Return to Oakpine (24 page)

“Not really,” he said. “Some pop. I'll be your designated son.”

“Good.” She put her empty wineglass on the table. “I am. Drinking. Where's that waitress?” The three guys in red T-shirts at the next table all turned and checked her out, her black satin western shirt. “Hello to you,” one said.

“Where you guys from?” she asked them.

“Gillette.” They were all about thirty, with short hair and sideburns. “We're the Coyotes, pretty lady, the band to root for if you want to know. You could even sit at our table. We encourage groupies.” The speaker, a thin young guy with a goatee, waved a finger at the two full pitchers. “In fact, we look after our true fans without worrying about the expense. We are dedicated to them hoof, hide, and bone.”

“Oh, shit,” Marci flirted back. “And I'm already with a band, darn it.”

“You won't be for long.”

There was a drumroll, and Bobby Peralta came on the microphone: “Hey, everybody, welcome to the Pronghorn Bar and Grill, the only four-star establishment in Wyoming and North and South Dakota. Tonight, as you all know, we are happy to host the Pronghorn Battle of the Bands!” There was a roar and clapping and ragged whistles until Bobby held up his hands. In one he had pillowcase full of pool balls. “Ladies and gentlemen, we will now select the order for the Pronghorn Battle of the Bands!” Another upheaval, screaming and a howl or two, followed. Bobby then had a representative from each band reach into the bag and pull out a ball.

“What'd he get?” Frank said. “Is it solid or stripe?”

Craig, like everyone else on the stage, was holding his choice high over his head in two fingers. The noise was impenetrable.

“Is it the eight ball? Tell me it's the goddamned eight ball.”

“It's the nine,” Mason leaned forward and said loudly. “We're late in the lineup.”

“We should have got you shirts that matched,” Marci said to Frank.

“What?”

“We should have got you shirts that matched!” she yelled. One of the red shirts at the next table stood and bent to Marci. “What'd you draw?”

“Nine,” she said.

“It's not too late to drop out,” he toasted them with his glass of beer.

“You're drunk,” she told him.

“It's the only way. We're the Coyotes, and we will not perform unless inebriated.”

“Good luck,” Mason told the man.

“Well, yeah,” the guy said thoughtfully. “But we're still going to kick your ass and take this girl here as a trophy. Please excuse my frankness.”

Bobby Peralta named the bands, each to an explosion, sometimes a small explosion, from some quarter of the jammed barroom. Then he introduced the judges: a deejay from Jackson Hole, the owner of a record store in Laramie, and his own wife, Mrs. Annette Peralta, a happy blond woman in a full turquoise body suit. He tried to say something about the categories they'd be judging on, but no one could hear, and then he showed the three trophies, which brought a roar, general yelling, and applause. The dance floor was cleared or almost cleared, and for a few minutes there was relative quiet in the Pronghorn, as snow settled on the arched tar roof and waitresses with trays of drinks worked the room.

Frank leaned over to Larry and said, “Are we ready for this?”

Larry nodded. “Not really. But it's two songs. We're tight. Jimmy said to let it rip. I have a feeling this is our last gig forevermore. Whether we know what we're doing or not, let it rip.”

Frank scanned the cordoned tables of bands. A couple groups had cowboy hats, and one band wore sharkskin suits. Sonny had topped everyone's beer, and Frank said, “Thank you, dear, but you're not working tonight. I'll pour.”

“It's fine,” Sonny said. “It's not a problem.” She slid into the chair at the end of the table and touched Kathleen's arm. “I'm sorry for that remark earlier,” Sonny said. “I didn't mean it. I'm so fucking touchy. I don't want to fight with you or your friends.” Kathleen didn't move, so Sonny slid closer so no one else could hear her. “Every week I've been in town, every week for two years, somebody in the bar will start it. You've got more friends than anybody I've ever known, that's for sure. You're an angel, I guess, and they do not like me, even though they don't know me. They have said things near me and to me, and I haven't said anything back. But Kathleen, I just want to say one thing to you. I didn't do anything to you. I know it must be hard to see me with Frank, but I didn't wreck your marriage, did I? Everybody says that, but we got together November two years ago, I swear. Not a day earlier. No joke. He told me that he'd been out of the house all summer. Is that wrong?” She had whispered all this urgently, and as she stopped speaking and lifted her chin, tears glossed her eyes.

