The Revelations of Preston Black (Murder Ballads and Whiskey Book 3) (2 page)

“Did we vote?” Pauly took a cigarette
out of the pack and slid it behind his ear. “Pres, did you vote for this? Just
because we’re in the South don’t mean we have to eat at every Waffle House we
see. What about a pizza? We’ll order when we get to our hotel.”

I had my mouth open to say something,
but Katy struck fast, like a cat. “Because it’s going to be on the interstate
and we’re going to get stuck at a Krystal because you know there’s no such
thing as good pizza along an interstate.”

“Better than white gravy,” Pauly said.

I’d been asleep. Waking up in the
Waffle House parking lot surprised me about as much as waking up on Mick’s
floor would’ve. Which was to say it didn’t surprise me at all. My legs still
weren’t totally beneath me. I leaned against the van and yawned while Katy weaseled
a hug and a kiss out of me. Even I-65 was quiet except for a stray semi here
and there. In this part of the world people went to bed early. I said, “No,
Pauly, I didn’t vote. I wouldn’t mind if we skipped all this and found a hotel
to be totally honest. Don’t put me in the middle.”

“Driver votes twice anyway. You know
the rules by now, Pallini. Took me two cheese steaks to figure out your system.
You’ll eat good in Nashville.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the
yellow-and-black-checked interior of the only thing keeping me from getting a
full seven hours tonight. “I promise.”

“Hear that, Pallini?” As I held the
door for him, I caught a whiff of bacon, maple syrup and floor cleaner.
“Besides, you got a week off while we hit the studio. Then when we see you in
Atlanta you’re going to be hugging all over us, like, ‘Man, I missed you guys
so much… What would I ever do without you in my life?’ So savor the moment,
brother. Enjoy your waffles.”

While Pauly followed Katy to an
ice-cold, rock hard booth, the jukebox sucked me over like some kind of musical
black hole. By now I knew to totally disregard the Waffle House songs in the
first row, like Mary Welch Rogers’s “Waffle House Thank You.”

From the booth Katy asked if I wanted
‘savory’ or ‘sweet.’

“Savory. Thanks,
chicita
,” I said
without thinking. I ran through the rows of songs, putting together a little
playlist in my head. Most people didn’t realize it, but song order played as
important a role as song choice. “No Beatles?”

“Pres, give it a break, will you?
There’s a whole ’nother world of music out there waiting to be discovered.”
Pauly’s head swiveled, looking for the young waitress while he mentally
subtracted dimes off her potential tip for making him wait.

“Jackson” came through the shitty speakers
first. I looked at Katy and smiled but she rolled her eyes. I said, “You’re
hotter than a pepper sprout, you know that, my love?”

She smiled an acknowledgement.
“Haven’t heard that one yet.”

“Any requests?”

“Yeah,” Pauly said. “Sit down so we
can eat.”

So I spent the rest of my quarters
playing “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed,” some Hank Williams, Kris Kristofferson,
and Deana Carter. Then to throw everybody off I played two more from ‘back in
the day’ for Katy—Reba’s “The Night the Lights Went Out In Georgia” and No
Doubt’s version of “It’s My Life.”

I spun, looking for the restroom. The
night manager pointed off to the right and I had to shuffle all the way to the
end of the counter before I could see the door. The thing I loved most about
Waffle Houses was how they crammed two thousand square feet of interior into a
thousand square foot exterior. I knocked on the door twice then pushed it open
with my foot.

The condom dispenser had Bible verses
written on it. I read them while the hot water ran. When I saw steam I lowered
my face to the sink and sucked up as much as I could. Going from the warm stage
to the cold street played havoc with my sinuses.

I tried to blow mucus out of my throat
and ears, then squirted soap onto my hands, lathered up real good and scrubbed
my face. It felt so nice to get rid of the funk in my eyes and the little bit
of old sweat that clung to my hairline.

I pulled a long strip of paper towels
out of the dispenser and patted my skin and hair dry, then used it to pull the
door open. Before stepping out of the bathroom I checked my phone. Nothing
except Twitter updates and mentions.

