Long Way Gone

by Charles Martin

  He gently touched my chest with his index finger. “Music cuts people free.” A pause. “It silences the thing that’s trying to kill us.”

  The echo of his words had yet to fade when the wind suddenly changed direction. It was blowing right to left. As the words left his mouth, it changed from left to right. Like somebody had shut one door and opened another. That meant it was swirling. Which meant just one thing.

  A storm.

  In late fall, storms come on fast and they come on strong, with little warning. I saw a man’s comb-over stand straight up like a rooster, and then the temperature dropped about fifteen degrees. The space between Dad’s eyes narrowed and his forehead wrinkled. In the time it took to sing a single song, the sky had turned the color of India ink and lightning spider-webbed sideways across the mountain peaks. While I was asking myself, I wonder what Dad’s going to do, the rain came. In sheets. In seconds, the rain was blowing sideways under the tent, stinging my face. The wind lifted the canvas like a sail and stretched the ropes attached to the pegs. A couple of the ropes snapped with a loud pop, and one corner of the tent ripped off and sailed out through the night sky like a giant Frisbee.

  It was my first angry storm.

  Lightning flashed above us, and a single bolt traveled down a dead evergreen tree that had grown up against the cliffs. The tree lit like a candle dipped in gasoline, and sparks jumped from the tree to the tents, lighting the canvas on fire. As the canvas ceiling became a wall of fire, people scattered like cockroaches. Pandemonium. Folks were fighting, scrambling over each other to get to their cars. Slipping. Shoving each other out of the way. It was ugly.

  And the rain was unlike anything I’d ever seen. Several inches in just a few minutes. And yet it seemed to have no effect on the fire. Then hail the size of golf balls began to fall, denting hoods and rooftops and driving everyone back underneath the tents. Folks were bleeding. One man ran back into the tent, blood dripping down his face and the front of his white dress shirt as he screamed something about the ’pocalypse and the end of the world.

  I crawled beneath the piano bench, which had been vacated by Big-Big as he was trying to secure the tent corners. The only part of the tent not torn was covering the piano. Somehow the wind had cut the power to every light save one. A single bulb, powered by the batteries in the bus, swayed above the piano. I was witness to the second coming of Noah’s flood, and the only two things dry within five square miles were Jimmy and that piano.

  With the storm raging, wind ripping, rain stinging, hail cracking windshields, I remember lying there, wrapped up in a fetal ball, shaking and covering my ears with both hands to shut out the shrill whistle of the swirling wind.

  For a moment I lost track of my dad. When I opened my eyes again, I found him kneeling, staring at me—his face inches from mine. Water dripping from his eyes, hair, and nose. Darkness and fire created the backdrop beyond him. His right arm reached in like a giant excavator, wrapped around me, and lifted me out. I wanted to cling to him, but he set me on the piano bench and then sat next to me. The wind was blowing so hard I had to lean into it to sit up straight. Dad brushed the wet hair out of his face, nodded at the piano, and spoke just three words. “Let it out.”

  I tried to scream above the whistling wind. “What?”

  He leaned in and spoke slowly so I could read his lips. “Let it out.”

  I looked around at all those people. All those terrified faces. All that anger. That fear. I felt helpless. I’d wrapped one foot around the leg of the piano bench so the wind couldn’t rip me off the face of the earth. I tried to touch the keys, but my hands were shaking.

  Dad looked down at me. “Peg?”

  I didn’t answer. I was too scared. I wanted to run like everybody else.

  He leaned in closer. His nose almost touching mine. “Son?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He placed my hands gently on the keys. “Let it out.”

  I looked down at my chest and shouted back, “Let what out?”

  He smiled. “The part that makes the song.”

  So I did.

  My shaking fingers hit the keys, made the chords, and I played with every ounce of terrified strength within me. The harder that wind blew, the higher the flames climbed, the more the tent whipped in the air above me, the tighter I wrapped my foot around the leg of the bench and the louder I played. That dark storm had covered the sky, stretching ten miles in either direction, coming to rest in Mr. Slocumb’s cattle field just beyond us.

