Karen G. Berry - Mayhem 01 - Love and Mayhem (43 page)

It was here. Salvation.

They were set free.

IN THE DESERT,
Tender rose from the pile of blankets he’d inhabited for days and nights of agony. The song called him.

He made his way out of the lonely chill of the desert night. He walked barefoot past an old wooden boat on blocks full of yellow dust and Hefty garbage bags of boot-smashed Budweiser cans. He walked past a rusted out soap-box derby car with a faded “I found it!” sticker on the bumper. He didn’t even see an arrangement of avocado green appliances sitting in a perfect work triangle in the dirt, as if someone would come start a meal with their aid, and soon.

He walked past these small monuments to abandonment, neglect, disregard and oblivion. He walked out of the desert, following the call.

He’d only been a hundred feet from the bar, after all.

He entered the Blue Moon Tap Room and sat down at the piano, his hands over the keys, his bare feet on the pedals. He lifted his hands, lifted his voice, and highest of all, he lifted his heart. He joined his song with that of his granddaughter.

Behind the bar, Memphis raised his fiddle to his chin.

THE WINDS GATHERED
over Asa Strug’s trailer. There was the storm of the music, and the storm of the winds. Perhaps they were one and the same. Perhaps not. He stood in his kitchen, his soiled feet squarely planted in righteousness. The storm concentrated above his head, mobbing and howling like a pack of dogs, worrying at the tarp, the tires, the rickety attempts to mend and patch.

Finally, with a screech of tin and a crumbling of asbestos, the roof pulled away. The interior lay exposed. Front to back, top to bottom, years and years of magazines, like a maze for a rat to run, eternal and damned. At first, it was quite delicate, the manner in which all those untouched pages stirred, teasing, lifting, giving a glimpse of the hidden.

Then, the wind applied itself.

The magazines made a sound like the rising into flight of a thousand birds. The pages ruffled, smacked, then churned into a color-glossy maelstrom, rising, tearing, ripping, pulverized.

His hair lifted and rose. His hands reached out to the narrow walls of his trailer, touching each side, completing the circuit. His laughter lifted like the locks of his hair, swirling around him as all that flesh was masticated by the jaws of a devouring god.

He laughed at the heavens, then, roaring at the triumph of his own God.

OUTSIDE THE BAR,
the barefoot women of Bone Pile sang their mournful, triumphant song. They had no words, these women, they were moving feet and risen arms. From their writhing, dancing throats came hammer blows and carillons, cracking bones and passion whispers.

Around them, falling like rain, rising like dust, a confetti of desecrated womanhood reduced to shreds whirled and danced, sifting down like filthy snowflakes on their hard, cruel, beautiful faces.

They smiled their ruined smiles. They sang their furious song.

Asa Strug moved past them to the doorway. He watched the crowd moving, smelled the tears and sweat, heard their transport. They joined the song of good and evil incarnate, coming from the stage. The song claimed them, lifted them, carried them to paradise with its glory.

Asa lifted his arms and looked around him, his prophet’s face lit with fulfillment. He had always known it was coming.

This musical rapture.

INSIDE THE BAR,
a threatening crush surged toward the stage. Isaac interposed his huge body between the little girl and the crowd that could not get enough of her. Raven, full of pride, stood beside him. Together, they kept her safe.

Rhondalee immediately hurried to the man in the ostrich skin boots, only to discover he was the manager of a Ford dealership, not a talent agent. She looked around wildly, her hair flattening in the noise.

She saw a youngish man in rimless specs and Dockers who’d spent the evening with a cell phone pressed to his ear. Rhondalee, seeing him approach Raven, clawed to get near him. “Don’t you sign a thing!” she screeched. “That’s just her mother! I’m her agent!” She went unheard over the roar of the audience. She pitched and heaved like a mechanical bull to get to the talent scout, twisting and kicking out at everything that stood between her and the dotted line. But she felt two strong hands holding her arms, keeping her back.

