Rock On (31 page)

She paces your hospital room, fuming, hands balled in the small of her back. You’re fine, you assure her. Loosened teeth, a cracked cheekbone, a couple of busted ribs. A few nasty names can’t hurt you now, and the MPA are treating it as a hate crime. They take those seriously.

And you’re alive. Mostly unbroken.

It could have been worse.

It doesn’t seem to be a good time to remind her that she once hit you herself, when she was he, and you and Ramona flushed his cocaine.

“Don’t hold back,” you tell her, when her silence grates too harshly. The IV pinches in the back of your hand. The tape itches. “Tell us how you really feel.”

She checks and turns to you, and her hands fall down by her sides. “I could. What if I did? What if I
made
them listen?”

“Loki, you’re mortal now too. And so am I.”

“I would miss the music,” she admits. But shakes her head and continues, dark eyes narrowing under the black fringe of her bangs. “If you tell me not to, I won’t do it.”

As the world now knows, the purported Martin Trevor Blandsford was revealed on 24 February 2004 to be a supernatural being, bearing a message of peace and open-mindedness that had gone too long unheard. [
disputed
] Through the divine auspices of the heavenly messenger Loki, it was demonstrated unequivocally that “There are none so deaf as will not hear.” [
disputed; cite needed
]
[17]

The Patuck Reader:
What do you think about the furor surrounding your last concert? What some are calling, in fact, The Last Concert.

Loki:
That’s melodrama. There are babies born every day, and thousands of years of musical history for them to grow into. I certainly haven’t stopped composing, and I don’t imagine anybody else has. Beethoven can always serve as a good example.

The Patuck Reader:
You were jailed, there are death threats . . .

Loki:
Let ’em come.

The Patuck Reader:
You’ve been called a visionary, or accused of suffering a messiah complex. You’re often assigned credit or blame for social changes in the last thirty years. For example, the advancing debate over what people are calling nontraditional marriage rights—domestic partnership regardless of gender or number of partners. Do you deserve any of it?

Loki:
Don’t be ridiculous. There’s nothing visionary about anything I’ve said. Whatever you’ve done, you’ve done for yourselves. All I did was show you how to stop listening to the program and think. All I did was show people how to stop listening to the lies.

(She laughs.)
If I were a messiah, I would be
upset
that more people don’t agree with me.
[18]

The last album is released early in 2004. The
Let Silence Ring
tour kicks off the same day, with a worldwide live-televised gig from Madison Square Garden.

The encore is “Ride On.” No great surprise there: it’s the only reason it wouldn’t have been in the regular set. You feel bad for Ramona; she doesn’t deserve what’s coming.

But as you walk back out to re-take your places, you pick your earplugs out and flick them into the darkness at the side of the stage.

For luck.

Once upon a time, Loki could sing gold from a dwarf, love from a goddess, troth from a giantess. He bargained kidnapped goddesses away from giant captors and blood-brotherhood from the All-Father. She talked Thor into a dress, and nearly into a marriage.

She’s never used the full strength of her voice before mortals before. When she does, it reaches every corner of the world, a high windblown cry of truth and chaos.

It’s the last sound any of us hear.

Elizabeth Bear
was born on the same day as Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, but in a different year. The author of over a dozen novels and a hundred short stories, she has been honored for some of them with the John W. Campbell, two Hugos, and a Sturgeon Award. Her hobbies include rock climbing and cooking. She lives in Massachusetts with a giant ridiculous dog and regularly commutes to Wisconsin in order to spend time with her step-cat—and his human, author Scott Lynch.

Then Play On

Greg Kihn

What’s the worst thing about being a guitar player? I’ll tell you. It’s when your fingers hurt so bad you can’t play, but you gotta play. That’s when you really appreciate a little help. Real musicians know that. They know that there’s nothing like running on fumes and having somebody step up and save your ass.

Then play on.

That’s how I met Charlie. He stepped up one night behind Ghiradelli Square when my hands were throbbing like hypothermic gerbils. I’d been playin’ for five hours. Had about two dollars in loose change in my guitar case. I really, really needed the dough, and the tourists were runnin’ like herring. With a little luck I could pay off a certain street thug, and save a trip to the hospital. I was cold, beat, and dirty, trying to croak out another verse of “Sweet Jane” before I lost the meager crowd of curious Asians gawking at my bloody fingers, when Charlie appeared. And he looked worse than me.

