The Revelations of Preston Black (Murder Ballads and Whiskey Book 3) (35 page)

I dried my face off with a clean white
towel that smelled a little like the fabric softener Pauly’s mom used. I tried
to pee, and couldn’t. Anything to kill time. But the play clock ticked faster,
and I made up my mind to make the best of whatever happened tonight, figuring I
could deal with the fallout on Monday. But when I turned the corner I heard a
bunch of voices in the green room.

I clenched my fist and slowly drifted
toward the end of the hall. That was when I saw Rachael standing in the
doorway.

“The Collins clan doesn’t do anything
quietly,” I said, relaxing a bit. “How’s everybody doing?”

“We’re good. How’s Preston doing?” She
put her arm around me.

“Better now.” I tucked my hands into
my back pockets as she let me pass. I said, “Jamie and Ben?”

Rachael gently placed her hand on my
elbow and said, “Jamie’s at the soundboard.”

“And Ben is at the bar,” Chloey added.

I looked at her and said, “How’re
you?”

A bandaged little hand peeked out from
behind her jacket’s zipper. Her left sleeve hung limply at her side. “It hurts
bad.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

She half-shrugged. “I got a
prescription for the pain, but Mom’s afraid I’ll abuse my pills and become a
druggie.”

“Want me to kiss it and make it
better?” I laughed, awkwardly.

She smiled. “I got something you can
kiss.”

“Chloey,” Rachael scolded. “Preston,
my little girls were so innocent until they met you.”

“Sorry,” I said. She probably didn’t
know how much I’d truly meant it.

She hugged me and held me for a
moment. “I can’t wait to have you guys back home. What do I have to do to keep
you from running all over like this?”

Katy stood in the far corner next to
Alex, slipping a tiny white rose into her hair behind her left ear. On the
table next to her fiddle sat a bouquet of flowers in a vase, a fruit basket,
and a bottle of champagne that the label must’ve sent over.

But I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
She had a curl in her hair and cherry red nails and lips. Beneath her eyes she
wore just a little more dark eyeliner than usual. She pointed at her fiddle,
there on the table.

I defended myself with, “I asked him
to sit in on a few songs.”

“Is that right?” She turned to her
cousin. “Or did he think I wouldn’t show?”

Henry answered as diplomatically as
possible, which meant he didn’t say a thing.

“Thanks, man.” I grabbed Katy’s little
hand and pulled her over to me. She smelled like a plum blossom and looked like
an angel. I kissed her. “Where’d you go?”

“Retail therapy. Got my nails did.”
She rested her head against my cheek and held out her fingers. “Mom bought you
a new shirt. She thinks we should start matching, like The Osmonds.”

“No, that’s not true, is it?”

Katy said, “She’s not denying it.”

I smiled, but didn’t mean it.

The small talk was nice, but I wanted
a chance to be with to her in private, and knew that wouldn’t happen until we
were in bed at the hotel. It frustrated me, not being able to say what I wanted
to say because of everybody hanging around. We’d been in this situation a
thousand times before, moments when a few words in private could’ve offset a
squabble later. When I felt my stomach ball up, I figured I needed to say what
I had to say no matter what. This was too big to put off until later, when we
were both exhausted. I said, “Are you mad?”

“Pres, tonight, baby. Okay? I’m not
mad. I’m too tired to talk.”

“I understand that. But I have to know
what’s going on with us. We didn’t talk last night when I got back and we
didn’t talk today. We never even got a chance to talk after the church camp and
the boat. All I want to do is talk to you. I miss you, okay? I love you, Katy.
Your disappearance scared the shit out of me. You’re my best friend, and I want
to make sure you’re okay. And that we’re okay.”

By now nobody could say anything. It
was so quiet I could hear the rowdy audience on the other side of the curtain.
Katy looked at her mom and cousin and baby sister. They all seemed to want to
know where she stood as well.

“Honestly?”

“Why not?”

“I want to pick up right where we left
off at the truck stop. Pecan pie and butter pecan. I want to finish that
conversation before we have this one. I figure if we finish that conversation,
this one won’t matter.” She put her arms around me.

When I held her, I felt invincible. I
wondered how this girl could make me feel so safe and strong. When she exhaled
I felt her breath on my neck. When she blinked I felt her eyelash against my
cheek. When she was with me, every breath felt like a laugh, and every time I
opened my eyes it felt like waking up from a dream.

Henry raised a finger to get our
attention. “Shhh,” he said.

I held my breath.

From the crowd I heard a chant, a
familiar cadence. But the curtain muffled it too much to be certain. I said,
“Just hang back for a second,” and followed Henry toward the stairs.

The voices grew louder, more unified
as we got to the top of the stairs. I closed my eyes like that would help me
hear more clearly. Then they got to the chorus.

“Katy,” I went back down the steps and
grabbed her hand.

She crept alongside me, slowly putting
one foot in front of the other until she heard it too. Henry handed her fiddle
and bow back to her at the top of the stairs. There was no light behind the
curtain except for the LEDs on my effects rack until Pauly walked over from the
far side of the stage with a little flashlight in his hand. He handed us our
IEMs. “You ain’t going to believe this shit.”

When he signaled for the curtain to be
raised the audience didn’t react. As the gap between the floor and the golden
tassels grew, I could see them, bathed in the house lights. Hundreds of people
packed between the seats and aisles, every back turned to us. People in the
balcony tried to make sense of what happened on the floor below them. Even
though they couldn’t see, they still sang. “Preston Black couldn’t sleep the
whole night through…”

Katy shook her head and smiled.

I couldn’t believe it either.