She turned to see the sad, grey eyes, but they were not the eyes of her husband. It was Memphis who held her. “Let them be now, Rhondalee.” His voice was soft, but she heard it. She heard it over the cheers, the applause, the stomps, the calls. She heard his voice over all the guilt, the regret, the frustration and disappointment that had fueled her for years. “This has nothing to do with you, Rhondalee. It never has. Let them be, now. Let them be.”

She understood, then. She understood that she would have no part of this. No part at all.

Memphis watched her eyes. In them, he saw her dreams, once so huge, so bright, flaring up in a supernova of possibility, then shrinking to the size of a pinpoint. Her eyes held nothing but a collapsed mass of bitterness.

Of course, he caught her when she fell down in a fit. He held her carefully while the storm raged around them.

THE CROWD WANTED
more, but Annie knew no other songs.

She stood on the stage, her bony knees knocking, smiling at all the noise. Faces swarmed below her, eyes wild and mouths open, kept at bay by the tall blonde man who looked like a bear. He stood in front of the stage and spread his powerful arms and blocked them from tearing her to bits in their adoration.

It was wonderful, just like she’d always known it would be. Everyone looking at her, watching her, listening to her. It was wonderful.

It was also scary.

Her mother’s hard brown arms went around her shoulders. “I’m here, Tadpole.” She buried her face in her mother’s stomach and held on for all she was worth. To her shame, Annie felt tears prick her eyes. She’d never wanted her mother more in her life. But her mother pulled away from the embrace and dropped to her knees, eye-to-eye with her daughter. “Tadpole?”

“Yup, Mom?”

“If we could do anything right now, and I mean,
anything
in the whole wide world, what would you want to do?”

Annie thought. “You mean, like go get a Slurpee?”

“No, honey, I mean, like go make music. This talent scout’s offering you a hell of a development deal. If it was up to me, I’d tell him to shove it. But I think you might want it.”

Annie frowned. “Will you be with me, Mom?”

And Raven looked at her, grey eyes to grey eyes, silver facing steel. “I’ll be right there with you from here on out.”

“Every minute?”

“Ever single minute.”

“Well, then, I want to go for it.”

Raven pulled her daughter to her, inhaled the tangy smell of her hair, pressed her sharp cheekbones to Annie’s soft face. She let her rough hands play down the miracle of the girl’s backbone. “Annie Leigh,” she whispered. “You are a revelation.”

The crowd would not be stilled. They wanted more of Annie Leigh LaCour. “Mom? Do you know any different songs?”

Raven smiled. “I guess I know a couple.” She poked Isaac. “Can I borrow your guitar?” He handed it up, and she slung it on as fast as she could, adjusting the strap as she checked the tuning. “Just follow along,” she said to her daughter over the opening bars. “You know this one. Your grandpa plays it in his truck all the time.” She looked over at her father, who waited at the piano. “You ready, Pop?” He nodded. “Memphis?” Memphis raised his bow in reply. She cast a silver glare over her shoulder. “You boys think you can follow?” The admiring sneer of a Dunnery let her know they were ready. She picked, and Annie listened, strumming, getting the chord progression down. It only took her a second. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

They slammed into it, together.

And Another Sunday

ASA STRUG WOKE
to the sun on his face.

He’d slept on the floor. The interior of the trailer was cleanly emptied out. It wasn’t just the maze of pornography that had vanished. He had no cot, no boots, no kettle, no spoon, no Postum. Not even a coffee cup.

He stood and stretched, his hands stretching above the former roof line as he reached for Heaven. “Lord, Thou openeth my life like a can of sardines.”

Outside, the reader board was gone. “Lord, Thou hath spoken.”

He helped himself to a can of spray paint from a neighboring shed. The work was hard, but it would be permanent. The letters took up the entire side of what was left of his singlewide.

He surveyed this, his final message. He smiled. He’d always had God on his side, after all.

He’d always had God on the side of his singlewide.