Lone Star (25 page)

“You just made eight hundred dollars?” Hannah gasped.

Johnny nodded, still panting. “Today was a pretty good day. Did you tip Gregor? Just kidding. That Germanic bore never gets any extra. I tell you what, though, they don't come out like this in the rain. I can't make any money when it rains and the streets are empty.”

He wiped his face and neck on a towel. “I'm soaked, excuse me.” He pulled off his wet T-shirt, grabbed another black T from his duffel. He was skinny like a string, but a string that did forty push-ups in two minutes, and fifty sit-ups, and ran two miles in fifteen minutes with his mic, his bag, and his guitar. He was a steel string. He wasn't tanned, but his skin looked as if at another time, another place it could tan well. On his heart he had a blue tattoo of the star of Texas. Chloe didn't want to ogle. But she did. He had other tattoos. He had large geometric designs on the insides of both forearms, all the way into the
crook of his elbows. They all pretended to look the other way to give him the illusion of privacy. Though there was no more oblivion for this boy.

“Where did you learn to sing like that?” That was her asking him a question. She had finally found a tinny voice.

“My mother sang. My father sang.”

“Professionally?”

“My mother, yes. For a time. Until she ruined her voice. She wanted me to be a singer like her. Though this is probably not what she had in mind.” Johnny was bent over his cables. She couldn't see his face.

“Oh.” She didn't know what to say. “And your dad?”

“He didn't ruin his voice. But he did stop singing when he stopped playing guitar.”

She stayed back, watching him wrap his audio cords around his hand and elbow, waiting for another syllable to fall from his mouth.

He offered her a tidbit of his life. “My grandfather once told me that his uncle had a voice like mine. That was a century ago. Apparently the man could sing like Enrico Caruso.”

“Enrico who?”

“Never mind. Drove all the girls wild.”

“Who did?” muttered Chloe. “Caruso?” She blushed and hoped no one noticed.

Johnny stacked the amps, speakers, the generator, and all his wires. Broke down his equipment in less than twenty minutes, like a pro. The mic stand was aluminum and retractable. He dropped the stand and both mics into his duffel. Mason asked about the other equipment.

“The Bluebirds are mine. But the rest I borrow from a guy I know. Fabius. I give him a percentage of the receipts.”

“What about when you're in Vilnius or somewhere and Fabius isn't around?”

Johnny shrugged. “Usually I can find someone who'll rent
me the gear for a few hours. There's music in every city. But if not, then it's just me and the guitar. I pop the Bluebird on a stand and sing into it as if it's plugged in.”

The three of them, except for Blake, kept whirling around Johnny in little circles.

“So what are you up to next?” Mason asked.

“Not much. Drink a little beer. Smoke a little. Eat maybe. Hang. Chill. What about you guys?”

“We're heading back to Varda's. It's our last night.”

“Yeah, mine too.”

Hannah joined in. “Where are you headed next?”

“Poland.”

“Us too!” She sounded like his cheer squad.

“That's right. I remember.” He smiled at Chloe. “You're still set on Treblinka?”

“Of course,” she said. “You?”

“Well, having been there before, I'm not set on Treblinka. But I did get roped into a private tour of all six death camps for a group of eager-beaver professional tourists.”

“How'd they find you? Do you advertise?”

“Advertise? No. My uncle knows them.”

Mason exchanged meaningful glances with Chloe, with Hannah. No one glanced at sulking Blake.

“How long does a tour like that take?”

Johnny shrugged. “A few days. We start in Warsaw, make our way south to Krakow. Maybe eight days for all six, including travel.”

That's too long, Chloe thought bitterly.

Johnny smiled as if he could read her mind. She really,
really
hoped he couldn't. “I can't remember, are you seeing only Treblinka? Or did your grandmother make you promise to see them all? Because you could come with me on my tour if you wanted. There's definitely room.”

“We're seeing just the one,” Blake cut in. “Maybe Auschwitz, too, if we have time, but we're not sure yet. So we definitely don't
need a tour of all six. And Auschwitz has its own guides. Thanks anyway. Come on, guys—train.”

Mason lifted his hand to stop his brother. Hannah lifted her hand to stop her boyfriend. Only Chloe stayed motionless.

