Return to Oakpine (26 page)

“So you took it.”

“I took the truck. He knew I was going to and just gave me the keys.”

“Didn't he say—”

“He said, ‘Don't take the truck,' and he gave me the keys. I was having a baby. You were on the way, Jimmy.”

The garage ceiling made a quiet chuffing as the plastic filled and emptied.

Jimmy's face felt strange again, and he heard himself speak. “We could go up there. It's only a little snow.”

“Sure we could.” Mr. Brand stood up. “I'll warm up the car.”

He exited the little room, and Jimmy leaned back against the headboard. He felt the electricity in his arms and legs, but he could not move. Finally, by counting down from five, he slid one leg to the edge of the bed and over. The floor was ridiculous, so far down there.

It was a minute later that Mr. Brand came back into the garage, saying, “I like a good storm—it'll keep the traffic down.” Then he closed the door and he knelt on the floor where his son lay. “Jimmy,” he whispered. He felt for a pulse and then stood up. He didn't know what to do with his arms, and he folded them. Then he knelt again and lifted his son into an embrace, and he sat on the floor that way against the bed.

•   •   •

Inside the Pronghorn, there was news. Bobby Peralta was at their table with a bulletin. “Craig, you guys are up next.” He stood with his hands on the back of Kathleen's chair.

“No we're not, Bob. We're after the break.” Craig tapped the nine ball in the ashtray and lifted his glass. “We need these good people drunk.”

“The gang from Sheridan put their car into the fence a mile down the road, and they're here but shaken up. Somebody's sprained his wrist, and we've got a bruise on the drummer's forehead you won't even want to see, and so what about you guys stepping up?”

“Are they okay?” Kathleen said, looking up at Bobby.

Seeing her, he said, “Can you come see? They're in the kitchen, and the drummer's got this head.”

“We are good to go,” Frank said. He stood up. “Gentlemen?”

“Jimmy made a request,” Mason said. “Let's go play.”

They took a minute setting up, plugging in, and Craig adjusted the drums and ran a few rounds. When Larry took the Fender out, a few guys stood and came up to the stage to see the classic, and Mason wired up and went to each of his friends and said, “Plenty loud now. I cannot sing.”

Bobby Peralta made the announcement, thanking this band from Oakpine, Life on Earth, and there was some applause and a call or two. “A garage band,” he added. Larry stood behind Mason on the right, and he could see Wendy at the front of the stage, but it was hard to see back very far under the stage lights, which was just fine with all the men. The drums and the bass rocked into “Help Me, Rhonda,” and in a minute it sounded just like a song, and they forgot themselves and pounded it out without reservation. Larry thought he could see people dancing, and when they stuck the ending, there was a wild clapping and periodic ya-hoos, which sounded strange and distant, and Mason walked to Frank and said, “Was that for us?”

From his place in the drums, Craig said into his mike, “Our second song is dedicated to the other member of our band, Jimmy Brand, Oakpine High School class of 1970.” Again there was noise, some calling, and the band exchanged glances, and Larry thought,
This is just unreal. How long have we been up here in this light?
His father started the snare, and Frank nodded to the beat and then gave them aloud the one, two, three. The first word of the song “Let Him Run Wild,” was “When . . .” and Larry heard it and knew he had stepped forward and was singing with Frank. It was way too slow and quiet for this big room, but they didn't care about that now. It was a song they knew, but when they'd practiced it, they'd all sung together, no one leading, and now they bogged down almost immediately waiting for each other. It was like they were just talking, talking in slow motion. It was very quiet in the room and impossible to tell if it was just falling flat.

Then Larry saw Wendy's face and knew it was falling flat. They stalled, and Frank cranked his hand, and the tempo ascended, but the singing was still slow and threatening to fail in each line. Then it did fail, or seemed like it failed: the end of the first verse, which was the part of the song Larry loved, should have had a snap, and it was dry as toast. Larry made a face at Wendy, motioned to her, and hauled her up with a hand onto the stage, and when Frank gave her the microphone, the song went crystal all the way to the back wall, and everybody heard the girl's voice take an edge and then sing the old warning about what the boy would do to other girls, and the guitars focused at once, explosive and precise, and her voice rang. Larry loved the final verse, the wicked rhyme of “need him” and “freedom,” and they all crushed it together and threw themselves into the chorus urgently one more time. Frank steered them around to do the last verse again, and she followed perfectly. Craig brought it all in for a landing with the drums and in the flaring silence was able to say, “Thank you,” and was going to say it again when the crowd sound came again, the clapping, whistles, and cries in a sharp crescendo.

Then they were off the stage, Larry carrying his guitar with Wendy down the far side, and Frank and Mason off the back. Craig went to the bar but got pushed by the crowd into the kitchen hallway. Someone grabbed him from the back, Marci, her face laughing, and she hugged him, focused, and kissed him. “Let's get a beer,” he said. He was sweating. “My god. Did we do that?”

