the lumbering thunder of his father’s snores, punctuated now and then by the soft glass-clink of his mother’s wine bottle dipping again to fill her glass.
The guitar was a cheap, rough acoustic with the logo Harmony at the top of the neck. He had to press his fingers impossibly hard to bring the strings to the frets, and he frowned, concentrating through the pain. Hank was calling to him, calling from a far away pain and sorrow, reaching out with soft-twanging heart-notes, but Brandt couldn’t quite concentrate through the other sounds. He frowned, pressing the strings harder, as if the physical effort could erase the empty clink of glass and the crash as his mother stumbled into a wall, cursing. He heard his father’s even, labored breathing hesitate . . . glitch . . . and rumble. Then the snoring stopped, and there was a dead silence.
Brandt gripped the guitar so tightly his fingers grew white with the effort and he turned from the door. He didn’t want to think of his mother retreating to him, hoping for a reprieve from something Brandt could not save her from. He didn’t want to think about his father, bursting through the door after her, turning to Brandt because at least Brandt still felt the blows, still screamed when slapped. He didn’t want to think at all. His gaze locked to the twin clown portraits on his wall. Sad attempts at decoration, at parenthood. Deep-eyed guardians, impotent and leering, white faces glowing softly in the dim light of his bedside lamp.
Brandt shook free, so violently his head cracked back into the brick wall, and the images shattered, Hank Williams’ bittersweet voice melting to the soft hiss of traffic beyond the alley. Brandt raised his eyes.
The old man squatted directly in front of him, head cocked to the side like an inquisitive dog, examining something intriguing. Brandt blinked and sat up slowly, feeling suddenly conspicuous. The harmonica rested easy and comfortable in the old musician’s palm, soul extension of his pain. Brandt had a flashback to the pain behind that sound and blinked again. This time he controlled the tears with a deep gasp of breath, shaking his head.
“Damn tequila,” he muttered, brushing the back of his hand over his eyes.
“‘Taint no damned tequila messin’ wif yo head, boy,” the man rumbled. His voice was deep, gravel spurted under heavy tires, or cigarette smoke dipped in whiskey.
Brandt didn’t answer.
“Saw yo hands twitchin’ son,” the man went on, glancing at the guitar. “T’ought a minute there yo was g’wan play wit me. Me an’ ol’ Hank.”
“I wanted to,” Brandt whispered. Nothing more. He could read answers in the old
man’s gaze, and yet they formed in his mind as more questions. “What was the song?”
“‘Tweren’t no song. Blue. Key of blue, boy, my blues. Last bit was yours.”
Brandt’s mind cleared a little. “It was a song. There was a melody, notes. Music is a pattern.” The words rung hollow, and the old man laughed gruffly.
“Then why yo don’ play ‘em, ol’ hoss?”
Brandt fell silent. He laid his guitar aside and opened the tequila bottle. Liquid courage. He took a long swallow and held the bottle out to the black man, who took it with a toothless grin. The bottle tipped up and Brandt watched in fascination as the old man’s Adam’s apple danced, an impossibly long dance that drained a full quarter of the golden liquor before it ended. The man smiled, but he didn’t move to return the bottle.
“Who are you?” Brandt asked softly. “Where did you learn to play like that?”
Long stare and the man straightened slowly, gazing down at Brandt with a mixture of curiosity and sorrow. “Livin’ is learnin’ boy, so my pap said. Lived those notes, ever’ one. Nary a chord I don’ carry right here,” and his hand touching his heart, palm flat, trapping the harmonica against the rough material of his shirt. “Carryin’ a bit of you now.”
That gaze was so still, so unwavering and serious. Pure, like the music was pure. The tears threatened again. Brandt smacked his head on the brick of the wall and cursed softly.
“Always the same, boy,” the man said softly. “You let ol’ Wally set you on the path. Crossroads, crosshairs, all the same in the blues. Knowed both kinds, which’re you? You want to learn, there’s a price of years, lifetimes, damn worlds it costs, boy, all that and more.”
“Teach me?” Words spoken and regretted the instant they left his lips. Fool drunk sniveling in an alley, drunk on his ass and begging winos for lessons. His gaze betrayed him, held steady.
“Cain’t be taught,” old Wally breathed. “Gotta be lived, boy, price gotta be paid. No blues ever come from a music lesson. None. Come from here,” leaning down and stabbing an ancient, gnarled finger into Brandt’s chest and holding, long second of contact, cold and dark, then away.
“How?”
Wally’s eyes clouded. He stepped back, not speaking, the Cuervo gripped tightly in one hand.
Brandt rose quickly, reaching to his pockets. He didn’t have much, a crumpled five and a handful of change the remnant of his worldly treasure. Cigarettes and coffee for a morning that was way too close already. No sleep, and the hangover would not be mild, or easily shaken.
“I’ll pay,” he said softly.
Wally slipped forward and slid the five from Brandt’s fingers, ignoring the change, and then melted back in among his companions. “You’ll pay boy, if you want the blues. No money g’wan do it fo you. Cain’t be bought.”
Turning, they left him. Spectral gallery of shadow-faces never clearly seen, slipping from shadow to black and gone. Brandt took a step forward, reached out to empty air. No one stood before him. No one walked through the nearby shadows, or gathered about the glowing coals of the barrel fires. Red-orange hints of dawn stained the alley’s mouth, and the faint sounds of the city's daytime insinuated themselves, distracting him further.
“Gone,” he whispered. He dropped his face into his hands, standing for a long moment and fighting the sick-drunk nausea that clawed at his system. No time for that now. He felt the fingers of exhaustion tugging at his eyelids, drawing him toward darkness, and he knew he had to get out of the alley. If he slept there, he’d wake with no guitar if he was lucky, and never wake at all if he was not. In future years the alley might be the only solution, but for the moment he needed his car, his keys, and his bed. He had to play again in twelve hours, and somehow he had to sleep without the images of long-trashed clowns glaring down at him from the wall over his head. Mocking.
