Title Page

For my wife Fontaine, and for my son, Austin.

Heywood, Massachusetts

Heywood, Massachusetts

THE CONNECTICUT RIVER sounded different every season; it was a gushing stone roller during the spring runoffs, a narrow and quiet flow in the summer that in the fall receded to a thin clear wash leaving banks of leaf-covered mud and sunken tree root until winter, when the Berkshire snows came, and the ice formed over the rocks, and the water gurgled beneath it all as though behind a mask.

On its west bank, halfway through the trees up Saunders Hill, Jim Suther picked the guitar most every night. Though he was a white man he only sang blues songs, songs by men like Big Bill Broonzy, Mississippi John Hurt, Son House, and Champion Jack Dupree. After a supper he would cook for both himself and his seventeen-year-old son, Leo, Jim sat in the parlor on a stool in front of the window overlooking the woods and he’d start to play. He sang all kinds of songs, some fast that Leo could hear in the kitchen while he was cleaning up or doing his homework and he would tap his feet, or else slow ones like “Lonesome Road,” “Up, Sometimes Down,” and “Motherless Child.” Most times they were slow like that, and Leo would sit in the parlor and listen for a while.

He liked to watch his father’s face. That was easy to do because most times Jim kept his eyes closed while he picked and sang. Leo liked how soft it got around the mouth under his mustache, how tender-looking. And Jim was a big man. Not tall and lean like Leo, but wide with thick legs, rounded shoulders, and upper arms that always needed more room than his shirtsleeves gave them.

Wednesday nights, four or five men from Jim’s union at Heywood Paper Products would drive up in their Ramblers and station wagons to play poker at the kitchen table and drink cold Narragansetts out of cans. Leo was already taller than some of the men and they rarely talked to him like he was a junior at Heywood High School, graduating class of 1968.

One man, Lars, who was bald and had a clean-shaven pink face, he was always telling jokes about men screwing women who weren’t their wives. Sometimes he’d tease a punch as Leo passed the table on his way to the fridge and he’d say: “Hey Einstein, tell your pop to play some white music for a change.” Leo would smile and raise his Coke in a mock toast, then go out to the parlor where Jim was bluesing it with Leo’s Uncle Ryder. That’s what he liked Leo to call him, though he wasn’t really his uncle. One night Lars said to Ryder: “You’re so skinny I can smell the shit in you, Stillwell.” And Ryder was skinny. He also favored his left leg a little bit when he walked, and every day he wore his fake lizard-skin cowboy boots, even to the mill. But Wednesday nights he played the most wonderful instrument Leo could imagine on this earth: a German-made, M. Hohner Marine Band harmonica; The Harp of the Blues, Ryder called it.

He owned nine of them he kept in a wide leather harness around his waist. Most of these were in different keys though Leo knew four were in C, a bluesman’s standard. When Ryder played he liked to stand and he never opened his eyes at all, just cupped that silver mouth harp in his two hands, the left never moving, the right opening and closing, or staying still depending on the effect he was trying for. When Leo’s dad sang a train song, Ryder’s harp sounded like a freight liner chugging down the rails. He’d suck out a long wah-wah whistle like you imagine hearing after midnight when a diesel’s pulling through town with no one to appreciate it unless it makes some noise. Then when Jim picked and sang a Saturday night special like “Whoopin’ the Blues” or “Sittin’ on Top of the World,” Ryder would rock back and forth on his feet and put both lungs to work with trills and flutters, throat pops and hand smacks, all the while staying in perfect time with Jim’s guitar.

On songs like that, loud Lars and the other men would come in from the kitchen with their beers and smoking cigars. They’d tap their feet and let out a holler or two, and Jim and Ryder showed their appreciation by quickly sliding into two or three more room-movers. But with the blues, Leo noticed, you couldn’t go too long without coming back to a slow one that either made you sweetly downhearted, or else reminded you of when you were. After one or two of those, Don’t-Mistreat-Me or All-Alone-Blues, Lars and the others would either go back into the bright smokey kitchen to finish their game, or else stub out their cigars, drain their beers, and call it a night.

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?”

