“I just want to feel you.” She pulled his hand to her mouth and kissed his rough, callused fingers. “I want to know you.” She poked out her tongue and slid it slowly over his strumming thumb. “I want to take the pain away.”
In the darkness of the trailer they undressed. Her hands slid over his chest and she pushed him back onto his bed. She crawled on top of him, her weight pressing him into the mattress. Then he was inside of her, and the bed creaked violently with each sliding, bouncing movement. John felt a warm fire igniting his groin. He watched her flesh turn dark, watched the ceiling spin, heard a loud hum in his ears that sounded like a chorus of cellos all playing a single sustained note. He couldn’t breath.
“Get off me,” he gasped.
Her face turned to the ceiling, her chin wiggling, her stomach like a sea of oil undulating in shadow. John thought for a moment he could see the top of his trailer open up, the light of a thousand stars stabbing his eyes.
“Stop!” He slapped at her buttocks, gasping for air. With a jerk, he rolled onto his side, forcing her off.
His world came back into focus. She sat on the floor in the corner, her hands covering her face. He heard her crying softly, saw her belly jiggle with each sob. He sat up.
“What the hell was that? What were you trying to do to me?”
She looked up at him through her tears. “
John ran his hand through his sweat-slicked hair. “I think you should get out.”
He stood in the corner while she dressed. “I know who you are,” she said gently. “I know what you did.”
“Get out.” John had trouble finding his breath. “Get out now, damn it.”
The next night at the roadhouse, the crowd was smaller. John doubted if he’d clear fifteen bucks. He started to play an old Leadbelly tune, but had to stop halfway through the song when his hand seized up. It stiffened and hurt. Felt like a skewer had been jabbed in his palm.
He grimaced and bit back the pain. Started over, but only got through the first few bars when the pain worsened. “Sorry folks. I’m takin’ a short break. Be back in a moment.”
He set his guitar down and stood from his stool. Pain shot up his spine. He doubled over, coughing.
“You all right?” the bartender asked.
John nodded, hacking up a wad of phlegm into his handkerchief. He walked to the men’s room, feeling his muscles quivering beneath his skin.
He sat in one of the stalls and leaned over, his face hot in his hands. Another coughing fit overcame him, his lungs feeling like they were covered in mud, and this time when he spit, there was a tinge of red to it.
So many ways of paying for your sins, he thought. And when does it end?
Finally he was able to stand again, but he still felt weak and dizzy. He looked at himself in the mirror. Looked at his big ugly stain of a birthmark. Maybe some people are made for paying. Make up for all the ones who never have to pay a goddamn dime. Cause I been paying since the day I was born.
He couldn’t play like this. Not tonight. He shuffled out from the bathroom. Went straight to the bartender.
“Sorry, man, but I feel like shit. I can’t play tonight.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. Fever I guess.”
The bartender looked him up and down. “Can you make it home okay? Need a shot of whiskey before you go?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Let me know about tomorrow. If you can’t make it, I’ll send Lydia over with some chicken soup.”
“S’alright if I leave my amp here?”
“Course. I’ll stick it in the basement.” The bartender winked at him. “Sucks getting old, don’t it?”
The life of a musician.
When John pulled up to his trailer and yanked the Gibson out of the back of his pick-up, part of him expected to see Chryse waiting for him at the door. But there was no one. He went inside and looked around just to make sure. He sat down on his couch and laid the guitar across his lap, closed his eyes and began to play. At first, he plucked nimbly at the strings, quick staccato notes that disappeared into the trailer’s crevices. Then he strummed the strings with the tips of his fingers, tossing the pick aside. He saw Tom Pike’s face as he improvised, saw Chryse’s face, both of them part of an audience in his mind.
The notes stretched, grew louder as he culled the vibrations of the instrument into a long series of sustains. His emotions were a hurricane in the hollow of the guitar.
As he played, his eyes shut tight, he relived the night he killed Tom Pike, relived the feel, the sickening, satisfying feel of slicing him belly to throat with his father’s fish scaling knife. Relived the warmth of blood on his hands as he strummed chords that weren’t meant to be, chords of disharmony and pain.
The warm feel of blood. A momentary satisfying feeling. An eternal painful feeling, and he could not forget it, could never forget that feel, even though as he cut through Tom Pike’s skin, the revenge was so damn sweet. Because even without him around, life never became any easier.
He opened his eyes. Looked down at his hands as they froze in mid-strum. He’d been playing so hard, his own fingers, fingers that were hard and callused from years of pressing steel string into wooden frets, were bleeding. The strings dripped with it, with his memory, his passion. His blood.
He stood. Held the guitar by the neck. Faced the television. He saw himself reflected on the screen, an obsidian shadow teetering back and forth on scuffed black boots. He raised the guitar. Held it in the air. This was his lifeblood, the thing he earned his meager living with. But wouldn’t it feel good, wouldn’t it feel just goddamn fantastic for one incredible instant—
He swung the guitar, felt it smash into the TV screen. There was an explosion of wood and glass. Smoke