  We were next. Out on the prairie, five miles distant, lightning struck the ground and hit a propane tank the size of a semitrailer. The ignition caused a white flash that lit the darkness and rolled it back like a scroll. Followed by a sonic boom that nearly ripped me off the bench. Whatever emotion had filled me exploded out my fingers. As much a protective mechanism as an artistic expression, I played as loud and as hard as I could.

  What I didn’t realize was that while the storm had my attention, something else inside the tent had everyone else’s. They weren’t screaming. Weren’t fighting. Weren’t swinging chairs. In fact, they were just standing. Watching. And most of them were looking in my general direction. I looked at Big-Big, wondering what song he’d started, but Big-Big was just standing there staring at me. He wasn’t singing a lick. I looked up at Dad, but he wasn’t singing either. He was just sitting there with his hands in his lap. Then I looked back at all those people, and while the storm raged around us, it had quit raining inside the metal framing of the tent. I say metal framing because most all the canvas had been ripped off. The rain streaked down my face, but when it hit my lips it tasted salty. My fingers were slinging water, but the piano was dry and everything around me was dry. That meant the water wasn’t rain.

  Somewhere in there I heard a sound. A beautiful sound. And I thought maybe I’d heard it before but maybe only in my dreams. It was like an echo around a corner. A siren in the distance. Something higher up. Only when I shut my eyes did I realize that the sound was me. I was singing. Singing at the top of my lungs. “O Lord my God . . .”

  The sound of me surprised me.

  Dad stood up, dug a pick from his pocket, hung Jimmy over his shoulder, and came up underneath me—his deep baritone filling in the space below my prepubescent voice. Big-Big reassembled the choir, which had voluntarily dispersed, and I don’t really know what all happened next. In the thirty-six years since, I’ve tried to make sense of it, but I cannot. It does not make sense to my rational mind. But that’s the thing about music. It doesn’t enter through the mind. It enters through the heart.

  There’s a lot I don’t know, but this is what I know for certain: the storm retreated before our very eyes and the torrent left as quickly as it had come. The night cleared, ten billion stars stared down on us, and the air took on that pungent, crisp earthiness known only after the rain. The people returned, righted their chairs, sat down, and acted civil. I don’t know how long I played, but I know in the years to come Dad used to joke, “First song that boy ever played in public was an Elvis tune.”

  My dad loved the King.

  Dad followed the storm with his “We Are Not Alone” sermon. Which made good sense, given that we all just witnessed round one of the coming Apocalypse. But while Dad was talking about how “some have entertained angels” and “therefore since we are surrounded by so great a host of witnesses,” my attention was focused on a man sitting on my piano. He had climbed up there during the storm. When Dad got to talking about Revelation chapter 4 and how it’s a picture of the throne room of God and how all the heavenly host are singing “Holy, Holy, Holy” 24/7, I wanted to raise my hand and say, “No, sir, they’re not.” But I was pretty sure if I did, everyone, including my dad, would think I was crazy. So I kept my mouth shut, but I never took my eyes off the man on the piano.

  Hours later, after everyone had gone and Dad and Mr. Slocumb had unstuck several cars and trucks with his tractor, Dad found me still sitting on that piano bench, where my
feet didn’t touch either the ground or the pedals. Dad put his arm around me. “Time for bed, big guy.”

  “But what about—” I pointed.

  Dad looked puzzled. He scratched his chin and sat next to me. “What about what?”

  I was tired. Eyes heavy. I waved my hand. “What do we do about him?”

  “Who?”

  The guy was sitting just a few feet away. He smelled like rosemary. Long blond hair. Muscular. Green eyes. Smiling. For the last hour or so, he’d been dancing and shaking a tambourine, so his shirt was soaked through. Every now and then he’d glance over his shoulder at me.

  I pointed. “Him.”

  Dad pressed his palm to my forehead. “What’s he look like?”

  I pointed, somewhat irritated. “He looks like that guy right there.”

  “Okay, but describe him for me.”

  “You can’t see him?”

  “I just want to make sure we’re talking about the same guy.”

