Rock On (39 page)

Weird. How was she even supposed to know if it had worked? But she guessed that in this world, she wouldn’t.

Her gaze went to Jonathan’s half-drunk ginger ale and she noticed that he’d left his letter behind. There was another puzzle. How did they go from world to world, future to future?

Maybe it had something to do with the Rhatigan itself. Maybe there was something about the bar that made it a crossroads for all these futures.

She thought of asking Alphonse, but got the sense that he didn’t know. Or if he knew, he wouldn’t be telling. But maybe if she could track down Eddie . . .

He appeared beside her table as though her thoughts had summoned him.

“Never thought about third chances,” he said.

He slid a trumpet case onto the booth seat, then sat down beside it, smiling at her from the other side of the table.

“Is—was that against the rules?” she asked.

He shrugged. “What rules? The only thing that’s important is for you to come back and get the message to pass it on.”

“But what is it that we’re passing on? Where did this thing come from?”

“Sometimes it’s better to just accept that something is, instead of trying to take it apart.”

“But—”

“Because when you take it apart, it might not work any more. You wouldn’t want that, would you, Sarah?”

“No. Of course not. But I’ve got so many questions . . . ”

He made a motion with his hands like he was breaking something, then he held out his palms looking down at them with a sad expression.

“Okay, I get the point already,” she said. “But you’ve got to understand my curiosity.”

“Sure, I do. And all I’m doing is asking you to let it go.”

“But . . . can you at least tell me who you are?”

“Eddie Ramone.”

“And he’s . . . ?”

“Just a guy who’s learned how to give a few people the tools to fix a mistake they might have made. Doesn’t work on everybody, and not everybody gets it right when they do go back. But I give them another shot. Think of me as a messenger of hope.”

Sarah felt as though she were going to burst with the questions that were swelling inside her.

“So’d you bring a guitar?” Eddie asked.

She blinked, then shook her head. “No. But I don’t play jazz.”

“Take a cue from Norah Jones. Anything can swing, even a song by Hank Williams . . . or Sarah Blue.”

She shook her head. “These people didn’t come to hear me.”

“No, they came to hear music. They don’t give a rat’s ass who’s playing it, just so long as it’s real.”

“Okay. Maybe.” But then she had a thought. “Just answer this one thing for me.”

He smiled, waiting.

“In your letter you said that this is a different time line from the one I first met you in.”

“That’s right, it is.”

“So how come you’re here and you know me in this one?”

“Something’s got to be the connection,” he told her.

“But—”

He opened his case and took out his trumpet. Getting up, he reached for her hand.

“C’mon. Jackie’ll lend you his guitar for a couple of numbers. All you’ve got to do is tell us the key.”

She gave up and let him lead her to where the other musicians were standing at the side of the stage.

“Oh, and don’t forget,” Eddie said as they were almost there. “Before you leave the bar, you need to write your own letter to Jonathan.”

“I feel like I’m going crazy.”

“ ‘Crazy,’ ” Eddie said. “Willie Nelson. That’d make a nice start—you know, something everybody knows.”

Sarah wanted to bring the conversation back to where she felt she needed it to go, but a look into his eyes gave her a sudden glimpse of a hundred thousand different futures, all banging up against each other in a complex, twisting pattern that gave her a touch of vertigo. So she took a breath instead, shook her head and just let him introduce her to the other musicians.

Jackie’s Gibson semi-hollow body was a lot like one of her own guitars—it just had a different pick-up. She took a seat on the center-stage stool and adjusted the height of the microphone, then started playing the opening chords of “Tony Adams.” It took her a moment to find the groove she was looking for, that hip-hop swing that Strummer and the Mescaleros had given the song. By the time she found it, the piano and bass had come in, locking them into the groove.

She glanced at Eddie. He stood on the side of the stage, holding his horn, swaying gently to the rhythm. Smiling, she turned back to the mike and started to sing the first verse.

Charles de Lint
is a full-time writer and musician who presently makes his home in Ottawa, Canada, with his wife MaryAnn Harris. His most recent books are
Under My Skin
(Razorbill Canada, 2012; Amazon.com for the rest of the world) and
Eyes Like Leaves
(Tachyon Press, 2012). His first album
Old Blue Truck
came out in early 2011. And, as reviewer David Soyka wrote: “ . . . no one else [writing fantasy] consistently weaves musical references into the underpinnings of their tales like this author.”