Sometimes a harmonica can sound almost human, like when the notes bend and wail inside God’s own Doppler effect. The fucker came up behind me and started blowin, and I swear, I thought it was some kind of supernatural creature. I nearly jumped out of my skin.

The first riff he played sounded like something crying. It was the saddest riff I ever heard. The tone of Charlie’s harp made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Hey, man, I’ve heard ’em all, from Little Walter to Butterfield, and this cat’s tone was . . . well, the only way I can describe it was otherworldly. And his phrasing, it was like he knew exactly where I was going. Let’s face it, “Sweet Jane” is no great blues harp showcase tune. Most players would run out of gas after a few verses. But Charlie seemed to have a bottomless supply of riffs. The man could play.

With Charlie’s help, I played for another two hours and raked in a guitar case full of quarters and crumpled bills. Busking in San Francisco requires a license, and I didn’t have one, so I kept a constant eye out for the cops. Charlie wouldn’t take any money, even after I counted it up and separated his share. “Don’t need it, man,” he said. “I live close to the ground.”

Charlie was a strange dude. I, on the other hand, always needed money. I was between gigs, living in my car. Life was a constant struggle. I figured I’d eventually get another band together, but for now, playing on the streets was my primary source of income.

Charlie walked back along Columbus with me, turned on Broadway, and headed north through the strip clubs. He never said a word. In the garish light of the neon, Charlie didn’t look right. His skin was pale, nearly devoid of color.

“Where you goin’ now?”

Charlie shrugged.

“Want to get something to eat?”

Charlie shook his head.

Fog drifted up Broadway from the waterfront, it seemed to swirl around Charlie, as if he attracted it. I noticed a few more things about him that puzzled me. First, his clothes. He didn’t dress like a street person. He was scruffy, all right, with the telltale dirty fingernails and unwashed hair, but his clothes seemed out of date. He wore a forties-style threadbare suit, with a shabby fedora. His shoes looked like something Sam Spade might have worn: big, brown gunboats with worn leather soles, down at the heels, and badly in need of a shine. He looked painfully thin, with hollow sunken cheeks and a long hooked nose.

“Are you sure you don’t want any of the money? I got close to forty dollars here.”

Charlie smiled, but his face couldn’t hold it, and the smile faded like a smoke ring. “Keep the money. You can do something for me later.”

“Sure, man, anything you say. Meet me tomorrow? Same bat time? Same bat channel?”

Charlie nodded. “We’ll see . . . ”

“I loved playin’ music with you, man. I could jam that shit forever.”

I heard Charlie whisper, “Yes, I believe you could.”

We had reached the alley between The Stone and The Mystic Eye occult supply store. Charlie stepped into the alley and disappeared. It happened so fast I didn’t notice for a couple seconds. I went back and peered into the darkness of the opening. “Charlie?”

No answer. I walked on.

The next day Charlie was back. I’d been playing for about an hour at the corner of Bay Street and Stockton, not making any money, when he arrived. He started blowing his harp and within five minutes we had a crowd of thirty people. Some silver clanked in the open guitar case at my feet, a few rumpled bills appeared. Things were looking up. Alone I couldn’t get arrested, but with Charlie, the money came easy.

I introduced him to the crowd, but no one seemed to notice. I asked some people if they dug the harmonica player, and they laughed. After another hour, some of my street friends showed up. I took a pee break and asked a homeless magician named Marco to watch my stuff. When I returned, Charlie was gone. “Did you happen to see where my harp player went?”

Marco scratched his head. “What harp player?”

“The guy who’s been playin’ with me all morning.” I pointed to the spot on the steps where Charlie had been. “He was standing right there.”

Marco shook his head. “I saw the last eight tunes, bro. There was no harp player. Nobody was standing there.”

“Come on, man. Don’t dick me around. You mean to say you didn’t see a guy standing there blowin’ unbelievable harp while I was playin’?”

Marco looked at me curiously. “No. There was nobody there.”

