Yeah, we done heard about your whiskey, Johnnie said. Invisible whiskey.
Come again?
That flask right there is dry as desert sand, woodhick.
Chicky looked down at the flask. Issued a challenge, his paranoia had given way to a calm confidence. It was a sureness of hand and a disregard for danger reserved for movie outlaws. Slowly, imperceptibly, he moved his left thumb to the small catch near the rim. Well, he said, I wonder why its so heavy then. In a fluid, single motion, he tripped the catch, caught the falling piece with his right hand, turned it so that the gun dropped out into his now empty left, and trained the weapon on Johnnie Johnstons head, the flask now in two pieces between Chickys bare feet. He remained seated on the rock all the while.
At first, no one spoke. None of the men were strangers to guns, but this was something else, at least for the older three. A bullfrog called.
Johnnie Johnston never moved. He lay on his side by the fire, rolling a blade of grass between his thumb and finger. He spit in the dirt. You got to know who you point a gun to, he said. I done some things so cold Hed visibly lost a little of his edge. The face staring back at him had seen colder, and he knew it. But he couldnt stop the words that had come up his throat and onto his tongue. Motherfucker, he said. Ill hang a rope and drown a glass a water.
Nelson Bird sighed then.
Chicky kept his gun on Johnnie. Willie, Chicky said. I notice you got tough hands with them taters. Why dont you toss one off yonder, high as you can. Willie hesitated, and while he did, Chicky addressed Johnnie again. Cocksucker, he said, Ill dynamite your house and put a third eye tween the two you got from three hundred yards. Then, to Willie, whod frozen at the sound of these last words spoken: How bout them spuds? You going to toss one up? Willie finally obliged, slinging the thing high above his head before it could burn his fingerprints off. Chicky spun on the rock and fired, twice. In three seconds time, the little over-under was spent, the silver-wrapped potato hit the dirt, and Johnnie had his own gun drawn. He kept it on Chicky as the mountain man got up and walked to the potato, several feet off but still within the fires light. Hot potato, Chicky hollered, tossing it back to Willie. Willie caught it and dropped it on the ground next to the fire. They all looked down except Johnnie and Chicky, who knew already what was there. Two holes, perfect and clean, an inch apart. Chicky smiled at the man who could end him any second. The gold was distracting, exaggerated like the rest of him in the firelight. Hang a rope and drown a glass a water, Chicky said. Then, sitting back down on the rock, he said it again. He took his harmonica from the shirts front pocket and blew into it. Talked into it really. The harmonica sang the words, low down dirty like: Ill hang a rope, and Ill drown a glass a water. Chicky stopped playing and turned to Clarence, who sat stupefied, holding the bottle of whiskey theyd been passing all evening. Clarence, Chicky said. I believe Ill sip off that stuff you been offerin now. He smiled again, looked down at the aired-out spud. He thought of a name he hadnt in years: Sid Hatfield.
Nelson Bird cleared his throat.
Chicky took the bottle Clarence held out for him. He swallowed whiskey hard. It burned, and it instantly changed everything inside him and all around him, and he knew that from then on, hed stay lit on the stuff for as much of the day, every day, as he possibly could. He looked to Old man Nelson. To answer your question? Mingo. I come from Mingo.
Johnnie lowered his pistol, stuck it back into his belt.
EIGHTEEN. Radio Saturday Night
For Chicky, the word radio spurred thoughts and memories of electric telegraphs, tickers, and big companies with names like Westinghouse who had operations in places like Pittsburgh and Chicago. Radio was something the navy could take over if they wanted to. But the way Johnnie and Willie spoke on it, radio was entertainment for regular folks. They said there was a station called WHIS in Bluefield that had the strongest signal for a hundred miles. Such talk baffled a mountain man, but confusion ran high all around in the four days following the potato shoot. This was on account of the sheer volume of whiskey consumed. With consumption came music, and with music, friendship. Or at least the mirage of friendship. And the two who were tightest were those whod nearly killed one another. Chicky and Johnnie had made a song to end all songs up there on the mountain bald. The piano in back of Nelson Birds restaurant was calling to Johnnie Johnston. He knew that if he put it to use with the bearded mans harmonica, and if they could get on the radio, they would have something as gold as the teeth Chicky wore.
So it was that the mountain man forgot everything hed learned in twenty-four years time. All he knew was that he had a taste for drink again and hed follow whoever he had to, to quench it. He returned to his thatched hut on the lee side of the mountain just long enough to camouflage it and barricade its opening. Before he did, he gathered his old Confederate pack, its contents surprisingly still useful. There were shells to replace the spent ones in the derringer. He reassembled its secrecy. There was the old tin water canteen, the compass and map, the brittle paper upon which hed written things that made no sense until the day he sharpened his last pencil to nothing. There was money, the kind that folds and the kind that clinks, still useable after all that time. He covered up every trace of his habitation, though it was remote enough that a body would be unlikely to find it.