Rock On

Pat Cadigan

Rain woke me. I thought, shit, here I am, Lady Rain-in-the-Face, because that’s where it was hitting, right in the old face. Sat up and saw I was still on Newbury Street. See beautiful downtown Boston. Was Newbury Street downtown? In the middle of the night, did it matter? No, it did not. And not a soul in sight. Like everybody said, let’s get Gina drunk and while she’s passed out, we’ll all move to Vermont. Do I love New England? A great place to live, but you wouldn’t want to visit here.

I smeared my hair out of my eyes and wondered if anyone was looking for me now. Hey, anybody shy a forty-year-old rock ’n’ roll sinner?

I scuttled into the doorway of one of those quaint old buildings where there was a shop with the entrance below ground level. A little awning kept the rain off but pissed water down in a maddening beat. Wrung the water out of my wrap pants and my hair and just sat being damp. Cold, too, I guess, but didn’t feel that so much.

Sat a long time with my chin on my knees: you know, it made me feel like a kid again. When I started nodding my head, I began to pick up on something. Just primal but I tap into that amazing well. Man-O-War, if you could see me now. By the time the blueboys found me, I was rocking pretty good.

And that was the punchline. I’d never tried to get up and leave, but if I had, I’d have found I was locked into place in a sticky field. Made to catch the b&e kids in the act until the blueboys could get around to coming out and getting them. I’d been sitting in a trap and digging it. The story of my life.

They were nice to me. Led me, read me, dried me out. Fined me a hundred, sent me on my way in time for breakfast.

Awful time to see and be seen, righteous awful. For the first three hours after you get up, people can tell whether you’ve got a broken heart or not. The solution is, either you get up real early so your camouflage is in place by the time everybody else is out, or you don’t go to bed. Don’t go to bed ought to work all the time, but it doesn’t. Sometimes when you don’t go to bed, people can see whether you’ve got a broken heart all day long. I schlepped it, searching for an uncrowded breakfast bar and not looking at anyone who was looking at me. But I had this urge to stop random pedestrians and say, Yeah, yeah, it’s true, but it was rock ’n’ roll broke my poor old heart, not a person, don’t cry for me or I’ll pop your chocks.

I went around and up and down and all over until I found Tremont Street. It had been the pounder with that group from the Detroit Crater—the name was gone but the malady lingered on—anyway, him; he’d been the one told me Tremont had the best breakfast bars in the world, especially when you were coming off a bottle drunk you couldn’t remember.

When the c’muters cleared out some, I found a space at a Greek hole in the wall. We shut down 10:30 a.m. sharp, get the hell out when you’re done, counter service only, take it or shake it. I like a place with Attitude. I folded a seat down and asked for coffee and a feta cheese omelet. Came with home fries from the home fries mountain in a corner of the grill (no microwave
garbazhe,
hoo-ray). They shot my retinas before they even brought my coffee, and while I was pouring the cream, they checked my credit. Was that badass? It was badass. Did I care? I did not. No waste, no machines when a human could do it, and real food, none of this edible polyester that slips clear through you so you can stay looking like a famine victim, my deah.

They came in when I was half finished with the omelet. Went all night by the look and sound of them, but I didn’t check their faces for broken hearts. Made me nervous but I thought, well, they’re tired; who’s going to notice this old lady? Nobody.

Wrong again. I became visible to them right after they got their retinas shot. Seventeen-year-old boy with tattooed cheeks and a forked tongue leaned forward and hissed like a snake.

“Sssssssinner.”

The other four with him perked right up. “Where?” “Whose?” “In here?”

“Rock ’n’ roll ssssssinner.”

The lady identified me. She bore much resemblance to nobody at all, and if she had a heart it wasn’t even sprained a little. With a sinner, she was probably Madame Magnifica “Gina,” she said, with all confidence.

My left eye tic’d. Oh, please. Feta cheese on my knees. What the hell, I thought, I’ll nod, they’ll nod, I’ll eat, I’ll go. And then somebody whispered the word,
reward.

I dropped my fork and ran.

