Shadow Hand Blues

I

DEACON JONES' SWEET DEAL

The Memphis club owner never even let me play. Wouldn't listen to a single riff; a single chord; not one measly note. Just sneered me up and down, dug deep into his reptilian brain and put his bigotry into words that whomp ed down like a judge's gavel upside my head: You ain't no Blues man.

Tennessee could gag on my exhaust fumes. North Carolina beckoned me through the windshield. I was en route to a paying investigation, a link-up with old buddies and maybe some other east coast fun, and should have been content with that.

I would be, after a detour into Asheville for copper tubing.

My engine growled on the downshift and I swung Smokestack Lightnin' into the gravel lot of a mom & pop's hardware store, her fat tires skidding the last few feet into the parking space. I stepped out of the '69 Cyclone Spoiler's tricked-out cockpit into an overcast April morning, peeled out a Zigzag and shook some tobacco onto the paper.

I paid little attention, at first, to the sound of a tired motor goosing a heavy vehicle all over the road behind me. But as the noise grew closer, it was joined by a chorus of human voices demanding to be noticed.

Six drunken G.I.s packed into a ragtop T-Bird...probably marines or paratroopers on pass from Camp Lejeune or Fort Bragg... focused their collective attention on the cigarette I rolled up and sealed with a swipe of the tongue, hooting and cheering their approval.

One young drunk half-climbed out the back window, toasted me with a bottle of Everclear and crooned loudly, I'm a joker; I'm a smoker; I'm a midnight (hic!) toker!

Another did the same on the other side, sucking on an imaginary joint, crying out in his best Bob Dylan, Everybody must get stoned!

Some songs are timeless. In return salute, I raised my free fist in the universal signal for party on, dudes.

There's no escape from stigmas. I couldn't even roll a square without strangers assuming me a pothead. And my savvy with a guitar was superseded by my demographic profile.

Maybe I should just stick to the detective business.

I shook my head and grunted.

Lately I'd been keeping my guitar tuned to an open D so I could play slide just like the first Blues men down in the Mississippi Delta had played. At every rest stop I yanked Caldonia out of the trunk and worked her strings with extreme prejudice. But no matter how many scales I practiced or lead runs I mastered, I was still some white boy from Nevada, born long after the Blues invaded urban America and sired Rock & Roll.

You ain't no Blues man.

Blues man schmooze clan, choking smokers, don't you see the joker laughs at you?

Steel sounded okay, but I wanted to find out if different material made for a grittier sound. I would try a copper slide. When I did get my shot at the Tennessee club circuit, I was gonna make Caldonia moan and wail.

I enjoyed a quick smoke in the cold mountain air, glanced at the time readout on my pager and entered the store.

I was supposed to meet Mr. Wilk that afternoon, but had made good time and was ahead of schedule. He wasn't likely to discharge me even if I was late, anyway. And if he did, so what? He'd agreed to foot my gas bill in any case.

Spouse-spying jobs are at epidemic proportions in the P.I. business, and I usually turn them down. But it so happened that driving out to take his case would put me in close proximity to Chapel Hill, where a professor I'd heard about would be lecturing that Spring. And my friend Tom Pickett would be in the neighborhood later this month. Tom was always down for motorized mayhem, and we hadn't collaborated on any for a while.

I walked out of the hardware store with a short length of copper tubing large enough to stick my finger through, and came face-to-face with a pawn shop apparently deprived of a fresh coat of paint since Clapton played with the Yardbirds.

Prices could be downright reasonable in these little out-of-the-way places. Always in need of new strings for my 1958 Chet Adkins Gretsch. I wandered in to sniff out a bargain.

It was like entering a movie theater after hours in the desert sun. I paused just inside the door to let my eyes adjust.

It was colder in this building than it was outside. Four stocky men stood around a kerosene heater sharing a jar of pickled pig's feet. They looked old enough to be born of Confederate veterans, which is probably why they gave the fashion-oblivious Yankee such suspicious scrutiny.

I nodded politely and said, hey.

One of them nodded back.

Hey is the North Carolina equivalent of How do you do, "Shalom, or Aloha." My knowing this should have tipped them off that I was no greenhorn. But my wardrobe makes it difficult for certain cultural persuasions to overcome their suspicions, and such seemed to be the case here.

I felt their eyes on me as I walked deeper into the cool, dank room. To their credit, they managed to keep their conversation about Jimmy-Joe-Billy-Bob's old International Harvester going even while they stared holes through the back of my skull. Through the dust and cobwebs I could make out shapes of musical instruments. There were also books and sheet music that had probably been out of print for decades. Underneath a dusty accordion I made out the neck and lower third of a guitar body against one wall—some cheap Strat knockoff, I assumed—and approached it in case the strings were located nearby.

I found some strings, and they were priced reasonably enough. Then I took a closer look at the guitar on the wall.

I read Fender on the headstock. This was no knockoff.

I removed the tattered accordion hanging over it and saw she had only one cutaway and two pickups.