“Blake, hang on, dude,” Mason said. “We were just saying how we don't know how to get to Treblinka.”

“A tour guide in Gdansk will tell us,” Blake said.

Johnny scrunched up his face in disapproval. “Why are you going to Gdansk? It's all the way north and really far from Treblinka. You should come with me. It'll be easier for you.” Johnny raised his hand but not his voice. “Wait, Blake, wait. Hear me out. You don't have to come with me for all six. Just come for the one day I go to Treblinka.”

Hannah nearly jumped in place. “That's a really good idea!”

“It really is, bro.”

Chloe pressed her lips together to keep quiet.

Blake shook his head. “No. We're going to Gdansk. We already decided.”

“You're adding days to your trip.” Johnny's tone was unfazed. “It's going to take a long time to get to Warsaw as it is. And then you've got quite a way out of Poland to Spain. I wouldn't be wasting my time on Gdansk if I were you.”

“Bro, he's right,” Mason said. “We want to make sure we have as long as possible in Barcelona.”

“Though I will repeat,” said Johnny, “a week in Barcelona in August is plenty.”

Blake stiffened as if he wanted to punch him.

It was time for Chloe to speak up. “Blake,” she said softly. “We shouldn't go to Gdansk if we don't have to.”

“We made our plans, Chloe,” Blake said.

“Listen, dudes and dudettes,” Johnny said. “It's no skin off my nose either way. I am simply offering. I'm hiring a charter bus from a guy I know in Warsaw.” He bowed slightly. “What can I say, I know a lot of guys. The bus sits ten plus the driver. Five of them, plus me, plus four of you. It's ideal. And it'll save you
the trouble of getting to Treblinka by train, and that's trouble, believe me. I'm just trying to help. Do whatever you want, of course. You don't have to pay for the tour or anything. I still owe you one.” He smiled. “Though another dinner at Varda's would be delightful. I'll bring the drink and dessert this time—I'm flush.” He shook his wooden box. All the equipment black and heavy was stacked into a Fisher Price red wagon with a beige plastic handle.

Chloe stood, hoping and praying someone else would leap up and invite him to go with them to Varda's, so she wouldn't have to. Quick, her insides kept yelling, quick, before he changes his mind. Hannah and Mason made excited eyes at Blake, who glared back in rank resentment. “Johnny, we need a minute.”

“Take all the time you need, dude. I'll go get myself another beer. Anyone want one? It's on me. Oh, and I'll grab some dessert from Rigensis for Varda.”

“The line is over an hour at the bakery,” Blake said.

“Don't worry.” Johnny winked. “I know a guy. Be back in ten. Can you watch my stuff?”

He left them with his red wagon, his duffel, and his box of money. The only thing he took with him was the guitar. They were left alone in the becalmed Livu Square. It was nearing seven. The sun was still high in the sky, the air was warm, redolent with spilled hops and pickled cabbage and wild purple.

Everything was the same. Nothing was the same. Chloe couldn't look at Mason, couldn't look at Blake, couldn't look at Hannah.

“Have you lost your minds?” was the first thing out of Blake's mouth.

“Blake, come on, man,” Mason said. “It'll help us. We don't know where to go, you have to admit that. And he does. Look, we were headed to Gdansk. That's proof right there that we need a tour guide.”

“Like herpes we need him.”

“Blakie,” said Hannah, “it's just for a few days. If we don't like it, we can always bug out.”

“I don't like it now.”

“Bro . . . come on.”

“Blakie . . . come on.”

Chloe said nothing. She didn't have to.

It was one Blake against three swooning teenagers with puppy-dog eyes over Johnny's marmalade skies. Everyone knew Blake stood no chance, even Blake. He spat before he walked away to be by himself, while they waited for Johnny to come back with the beers and the boxes of pastries, and then ran to tell him the good news, the great news. We can go with you, we will go with you.

Blake may have been immune to Johnny's magic, but no one else was. His voice was what made Chloe trust him. It was an offering from God, gold rain thrown from blue heights, it was like grace. It was impossible to overstate the effect that his singing had had on her. What was the matter with Blake that he couldn't warm to the boy-man who chanted sobs of poetry like the Gregorian monks at the Resurrection? It was quite a feat on Johnny's part to make Blake come out looking like the bad guy. But, truly, it was as if they all had stepped inside the Cathedral of Notre Dame during Pentecost high mass, witnessed astral greatness, and Blake was the only one left unmoved.