“Preston Black couldn’t sleep the
whole night through…”

The remainder of Hicks’s congregation
pushed in from the lobby. With Boggs locked up, A.G. Ashby and the girl with
the crown of thorns tattoo led them. Should’ve figured we hadn’t seen the last
of her. I’d imagine seeing your beau blown into heaven ain’t the kind of thing that
dries up and goes away like a zit. Figured she wouldn’t be happy until Katy
suffered a little more. The rest carried the same old signs we saw in
Louisville and Nashville, but freedom of speech only goes so far. And they
chanted the same hate-filled rants. But our crowd, a unified mass of otherwise
unrelated people, made sure their noise wasn’t heard tonight.

“He’d lay in bed ’til the morning
came, but the devil’d visit him just the same…”

I walked to the edge and waited. The
raw energy coming from the unaccompanied singing made me woozy. My knees
wobbled. I wished my mom could’ve been here to see something like this. And I
couldn’t have that thought without thinking about what John had told me back at
the bar, so I looked for Jamie, back at the soundboard. His look of shocked
disbelief said it all.

Then I looked for Ben, at eye level in
the box to our right. He smiled, and toasted me with his PBR as Rachael, Chloey
and Alex joined him.

I looked for Pauly. He stood in the
dark with his arms crossed, watching just like me.

When I turned to Katy for
acknowledgement, I heard the squeal of fiddle through the PA. At once the crowd
rose in a gigantic roar. They turned to the stage where a single spot lit Katy
at her mic. People had their hands over their heads, some were balled into
fists. The applause had mass, like a dense fog.

They all stopped singing at the break
before the next verse. In their collective silence I heard the
God
hates witches
chant
from the protestors.

I stepped up to the mic and said,
“Y’all know the words…” and they turned around and picked right up where they
left off. At the end of the line they whistled and applauded wildly. A long
wash of static that left me speechless. Pauly shrugged as he walked out to meet
me. “Atlanta P.D. is on its way.”

I put the IEM into my ear and joined
Katy back at the center of the stage as the crowd sang, “Preston Black went
down to the crossroads…”

This whole situation with the crowd
and the song felt like the climb right before the Jack Rabbit’s double dip at
Kennywood, the
click-click-click
like
a stopwatch, counting down the seconds until you felt like you were going to
fly right off the track. Afraid that any move I’d make would feel
anticlimactic, I put my guitar around my neck, but didn’t play. Instead, I
stepped to the mic and sang right along with them.

The protesters went limp as soon as
the cops showed up, dropping to the floor as a passive resistance tactic. Some
grabbed chairs or audience members, others tried to disappear into the crowd.
Ashby became violent, swinging his retractable baton in a wide arc before being
tackled from behind by a couple of skinny guys in black T-shirts. If the bright
house lights and awkward silence hurt the mood the crowd had created with their
act, then the shouting and shoving and tension buried it.

Almost instinctively, some of the guys
in the crowd formed a wall by locking arms, preventing the intruders from
escaping into the audience and disappearing. Fans blocked the doors and
assisted the incoming police officers by doing whatever they were asked even as
they were spit on and cursed at. House security filtered in from their various
spots throughout the theater to step in between the protestors and the fans,
taking the punches and insults from what remained of Hicks’s people as they
were laid out on the floor, face down. The crowd cheered.

“Thank you all for your patience and
cooperation.” I spoke into the microphone. “You sure know how to throw down a
welcome.”

I backed away while they applauded.

“And you all know how to take care of
guests. I want to thank the ladies and gentlemen in blue for coming out and
making us feel safe after the week we’ve had.” That line was almost a
prerequisite, but I’d meant it. “And as they get all these folks ready for the
paddy wagon, I got something I want to say to them.”

I ran my hand through my hair because
I didn’t know where I needed to go with this. “Anything else I have to say
after these people are gone, I’m going to say it with my guitar. But this,
right now, is for the folks in the back. The ones who saw fit to take Katy, and
drag her into a camp in the hills where they could force their beliefs upon
her. And I’m going to say it in a way they understand.”

I licked my lips and looked for a
bottle of water before realizing I’d forgotten to bring any up from the green
room with me. So I went on. “You all are really good at telling people what
they need because it’s what you need. But that doesn’t work for me, and I’m not
going to pretend to speak for anybody else here tonight, but I’ll bet it
doesn’t work for some of them either. Even the people who worship the same God
you do.”

I unbuttoned another shirt button and
wiped my forehead with my sleeve.

“I listen to ‘Layla’ and I feel like
I’m a part of something bigger, because in my experience, God doesn’t only
exist in cathedrals or out in outer space or in some other dimension. In my
experience you find him wherever you find him. And that’s all I want for me and
for Katy and for anybody else in here who doesn’t believe same as you do—is to
be able to stumble upon what we believe where and whenever we’d like.”

Rachael watched from their box. I
tried to gauge my progress by her expression. But she motioned for me to go on.
“When the piano kicks in, and Duane’s guitar soars, I can close my eyes and be
anywhere on earth. Anywhere. And it’s not just the guitar—Mick says a guitar’s
just a block of wood somebody saw fit to take a saw to—it’s the union of
guitar, piano, drummer… It’s a group of people locked in to each other, making
something more beautiful and more perfect than a single man could ever make
alone. The piano by itself doesn’t go anywhere. It doesn’t say anything. It’s a
chord progression. That’s it. Nothing divine there.”

I wiped sweat out of my eyes. “And
Duane’s guitar?”

I waited while a bunch of the guys
cheered and smiled. “Man, there’s a reason Clapton went looking for him down in
Miami. In my opinion, divinity brought them together. Divinity put Duane’s
slide with Clapton’s melody. And I don’t need the likes of you all telling me
my ideas are wrong. Because I know who came through the darkness and saved me
when I was down. I’d close my eyes and ask God to bring my mom back or make my
presence less of a burden on Pauly and his mom and pap. And you know who
answered?”

They waited in silence.