You now have two things you never had before -- ciall agus ceol, sense and music.
-- Douglas Hyde, The Piper and the Puca

 
Well, this was how I heard it told, anyhow:
There are things in life that we're supposed to do, things that just don't get done without us doing them, without the right one of us doing them. You do it, maybe things turn out great. I do the same thing, I fuck it up. That's why its so important the right person picks the right job for himself. Or herself. In my case, himself. Because if you're doing something you really ain't picked out right to be doing, you're doing more than just wasting everybody's time. You're upsetting the balance.
On the other hand, sometimes people do pick the right thing for themselves. I know my right thing, I know what I do best, and I stick with it. Even when I don't have enough money for the rent and my landlady comes pounding on my front door, yelling, "Ebon, you get that $425 to me by this Friday or you're out out out! Do you hear me? Four hundred and twenty five dollars, Ebon, I know where you live!" Even then, I know what I do is the only thing I could do. And knowing that, I know she's never gonna boot me out. A kind of safety net, one I made up for myself.
I write. That's the thing I do. Or really, the thing I do is getting people to take what I write, and pay me for it. I never was any kind of, you know, orator, but when I sit down to write, the words just click. The writing part isn't really something I think about doing, it just happens. The getting it taken from me -- that's the harder part. I write stories, about things I see, things I hear, people I talk to. Started in a lousy little town, at a paper that mostly lined birdcages and kitty boxes, doing stories about snowplows and city council meetings. I got lucky -- what I'm supposed to do, I like doing, and the guys on the paper liked me too, so I got early parole and I moved to the city paper I'm at today. Conk out a story or two a day, freelance on the side a bit (my editor don't like it but I keep my name out of local rags so she pretends not to notice), hang out with the boys down the local Mick bar after hours, have some of that soupy black stuff, go home to the empty apartment that costs me $425 a month, crash out. I ain't pretty, so the girls don't come after me, and after a while you get used to it. If not, you drink some more. There are worse hobbies. I do what I'm supposed to.
Ma always used to put it this way -- she's the one who got me understanding about this "supposed to" stuff -- "You found your place, Ebon, and you fit good in it. You will probably not understand people who don't have a place in the world, who have to wander looking for it. They are out there....and you'll meet them someday. But there are...others out there," she told me, "others who are looking for the lost ones, and will use them for their own gain. You stay away from the others, Ebon, because they're the worst kind. They're the ones who can eat your soul from the inside out, because they seem....so...right."
She was sick a lot then, Ma, because something was inside, eating her up. The Cancer made her mumble about a lot of things, things nobody asked her opinion about, like she was dictating a book or something. Ma wasn't that old when she died, really, only forty-some, but she'd had me early and when she was gone I felt too young to be an orphan. Dad'd been gone before I even knew what a dad was, left Ma and me to figure things out in Southie by ourselves. Twenty-nine is too young to have no parents. Something was not right about that.
But right or wrong she died, and I learned just what "intestate" meant, and in the end I had nothing but my little $425 apartment left, that and my job and this long ugly face of mine. And after she was gone, I started thinking more about those people you met, those people who fell between the cracks. Those others. The people who sometimes didn't seem like people at all.

---

It was Scott who got me out of the Mick bar once and for all, out of seeing those same old thick faces from work who sat around the same old dingy tables and hashed out how the union was screwing them over again with the contract. Scott, who interned putting together the high school sports stats at my paper for a year or two before he graduated college and moved to the artsy fartsy entertainment rag on the other side of town, in the trendy area. Now, Scott writes about music, and goes to see a lot of rock bands play, gets into hang out with Aerosmith at their bar, glad-hands names I know only from liner notes in a CD. Sometimes, when we're yakking on the phone about what we're working on, and I tell him how that jerkwater of a school superintendent's taken yet another bribe, and he tells me about getting tossed over the hands of so many sweaty, drunken music fans at a show that nearly ruptured his eardrums, I sometimes think he's having a much better time than I am. At least he gave up early being taken serious -- me, I'll have to work at it for another twenty years before I give up, and then it'll be to late to do what he does. But we do what we're supposed to do. And that's what he's doing.
"Look, Senior," he says to me on the phone, even though I'm only two years older than him, "if you have to drink that Guinness junk, why not drink it where the people aren't comatose? Get out, hang out with people your own age, not those idiots who sit around and talk about the box scores and whether Sandra Bullock has perky ones."
"Do you think she does?" I wondered.
He grumped into the phone and I grinned. "Get your lazy ass over to Mama Kin tonight," he said, referring to that same Aerosmith bar, shaped like a walk-in women's closet and about as packed come 10:30. "You'll love the show, and we can get free drinks."
"Forget it, I got plans."
"What, old girlfriend in town or something?"
That's the only trouble with Scott. He never knows when enough is enough. And I lied a while back -- you don't ever really get used to it. "Piss off," I told him, and hung up the phone.
He didn't call back, at least not until later that week, and when he did it was like we'd never broken the conversation. "Sorry about that," he said after I picked up the phone at my desk. "But you got to admit, you're getting old before your time."
"Hmph." I had thought about it. I could go with him -- not like there were any ties to the old bar I went to anyway, just one old Mick bartender who shot the shit with me, but somehow the thought of jumping into his world, a world of barely old enough to drink girls, of guys like Scott who at least knew they belonged there, of guys who were -- "What's on the docket, then?"
Giddy suddenly, like he'd won a prize, Scott started rattling off a bunch of stuff we could do later on. And as I listened I realized what had made me agree to head off to parts unknown. My last thought had been -- guys who were my own age. Hell, I had just made thirty a month ago, I wasn't a drunk, or an old man, or even a married sap who had to get away from the wife and kids. But the way I sometimes thought about myself, it was like looking at a picture of a sixty year old, someone whose life happened while he was inside watching the idiot box. And in that one second of thinking of reasons not to go, I found a reason to go. So I didn't even care what Scott was talking about, I just nodded (even though he couldn't see me) and said "Fine, sounds great. Where do I meet you?"

---

Sure, it's cliche, but we get wrapped up in our own little world and forget that while it may be hard to believe, whether we're there or not the rest of the universe continues to spin on its own axis. I was resentful at first that all of this stuff, life, parties, living, had been going on without me. I'm sure Scott thought I was this complete asshole, kept putting the bands down, harping on the taste of the beer (which in truth was no different than across town), poking fun at the violent dancing in the clubs, what Scott explained to me was called moshing. I'm sure I gave him a few giggles along the way. But I think he liked me being there, and liked my being from the outside. I didn't have any reason to make these people like me, I could ask all the dumb questions. This one singer called Kay, for instance, I call her a girl but she was really in her mid-twenties, she used to get on stage with ponytails and barrettes, like she was in elementary school. So I gave her a lollipop after one show, she seemed to think that was pretty wiseass of me. Scott, on the other hand, couldn't stop laughing over it, like I'd touched a nerve in him.
I even went to see him play once with his own band, kind of a loose group of people who knew some of the same songs, and I was real surprised to see how good he was at it. Like he stepped out of being just another writing hack like me, and became like Kay, or Aerosmith, lost all sense of caring what idiots like me thought of him. He ripped into his guitar and shut his eyes tight while I watched him become something else. I wondered, is he doing what he's supposed to? Or is this what he's really meant for?
And then the lights came up and they packed up their equipment and he was Scott again, hack like me, only not like me at all. I finally stopped giving him a hard time about the clubs, and admitted to myself that possibly, just maybe, I was having a better time here than the Mick bar.
Scott knew I was. Years ago, when he was still doing scores until midnight, or until whenever the last coach called them in, I'd usually be putting some final touches on tomorrow's corruption lead, or getting a few ideas squeezed out for my weekly column. After we'd finished we'd tramp down with a few other guys to the Mick bar, a grimy, poorly-lit place where faces craned to the one television set in the room and bodies hunched at the bar, sipping their alcohol, taking their time, having nothing better to do. "This ain't no Irish bar," said Scott, only ten minutes after we'd gone the first time.
"Oh, no?" I said. "And you, bar-mitzvah boy, you know about Mick bars?"
He twisted his mouth and pulled himself onto a stool at the bar. "I don't know why you call them Mick bars, anyway, you being Irish and all. It's like me calling a deli a Kike restaurant."
"You're avoiding the question. How do you know so much about my bars?"
"I did a semester abroad, I went to Ireland and hung out, that's how. Bars there have music, everyone's playing music, and there's chatter, and life, and no idiot television in the bars, I'll tell you that. Well, maybe for rugby or soccer. But this place....it's dead."
He came back with me a few times, mostly because I was immovable and he didn't exactly fit in with everyone else at the paper, but after he graduated and moved to his own job, I could never convince him to come back. Particularly not after the bartender, the only real friend of mine in that stinking place, basically agreed with him.
One night at my bar Scott and I had been going at it again, him saying how this wasn't really an Irish bar, that he had since been to one not too far from this one called the Brendan Behan, and now that was a real bar, they'd had a sessiun, where scores of people brought their instruments and fiddled away until closing time, where there was laughter and dancing on the tables, a kind of whimsical, magical atmosphere.
"Now who's doing the stereotyping," I prodded, since his biggest gripe about this bar was how it celebrated the misery of drink, "now who thinks the Irish are just this little fairy people, hmm?"
"Ah, give the kid a break, Ebon," said my bartender, who'd come over with two more pints for us. "Yer talkin' outta yer arsehole anyways. You might got the last name to say it, but he's more Irish than you are. At least he knows what ta look fer."
"What," I spluttered, "that we're just happy drunkards who sing and dance our cares away?"
He waved his hand at me in disgust. "You don't know shit, Sullivan, you don't know shit. You don't look at a thing to understand it, you have to look around it, through it, between it. This boy here -- "he nodded at Scott, whose eyes had been round and gleaming, "he knows how to see things. You could learn a lot from him."
Then he had gone down the bar to come between a small scuffle breaking out, and the subject hadn't come up again. Scott had let it lie, and I hadn't challenged him over it. But much later on, after I saw his band's set, I'd looked around, between, and through him, and I began to understand a bit better. Sometimes, someone on the outside sees things more clearly than someone who lives in them.

