In the Deadlands (19 page)

He held up his hands and cut the audience off short —not that they would have applauded much more anyway, but Bojo wasn't waiting to see. “Ladies, Gentlemen,” he began. He paused,
and for a second I thought he was going to say something else, but he seemed to change his mind and said, “There will be only one more set tonight and then we will be closing early.”

A disinterested murmur from the audience—they really didn't care. Only the hope of some excitement in an otherwise meaningless evening caused them to wonder aloud.

I passed Bojo as he stepped down, but he didn't say anything. The boys looked at me curiously. I shrugged in reply: “The
Battle Hum.
”

Loamy started to protest, but I cut him off. “For the Boje. And tighten up on that bass; you're getting sloppy.”

“S'posed to be sloppy,” he muttered, and I shot him a look that said, “Not in this group, it's not.”

We started off easy, sort of snuck up on it slow-like. Began with a slow steady drumbeat, low and slow, one hundred to the minute, and after a bit Loamy was under it all just hinting at something else with a bass that was almost sullen.

Jack on the piano kept waiting for me to cue him in, but I held back. There was something in the sound of the bass that I hadn't heard before. At first I wondered how Loamy was doing it, but then I realized he wasn't. A glance at him told me he was playing as sloppy as ever.

But there was
something
there. Something I couldn't quite place, something that didn't belong in the sound. Offhandedly, I'd have guessed we were picking up some kind of harmonic off Boje's fancy glasswork, but this was deeper than any echo had a right to be.

I let it be and cued Jack in on the piano, but softly. He began with a slow steady alternation of notes, only hinting at the theme to come, but not giving it away. The whole thing
was very dark, very sombre; the audience still did not know what we were doing, and for the first time that night they were paying attention.

If I'd thought the piano was going to cover up that echo, I was wrong. It only seemed to heighten its effect. It was more distinct than ever—but I still couldn't make it out. It wasn't unpleasant though; in fact, it might almost have been a perfect counterpoint.

I picked up the horn, even started to place it to my lips, then changed my mind Clarinet. Only clarinet would do for this. It's the only real instrument for me. It's the soul stick. It can have a sweet caressable sound, like fresh milk being poured into a saucer—or it can blare out with all the harsh frenzy of a two-dollar whore. It's the closest I've ever come to
the
sound.

I eased in slowly, softly, with the gentle stroking of
air
that only the clarinet can do. The word
clarinet
even hints at it. I could hear the words in my head as I began, like from a distant choir—an all-male chorus, “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the...”

I found myself thinking about the war again, wondering what it must be like to be on the other side, wondering how it would be to be one of the enemy—

Abruptly, I felt sorry for them, for they were doomed and didn't know it. We always won. Always. Because we were right. And then I felt sorry for us too—what if we were wrong and didn't know it?

I shoved the thought out of my head; put my mind back on the music. Like the blues, slow and muted, the melody was sobbing through the room, its very slowness a sign that it could not last. For when the Duff plays the
Battle Hum,
it's anything but soft and subtle. We only start out that way. It's a battle hum and it's gotta be played that way, loud and brassy.

It's a sound that has to be heard above the din of battle, above the dull thunder of the bombs, the agonized screams of the dying. It has to grab the men, lift them, pick them up, and
hurl them back into battle. It's got to be so vivid that you forget the smell of your blood, the pain of your torn flesh, your fears of death and damnation, and nothing must exist for you but the sound and the glory, and you rise and keep going. And keep on going. For the sound, the beautiful sound.

Earlie picks up the pace then, and Loamy adds overtones and then does things with the bass. Jack starts slipping in some extra notes, and before we realize it Earlie has eased us into a whole new tempo, twice as fast as before, and then I'm blowing out my guts and my mind at the same time. Nothing exists but the clarinet and the sound—and somewhere on the fringes of my existence, the piano, the bass, and the drums are all combining to make
that
sound.
The
sound.

