Ryder popped open one of Lars’s Narragansetts but he waited until Jim handed Leo his iced coffee.

“To a good show,” Ryder said.

Jim looked at Leo, then down at his own hand. “And a quick tour of duty.”

The three of them drank just as Helena’s girlish flirting voice echoed “Hi, everyone” over the speakers and off the trees. Jim cleared his throat, swung his guitar around under his left arm, and started walking. Leo and Ryder followed right behind. Leo looked down at the back of his father’s legs and shoes in front of him, but with his heart going so fast that left him a little dizzy, so he looked up at the treetops just as Helena’s amplified voice said how proud she was to present, “the boys, of Katie Faye’s Band!”

There was some clapping as the three of them stepped up into the gazebo and it had ended before Jim sat on his stool and adjusted the microphone. Leo stood to Jim’s left, closest to the steps. His mike seemed a couple of inches low, but he didn’t trust his fingers to stay still long enough to loosen the wingnut and pull the mike higher. Jim was tightening his E string and Ryder already had his C harp in his hand. He nodded at Leo to grab his own G and Leo did just as Jim tapped his shoe three times and started in slow and controlled with Broonzy’s “Louise, Louise Blues.” Ryder drew out a low and sweet backbeat to the intro, and when Jim started singing, Leo raised the G harp to his lips, cupped it tightly, shut his eyes, and began blowing a low sister echo to Ryder’s harmonica. He heard his own sound leaving the speakers in front of him. His face was hot and he could feel all those people out there. He kept his eyes squeezed shut.

Jim’s voice sounded a little high and dry-mouthed but he was really taking his time with the picking. And Ryder’s harp never sounded more pure. Jim cut it all fairly short and launched right in without a break to “Sittin’ on Top of the World.” Leo had to open his eyes to put away his G harp for another, and when he did, he saw GP’s father bent on one knee on his picnic blanket between Betty and Ruth; he had his box camera raised, ready to take a picture. Leo pulled his newest C from its sheath and joined in with Ryder, the two of them honing in on the same riff. He kept his eyes opened this time and he turned a little to the side so he could see Ryder’s face under his hat. Jim finished singing the intro and pulled back for the harps. Ryder took the lead, flying off into the trees with some throat pops he butterflied into a wailing tremolo that sounded so good, so deep in Blues River, Leo let his own bass chord fan speed out of time, but he caught himself and slowed it back down just as Jim glanced over at him, winked, then picked up the singing again.