“You were great, honey.” The hallway was booked solid, and Craig backed against the ladies' room door off balance, and the two of them were pushed into the room, but before the next woman could follow them, Craig reached past her and put his hand on the door holding it, and pulled her up with an arm, and kissed her against it as they felt the bumping traffic. “Yes,” she said, “I love you.” She felt the words in her elbows, her neck, and she took a deep breath.

He examined her face. “That's good news for this drummer.” They kissed again, and a woman tapped him on the shoulder waiting to exit.

“Whenever you two are through,” she said.

“We're just starting,” he said to her, “but let's all get out of here.”

Back at the table it was strange: they were quiet. People came by and said things about the way they played, but they all looked at each other knowing something had happened that they didn't need to talk about. Two of the red-shirted Coyotes from the next table raised their glasses, and one of them called, “Okay, okay, keep the lady. We knew she was pretty. We didn't know she was smart.”

“How do you feel?” Marci asked her son.

“I see now why anybody has a band,” Larry said. “I get it. It's like anything that scares you so much, you want a little more. Let me tell you, for old guys you did very well. I have it in the report.” They ordered another round, and then a Pronghorn special Round the World pizza, but before it came, Larry and Wendy stood up. “We're going to drive back, go tell Jimmy how it went.”

“It isn't over yet,” Frank said.

“That'll make it a better story,” Larry said.

“You be careful,” Craig said to his son.

“It's four-wheel, Mr. Ralston,” Wendy said. “And the plows have been through by now.”

“Tell him about the girl who saved the day,” Mason said. “Tell him we sang his song.”

Memory

The afternoon winter wind was slow and ponderous and unrelenting and ultimately called fierce, though it was nothing except the icy air moving along the frozen plates of the world, and the snow had crusted and blown into waves against the fences along Berry Street in Oakpine, Wyoming. The day was closed. It was five days since the battle of the bands, and it had snowed every day since. Mason Kirby stood in his kitchen listening to the arctic air work his old house with the ghostly sounds of joists first nailed together during the Great War, short cries and groans he remembered from his boyhood. He turned from his reflection in the glass of his perfect kitchen window, and he pulled slowly the cork from a bottle of red wine in the warm room, and poured a glass, which he handed to Kathleen.

“You've done a nice job on this place,” she told him. “I like these counters.”

“I could never design a room,” he said. “It is a published fact, but this will be my place.” He pointed to the large framed photograph of Mickey Mantle over the stove. The ballplayer was in full swing, his forearms bulging in the black and white print.

“It should be.”

He touched her glass, and they tasted the wine. “Oakpine,” he said. Outside the kitchen windows, which were cornered with snow, they could see two dozen cars parked crazily along the drifts in the gloomy twilight on Berry Street, as if part of some sudden winter disaster.

“And I might get a dog. This is a good street for one. And a dog improves this weather.”

“You had one.”

“I did. Old Buddy. I knew him from a pup.”

“He was some kind of black Lab, right?”

“He was, and a good dog. He certainly knew where the school was at three in the afternoon.” He stood facing the window. “I need more of that in my life. Shall we walk down?” he said.

Kathleen lifted her scarf and coat from the chair. When she was wrapped up, she grabbed the shopping bag from the chair.

“What'd you bring?” he asked.

“Cholesterol. Sausage and scalloped potatoes.”

“Perfect for the season.”

“In thirty years of bringing this dish to parties in this town, I've never had to take any home.” Kathleen opened her hands to the pretty kitchen. “You wanted to show me that you're staying.”

He put his suit-coat collar up and tied a black scarf around it. “I just wanted you to see my home. I'm fishing for design tips. I need to get some rugs for that dog to lie on.”

It was a pleasure to fight the old front door in the wind and to bump out into the uncompromising night. The wind was frigid and cut at their noses as soon as they stepped out onto the porch. Kathleen took his arm and put her head against his shoulder as they marched through the stiff sheets of snow three houses toward the Brands.

“Oh wind,” Mason said.

“Right,” Kathleen said. “Welcome home.”

“This is the little walk that counts,” Mason said. “Hold on to me.”

“I will, but they all count.” She spoke in phrases as the wind cut through. “If a person was raised here, he knows the way the light falls in this town on any given week, even you who have been absent for years. That isn't true for any other place for you. Knowing that, you can choose, wind or no wind, and let's just say: there'll be wind. This is a big week, Mason, with the trip and Jimmy gone, and now as always the big weather.”

He stopped walking to turn in front of her to block the snow for shelter. There was the shadow of a kiss in his posture, but she nudged him out of it. “Let's walk and talk. Mason, I'm glad you're here, and I'd like to meet that dog.” She held his arm tight, and they kicked through the drifts. “This is a good little walk that we won't ruin in any way.”

“Good enough,” he said. “You're right about the daylight. And the wind.”

The Brands' house was full of noise, all their friends and Jimmy's friends, and the aromas of dozens of covered dishes. There was just room to take off their coats a shoulder at a time in the tiny entry and turn to give them to Sonny. The two women looked at each other and embraced. “Hello, hello. Good luck finding these things later—they'll be on the bed with a thousand others.”