“You see, Young Buddy, the way I see it, there are thinkers in this world, and there are feelers. Sometimes there’s a little bit of both in one but those fellas don’t do much.” Ryder sipped his coffee and looked at Leo. “You understand?”

“Yep.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“What?”

“That you’d get that concept right out of the chute. Thinkers are like that. Feelers take longer, but then they come up with a painting or a poem or a blues riff to show you what they see and hear.”

Leo shrugged. “But you play the blues like no tomorrow and you just thought that all up.”

Ryder sipped his coffee. He looked at Leo over the cup. “All right then, shitcan my theory. But look, you have to start from scratch. When you play you gotta feel something, not think it. That’s all rm saying. Now go get your harp before Larsmouth and the others show up with their piggy banks.”

In the parlor Ryder cinched the harness in around his waist and pulled an A harp from its sheath. “First thing you want to start doing, Young Buddy, is to listen very closely to everything you hear. Concentrate on this song; it’s gonna be your cherry-breaker.” He put a foot up on the windowsill and began to suck and blow the first few notes of a tune Leo had heard many times before. After Ryder played the intro, he sang the first verse,

“My baby says she’s leavin’ me, and I ain’t done nothin’ wrong,

My eyes on you baby, you can’t do me no harm,

I got my eyes on you, I got my eyes on you,

I got my eyes on you woman, there ain’t nothin’ in this world you can do–”

Ryder cupped the harp back to his mouth and played a popwailing riff that was so pure and heartfelt Leo’s eyes got wet and he had to look down at the floorboards. Ryder’s playing was a lot better than his singing, and when he finished the song, Leo said, “Teach me a number I don’t have to sing in.”

“What have you got against croonin’?”

“Nothing. Jim does it good. But I want to play, not croon. Show me some tricks.”

Ryder shook his head. His red chin stubble caught the dusklight and looked gold. Leo couldn’t tell if he was smiling or not.

“Go look up trick in the dictionary and I’ll bet you’ll find the word deception in there somewhere. Hear me, Leo: when you enter the world of music, real music, like from Beethoven on up to Big Bill Broonzy, you’re stepping into Truth City. That’s what it’s all about, so no tricks, all right? Technique, yes. Tricks, no.”

“You said tricks last week. You said you’ll come over and show me some tricks.”

“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.

Nancy’s old man ran the bank or Heywood Electric or something. And AnnaMaria, who wore imitation pearls to school a lot, was one of Tony Slavitt’s Chevrolet kids. Girls like that always dressed in skirts and blouses and dresses, period. They were still girls, hardly women, but they wore their hair like Lady Bird Johnson, who wore hers like Jackie Kennedy, who Leo figured wore hers like Ann Margaret or Liz Taylor. And in a strictly untouchable sort of way, these were good girls to look at; but it was the kind of good you feel when you see something new, Leo thought, like a gleaming red Schwinn bike, or even better, one of Slavitt’s sparkling white-walled four-on-the-floor supremes: the exact moment you pause to appreciate its clean, beautiful newness is also the precise second you feel it pull away from you.

It was Thursday, late June, and Leo sat three desks back from Allie, watching her. The air was hot, and even with the windows open the room smelled like desk wood and B.O. sweat. The trees were leafed out green outside and Leo heard a squirrel scampering up a trunk, down a limb, and off it to another. Most of the kids were asleep with their foreheads resting on their folded arms, but Allie was drawing something with three colored pencils. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a single braid. Her neck was long and already tanned too. Whenever she dropped one color for the other, she’d turn her head sideways and look at her picture before she started up again. Leo lifted his chair when he scooted back so he wouldn’t make any noise, then he walked up the aisle, stood a desk’s length behind Allie, and looked over her shoulder.

With a blue pencil she was sketching in a smoke trail that curled up from the chimney of a three-story house. It had four white porch columns on the front like those mansions in the Civil War chapters of the U.S. history book, and to the right of the house was a huge tree with a noose hanging off one branch.

“Is Allison’s work more intriguing than yours, Mr. Suther?”

At first Leo didn’t match “Mr. Suther” up with himself, but when Allie looked at Mr. Jewett, then up and back into Leo’s face, Leo stared into her slightly startled green eyes and said, “Yes. It is,” and he walked back to his desk and sat down.

