Blossom

'Not that I know of.'

Junior stood at his father's shoulder, eyes wide. Watching the stranger.

'Was he always such a big boy?'

'Nine pounds and change at birth. The baby doctor we take him to, he's the team physician for the junior high over to Hobart. Said we ought to move there before Junior turns ten. Says we got a natural-born linebacker here.'

'Looks like it to me too. You want him to play ball?'

Virgil lit a smoke, blew a puff at the ceiling. Talking to me with words meant for his son. 'He wants to play ball, that's okay with me. But he don't have to. Back home, there wasn't but two ways— the mines or the mills. Football, basketball…that was a way out for some. You know the other ways. But my son, he's not gonna need that. He wants to play ball, his old man'll come out, watch him crack some heads. He wants to be an actor, I'll watch him up on the stage. Don't matter. Whatever he does, we'll be proud of him. Right, Reba?'

Rebecca walked over, kissed the boy on the top of his head. 'Of course.'

The kid squirmed, turned red. His father gave him a look, telling him it was just one of those things he'd have to put up with. Virginia watched both of them intently.

Virgil saw her watching. Laughed. 'Virginia, your little boy's growing up, huh, darlin'?'

The girl frowned. 'Oh, Daddy!'

Virgil turned to me. 'Virginia, she about raised Junior when he was a baby. Couldn't do enough for him. Used to dress him up, take him for walks in the stroller. The boy's getting his growth now. He don't want to mind his sister like he used to.'

Virginia stalked off into the living room, stopping only to plant a kiss on top of the little boy's head just like her mother had done.

Tinkle of piano keys. Warming up. Then the concert started. 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' was her opening selection.

'Who taught her to play?'

'She just picked it up somehow. Used to sit next to me on the bench when I was playing. One day, she just starting hitting those keys.'

'Virgil, you're not fooling nobody,' Rebecca said. 'You notice how his chest just went out about a foot, Burke? Virgil used to play the piano for that child when I was still carrying her. Music was the first thing she heard in this world.'

I ate my chicken and dumplings, sipped my ginger ale, listened to their love. Wondered what it would be like…me.

Then I remembered why I was there. Visiting Day.

73

LATER THAT NIGHT, I stood in the yard with Virgil. The house quiet and dark behind us.

'You know that waitress? The blonde one Lloyd jumped in to protect?'

'Yeah.'

'She's kin of one of the little girls who got killed. Came up here looking for the shooter.'

'She think Lloyd's the one?'

'No. Says even Sherwood never thought so.'

'Sure acted like he did.'

'He's a cop. That's the way they play. The good ones, they don't let their instincts get in the way.'

'How come you know about this woman?'

'She told me.'

Virgil grunted, waiting.

'I need a gun,' I told him.

'Figured you might.'

'You got some?'

'Not what you want. Some of 'em even registered.'

I gave him a look.

'Reba, she ain't no ex-con. All nice and legal. Where we come from, people're raised on guns. No big thing. Ain't a house in this neighborhood you won't find at least a deer rifle, shotgun, something like that.'

'The shooter, it all goes right, he won't even see me coming, but…'

'I got it, brother. I'm not much for that psychology crap you was always studying in the joint, but I know two things for sure about this boy. He's one sick puppy. And he's got him some serious firepower.'

I worked it around in my head. When I was hijacking, I had guns stashed all over the country. In safe-deposit boxes. Paid ten years' rent in advance. That's when I lived in hotels, went South for the winter. Before I had a home. It wasn't worth going back.

'I need a pistol,' I told Virgil. 'A cold one. I use it, I'm gonna lose it.'

'Tomorrow night, I'm playing with my band. Over in Chicago. You come along, okay? Your kind of music.' He dragged on his smoke. 'Reba's coming with me tomorrow. Virginia can take care of Junior. You come along. I'll make a phone call. After my set, we'll step out to the back, meet a man. Get you what you want, okay?'

'Can I bring a date?' I asked him.

74

WE PICKED UP Blossom at her house, paid the tolls through Hammond, and took the Skyway into Chicago. Virgil directed me past Rush Street until I found a parking place right around the corner from his club.

It was a big joint for a blues bar, but not enough seating capacity for the high-dollar acts. Still, Chicago's a blues town and sometimes you get lucky— Virgil said he caught Buddy Guy and Junior Wells there once and they weren't even on the bill.

Virgil went out back to get ready. Rebecca, Blossom, and I found a little round table near the back. The waitress was wearing a black body-stocking with an apron tied in front.

'There's about a half hour before the next set. You all want something to eat?'

I ordered a roast beef sandwich and ginger ale. Blossom asked for a plate of sliced red cabbage, radishes, carrots, and two hard-boiled eggs. The waitress gave her a strange look. 'Anything to drink?'

'You have bottled water?'

'We don't even have bottled beer.'

'Just a glass of seltzer, then.'

Rebecca had a hamburger and a glass of red wine.

The waitress was just clearing the table when they started to set up on the little stage. I watched the musicians, wondering what this was going to be. A strange collection. Tall man with a gospel singer's face was hooking up an electric fiddle, like Sugarcane Harris used to play. Steel guitar, Virgil at his piano, drums. A rail-thin black man who looked old enough to be a runaway slave sat on a stool cradling a slide guitar on his lap. Fresh-faced chubby kid wearing dark glasses stood to the far side, a cartridge belt of harmonicas around his waist. It took the front man a while to make it to the microphone. He had a chest big enough to play solitaire on, a head the size of a basketball, thick long hair swept back from his forehead in crashing waves. He was standing on metal crutches, the kind that angle about halfway up. A massive upper body on useless legs.

They never announced the name of the band. The electric-fiddle player cranked up a low floating scream. The drummer laid down a hard sharp track underneath as the harp player barked his way in, waiting for the piano man to travel along the high keys. The chesty guy on crutches took them through a gambler's version of 'Mary Lou.' Like the way Ronnie Hawkins used to do it, but with the harp man doing the backup voices. He gave us 'Suzy Q' and a nasty twist on 'Change in the Weather.' I couldn't put any name to it but the blues. Virgil's piano was a magic thing— sweet water flowing over crystal rocks, breaking and falling, spooling out a ribbon of purity across the bottom, climbing again. He and the fiddle player laid down a carpet of neon smoke, the slide guitar man lancing through, long fingers high up on the neck, counterpointing the harp, bending unreal notes between them like playing