Kathleen looked past Sonny for a minute: Larry, Mason, Marci, Frank. Larry had unfolded the playlist: six songs they knew. They all had a finger on the sheet as if it were a map. They had to choose two. Kathleen smiled weakly at the younger woman and then stood up and pulled her. “Let's get a drink,” she said, and the two of them disappeared into the smoky room.

Craig came back to the table and plunked the nine ball into the ashtray. “We're hitting clean up,” he said. “We'll know what we're up against.” He sat down and squeezed Marci's shoulders. “We're going to need some support from our fans.” He looked her over. “My, but you look fine,” he said. “Am I right, Mason?”

“You both look good. Marci here,” Mason said, toasting her with his glass of beer, “was class . . .”

“Historian,” she filled in.

“I've seen the yearbook,” Larry said. “What did you record?”

Marci gave him a look as the first band, a group called Mountain Standard, rattled into John Denver's “Rocky Mountain High.” It took them a full minute to put it all to the beat, but they did and finished the song going away. After the whooping and applause faded, Craig said, “If that's what we're up against, we're taking a trophy home for Jimmy. These guys are soft.” As if on his cue, the band now tried “Take It Easy,” making it sound as if they were reading the lyrics for the first time, and making the whole a vague exercise. At the end Mountain Standard bowed and bowed until there was no one clapping. They were still waving at their friends when the second band, Wind Chill Factor, six guys in black T-shirts, walked onto the stage.

Wind Chill Factor was all bass, heavy bass, so much so their songs were unidentifiable, a beat and a thrum that simply shook the room, every table and every glass. Larry felt it in his cracked rib and listened through the gridlock vibration and thought he heard “Layla,” but it would have had to be at double time. The six band members stood like mourners at the noisiest funeral of all time, feet planted, raking their instruments, the drum player hunched mostly out of sight. When their second song came in for a landing, the air was immediately filled with white static. Everyone's ears were ringing. A moment later the applause came as a kind of relief, and it was touched up with laughter. As the artists in Wind Chill Factor filed off the stage, nodding their heads in recognition of their significant contribution to the world of rock 'n' roll, Mason told his table, “Count your fillings.”

Larry was writing the name of each band on a card in his shirt pocket so he could give the report to Jimmy Brand, as promised. He also had told Wendy he'd give her the news.

The third band was four guys who looked like brothers; they all had identical razored goatees. They could sing. They started a reasonable, if slow version of “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain,” and when the three lead men met at the mike for the chorus, people listened. They got it all and changed the mood in the room for those minutes. Then they made the strategic error of singing a folksy ballad full of strange religious references. “God did a lot of stuff in that song,” Craig told the table when the goatees were through.

Then it was a two-man band—the Experts, they called themselves—and they tried to cover “Sweet Home Alabama,” which was a curious choice because they lacked the punch for it, and the guitar player was rusty and behind the lyric, and it emerged as a kind of tender credo, a dirge, which wasn't unpleasant. After their second song, Bobby Peralta came up and announced a twenty-minute beer break, and the intermission was louder than the bands, and the room stood up and was at the bar four deep. The sound system filled with Johnny Cash singing “I Walk the Line,” the only one of his songs that would be heard all day. Frank came back from the men's and said, “Armando Jensen is here. Somewhere.”

“Goddamned pennies in the urinal,” Sonny said.

“He does that?” Marci said.

“Everywhere,” Sonny said. “Some men won't piss without marking the spot.”

“I can't afford it,” Craig smiled. They were all speaking loudly, the room a roar.

Frank laughed. “He calls it his tithe.”

“Jimmy should write about this place. There's some characters.”

“He did,” Mason said. “And you're looking at them.” He lifted his coffee cup. They all touched every glass. Mason showed the group his hands, which were trembling, and said, “Look. This is very fine. I'm nervous.”

