Phantom Banjo (13 page)

"So," he asked. "You done any testing yet,
see if what she showed you is for real or not?" They were back on
the highway now, the truck making good time. It looked like a wreck
but a friend of Brose's had fixed it up good in exchange for a
couple of retired ponies for his kids.

"How do you mean?" Willie asked. He had been
trying to lean up on the side of one thigh against the door to keep
his rear from making contact with the bumps but it wasn't much
use.

"Sing one of the songs you learned from
Hawthorne."

He started with the popularized Leadbelly
song "Goodnight Irene," one Sam was well known for singing, since
the banjo had been plunking it only a short time before. But for
once, not only would the lyrics not come, but they would not fit
into the tune properly. He remembered the title, or thought he did,
and tried to fit it in to the verse, but it didn't work and he
found himself singing, "Goodnight, Irene, goodnight, Irene," until
he began to wonder if maybe the song didn't go "Good morning,
Irene," or "Good afternoon, Elaine," or maybe he had made it up and
it probably wasn't a very good song anyway, if he couldn't remember
it. He tried all of his usual tricks, and though the melody was
still in his head, sort of, it would not transfer itself onto his
vocal chords.

So he tried "Wild Bill Jones" and "Darlin'
Corey," and "Banks of the Ohio," and "Adelita," all with no more
success. He kept struggling and struggling.

"Ah, come on, man," Brose said, "you shittin'
me. You can't remember 'Goodnight Irene'?"

"You know the goddamn thing as well as I do.
You try," Willie snapped.

Brose opened his mouth, then shut it again,
and snapped back. "Can't. I been tryin' all the time you been
tryin'. It's bound to be on some old record. In some old book. Or
one of Sam's old cronies back East will know."

"Will they?"

"Sure. Them folks back East not only memorize
a song, they even read music and write stuff down and write down
three hundred and fifty-seven versions under twice that many titles
and all different tunes. They're nuts about it. If they don't
remember it, they can dig it up."

They kept trying to remember other songs, and
some of the songs in their own repertoires returned but none of the
ones either ever remembered hearing Sam sing would come back, not
in the least. And the banjo was no help. Once in a while a song
would drift over the strings, but it was never the same song the
men were trying to sing. It was as if the damned thing was haunted
by the ghosts of songs that were as insubstantial and elusive as
any Halloween creation in a transparent bedsheet.

Both men were hoarse from singing through the
dust and heat by the time they drove up the corduroy bumps of the
long road to Brose's place. The house was unprepossessing since
tidiness and do-it-yourself repairs were not exactly Brose's strong
points. Three fat cats of assorted colors waddled out to meet the
truck, then stopped and scratched fleas while a pack of dogs yelped
and wagged their way across the packed clay and tufts of brown
grass to jump up on the truck sides.

A tight cluster of cows, most of them limping
or blindly bumbling into one another, had stampeded toward the
fence as the truck approached, and between the barking and the loud
"MaaAAAW" of the cows and the bleating of the sheep and goats, it
was quite a welcoming committee.

"Quiet'n down, y'all," Brose bellowed, the
way he used to hush noisy audiences, then stooped to scratch ears
before crawling in the back of the truck to check the horse.

Various other former patients wandered
through the yard, with or without the benefit of fences, a
plucked-tailed peacock, a flock of half-feathered chickens, and a
llama among them.

"Well, he's still alive," Brose said when
he'd checked the horse and climbed back down from the truck bed.
"I'm gonna give him some more fluids and let him rest a minute,
then we'll drive on into the barn and unload him."

They waded through the debris in the house
and Brose unbuckled the string of belts that held the refrigerator
door shut and extracted two cans of Dos X.

"You know anybody to call?" he asked.
"Somebody else who might know those songs?"

"I've got a bunch of numbers in my address
book back at the ranch, but I came sort of underdressed for the
occasion here," Willie said, but his words trailed off to a mumble
toward the end. He took a long slug of beer and said, "Buddy, I
appreciate your help and this is real interesting and all, but I'm
so whipped I can hardly wiggle. Could I talk you out of a shower
and a place to crash for a while?"

