Man Gone Down (36 page)

Why do they drop two-ton
Bombs on the heads of the old?
It makes me so lonely.
Why do they drop two-ton bombs
On the heads of the babes?
I hear them fall.

And the change:

I'm so far away
Why do I feel this way?

I leave—back out the door like I've left something burning on the stove. I slow up a block away and then stop. Ed's voice comes up in my head—the first line, “Why do they drop two-ton bombs . . .” I start walking again and it lets up. The faster I go, the more it diminishes until, near running, it's finally gone. I stop. It comes back full tilt—the limp, high, cloaked exhortation. I try to dispel it. Where was Al in his song before he was so rudely interrupted? The overlapping descending chorus of
ooos.
I've always wondered, marveled, at how
he, in that song, in that moment where there should be some crescendo—some answer, manages every time I hear it, to avoid bathos in the anticlimax.
“Hmm hmm hmmm-mm
. . .” The tone, so low and mellow. Maybe just an organ hanging on, mirroring the backing vocals. And then the blade-with-balm shriek, which throws up image after image for me: Gavin and his beer can litter; Shake's gently dancing shoulders; Brian's idiotic stoned grin; Lila's twist of the knob up to the end of the AM dial; my father's record stacks; the books he'd leave lying around the house, open. Sometimes when I was walking by, he'd stop me,
“I love this part
—
listen.”
Read what was to me an incomprehensible passage. It would knock me into a stupor. The words seemed to fly around the room with disparate half-formed images. I'd try to cling to something: “Seawrack” blah blah blah.
“Seatangle.”
All I really took with me was how the words behaved—explosives stashed in everything—the sofa, the television, his face—condemned structures awaiting implosion.
“Seawrack”
and
“seatangle.”
Watching something else grow in the destroyed face. His eyes, darting from the page to my face, regarding both with equal, unguarded affection. Standing there he was—what little chest he had puffed out—powerful, as if he'd just unlocked the secrets of some ancient tome, an unknown benevolent incantation so potent that merely thinking it dispelled all impotent and childish notions of magic and power.

I go back. There's a young woman on the stage. She has crazy, long blonde ringlets that spill over her shoulders and onto her guitar. I don't recognize the song, although it does sound familiar—open tuning, droning unfretted strings. Her voice spirals up from a strained and wavering tenor to a light, easy soprano like a big bird searching for a thermal strong enough to lift it. I can't make out the words. They don't seem to matter to her except for giving her a reason to sing.

She finishes, bows her head slightly to applause and chatter. A whistle. She raises her head sharply, throws her hair back and catches
it behind her head with both hands. There's something about her face—it's difficult to tell from this distance, over and between heads in the smoky dark—the shapes perhaps; eyes and nose don't match, maybe it's the nose and forehead. It's odd but not unattractive—beautiful even. She drops her hands and her hair drops too. Craig hoots, and I snap around to face him. “All right, Rosa!” He claps methodically. Rosa doesn't respond. She checks her tuning and leans into the microphone, “This one's called ‘The Seagull.'”

I wonder why she stopped her last one. This song sounds very much the same. It could've been, had she continued, a suite; slightly varied but linked songs, similar in melody, tone, and performance—or at least her hair. Perhaps none of us in the audience knows that it's the reason we're listening, because we could all just go home and put on a Joni Mitchell record rather than listen to Rosa fall short of the mark. Perhaps it's her odd face, covered by the cascade. From where I'm standing she looks small. Perhaps it's my distance. Maybe the guitar's too big or the stool too tall, her hair, or the sum of all these factors. She finishes, stands, and bows. Craig is up there in the wings to congratulate her—an aborted lip kiss that morphs into a hug and a cheek-to-cheek rub.

“Give it up for Rosa, people. Great stuff. Thank you.” He checks his clipboard. “Okay, next we have Polly. Get ready for something edgy, folks.”