---

I think I heard about her before I ever saw her, and then for a long time it was only quick shots, glimpses, a flash of black hair, like something from In Search Of... or one of those shows where they show you UFOs and Loch Nessie, just a fuzzy recollection, something the camera couldn't even keep a hold of. Scott and I were heading out a couple of nights a week, whenever something good was happening, and he was sure the one who'd know about it, faster than I would. Faster than the lousy features section at our paper would, anyway. I tried to pump them once, at my paper, for something to surprise Scott with and naturally, he knew about it first. "Oh, yeah," he'd said when I called, all yanked that I'd found something first. "I didn't know if you'd want to be there, be on camera, so I didn't tell you yet. It's just a video shoot."
So we went. The great thing about Scott's job is this -- he has to go out nights, keep up with the groove, meet with people after hours. Now that he's married -- I didn't mention that? Yeah, Susie, nice girl -- he could have stopped wanting to go out and get the beer and shoot the shit. But he's got the best excuse. What a cushy job.
The Middle East is a weird place, and sure that holds for the oily countries, but I'm talking about the venue across the river. It's part restaurant, has two totally separate buildings with an Indian restaurant between them (guess the Indian guy's pissed at the other owners and won't sell) and each eatery's attached to a room where bands play. One's big, downstairs, and one's coffee-house sized, upstairs. The upstairs, that's where Scott and I ended up for this rock video "shoot" where they were filming something to get put on the MTV. Or at least they were hoping.
Scott and I got there around nine or so, and the place was jammed. Usually there're tables and seats and at least little corners where you can't see the stage anyway, so there's extra space, but except for a strip blocked off in the back, where a camera sat on its tripod, the place was packed. Smoke carpeted the space between people's heads and the ceiling, and that weird cadence of voices you always hear when you go into a bar was higher, and louder than normal.
"I'm not gonna make it," I told him. "Way too hot in here, and I'm gonna get claustrophobic."
"Just a few minutes," he said. "I promised them I'd be here and we can go over to T.T. the Bear's when we leave."
I took a long draught of my nameless beer -- someone had handed two to Scott as we arrived, which didn't usually happen but neither of us ever turned down a freebie -- and decided that would be okay. T.T.'s had a pool table, and booths. I mean, watching bands is okay, and if the singer's cute -- or, like in this one band we saw once, Fierce, the bassist -- then it's worth staying. But I get bored about five songs in, and after seven even the singer or the bassist has to be really cute. "Yeah, that's good," I told him.
A big, thickset guy with a heavy goatee came up to Scott then, wedging himself between the people, and shook his hand, shouting in his ear. Scott nodded, and grinned, and nodded some more. "This's Peter," he yelled at me over the crowd noise. "Pete, this is Ebon. Pete's the singer. "
Well, I decided, five songs was definitely the limit tonight. "Hey," I said, and shook his hand. Good grip. I can't help it, I care about that shit. These people who grab just your fingers makes me wanna wipe my hand off. "Good luck," I told him, which is about the limit of my party chatter. I didn't even know his band's name, for Christ's sake.
Pete waved and headed off to the side of the room, and for a big guy he managed to force his way through the people pretty steadily. He seemed like a man on a mission, and I watched him go a minute.
Scott grinned at me. "The band's called Blue Pooka," he told me. "I didn't think you'd know."
"I knew that."
While we didn't talk for a few minutes, the rest of the room filled in the gap. Then Scott started yakking with some guy from his paper, and even though I was standing right next to him, I couldn't hear a word, so I scoped out the crowd. We were way in the back, in the roped-off area near the camera and soundman, slightly elevated so I could see the tops of people's heads bobbing, a sea of hair and bald pates and a waitress' tray sailing through it all. I caught Pete chatting up some girl at the back of the room, where the equipment was stored. She was leaning against the wall, her hands behind her back, and all I could see was a long fall of black hair, since Pete and a support column were blocking the rest of the view. But through what I couldn't see I still somehow figured she was small, petite, which is a word I don't normally use describing women. But that's what I thought, like I was seeing through Pete or something. Maybe it was the angle he was bending over at. And then the soundman next to me flashed his mini-maglite and the room dimmed. The empty stage lit up and the guy Scott had been yakking with a minute ago strode up, baggy and loose, like his jeans were too big for him, and waved his beer at the audience.
"Now, you all know why we're here," the announcer said by way of introduction.
"Free beer!" some wit yelped out, and the audience laughed.
"Sure, free beer," he gave in, "but we're also filming for part of a music video tonight, so everyone act like this is the biggest concert of your life, like you're having the ultimate fun time, because, naturally you are -- but really make sure the camera catches it, okay? Don't go 'hey ma!' if you see the camera on you, just act like Elvis just got on stage."
"That'd be kinda creepy," I told Scott, "cause he'd have all these maggots and shit..."
Scott spewed his beer.
"So, without further ado, here's what you came for, Blue Pooka!"
The rest of the band took the stage, shuffling on and making beelines to their instruments, but no Pete. I looked over to where I just saw him as the music started up, and saw, as much as the shadow would allow, a big guy lip-locking that girl. Fast mover, I thought, and realized she must be something special if he's forgotten his band's on stage. But just as that passed through my head, it looked like she gave him a little push and he wheeled around, dashing up on the stage faster than I figured a guy of his size could move. He grabbed the mike and his guitarist leaned over and said something in his ear, which I figured you didn't have to be on stage to catch the drift of, and after a final few bars of intro, the song kicked into gear.
Now, I ain't no, you know, musical connoisseur. There's what I like and there's what the rest of the world pays $35 bucks a ticket to see, and like they say, ne'er the twain shall meet. I don't write about it, so I couldn't really say exactly why musically this band killed me. Scott took some theory classes, maybe he'd know. But somehow -- from the way he acted that night -- I think theory wouldn't have even touched this show. Cause it really wasn't the music, but it was, and it really wasn't the band, but it was, all at the same time. It was like somebody'd taken all the songs I'd ever heard in my life and erased them, and this was the first time I was hearing music. Yeah, cornball sap like that. No Mozart, though, this was pure in through the ears, out through the heart kind of music. Loud, sweaty, the whole nine yards, but standing back there, hearing it was like my blood was pumping harder, I felt younger, I didn't think about the place on the top of my head where the hair felt thinner, even the nameless, watery beer I'd been handed tasted better. And based on the way Scott watched it, with his mouth just a little open, not moving, just frozen there, I suspected this wasn't how Blue Pooka normally sounded. So it wasn't like the songs were masterpieces, but they cut right into you, and it wasn't like Pete was the most electrifying frontman -- and he wasn't no cutie, either -- but more like something was in him, and with a thousand hands it was jerking him -- and us -- along for a ride.
When they took a break, Scott swore we'd only heard one song, but heard it about ten times. I told him to go piss up a rope. "If I'd heard the same song ten times on the same night, Scott, you'd be putting me in the place with the padded walls."
"No, seriously, that was the same song -- they were filming it for a video, remember?"
That made sense. "But --"
"Yeah, I know, I don't know how they did it -- I know that song, Eb, but it felt ten times different to me."
Something occurred to me then, but I wasn't exactly sure. Felt more like an itch in my head and I glanced over Scott's shoulder to see if Pete had gone back to his girl, but apparently she'd moved off elsewhere. "We just had bad brew," I told him. "Let's cut off to T.T's and get some real stuff."
Scott seemed to snap out of it. "Yeah, sure, sounds good. I think I need to get some air."

