Bravado's House of Blues (7 page)

“Jack,” I called out. “For the final sack, I think I need you to fetch my clothes down to the crick and see them clear of honey.

“Once more into the breach,” Jack said, standing and pressing the paper to his head. He picked up my honey drenched clothes and walked over to the crick.

The bear followed along, sullenly, and helped Jack wash out my clothes.

They brought them up the hill and draped them over rocks near the fire to dry.

“That’s mighty fine, Jack.” I smiled from the lip of the kettle. “You’ve certainly earned the three sacks.”

“Have I also earned a kiss?” Jack asked, edging toward the kettle.

I squealed and ducked down below the rim. “You stay back, you hooligan.” Of course, I only mostly wanted him to skedaddle.

Jack chuckled and reached his hands up on the rim of the kettle to lift himself up for a kiss, or a look, or both.

The bear, however, had had enough. It reared up, roaring and stamping in the last rays of the sun. He knocked Jack to the ground. I laughed as Jack rolled down the hill once more, the bear defending my dignity.

“You choosing her over me now?” Jack called out, scrambling to his feet.

I watched as the two of them began to fight again, fur and cuss words flying into the coming night.

With a sigh, I slipped deeper into my bath and waited.

Jack and the bear fought for seven hours, rolling east across into the wild lands and back west, over the fields he and the bear had fertilized days before.

Finally, they ended up rolling down the stream, each soaked through and battered. When the sun began to rise in the east, Jack strode up the hill, that bear’s hide in his hands. The bear roared over the back side of the hill, naked as a jaybird.

“My final gift to you, Molly fair. Will this bear skin earn me a kiss?”

I rose from the kettle, skin as wrinkled as a crone, and kissed him on the end of his nose.

Jack did somersaults down the hill and picked up his three sacks. I slipped out of the kettle, pulling on my clothes, and wrapping the bear’s skin around me to ward off the cold.

Jack sat down under the oak and wept. The small sack of gold, being mostly stones, the empty cheese rind, and the sack of laundry, hardly seemed fair.

But I slid down beside him, wrapping him in the bear skin, and offered him a pickle. He brightened a bit and listened while I explained how the king over the holler where he’d cleaned out the stables would give us all the land to the west of his own for killing the giant.

Jack listened intently and scooted closer to me, resting his head on my shoulder.

“We can start a family,” I said, stroking his fine brown hair. “We can farm the land and raise a whole passel of children.”

In that moment, wrapped in the fur of his friend the bear, I saw the wild gleam in his eye, the fear and the need to run off to the woods and battle the world.

But a kiss to the side of his mouth settled things, and we struck our final bargain.

Now Jack’s a good man, when he’s not sleeping in the barn, or chasing after some tomfool adventure. He brings home a bit of gold, or cheese, or a goose now and again, but his claim about killing seven giants at a single blow and pulling the moon from the sky to taste a bit of green cheese, why, that ain’t nothing more than fancy talk to impress the townies.

And it ain’t like he forgets I’m a sittin’ here, raising up his three daughters and keeping the farm. He recalls quick enough when I have to go down in the holler and cut him out of some ogre’s stew pot, or giant’s gunnysack he’s found himself caught up in. The trouble is, come spring, or anytime a good load of fire wood needs cutting, my man Jack will get a hankering to have some road under his feet, and a open sky above his head.

That old bear is the one thing about this whole mess I worry about. I hung his skin outside our new house after the king had given us the land and all. Each night I put out a pot of honey and a jar of daisies, but he never came back.

When Jack is in his cups, and running wild, I think of that bear and wonder if I had been rescued by the wrong one.

The HARP

I
t’s a fucking harp, okay?” Jack said over Karen’s laughter. He pulled his waistband back up, covering the tattoo, and buckled his belt. The Escher print on the wall over her desk accentuated their conversation: highlighted the juxtaposition of their relationship to the hand drawing itself on the wall in front of him. Does the heart know of beginnings and illusions?

Or of endings. This was their third date, but he feared it may be their last.

Karen laughed into her fist. “Why a harp? Did you date a harpist?”

