You Know They Got a Hell of a Band(15)

The common itself was filled with folding chairs -- Mary estimated somewhere between seven hundred and a thousand -- but she thought there were no more than fifty spectators actually present, and probably less. She saw the mechanic, now dressed in clean jeans and a Perma-Pressed shirt; the pale, once-pretty woman sitting next to him was probably his wife. The nurse was sitting all by herself in the middle of a long empty row. Her face was turned upward and she was watching the first few glimmering stars come out. Mary looked away from this one; she felt if she looked at that sad, longing face too deeply, her heart would break.

Of the town's more famous residents there was currently no sign. Of course not; their day-jobs were behind them now and they would all be backstage, duding up and checking their cues. Getting ready for tonight's rilly big shew.

Clark paused about a quarter of the way down the grassy central aisle. A puff of evening breeze tousled his hair, and Mary thought it looked as dry as straw. There were lines carved into Clark's forehead and around his mouth that she had never seen before. He looked as if he had lost thirty pounds since lunch in Oakridge. The Testosterone Kid was nowhere in evidence, and Mary had an idea he might be gone for good. She found she didn't care much, one way or the other.

And by the way, sugarpie-honeybunch, how do you think you look?

"Where do you want to sit?" Clark asked. His voice was thin and uninterested -- the voice of a man who still believes he might be dreaming.

Mary spotted the waitress with the coldsore. She was on the aisle about four rows down, now dressed in a light-gray blouse and cotton skirt. She had thrown a sweater over her shoulders. "There," Mary said, "beside her." Clark led her in that direction without question or objection.

The waitress looked around at Mary and Clark, and Mary saw that her eyes had at least settled down tonight, which was something of a relief. A moment later she realized why: the girl was cataclysmically stoned. Mary looked down, not wanting to meet that dusty stare any longer, and when she did, she saw that the waitress's left hand was wrapped in a bulky white bandage. Mary realized with horror that at least one finger and perhaps two were gone from the girl's hand.

"Hi," the girl said. "I'm Sissy Thomas."

"Hello, Sissy. I'm Mary Willmgham. This is my husband, Clark."

"Pleased to meet you," the waitress said.

"Your hand..." Mary trailed off, not sure how to go on.

"Frankie did it." Sissy spoke with the deep indifference of one who is riding the pink horse down Dream Street. "Frankie Lymon. Everyone says he was the sweetest guy you'd ever want to meet when he was alive and he only turned mean when he came here. He was one of the first ones... the pioneers, I guess you'd say. I don't know about that. If he was sweet before, I mean. I only know he's meaner than cat-dirt now. I don't care. I only wish you'd gotten away, and I'd do it again. Besides, Crystal takes care of me."

Sissy nodded toward the nurse, who had stopped looking at the stars and was now looking at them.

"Crystal takes real good care. She'll fix you up, if you want -- you don't need to lose no fingers to want to get stoned in this town."

"My wife and I don't use drugs," Clark said, sounding , pompous.

Sissy regarded him without speaking for a few moments. Then "she said, "You will."

"When does the show start?" Mary could feel the cocoon of shock starting to dissolve, and she didn't much care for the feeling.

"Soon."

"How long do they go on?"

Sissy didn't answer for nearly a minute, and Mary was getting ready to restate the question, thinking the girl either hadn't heard or hadn't understood, when she said: "A long time. I mean, the show will be over by midnight, they always are, it's a town ordinance, but still... they go on a long time. Because time is different here. It might be... oh, I dunno... I think when the guys really get cooking, they sometimes go on for a year or more."

A cold gray frost began creeping up Mary's arms and back. She tried to imagine having to sit through a year-long rock show and couldn't do it. This is a dream and you'll wake up, she told herself, but that thought, persuasive enough as they stood listening to Elvis Presley in the sunlight by The Magic Bus, was now losing a lot of its force and believability.

"Drivin out this road here wouldn't do you no good no how," Elvis had told them. "It don't go no place but Umpqua Swamp. No roads in there, just a lot of polk salad. And quicksand." He had paused then, the lenses of his shades glittering like dark furnaces in the late-afternoon sun. "And other things."

"Bears," the policeman who might be Otis Redding had volunteered from behind them.

"Bears, yep," Elvis agreed, and then his lips had curled up in the too-knowing smile Mary remembered so well from TV and the movies. "And other things."

Mary had begun: "If we stay for the show..."

Elvis nodded emphatically. "The show! Oh yeah, you gotta stay for the show! We really rock. You just see if we don't."

"Ain't nothin' but a stone fact," the policeman had added.

"If we stay for the show... can we go when it's over?"

Elvis and the cop had exchanged a glance that had looked serious but felt like a smile. "Well, you know, ma'am," the erstwhile King of Rock and Roll said at last, "we're real far out in the boonies here, and attractin' an audience is kinda slow work... although once they hear us, everybody stays around for more... and we was kinda hopin' you'd stick around yourselves for awhile. See a few shows and kind of enjoy our hospitality." He had pushed his sunglasses up on his forehead then, for a moment revealing wrinkled, empty eyesockets. Then they were Elvis's dark-blue eyes again, regarding them with somber interest.