Except this time it was different. Over it, under it, around it was this
other
sound. That echo I couldn't quite place. But not an echo—a harmony? Something. It filtered in through the edges of our sound, diffracted and deflected—but always the same and always distant. And never quite drowned out.

A sound like listening.

We build to a crashing, thundering crescendo, and then suddenly—

—we stop, leaving only the slow steady drumbeat, still one hundred to the minute. Right back where we started. It rolls through the room that is still reverberating with a thunder that refuses to die out. Slowly we come back in with the theme,
“Glory, glory, hallelujah...”
Soft and almost silent, just a hint, and let it hang in the air. Not even a repeat, just slip through it once and let it fade out.

It takes a while for them to realize we've finished, but when they do it shatters their minds, and then they're applauding, more than they've done all evening. “Okay, boys. Good job. Pack 'em up.”

It didn't take the boys long. There was none of the usual byplay and kidding on the stand.
Battle Hum
does that, leaves us feeling as if we've crashed. Another reason I don't like it. Music should leave you feeling up.

Abruptly I remembered that
other
sound and asked if anybody else had heard anything strange, but they just shrugged and shook their heads.

“You mean a kind of twangy thing?” Jack asked. “It could have been the piano. It seemed—”

“Uh-uh.” He hadn't heard it. If he had, he'd have known what I meant. Either I was the only one who'd heard that
other
sound, or no one else wanted to admit it.

What was left of the audience was just filtering out. Bojo was at the bar, resting his head in his hands, half a beer sitting warmly in front of him. “G'night, Boje,” I said as I passed.

“Wait a minute, Duff,” he mumbled.

I paused while he fumbled in his sweater pocket. He thrust a wad of bills at me.

“Hey, what's this? Payday isn't until Friday.”

“Uh-uh, it's today. Tonight's your last night.”

“Huh—? Hey, now look, Boje. You and I are friends. I know we were a little loose on the first few sets, but give us a chance.”

He shook his head. “That's not it, Duff. Your guys are all right, and if you'll count that you'll find it's for the complete gig. It's just that this—” He paused to swallow. “This is my last night too. I'm closing it up.”

Huh?”

He shoved the bills at me again; I was too dumbfounded not to take them. “It's all there, Duff—and for the two extra weeks too.” He smiled. “The two extra you always con me into. I'm
sorry you won't be here to play them. I like your style.” Then he turned back to the bar and stared into his beer. It had a sickly green cast; the glow of the black light did that to it.

I could see that he didn't want to talk. I hefted my two instrument cases and left.

Outside on the street, the boys gave me that look—as if I hadn't been telling them everything. I shrugged it off, the way I shrugged everything off. “He has his moods,” I explained. “Music does that to him. Even ours.” I said it without smiling. It wasn't funny. “I'll call Bill tomorrow, see if he can get us anything.”

“Hmp,” snorted Loamy. “He'd book us into Hell if there was a percentage in it.”

Loamy and Jack walked off. Earlie gave me a wave and crossed the street to his battered Ford. It wasn't even one o'clock yet and already the streets were deserted. A light mist gave the buildings a feathery look, and the street lights were haloed.

I turned and started walking.

And suddenly it was all clear.

Why there was no traffic, no people about.

The tank sat in the middle of the intersection, a giant beetle, squat and ugly. Three soldiers in baggy-green uniforms eyed me uncuriously. Down the boulevard, I could see other tanks, and scattered among them, the lean hungry jeeps, the pale shadowy figures of men. And all had that air of watchful readiness.

So it was over.

Sometime during the evening, the whole thing had ended. We had lost it. Without even noticing.

The great tanks had rolled into our city and taken up their positions and we hadn't even noticed.

It's one thing to see it in a picture: twenty-one inches of glowing red-green-blue dots, and all so distant and far away you know it doesn't really have anything to do with you.

