Callahan's Place 07 - Callahan's Legacy (v5.0) (23 page)

A storm of outrage blew in from all quarters; attendant phenomena included a rain of oaths, a shower of beer-nuts, and a hail of glasses into the fireplace.
 
Approximately half a dozen people went so far as to award Long-Drink the ultimate accolade: held their noses and fled screaming into the night.
 
A few of them stayed out there so long I suspected they were constructing a gibbet.

Doc Webster waited until people had just begun to get their hearts restarted and their breath back, and then riposted: “…which is why Big Beef dropped his hole card, and missed that whole weird business when the piece of string walked in.”

We’re a brave crew.
 
Nobody panicked, there was no stampede for the exit.
 
You can’t outrun a bullet with your name on it.
 
As one, we hunkered down fatalistically and waited for it to be over.

“—piece of
string
walked in?” Long-Drink said, falling manfully on the grenade.

The Doc nodded.
 
“Don’t you remember?
 
Piece of string about two feet long, moved like a skinny snake.
 
Well, of course, this was Callahan’s Place: if a piece of string wants a drink, Mike’ll serve it and go back to polishing the bar.
 
Damn thing ordered a shot, wicked it up out of the glass, and tried to slither out without paying.
 
So naturally Mike treats it like he would any other deadbeat.
 
He comes around the bar and stomps on it, and kicks it back and forth a few times until it’s all tattered and threadbare, and then he ties a clove-hitch in the thing and eighty-sixes it.
 
Ten minutes later it slithers back inside, still all snarled up, and orders another shot.
 
‘Hey,’ says Mike, giving it the evil eye, ‘ain’t you the same piece of string that was just in here?’
 
And the string says, ‘No—I’m a frayed knot.’”

As I said, we have all long believed that the highest possible accolade for a pun is a squalling stampede for the nearest exit, be it door, window, or weak spot in the wall.
 
The only other thing you can do with one that awful is take off on it—“That was some super string,” “Aw, that was just a yarn,” “We’re hanging by a thread now!” “Woof woof, is that ever warped,” and so on—like walking off a charlie horse.
 
But now we spontaneously invented a tribute that ranked even higher than either open rout or return fire.
 

We ignored him.

“Hey, that cow-pie job was really clever, Long-Drink,” Callahan said conversationally.

“Yeah, I liked it,” Margie said, wincing but managing to sound sincere.
 
“The ‘routine Teuton’ is the part that makes it work.”

“Yeah, how come
you
never make puns like that any more, Doc?” Shorty Steinitz asked.

“Shorty,” the Doc said softly, “would you like me to make a pun?”

“Okay,” Shorty said, “so we’ve heard from the Doc and we’ve heard from McGonnigle.
 
Who’s up?”

“Jake,” Acayib spoke up, “maybe everyone here already knows this story—but can I ask how you and Zoey met?
 
You seem like a very happy couple.
 
I mean, even considering you’re expecting.
 
You don’t really talk to each other a lot—in here anyway—but you always seem pretty plugged into each other.”

I glanced at Zoey, and easily read her answering glance.
 
I didn’t realize it showed…

“I don’t know the story,” Buck said.

“Nor do I, Jake,” Tesla said.

I glanced at her again.

“The acoustic or the electric?” she asked.

“Just the Lady.
 
You?”

“I’ll think about it.”

Fast Eddie leaped up from his piano stool and accompanied her into the back.
 
Shortly she came out again with Lady Macbeth, already undressed and tuned, her G-string shining…excuse me, Lady Macbeth is a guitar…followed by Fast Eddie lugging the Elephant…which is a standup bass.
 
It is a big awkward bastard, but paradoxically it can be played comfortably by a very pregnant woman—as long as someone else sets it up for her—while Zoey’s usual electric bass cannot.

There’s exactly one barstool in my bar, over by Eddie’s piano, and I’m the only one who sits on it, and only when I play.
 
Eddie helped Zoey set up, and then sat down at his piano and closed the cover over the keyboard.
 
We did a silent, nodding three-count, and did the key-statement together, and then, with Zoey harmonizing on the choruses, I sang:

I was hanging with my family down at Mary’s Place

and let me tell you, man, it was a stone

But the closer that I felt to all those friends of mine

The more I understood I was alone

But I didn’t really mind…I was more or less resigned

So I let it go, and took out my guitar

I played all the songs I knew, and a couple others too

And then I scatted blues a couple bars

It was more than just surprisin’ when I heard you harmonizin’

From across the room, in shadow, pure and stark

And it all fell into place before I ever saw your face

When I heard you sing the blues in the dark

I hoped you weren’t married to some other guy

But it wasn’t gonna stop me if you were

And if some other woman had a claim on you

I was ready to try stealin you from her

I’d have given any price; I’d have paid it over twice

I was shameless, though I knew it was a shame

There was nothin I could do: all that mattered now was you

Though I hadn’t even caught your fucking name

’Cause I didn’t have a choice—it was all there in your voice

I was mindless and as hungry as a shark

And I finalized my plans before I touched you with my hands

When I heard you sing the blues in the dark

(Zoey took a vocal solo on the bridge:)

Your voice was so sad–your blues were so bad

What could I do?
 