As soon as I came around the corner I
saw my Arnold Palmer waiting for me. Katy and Pauly had been fighting about
something. Probably money.

Pauly pointed at my crotch and said,
“Kennywood’s open.”

I checked my zipper and gave him the
classic, “So funny I forgot to laugh,” then sat down and said, “What’s going on
here?”

“Nothing,” Pauly said. “Nothing at
all.”

Katy bit her lip. I knew a lie when I
heard one.

I said, “Well, somebody had better
start talking.”

She said, “The theater had all kinds
of returns when these Holy Roller nutjobs showed up in town this week. And they
refunded a bunch of tickets today.”

“Whatever,” I said, disgusted. “What
about merch?”

She shook her head.

“So we didn’t sell anything?
Stickers?”

“Preston, we’re covering our
expenses.” I tried to say something else but she cut me off. Her worry fell
away, like she finally remembered that she was Katy Stefanic and she sure as
hell didn’t get bothered by stuff like this. “Look, this is our first
disappointing night. No big deal. Spring break happened last week and Easter’s
coming up. Plus it’s the tournament and both Louisville and UK are still in it.
You know how Morgantown gets when WVU is playing basketball this late in the
season. I don’t know, Preston, but it’s no reason to panic. Because you’re
going to get Pauly all fired up and next thing I know I’m dealing with two
crybabies the whole way to Nashville instead of one.”

“So we’re supposed to suck it up? Can
the label help us out? With getting our money, I mean?”

Katy sipped her tea.

Pauly didn’t say anything either, but
he hadn’t done much to hide the fact that this last leg of the tour had worn
him out. The miles didn’t hurt so much as the hours. I didn’t ask him to burn
vacation days to shuttle me and Katy around. He volunteered. Said we couldn’t
afford union labor. And he probably did save us thousands of dollars. But I
felt like he regretted it. Or resented it. He still walked with a limp from the
accident last winter, and I cringed whenever I saw him popping ibuprofen like
Tic Tacs.

“Forget about it, okay?” Katy kissed
me on the cheek.

“Yeah.”

The waitress set my food on the table
as I tried to let go of my anger. I patted Katy on the knee and smiled. “Okay.”

My order never changed unless I wanted
sweet instead of savory, and as the smell of smothered, covered, diced and
topped hash browns hit my nose I found myself wishing I’d gotten waffles and
bacon instead.

Pauly didn’t say a word as the
waitress set his plate down.

“T-bone?” She said the ‘T’ so it
rhymed with ‘hay.’

Pauly nodded.

I said, “Don’t hear you complaining
anymore.”

“I’m not,” Pauly said with a big
smile.

They both dug in. Having just awoken,
I wasn’t as hungry, and took the opportunity to break down the show like we
always did once we were back on the road. I believed the analysis made us play
better, gave us a sense of what worked and what didn’t. “What do you guys think
about what went down tonight?”

“Preston…” Katy put her fork down.
“Not now, okay? Don’t talk like somebody who left the mountains just to climb
more mountains.”

Not the response I expected.

“These whack jobs show up and
basically take money from our pockets. What else is there to discuss? Until
tonight this had been a pretty fun trip.” Pauly put a big bite of steak into
his mouth and said, “Look where we’re at, brother. Imagine somebody from New
York down here. They’d want to know where to get their passport stamped. It
ain’t a big deal.”

“That’s not really what I meant. I
hoped we could talk about the music,” I said. “Besides, we didn’t have any
problems like this in Florida.”

“Well, Florida ain’t exactly the
South. More like the biggest island in the Caribbean. Last July I got lost in
Miami hauling a load of furniture and I had to find a translator before I could
get directions. Got stuck at this
bodega.
Ate like seven
ham sandwiches, no lie.” Still chewing, Pauly said, “Heard the blond guy we saw
back in Louisville grew up preaching. One of the guys hanging out by the
soundboard said he got all kinds of videos on YouTube, speaking in front of big
churches. Said he was on the Today Show with Katie Couric when he was six or
seven.”