Brose grunted and nodded toward a metal
cabinet shower covered with a curtain in the side of the hallway.
The bed was piled with laundry and after his shower Willie shoved
it to one side and flopped down on his stomach beside it.

He wasn't aware of falling asleep until
something stirred in the room and he awoke to see Brose, smelling
of soap, deodorant, and aftershave, wedged between the foot of the
bed and a full length dimestore mirror and looking a little like a
red-haired refugee from an Arabian Nights story. The red woolly
mane sported a black fez with a foot and a half of red silk tassel
brushing the shoulder of a white embroidered shirt. Yards of wide
red sash joined the shirt to a pair of black pants only lightly
dusted with animal hair.

"You joined the Shriners, buddy?" Willie
asked.

"Nah, go on back to sleep. I'm just goin' to
a gig."

"What time is it?" Willie asked. His watch
was on the drainboard back at the line shack.

"Sunday," Brose said. "Go back to sleep."

"Sunday? When was it you picked me up?"

"Friday. Go back to sleep. Forget it. I
called your boss and told him the animal shelter sent me after his
horse and in my opinion it had eaten some loco weed and damn near
run itself to death."

"How did he sound?"

Brose shrugged. "Pissed off to have cops all
over his place scarin' his livestock, since he don't recall
invitin' them over. Also he's a might puzzled as to how a dead man
got left on his property. I think he's worried about you more than
anything. He's inclined to blame the whole thing on commie
wetbacks."

"I like that idea. Wish I could buy it,"
Willie said, half to himself. "Got any coffee?"

"Some. Couple of days old, though. Well, so
long. Don't wait up, mom."

"Hold on, hold on. Where you going really?"
Willie was not normally so curious on awakening. Usually, he was
not fully conscious till three cups of coffee slid down his throat.
But two days of sleep and a strong wish not to be left alone with
the general weirdness surrounding Mark's death worked better than
caffeine.

"A gig, I told you."

"I didn't know you still played."

"Lots you don't know."

"And what's with the outfit? Your band call
themselves the Forty Thieves maybe?"

"Maybe. You wouldn't be interested. It's just
a wedding reception, for Christ's sake. Go to sleep. Make coffee.
Just get off my back, man."

"Hey, no offense," Willie said.

"Look, it's not star stuff, okay? I play
Balkan music with a little band. Bunch of people I met through
work."

"Balkan music? You mean like Polack weddings,
that kind of thing?"

"Ukrainian, Czech, Hungarian, yeah."

"Funny, you don't look it. I thought you were
a blues man?"

"The jig who played jigs, right? Well, I just
got tired of singin' the blues all the time, man. And playin' the
Irish top forty. I wasn't playin' nothin' at all until one day some
client came into the shelter and recognized me from when you and me
was giggin' together. He said somethin' in front of Burt Sherry and
Burt got to asking me about it. He said they had this little band,
played weddings and anniversaries, family reunions, retirement
parties, that kind of thing. I didn't think too much of it but one
time they were short a picker. Burt asked if I wanted to sit in. I
went along just to see what it was like."

"You must have liked it."

"Naw, you know, it's just all them Balkan
blond chicks really dig a man in uniform," he said, straightening
his sash.

"Well, damn, I'd like to see this," Willie
said. "You taken up the accordion?"

"Come ahead on and see."

Willie looked down. He hadn't bothered to put
his bloody, horsey cutoffs back on. "I haven't a thing to
wear."

Brose grinned and pawed through the laundry.
"It ain't formal. Here," he tossed a pair of jeans at Willie.
"These ought to fit."

Willie pulled them on. "Where'd you get
these? You lose weight for a while?"

"One of the kids from Dobie House left them
last time he was here."

"You take in stray kids as well as
animals?"

"Sometimes." He opened a closet door and dug
inside, emerging with a rumpled white shirt on a hanger. "This is
from when I lost weight one time. When I married Lila Jean. I
weighed a hell of a lot less by the time she left."

"You got any people bandages or is your
first-aid kit only for horses?" Willie asked. They found a roll of
gauze and some antiseptic ointment that barely, painfully fit
beneath the teenager's tight jeans.