Except to keep on playin’

And we blended so well–as the notes rose and fell

Somehow we knew–what both of us were sayin’

(And we sang the last verse together:)

So I finished up my blues and looked around for you

And let me tell you baby, I was scared

I came within an inch of running out of there

Still shakin from how much we two had shared

When I finally saw your face — oh, my heart began to race!

I was just like tinder lookin at a spark

But I’d already learned my doom — in that dimly lighted room

When I first heard you sing the blues in the dark

Yes, I’d married you already — well, at least inside my head

Because I heard you sing the blues in the dark

And in retrospect I’m glad — now your voice is much less sad

When we sing the blues together, in the dark

Naturally we finished it with a chorus of harmonized scat blues, to that venerable old chord-structure that underlies “Hard Times,” “Funny But I Still Love You,” “Sportin’ Life,” and a hundred other songs.

***

Most of those present had already heard it, but we got a big hand all the same.
 
I like applause, but I don’t trust it, any more than I trust my own opinion; as always I looked to Fast Eddie for a professional assessment.
 

“De bendin’ end,” he said solemnly, taking Zoey’s bass away.

I was reassured.
 
It’s hard to keep your chops up if you don’t play regular.
 
“Thanks, Eddie.”

“Wanna jam, boss?”

I was tempted.
 
Good music is like love: there’s nothing like making some to make you feel like making some more.
 
And it seemed as appropriate a way as bullshitting to pass the time until the end of the world,
 
Magic was what Eddie had said we needed, and magic is exactly what lives in Fast Eddie Costigan’s fingers.

But Zoey nixed it.
 
“Later, Ed,” she told him.
 
“First I want to hear
your
story.”

There was a rumble of strong agreement from all sides.
 

“We could do dat Ray Charles ting,” he said to me.

“Uh, well…”

“Come on, piano boy,” Zoey said.
 
“You’re the senior here, aren’t you?
 
None of you guys were hanging out at Callahan’s before Fast Eddie got there, right?
 
I’m not even sure
Callahan
came to Callahan’s before you did, Ed.
 
Did you just walk in and audition, or what?”

“Or we c’ud play dat Liv Taylor ‘Life is Good’ song; I woiked up an arrangement fer it,” he suggested, as if Zoey had not spoken.

“You can’t weasel out of this,” she said.
 
“Come on, you can’t let your piano do your talking for you
all
the time.”

Now Eddie looked pained.
 
“Or youse could just pick sometin an’ I’ll jump in.”

“We want to hear it,” Zoey said.
 
“Don’t we, people?”
 
Again she got support from the house.
 
Now I was on the spot.
 

“Boss, what am I sposta do?” Eddie burst out.
 
“House rules sez I gotta stretch her—but I can’t lay out no knocked up broad, let alone de boss’s goil, let alone Zoey.
 
So I try an’ do what Heinlein said—somebody asks youse a nosey question, just don’t hear it—but she won’t
let
me!
 
Whaddya want me ta do?”

No:
now
I was on the spot.
 
I opened my mouth—

“Eddie, please!” Zoey said.

He turned to her.
 
“Zoey, lissena me.
 
Faw times in my life I told dis story…an’ every friggin’ time but one I ended up in a hassle over it.
 
It hoits ta tell it.
 
Gimme a break, will ya?”

She looked at him, and her face changed.
 
The lines got softer, somehow, impossible as that seemed.
 
“Eddie,” she said softly, “look on the bright side: you’ll probably be dead in a few hours.”

9

NOW, NED,
 

I AM A MAIDEN WON…

Fast Eddie took his shot of Bushmill’s to the chalk line—scuffed from the evening’s traffic—toed the line, and stood there in silence for a long moment.
 
Then he sighed, and tossed back the drink.

“Ta child molesters,” he said, and hurled his glass into the flames.

It got very quiet in Mary’s Place.
 
Quiet enough to hear my pulse.

Then he turned to us and said, “I was one.”

I found that I could distinctly hear the pulses of three different people standing near me.
 
All accelerating.

“How—” Zoey began, and had to swallow and try again.
 
“How old was the child?”

“I didn’t say I was a child-molester,” Eddie said.
 
“I said I was a child molester—widdout da hyphen, see?
 
Pay attention.”

“What do you mean?”

He scowled.
 
“Look, youse wanna hear dis story, shaddap an’ lissen, okay?
 
No arguments, no Twenny Questions, just shaddap an’ lissen till I’m done.”

Zoey subsided.

Fast Eddie Costigan’s Story

Dat’s better.
 
Gimme anudda shot, Boss.

Okay.
 
Lemme see.
 
My parents got killed in an El crash, when I was nine.
 
Youse guys all old enough to know what de El was?
 
Well, we had dis second-floor walkup, an’ one night while I’m in school doin’ dis ting wit de band, which nobody come ta see me play my clarinet, de El train comes in our livin’ room winda an’ takes out Mom an’ Pop an’ de radio.
 
I almost started believin’ in God again, except I loved dat damn radio.