I'd never owned a solid-body guitar. I prefer a hollow-body electric mostly for the sound...damn the microphonic feedback; full speed ahead...but also because it can be heard without amplification if necessary. If there's no place to plug in, and batteries for the portable amp are dead, I could still play Caldonia by the campfire or on a street corner. I picked around on solid bodies at jam sessions here and there, but most of what I knew about them came from books.

I took her down from the wall and blew half a century of dust off. I found myself face-to-fret with an ancient blonde Fenter Telecaster. The Bakelite pickguard, threaded three-saddle bridge with detachable cover, and 21 frets told me this was an early '50s model. I took it down to see how badly the neck was warped.

The neck was not warped.

At all.

My palms began sweating. The frets were in good shape, as was the bridge and nut. Even the pickups looked mint. I pulled the orange shop rag out of my hip pocket and polished her clean.

She was a beauty. The action was shallow enough for easy finger work but plenty high for slide. I plucked an A chord. The strings were shot and horribly out of tune.

What was her story? Who once owned her? What did they play? How did she wind up in this junk pile?

Early 1950s... Chrysler introduced Hydroguide (power steering). The first radial tires hit the streets. The telephone answering machine and the videotape recorder were invented (but only Hollywood private eyes seem to have owned them). 3D movies debuted, along with the first color television broadcasts—though it was doubtful anyone had a color set to watch them on. Most families ate supper at the same table at the same time. Some still huddled around the large wood cabinet radio together, listening to The Shadow, Jack Benny or The Lone Ranger. Other radios—tiny ones—first appeared in the US bearing the quaint brand name Sony. RCA developed the first musical synthesizer. Youngsters sifted through Gospel, mining out musical lodes used to develop Rhythm & Blues and Doo-Wop. Rock & Roll was on the way, but hadn't fully arrived. And a radio repairman named Leo Fender began selling his modular-designed solid body electric guitars, initially called the Esquire or Broadcaster.

Maybe this guitar had hung for years on a music store wall before somebody first bought it. The buyer was perhaps a guitarist for a Country/Western band; or a club musician in a Jazz combo; or some pimple-faced kid with dreams of becoming a juke box hero.

Eventually the Country/Western picker, longing to eat supper with the rest of the family each night, quit the band and took a job selling telephone answering machines to Hollywood private eyes. The Jazz man had a non-radial tire blow out while driving his new Chrysler at highway speed, and, not familiar with the newfangled power steering, lost control and was killed instantly upon impact with a truckload of transistor radios. The pimple-faced teenager—unable to tune in a Rhythm & Blues station on the white side of the tracks—tired of listening to The Shadow, Jack Benny and The Lone Ranger, went shopping for a musical synthesizer, bought the guitar instead, and bumped into his true love in 3D glasses staggering out of the bijou with a headache from watching Cat Women of the Moon in the balcony seats. He married her, settled down in a modest middle class bungalow and watched their black & white television happily ever after, forgetting all about Leo Fender's techno-musical innovations.

Yup; that's how it happened. The wife/the girlfriend/the mother hocked the Telecaster; stowed it in an attic or gave it to someone who stashed it away between the book they would read one of these days and the barbell set they hadn't got around to using just yet.

Maybe it had been waiting for someone who would finally recognize its purpose.

Play the guitar, do ya? Asked one of the old geezers, approaching from my left.

Yeah. I ran my fingers over the spiderweb pattern in the varnish. What's her story?

He shrugged. It's been a-hangin' there long as I remember.

My heart pounded the drum track for Helter Skelter. I hung the Fender back up and tried to look around nonchalantly so that Bubba wouldn't catch on to how badly I wanted that mysterious axe. I performed a mental inventory of how much folding money I had available.

I got a couple nice acoustics, the man offered. To conceal my intentions, I looked them over and asked about prices. After exchanging a few words with him, I gained a valuable insight into his disposition: Bubba measured monetary worth in terms of newness. Ironic, for the proprietor of a shop that boasted nothing made since some Hollywood private eye let videotape technology fall into the hands of Joe Public.

I tried to swallow the lump in my throat and keep my voice steady. How much for that beat-up old electric over there? I asked, as ambivalent as I could manage.

Two hunnert, he said. Old Bubba must have misinterpreted my blanch, for he quickly added, At least that's what they normally sell for.

I mumbled something even I didn't understand and left the store to collect my senses. I had found a deal that rivaled the urban legends I'd heard from fellow guitarists and gearheads throughout my life—like the proverbial low-mileage, single-owner, rust-free AAR Cuda found in the proverbial farmer's shed for the proverbial chump change.

Now I knew what young Arthur must have felt, once he realized he could yank that ancient blade out of the rock.

My gut instincts implored me to acquire the Telecaster at any cost, as if it was a key that could unlock some door I must go through. She spoke to me, promising magic which transcends mere notes and chords. Of course I imagined the magic would help me conquer the ethnocentric attitudes of Memphis club owners; assumed the doorway would lead to a brand new Blues revival spearheaded by Yours Truly...

When I went back into the store, toting my portable amp, I wore a poker face that hot coals on my lap couldn't have cracked. I told Bubba I might find some use for the old Telecaster after all, then forgot all about him and his cronies while I plugged in and got my mojo workin'.