I could feel the color drain from my face. “Well, then . . . What the fuck’s goin’ on?”

Marco shrugged. “Street ghost?”

I started to laugh. “No way. Can’t be, man. That’s crazy.”

Marco put a hand on my shoulder. “People die out here all the time. Think about it, bro. All those spirits, all that negative energy. It must go somewhere.”

“Then you think Charlie is a ghost?”

Marco shrugged. “I’ve made something of a study of street ghosts. I can look into it, if you like.”

I didn’t feel like playing anymore. I packed up my guitar and headed for some junk food and a warm place to poop. Marco agreed to meet me later and try to find Charlie.

As dusk settled, we found ourselves outside the alley next to The Mystic Eye. Marco peered into the shadows. “You say he disappeared here the first night?”

I nodded. “Said he lived close to the ground. What do you think that means?”

Marco shrugged and walked into the alley. I followed. It was dank and moist, with a fetid, musty odor clinging to the brick. Marco examined the dead end. “See that mortar? It doesn’t match the original. That hole’s been patched up. A long time ago, from the looks of it.”

“What’s the deal with the hole?”

Marco pointed down the alley. “Most people don’t know this, but there’s a bunch of tunnels under this neighborhood, dating back to the Barbary Coast. Smugglers used them all the time. The waterfront used to come up a lot further in the old days. All this shit’s been built on landfill where the original docks used to be. In fact, I’d say we’re standing at the old waterline right now.

I shivered. “So what about the tunnels?”

“There are several under Broadway that have been blocked off since the forties.”

“I wonder if there’s a connection between Charlie and that tunnel?”

“Maybe he died there.”

I stared off into space for a minute. “I got a buddy who works at the
Chronicle.
I’m gonna go see him. Maybe he can check the archives.”

Later that afternoon I was reading a microfilm file of a story from 1941. Three vagrants who had been sleeping in one of the tunnels had been sealed in when city workers blocked the entrances. Two had escaped by yelling their lungs off until help arrived. The third one had died. His name was Charles Pittman, an itinerant musician.

“Charlie,” I whispered. “Jesus Christ. It’s Charlie.”

The next day I went early to a spot in Valencourt Plaza I liked to use on sunny afternoons. A lot of people from the financial district ate lunch there, sitting on the steps near the fountain. I’d made some decent coin there in the past. I was into my third song when Charlie strolled up, holding his harmonica. I tried to smile. “Well, if it ain’t my old buddy, Charlie. Care to sit in?”

Charlie just nodded and cupped his harmonica to his mouth. I started playing a midtempo blues shuffle in E. Charlie slid in between the riffs and started to blow, sweet and lonely. The sound filled my head, reverberating in the echo chamber of my brain. I looked around to see if anybody was reacting to it, but saw no indication. I looked at Charlie. “Am I the only one who can see you?”

Charlie stopped playing and nodded.

“So . . . you’re a ghost?”

“I live close to the ground.”

I looked away, unsure how to feel. I mean, I was scared, but also tweaked on the music, and curious as hell. “Close to the ground is right. Try
under
the ground. Are you dead?”

Charlie put his harp to his lips and blew, a long sorrowful musical phrase. I noticed the crowd had dissipated, I was alone in that part of Valencourt Plaza. Alone with Charlie.

I checked my tuning. “All right, you dead muthafucker. Let’s play.”

I peeled off the opening riff to Robert Johnson’s “Hell Hound On My Trail” and waited. The perfect song to jam with a dead guy. Charlie seemed to pause for a moment, harmonica poised at this mouth, listening. Then, he slid into the song like a sharp knife slides into flesh, cold and final. He opened with one long twisted note, like a banshee’s mournful wail. It seemed to go on for several minutes, lasting through the entire eight-bar intro.

I opened my mouth to sing and suddenly felt cold air rush into my throat. “Woke up this mornin’, blues fallin’ down like hail . . . ”

The lyrics chilled me. All of San Francisco stopped. Charlie answered. “Woke up this mornin’, blues fallin’ down like hail . . . ” I concentrated on a good, clean riff into the four chord. “I got to keep movin’, I got a hell hound on my trail . . . ”