They raised their beers to each other. Blake refused his, so Johnny drank it. They perched on the stone wall by the Guildhall, quenched their thirst, and chatted agreeably, Mason and Johnny like old friends, Hannah and Chloe sitting shoulder to shoulder, admiring. Blake was the fifth wheel, surly and ungracious.

“Hannah, go make your boyfriend feel better,” Chloe whispered.

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“How? Use your feminine wiles. Tell him something warm, something he wants to hear.”

“He's being ridiculous and childish. I'm not going to kowtow to that. That's enabling his immaturity. Not going to happen. You go make him feel better if it's so important to you.”

Blake

“So what's your plan for getting to Warsaw, dude?” Johnny asked me, as if we were friends.

“I don't know. What's
your
plan for getting to Warsaw?”

“Mine is to take the 7:00
A.M.
bus to Vilnius, and then a train out of Vilnius to Warsaw. What about you?”

“We're not taking any buses, so . . .”

“Oh, so you've looked at the train schedule?”

Through clamped teeth: “Of course I've looked at the train schedule.”

Johnny smirked. From his olive-drab Mary Poppins bag he produced a thick worn book, ripped up and faded.
European Rail and Bus Timetable, August 2004
.

“I hope this is where you check your train times.”

“No, we have the
Travelers' Railway Map of Europe
.” It was easier to read, but I didn't want to tell him that.

“Pig nonsense.” He leafed through my book dramatically, for humor, I assume, though I was not in the least humored. “There is no direct train from Riga to Gdansk. Or Riga to Warsaw. So what do you want to do?”

That couldn't be right!

“What would
you
do, Johnny?” asked Hannah.

I didn't even give my girlfriend a scolding glance. “There's got to be a train,” I said. “There simply has to be.”

“It's ludicrous, I know. But that's the way it is. As the crow flies, Warsaw is only five hundred miles from here and yet there's no direct train.”

I tried not to make my hands into fists. I asked for my useless book back.

“It'll take me,” Johnny continued, “if I'm lucky and make all my connections and don't run into any bus delays or construction or accidents, until midnight tomorrow to reach Warsaw. And that's with taking the bus to Vilnius. You could take several trains to get to Vilnius. First you'll have to take a train to Daugavpils that runs only once a day, in the evening. Which means you'll have to stay overnight in that border town. I myself don't recommend it for a number of reasons, one being it'll take you an extra day. Did you budget two days to go five hundred miles?” He smiled winningly. I wanted to poison him. I wanted to put salmonella in his hair.

We were deflated. We hated the bus. “Blakie, please don't tell me we have to take the bus,” Hannah said in a whine.

“You absolutely don't have to, Hannah,” said Johnny. “Take the train to the border. You can stay overnight in a hostel in Daugavpils. But pick a place carefully, because some have a rat problem. Also, make sure you get up in time to catch the 5:30 train to Vilnius, because the next one is not until a full day later. You will, however, have a three-hour layover in Vilnius. Blake did say yesterday he wanted to see the Gates of Dawn. Blake, you'll have three hours to gaze at Ausros Vartai before you board the 11:20 to Warsaw. With two train changes, it'll take you eleven more hours. I'll be halfway done with my five-city tour, but you'll be just getting into Poland. Welcome to East European travel.”

No one had a word to say. Especially me.

“It doesn't make sense,” said Chloe. “How can a bus be faster than the train?”

“The bus sits fifty people instead of five hundred,” Johnny explained to her, too patiently by my reckoning. “So when it stops at the border, it takes less time for passport check.”

“Isn't it all part of the EU?” I said.

Johnny nodded slowly. “It is, my good man, it is. But so what? You're not a member of the EU, are you? And neither are half the people on that bus. Not even me. They have to check everyone's
papers at the border. That's how it is. They'd have to check us on the Canadian or the Mexican border, right? So a bus makes passport control faster, the train slower. But it's up to you. Me, I must get to Warsaw by tomorrow night. I have no choice, because the next morning at eight, me and my five world travelers are driving to Majdanek.”