And it's another thing to see it in person. The hulking metal shapes, monstrous and brooding—they had one purpose and one purpose only. The sullen power of great violence forged into metal shapes is always ugly.

There was nothing I could do. I could stand and look, or I could go home.

I went home.

And all the way, every step of the way, the questions gnawed at the edges of my mind.

Why? Why?

Somehow, irrationally, I had the idea that it was ultimately all my fault. I personally was the one responsible. Something I had done had brought this about.

But I hadn't done
anything.

Had it been that? While I had concerned myself with providing diversions for the affluent, had others been looking hungrily after that same damned affluence? Hadn't I known? Hadn't I seen?

And most of all, why hadn't I cared?

But, no. I'd concerned myself with my music as if that had been the sole portion of my life, and not just the soul portion. While I had been blowing—no, while
we
had been blowing our hearts out in the Boje's dingy little rathole cafe, our country had had its heart blown out by our indifference.

By my indifference. Where had I been when these ugly men in their baggy-green uniforms had come rolling silently into the world?

Where? Providing casual entertainment for the casual who didn't care.

While the fat roly-poly Romans had gone to their circuses and discotheques, the lean hungry barbarians from the north had moved in. The Roman Empire never fell—it was given away.

Oh, sure—we had known there was a war on. It was in all the papers. But wars were always fought “over there.” Never “over here.” So we worried watched that other war, the far away one, and forgot about the one that was taking place right here at home. How does it feel to be the fool, Duff? How does it feel to know that you're one of the reasons the streets are no longer ours?

And the city was longer ours. Nothing was
ours.

The soldiers ignored me. They were as bored as the audiences I played for. And for the same reasons, too. They knew I would cause them no excitement, no reason even to straighten up. No nothing. So why strain? Why bother?

It was going to be a peaceful occupation.

The poet had been right. Not with a bang, but a whimper.

I went home, my footsteps echoing hollowly off the sidewalk and the mocking walls of the city.

The world went impossibly on. Cats pawed through garbage; dogs lifted their legs to telephone poles; cars continued to mutter through the streets. Impossibly, maddeningly normal.

As if they had every right to go on existing even though the world had changed hands in the night.

There was even a sense of relief in the air that, at last, it was finally here and over with. After one startled disoriented moment, the people came back into the streets to again tend to their personal businesses. Well, they're here, they said, and it's not as bad as we'd thought it would be. After all, they're only human beings, just like us...

...
shadowy gray and ghostly silent, they sat on their street corners, polishing their guns and waiting.

But they're only human beings. Just like us....

The new government was named.

Life went on.

The same companies sent out the same bills on the same letterheads.

And always, the same people paid.

But Bojo's stayed closed, and we were out of work. Again.

And we stayed out of work. Other places began to close up too. Not all like Bojo's. And not all for the same reasons. Some were better, some worse. But all were closed.

The fools were out of work now. They'd done their job. No
—we'd
done our job. Indeed, done it well. There was no need for us any longer. We'd diverted the attention of the landlords long enough for the looters to take possession. And now that the looters had what they wanted, they had no more need for fools.

Most of the nightspots in town simply stopped opening. One night they'd be playing to a half-empty house and the next the doors would remain shut and nobody would be playing at all.

The stage shows closed; the movie theatres too, for a while, then they reopened with new films and unfamiliar titles. Only the bars remained unaffected, except that prices went up. A new liquor tax, they said.

Everywhere the casual entertainments disappeared. Withered away and died. Their purpose had been fulfilled.

I sat in the back of a darkened theatre, shadows flickering on the screen—shadows of the shadows that moved through the streets outside—and mourned the loss of a world I had helped to forsake.

The colors seeped out of life, the world was gray.

And the horror of it was that too soon we would grow used to this, our new way of life; grow complacent with the fact that the new was comfortably reminiscent of the old. After all, weren't we still eating regular, still wearing warm clothes and sleeping between clean sheets? It'd be only a matter of time till we forgot that there had once been more to life than this.