  “Blue jeans. Flip-flops. White shirt. Blond hair. Ponytail. Ring on his finger.”

  Dad said, “How big is he?”

  I sized him up. “Bigger than Big-Big.”

  “Does he scare you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does he look like he wants to hurt you?”

  “No.”

  “When did he get here?”

  “He walked in during the storm. Soon as I started playing.”

  “What’s he do when you stop playing?”

  “Sits down.”

  “What’s he doing right this second?”

  “He’s whittling with his pocketknife, letting the shavings fall at his feet.”

  Dad smiled, picked me up off the bench, and carried me to the truck. It was almost two a.m. I put my head on his shoulder and spoke through closed eyes. “But, Dad, we can’t just leave him.”

  Dad laughed. “Son, he’s not going anywhere. Guys like him . . . they never leave.”

  Over time, Mr. Slocumb’s cows grew fat and healthy, his hay grew tall and green, and with some encouragement from my dad, he turned the Falls into a public outdoor venue. With the help of an architect and engineer out of Colorado Springs and a loan from a Denver bank, Mr. Slocumb built Colorado’s finest outdoor amphitheater, with seating for five thousand. The stage backed up against the cliffs, using the acoustics of the stone walls to project outward—which it did with relative perfection. He brought in sound engineers from LA and New York who captured and broadcast performers’ voices while not blasting out those in attendance. He constructed bathrooms to serve the masses, a restaurant and concession to feed the hungry, and he learned how to drain his fields and pour enough asphalt so parking was never muddy.

  Word spread, and when finished, Mr. Slocumb had created a venue sought after by performers and producers because of what they called the purity of the sound. Add to that a private airport ten minutes south that allowed performers to jet in and out, and an audience willing to drive from Fort Collins, Denver, Aspen, Vail, Breckenridge, Steamboat, Salida, Littleton, Telluride, Ouray, the Springs, Silverton, and Montrose, and Mr. Slocumb found himself in the center of a world where music was valued.

  He had just one problem—not enough seating. Shows were routinely sold out. By the time I turned eighteen, we’d held over a hundred services at the Falls, and Mr. Slocumb had helped park cars at every single one. And each summer, Dad and Big-Big baptized hundreds of people in the pool beneath the waterfall.

  Including Mr. Slocumb.

  14

  In the weeks that followed the storm, I heard several nicknames aimed at me. “The kid who stopped the storm.” “The kid who played in the rain.” “The boy with the girl’s voice.” I had become something of an onstage oddity. People started coming to see me, and that meant I had both admirers and critics.

  One evening after a service, I was cleaning up trash when five kids surrounded me. Started poking at me. Shoving me around. Next thing I knew, the ringleader, who was a head taller and wore a nose ring, jumped me from behind and was doing a pretty good job of feeding me a mud pie. I was having trouble breathing with all that mud in my nose and mouth. I was also having trouble calling for help. They were all laughing and taking turns kicking my legs and side while nose-ring boy controlled my head by my hair.

  Next thing I knew a shadow appeared, and nose-ring boy suddenly levitated off the ground. I rolled over as the other four kids scattered like bees while my bullying friend hung suspended from the crane that was Big-Big’s arm. A blood vessel had popped out on Big-Big’s temple and was throbbing in rhythm with his heart. I sat up, spat the mud and blood out of my mouth, and wiped my face with my shirtsleeve.

  Big-Big looked down at me. “You okay?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Big-Big raised the boy higher. “You sure?”

  I nodded. He turned, set the boy down, and said, “Git!”

  The boy disappeared out among the cars where his friends were cackling and calling Big-Big names. Big-Big lifted me and dusted me off. The vein was still pulsating on his temple.

  “I tol’ your dad I’d look out for you.” He wiped my face with his handkerchief. “Looks like I’m not doing too good at my job.”

  Dad appeared over my shoulder, and we three stood there quietly. Big-Big’s face took on a dull, muted complexion, like someone who’d known the darker side of people.