They met the other band members outside the
Moose Lodge. All but one guy had on an outfit like Brose's, and
that guy had forgotten his fez.

Willie brought the banjo along, just because
he didn't want to leave it. They set up on a little stage covered
with white crepe-paper bunting. There were two accordions, a
mandolin, and Brose's guitar. Ladies in pearls and silky pastel
dresses were arranging cold cuts and raw vegetables on plates
around the wedding cake. An ice sculpture of a giant wedding ring
melted slowly into the punch bowl.

The bride had long, lustrous dark hair and a
clear complexion spread over about a 280-pound, five-foot ten-inch
frame. The gown almost concealed how pregnant she was but nobody
seemed to mind. The groom, a husky fellow several years younger
than his new wife, looked as madly in love as brides are supposed
to. As the reception line dwindled the accordions wheezed into
action and the newlyweds bounced into a polka. After a few bars,
the father of the bride cut in and pinned a hundred-dollar bill to
her dress. One after another, the other men in the wedding party
cut in and also pinned bills to her dress until she looked like a
large dancing money tree.

A lot of the dances were line dances, women
dancing like beads on a necklace, doing a totally different kind of
dance from the men, who danced together in their own lines. When
they broke into couple dances, grandparents danced with brisk young
relatives, teenagers with toddlers, all age groups mixing and
making sure everyone had a chance to dance. The older men were the
best dancers, and the most tireless.

The bride spotted Willie and pulled at his
hands. He was still having trouble walking but that didn't stop him
from showing off a mean polka, though it was more of a
Mexican-style one than a Polish one. The bride jounced along like a
big sexy beach ball, grinning happily and sweating through the
light sprinkle of glitter powder across her cheeks and chest.

Willie was sweating too. The only ventilation
in the crowded hall was from the doors, which were propped open to
the hot afternoon, and an overhead ceiling fan.

Then someone shouted out what sounded like a
request but the song title wasn't in English. The band struck up a
tune and the bride's father started a sort of line dance, catching
up the bride, the groom, the mother, and Willie in the sweep of
people bobbing through the hall. When the dance panted to a halt,
someone called another name, but this time the accordions groaned,
the mandolin dithered, and a mumbled consultation took place among
the musicians. Willie disengaged himself from the line and ambled
toward the stage. Brose caught his eye. "How many damn songs do you
suppose Hawthorne knew anyway?"

The bride's father shouldered his way to the
stage. "Hey, what's the problem, fellas? How come you don't play
what my guests ask for?"

The man Brose had introduced as Burt Sherry
said, "Sorry, Fred. We seem to have forgotten it."

"Forgotten it? I know you know it. I heard
you play it at Charlie Andreas's girl's wedding. I could have hired
some kids to play the other stuff . . ."

"Hey, nothing to get excited about. We got
sheet music at home. We just usually know it so well we don't
bother anymore. But tell you what. Hum a few bars and we'll fake
it."

But Fred couldn't hum it, the wife couldn't
hum it, the bride never listened to anything but classical outside
of weddings, and none of the guests could remember either. The band
played a few more popular numbers, but the party broke up early,
despite the introduction of a second tub of iced beer. And Fred
paid only half of what he owed them.

The banjo tinkled "Nobody Knows You When
You're Down and Out" as Willie slung it across his back. Burt
Sherry was still arguing with Fred while the others packed up their
instruments. A hot gust of wind swept into the hall from the open
door and blew two of the tissue paper bells down from where they
were thumb-tacked to the ceiling beams. The ladies' skirts filled
like sails and the swish of taffeta, lace, silk, chiffon, and nylon
rivaled the rattling leaves of the big cottonwoods as freshly
manicured, damp-palmed hands tried to subdue the garments. "Burt, I
will think of that song. . . " one of the accordion players said.
"I can sort of hear it back there behind my eardrum, I just can't .
. ."

"I know just what you mean. Look, I was going
to go home and water the lawn but what say we all go back to my
house and look it up, have a beer?"

Brose grunted and started to back away but
Burt said, "Come on, Brose. You can check up on those pups you gave
the kids. Evvie-Ann has been asking about you."