He opened his mouth and sang through the pain. “Would you be free from the burden of sin? There’s power in the blood, power in the blood. Would you o’er evil a victory win? There’s wonderful power in the blood.”

When the wound was clean, the man wrapped Coot’s head in a rag. He gave Coot the bottle again and said, “Take one more swig. It’ll help the swelling go down.”

Coot did as he was told. The alcohol made his mouth burn so that he could hardly breathe. There was no discernible taste to it. Coot imagined this was what drinking kerosene was like.

The old man touched Coot’s shoulder. “Name’s Joseph,” said the old man. “But you can call me Joseph.”

The others laughed.

“I’m Coot,” he said.

Joseph gently rested a hand on his head. “Coot, I don’t mean to sound presumptuous, son. But you don’t happen to take requests, do you?”

Coot began to chuckle. It made his head hurt. “Try me,” he said.

“How about ‘Billy Boy’?” said one man.

Coot sang it.

“Do you know ‘Buffalo Gals’?” another man asked.

Coot knew every word.

The man named Joseph said, “Do you know ‘When We Were Young, Maggie’?”

Coot let out a laugh. He sang, “I wandered today to the hills, Maggie, to watch the scene below, the creek and the creakin’ old mill, Maggie, as we used to long ago.”

Book III

Fifty
Man in the Mirror

Paul looked at his own face in the hand mirror that was hanging in the barn. He ran the razor across his cheeks and felt it nick him. Bright red blood ran along his chin.

Vern was listening to the radio in the other room. It was blasting. The noise had changed from music to preaching. The sound of a man’s self-righteous voice hollered to the masses.

“Turn that off, Vern,” said Paul. “It’s killing my good mood.”

“But it’s J. Wilbur Chaplain,” said Vern.

“Do I look like I care?”

Vern turned it down to a low volume. Paul could still hear it, but he pretended he couldn’t. Vern had been listening to J. Wilbur Chaplain since the invention of the short wave.

He wiped his blood and stared at his own reflection again. Paul had once been a beautiful man, but not anymore. Now he was hideous and old. This was no beautiful man in the mirror, only a haggard thing.