---

But you know how it goes, no matter how weird something is, by the next morning it feels like you dreamed it, and by lunch that day you figure you made it up altogether. My guess was Scott figured the same thing, because he didn't call me the next day to ask about it, and while I thought about Pete's girlfriend for a few seconds -- maybe she was his inspriation or something -- I didn't really stick to it. That idiot school superintendent was now getting linked with teenage girls, and the stench of corruption and other women just took my mind away.
Over the next couple of weeks, though, we saw a lot of that band Blue Pooka. They were everywhere, some buzz was getting around. Even my landlady knew who they were, said the drummer was her sister's neighbor or something else totally useless. Then she hit me up for rent.
But Blue Pooka, the band with the funky name, probably weren't worrying about their rent. To me, that word "pooka" sounded familiar and I checked in with the public library on the way home one night to see what it meant. Leave it to Scott to get me hooked on some Mick-named band. Pooka, or puca, or however the hell they spell it in that Irish language they speak there, is some kind of animal spirit. Scott says he didn't know this, but I think he's lying to me. I could hear his grin over the phone when I told him I'd done some research.
"Got to that book-larning," he joked.
"Oh, right, like I've got time," I told him, but eyed the small book I'd checked from the library. It was by Yeats -- that's got to make it legit, right? But I wasn't about to tell Scott I had a book on fairy and folk tales in the house. He'd never let me live it down.
"Well, if you're still interested Pooka's having their record release party at T.Ts tomorrow, and I promise they won't play the same song ten times."
"Free beer?"
"And food. Nosh, you know, chips and stuff."
"I'm there."
Once again, it felt like Blue Pooka had invited every last one of their friends to the party, because the place was overfull by the time we made an entrance, but somehow Scott secured some stools and we planted ourselves down for the duration. For some reason one of the music editors from my paper's rival daily was popping the tops behind the bar.
"Community service," he told Scott. "Giving something back, you know."
I didn't take the line. "The Globe not paying enough, Will?"
"Ah, fuck off."
I had another, even more brilliant one to throw back at him when I caught some familiar hair across the room. Now, don't ask me how I knew it was Pete's girlfriend, I just knew. But like I said before, I never really saw her, just a blur of hair and movement between the arms and beer bottles across the room. I half stood, craning my neck, and finally sat down, not feeling like making more effort.
"See something good, Eb?" Scott leaned over to see what I had been so interested in.
"Nah, just someone I thought I recognized. Where's the food, anyway?"
We maneuvered a punch bowl-sized batch of popcorn in our direction, and soon people were visiting us. I wondered briefly if Pete's girlfriend cared for corn. I heard Scott talking away at somebody else he knew who'd come up when I wasn't paying attention, like always happens, only this time I could hear what they were saying.
"Yeah, well, that's how it goes," the guy was telling Scott. "You slave away for six years, get one shot at it, then it's gone."
"Problem is, the trenches are deeper when you get back, right?" Scott nodded at him.
The guy shrugged and lifted the bottle to his lips.
"Who's this you're not introducing me to again?" I ribbed Scott, who usually told me everything.
"Steve, this is Ebon," said Scott, fingering me. "Ebon's new to this local rock scene, Steve, so tell him who you are."
"Were," said Steve, and I heard some anger in that one word, some powerful sad anger. The guy was probably only a year or so older than I was, small lawyer kind of glasses on, short, growing-out buzz hair. He jammed a fist into the pocket of his jacket. "I was somebody, once. In a band called Overflow. Ring any bells?"
It sure did, somewhere distant. Then I remembered. Golden boys of the city a year or two back, the next big rock hope. Our paper, Will's paper, Scott's paper, proud in our own little regional way to see longtime regulars on the scene break out, get a major label contract, did all kinds of stories. That must've been just around the time Scott finally got me out of my bar, because I remember some kind of "farewell" party before Steve's band rocked off to Manhattan to make the big major label debut. It was out of my yap before I realized what I was saying: "Yeah, what happened to you?"
He looked struck, but in a resigned way, like I wasn't the first jerk to ask that one. "Album flopped. Record company didn't support us, took out our tour support. It happens. Shit happens."
That sounded so absolute, so -- easy -- to have happen. "That's it? Six years and you lose out over one album?"
Steve shrugged again, and it occurred to me he looked like one great big shrug, a limp, baggy sort of person to just slough off. "Well, sometimes you're never ready for it. And I was pretty wrecked, my girlfriend left me, just like a million things happened right after we finished the album. Like....it all fell apart at once."
He didn't say it, but I could read it in his saggy face: It all fell apart after she left me. What a cliche. That's one of the good things about never having a girl to leave you -- work and life goes on this nice, steady course. Yeah, right. I drained my glass. "Oh, bartender...."
"Bite me," said Will, but he filled the glass, and turned to Steve. "But Steve, breaking up and all that, I mean, come on, you could have played here again, filled the Middle East down. No reason."
"No point," said Steve, his eyes scanning the room, maybe looking for some way out. "I mean, if you wrote for the New York Times and they fired you and you had to go back to writing on the Beverly Chronicle that'd be work but it'd be....degrading."
"But it's your art, man, you had a lot more good stuff in you," Will pushed.
Steve shook his head. "Nah. Coming back from New York, I just felt....drained. Empty. I'm glad it's over, I tell myself. That works, sometimes."
I saw it, when it happened, how his eyes locked on some distant object and his voice just cut out. He left his half drunk beer on the bar next to Scott, nodded at us, real quick-like, and suddenly took off.
"Sad story," I told Scott.
"There's a million sad stories in the naked city," said Scott, like he was Raymond Chandler. "It happens. Good bands fade away sometimes, and bad bands get the spotlight. No more or less fair than anywhere else in life."
"Sometimes," said Will, "it depends on who you know, too."
I was about to ask him what that meant when I heard a girl scream and the space in front of the bar across from us widened into a circle, people backing away quickly, but staring at the center of the circle they made, fascinated. I stood up in my stool, trying to see past the bottles and the lights in the middle of the bar, and caught a glimpse of Steve and Pete, about to face off. Steve had lost that shrug look awful damn fast, and his hands had come out of his coat pockets, raised and blunt. Pete, on the other hand, just looked dazed and bemused. I jumped from my stool and forced my way to the circle.
No fists had flown by the time we got there, but they were already sparring with cliches, one of the last warning sign before it gets violent. "I'm warning you," Steve was saying through clenched teeth, "if you know what's good for you, stay the hell away from her."
"Look," said Pete, "I don't know you, and you don't know me, so lay off."
"She's a fucking opportunist," said Steve, circling, working himself into a foam. "She's evil." I wondered if someone else would jump into this fight before I thought I had to. Last time I did that, I ended up with a steak on my face.
"You don't even know her, man, just back it off, or we'll call the cops." Pete was flushed down to his collarbone, his goatee standing out in stark relief.
"Oh yeah, well make me back it off." And Steve took a step forward and pushed into Pete. I knew that was the final straw, so when they separated for a second, ready to finally turn it into a brawl, I ran in and grabbed Steve from behind while Will sailed over the bar and restrained Pete. I started pulling Steve to the door, and he started hollering something fierce.
"She'll get rid of you too!" Steve called to Pete, struggling but not very hard against me. "When she's finished she just pitches you in the can and it's all done for then!"
"Don't you bother Sheerie," Pete yelled back. "Don't you even come near her."
"Sheerie? Oh, is that what she's calling herself this week? Just wait...." and that was the last Steve said. We got out into the cold air and he shut down again, all his anger gone, or at least corked for now.
"What the hell was that?" I asked him. "When did you become the Hulk?"
He shook a hand at me, eyes didn't leave the sidewalk. "Never mind. Not worth it. Let him find out the hard way."
"Hard way about what?"
Steve looked up and leveled with me for a second. "Just watch her. Watch what she does. You'll see." And with that he turned and scooted off to the corner. I watched him slip into a cab, and then headed back in the bar. It was noisy again, and Scott had held my seat.
"You're my hero," he told me, and batted his eyelashes. "Both of you."
Together, Will and I told him to piss off.
So, you know, Blue Pooka played again that night, but somehow it just don't say it all, to say that Pooka played. Scott'd tell you, if he could, cause as soon as they came on we peeled ourselves off our stools and belted across the room, didn't say a word, didn't even take our beers, just ended up next to the sound guy again, standing there, jaws in the down and locked position.
I didn't even remember any of the songs, how's that for creepy? I just remember standing there and once or twice taking a peek over at Scott to see what he thought, but it was like he didn't even blink the whole time. A wax dummy, as soon as Pete and the guys took the stage.
After the show there was a funny little silence, and then everyone started to stir again, like we'd been held in some kind of thrall and didn't know how to clap, or move, or nothing. "Not bad, Scott," I told him, for something to say. "They might make it."
And Scott turned to me, slow-motion like, and his eyes were too bright like he'd been drugged, and I swear he didn't even see me. Then the house lights came up and he flinched, just a quick movement, and said, "Is it over?"
"What a stupid thing to say." I wanted to slap him, make him normal again. "Been over for a few minutes already."
He shivered, or that's what it looked like anyhow, and scanned the room, like he was looking for something. Found it, started walking toward Pete, who was standing in the back corner, in the shadow of a ceiling overhang, so you couldn't really see where he ended and the boxes for the gear began. I followed, 'cause Scott was making me nervous.
"Pete," Scott said, and the shadows moved.
Pete came out from the shadow, arms outstretched, and grabbed Scott by the shoulders. "Some fun, eh, Scottie?"
"What the hell was that, Pete?"
Some of the jollyness disappeared from Pete's grin and he said "Whadd ya mean?" and gave me a quick look, like I'd made Scott say that.
"I mean, I was hypnotized, that's what I was, it was like I was in another world."
Pete laughed, loud and full and I could see a few heads turn our way. Behind him the shadows moved again. "Scott, write that one in a review and I'm yours."
"Right. It wasn't your music."
Pete looked at him serious, then laughed again. But that was the thing, Scott wasn't being funny. He was more serious than just after the fight, like he'd been scared and didn't know what scared him. I hate to say I was thinking the same thing but somehow, after sitting in my Mick bar as long as I had, with all the empty faces around me, dying, not much fazed me. Scott, I think, was used to bands like that girl Kay's, ones where the singer can flap her hair around, and the drummer can sock the shit out of the skins, and the guitarists can act like Pete Townshend but the parts are still just the parts. With Blue Pooka, somehow the parts were like a greater whole. Or some shit.
"C'mon, Scottie," Pete was telling him, "have a beer with us. Meet my girl." He was wrapping an arm around Scott's shoulder. "You too, um, Evan?"
"Close enough," I told him.
Scott shrugged the half-hug off. "Don't call me that."
"Whatever, just have a beer, come over." He started heading into the shadows, toward the closed door of the dressing room. I could see Scott wasn't sure exactly what to do, and it was weird, having him fall into neutral like that.
"I'll have a beer," I said, finally deciding for both of us, and at the same time thought it might just be better if we took off and got some air. T.T's was feeling somehow removed from reality.
"Now, that's what I like to hear. A man who isn't afraid of the dark."
The voice wasn't Scott's, and it wasn't Pete's. It came from over by the gear, a soft, feminine whispery tone, slinking out at me. My eyes were adjusting to the dark, but only some. Vaguely, I could see the petite woman I had only caught in bits and pieces before, and she was sitting on the gear cases. Pete unattached himself from Scott and put an arm around her, and in the dark they looked like one person. She held an arm out that tinkled just a bit, some jewlery or something, and without thinking I reached over and took my beer. My hand brushed her fingers and I felt, just next to the sweating, cold glass a red hot iron holding it. I just about jumped back and dropped the whole thing, but kept cool and took a pull on my beer. Scott hadn't said a word.
Said Pete, like sitting in the dark was the most normal thing in the world, "This is Sheerie. Sheerie, this is Scott and Evan. They're both writers."
"Ooh," I heard the voice reach out again, smooth and vibrating. "I like writers. Ebon and Scott. How interesting."
"But you like me better, don't you, baby," said Pete, and I could see their faces joining for a moment. "I tell you, boys, get yourself a girl like Sheerie, and everything comes out better. Then again, there isn't anyone like Sheerie."
I was about to ask how if Pete misheard my name one way the wrong way she misheard it again the right way when Scott fell -- well, really dropped -- on the floor of the place and curled up, shaking, like he was having a seizure or something. But that wasn't it, really, because after a minute he stopped moving and opened his eyes but didn't un-curl. I bent down. "Hey, Scott, what's going on?"
"I got to go home," Scott said, and his voice was creaky and old. "Take me home."
So I did.