A few kids lifted their heads to see what was up. One of them was Leo’s flat-topped buddy, Gerry Poitras. He glanced at Leo and Mr. Jewett, before going back to his nap. Allie Donovan turned around quickly but quietly. She smiled at Leo a good four seconds.

That afternoon, while his father was still at the Elks, Leo sat at the kitchen table with his notebook and pen:

That Allie’s got a neck,
a neck so fine,
I want to kiss it,
Kiss it all the time.
We got a house,
Me and her on the hill,
It’s got a porch
bigger than the paper mill.
Sometimes when we hug
I feel like I’m gonna explode,
But then we do what we have to
Up there in our Love Abode.

He signed it and called it “The Love Abode.” The following Wednesday he handed it to Ryder who held it up in the afternoon kitchen light and read it out loud. When he got to the part about exploding and doing what we have to, he laughed and shook his head, then laughed some more.

“Now it’s my turn.” He showed Leo first how to hold his harmonica, how he should wedge the bass-notes end of it between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand so his right would be free to cup in around the harp, making an echo chamber in there he’ll want to use later. Leo had long thin fingers. Ryder’s were long too, but meaty. He said short fat fingers were best for the blues harp, the kind you get working with your hands your whole life like cotton pickers or mill workers, something like that. But Leo being only seventeen, he shouldn’t worry about that because he was his father’s son and was bound to flesh out more soon anyway.

Right about then Jim showed up in the kitchen doorway. He held a tall iced coffee with milk and between his fingers was a smoking Lucky Strike. The sun was getting low behind Saunders Hill so Leo couldn’t see much of his face too well. Jim watched while Ryder showed his son how to find do re mi, then how to choke the mi note into a maw sound by constricting the air flow in the throat. All of this Leo picked up on by the second or third try, which surprised Ryder until Leo reminded him he’d been watching and listening to Ryder play since he could remember.

“Your boy’s a songwriter too, Jimmy. Did you know that?” Ryder started to unfold “The Love Abode,” but Leo touched his hand. Jim let smoke out his nose and walked over to the two of them near the window. He looked up at Leo. “I’ll take a little credit for the music you might have in you but whatever wordsway you conjure, you’re getting from your mother. She was a poetess. I never told you that.” Jim turned his back on them, then he took his guitar out of its case and started to tune it up on his stool. Ryder winked at Leo and put the song back in his front shirt pocket behind three Heywood Paper Products ballpoint pens.

Without glancing at his old man, Leo left the parlor and the house and walked down Saunders Hill Road. In the early evening light, the river was a slow-moving brown and blue. Its pebbled bank was pink in some places, gold in others, and Leo picked up three stones. He threw one in a high arc into the trees. He threw the other two downstream. One hit a boulder and bounced off it into the water. Leo didn’t see where the other went and he couldn’t see why his father didn’t have another woman yet either. Jim wasn’t the only man to ever lose his wife. Gerry Poitras’s mother left his dad to go live with a phone lineman in Springfield. That was when GP was nine or ten. But he had a new mom now, a blonde woman with big breasts whose name was Betty. Gerry’s old man had met her on a train to Boston on business. She had no kids of her own and she seemed to like Gerry and his little sister Ruth as if she had invented them herself.

And Mr. Poitras wasn’t nearly as handsome as Jim Suther; he didn’t have the muscle, he didn’t have the thick black mustache, he probably couldn’t pick a tune or sing a note. He just had a flattop hair cut like his son, a fat close-shaved face like Lars, and a big round gut that always made his neckties look short and his pants too low. But still, he had Betty, and Jim had nothing but this piece of the Connecticut River every day at sundown.

Leo wedged his sneaker under a softball-sized rock, picked up the stone, then threw it as far upstream as he could. It made hardly a splash, just got gulped into the current. A family of birds was making all sorts of sound above and behind him and Leo thought he should get around to learning their names and migrating habits and stuff like that. Then he saw one up in an alder branch. The bird was all black except for the tips of its wings which were bright red. Leo heard cars parking behind the house up the hill, the slamming of the screen door, Lars’s laugh. When the door slammed again, the bird flew off the branch, out over the river, and into the trees on the other side.

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