“Forget last week and forget technique for now too. When you hear a song you want to play, I want you to crawl inside it like it was a sleeping bag that maybe has a snake in it. What kind is it? How’d it get in there? What’s it gonna do now? You want to learn to play from the inside out. If you do it the other way then you’ll be pretending and even somebody as thick as Lars will see that.”

Ryder smiled and tilted his head to better see Leo’s face. “See, musical people are important. If we can take what’s in the air-pleasure or pain-and push it back out in a sound that lets people touch what they themselves are putting out, then you can call us bridges to Truth City. I like that: ‘Bridges to Truth City.’ And that’s hands down better than being a party to lying, don’t you think?”

Leo nodded.

“Okay then.” Ryder pushed his harmonica back into its harness. “Put yours away too. First lesson’s over. I want you to walk around all week trying to feel the meaning of things.”

“We’re not gonna play anything?”

“And when you find something that you’re feeling strong about, Young Buddy, throw together a couple verses on it. Forget ‘I Got My Eyes on You,’ you tell me what you got your eyes on, then we’ll present that to Mr. Harp of the Blues. Next week, not tonight. First things first”

2

This was easy. This was a thing that didn’t have to be thought about: Allie Donovan. Also a junior at Heywood High School, she was the only one who wore those bell-bottom jeans that were all floppy from the feet to the knees but from there they straightened up and got very tight, hugging her thighs and round soft-looking butt, even cleaving in a little at her crotch.

She had green eyes, a tiny nose, and a wider-than-average mouth that was always either talking, laughing, or else being very quiet and still when no one else’s was. She wore baggy white T-shirts that she tucked into her jeans, and even though she dressed like a boy, she was prettier than Nancy Titcomb and AnnaMaria Slavitt combined.