---

Funny how you get to depending on people, and how pissed off it makes you when they don't follow through. I couldn't help getting mad at Scott, even if he had a great excuse like appendicitis. That shot to hell my nights on the town, 'cause damned if I was gonna pay to see bands I'd never heard of and all by myself yet. I felt like a barfly, too old to be in these places. And Will didn't come back to tend bar or nothing. I played some pool, I even nearly went to my old Mick bar. Instead, I went home. Found a good cop show on the TV and watched it on Friday nights instead of going out.
They said Scott's appendix was about to bust open that night, and I'm sure glad I took him to Beth Israel instead of pussyfooting around with his moaning about getting home. I sat around with Susie in the emergency room until they said he was gonna recover, and I took off after that. Ends up he ate a corn kernel and that pushed his appendix over the edge, or something. Got in around 4am or something, collapsed on the bed in my clothes.
I went to the hospital next day to see how he was doing. "Here," I told him, tossing a card on his sheets. I hate hospitals, they make me stiff all over, like I'm gonna catch something from the walls. That orange antiseptic swab stuff is what always gets me, makes me feel like there's disease in every corner. And that chemical smell, it smells like sickness. Smells like Ma did.
"Don't stand on any ceremony," said Scott. He was pale and looked a lot smaller under those sheets than I remembered him being.
"You look good," I said, my small talk in hospitals not much better than it is in clubs.
He coughed and laughed at the same time. "No, I don't, I look like shit on toast, Senior. You can tell me."
"Okay, you look like fried shit on toast."
Susie gave me the eye. I hadn't seen her 'til then, sitting in a chair next to the bed. Scott saw her flinch, too.
"Suse, can you get me some juice or something? I gotta talk to Eb."
Susie didn't say a word, just got up and left, just gave me a look my ma used to, one that told me not to push it. I couldn't imagine what she thought I was gonna do in here, anyway. "So what's up, eh, Scott?"
"I won't be around for a couple of weeks. Think you can keep busy?"
"An appendix doesn't keep you out that long, Scott."
He shook his head and looked out the window a minute, at something I couldn't see. "I just think I'm gonna take a break, Eb, you know, get some air outside the city."
I didn't say anything. I wanted to ask, What did you see at T.T's that I missed? What did you hear? but I didn't. I didn't figure he had the answers, either. "Really?" I pretended to be an idiot. "You gonna Kerouac across the country or something?"
He turned back to me and blinked, his mouth just a long straight line. For a second I thought he looked like a guy who blew a fuse -- not an angry kind of fuse, like Dave had, but who just overloaded and lost a connection. I mean, if music's your life, and you hear the best music that's ever been played, who cares after that, right? But I didn't say anything. "No," he told me, "just take a trip to Canada, see the woods, that kind of thing."
"Canada's below zero this time of year, Scott, you're gonna freeze your ass off."
He didn't respond, just told me, "It's just a month, I think. Won't be much more than that. Get my head clear."
"And what'll I do, while you're up north, getting in touch with nature, hmm?"
He grinned a half of one, and that was the first time I thought he seemed himself. "Read up on pucas. Do that."
I didn't listen at first. Listening's not my bag. I went to see Fierce and still thought that bassist was too cute for her own good, but after that I didn't hit Scott's bars alone. It felt too weird. I did see Steve that night at Fierce, though, sitting in a booth by himself, sipping his beer, looking like he hadn't anything better to do. I almost went over but somebody beat me to it and he practically bit their head off, so I didn't bother. After that, I stayed in, watched my cop show, didn't miss beer all that much. And I started reading that book I got from the library, some goofy folktales from Ireland. That Yeats one.
The damndedst thing was how I got really into it. None of this Grimm fairytale stuff, none of this if you're good good things will happen to you happy shit, no, in these stories people for no reason were just stolen, or killed, or removed by these little elves or whatever who got offended at the least little thing. They had a million ways to punish a guy, too, some scary shit. For every one who did something good like give you good luck, there was one who'd steal your baby. The one that caught me was the fairy mistress, they call her the leanhaun sidhe. She's like a muse or something, who inspired the poets while sucking the life outta them. That's supposed to be the excuse for all them Irish poets dying young. And I thought it was from drinking. When I read about that one, it was almost like something clicked in my head, but not entirely. In the world Yeats wrote about, there was no reason for bad things to happen a lot of the time. They just did. Like life. Like when you get hit with your guts about to explode and end up taking a month off to recuperate.
I tried not to wonder about Scott.
Halfway through the book, I was taking a break and decided to get a copy of his paper, see who was making up for his slack while he was out of town. Saw a big ad for Pooka's album, and a big article on the band, and I felt kind of sad Scott hadn't written it, cause if anybody knew what they were like, he did. There was a big recent looking picture of the guys posing in front of a school play yard, too, and Pete looked pretty deliriously happy. Looked better than when I last saw him, too. Got rid of that stupid goatee, slimmed down a bit. Looked good. Success was working for him, it was like you could almost see the fire in his stomach. The other guys in the band had on that trademark bored 'I'm in a band what're you gonna do about it' look every band seems to have in every photo ever taken of them, but Pete, he was almost glowing.
I was flipping around through the rest of Scott's paper, and did a quick thumb-through the book section, when it caught my eye. Don't know why, exactly, but since reading the Yeats book my eyes just pull to the word Irish. Weird, that, like when you try to look in a room for just one color how it all jumps out at you. Well, it was like that. Something about a storytelling session that was going on all week at this bookstore in the next town (that's the kind of thing they have in across the river -- bookstores that don't just sell books, they got to sell you an atmosphere) and on Friday nights they were focusing on Irish folktales. What the hell, I figured, maybe someone could explain a few of these doozies in my book. I mean, Yeats was a poet, and poets are flaky, but the way these stories came off was so real you just had to wonder if someone at some point wasn't dead sure they were true. And if someone had been absolutely sure -- then maybe they did happen. Anyway, it'd get me out of the house. The cop show was getting predictable.

