An older man answered: Afternoon!
He was bald with a wee white beard and wearing a waistcoat with bright colours. The musician noticed, pointed out. I like it!
This old guy paused a moment: Oh you do?
Yeah.
Well now I’m glad of that son might of gone home if you hadnt.
People laughed. The old guy then offered the musician a beer. But it was good fun, a nice atmosphere. The musician introduced himself, Declan Pike — call me Declan — and how he came from these parts but was now living in Houston, Texas. Part-time musician, full-time oil-worker.
Murdo liked hearing this. Guys back home did ordinary jobs too. Ye felt with him that he was trying for songs that were real. Stories from life. That style and voice of his, saying about the next song, written by this guy down in Texas who got shot dead in an argument over a welfare check. A slow track and that guitar just barely doing anything, ding, ding, telling the story, hear a verse, ding, ding, perfect spacing. And when he sang it he had the audience, they were just engrossed. Really it was a beautiful song, and strong applause from the audience. Aunt Maureen was among them. Murdo hadnt seen her since they first came in. Josie and another woman were with her.
The older man from the foodstall stood by the entrance, still wearing the Duncan Bizkitz baseball cap; he held a fiddle-case under his arm. The musician had noticed him and given him a nod while affixing a harmonica onto the guitar.
He had a good attitude. Some musicians act blasé, making it cool to ignore the audience. This guy didnt do that. He looked straight at people. A group of younger guys in kilts and Glengarry hats had a table along the side and he called to them: How’s it going boys?
They looked at him, surprised.
He was about to set off on the next number then gazed at the roof and spoke in a stagey growclass="underline" It’s the goddam daylight man I aint used to no daylight.
Some of the audience laughed. Aunt Maureen wouldnt have liked the “goddam”. He saluted somebody at the entrance now, a woman who was standing with people — Dad too, Dad was with them. They made their way into seats near Aunt Maureen and when they were seated the woman was next to Dad and she was saying something to him. Dad bent to hear what she was saying — it was weird, his head was quite close to hers. Not touching, it was just weird. Murdo couldnt remember seeing him sit beside a woman before.
Declan had begun on the next song, a join-in one about the railroad. A few people knew it. The old guy with the fancy waistcoat punched the air with his fist clenched, caught up in the story and angry.
Seeing people angry about a song. Ye didnt get that much. Murdo had never heard the song before but thought of the train cars down from Chattanooga having to cross the Tennessee River on boats. Ye could imagine all sorts.
When the song ended Declan adjusted the mic a little, and called to the man with the fiddle-case: You want to help me out here Chess! Then he introduced the song while Chess approached the stage:
Any Macphersons in the company? It came out like “MacFIERCEsons” the way he said it. There were a few jeers and laughter in reply but no Macphersons. My mother was a good Appalachian girl, he said, Macphersons was her people, come from Scotland some time. All dead, most of them, far as I know. Hanged them. Damn near wiped them out altogether huh! That’s what the next song’s about. Guy robbed the rich to feed the poor; yeah, Robin Hood. Was Robin Hood Scottish? No sir, he would not wear no green uniform! Declan chuckled into the mic. Scotch joke right?
A few in the audience laughed but most seemed not to know anything, but Murdo knew. Robin Hood couldnt have been Scottish because he wore a green uniform. Protestants blue and Catholics green. Murdo looked to see Dad. It was the kind of stuff he hated. And hearing it out in the open made it strange-sounding and childish.
Chess was now on stage and with his fiddle at the ready. Declan pointed at the slogan on his baseball cap: Duncan Bizkitz Outlawd! Them’s the politics I respect! Old Duncan now, he was a good old boy, fought a good fight and what happened to him? turned him into a goddam franchise.
Applause and some laughter.
Yeah, now, you all know another Macpherson? General James B?
People were quiet. The younger guys in the kilts and Glengarrys were staring at him.
Yeah, nothing worse than a Civil War, brother against brother. James B fell in the struggle for Atlanta, killed by men under the command of the bold John Hood; a hard man, a one-legged man; them two boys both Scotch descended, one north, one south, same class at West Point. Macpherson had the brains, helped Hood pass his exams. But Hood had the savvy. Declan spoke into the mic: You talk about your Beauregard and sing of General Lee;
but the gallant Hood of Texas he played Hell in Tennessee.
Yeah! called somebody, and another gave a loud piercing whistle, some scattered applause but then silence. And Declan continued: Another of the bold fellows there, Ould Paddy Clebourne from County Cork, Irish as the day is long. And a Protestant! Yeah. Some man the ould Paddy fellow. You all know he annoyed the bossclass? Asking them to emancipate and arm the slaves? Declan paused. Confederate Army General asking them old armymen to dish out guns to the slaves, free them and their families. Yessir, aint that a man.
Declan chuckled, glanced about the audience. Moral to that story: life is complicated. Okay! Listen up now, this is the bit makes me smile, some of them rebel boys — Scotch, Scotch-Irish, Ulster-Scotch, whatever you want to call it — they put their own words to this song. Folks been trying to track them lyrics down, cannot trace a single line. The men are gone so’s the words they wrote, commemorating the time they shot down James B. Macpherson, made him one Union soldier that did not go
marching through Georgia.
He had sung the last line and it was to a tune Murdo knew from back home to do with Protestants fighting Catholics. Declan looked about the audience again. No sir, he said, they stopped him dead in Atlanta.
Declan did his stagey growl into the mic: Good talking here in my home state. Cant get talking this way in Texas boy they would string me up. All them songs are histories. Lyrics I sing written by whoever, I dont know, tune goes back seventeen hundred or thereabouts. Right Chess?
Chess nodded, adjusting the fiddle.
“Macpherson’s Farewell”, said Declan leaning in to him, and added, Shoulder to shoulder.
They exchanged looks then Chess did four scrapes of the bow. Four scrapes. How did that work? Sad but not sad, not like for crying. This was straight-talking how Chess played it: here is the story this is the story, and in Declan came with it:
Fareweel, ye dark and lonely hills,
far awa beneath the sky
Macpherson’s time will not be lang,
On yonder gallows high.
Farewell. Getting put to death on the gallows. This became a fight too. But what was the fight? Murdo didnt know. But that is what he heard. Tough was Macpherson’s life and tough how he led it. Murdo knew the tune well but this was different how Chess played it and the song like how Declan Pike sang it. It was a thrilling thing and not a lament like a farewelclass="underline" more of a big and loud “Cheerio guys”, a shout: “Cheerio guys!”
Just dealing with the problem, that was Macpherson. Hullo and cheerio. Up on the gallows awaiting the drop. People waiting to buy yer fiddle. Guys ye knew. Ye were maybe having a beer with them the night before. Now here they were, wanting yer stuff. Oh you’re going to be dead in a minute so give me yer fiddle. Fuck you. Maybe yer clothes too, jees, the olden days; people had nothing. You go your way they go theirs. Families and friends split down the middle, you go one way yer pals go another.