The strings that were on the guitar couldn't hold a key for more than a second, but it had a bright, sharp tone and remarkable sustain. The cutaway gave my left hand access all the way up the fret board for those hyper-sonic chords I like to punctuate some solos with. With her sweet action, bar chords were a breeze (where I come from, real guitarists never use a capo). In short, she was a painless joy to play.

I laid down $140 and Bubba threw in the case and a set of strings.

If the Catholic worldview is right, I will spend many years in purgatory for suckering those poor old bumpkins like that. If the Hindus are right, I won't advance to a higher level of evolution in the next life. I prefer the Jewish outlook concerning such matters...so I went into the local greasy spoon and had the cook prepare a burnt offering.

II

THE INFIDELITY BOOGIE

Iresumed my descent out of the Smokey Mountains. As if sharing my euphoria, the cloud cover broke and the sun reappeared as the road before me sank down into the dark green Carolina lowlands. I selected Clarence Gatemouth Brown’s vintage Texas Blues from the Peacock sessions on my CD changer, banged into cruising gear and sent Smokestack Lightnin ’ toward the horizon at a comfortable 120.

I indulged in a familiar time-travel fantasy: This was not 1994 but some simpler era before a national speed limit, police radar and omnipresent traffic. My vehicle was an open-wheel T-bucket or a channeled Deuce roadster I picked up for $50 and stuffed with an engine I put together for $100. I could turn on the radio and find good music on most stations—not the fraudulent, watered-down, commercialized pap now called Rock & Roll. Drugs, sexual perversion and gullible-yet-cynical political activism were still far from mainstream, hence easy to ignore. Rock & Roll was in its pioneer days, as was hot-rodding. The youth of America channeled their rebellious energy into one or the other. I was into both. Maybe I was Chuck Berry or Tornado Fuller or Gene Vincent, driving to the next Allan Freed concert, where I could blow out the music that drove my heel.

I rolled into the lush, green estate of my client with plenty of time to spare.

Wilk was a rich southern boy, but not too snobby.

First of all, he didn't turn up his nose at Smokestack Lightnin’ like most clients do.

I'll admit that the '69 Mercury Cyclone Spoiler II wouldn’t strike many Generation X-ers as the NASCAR juggernaut it once was. But when configured as mine was—chrome-free, shaved door handles, subtle aerodynamic mods, and murderously raked down from mammoth rear hides on aluminum wheels—it had a beauty that at least the Elect could see. Even in orange-brown primer.

Secondly, Wilk tried to keep his disapproval of my hybrid dress code to himself (on this particular day I wore a flannel shirt and cargo pants with high-top moccasins).

Deacon Jones, I announced. He nodded and moved aside to let me through the door.

Long way from home, aren't you? he asked, with barely enough energy to form the words.

I shrugged. Just delivered a bail-jumper in Knoxville when Horace told me about your problem. Wasn't that far and I've been meaning to get back this way anyhow.

Bail-jumper, he echoed, mechanically.

I’m a skip-tracer, too. I handed him a business card listing a few of my specialties with my email address and the Old Man's phone number. He stared at it for a long moment, as if unable to focus on the print.

'Truth is not always evident, but it is there for the finding', he read.

I nodded and forced a smile. I had those cards printed before my enthusiasm for the P.I. scene...and grandiose mottos...waned.

Collecting dirt on petty criminals had been satisfying enough, at first. But I never really caught bad guys—just spied on them. Idealism wore off and boredom set in. Sitting in a parked car for hours on end trying to ignore a swollen bladder while waiting for some embezzler or insurance scammer or deadbeat dad to make a move wasn’t exactly exposing the sort of truth I found most important.

At this point in my life I'd be more content finding truth on the race track or playing music...but what can ya do?

I hear you don't like to handle infidelity jobs, Wilk said, staring right through me.

True. It's not what I got in the business for.

It won't affect your performance I hope?

You'll get your money's worth.

He nodded absently as he sat down in his plush recliner and motioned for me to sit on the couch across from him.

Maybe his living room was Mrs. Wilk's best effort at the feminine touch. The carpet must have been an inch thick and all the furniture gleamed dollar signs. I didn’t see one single color I could pronounce. Rather than feeling cozy, the furnishings intimidated me. I assumed a militaristic bearing, afraid I might smudge, wrinkle or stain something if I got too comfortable.

Here's the most recent picture of her, he said, handing me a portrait shot of a thin, attractive woman with frosted auburn hair, a practiced public-relations smile, and wearing a business suit.

She a realtor too? I asked.

No. She's a Lavco 'distributor.' Calls it her 'business.' She spends a third of my income on stuff we never use, and spends most of her day convincing other folks to do the same. Goes to meetings all the time, and dresses like a bank exec. She just left for an 'important' meeting in Goldsboro.

Lavco started out as a partnership between two soap salesmen back in the 1970s; now it was one of the top pyramid schemes East of the Mississippi.

What was it made you start suspecting hanky-panky? I asked.