---

Her name's Sarah, and she's telling a story. This is what she's saying:
"There was a Siobhan, and there was a Liam, once, a very long time ago. They were neighbors of a sort, living exactly five farms apart for most of their lives, which in those days was a fair stretch of the land. So even though they were neighbors of a sort, they only saw one another seven or eight times during the year, when Liam's father would visit to doctor some of the people in the house, or even the animals in the barn, or Siobhan's father would go to trade what he had saved up. A little extra, to go around. They all shared. And when Liam's father would come for a week or so, he would bring Liam, so for years Siobhan and Liam grew up together, riding the horses, swimming in the pond, squirming through the soft hay, one on each side of a stack, until their hands would meet at the center, and touch, and pull back.
"They were the best of friends."
So I went. Me, all the way from dive Mick bars to fancy schmansy bookstores across the river. The guys at the paper woulda had a field day, if I'd have told them. Scott, I think, would have looked all smart-alecky, like 'I told you so.' So I didn't tell nobody where I was going. Not that anybody really cared, if you know what I mean.
I got directed down a tiny flight of stairs into this basement room, where about fifteen or twenty of us sat facing a whitebricked wall that served as a stage, sort of. The storytelling was run by this old black guy almost entirely dressed in blue -- he had a blue beret, for Chrissakes, I knew these people from around here were eccentric but Jeez -- and every ten minutes or so somebody else was called up to tell a story. About two stories in Sarah had been called, and I glued right in on her. She really looked like a storyteller -- long red hair pulled back in a braid, long dress too, like she'd just stepped out of Little House on the Prairie or something, an old look on a young woman, but somehow it seemed right. Someone who can tell stories should be dressed like that.
So she'd been telling her story for a few minutes, and paused to let all that sink in, when behind me, faint but audible somebody made a sound like a horse snort. Like they thought it was stupid. I tried to see but couldn't, so I turned back to Sarah, who never missed a beat, just started talking again in this serious, formal tone.
"Now, no one knows exactly how Siobhan started to sing. Or why. Perhaps it began when she would herd the sheep, with her long reedy switch, swishing it back and forth, humming with some inspired tune. Perhaps it came in church, with the hymns. It has also been guessed that during the yearly fair that her family and Liam's family attended, one time she snuck into a tent she was not supposed to, and heard the women singing bawdy tunes to the men. But sometime when she was still small, and a girl, she began to sing, at first to herself, then to her family.
"One day, when she was not yet a girl, and not yet a woman, she sang to Liam. They were hot and tired from moving her father's sheep to the stream, and sat beneath a hazel tree for a rest, and for their lunch. 'I can't sleep,' said Liam to her after he'd eaten. 'It's too hot.' And to help him sleep she began to hum, then sing a tune.
"Liam couldn't believe what he was hearing, and at first he thought the faeries had come for him, but decided Siobhan would have said something. So he opened his eyes and saw Siobhan singing, heard her singing in the most beautiful way imaginable. Her song sounded like the gurgle of the stream over smooth stones, of the breeze rustling in the leaves, but it was also not of nature, like a color that had yet to be invented. Stunned by the beauty of her voice Liam physically could not move, and felt the music in his ears, in his mind, and in his heart. He fell in love with her, he fell in love with her voice, and the two were the same thing.
"'Your voice,' he managed to tell her after she stopped. 'Your voice is more beautiful than fairy music.'"
I heard it again then, and I think Sarah did too, cause she stopped and looked in the direction of the snorting sound, frowning just a little, and then picked up again. Something about her voice was making me hypnotized -- I was in the story, with the rest of the people in the room, and I could see Siobhan singing to Liam. I could've told you what color her hair was, even though Sarah never told us that kind of thing. It was like a movie -- except for that joker in the back of the room pretending it was stupid.
"Siobhan turned to him, angry," Sarah picked up again, "and scolded him. 'Never, never, say such a thing,' she told him. 'You know they are listening to me, to you, to us. Never speak of the little people.'
"Now, Liam did know better, but it had slipped out. Still, he wasn't going to let her tell him what to do, so he stuck his tongue out at her and leaped up. 'I'm ready. Let's move on,' he told her, and they started moving the sheep again. But about a mile down the road Siobhan looked at him and quietly asked. 'Do you really think so?'
"And Liam knew exactly what she meant. He nodded at her.
"Well, time went this way and time went that way and Siobhan's singing became known much further than the five farms separating hers and Liam's homes. They heard about her at the fair, and she stood on a small platform and sang to the audience. Some thought it was sinful and stayed away, but others were captivated by her simple beauty and the heavenly music she could make with just her voice. No one knew where the songs came from, either, for Siobhan never sang the same tune twice, or the same set of words more than once. It was as if she was making it all up as she went along. Talk came to say she was enchanted by the little people, but no one said it out loud, only that it might be possible. No one would ever mention the little people aloud, or compare the music of mankind to the fairies, for to do so would be a kind of summoning, and once summoned, the little people could do terrible things.
"All they knew was how her music made them feel, as if tens of instruments had begun to play at once, as if flowers would fall from the heavens as she sang. Liam knew it was a special music, and he fell deeply in love with her for it. After some years, when he could not recall when she hadn't sung, he did not know if it was her self or her voice that made his heart mad for her, and finally he did not care. Deep in love, they began to save money to be married in the summer.
"But such a music could not go overlooked by the lord of the land, and one day Siobhan's presence was required in court. She travelled with Liam and her father by horseback to the great lord's house, where she was bade to sing for all assembled. And as Siobhan opened her mouth once again all who heard her fell in love with her -- or, at least, they fell in love with the music she made. Neither shrill nor repetitive, Siobhan's voice was a marvel, a sweet never to grow tired of. The lord invited her to stay in court, to show her marvelous voice to any and all who could come, and within a month she, Liam, and their families had completely moved to within sight of court. At any time, the lord might call on Siobhan to sing, for when he felt ill she healed him, and when he was sad she cheered him. He was a good ruler, and saw the love between Siobhan and Liam, and never tried to part them by declaring his own affections. He asked but one thing: that Siobhan and Liam delay their wedding plans until the court could give them a proper wedding feast. Siobhan and Liam knew another few months would not change their feelings, and agreed. But when their lord announced the wedding date as the day after Samhain, Siobhan and Liam felt nervous stirrings. So close to winter! and even worse, so close to such a wild, and uncertain time.
"For Samhain, in the Celtic world, was the start of winter, when the mortal world stands still for a day, when the night is long, and much change is afoot.
"But when they brought these concerns meekly to their lord, he insisted that such rituals had no place in his court, which was a Christian one. 'I can tolerate many superstitions,' he told them, 'but I cannot allow them to rule myself, or my subjects. The date remains firm.'
"It was, in the end, a small thing, and Siobhan and Liam did not trouble further over it. During the months before their wedding, there was much work to be done. Their lord was bringing guests over and showing Siobhan off, purchasing fine silks and velvet for her to appear in, and she did sparkle and glow from wherever she sang. Angelic, they called her, and otherworldly. The words from the guests began to fill Siobhan's head with air, crowding out the sheepherder's daughter's sensibility, filling it with puffery. Siobhan, like any mortal, began to crave the attention, the desires, the look of pure joy in the eyes of those she sang for. And she began to think differently of herself, that perhaps there was some magic she was working, to be able to sing in such a way. She began to dislike leaving their presence, of feeling her way down the dark corridors of the lord's home, back out into the chill night air, where her silks and velvet were impediments, and did not shine. She still loved Liam, but as he was at the end of the misery of her leaving the spotlight, she began to look on him differently. And she began to wonder if perhaps she was too good for him."
"And of course she was," came a slippery, silky voice from the back of the dark room.
It jerked me out of the story again, and I got really pissed off. I'd been trying to picture Sarah in those silks and velvets, and then from the same place as the horse snorts comes this joker again. I got really steamed and stood up. "Will you just shut the fuck up?" I told the dim back of the room. "We're tryin' to hear a story here." I turned to Sarah again and apologized. "Go ahead."
There were giggles around the room and I realized I'd just announced myself as the big dumb lug. Fine, whatever. I sat down again.
Sarah coughed a little, and started up again. "Liam noticed these changes in Siobhan, but did not bring it up to her. She grew a little more snappish, a little less patient with him every day, yet still he loved her and was afraid to criticize her, for he feared she would lose her love for him. But finally, the eve before their wedding, before the secret Samhain rituals were to take place in the fields and hills, he took her on a long walk, to a place they had not yet visited, and sat down with her. 'Do you still love me?' he asked, feeling this was the most important thing to know.
"'Of course I do,' she told him immediately, and felt her heart flutter at the question. Away from court she was most her old self, and Liam's words, which while kind held some reproach, made her anxious.
"'You aren't yourself, of late,' Liam told her, 'and I wondered if something had changed between us.'
"She assured him over and over that nothing had changed, and that he was her only one true love.
"'And you are mine,' said Liam in return, 'but I have felt sometimes you love another more than I.'
"'Who?' Siobhan demanded, surprised and curious.
"'Yourself,' said Liam, and looked away. 'Since we came to court the strangers who come to hear you sing have taken you away from me, and made you vain.'
"Siobhan's cheeks flamed. 'I don't agree,'
"'Then,' said Liam, 'then after the wedding let us travel. Go south, see the rest of this country. Let us come away from the court, and just love one another.'
"But Siobhan would not forgive Liam's bluntness, and she stood, taking her hand from his. 'I am needed here in court.'
"''Twould only be for a short time,' Liam told her, 'and upon your return you would be all the more welcome. I am selfish. I want you for myself.'
"Siobhan felt a chill in the evening air, and it angered her, as if the weather was trying to send a message. 'You are wrong. They need me more. My voice is the only magic in that court.'
"Liam winced, and then tried to shush her. 'Don't say such things.'
"And then Siobhan lost her control. 'Say what things? Say the things everyone knows, but everyone fears to say to me?'
"Liam stood, 'Darling, please, don't --'
"Siobhan was not listening. 'Say that my voice is of the fairies? Well, Liam, don't be so daft, of course it is, and everyone knows it. And there should be no harm in saying it. I am needed because I sing like the fairies. In fact, I sing better than any fairy could ever hope to.'
"The night had come while they spoke and the chill breeze that had been blowing suddenly stopped. 'We should leave,' Liam said quietly. 'Night is falling, and it is not safe any more.'
"They began heading homewards to the castle, but had not walked more than a few hundred paces when they came upon a small, shaggy gray horse and a rider, dismounted, waiting. The rider appeared pale, as if not quite there, and was achingly beautiful. Still, a chill ran through Liam, who clutched Siobhan close to him, and whispered to her 'Do not say a word, my darling, although I think we have already said too much.'
"Small and delicate-boned, the rider wore clothing of a fabric neither Siobhan nor Liam had ever seen, and it blew gracefully over a lithe frame. The rider's eyes blazed at the two, and Liam felt Siobhan shudder. For they both knew who this was, and why she was here.
"And then she spoke to Siobhan, offering her hand. 'Come here,' she said in a voice that was half sound, half twinkling starlight, and Siobhan had no choice. The small rider grasped Siobhan's hand with a grip that was surprisingly firm and warm, and said 'You know me?'
"'Yes,' stammered Siobhan.
"'Good,' said the rider, who of course was of the fairy world. 'This will make things much easier. Come to me, Liam,' she said, and Liam, impelled, came over. She passed one hand over his head, and kissed him on each cheek. 'Now go home, Liam,' she told him, and Liam started off, back to court.
"Siobhan cried out to him but he never turned. 'He no longer hears you,' said the fairy rider.
"'What will become of him?' cried Siobhan.
"The fairy rider said, 'He will waste away, now, for his mortal love is gone and he can never feel a fairy kiss again. He shall die before the year is through. But, of course, he will come back. You will both always come back.'
"Siobhan began to weep at the fairy's words, even though she did not understand it all. 'What will you do with me?' she asked finally.
"'You will come with me, to tir-na-n-og,' the fairy told her, 'and you will stay with us. Come, now, behind me.'
"And Siobhan, impelled again, climbed astride the horse with the fairy and held on as the animal raced into the night. And as they rode the fairy explained what was to become of her: she would stay, and live, in the country of the young, for there a day is like seven years in man's world, and she would want for nothing, not food, nor drink, not sun, or sleep. Once in a while, as the mood struck the fairies, she would be turned back into man's world, and there she would have to seek her one true love -- Liam, brought back in an other human form. If she were to find him within a year, and know him for who he was, as he would know her for who she was, she would be freed, and the fairies would trouble her no more.
"Siobhan was miserable, and wept hot tears in silence, closing her eyes. It sounded horrible, a terrible fate for a few misspoken words, but she had heard tales of worse. The fairy seemed to sense this, and continued. 'But,' the fairy told her, 'in tir-na-n-og you wil be unable to sing or speak. Silence will accompany your feeble attempts. And in the world of man your fate will be only slightly different -- only shall you be able to sing, and speech of any kind will render you mute.'
"And then Siobhan opened her eyes, and she was in the land of the fairy."
Sarah took a big breath and sat back, stopping at the sound of a tiny bell. I noticed how everybody the room looked like they were coming out of some kind of deep sleep and I had to rub my own eyes with my fists. It was kind of like when Scott and I had seen Pooka at T.T.'s. The owner of the bookstore stuck his head in and announced the place had to close, no more stories for that night. "Maybe you can finish it next time," I heard someone tell Sarah as they left.
I stood up, my knees feeling creaky, and started over to her without even thinking. I had to talk to her, I had to know how she knew all this, how she was so sure. Sure, you make up stories, but the way she told it -- the fact that I practically felt like I'd been there -- made it seem like she was telling more than fiction. I took a few steps over her way and held out my hand. "Ebon," I told her. "That was something, that was really something."
She smiled and her cheeks got pink. "I get very involved in the story. Thanks for standing up for me, Ebon."
I waved it off. "Hey, no problem. I do that stuff and feel dumb later. Besides, I was getting pissed off."
She shook her head and shouldered a purse. Behind us, somewhere, I could hear the room clearing out, but I was watching her big brown eyes. I'm sure I looked like a jerk, but I couldn't help it. "There's always one," she told me. Her eyes got narrow for a minute. "And I've seen that one before."
"Well, I know you probably got to get home, but I was wondering --"
She tilted her head a bit and I suddenly heard myself asking her for drinks, to hear more about this stuff, on Saturday. I can't still imagine why the hell I was doing this, but it was like Siobhan in the story -- I wanted to know more, so I jumped right in. A date, no less.
"Well," she started, and somebody raised the dimmed lights up real bright.
Without the dark room for me to hide in, the mood broke. Oh, she was still cute, but I figured that was it for me, once she got a good look she'd be gone, so I told her, "Well, now you see the whole picture," and held out my arms. "Don't worry, I know you're way too busy. Anyway, I liked the story."
I was half turned round when she said, "No, Ebon, that'd be fun."
And then I saw somebody familiar standing by the light switch, back against the wall, one leg crossed over the other at the ankle, watching us. Sheerie. She watched me notice her, then headed out of the room, up the stairs. Suddenly, it all fit -- the horse noises, the sleek voice from across the room -- and I had to follow. I was at the foot of the stairs down when Sarah called to me. "Ebon?"
I turned and pointed, not even thinking then how bizarre this must look. "Middle East upstairs. Seven pm. Saturday. Good?" And in one big jump, I landed on the next level, catching a snatch of Sheerie's hair heading out the door. It wasn't until I was outside that I realized I didn't even know if Sarah was even coming on the date. I didn't even register that I had a date, cause I was too wrapped up trying to figure how Sheerie disappeared out of the blue.
And then an arm curled around me.

