Tugging her guitar strap down so her bass shifts onto her back, Jessie starts singing, “Oh darling, oh darling, don’t tell me no lie. Where did you sleep last night?” Staring up at the lights, she answers her own question—a one-girl call-and-response. “I slept in the pines where the sun never shines and shivered when the cold wind blowed.”
Only the guitarist accompanies her as she moans, “You’ve slighted me once, you’ve slighted me twice. You’ll never slight me no more … You’ve caused me to weep, you’ve caused me to mourn, you’ve caused me to leave my home … ”
The song creeps up my spine like frost. It makes me think of you, Holly, lost in the drowned forest. But just before I crumple under the sadness of the strange tune, Jessie lets out a triumphant whoop and launches into “Over the Wall.” The band plays so loud behind her, I half expect Jessie to whirl offstage like a dead leaf.
I recognize the songs from their CD, but music is different live. I can taste the steel strings in the air. Some people crowd around the stage and I join them, stomping my feet against the floor until it hurts. I enjoy the hurt. I start pogoing up and down. I can’t help it. My heart pounds in my chest, keeping time with the song.
A guy starts dancing with me, grinning wide. He’s slim and hard, arms and hips just brushing mine. When the song ends, he leans close. “Hey, what’s up? I’m Jello.”
“Jello?” I giggle.
“Uh-huh. So how’s it feel being the prettiest girl in the room?”
I laugh out loud at that, and Ultimate Steve and Max appear on either side of me. Ultimate says, “I give up, Jello. How does it feel?”
“The hell’s your problem?” Jello bows up his shoulders and jerks his arms toward his chest, swaying in Ultimate’s face like a cobra.
Ultimate shrugs. “No problem. Unless you want one.”
LeighAnn tugs me back to our corner. “Damn, Sesame Street. Gonna put a leash on you.”
“He didn’t do anything. We were just having fun.”
“Yeah, you and Jello have different ideas about fun. Stick with us, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
She wraps an arm around my shoulders. Ultimate and Max come back, and Jello slinks to the bar.
The show leaves a ringing in my ears, almost painful but not quite. Afterward, Against the Dawn hangs around the bar, chatting with people, selling CDs and T-shirts. Stratofortress orders another round. I sip my Mountain Dew and walk around, still too wound up to sit still.
The stage is small, just plywood boards covered in white scratches. I lie back, staring up at the mic stand and warm lights. I stretch my hands out and feel the stage’s hardness and the energy beneath the hardness. The stage holds life inside it, like a mussel shell or a seed.
“Jane, you okay?” LeighAnn leans over me.
I sit up. “Yeah, I just … I love you.”
One side of LeighAnn’s mouth curls up like a sideways question mark. “Did you have something to drink? Did one of the guys—”
“No. You took me in, and you didn’t have to, and maybe didn’t even want to, but you treat me like I’m your sister, and you’re—I just love you is all.” I hug her.
“It’s okay. Don’t even worry about it.” She pats my back. “And you sure you haven’t been drinking?”
“No. I mean, yes, I’m sure.”
“Good, because someone needs to drive home.”
“Huh? Not me. I’m fifteen.”
“And we’re all drunk.” She shrugs. “But we can’t leave Against the Dawn’s gear in this neighborhood, so you’ve got to get us and it and everything home.”
“I don’t have my learner’s permit yet.”
“It’s only a few miles, and there’s basically no traffic this late. It’ll be easy. Just remember, left pedal goes, right pedal slows.” She takes a few steps, then shakes her head. “No, wait. That’s backward. Remember it, but remember it backward.”
We help Against the Dawn load their gear into the 4Runner that’s been their home for a month. The guitarist, Kirk, gives us the grand tour. Two people can sleep stretched out if one of them lies on top of the road cases. The only food is a plastic tub of pretzels—payment from their Birmingham gig.
Ultimate drives the Florence Utilities van home, with Britney beside him looking out for cops. I climb into the 4Runner’s driver’s seat. LeighAnn, Max, Jessie, and Against the Dawn’s drummer—a blonde girl whose name I didn’t catch—crowd into the backseat. Kirk sits in the passenger seat. Feeling very small behind the wheel, I roll over the curb while turning out of the parking lot and lurch down the road. Kirk says, “Um. You probably want to turn on your headlights.”
“Dang it.” I tug on a lever. The windshield wipers come on. “Dang, dang, dang it.”
Reaching around me, Kirk turns the wipers off and switches on the headlights. “Relax, you’re doing great.”
The traffic light turns yellow, and I jam the brakes. Cuss words fly as we’re tossed forward.
Jessie says, “Hey, Sesame Street, turn here. I wanna see the Indian mound.”
Kirk turns around. “The what?”
Drunk, Jessie struggles with the words. “It’s a Mith— Missith—Mississippian mound by Wilson Lake. It’s right up here.”
I butt in. “Actually, I think I should just get you guys—”
“No, no, I’m curious now,” Kirk says. “Come on, Sesame Street.”
“It’ll be okay, Jane,” Max says. “Just keep an eye out for cops, and it’ll be okay.”
So I turn and cross the train tracks to where the thousand-year-old earthwork heaves up between warehouses and an office complex. There’s the semi-circular embankment protecting a grassy field as flat as a cake. Inside lies the steep, hexagonal mound. Once, a mighty warrior was entombed here. He was buried with a club that was embedded with shark teeth and fishhooks made from antler. They dug him up and put him in the museum decades ago, though, so all that’s left is the half-forgotten mound. We climb single-file up the steps cut into its clay, up above the streetlights, and look out over the river.
Stratofortress and Against the Dawn stand around drinking beers and telling jokes. They don’t talk about how bad Stratofortress’s set was, but it doesn’t seem like Against the Dawn is mad or anything. Jessie plonks down on the mound’s weedy crown, tucking her legs under her. “I used to bike out here after class. Loved it, wrote so many good songs up here. Max! You need to come out here to write your songs.”
“All right.”
“Dude, seriously!”
“All right!”
I sit down beside Jessie. “Did you write that ‘where did you sleep’ song up here?”
“Huh? ‘In the Pines’? No … no, no.” Her head wags back and forth. “I didn’t write that. Nobody knows who wrote that. It’s so good, though, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. It actually scared me a little.”
Jessie laughs at that. Kirk says, “If you want to hear a really good version of ‘In the Pines,’ go find Leadbelly’s cover.”
LeighAnn says, “Yeah, Nirvana did a version of it too that’s really good.”
Max starts singing, and Jessie joins in. “Oh darling, oh darling, don’t tell me no lie. Where did you sleep last night? I slept in the pines where the sun never shines and shivered when the cold wind blowed.”
I listen, staring out at the river, dark and shining like knapped flint. The song is even more haunting out here, as the notes mingle with the thick, fetid smell blowing off the water. We know the smell from fishing trips, Holly, from wading thigh-deep through inlets boiling with frogspawn. And for the rest of my life, I’ll know it as the smell you carried up from the drowned forest with you. It filled the houseboat’s cabin until my eyes watered.