Kathleen threaded through the close room to the kitchen with her casserole. Mr. Brand, in his Sunday suit and tie, came up and shook Mason's hand. “You've got some people in here,” Mason said to the older man.

“It was a good service.”

“It was,” Mason said. “He was a good man.”

The remark caused Edgar Brand to put his hand on Mason's shoulder, and Mason recognized the touch, that approval, from days lost to memory. “He was a good man,” Mr. Brand said now. “He made many things.” He was searching Mason's face for information.

“What they will say about Jimmy,” Mason said to the old man, now seeing that the red and blue tie was an old union tie, AFL-CIO, a tie from 1953 or 54, when foremen wore ties to work on Mondays, “was that he had leverage. And his work will last. He was clear and fair as a reviewer of all of the arts, and his own writing will last.”

“I know it,” Mr. Brand said. He said the three words, and Mason saw the older man's eyes flush with tears. Now Mason put his hand on Edgar Brand's upper arm. After a moment Edgar said, “I'm good, Mason. Thank you for your remarks.”

The old world phrase made Mason smile.

“I'm glad you're here, back in town. Now, get some food.”

“I'll find it, I'm sure.”

The sofa and every chair in the living room were full of an older generation, friends of the Brands, and a face or two was familiar to Mason. Craig and Marci were in the kitchen doorway talking to Mrs. Brand, the story of the snowy day at the bar in Gillette coming out in episodes. “We got rushed, a little because one band drove off the road.”

“Before that,” Marci said, “the girls' band knocked everybody flat. They were heartbreakers.”

“Women?” Mrs. Brand said. “The whole band?”

“Exactly,” Craig said. “They were good. They'd probably studied music in school.”

“It doesn't seem fair, does it, dear?” Marci said to her husband.

“Then we played, two complete songs, and we didn't stop, and we didn't fall down, and I was feeling pretty good about that. I mean it,” Craig said. “Jimmy would have been proud.”

Mrs. Brand's face was rosy in the warm room, braced and smiling. She reached for her husband's sleeve and pulled him over.

“So then,” Craig went on, “some characters from Lander . . .”

“Wearing red suspenders and yellow shirts . . .” Mason added.

“About half the bands had costumes.” Frank had come up. “Mrs. Brand, I'm already into the zucchini brownies, and they are prizewinners.” He held up his last bite and then spoke, chewing. “What we should have done is got some sequined outfits, something. We looked too normal.”

“That's stretching it,” Mason told him.

The group shifted as neighbors and friends slipped into the kitchen, where Mrs. Brand's table brimmed with steaming dishes and two sliced hams.

“Get a plate, Mason,” Mrs. Brand told him. Kathleen was back and hugged Mrs. Brand. “This place smells wonderful,” she told her.

“But suspenders were just the start.” Craig handed Marci his glass and held his hands before him, as if to level the conversation to new seriousness. “They set up and strummed a little intro, like bing, a bing-bing, and then, are you ready for this?”

“Finish the story, big boy,” Marci nudged him.

“Mrs. Brand, and this is the truth before these witnesses: two kids bounce onto the stage . . .”

“Suspenders, shirts . . .” Frank added.

“Little kids, like ten years old,” Craig said.

“They were seven, tops,” Frank said. “Here.” He handed Mason a bottle of his new lager.

“One of these kids runs around and climbs into the big drum kit, and you couldn't even see him, just the sticks waving up there.”

“They were really cute,” Marci told Mrs. Brand.

“He could drum, and his sister could sing,” Mason said. “They tore through that train song.”

“They did. They were good.”

“But kids,” Craig said. “That's the sympathy vote.”

“We were lucky to get third place,” Mason said.

“This year,” Frank said. “Where's that trophy?”

“Larry's got it,” Marci said. “They're still up at the cemetery.”

“That'll be windy enough.”

“Not for those two,” Marci said. “They're on a mission.”

“I wish I was up there with them putting that trophy on Jimmy's grave.” His phrase stopped the conversation. Jimmy was dead. Mason held up his bottle. “To Jimmy Brand, our friend.” One by one each of the glasses touched every glass. Marci said his name, Jimmy, and she heard it whispered throughout the room. It was quiet in the little house; they could only hear the muffled hauling of the storm. Marci saw Mr. Brand's face and put her arms around the older man.

He took the embrace and patted her back and whispered to her, “I'm good.”

Frank said, “You want to get that boat back in the garage, Mr. Brand?”

“Snow won't hurt that boat,” Edgar Brand said. “I wonder, Frank, if you could just haul it away?”

“Done,” Frank said. “This week. I'll see to it, snow or no. It is not a problem.” He shook Mr. Brand's hand.

“Jimmy Brand,” Mason said again quietly, an echo. Kathleen took his arm. “He taught me the guitar, made me want to learn it that year.”