---

There's paranoid, and there's paranoid. I know how to take care of myself, but I couldn't help thinking about that brawl that almost happened at T.T's between Dave and Pete a few weeks back, and why the fight was happening. And the reason that fight just about happened was walking with me down the street, one of her white, thin ams wrapped around mine, holding on like we were best friends. The arm, it didn't weigh nothing, but it felt like a bear trap. But I didn't take it off. It was kind of nice, actually.
But remember, now, I jumped a mile when Sheerie first touched me. There I was, on the streets, shiny 'cause it snowed while we were in, then melted. Early weather for snow, not even November yet, but I could smell it -- this year we were gonna be clobbered. So not a soul on the streets, not even a car going by, and then she grabbed me at my belt and I just freaked out.
"Did you learn anything new?" she purred at me, and suddenly we were doing this strolling thing, walking I don't know where, and more than the bite in the air was making me shiver. She didn't even have a coat on. Sure, I offered mine, but she claimed it wasn't cold.
"New, like what?" I asked her, trying not to look, getting this creepy feeling that if I really looked at her I wouldn't be able to look away.
"Oh, I don't know, you showed up for a fairy tale. So, did you learn anything new?"
I swallowed. "Those fairies don't take any crap, that's what I learned."
She laughed, clear and strong and the noise coming from her was funny, so I looked down for just a second, and she was beautiful, bright green eyes and pale, almost transluscent skin, like you could see right through her. I felt -- protective. "What were you doing there?" I asked. "Didn't Pete have a free night?"
She sighed melodramatically. "Pete's fine, writing the album, blah blah, just in this writing frenzy. Can't talk to me right now. Too busy. But we'll have our time later."
I had no idea what the hell she was talking about. "Yeah, but why a bookstore? Surely you can find better places to haunt."
She shrugged against me but didn't let go. "I just check in. I like to make sure the stories are being told right."
That just sounded silly, and this time I laughed. "Oh, really? And what does that make you, the Fairy Queen?"
She smiled at me, and showed her teeth, and I stole another quick look. And for a second she wasn't a knockout at all, she was like a ferret. "No," she said, and hugged my arm. "Just the mistress."