Safe enough, I figured. Were they all going to chase me before they got their Greek breakfasts? No, they were not. They sent the lady after me.

She was much the younger, and she tackled me in the middle of a crosswalk when the light changed. A car hopped over us, its undercarriage just ruffling the top of her hard copper hair.

“Just come back and finish your omelet. Or we’ll buy you another.”

“No.”

She yanked me up and pulled me out of the street. “Come on.” People were staring, but Tremont’s full of theaters. You see that here, live theater; you can still get it. She put a bring-along on my wrist and brought me along, back to the breakfast bar, where they’d sold the rest of my omelet at a discount to a bum. The lady and her group made room for me among themselves and brought me another cup of coffee.

“How can you eat and drink with a forked tongue?” I asked Tattooed Cheeks. He showed me. A little appliance underneath, like a zipper. The Featherweight to the left of the big boy on the lady’s other side leaned over and frowned at me.

“Give us one good reason why we shouldn’t turn you in for Man-O-War’s reward.”

I shook my head. “I’m through. This sinner’s been absolved.”

“You’re legally bound by contract,” said the lady. “But we could c’noodle something. Buy Man-O-War out, sue on your behalf for nonfulfillment. We’re Misbegotten. Oley.” She pointed at herself. “Pidge.” That was the silent type next to her. “Percy.” The big boy. “Krait.” Mr. Tongue. “Gus.” Featherweight. “We’ll take care of you.”

I shook my head again. “If you’re going to turn me in, turn me in and collect. The credit ought to buy you the best sinner ever there was.”

“We can be good to you.”

“I don’t have it anymore. It’s gone. All my rock ’n’ roll sins have been forgiven.”

“Untrue,” said the big boy. Automatically, I started to picture on him and shut it down hard. “Man-O-War would have thrown you out if it were gone. You wouldn’t have to run.”

“I didn’t want to tell him. Leave me alone. I just want to go and sin no more, see? Play with yourselves, I’m not helping.” I grabbed the counter with both hands and held on. So what were they going to do, pop me one and carry me off?

As a matter of fact, they did.

In the beginning, I thought, and the echo effect was stupendous.
In the beginning . . . the beginning . . . the beginning.

In the beginning, the sinner was not human. I know because I’m old enough to remember.

They were all there, little more than phantoms. Misbegotten. Where do they get those names? I’m old enough to remember. Oingo-Boingo and Bow-Wow-Wow. Forty, did I say? Oooh, just a little past . . . a little close to a lot. Old rockers never die, they just keep rocking on. I never saw The Who; Moon was dead before I was born. But I remember, barely old enough to stand, rocking in my mother’s arms while thousands screamed and clapped and danced in their seats.
Start me up . . . if you start me up, I’ll never stop
 . . . 763 Strings did a rendition for elevator and dentist’s office, I remember that, too. And that wasn’t the worst of it.

They hung on the memories, pulling more from me, turning me inside out. Are you experienced? On a record of my father’s because he’d died too, before my parents even met, and nobody else ever dared ask that question.
Are you experienced? . . .
 
Well, I am.

(Well,
I
am.)

Five against one and I couldn’t push them away. Only, can you call it rape when you know you’re going to like it? Well, if I couldn’t get away, then I’d give them the ride of their lives.
Jerkin’ Crocus didn’t kill me but she sure came near . . .

The big boy faded in first, big and wild and too much badass to him. I reached out, held him tight, showing him. The beat from the night in the rain, I gave it to him, fed it to his heart and made him live it. Then came the lady, putting down the bass theme. She jittered, but mostly in the right places.

Now the Krait, and he was slithering around the sound, in and out. Never mind the tattooed cheeks, he wasn’t just flash for the fools. He knew; you wouldn’t have thought it, but he knew.

Featherweight and the silent type, melody and first harmony. Bad. Featherweight was a disaster, didn’t know where to go or what to do when he got there, but he was pitching ahead like the
S.S. Suicide.

Christ. If they had to rape me, couldn’t they have provided someone upright? The other four kept on, refusing to lose it, and I would have to make the best of it for all of us. Derivative, unoriginal-Featherweight did not rock. It was a crime, but all I could do was take them and shake them. Rock gods in the hands of an angry sinner.