And there was Ayisha Powell, short and wide and black. Ish hadn't even been a performer two years ago. She'd been a heavy machinist at the local GE plant, carving turbine shafts out of steel billets on the day shift and hauling Adam to gigs at night. She still had the muscles to show for it, used to win her drinks for the night from suckers who tried to arm-wrestle her. You didn't want to get her mad.
Then she'd filled in for a missing singer when Adam cut a demo record. Fairy tale . . .
David picked up the phone, hoping against the odds to hear a dial tone rather than the dead hollow of a disconnected line. Luck still held. He punched in the number. He listened to the ring on the other end, holding his breath. Two rings. Three. Four. A click, and David expected to hear an answering machine.
"Yo."
"Adam?"
"Himself in person. What's it to you?"
Yep, that was Adam. "This is David, David Marx. I just got your letter."
David heard a crackling pause on the line, as if Adam had to shift mental gears -- or was thinking of a way to crawfish out of his offer.
"Yeah. David. Been trying to get in touch with you. Heard about Dé hAoine, heard about Jo's job, heard about her mother. Bad scene all around."
Family gossip. "Yeah. We haven't been sleeping too well."
"Look, how's it going with her mother?"
Ugh. "They moved her out of the hospital a couple of days ago, nothing more they could do for her there. Nursing home, long term care. Different window, same view." And not a pretty one.
"Man, that sucks. Look, I just stepped out of a meeting, so we'll have to catch up later. What I wrote you about was, these damn fools want another album from Ish, hit the market quick while she's still hot. We're talking fusion stuff this time, not blues. 'World Music' and 'Cross-over' are big. We were thinking maybe like some of the stuff Dé hAoine backed on that disk I cut. Ish really likes that flavor."
David winced again. "Dé hAoine dumped me. I thought you'd heard."
"Yeah, we'd heard. Macht nichts. That's not what we're after. What we want, what Ish wants, is to throw a couple of your songs into the mix and maybe make one of them the title cut."
"Songs? Hey, man, I'm a musician. Not a songwriter."
"Songs. She's thinking of 'Derry' and 'Grania' and maybe 'Naskeag Mollie.' 'Derry' might be the title cut. Depends on what fits in with the rest of the stuff."
"But . . ." David sat there for a moment, lost and vaguely stunned. "Those aren't songs, they're just poems."
"Hey, man, songs are poems. And those three just about rip your guts out and dance on 'em. 'Derry' and those poor kids caught up in all the hate . . . anyway, I've started in on settings for them, worked out the melody and some of the harmony. Celtic flavor, of course, and we think it'll be more electric than acoustic. 'Derry' is too hard and modern and nasty for a traditional treatment, and we think that will set the theme for the entire album. Give 'em a different side of Ish."
Silence hung between them. David hadn't thought of those poems as songs, never even crossed his mind. And he sure hadn't tried to market them -- somebody in Dé hAoine must have passed his photocopy along, as a kind of penance for booting him out of the band.
"You want my songs?" David struggled to wrap his mind around the concept. He'd always thought you needed to write words to a tune, not the other way around.
David could almost hear Adam shaking his head in amusement. "Hey, man, if you think we're trying to screw you, don't worry. Ish isn't big on getting rich -- she always says she can only ride one Harley at a time. Check that schedule with whoever you like. We pay good royalties."
David swallowed, his mouth suddenly gone dry. "Uh, the answer is yes. Hell, yes! I'm just taking a while to get used to the idea."
"Get used to it. Look, man, I gotta go. The meter's running. I'll have our agent get a contract and advance check over to you." The phone clicked in his ear, and he hung it up and stared at it.
Royalties. Money, by damn, money for words, words he'd already written. He jerked the door open and bounced down the stairs, two and three at a time, and shot out onto the front steps of the tenement. If he could catch Jo . . .
The cop cruiser had left. The only figure in sight was a scrawny stubble-faced man with a garbage bag at his feet, pawing through the trash in search of bottles and cans.
David checked the parking lot. Jo had taken Maureen's car, real safe, driving in the mood she was in. But that meant he couldn't find her just by walking around the block.
He climbed back up the stairs, imagining. That voice, Ish's powerful voice, evoking all the gut-wringing emotion that she brought to the blues. Singing his poems. With Adam crafting the tune.
"And the Catholic child,
"And the Protestant child,
"Scream their hate 'cross the barbed wire border.
"And each finds a rock,
"But he can't throw it far,
"And he swears he'll be back when he's older."
Chapter Twelve
Jo stared at her knuckles, white with strain from squeezing the steering wheel. Maureen's steering wheel, the damned rust-bucket Toyota that had spent two months of a Maine winter frozen into a snow-bank but still started bang-off because Brian had once laid hands on it like a televangelist at a faith-healing.
She was turning into her sister.
Unemployed, hearing "voices," boozing, believing that the world was out to get her. Jeeze Louise.
Flying into rages and lashing out at those closest to her. And now, driving over to Carlysle Woods to seek wisdom and