Educated guesswork, he said. Gut feelings. I could feel it when she lost interest in me. She's clever, but not consistently so. She's been spending more and more time with friends and 'business colleagues.' It's the only time she seems happy. She's passionless about me. When I...try to be...affectionate...she often can't hide her irritation.

Wilk was a scarecrow of a man with huge feet, pumpkin-colored hair and ridiculously large ears. His complexion was the worst that European ancestry had to offer. His teeth were large and crooked and his chin round and weak. He probably hadn't enjoyed much female attention in his lonely lifetime.

She invited some of her friends to dinner with us last week, he said. She almost never does anything with me anymore unless someone else tags along. Anyway, at one point she and one of her male colleagues hugged each other. They did this in front of me, as if it were an innocent, friendly thing—and by all appearances it was. Had you seen it, I'm sure you would have thought it innocent enough. But, for some reason, I felt like I'd been gutshot. And the sinking sensation...

He shivered and tried to lick his lips, but his dry tongue stuck to one of them.

Who was the guy? I asked.

I don't even remember his name. I was too... I never did ask her about him, either. Maybe I'm screwy, but I'm sure something's going on.

I cleared my throat. And you need me to find out what.

Right. And please take pictures. I don't want any room for doubt.

And if you're wrong? I suggested, if you are just paranoid after all?

For a moment his eyes focused and I knew that he was looking at me, not through me. I'm an ugly man, Mr. Jones. But I've dealt with enough women to read her eyes, her tone, her silences... I'd love to be proven wrong about her, but...

I nodded, trying hard not to let my sympathy cause me to encourage more hope than was justified. There's no such thing as a sure thing, was all I could say. So anyway, does the job end there?

I'll pay when I have the pictures. I'll pay more if you have to testify.

Fair enough, I said. Now what I need from you is more information about your wife: Tastes in food, recreational habits, her Social Security number, license plate number, numbers of credit cards now in her possession, the exact address of this Lavco meeting, names of her friends and business colleagues—the more you can give me the better.

After Wilk had accommodated me, we shook hands in parting. He was staring through me again.

I crept off the property as quietly as Hedman headers, three-inch exhaust pipe and Flowmaster mufflers would allow.

I wondered what it was about Nathan Wilk that had attracted Nancy in the first place. Integrity? Intelligence?

Excitement, most likely. Or money. Wasn't everything about money these days, even for those who supposedly despised materialism?

Men still chased after pretty faces and hot bodies (ergo their obsession with wealth and power, so they could afford such trophies); women still yearned for men with the ability to provide plenty (ergo their facelifts and breast enhancements, so they could attract sugar daddies with status symbols). Industrial and sexual revolutions notwithstanding, we'd reverted to cave dwellers.

It was an indictment against our culture that big money could be made trying to catch cheating spouses in the act. It was an indictment against me that I agreed to make money that way.

I had to get out of this business.

III

SUPPER FOR A SONG

Before motorvating for Goldsboro, I swung through Chapel Hill to pick up a Spring class schedule at Carolina U. No way was I gonna leave Tarheel Country without sitting in on at least one of Dr. Ledbetter's lectures about the subtexts of American popular music.

I rolled through the maze-like campus until I found what seemed to be a free parking lot, then dismounted and strolled into a lecture hall. I found a stack of Spring schedules in a tall metal basket inside the door and pulled one off the top.

Bingo: Three classes taught by Dr. Ledbetter. The one I wanted met the next morning.

After finding the lecture hall where Dr. Ledbetter's class would be held, I located the computer center. Impersonating a student (my disguise entailed a T-shirt with a green alien face and a book bag thrown over one shoulder) and flirting with the girl at the help desk allowed me to get in without the identification check threatened by signs outside every room.

Before midnight, between hacking and phone calls to my other resources, I scored the Goldsboro hotel hosting the Lavco meeting and Nancy Wilk's room number. I also found the names of the occupants of the adjoining rooms. At that point it was simple to find out which conference room was reserved for the Lavco meeting. By then my eyes were tired and I needed a smoke. I logged off and went for a stroll around campus.

Remembering my earlier find, I hustled back to my parking space and yanked the Telecaster out of the trunk. I re-strung it quickly and sat down to see what it could do.

With the bridge cover detached I had no problem muting strings with the heel of my hand or ball of the thumb, or plucking the bottom string so that it slapped against the frets in a percussive backbeat during Blues licks. I switched from finger-backstrokes to a pick and she still rang like a bell.

I juked around for a while, thought about sacking out for the night, and looked up to see a pretty bleached blond leaning against my quarter-panel, listening to my faint, unamplified experiments. She was a pint-sized bombshell.

Looks like an early Telly, she said.

You play? I asked, resting my digits.

Classical, she said with a dreamy smile, but my ex-boyfriend had a band. Don't stop.

Ex-boyfriend. The ol' hormone-o-tron jumped at the use of that promising code phrase.

I picked around while we chatted.

Her name was Sheila Cage, she was 21, a junior majoring in marketing, and a farmer's daughter from Fuquay-Varina. Marketing was a means to a career path deemed safe by prevailing wisdom, but her heart was in music and dancing.

She wrinkled her nose in an adorable expression. 'Deacon Jones' can't be your real name.