Nobody talked while the jukebox
skipped to the next song. Like we had to observe the silence too. As soon as
“Strawberry Wine” came on Katy chimed in, saying, “The man’s name is Elijah
Clay Hicks. He’s a nut.”

When Katy said the name I flinched. I
knew that I knew him, and until she said the name I couldn’t figure out how.

“Jamie had me out on the festival
circuit as a kid. Those things are like bug zappers for attracting the type of
people that speak in tongues and blow up abortion clinics. Hicks’s daddy had a
big old revival tent where folks would writhe on the ground and handle serpents
as part of a network of churches all over Appalachia. Supposedly they hid
fugitives from the law, moving them from place to place like some kind of
fundamentalist Underground Railroad. That’s how they never arrested anybody for
those bombings in Atlanta.” She paused while she poured more honey into her
tea. “The club manager said Hicks and his group showed up in town on Wednesday.
They went to some of the student organizations and campus ministries at U of L
and to a few of the big mega-churches spreading all this stuff about Preston
and the devil. I figure they just cost us a lot of the last minute sales we
might’ve gotten. It’s not a big deal.”

“What about Hicks? You know him?”

“Hicks believed proximity made us a
likely couple. Like I should have been queen of his little road show. He
pursued me so aggressively I stopped going to festivals with Jamie.”

“So you have a history?”

“Preston. Don’t. Hicks and I never
shared a pop let alone a moment, although we could’ve made a nice life off
those collection plates of his. Hicks is the only preacher I know whose mission
work in New York City includes trips to Barneys. And I’ve told you everything
you need to know about my past romantic endeavors. Which is everything. If I
left anything out it’s because I’d forgotten. That’s it. “

“I’m sorry.” I stood corrected and
took a bite of my hash browns. To deflect attention from my insinuation, I
said, “So they take that song literally? And that’s why they were all up in our
business? Don’t tell me they’ve got nothing better to do.”

“They think the earth was created in
four thousand years, why wouldn’t they believe you when you sing ‘tried to make
the devil a deal, but the devil said I didn’t have a soul to steal?’” She set
her knife and fork down like she couldn’t eat with this kind of talk buzzing
around the table like horseflies.

“Because it’s a fucking song, that’s
why. There isn’t a real stairway to heaven either. Sergeant Pepper isn’t a real
guy.” I gulped down the rest of my tea. “You think it’s over?”

“We’ll see what happens tonight.
Having next week off might make them lose interest. Unless they find out where
we’re recording. I don’t know.” She poured maple syrup onto her waffle and cut
herself off a few more squares. “We have Nashville then Atlanta then we go
home. We have lives to live—they don’t. Those people are dying so slowly they
don’t even know they’re dying. Like
Tamagotchis
. Remember
those? They eat and go to the bathroom and die and we can do two more shows
with or without them. Okay? It’ll be Easter and we’ll get to see everybody and
Rachel will make you breakfast and you can drink all day long with my pap. I’m
looking forward to that more than I would a week in Paris or a million
dollars.”

I shook my head.

“Preston…the only reason we’re here is
to do what we’re meant to do.”

“Yeah. Fine. But I have to say this
and then I’ll be done for the night—maybe this is what I meant when I told you
guys the hellhounds are catching up to me.”

“Preston, jeez—”

Pauly cut her off, “You got to stop
with that shit. Move on, bro.”

I said, “Berry Oakley told his wife he
had hellhounds on his trail the week before he died. Tell me that ain’t
coincidence. Besides, how can I let it go? You walk with a limp you’ll never
get rid of. Stu’s gone—”

“You think the devil did that?”
Pauly’s voice got real loud. He pounded the table so hard the silverware
jumped. “Am I supposed to sit here and believe your situation caused my
accident? I fell off the wagon, man. Stu’d just died. A freak accident. There
ain’t nothing mysterious about it at all. Katy said she never even saw the
woman you’re talking about and she played at The Stink with you that night. Get
out of your head, man. Live in reality.”