Chapter 3 #2
Martha slid her fist subtly down the length of her instrument, and a hypnotic, mournful wail came in above the voice. I felt the tree’s bark split a little in my chest. I realized Hess and I were holding hands, and I squeezed her palm. She squeezed back, and I knew she felt it, too.
When the final note of the song dissolved into the smoke-filled room, I was hovering above my seat, Hess’s firm, dry hand the only thing keeping my butt on the wood. Tima had lifted me higher, to that golden place where I forgot where I came from, or what I’d done, or that I was ever gonna die.
I would never be like Tima. But I wondered if I could make people feel that way when I sang, too.
The next act kicked up, and people started dancing anywhere not taken up by tables. Phoebe wiggled over and offered us each a hand. We took them, and she led us to a free space in the corner so we could dance in a little circle like some kind of ritual.
I watched Phoebe and the women around me swiveling their hips with this smooth, natural rhythm. When I tried to mimic it, my moves were stiff and awkward. I looked over at Hess, who grooved in her own way, her elegance knowing not to imitate those around her.
Phoebe came up behind me like the couples we saw grinding into each other, and she took my hips and guided me into the groove. After a few beats, I finally felt it. The room twisted together, and I twisted with it.
Act after act, we moved along the sound waves.
And then it was late. Hair clung to my forehead, and sweat trickled down the back of my borrowed dress.
The lights were so low that the people were only silhouettes, and the place had taken on a stumbling, breathy quality.
But I wasn’t afraid; there was an invisible string tying us girls together in the midst of the heavy-eyed late-night chaos. We would keep each other safe.
The house band launched into solos, each musician taking their own spotlight to fool around with a few licks. When it was the main guitarist’s turn, he brought the instrument to his face, and a primal sound screeched from it.
“He’s playing with his teeth,” Martha said, and I looked harder at the player to see if I could get a better view. She watched him like he was a prophet, as she repeated, “He’s plucking the strings with his teeth.”
When the club cleared out, Tima took us down the block to an apartment above a beauty salon. People were making out against the walls and lounging in circles on the ground. One man danced by himself to a song nobody else could hear.
I followed Tima out to a small balcony and rested my elbows on the rail.
She passed me her cigarette, and I took a polite puff.
It didn’t taste like the mellow, honeyed tobacco I knew from home.
This had a crook in it, a raised back. Like a skunk when it got scared.
I went for another drag, and she took it from me.
“One’s enough. That’ll do you right.”
She took a hit and blew the smoke out in rings that drifted up into the midnight sky.
The light from the street smoothed, then fuzzed, and my body relaxed against the railing.
So often I felt like I was floating, untethered, too light to stay rooted to the ground.
But now I was weighted down just enough.
“I love the way you sing,” I said, and she smiled slightly. “How’d you get that gig?”
She looked out over the rows of houses that extended in both directions.
“I have sang in most of the living rooms on Jefferson for nothing but a handful of peanuts.” She pointed to the window of a house across the street, where a young woman sang for a single couple at a small table.
“Until one night, the right person saw me and asked me to audition for the club.”
I nodded, imagining people watching me up onstage and someone recognizing my face from a wanted poster. I hadn’t seen one yet, but I imagined they were everywhere—in police stations, church bulletins, schools. There was still no mention of my crime in the newspaper, but maybe there would be.
“I’ve been trying to get on the bigger stages in town, but no one wants a Black country singer.” She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll make it there somehow. I always find a way.” She took a puff and looked over at me. “What happened to you, girl?” she asked quietly.
Hess and the others were too polite to come out and ask, but I knew they were all wondering how I’d ended up in that shed.
And maybe I should have been more careful, considering the trouble I was in. But I knew I could trust Tima. She understood what it was to live at the margins, to watch everything you said or did for fear they would see the unvarnished version of you. She knew better than I would ever know.
“Some trouble back home.”
She nodded sagely.
“I can’t ever go back.” I had known this, of course, but saying it out loud now, I realized it was true.
I was all alone out here with no family, no money, no wilderness in which to disappear.
I was suddenly gripped by a fear I could usually fight off, and I felt Tima’s hand on my arm. I looked up at her.
“You are not alone. We take care of each other at Mom’s.”
I clutched her arm back. “Thank you,” I whispered, the paranoia slowly dissipating. She patted my hand and let go of me, and we went back to looking out over the houses, my gaze traveling south where downtown glittered. “I want to be a country star, too. I want it all,” I confessed.
“I meet a lot of girls out here who say the same thing.” Tima took another drag. “Then they throw it all away the moment a man gives them a ring.” She shook her head, disgusted.
“I’d rather chew nails than marry some man,” I said.
“Lord, can you imagine?” Tima asked. “Taking care of a husband all day like some giant baby.”
“Worse than death,” I agreed. We met eyes and smiled.
“So are you willing to do what it takes? To make it?” she asked slyly.
“I am,” I said.
She turned and gave me the eye. “All right, then. Let’s make a promise to each other.” She hooked her pinky in mine. “We’ll put music before everything else. And if one day, we get a chance, a real chance, we’ll take it for all it’s worth.”
The words resounded through me like a holy proclamation. “I promise,” I said, and kissed the end of my fist.
“I promise,” she agreed, and kissed hers.
A neon riff sliced through the air, and we turned to see the guitarist from the club messing around with one of those electric models through the doorway.
Tima walked over and leaned against the frame, listening for a while. Then she sang a few low, bluesy tones under the strange sound, and it melded together into a rich, blistering music.
It sounded like a new kind of weather, or the background noise of a dream.
Like the sound of revelation.