You can call me Deke.

Isn't that a football player's name?

Los Angeles Rams, I said. Part of the Fearsome Foursome in the '60s.

You were named after him?

Both of us were named after another Deacon.

For the umpteenth time, she reached back to collect her hair as if about to tie it into a pony tail, only to let it spread gloriously out again. Play me a song.

I've misinterpreted signals too many times to pounce on the first one, so I normally let it float. But now the ol' hormone-o-tron was thrumming like a dynamo at the Hoover Dam. I thought back to the girl she reminded me of, and how I had messed up and lost her.

I'm fairly beat, Sheila. Maybe some other time?

I didn't want to remember that failure. Or worse yet: relive it.

She touched my wrist, brightening. Come over to my dorm. Plug in. Play for me and my suite mates.

It's amazing what a simple little human touch can do from a certain person. Hoover Dam is up in smoke, up in smoke...my fair lady.

They're still awake?

She nodded. I'll  cook you something.

I gave her an appraising scan. She was a scorcher in my book...a girl I would have pined for in high school (bleached blonde or not) but might never have approached, assuming she was already taken. She sure was making her availability obvious now.

You cook?

She batted her eyelashes at me in exaggerated coyness. Why Mr. Jones, she drawled, I'm a southern girl.

Lawdy-lawdy. Wisdom can only prevail so long. If she was gonna lay it on that thick, I was sure gonna bite.

I put the Fender back in the case, grabbed Caldonia, my amplifier and my VHS copy of Crossroads, then we were off to Sheila's dorm.

Up in Sheila's suite, occupied by three other apparently good-natured, fun-loving young ladies, I covered Big Joe Turner’s Boogie-Woogie Country Girl. All four of them clapped and shimmied along with me, applauded after the final chord, then proceeded to make me feel like a visiting dignitary while Sheila fried some chicken and rice on a cast iron skillet.

Her fingers were smooth and feminine. She had golden skin and a pleasant fragrance. Her sunny smile came from a voluptuous mouth and huge, expressive eyes. The Carolina sun had not only put little crinkles at the corners of those warm soul-windows, it had also baked a sprinkle of soft freckles around and over the upper half of her nose. She looked quite fetching even in the gigantic flannel shirt that hung down almost to her knees—when she put hands-on-hips or moved in certain ways, the most mesmerizing motions and contours teased me from within.

After eating, Sheila made it obvious that she didn't want me to leave just yet. She was all too willing to pop Crossroads in the VCR.

My unapologetic taste in cars, music, movies and what-have-you had eventually proved bones of contention with other women. If my favorite low-budget film of the '80s spoiled it this time, so be it. If she can't dig Crossroads, she can't truly dig me.

As we watched Eugene track down Blind Dog Fulton to the tune of a note-for-note remake of Robert Johnson's Crossroads Blues, the distance between us on the sofa closed up until I could slip my arm around her. She cuddled up against me like a warm, contented kitten.

As stimulating as all this was, the long day and the big meal caught up with me. Before Jamie Gertz left Ralph Machio in the second act, my dopey mind was playing its own little movie that wouldn't make any sense when I awakened.

My eyes opened and I found myself in strange surroundings. This was by no means irregular. It only took a groggy moment to rewind back to the previous night and realize I was on the couch in Sheila's dormitory. My moccasins were off and a blanket and quilt covered me from toes to neck.

I sat up straight, rubbing my eyes, and thought about this for a while.

She tucked me in.

Was Sheila even real, or some cyborg pod-person sent from a totalitarian regime in A.D. 2460 to make me give up my rocking, rolling, nomadic hotrod ways lest I inadvertently spark a revolution that dooms their entire culture?

I hurried to vacate before I had time to really start pondering the country college cutie.

None of the girls were stirring yet, so I put my moccasins on, searched the sofa for lost articles from my pockets, and gathered up my stuff. I left a thank-you note for Sheila, used the bathroom and locked the front door behind me on the way out.

I put Caldonia, my amp and videotape back in the trunk, extracted my jock bag and walked to the gym for a shower, teeth-brushing and a change of clothes. Then I found the cafeteria and choked down some biscuits and gravy while doodling lyrics for the next song I wanted to write.

This was my habitual breakfast staple since first venturing out on my own, though these days I could usually afford a fancier meal if I really wanted one. A couple bucks saved on a menu was a few more gallons of gas in my tank, meaning several miles of free-breathing security rather than rolling up to my next gig on seven cylinders and a prayer.

When I returned to replace the jock bag in my trunk, there was a parking ticket and a note from Sheila under my windshield wiper. The note gave her phone number and a brief message:

Deke: You're welcome. I had fun, too. How can I get ahold of you?

I wadded up the ticket and pitched it toward the nearest garbage can. My conscience told me to do the same with the note, but my hands wouldn't listen. They folded the note, slid it in my notebook and I left for Dr. Ledbetter's class.

IV

THE SHAPELY PROFESSOR

Isat in the back of the auditorium, looking over a sea of college kids. Many subcultures coalesced into an archipelago throughout the room—there were preppy cliques, jock cliques, Gothic cliques, grunge cliques, sorority cliques and frat boy cliques. Near my seat a small island formed of young black men trying to look intellectual yet streetwise and angry. I checked to make sure my miniature recorder was working, then sat back and waited, wishing I could smoke but knowing better.