Jack straightened his shirt, stalling—trying to read her face. The mirth he saw in her eyes spoke of joy, not mocking. Satisfied, he sat back on the couch. “No, but I did get drunk at an orchestral convention with a girl I lusted after. She convinced me to get the tattoo.”

“And she played a harp?”

Jack sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “No, flautist.”

He nearly choked when the left side of her mouth quirked up, and her right eyebrow rose to the top of her forehead.

“The tattooist,” he said running his hand along the arm of the couch, as if removing debris. “He dated a harpist—and didn’t have a picture of a cello, so he went with a harp.”

She sipped her wine, considering. “Did she watch you get this tattoo?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, feeling the heat rush up his neck. “She expressed her regret later—several times, actually, before running off with an oboist later in the week.”

“Ah, double reed,” Karen said with a knowing nod. “Lucky girl.”

They both drank, letting silence settle between them. It was not uncomfortable. He turned toward the television. The paused movie glowed on the flat screen like a painting. A hot, young actress sat on the edge of a settee, naked on the screen, her back to the camera. Jack thought she had the perfectly shaped body, like a cello, and the tattoo at her lower back only added to her hot factor.

Karen rocked her wine glass back and forth in her hand, smiling from across the couch. She had her legs crossed, and the creamy off-white of her skirt glowed in the light of the television screen. Her golden, tanned legs were nearly as nice as the girl’s on the screen, he thought. Of course, he’d only seen Karen’s from the knees down so far. But, the night was young.

“I’ve never dated a cellist before,” she said after sipping at the wine. “I dated a drummer once, but that was a different story.”

Jack retrieved his own wine and sat with his left leg cocked up onto the seat between them. “Drummers get all the girls.”

“They do have a certain animal magnetism.”

He watched her drink the wine, watched as she glanced at the screen for a moment, then back to him. “She is quite attractive. I can see the cello comparison, but don’t you think that’s a bit passé?”

Jack shrugged. “I’d rather date a girl shaped like a cello than a harp.”

“Interesting,” she said, her eyes crinkling as she smiled. “But what if the girl was shaped like a harp, and you loved her. What then?”

His heart raced at the thought. What did he know of love?

She sat her wine on the table, exposing a bright yellow, almost golden, bra under the tan jacket and cream top she wore. She slid across the couch to the second cushion, pressing her right thigh against his left shin. “What if—”

—she took the wineglass from his frozen fingers and set it on the table.

“—this harp-shaped girl liked to be tied up and brought to a fevered pitch as you played her?”

—she drew his hand to her mouth and sucked on his index finger.

“Um . . .” Jack’s brain froze. He could not feel anything but the hot, moist tongue pressing his finger against the roof of her mouth.

They made love twice. Once on the couch, clothes only partially removed, with a fiery passion he’d never experienced. She laughed after, at his astonishment, and led him to the bedroom to show him her ties.

Jack woke to the most beautiful singing he’d ever heard. The full moon glowed in the window like a framed picture and for the briefest of moments, he thought he’d dreamed that voice. He tugged at the ropes he’d used to bind her during their lovemaking and smiled to himself.

He glanced over at where Karen had fallen asleep. The bed was rumpled, but empty. He sat up, glanced around the room, and spotted her in the corner, by the dresser. She began to sing again, a lovely aria accompanied by the most divine harp music he’d ever heard.

“Karen?” he asked, rising from the bed and moving to her.

Her eyes shone in the moonlight, wet with tears. He knelt at her feet, touching the cold of her left knee. In the mirror he saw that she had transformed into the harp she was, the notes flowing into the air with a gentle grace that brought his own tears.

“How?” he asked as she sang. “You are a harp?”

She nodded once at him, and sang with a sweet sadness as the moon rose across the sky. Jack sat at her feet, his knees drawn to his chest and wondered how he had ever lived before hearing that voice, those notes so delicately floating into the world.

He slept, finally, curled at the foot of the bed as her voice filled his dreams. Dreams of giants and pocket watches, hatchets and beans.

Her kisses woke him with the rising of the sun. For a moment he thought he remembered something. Some music that had carried him through his dreams. But she lay next to him, her naked form warm and inviting, her breath on his chest as she lay her head on him. He sighed once more and slept again, pleasantly tangled in the skein of beginnings.

