The city streets are empty now
(The lights don't shine no more)
And so the songs are way down low.
A sound that flows into my mind
(The echoes of the daylight)
Of everything that is alive
(In my blue world)
I turn to stone, when you are gone
I turn to stone
Turn to stone, when you comin' home,
I can't go on,
Turn to stone, when you are gone,
I turn to stone.
The dying embers of a night
(A fire that slowly fades till dawn)
Still glow upon the wall so bright,
The tired streets that hide away
(From here to everywhere they go)
Roll past my door into the day
(In my blue world)
Yes I'm turnin' to stone
'Cos you ain't coming home,
Why ain't you comin' home
If I'm turnin' to stone,
You've been gone for so long
And I can't carry on,
Yes I'm turnin' I'm turnin'
I'm turnin' to stone.
The dancing shadows on the wall
(The two-step in the hall)
Are all I see since you've been gone.
Through all I sit here and I wait
(I turn to stone I turn to stone)
You will return again some day
(To my blue world)
He heard the young couple arguing next door. The walls were thin. Soon they would make-up. There would be a subtle change to the sounds as their passionate tempers found another way to vent volcanic emotions; it had been the case every night he had stayed in this town.
No-one had any money. Skinny kids were washed up shiny by even skinnier mothers. Husbands haunted the dusty farms and rusting businesses all over the mid-west, tramping for work, determined not to blow their brains out; waiting in hope for the chance to return home triumphant, or at the least, send home more than nickels and dimes.
Jason kind of envied them. After all, he hadn't anyone to send anything to. Just him, the road, and the cornet. Jason's ears were everything. His living was based on their accuracy and translation of the smallest detectable nuance to the music. Tucked around it's dull silver valves were his meager possessions, a tooth brush, clean shorts, spare collar and cuffs (for the shirt on his back), a well kept, and well used, cut-throat razor, and a pack of John S Hailsburgh Playing Cards. He wasn't the best Card Sharp in the world, but he could make a decent meal out of most townsmen.
The trick was to find a guy who was better off than you were; not impossible for Jason. He steered clear of the truly desperate. They had a wall-eyed madness, just waiting to spill out and wash whatever sanity was left of a situation. You couldn't play a guy on tilt.
Jason paid up his dues at the Boarding House; you never knew when you may need to come back, so missing a couple of meals was a given. He hit the road, and started out early for Harpersville. A good few miles now, a stop over beneath a shady tree at noon, and he should get to town at supper time; a good time for a musician to ply his trade at the nearest hooch house.
Miniature whirlwinds of dust rose on the hazy horizon as Jason settled into a stride his legs could keep up with all day. His breath was another matter, entirely. It seemed to him, these days were harder. Like he was near to drowning on land, or something odd. He'd get so every gulp of air just wouldn't go in, and start to feel like a braying ass. There had been a sickly boy at Church with the Asthma, and maybe he'd caught it, or what-not? Whatever it was, reducing his capacity to breathe, he did not like it one bit. All those years in the smoke filled dens of cards, booze and jazz were still stretched in front of him but, heck, he nearly went and fainted last night, trying to pip out those notes!
One foot after the other gamely trod on the slow miles of empty road and Jason started to listen; really listen to his body's own music: step-step-breathe-in, step-step-breathe-out. Only sometimes he needed three steps to breathe in, and his back would ache with the effort of it.
The mind was a dangerous companion on the road. One that could make all sorts of leaps to paranoia. Jason was pretty skilled at keeping his thoughts in check - well, some poker player he'd be if he let crazy thoughts fly around like birds. But even he could hear the discord in melody of his life. How did one measure capacity? Could it be done scientifically by the doctors, these days? Doctor, doctor, I can't reach the long notes anymore; what's wrong with me? He doubted he needed to waste his dollars on some quack giving him Snake Oil and a Tonic. Still the thought wouldn't quit, and the noise of his body over-rode anything nature could try and distract him with on the long walk to the next town.
He rested under a lone Maple, sat by a dry-bottomed stream, whose little trickle of rusty-colored water barely moistened his lips and tasted like copper. His day-dreams were infected with the off-kilter noise of his abnormal breathing, and he began to long for the happy distraction of the young couple's volume, left far behind him.
There was a word brewing inside him. He refused to let it out and gazed intently at a busy mound of ants, industriously laboring under their corn-kernel bounty. His eyes flickered to where the sun sat plump on the horizon. He stood, brushing the creases from his clothes and resuming his journey. For the rest of the journey into town, Jason ran through the most popular songs and their notes in his head. Always that false rhythm nagging in the background.
He came to the first few scattered houses that he saw other people for the first time that day. A small boy ran to his father and although Jason smiled and touched the brim of his hat, the child withdrew, his face frightened of the stranger. Worse, was the look of sympathy the father gave him, before nodding in greeting and busying himself back to fixing his fence.
"Why does that man look yeller and gray?" the boy's voice carried.
"Shut-up now, boy. That fella's got the Cancer like Mr Horner had. You don't act like that if you see him again. You hear?"
It took every inner-scream of will to move those legs onward and keep those hot, wet tears in Jason's skull. A wash-basin and a meal was all he needed. Boy was an idiot and hadn't seen a tramp before, was all. And who was his father? Sure didn't look like no medical man to Jason!
He reached the Boarding House he'd stayed in the last time he'd been in this town, and chose to ignore the look of shock and concern on his landlady's face. Smiling and bustling, he paid a dollar in advance when she expressed an un-willingness to take a sick lodger. That would mean no supper, unless he earned his keep tonight.
He took water from the jug and scrubbed the dirt out of his skin before lathering up for a shave. Each practiced stroke of the blade revealed a cadaver of a man. His hand shook on the last pass under his chin, causing a small, fat, bud of red to flower. He let the water sting the tiny wound, as he rinsed and then patted his face dry with the near-by curtain.
It was then, and only then, that Jason looked deeply into the mirrored reflection of the dying man in front of him, and snickered with his raggedy breath. After thirty-five years on the road, he would accrue his first debt. He wouldn't be playing cards or cornets tonight, or any other night. He took one last look at the man in the mirror and lay down on the worn bed, silently letting errant tears trickle down his face, and clutching the familiar cornet case to his stomach. Maybe his funeral wouldn't be a burden to this town; ashes to ashes, dust to dust, then all to stone.
(1,205 words) |
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