Some people will spend hours, or days, or months, playing a video game or perfecting a recipe. Learning more about music was my addiction in those days. When near a library, I checked out books. When near a computer with internet capability, I scoured music newsgroups. How many times had a thread on my favorite subscriptions started with, Yesterday in Ledbetter's class we discussed...? There were a couple students of his who posted prolifically, quoting the savvy professor to such an extent I felt deprived for the first time in a while. I had to hear one of his lectures for myself.

I'd learned, by proxy, that Ledbetter had stimulating commentary on American popular music—from tracing the origins of most military marching and running cadences back to old Rhythm & Blues singles to categorizing allusions of carnal acts in song lyrics. His analysis of lyrical subtext was my favorite...social issues dealt with in verse from the Guess Who back to Billie Holiday and even further to Anglo-Saxon nursery rhymes in the Middle Ages.

Precisely at the start time for the class, a secretary from the dean's office walked in from the back door. I groaned. A last minute cancellation? Finally I get a chance to eavesdrop on Ledbetter's class and he happens to be absent that day.

Look at that body! grunted a homeboy next to me wearing a Malcom X hat.

The secretary was a swan-graceful curvaceous black woman with the face of a supermodel. She wore black pumps and a black skirt with a red dress jacket. A white flower decorated her lapel, and a red ribbon adorned her shoulder-length hair.

She stepped up behind the podium and readied the microphone while making small talk with the students in the front row.

Not a secretary, then. I dug for the class schedule I'd taken, assuming I'd gone to the wrong auditorium. This certainly wasn't the grizzled, sage-like old fossil of a professor I'd pictured Ledbetter to be.

Okay, the woman said, what did you all think of your listening assignment?

About a third of the class murmured something to her, and she nodded as if it were intelligible.

Listening assignment. So I was in the right room? This was Dr. Ledbetter? What were the odds of such brains and beauty converging in the same life form?

I almost forgot to start recording.

Well, she said, I want to start off this morning by talking a little bit about ‘American Pie’.

I deflated again. Bye-Bye Miss American Pie was one of those ditty-phrases etched into my eardrums by every Top 40 station every radio was tuned to in the early '70s. Much like the Fig Newton song, it had been broadcast ad nauseum to the point that I'd found myself regurgitating the chorus in moments of boredom despite my dislike for its folksy soft-rock accompaniment.

C'mon, teach us something about the Beatles or Bob Dylan or Elvis. Peel back the drug-induced psychedelic language from White Room or The End or All Along the Watchtower. At least teach us the words to Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress).

She paced leisurely back and forth, absently whipping the mike cable around. Don McLean cut that track in 1971. But the subject matter dealt with events that date back as far as February 1959. Back to 'the day the music died.' Have any of you figured out just what McLean meant by that phrase?

It was about Buddy Holly! called out some jock whose parents had probably clued him in the night before. I had heard this years ago, but dismissed it because the melody did nothing to evoke Buddy Holly's music for me.

Maybe the infantile bye-bye-pie-rye Chevy-levy rhyming did recall Holly's lyrics, though. Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty Peggy-Sue.

Ledbetter nodded slowly. "The day in question was when McLean found out Buddy Holly was killed in a plane crash along with Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper. But McLean doesn't call it 'the day Buddy Holly died.' Or 'the day my favorite musician died.' It was the day the music died."

She paused for emphasis, or perhaps collecting her thoughts. "Ominous. Foreboding. It's a clue to what the song is really about—not just Buddy Holly. It's about something much bigger than the death of a musician: 'In the streets the children screamed, lovers cried and the poets dreamed. But not a word was spoken...the church bells all were broken.' Wake up, folks: something ominous has just happened.

This is a song about turning points. The day the music died was a turning point—for Rock & Roll, a turning point in adolescent Don McLean's life, the world as he saw it, and arguably a turning point in American history.

I shifted in my seat, now struggling to recall the lyrics I had tried so hard to forget.

A long, long time ago...and I can still remember

How that music used to make me smile.

And I knew if I had my chance

I could make those people dance...

To be honest, those words made me think of my childhood, and my own musical ambitions. The music had made me smile, too. And if not for the prejudices of certain club owners, I could've had my chance to make those people dance.

What was happening in the world in those days? Dr. Ledbetter asked. Rock & Roll was changing, sure. There were the payola scandals. Elvis was drafted. Jerry Lee Lewis was ostracized for incest. Chuck Berry was imprisoned. Saxophone-accompanied Doo-Wop and race-record Rhythm & Blues would soon give way to girl groups, beach music, Motown... Disk Jockeys were being forced to abide by play lists. What had been once considered 'colored' music was now a white-dominated music.

I glanced toward the homeboys to catch their reaction, but saw none. One cat wearing an Africa map sweater was showing an open CD case to a compatriot with a shirt that said, You wouldn't understand: It's a black thang.