---

We were in the cracks, that night, I'm just about sure of it. Like my mom said, some people get lost...and some people find 'em and use 'em and I would be better off avoiding those people. I know now that while Sheerie and I walked in the general direction of the subway, where no traffic passed us, and not even a single person ran by, for that little period of time she was thinking I was lost, and we slipped into a kind of not-reality. And then my train sped into the station , so I turned to say something to her, but she had already disappeared again and I knew I was safe. But it made me wonder just where she had gone. And just where we had been.
I sure didn't expect Sarah to show up. After that little show I put on of racing up those stairs and out the door after some other girl, forget it, I figured. But the Middle East, well, that was a place I'd got used to, so showing up alone for me was okay, even if she didn't make it I figured the night wouldn't be a total bust. Some band called Magic Day were doing an extended weird jam and I figured I could poke my head in and get lost in their sounds if Sarah didn't show.
Funny thing was, she did. I was on my second Sam Adams, leaning on the bar, watching the Celts play when something made me turn and I saw her, standing by the door, coat draped over her clasped hands. She had on that same Laura Ingalls outfit, and with all the sort of hippies and what Scott always called Indiekids around looking grungy, she looked totally out of place. I waved her over and glared at the guy leaning on the stool next to me. "Beat it," I growled, and, him being about five years and fifty pounds less than me, he took off. Just like Scott says, the Indiekids got no balls, either. "You came," I said to her as she slid on the stool, smoothing her skirts under her.
"Yes," she said. "Surprised myself by doing it."
"Well, I'm glad you made it. Drink?"
"I don't actually drink. But you can get me a soda."
So much for drunken romance, I figured, but had the bartender throw a Coke her way. She didn't say anything about the other night, just sipped, but I decided to let her in on the whole Sheerie thing. "She wasn't a girlfriend, you know," I told her. "Just a friend of a friend."
"Hmm," said Sarah. "I've seen her around. She comes when we do the fairy stories."
"Not the best audience, I guess."
She shook her head, her red hair falling over one shoulder. "We don't get hecklers, usually."
"So how does that story end?"
She raised her eyes at me. "Which one?"
"C'mon, you know, the Siobhan and Liam one."
"Siobhan," she corrected my prouncing it, and pulled a pen out of her backpack, scribbling the spelling down on a cocktail napkin. "Gaelic."
"Right. So how does it end?"
She smiled a little. "Maybe it doesn't. Maybe the faeries haven't let her out yet. Maybe they did and she's wandering around right now, looking for whoever is Liam this time around."
I felt a little cold, and said it before I thought how stupid it'd sound. "Like Sheerie?"
She looked at me for a second, and knew who I meant. I could tell. "No. I think....she's something different."
"How do you know all this stuff?"
"I studied in Ireland. I read a lot. Don't you?"
"I'm working on it. I got this Yeats book --"
"Irish Fairy and Folk Tales?"
"How did you know?"
"Excellent anecdotal information in that one. And glossaries, no less. Though I have to wonder about some of the authenticity -- Yeats was pretty famous when he did his tour of Ireland, retrieving stories from old people, and some of them might have, well, embellished. But one of my favorites."
I was blown away, and took a sip of Sam to prevent her seeing it. "But -- I mean, you tell the stories. Do you believe any of them?"
She thought a minute or two, and stared at the ceiling, holding her drink up, frozen like a statue. Then she unfroze and said, "I think that we believe what we see."
"You've seen fairies?"
She crooked up one side of her mouth and I had to wonder if she was playing with me, the ignoramus. "Maybe. Perhaps they were just real people who acted in such a way to make me think they were fairy-like. For sure, no self-respecting one would just appear with bells on his toes and a funny pointed hat and start pointing his finger at rainbows. I'd think the world has changed a bit too much for that. Fewer hills, and raths, for them to play in. In the city, I'd say they hide in different corners now. Sometimes in shadows."
I didn't know what to say to that so I asked her to share some spinach pie with me, and after we checked out Magic Day. I had a good chuckle to myself when I snuck a quick look over at her and figured her expression at the music must've been something close to what I looked like to Scott on my first night out. But she was game, and we stayed through the whole show, though by the end the droney music had me falling asleep. I took her home in a cab and she shook my hand, formal but not exactly. "Thank you," she said. "I had a very nice evening."
Now, I hadn't done this in so long for a second I had to figure out how many of the rules had changed, and decided the handshake meant she didn't want me coming up. But then I did a weird thing, and I swear to god Scott woulda keeled over laughing, but he wasn't there, so I leaned over and gave her a kiss on the back of her hand. "Fun for me, too," I told her.
Well, that shocked her, and she took a step down from her porch. "Ebon," she asked, all quiet suddenly. "Have you ever seen fairies?"
And something clicked in me and without more than a second passing I said, "I think I have."
She smiled and fit her key in her lock, and turned. "Goodnight, Ebon. Call me soon."
I didn't, schmuck that I am, cause Scott came back to the world about five days later. "Hey, Senior," he said over the phone from work.
"Hey Junior," I told him. "So, what's on the docket tonight?"
And things were back to normal with us. Shoved into Mama Kin's, brutalized by the flying moshers at the Middle East, drinking free beer nearly everywhere we went. For something like the next month or so everybody was welcoming Scott back, the press rep people fake-cheerier than usual, and we got freebies left and right. I tell you, it's like Scott was a relation or something. I saw Scott hugged by total strangers, then he'd turn and shrug at me and say "Cheap exchange rate, I'd say. Sam or Guinness?"
One night, one stranger didn't seem as strange as the others -- familiar in a weird way, but I could swear I didn't recognize him. He gave Scott a squeeze, a kind of light one, and stood back to see Scott's reaction, which I could tell was one of complete confusion. Scott looked like I felt. The guy was tall, and slim, black hair thinning in spots, brown, way too-bright eyes. It was the eyes that did it for me. "Pete," I said and threw out my hand. "Been a while, man."
Pete acted relieved that at least one of us recognized him. "Good to see you, Evan, way too long. Where you been?"
"I've been right here," I said and pointed down. "Where you been?"
"New York," he said. "Writing, touring, totally hectic, busy, crazy. Barely had time to eat, ha ha."
"Pete?" Scott said finally, shaking his head. "Pete?"
Pete held his arms wide. "It's me, Scottie! Sorry about that attack you had last time we were hanging. You better now?"
Scott had his head half-cocked and didn't say anything for a few. "Oh yeah, I'm better. Rarin' to go. A million columns and articles to catch up on. Missed seeing you play."
"Well, miss no more. We got our big homecoming at Avalon in two weeks. I expect you to be there, man. You too, Evan."
I was getting seriously warped vibes from Scott and I am not a guy who normally gets vibes from anybody. Draining my glass real quick I said, "You bet, Pete, we're there." Turning to Scott and bumping him on purpose I said, "Scott, I need another. Let's find that record company woman, hey?"
"Uh, yeah," said Scott, coming out of that trance I'd seen him in before.
"Cool, man," said Pete. "Gotta run. Need to find somebody before it gets too damn loud in here to talk. Take care!" And he melted into the crowd behind us.
"I need air," Scott said.
"Again?"
Outside, he took a few deep ones, and lit one of my cigarettes. "You don't smoke," I told him.
"New habit," he said. "Just one or two. Not at home, anyway. Calms me down, that kind of stuff."
"Who says you need calming?"
He squinted up at the stars and took a long drag, his fingers a little shaky. "Did you notice something different about Pete?"
I thought a minute. "Well, he finally got rid of that goatee thing. Dumb idea --"
Scott waved me away with his cigarette. "Stupid. Come one, he got rid of that ages ago. The way he said it, it wasn't his choice, it just kind of melted off his face. Think, damn it."
He sounded pissed at me and I wasn't exactly sure about what. "Well, he's obviously lost some weight. Must be his huge success, you know, wants to look good in the videos and stuff."
"He's sick," said Scott. "Can't you see it? He looks like he's got AIDS or something, he's totally wasted."
"Come in, he's not that skinny," I said, but I had some doubts.
"Two months ago he was over two hundred, easy," said Scott. "Nobody gets that thin that fast unless he's sick."
"I didn't see him for a junkie," I told him.
Scott frowned and looked down the street. "Me neither. I haven't seen him in a while but...even drugs don't do that that fast. It's something else."
"So what, you gonna write about it?" I prodded.
He dropped his cigarette out and killed it with a sneakered toe. "While I was gone, did you read up on pucas?"
"Huh?"
He frowned at me. "Forget it. Just forget I said anything. Let's go get another free one."