Brandt leaned down, secured the guitar in its case carefully, then turned toward the alley’s mouth and stumbled toward the sunlight. In the back of his mind, very faintly, the voice of the harmonica rose once more, mocking him and hurrying his steps. He stepped onto the sidewalk, but before he moved on, he glanced down, a sudden memory of yellow eyes and too-long, half-painted nails reminding him of the crazy woman. She was gone. Where she’d sat, a single dirt-streaked card leaned against the dusty wall. Brandt leaned down, picking it up slowly.
On the card, a young man in a jester’s hat, face white-painted like a goth-boy death-mask rendered in porcelain, stepped off the brink of a cliff. A dog, snarling and angry, gripped the clown by the ass, but it did not seem to register. Brandt let his gaze slip lower and read the inscription. The Fool. Brandt memorized the lines of that face . . . the painted pretty-boy leer.
He turned toward the bar, and his car, the card released to float in a back and forth slip-dance through the early morning air. It landed upright, the boy’s eyes gazing after Brandt as he stumbled away.
The sharp, too-loud clatter of the rusty Big Ben on Brandt’s dresser dragged him half out of the bed to slap it to silence, head pounding from the motion and the moisture-sapped fringes of his brain. One thing about Jose Cuervo, he was always available for a date, but the fucker dressed and was gone before daylight every time. Brandt managed to shift so that a stray ray of sunlight caught the face of the old clock. Four-thirty. Three and a half hours before setup and sound check. No car in this condition, he was walking, and just enough time to hit the shower, then the coffee house, black coffee with a shot of espresso and an oversized blueberry muffin. Story of his life.
Images of the night before tried to work their way into his thoughts but he pressed them down hard. The steady pounding in his skull left no concentration for deep thought. He needed every ounce of juice he could muster just to make it to the club and back to this bed with a performance and a paycheck in between. Crazy old wino was welcome to the tequila; it was a damn good thing Brandt hadn’t finished it.
He glared at the clock. Slow stumble to the shower and lukewarm water spiraling last night’s funk and the clammy sweat of tequila hangover shakes down the dingy drain. Brandt stood under the steady stream, forehead pressed tightly to the tiled wall. His gaze locked for a long moment on the grimy water whirling tornado-like into the tiny round abyss and he pushed back a little too hard, nearly falling. He twisted the shower handles violently, staggered to his bedroom, and dressed, half-damp, in last night’s jeans and a fresh t-shirt, sprinkling himself with an anointment of cheap cologne and sliding a Kool between his lips with a practiced flourish. He lit up and headed out, guitar slung over his shoulder.
The coffee shop wasn’t busy. Thursday was a slow night everywhere, would be at Sid’s too. Good damned thing. No one to throw beer cans when Brandt’s half-numb fingers failed to draw the notes from the strings, or when his words wouldn’t slip past the dry-clutch of the cotton in his mouth and throat. He watched the coffee in his cup swirling, and turned his gaze away, the memory of the shower drain too close to hand and heart.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
The coffee ended too soon and the night began with equal insensitivity to his plight. Fingers shaking, he tried to light another Kool and found he could not. Stopping and leaning against a dingy brick wall, Brandt took several deep breaths, squeezed his eyes shut, concentrated, then held the lighter still as he pressed the tip of the smoke into the flame. Biting menthol cut through the haze, nicotine battered it into place, and he was moving again.
Shaver glanced up from his tuning and effects pedals as Brandt entered noisily. Ignoring the shaven-headed guitarist, Brandt dropped his guitar case a bit too hard and cursed as he realized it, stumbling a half-step and righting himself carefully. Shaver watched for a pregnant moment that said more than any words might have, shook his head, and went back to adjusting his amp. Brandt cursed softly. No buffer zone tonight. His hands were still shaking, and he had a hard time keeping the glaring lights from blanking his vision with white-hot echoes of nothing.
Synthia glared at him in open ho
stility. Her bass was tuned and ready, leaning against its tripod stand like some massive, sheathed weapon. Her hands were on her hips, and her eyes flashed “don’t you dare fuck this up, you drunken motherfucker” at him in bright blue. Syn was the one reason Brandt didn’t fear too close a scrutiny from the audience. Most of the men and half the women’s eyes would be glued to her short, taut frame. Brandt’s own eyes had spent enough time there; he knew the spell she could weave.
Behind them, his drumsticks clattering noisily as he waited, impatient and primed, Dexter scanned the room, occasionally sending flurries of rhythm scurrying about the room. Dexter was oblivious to them all. He lived from set to set, and from all the time they’d played together, Brandt had learned only three things about the young drummer. He never slept, he never drank anything but black coffee, and he never missed a beat. Never.
Paying customers filtered in, lining the bar and taking their places at the scattered tables, but the band paid them no attention. Daylight retreated through the half-open doorway, banished from the windows by drawn blinds, and soft yellow pools of light formed beneath the dim lights. Waitresses in dresses so short they gave away the soft colored secrets of their panties sauntered about the room, taking orders, flirting, and killing time. Time was the one thing you had to kill at Sid’s; if you didn’t, it would never go away, and you would drown in the apathy.
Brandt accepted a Styrofoam cup of black coffee from a girl he vaguely knew as Shantaina. He carefully avoided meeting the gaze of anyone in the audience, or the band. The shakes were slowly abandoning his fingers, and for the first time since he’d sat up on his bed, he believed he might get a note or two out of the guitar. He didn’t want to do anything to shatter that illusion.
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