But a lot more than music was in upheaval, Ledbetter said. "America was about to enter a tumultuous decade. Sputnik had recently been launched. The Space Race was on. Kennedy would replace Eisenhower—and be assassinated inside his first term. The Cuban Missile Crisis: 'The Byrds flew off to the fallout shelter.' A nuclear balance of terror was taking shape. America was becoming involved in an Asian land war, but patriotism was no longer en vogue. The children born to the survivors of World War II were old enough to be drafted, but had neither the inclination nor the incentives to fight as their fathers had. Marijuana and hallucinogenic drugs were moving from the inner cities into mainstream culture. The Civil Rights movement was about to get started. As Bob Dylan pointed out, the times, they were a-changing."

Okay, maybe this wouldn't be so bad. History fascinated me; and especially the 1960s.

Let's backtrack for a moment, she said. What's one of the clues McLean gives us that Buddy Holly has just died? Anybody?

Silence. My lips moved in long-unpracticed sequences.

What do the good old boys keep saying? she hinted.

The good ol' boys. Never meanin' no harm... No, wait; wrong infantile ditty-phrase! They were drinkin' whiskey and rye, singin'...

'This'll be the day that I die.' Doesn't that sound familiar to any of you? It was on your listening assignment.

'That'll Be the Day'? suggested a girl up front, seconds after I'd thought of it but perhaps an eternity before my mouth would have blurted it out in this class I hadn't paid to attend.

Thank you, Ledbetter said, grinning. Her perfect white teeth almost blinded me. "'That'll Be the Day that I Die.' See what happened? McLean took Holly's future-tense lyrics and made them present-tense. It's important to know that, because there are similar clues all throughout ‘American Pie’ that will help you understand what is being said.

For instance: 'And as Lenin read a book on Marx, the quartet practiced in the park.' Now what do Marx and Lenin have to do with Buddy Holly? Nothing directly. But is Vladimir Lenin really the subject of this verse? I'd say that the reference to a quartet practicing in the park reveals this Lenin as John Lennon of the Beatles. A 'car-park' is the British term for what we call a garage. The Beatles were just a Liverpool garage band when Buddy Holly died. But in five years, their plane would touch down in the United States and American music would be changed forever.

Suddenly I wished I had a notebook and the world's fastest pencil. Verses came back to me over the fog of time, spawning ideas and questions and theories I couldn't keep up with.

Was while sergeants played a marching tune another reference to the Beatles, a la` the Sergeant Pepper's album? Then (Jumpin') Jack Flash was the Rolling stones, and certainly eight miles high and fallin' fast referred to the Byrds. Perhaps the conflict between the football players and the marching band was somehow analogous to Vietnam (the military-industrial complex vs. the flower-power counterculture?), or the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Do you recall what was revealed? The convention was televised, and though the microphones were wisely cut off during one politician's tirade, lip-readers around the nation caught his anti-Semitic remarks.

Ledbetter quoted, 'While the King was looking Down, the Jester stole his thorny crown.' The 'King' here might be a double entendre. The 'thorny crown' is a reference to Christ. Some could argue that John Lennon helped strip Christ of His crown with his shocking statement that the Beatles were bigger than God. And meanwhile, Elvis Presley—'the King'—returned to civilian life only to lose his predominantly young female audience to the Beatles. Then again, some insist the jester is Bob Dylan.

Yes, yes, I saw it now. We were on the same page, Ledbetter and I. We unraveled the tapestry of McLean's cryptic lyrics together like caffeine-charged linguists interpreting the quatrains of Nostredamus.

We were all in one place—a generation lost in space. Was McLean talking about the campy sci-fi TV show, or Woodstock? No angel born in hell could break that Satan's spell. The Hell's Angels were tasked with security at Altamont, and beat somebody to death while Mick Jack Flash Jagger sang and pranced onstage like a drunken satyr. The flames climbed high into the night to light the sacrificial rite. The lighting of the Olympic torch in Mexico City, where the infamous black power salute took place in '68?

When her lecture ended and class was dismissed, Dr. Ledbetter's insights replayed in my mind. I could have listened to her all day and into the night. I wanted to ask her a thousand questions. I wanted her opinion on a hundred different songs. I wanted to kidnap her and suck the knowledge out of her brain. I descended the path to the bottom of the auditorium where she gathered her books and notes.

Unfortunately, a few dozen students beat me to her, crowding around to ask questions—mostly regarding the syllabus, the next exam or banal things like Madonna's latest video or Guns 'n' Roses'  behavior at awards ceremonies. I had the insane notion we could review American Pie line-by-line until it was crystal clear to me everything McLean was singing about.

I was nowhere close to breaking through the mob when her time was up to make way for the next class. She slipped out the back door, leaving me facing the elbows, book bags and mildly inquisitive faces of her students.

The very next time I visited a pawn shop or garage sale, I would hunt for a CD with American Pie on it. Don McLean had covered Roy Orbison's Crying as well, and done it justice. Maybe I could obtain that song into the bargain.

It's not that McLean's personalized summary of the 1960s was life-changing. What fascinated me was that there was discernible information to be found within the obscure lyrics of American Pie, once I knew it was there to decode.