---

Then I called her. And after a million apologies and claims of self-abasement, she forgave me. It was cute, this game, in a way, because I think in her gut she knew I was gonna call anyway, and in my gut I knew she already forgave me before the phone rang. But you got to go through this feather waving, to prove the point. Funny thing was I meant it when I said I was stupid not to call before. And when she'd got through forgiving me, I invited her to Blue Pooka's homecoming. "I want you there to be there," I told her, "but I think I need a professional opinion, too."
She laughed. "Professional opinion? This should be really interesting."
"Sarah, I missed the end of you story," I told her.
"I know, Ebon. It's okay."
"Yeah, but how did it end?"
"I told you -- she's still out there, looking. There is no ending."
"Well, that sucks."
She sighed on the other line, as if this wasn't the first time she'd had that critique. "I'm sure you know, Ebon, if you've been reading your stories, that there aren't always happy endings to these stories. In fact, most of them don't have happy endings."
"I kinda figured that," I mumbled.
Scott didn't want to come to the show. Said he was feeling weak, he needed a night home. I told him I'd pound him if he didn't come. At some point, it became very important to me for all of us to be at this show, but I don't know exactly why. I just felt this imperative come over me, and insisted he drag his scrawny ass to the show at Avalon. "Besides," I told him, "I need you for those passes after the show's over. Avalon's got security."
"You wouldn't really beat the crap out of me, would you, Senior?" Scott was joking, but I could tell he didn't know if I was serious or not.
"Stand me up and find out," I growled at him.
Scott's a lot of things but in the end he's not all that much ballsier than the Indiekids, so he met me and Sarah outside the big black concrete walls of Avalon about twenty minutes before Pooka were supposed to go on. "This is so exciting," Sarah said, and squeezed my hand. "I never do this kind of thing."
"Yeah, I didn't either, once," I said. "You can blame him for my conversion." Scott had just come up, given me a funny look for bringing a date he didn't know about, and I introduced them. He raised an eyebrow at me that told me we'd be discussing this maneuver in detail later. Meanwhile, he knew enough to keep his mouth shut.
The girl at the gate knew us, so we slid ahead of the yokels in line and got our passes from the box office. Standing on a balcony at the back of the big venue -- the whole place'd hold about thirteen hundred, if I remember hearing right -- in a special press area, Sarah and I scoped out the heads of the crowd, seething and shouting below, pointing out funny looking ones until Scott came over with our freebies, Sam for me, soda for Sarah.
"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little nervous about tonight," he told me, and Sarah peered over.
"Why?" she asked.
I waved it off. "Scott had an attack of appendicitis last time Pooka played, right after even. Don't worry, Scott, you only got one appendix. Not gonna happen again."
He shrugged with one shoulder and said "Yeah, but Ebon, it wasn't really just the appendicitis. The music, it was like....too much. Like how some sounds can make your ears bleed -- that music made me feel like I was bleeding inside."
Sarah had opened her mouth to say something when a familiar slinky -- and yet somehow entirely expected -- voice made itself heard behind us. "Hi boys," it said with delight, and we all turned at once to Sheerie. "And girl. All my friends."
"What are you doing here?" Sarah demanded.
Sheerie looked offended. "Friend of the band, naturally. The singer. Pete. He's mine."
"I wonder at your word choice," muttered Sarah, but not too soft.
Sheerie merely raised an eyebrow. Then, "Well, I just came over to say farewell. I won't be seeing you all for a while."
"You leaving?" Scott's voice sounded strangely hopeful.
"Perhaps," she said. "Things are about over here."
"Did you tell Pete yet?" I had to know.
She rolled her eyes. "Later. I haven't decided exactly what I'm doing yet. But soon."
I began to wonder at her word choice now, and several images I'd been chewing on slipped into place. I took a step toward her just as the lights behind me dimmed. "Are you going to kill him before you take off or just leave him alive like you did Steve?"
Sheerie's smile widened and I could see her green eyes light up in the dark. "I like you, Ebon," she told me, her voice soft but I could still hear it over the roar of the crowd. "You're good. Let's go walking again sometime." And then, like a whisper, she stepped back, melting into the dark room, eyes and all.
Sarah put a hand on my arm. "What was --" she began, but the curtains opened on the stage, revealing a hazy blue light that enveloped the room, and Pooka started to play.
We turned to the music and, pulled directly into it, could not turn away. Pooka owned us from the moment they took the stage, the music almost a physical thing that came out and took us on an amusement park ride. Sarah gripped my hand from the second song and did not let go, and for a moment when I turned to check her out, she had a wild, open look on her face, grinning like a warm breeze was hitting her straight on. Knowing better what to expect Scott didn't stand there slackjawed, this time he had a smile on his face, like this was another habit he had gotten used to. Tough in the beginning, but a show from Pooka had become something of a religious experience, where a fever just takes hold and doesn't let go.
We never did say anything about Pete. He was far away, and the smoke and lighting made it hard to see him too clear. One thing was for sure, he was scrawnier than when we'd last saw him play, and he kept a hat on all night, like he was hiding something. As hot as that place got, to leave a hat on the whole time -- well, you draw your own conclusions. But it was like we didn't even have to see him to feel what he was singing, like we looked straight through him and saw the song, not him. More goofy crap. But I was thinking more and more that sometimes there really is goofy crap in the world, and it's stupid to pretend it don't exist, just 'cause it sounds all airy-fairy. Music is just one of those things there aren't the right words for, even if you're like Scott and you use them for a living, music is just a thing that you can't put into little characters on a page. They were doing the thing they were meant to do, and doing it right. Nobody could write about that. And nobody did it better than Pooka. Not then, not ever.

---

Ma always did talk that kind of stuff, about people doing what they're supposed to, and doing it right. I finally decided she had a point there. Pete and Pooka found their thing, however short it was they had it, Sarah has it with her stories and teaching -- get that, me attached to a schoolteacher just six months after meeting her. Me, I found my thing with Sarah. That's the thing I can do right, and my column and the moronic superintendent getting impeached or whatever, well, that's just something on the side. What I'm meant to do is stay with Sarah. I think Ma would've agreed on that one, particularly since it got me out of that lousy $425 a month apartment. Scott still is looking for what he's supposed to do, I think, though he's been leaning more to that band of his this past half year. Since I saw him play that first time, ages ago, it did feel like that was to be his little space to fill.
But, after today, I wonder.
Scott called me to tell it, 'cause I never woulda heard otherwise. "Hey, Ebon," he said, "guess what." There was a weird little hitch to his voice and it took me a few seconds to figure out he was in between laughing and crying.
"What's up, Scott?"
And he told me how Pete'd been found, alone in his apartment, sitting on the expensive sofa across from his expensive new idiot box with a gun on the floor and the back of his head in little pieces all over the room. They found a note in his other hand that just said: "The music doesn't hurt this way. This way, I'm done first." Nobody knew what he meant, really, 'cause it wasn't your typical suicide note -- no begging, no pleading, no last will type stuff, just a little scrap written on the back of an old set list. Most everybody figured he was depressed when the album tanked and their tour support from the record label dried up a month ago, and somebody'd even said his girlfriend had taken off. Sounds like he and Steve woulda had something to talk about finally. Sure, Scott and Sarah and I couldn't figure out what had gone wrong with the band to make things go so bad so fast, but hell, this is the kind of nonsense that happens in the music business.
They say when they came to take Pete away you could barely tell it was him, but not 'cause of the blast. All bones and eyes, they said, he died with his eyes open, sunk in, smiling this grin. Or that's what our obit guy told me. Said you could see the ribs and bones under his skin. "Obviously, another dopehead," said my brilliant obit guy.
"Obviously," I told him back.
Ma also always said that there were people who fall between the cracks, who think they have some great purpose out there, but do their great purpose for the worst reasons. I guess you'd call them bad guys, but they'd never think of themselves like that. They're just doing what they're supposed to do, even if they have to fall in the cracks to do it. I wonder if any of us ever understood what Pete had gone through. And I wonder if Pete ever caught on to what was happening to him.
I wonder if Sheerie knows. I think she does.
"He was a fucking great musician," said Scott to me over the phone. "One of the greats."
But you know what? I wonder about that, too.