  He said, “Peg, that boy ain’t gon’ leave you alone. Bullies never do. They don’ fight fair. That’s why he brought his friends.” He knelt and looked across at me. “Prison be the same way. Nex’ time he approach you, you bes’ punch him hard as you can right in the teeth ’fore he ever say a word. Jes’ close his mouth. And don’ jes’ punch him once. You punch him ’til you can’t punch no mo’. That be the only way to shut all five of them up.” Big-Big looked at Dad, then back at me.

  Dad nodded.

  I pointed at the stage. “What about all that ‘turn the other cheek’ stuff?”

  Dad’s eyes narrowed. “When someone’s trying to control you, you come out swinging. And keep swinging. Bible never said be a doormat.” He looked down at me. “I’m not telling you to look for it. I’m telling you not to run. Stand your ground.”

  The following week Dad pulled me aside. He extended his hand, and in his palm he held a man’s silver ring. Chunky. Had an oak tree engraved on it. He’d wrapped a pipe cleaner around the shank to make it fit a smaller finger. He said, “Put it on. Right hand.”

  I slid it on.

  Dad looked at me square. “Now don’t take it off.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  That week at school, nose-ring boy cornered me in the cafeteria. He pushed me down, stole my lunch money, and started cackling like a hyena as his buddies surrounded him and cheered. Then he started dancing around in a circle and kicking me.

  Big-Big and my father were nowhere to be found. I climbed up off the floor, and the boys pushed me around like a pinball. Finally I squared up to nose-ring, who outweighed me by about fifty pounds. He opened his mouth to say something, but I never gave him a chance to get the words out. I hit him as quick and as hard as I could. And because I was scared, I didn’t hit him just once.

  When the cafeteria attendant pulled me off him, the other hyenas had vamoosed, and the boy’s nose was sitting sideways on his face where it looked like a red balloon had exploded. The cafeteria attendant gripped my arm real tight, digging in her fingernails, and shook me. She was screaming pretty loud. “What do you think you’re doing!”

  I didn’t bother answering her, but reached across the space between us and ripped the nose ring out of the boy’s nose, tearing the skin between his nostrils. She jerked me around by my collar and marched me to the principal’s office, where they called my dad.

  I sat in that office, staring at the bloody ring on my right hand, wondering. Shortly, the bully who had pushed me down appeared with his dad. He was pressing a bag of ice to his face, whining, “It hurts!”

  My dad appeared
a few minutes later, and the principal took us all back. He said, “Mr. O’Connor, I’m suspending your boy three days for fighting. He’ll get zeroes in all his classes. I figured you’d want to know so you could discipline him as well.”

  Dad smiled. “Thank you.” He turned to me. “What happened?”

  I looked at the kid. “He pushed me down, took my lunch money, and started kicking me. His buddies helped.”

  The kid spoke around the bag of ice. “Thash not true.”

  I pointed at his right front pocket. “Two dollars.”

  The principal said, “Is that true? Did you take his two dollars?”

  The kid’s voice rose. “No.”

  The principal motioned. “You mind emptying your pocket, son?”

  The kid’s father interrupted. “You can’t expect . . .”

  The principal waited while the kid emptied two crumpled dollar bills onto his desk. Then he said, “I’m suspending both of you. I won’t have this kind of behavior. Do I make myself clear?”

  Dad put his hand gently around my neck, resting it on my shoulders. He turned to the kid’s father. “Let me make it clear for you. I fully expect that if this ever happens again, my son is going to jump up on your boy like a spider monkey. Further, he has my permission.”

  The principal started to protest, but Dad raised his hand. “Now, since he’s got a few days off school, we’re going to eat a cheeseburger, then we’re going to get some ice cream, then we’re going fishing. Might even take in a movie. Do I make myself clear?” He guided me toward the door.

  The principal called after us, “And you call yourself a God-fearing man! A preacher!”

  Dad turned and nodded. “I do. And I’ve never used the word doormat in conjunction with that description.”

  Halfway through my second cheeseburger I said, “Dad?”

  He looked at me over his burger. “Yep.”

  “Is today why you gave me this ring?”

  He stacked a pickle onto his cheeseburger. “Yes.”

  I nodded and eyed the ring. “Dad?”