LUCK MUSCLE

U
ly stood in his mostly rumple free suit, holding one end of the large bronze casket. It was the heaviest model Bloocher and Bates funeral home carried, and with the body inside, he was barely able to manage his end of things.

The morning had been rough. Janie, the gal who worked at the Nguyen’s florist shop, had laughed at him when he asked her out to coffee. Patricia, the funeral home’s secretary, had rolled her eyes at him and explained in loud terms how Janie was definitely out of his league.

“You know,” Sam Bloocher said as he hefted his end of the casket off the hand-truck.

Uly staggered, almost pulled off balance.
Get your head in the game
, he chided himself.

Mr. Bloocher gave him a minute to reset his feet before going on. “You are the unluckiest boy I’ve ever known.”

Both men heaved a grunt as they hefted the casket over onto the wrought-iron stand.

Uly yelped as the casket settled in place. Unfortunately for him, his right hand was between the bottom of the casket and the railing.

“Holy jumping Jesus fish,” Uly wailed, trying to lift his end with only one hand. Sam hurried around to the other end and together they lifted the casket.

Uly moaned as he stuck the first two fingers into his mouth.

“See what I mean?” Sam said, guiding the younger man out of the showing room and back down the hall. “How many caskets have we placed on this stand?”

“I don’t know,” Uly mumbled around his fingers.

“A whole helluva lot, boy. You’ve been here two years and you’ve nearly maimed yourself a dozen times—not to mention the minor scrapes and tussles.”

Uly paused and leaned against the wall, breathing heavily through his nose and whimpering.

Bloocher opened the door to the kitchen and flipped on the light. “I’d say you were most definitely
the
unluckiest fellow I’ve ever known.” He paused for effect. “Except, maybe for me.”

“Wha . . .” Uly asked.

“Here, let me see this time,” Sam said, pulling Uly’s hand from his mouth. The fingers were red and creased, but didn’t appear to be broken.

“Go on into the kitchen and grab one of the ice packs out of the fridge. Then meet me in the embalming room. I’ve got something I want to show you.”

Uly retrieved the ice pack and wrapped it around his aching fingers. He walked down the hall, juggling the ice pack as he opened the door to the embalming room. Sam had already begun to prep the indigent brought in by the police from last night’s park sweep.

“You just stand over there and watch,” Sam said without looking up.

Uly leaned against the back wall, careful to avoid any catastrophe.

“Are you watching?” Sam asked as his hands worked over the dead man.

“Yes sir, you have my undivided attention.”

Sam embalmed the body. Blood, chemicals, and sweat tainted the air, forming a palpable aura of death. Death has many smells, Uly thought. This was neither the first stench of death where the body’s muscles relaxed and the held fluids released, nor the corporeal transition after rigor mortis when the decay is at its first stages. This odiferous mixture marked the air of factory death. The biting trace provided by the cleaning chemicals, blood’s metallic whiff as it oxidizes while being pumped out onto the work table, and the sharp tang of embalming fluids, combined to create the smell of scientific closure that both men recognized as the final death. The procedure took all of thirty-five minutes.

“There,” Sam said, straightening up from his work. “Did you see what I just did?”

“What?” Uly asked. “You tied off the main artery in his thigh after filling the body with the embalming solution.”

“After that.”

“I didn’t notice anything odd.”

“Think back carefully,” Sam said as he stripped off his rubber gloves and washed his hands in the little foot-peddled sink. “Tell me everything I did, exactly.”

“Okay, you removed the hose from the main artery in the left thigh, tying off the end to keep the embalming mixture from leaking. Then you filled the wound with gypsum to soak up any additional fluids and sewed the wound closed.”

“Yes, yes. That’s standard stuff, but did you notice what I did with my hands just as I closed the wound?”

“Well obviously not,” Uly said with agitation.

“You need to learn to pay closer attention,” Sam said. “Here.” He handed a small object to Uly.

“Damnit all,” Uly said as he took the thing with his injured hand. “What is this?”

“That, my boy, is the answer to all your problems.”