“It has been a long time,” Frank said, “but nobody's paying attention, so we'll be all right.”

Shirley Stiver appeared through the mob, dragging a younger man by the hand. She was done up proper in a golden western dress with tiny beaded fringe along the scalloped pockets. Her partner was all denim, the new shirt stiff, and he shook everyone's hand.

“Your honor,” Frank said, “out among the people.” He said to Mason, “Tom's the mayor.”

“I'm undercover,” the man said.

“And out of town,” Frank added. “Good to see you.”

“When do you guys play?” Shirley asked Mason, tousling his hair.

“Too soon,” he said. “You're going to want to get a drink, more than one.”

“Break a leg, Oakpine. We're working the room.”

“Everybody's working this room,” Mason said.

“And Shirley,” Frank called to her, as the couple moved back into the crowd, “I already broke my leg. We're just going to make some noise and stay out of the weather.”

The milling around didn't really stop after the break, as the room had filled even more now. All the latecomers out of the dark shook off snow in the entryway and called out to their friends. The next band was called the Cutbank Cowboys, and they had some difficulties, stopping their first number right in the middle so somebody could hand the bass guitarist a glass of whiskey. They tried to start over, and there was hooting, and Bobby Peralta came up and said, “Just go to your next song.” The drinking musician looked at Bobby and took the microphone and drank and said, “I'd rather have this glass of jack than the goddamned trophy, Mr. Peralta.” He was drunk and got a huge cheer by his remarks, so he added, “Besides, we are filing a protest. Are there any lawyers in the house?” This got a huge cheer as well. He drank again and dropped the empty glass and said, “Goddamned lawyers!” This raised the roof, and Mason called out, “Amen!” The Cutbank Cowboys finished with “Tie a Yellow Ribbon,” and the dance floor was shoulder to shoulder.

The next band took a while to set up as they changed the drum kit to their own, with their name enameled on the facing, the Moonlight Gamblers. “Hey, we've got troubles,” Frank said. “I've seen these guys down in Laramie. They're for real.”

“I thought this was amateurs,” Craig said.

“No, it's all comers.”

The room filled with the sinister prelude to “Hotel California,” and it got as quiet as it had been for an hour. It was clear these guys were good, and while the dance floor overflowed again, a group of three dozen adoring fans stood in front of the stage. Mason rolled his eyes at Frank. “Fate is speaking.” The song closed, and the ovation rocked with whistles and calls for two minutes.

A woman came up to the varnished wooden lounge corral. She had on a tricolor cowboy shirt and snug white levi's. She folded her arms, waiting for Larry, who was bent making notes on the jam-packed table. “Can I help you?” Marci asked her.

“Not really, ma'am. Unless you want to dance. I'm waiting on this gentleman.” Larry looked up. “Yeah, you. Let's just dance, if you will?

“You go, boy,” Frank said. “We've got two bands to go.”

Larry colored slightly and shrugged and lifted himself over the rail and said, “Okay then.”

Marci watched the couple melt into the clog of dancers, as the lead singer of the Moonlight Gamblers lifted his hand for silence, which he received, and then sang the word, “Maybe,” as the soulful beginning of Willie Nelson's song “You Were Always on My Mind.” Marci's face bore a version of astonishment. “He's underage,” she said.

“This is Gillette,” Frank said. “No such thing.”

“We're dancing,” Marci told Craig, and she stood up.

Craig smiled. “I think we're on surveillance,” he told the table as he led his wife around to the floor. “But hell, I'll hold you close, and you can spy all night.”

Frank stood and took Sonny's hand. “We'll spy on them.”

Kathleen and Mason were alone at the table, which was a landslide of glasses and bottles. “You know Shirley Stiver then,” Kathleen said.

“She's my realtor, but I'm letting her go.”

“Why's that.”

“I'm keeping the house.”

“What for?”

“I need a place to take you to dinner.”

“I'm not ready for dinner, Mason.” She put her hand on his elbow.

“I know, Kathleen. But every day has a dinner, and there'll come a day.”

“You're so sure?”

“No, I am not. But I know what is good for me, and I'm going to stay up in Oakpine and work at it.”