Before he walked away, Chicky Gold stared at the place where hed lived for better than two decades. The cheap booze in his bloodstream didnt sharpen the eye like the Widows shine. Instead, it deadened men to their surroundings. Slow and easy, it made every place the same. Looking at his home on the hill, he felt nothing, and the turtles walked on by, and the flowers swallowed the gnats, and the mountain stream ran, and the man who had come to live among all of them put in a dip of snuff Clarence had given him, and spat on the ground.
So it was that the mountain man came down from the mountain.
On the way, they crossed paths with Rose and Albert and Zizi, who laid in a bundle sling across her mothers back, crying. Three men carried supplies and sweated and spoke nothing. They nodded to Chicky because some of their people still lived like him. Chicky held the baby. She went quiet and slept. He put her back in the sling and Rose kissed his cheek. You watch out down in there, she told him. Clarence shook his hand before returning up the mountain with his family. He turned four times to see his band disappear, minus its founding member.
Within two weeks, Chicky had almost acclimated to the little mattress he slept on in Willies toolshed. Most nights, it got too soft under him, and he found himself sleeping outside, beside a dogwood tree. Willies wife looked at the man from the kitchen window each morning. She shook her head. Hes like a animal, she told her husband.
Soon, hed nearly acclimated to the telephone poles and fat round cars. The indoor plumbing mysteries and the plywood boxes housing tiny moving pictures. Two different Bluefield saloons kept these boxes behind the bar. Television, folks called it. Big, drunk men roared as they watched a tiny, grainy black man knock out a white one inside the little box.
Did you see Joe Louis on the television? railroad men asked Johnnie. Then they up-and-downed the long-bearded hillbilly at his side, frowned.
This heres Chicky Gold the harmonica man, Johnnie told them all. We going to cut a record together, me and him. Get famous. They stayed good and drunk and Johnnie said the same things over and over to everyone they met. Chicky just flashed his gold teeth, which either frightened, confused, or tickled folks enough to smile back and walk away.
Within three weeks, through Nelson Birds connection with the local rich he served food to, Johnnie and Chicky had landed a spot on WHISs Saturday night program. It was a live broadcast of local talent. Country music mostly. White country. But gospel had opened the door for black talent as well, and since the station manager was in Charleston on business, the young disc jockey nervously welcomed them in.
The control room was dark, a single light hanging above a giant, cherrywood table covered in gadgetry. Chicky had never seen anything like it. The phonograph machine next to the table was slick and black and compact, just like the record that rode it. A tower rose on the opposite side, and stuck to it were knobs and needles, the latter dancing back and forth as the quartet of clean-cut singers on the other side of the glass sang into the microphone. It was a giant silver microphone, and it hung down in the center of the studio like a lifeline for the desperate. The disc jockey faded to himself, and into his own shining, hinged microphone said, And once again folks, that was the War Eagle Four with Wildwood Roses. Back after this. He flipped through papers clipped in front of him, beside him, behind him. He flipped switches.
It was dizzying.
He spun on his office chair and faced them. Im a little overwhelmed this evenin, he said. His hair held too much pomade and his skin was pimpled. And frankly, you all wouldnt be here if that old colored restauranter didnt kiss Mr Schotts behind blue. Hed only glanced at them. I have you all down here as Chicky and Johnnie?
Yessir, Johnnie said. He snubbed a cigarette on his shoe heel and stuck it in his pocket.
Looks like theres three of you.
Willie had come with his bass. Old Nelson and his banjo had been slowly pushed out of the sound that was emerging. It was just a matter of time before the same went for Willie.
Hes bass accompaniment, Johnnie said.
Uh-huh. And how come you do all the talkin? What accompaniment is barefoot Outlaw here bringin to the table?
Nobody said a word. The young disc jockey stared for a moment at Chickys dirty feet. Never mind, he said. You all need to get in there and set up on the piano and whatever else. You know the drill. We come back live in two minutes. The starched shirt-and-tie white boys emerged from the studio, laughing. They stared at the upcoming act with a mix of condescension and disbelief. The disc jockey tried to mediate. Takes all types fellas, he said.
I reckon it does, Jimmy, one of them answered. If by all types you mean two niggers and a woodsman. They laughed a little louder as they walked out the control room door.
Willie was ready to go home. Johnnie laughed a little himself and memorized their faces in his mind. Chicky was flat drunk.