Uly turned the object over, examining all sides. It appeared to be a cross made of some small animal bones and twined together with fine silver wire.

The silence stretched on for several minutes. Uly examined the item as if it were a bug he’d found in his soup. Bloocher looked on with obvious amusement before finally breaking the silence.

“You’re gonna have to forgive me,” Bloocher said, a sympathetic grin on his face. “You’ve never been with a woman, have you?”

“I . . . I don’t see how that’s any of your . . . What the hell does that have to do with the price of butter?”

“Yeah, what I thought,” Bloocher said with a straight face. “Uly, you have a deficiency. You can’t help it. I’d say it had something to do with your history and all, what with your mother dying so young and your grandmother raising you. Of course, those incidents could be a result of your deficiency.”

“I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about,” Uly said as he eyed the intricate object. “What is this . . .
thing
?”

“It’s a luck fetish.”

“A what?”

“Voodoo,” Sam said, holding both hands palm up in a shrug.

Uly looked at him for several seconds, waiting for the old man to crack a smile, poke fun at him or something.

“Seriously,” Sam said. “I used to be just like you. Oh, I wasn’t as prissy as you are . . .”

“I beg your pardon!” Uly said, stamping his foot for emphasis.

“No, definitely not as prissy.”

Uly glared at the old man, holding his anger by sheer will. “And what sort of deficiency do you think I’ve got?” Uly asked, turning the fetish over to examine the back.

“Why, hell boy. I told you earlier. You got a luck deficiency. I’d say you’re damn lucky to be alive. Tell me. How many jobs have you had?”

“I don’t see what that has . . .” Uly began.

Sam held up his hand as if to catch the protest. “Ain’t nothing to be ashamed of son. I’m not poking fun at you, just trying to get you to see my point.”

“Fine, if it will get this over with.” He paused, looking skyward and counting off in his head. “I’ve had about forty or so jobs . . . Just a bit south of that, most likely.”

“And what age did you actually start working?”

Uly looked around the room, attempting to avoid the old man’s stare.

“Twenty-four.”

“S’what I thought,” Sam said with a whistle. “Now here you are thirty-three and you’ve spent the last two years apprenticing with me. I’d say you busted my record by the time you turned thirty.”

“Your point?” Uly asked, frustrated and becoming a little sick at his stomach.

“I know you got beat up a lot at school.”

“Yes, well . . .”

“And there was the time you walked in on your Grandma diddling with the mailman.

“Jeus,” Uly said, cringing. “That’s an image I was working really hard to forget.”

Sam laughed and Uly grinned, shaking his head. “Yuck!”

“And what about that time at your cousin Susan’s wedding when you fell out of the balcony and landed smack in the middle of her and Bob cutting the cake.”

Uly absently stroked the scar across his left forearm as he thought of the terrible day. “Okay, so I’m unlucky. What’s your point?”

“The point, my dear boy, is I’m here to turn your life around. I’m going to do something for you what a very dear friend did for me over forty years ago. I’m going to teach you to exercise your luck muscle.”

Uly squinted at him. Was the old man pulling his leg?

*

Over the next several weeks, Uly’s life took an astonishing turn for the better. At first, Mr. Bloocher only allowed Uly to siphon small amounts of luck from the newly deceased. It was in that last moment, as you tied off the artery and sealed off the wound, that you could use the fetish, say a few simple words over the body, and touch the dead in just the right place.

“Don’t want to move too far, too fast,” Sam told him. “Never know when you might strain something.”

Uly just grinned.

Nothing changed right away. Hell for the first few days, Uly was convinced that Mr. Bloocher was making fun of him. But after a week or so it seemed that an ample amount of luck had been stored up. That’s when Uly began to see changes. It was the little things those who suffer from bad luck notice in a second.

First he noticed the waitress didn’t spill coffee on him, or that he didn’t sit down in gum. Little things like how he was given a full ketchup bottle when his food arrived, and the lid started out firmly secured.

Then, after about a couple more weeks, the signs were even more noticeable. The cheapskate dry cleaner, who often over starched his shirts, went away for the day and left his wife to mind the shop. For the first time in two years, Uly got all his shirts at the same time, and she even gave him a coupon for a free suit cleaning on his next visit.

