Cockfighter - Charles Ray Willeford [36]
And I played these things, and then the sounds of supper and the noises, the fine good clatter in the kitchen when Grandma was still alive, and Randall and I sent to wash up before dinner in the dark downstairs bathroom where the sound of water in the pipes made the whiney, sharp, unbearable spine-tingling noise and kept it up until the other tap was turned on and modulated it, turning the groaning into the surreptitious scraping of a boy's finger on a blackboard, and sure enough, we had the schoolteacher for dinner that night and she was talking with Mother, monotonously, like always, and I hated her, and the dry, flat registers of her authoritative voice would put you to sleep in the middle of a lesson if you didn't keep pinching yourself, and Daddy pulled out his watch with the loud ticks and it was suppertime, the solid ring of the good sterling silver, the tingle-tinkle of the fine crystal that pinged with a fingernail and listen to the echo! and the rich dark laughter of Aimee, our Negro cook in the kitchen, and after supper I was allowed to go to the movie but Randall wasn't because he was three years younger and had to go to bed so I played these things and what a wonderful movie it was!
Young Dick Powell, handsome, in his West Point uniform, and the solid ranks of straight tall men marching in the parade and only vaguely did the old songs filter through the story, Flirtation Walk, and the lovely girl under the Kissing Rock, and then the movie was over but I stayed to see it again, and repeated it very quickly because nothing is ever any good the second time and I was late, it was dark, and I was running down the black narrow streets, the crickets silenced ahead of my slapping feet, and the grim and heavy shadows of the great old pecan trees on our black, forbidding block. As I reached our yard, safe at last from whatever it was that chased me, Mother was on the front porch waiting with a switch in her hand, and she intended to use it, I know, but I began to cry and a moment later she pulled me in close to her warm, wonderful, never changing smell of powder, spicy lilac and cedar and sweet, sweet lips kissing me and chiding and kissing and scolding and damned if the “G” string didn't break.
The pick fell from my fingers and I looked numbly at the guitar. The room was as silent as death. A moment later, like an exploding dam, the room rocked with the sound of slapping hands and stomping feet. I fled into the dressing room with the guitar still clutched by the neck in my left hand. The James Boys, who had been listening by the arched, curtained doorway to the hall, followed me into the small room, and Dick handed me the bottle.
“I'll be a sonofabitch, Frank,” he said warmly. “I never heard finer guitar in my life. You can be a James Boy anytime you want. Go ahead, take another snort!”
I sat down, lit a cigarette and studied my trembling fingers. My throat was dry and tight and for the first time in my life I felt lonely, really lonely, and I didn't know why. I had buried all those memories for so many years, it was frightening to know that they were still in my head.
The James Boys returned to the stand, leaving the door open, and I could hear the heated strings of their first number, “The big D Rock.”
“Mr. Mansfield—” I looked up at the sound of Lee Vernon's voice, and got to my feet quickly as he ushered in ahead of him the young man and the woman who had been sitting at his table out front. “I want to introduce you