But the best part of Wednesday nights was right before all that happened, when the parlor was full of people with their eyes on Ryder and Leo’s dad, when Jim Suther’s guitar and wavering alto voice didn’t just match Ryder’s harmonica, but rose above it so that Ryder was huffing to keep up and the more he did that the more Jim seemed to sit back because now it was the number itself that had come alive, the wailing woowahing Oh-She-Up-and-Left-Me beauty of it, as if the song was now gentle flesh and blood that Ryder and Jim had no more hold on than moist-eyed smiling Lars or the foot-stomping, hand-clapping rest of them.

And while Leo clapped his hands in time, he would sometimes watch those faces that were soft with beer and wonder, even gratitude, in his father’s house. Leo thought about girls and women then and how content they’d be in this room too, how sad it was that there never were any. And children, six or seven of them jumping up and down or curled up under blankets on the floor asleep.

1

Tonight, after the paper mill men had all gone home and Jim was placing his guitar in its case, Ryder sat on the couch and sipped a fresh Narragansett. He glanced over at Leo still watching him from the corner chair near the window. The only light in the parlor came from the kitchen and when their eyes met, Leo looked away and swigged his warm Coke.

“Heads up.”

Leo caught it just as he saw it, a cool metal-worn Marine Band.

“It’s a C. Next week I’ll come over early if you want, show you a few tricks.”

Which he did. His Impala pulled into the yard just as Leo was in the kitchen sopping up the last drippings of clam chowder from his bowl with a slice of Wonder Bread. It was mid June. The sun had just slipped behind Saunders Hill so the bark on the pines was gold and orange like there was a big fire nearby. Leo got up and rinsed his dish. He could smell the coffee his father had brewed before pouring it over ice and going outside for his after-supper stroll down to the river. Ryder walked in with his harmonica harness hanging over one bony shoulder, a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon bottles in his hand.

“I’ve been thinking about you on the way over here, Leo. Thinking about how to start you out on the harp of the blues, you, a very smart kid. And it came to me the big thing you should know up front Ryder opened the fridge and put the beer inside. He walked to the stove and poured himself some coffee.

“Yeah?”