After that he plunged into his sessions with his mentor like a starving man into an all-you-can-eat salad bar.

*

Uly practically danced into work each day. Even Patricia stopped hassling him so much. Then, when he didn’t think it could get any better, it got downright serious. His grandmother had this sister in Florida who she hadn’t spoken to in years. Suddenly, right out of the blue, great-aunt Gertie called, crying over their lost childhood, and begged Granny to come to Florida and mend old, broken fences. She decided to stay for three weeks. Uly hadn’t had three weeks alone since he moved in with Granny as a baby. He loved the old woman, but three weeks of freedom was something he’d only dreamed of. Never mind he was a grown man. That was just beside the point.

He dropped her off at the airport three full hours early. “Never can be too sure about airlines these days,” she reminded him about three thousand times on the way to Bluegrass Field.

“Now you park in short-term parking and help me carry my bags in,” she said as they pulled in off Man-O-War.

She just shushed him when he attempted to protest. “Why should I pay any of those wretched sky-caps anything when I’ve got you around to carry my things. After all I’ve done for you in my life. The food, clothing, shelter . . .”

He quit listening. Her one great regret in life was that she hadn’t actually carried him in her womb so she could lord hours of backbreaking labor over him. He grinned to himself. She was full of bluster, but he loved the old woman. Hell, half the reason he stayed with her was because she didn’t want to be alone. Course, she’d never say it out loud.

He pulled the ticket out of the machine and blindly waited for the little wooden bar to rise—concentrating on the three glorious weeks of freedom that lay ahead of him.

Once he saw her safely on the plane, he stepped into a coffee shop and ordered a cappuccino. He’d have to pay the same for four hours of parking as three, so he might as well sit and savor the moment.

He sauntered up to the counter and ordered a six-dollar coffee, enjoying his little victory. He stood, waiting for the waif with the green hair and nose ring to prepare his order, when in walked the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. She wore the pilot’s uniform of one of the major carriers. She leaned over the counter and said something to the guy with blue hair. He pointed to the back of the shop and she moved in that direction, waving at him and laughing.

Uly stared hard at her chest, reading her nametag: Capt. Heather Gray. Quite a lovely name, he thought to himself.

She must have finished her shift, because when she emerged from the restroom, she wore a very snug pair of jeans and a loose fitting top unbuttoned enough to reveal an ample amount of cleavage.

Gosh, Uly thought. Bet that doesn’t meet with the company dress code. He stared at her, wondering what his chances would be to leave with a lovely woman like that? He’d never had any luck with women. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He had played around with Camille Johnson when they were both freshmen, but her brother, Stuart, caught them and beat the crap out of him—literally. Camille never spoke to him again. And Stuart had terrorized him ever since. So he had luck with women—bad luck.

Not this time, he told himself. He was a changed man, a bachelor for the first time, and he was anxious. The pilot stepped up to the counter and slipped a Seattle Mariners cap on, pulling her blonde ponytail through the hole in the back. Uly watched her. Watched the way she stood on her toes to dig her hand in the tight front pocket of her jeans to retrieve her loose cash. He especially admired the way her jeans accentuated her firm round rear end. He was enraptured. She flirted with the guy behind the counter while that green-haired girl prepared her order and smiled with a mouth full of perfect teeth when she tipped them two bucks.

Uly concentrated on his luck, whispering the words and gripping the fetish under his shirt. He stared at Heather Gray, wishing her to sit with him, even though there were several tables open. She turned away from the counter and surveyed the room. He stared at her, catching the pale blue of her eyes as she scanned the room. Her gaze passed over him with a tingle, like when the sky is full of lightning on hot, muggy August nights.

He held his breath when she walked past and sat at a table right behind him. He let his breath out slowly, attempting to stay cheerful.

He sat quietly for several seconds, kicking himself for not actually asking her to sit with him, when he heard an angelic voice.

“Excuse me,” Heather Gray said.

He felt a tap on his shoulder, her touch like the quick feathery beat of a dove’s wing.

“Could you hand me some sweetener?”

He reached across the table and chose a blue packet from among the choices. He half-turned in his seat and offered the small packet.