Polly jumps up on the stage then pulls a medium-size amp up, then an electric guitar. Craig asks if she needs help, and she hands him the plug for the amp. He jumps off the stage, grabs an idle extension cord, plugs the amp in, and gives her the thumbs-up. She thanks him with a nearly imperceptible nod. She stands and pushes Rosa's stool aside. She's tall, perhaps even taller than Craig. She readjusts the high mike stand and lowers the short one to the level of her amp. She looks fully ready to rock—an all-black Fender Stratocaster, Marshall amp, an indigo tank top one size too small and indigo leather pants, the pattern on which, I realize as she stands up there knock-kneed, form the stars and bars of the Confederate
flag. She hits a chord, loud and distorted, shakes the silver bangles on her wrists out of the way, down her forearms, and hits two chords this time. Someone lets out a whoop, then there's a whistle, finally a rebel yell, which is echoed by another.

“How y'all doin' out there?” She has bright red hair that even I in these conditions can tell is dyed. It's cut short and frozen stiff by some beauty aid. Her eyes are heavily penciled—black. She stomps a motorcycle boot on the hollow plywood platform, rips off a loud lick, another chord. “How 'bout some Jimi?” The audience responds with an affirmative roar. She counts off to herself—“. . . two and . . .” Ascending notes—bom bom bomp—bom bom bomp. She sings,
“Manic Depression.”
Her voice is thin, but she tries to pretend that she can bark and snarl. I squeeze into the little space between the big window and the turn of the bar. Craig hasn't returned to his post. He's up front, sitting at the first table with Rosa. She watches Polly while he watches her, checking to see if she likes it or not—so that he can wear the appropriate face. Ed talks to Peter across the next table. I can't see either face, but Ed's head occasionally jumps forward. Peter nods and turns every so often to Polly, who's now into an extended, bombastic solo. The bartender taps next to my hand. I come up out of watching.

“Need anything, brother?”

“I'm good, thanks.” He winks at me, takes his drink from beneath the bar, and kills it. I grab a napkin and dab at it with my pen in hopes of coming up with a song list.
“Everybody Is a Star”
—I cross it out.

Polly breaks into “
What a Wonderful World.”
Playing it hard like the Ramones did, but she spit-snarls the lyrics, force-feeding us the irony of her performance. Perhaps she's only heard the punked-out version and never consulted Satchmo. I go back to my doodling on the napkin. Nothing comes of it save for the growing apprehension that I'm about to make a complete ass of myself—standing up there without a damn thing to play.

Polly hits a last chord, yanks her guitar off, and, holding it by the neck, jams it into the amp. The sound feeds back, turning from rough and low to a high wail that makes people reach for their ears. She shakes
the guitar, trying to coax more wailing, but the sound fades. Craig jumps up to keep her from continuing. He unplugs the amp and lowers it onto the floor for her. She shoulders her guitar and stands grinning at the crowd—triumphant. I don't, however, remember hearing any applause.

“You're up, brother,” says Mountain Man.

“Thank you.”

I begin to make my way to the front. Craig looks for then finds me in the crowd. He waves to me, causing people to look back. The nerves come—like I've swallowed several whole spastic moths washed down by too many cups of coffee. My guts are an ugly place, and I don't want to know what goes on in them. I feel myself disassociate, lose focus on my insides and then what exists out in the bar. I blur the faces until I find myself at the bandstand trying to figure out how not to trip.

Polly steps off the stage and gives me a pinched grin as we pass. I catch a whiff of her hair products and dense French cigarettes—maybe some BO. “Hey, darlings!” I hear them move the furniture to make way for her.

“You need anything, man?” asks Craig, pushing the stool at me.

I go to say, “Yes, the stool,” but all I manage to do is point weakly at it. He sets it up in front of the mikes, takes another look at me, and readjusts their positions. I keep my back to the crowd, set my case down, and open it. I expect my guitar to be grounding, but it isn't. It looks plastic, beat, incapable of resonance. I pick it up, and it feels that way, too.

I strum a chord. It's out of tune.

“Here, dude.” Craig hands me a small device that I don't recognize. “Clip it on to your headstock.” I do. It's a tuner. “It's for tuning up in noisy places.” I tune up, strum a chord to check it. It sounds tinny, but in tune.

“Thank you.”

He beams at me like he's never heard the expression.

“Cool. Ready?”

