“Long-haired preachers come out every night,” he sang. “Try to tell you what’s wrong and what’s right. But when asked how ’bout something to eat, they will answer in voices so sweet: ‘You will eat, bye and bye, in that glorious land above the sky way up high. Work and pray, live on hay, you’ll get pie in the sky when you die.’ That’s a lie, that’s a lie…”

He smiled sweetly, eyes at half-mast, as the few patrons in the bar clapped lightly. It was Danny who kept it going. He stood from his stool and raised his glass and sang out, “Holy Rollers and Jumpers come out, and they holler, they jump and they shout. ‘Give your money to Jesus,’ they say. ‘He will cure all diseases today.’”

Danny put his arm around the guy beside him, a chimney sweep with a bad hip, and the chimney sweep raised his own glass. Nathan Bishop worked his way out from behind his table, making sure to scoop up both his whiskey bottle and his whiskey glass, and joined them at the bar as two merchant marines jumped in, loud as hell and way off key, but who cared as they all swung their elbows and their drinks from side to side:

“If you fight hard for children and wife

Try to get something good in this life,

You’re a sinner and bad man, they tell,

When you die you will sure go to hell.”

The last line came out in shouts and torn laughs, and then the bartender rang the bell behind the bar and promised a free round.

“We’re singing for our supper, boys!” one of the merchant marines cried out.

“You’re getting the free drink to stop singing!” the bartender shouted over the laughter. “Them’s the terms and none other.”

They were all drunk enough to cheer to that and then they bellied up for their free drinks and shook hands all around—Daniel Sante meet Abe Rowley, Abe Rowley meet Terrance Bonn and Gus Sweet, Terrance Bonn and Gus Sweet meet Nathan Bishop, Nathan Bishop meet Daniel Sante.

“Hell of a voice there, Nathan.”

“Thank you. Good on yours as well, Daniel.”

“Habit of yours, is it, to just start singing out in a bar?”

“Across the pond, where I’m from, it’s quite common. It was getting fairly gloomy in here until I took up the cause, wouldn’t you say?”

“I wouldn’t argue.”

“Well, then, cheers.”

“Cheers.”

They met their glasses, then threw back their shots.

Seven drinks and four songs later they ate the stew that the bartender kept cooking in the fireplace all day. It was horrid; the meat was brown and unidentifiable and the potatoes were gray and chewy. If Danny had to guess, he’d bet the grit it left on his teeth came from sawdust. But it filled them. After, they sat and drank and Danny told his Daniel Sante lies about western Pennsylvania and Thomson Lead.

“That’s just it, isn’t it?” Nathan said, rolling his cigarette from a pouch on his lap. “You ask for anything in this world and the answer is always ‘No.’ Then you’re forced to take from those who themselves took before you—and in much bigger slices, I might add—and they dare call you a thief. It’s fairly absurd.” He offered Danny the cigarette he’d just rolled.