I also had to hear Dr. Ledbetter speak again. Maybe even find a way to have a conversation with her one-on-one. Yeah. Somehow I'd do it.

Hidden truth is even more alluring to me than a scorching guitar solo or the power of a high-performance engine. Unbeknownst to me thus far, my El Dorado...or Valhalla or Happy Hunting Ground or whatever you call it...was just over the horizon, and would prove much bigger than a spouse-spying job.

In fact, my Lost City of Gold would prove bigger than Rock & Roll.

If Deke Jones was a truth-piercing knife, then Dr. Ledbetter's lecture was a whetstone, sharpening me to a razor edge for the cutting to come, beyond a doorway the guitar in my trunk would unlock.

Smokestack Lightnin's all-aluminum 460 pulled me toward Goldsboro, Nancy Wilk, and the doorway.

V

CREEPIN' AT MIDNIGHT

Ipassed cars like they were standing still on the way down Highway 85. In my mirror I saw some lady in a foreign sport-cart break ranks from the other traffic. Her poor little turbocharged engine, buzzing like a runaway chainsaw, propelled her after me.

I held steady at 90. It took her a moment for her to actually start gaining, and another minute or so before she had caught me. As she started to pass, she turned her face toward me, eyebrows raised in a challenging expression, as if to say, Is that all you got?

I winked at her and nodded my approval. It does my heart good to see other folks dabbling in nonconformity—even when they're biting off more than they can chew.

I pulled onto her tail and stuck there while I mulled over the CDs in my changer. I punched in the track for Golden Earring's Radar Love, arguably the national anthem of high-speed hedonists. I leaned on the accelerator and Smokestack Lightnin’ responded with a throaty snarl while I swung her into the passing lane and got down to business. I pulled abreast of the little turd-shaped wondercar and goosed the throttle a couple times, making the Mercury nudge forward teasingly. Then my electronic watchdog picked up enemy radar.

I quickly scanned over my fuel, oil pressure and temperature gauges. Everything was kosher, so I took that as a good omen and stopped playing around. I wound up to redline and jammed into top gear. Smokestack Lightnin’ leapt forward as if shot from a cannon and left the lady’s pretender shivering in my jet stream. I could only take quick glances in the mirror traveling at this speed. During one such glance I saw some tiny shape with flashing blue lights charge out onto the road.

When I had to slow down for traffic and had time to glance again, the bronze drew close enough for me to hear his siren. I backed off the gas and downshifted, setting my own flashing beacon on the dash and toggling my own siren. The clogged traffic melted away before me and I squirted through, cranking the volume of my police scanner high enough to be heard above Golden Earring's hard-driving beat. Fast on his feet, John Law decided that it would be more prudent to pull the other car over than to let her get away in a futile attempt to catch the large brown vehicle somewhere beyond the next horizon.

Since my plates had not been read, I stayed on the highway but quickly assumed a legal velocity for the benefit of the alerted bronze who would be setting speed traps farther east to intercept the large brown vehicle.

It was hard to crawl the rest of the way to Goldsboro at flow-of-traffic speed, but I gritted my teeth and endured, slowing to my theme song (Jazz Gillum's Key to the Highway) to facilitate my adrenaline shutdown. Even that didn't quite do the trick. I finally had to pull into a rest stop for a smoke to fog the edge off my horsepower rush.

When I rolled into Goldsboro, the nicotine had mellowed me sufficiently to allow inconspicuous navigation. I found the hotel and patted Smokestack Lightnin's dash affectionately as I left her to go inside.

I booked a room just down the hall from Nancy Wilk's. After getting my gear inside, organizing it, and donning suit and tie, I strolled down to the room where the Lavco party was scheduled.

The hired help was clearing out tables in order to set up rows of plastic chairs. I wandered in as if I belonged there and scoped the place out. I walked over to the windows facing the plastic chairs and dropped a yellow napkin from a fast food joint on the sill behind the curtain as I leaned against the frame. While absently fiddling with the window, I managed to unlock it and crank it slightly ajar.

I swaggered back out of the room with just as much bogus authority as I had assumed coming in. Outdoors and around the building I found the window with the yellow napkin on the sill. I looked around and got my bearings so that I could find this particular window later on.

Back inside, I visited the restaurant. Since Mrs. Wilk was a smoker herself, it made my job all the more convenient: I asked for a table in the smoking section and ordered a sandwich. Then I lit up and took a look around without moving my head. My seat was situated so that I could see every table in the smoking section except those masked by a potted hedge growing under a rectangular skylight. Just to get a look behind it, I took a trip to the restroom. I kept my face pointed at the restroom sign but the corner of my eye hit paydirt.

Mrs. Wilk sat at one of the hidden tables with three couples. She being the fourth woman to three men, numbers alone indicated this as an innocent scene. On the way back to my table I got a reverse-angle peripheral look as they got up to leave.

I used to do exercises with my eyes, like staring straight ahead while listing all the objects to my right and left, or shooting a dart gun at targets on the edge of my vision. All that practice paid dividends at times like these.

Nancy, though far from boisterous, laughed and