I nod. He straightens up to the mike. “Folks, we got some new blood here tonight. Please give a warm welcome to um—let's see.
Teddy Ball-en-game.” He bends to me, whispers, “I fucked up your name, huh?”

“Close enough.”

“Give 'em hell, dude.” He bounds off the stage, letting out another rebel yell as he does. A few in the crowd reply.

I hang my harmonica around my neck, stand up, and turn around. I don't have a strap. My legs start trembling, then my arms do, too. I remember the stool and try to drag it forward without dropping my guitar. I sit and the trembling stops, but the microphones are too low. Craig bounds back up, resets them. The crowd's quiet now, watching. Someone snuck a capo onto my guitar, fifth fret. I blur my eyes again to avoid seeing their faces—to make them one big whole. Craig leans out of the mass and nods for me to begin.

I start, a cappella, the words like a grace note—
“Lord I'm . . .”
—B-flat—“. . .
broke, I'm hungry, ragged and dirty too.”
Slide up the neck for a fill—slide down. Repeat. Then,
“If I clean up sweet mama can I stay all night with you?”
Fill. I look up the neck at the headstock while I play, but I don't really see anything—not the strings or my fingers, not the frets, where my hands go on the fills and changes. Even though they're a blur, I don't look at the audience.
“You shouldn't mistreat me baby, because I'm young and wild.”

When it's over they clap—loudly—there are even scattered whistles. No bar noise. Perhaps it's because I'm down here in the mix that it seems so much louder. Perhaps they actually like me. I still won't look at them. I go right into the second song—
“If You Want Me to Stay . . .
” I drag it down, take whatever rhythm there was out, and drag it through the blues—my specific funk.

“Seawrack”
and
“seatangle.”
These are the blues: coinage upon contact with the air. Traces of hope and joy from the fusion flash in my head. I like what I hear—the wordless neologisms created with voice, guitar, and air. I don't look up, I won't break the spell. A glance would sever the atmosphere—
“seawrack”
and
“seatangle.”
That isn't what comes out. Strummed chords. An inexorable internal rhythm. Not a train, but something coming down the track under
its own unconscious locomotion.
“Seawrack”
and
“seatangle”
—I've always loved those words, never knew what they were, but they behaved in my mind like multifaceted jewels—so many illuminations—so open and so bright. There is no sorrow in this room because it is filled with song—
and
—
“Hey, Mr. Tambourine man
. . .”

When it's over, they clap. Craig jumps up on stage, motions for me to stand but stay there. He waves the others up. When he has us in a line, he calls out, “Who's got the hat?”

It gets passed up to him, a Yankee hat. It's full of singles and change. He waves to the crowd to stop.

“Okay, y'all. You know what to do.” He moves behind Ed and Peter and waves his hands above their heads. “What do you say?” The audience responds with loud enthusiasm. “All right.” He moves behind Rosa and does the same. She gets polite but muted approval.

He jumps next to Polly, who, by the angry look on her face, has already predicted her defeat. The crowd doesn't disappoint. He moves on to me.

“Give it up for Ted.” They yell back loudly, certainly louder than they did for the two women but around the same level of support the duo received. Craig knows. He hands me the hat. They yell and clap some more.

“Okay, people, let's hear it. Give it up for the artists.”

There is some more applause, the loudest by Ed and Peter, who have begun moving back to their table. Polly darts off the stage. Rosa lingers on the stage with Craig and me. She leans in to say hello. Craig stops her by speaking first.

“That was a really cool set, man.” I look at his face again. It's craggy. He's not so young, a few miles past and many tequila shots down.

“Thank you.”

“Although that Dylan at the end threw me a bit. I thought you were going in another direction.”

“I liked it,” she steps closer. “You did it well. There's nothing worse than a bad Dylan cover.”

“Except a Dylan original,” mumbles Craig like a teen.

She slaps his arm. “Oh stop.”

“I don't know.” He shakes his head. “I just don't get it about that guy.”

“There's nothing to
get,”
she snaps. “That's the whole point.”

“I've just heard he's a jerk. He seems like one.”

I pack up my guitar. She watches. He watches her.