Ten Miles Past Normal

Chapter Eighteen


Night of the Living Accordions





Verbena squeals when she sees me.

She is the first squealing friend of my friendship career. “I can’t believe I’m actually doing something on a Saturday night!” she calls as she rushes over to our table. “Monster gave me a ride. Well, he’s the one who told me about the open mic in the first place, and then I begged him for a ride. We talked about you the whole way over! I mean, how great and cool you are and everything.”

I have about thirty-seven different thoughts and impressions rushing around my brain all at once. I have the impression, for instance, that Sarah is staring at Verbena openmouthed, as though she has just been shot with a stun gun. I have the thought that Emma might find Verbena a little bit, well, verbose, for one thing and quite possibly vapid, for another, but any negative vibes from Emma are overridden by my sense that Todd finds my cherubic and very enthusiastic friend delightful beyond measure.

But the thought hovering over all other thoughts, the thought I find quite disturbing and am exerting a great deal of effort not to think, is this one: I am overwhelmingly relieved that Verbena is not here as Monster’s date.

Not that Monster is my type.

The band onstage launches into its first song, an original ditty entitled “Tears for Tina” about—get this—love gone wrong, and any possibility of further conversation is put to rest. Verbena squeezes into the booth next to me and begins keeping time with my coffee spoon. At one point she leans sideways and yells into my ear, “I feel like I’ve finally arrived!”

I glance over at Sarah, whose expression seems to say, And now why don’t you go away?

I want to reach out to her somehow, give her a little shoulder bump (Sarah’s not big on emotional displays, but the occasional shoulder bump’s okay) or a sympathetic smile. Because suddenly there’s something about Sarah that strikes me as sad. Not sad as in pathetic, but sad as in . . . I don’t know, lost, I guess. Which seems a funny thing to say about a girl who has firm career plans, is waging an impressive campaign against child slave labor in the cocoa fields of the Ivory Coast, and is at this very minute planning a multimillion-dollar civic project to honor two of our community’s civil rights heroes.

But in spite of all that, it occurs to me that I’m not the only one who’s spent this fall feeling unconnected, uncertain, and a little bit lonely.

The first band is quickly followed by a girl folk singer whose long, copper-colored hair swings in a beautiful arc in front of her face as she whines out songs about—you’ll never believe it—love gone wrong. Several of Folk Singer Girl’s bad love songs end with mutilated corpses, which draws a posse of black T-shirted guys close to the stage to cheer her on.

We sit through two more acts before Jeremy’s band comes up. To my surprise, Monster is playing bass. I don’t know why I’m surprised. He and Jeremy are friends, after all, and Monster did show up here with bass in hand. I realize that in the short history of our friendship, I’ve never heard Monster play anything but guitar.

Tonight he’s shed of his overalls, and his hair hangs free from its usual ponytail. Monster’s wearing faded black jeans, Doc Martens, and a T-shirt that reads—I choke on my coffee when I see this—rednecks for peace.

“What is it with you and choking?” Verbena asks, pounding me on the back. “Close up that windpipe when you swallow!”

I nod at this sound piece of advice and turn back to the stage. Monster’s bass anchors every song, and after my short but deep immersion into the world of bass playing, I can testify to the fact that he’s good. He rocks back and forth while he plays, one long leg extended behind him, the other bent in front of him. It has the effect of making Monster look like a tree being blown around in a hurricane. A tree with roots that go way down.

Every eye in the audience is on him. No one can help it. There is something incredibly compelling about a six-foot-two guy who is walking a tightrope between exquisite control and unleashed power. I wonder what would happen if he suddenly came uprooted, if his rocking threw him forward into the audience or back against the brick wall behind him. Mayhem, either way. That’s where the thrill of watching him comes in, I realize—the possibility of danger.

Next to Monster, Jeremy Fitch looks cute and boyish and entirely beside the point. He’s doing an okay job of playing, and he’s not a bad singer, but he doesn’t have Monster’s presence. I glance over at Sarah, who shrugs at me. It’s hard to know if she’s ready to let Jeremy—the idea of Jeremy—go or not.

When the set is over, Verbena is on her feet and dragging me out of the booth. “Come on, Janie! Let’s go tell Monster how awesome he is!”

I turn to Sarah. “You want to go say something to Jeremy? He was good up there.”

Sarah shakes her head. “I don’t actually know him that well,” she says. This from the girl who’s been studying Jeremy Fitch nonstop for the last two months. “Besides, I think you’re the one he’s interested in seeing.”

“He doesn’t even know my name,” I tell her. “Anyway, I bet Monster would appreciate you coming over to say hi. And Jeremy probably would too.”

Emma looks across the table at her sister. “Did you like the set?”

Sarah nods.

“Me too. So let’s all go up and say, ‘Great set, we want to be your groupies.’”

Sarah reluctantly slides out of the booth.

There’s a crowd around Monster, Jeremy, and the other two guys in their band. The girls are clamoring around Jeremy, while a bunch of guys surround Monster with a chorus of “Awesome, dude!” When Monster sees our little contingent, he breaks out in a huge grin.

“What’d y’all think?” he calls over. “Good show or what?”

I can’t help it. “Awesome, dude!” I call back.

Monster breaks through his fan club to come over to where we’re standing. He points a finger at me. “You’re going to be up there one day soon.”

“By myself? Solo bass?”

“Yeah, dude! It’s been done.”

I feel a pinch of disappointment when Monster calls me dude.

Not that he’s my type.

Then Monster turns to Sarah. “I been thinking about you. You know what might be perfect? An accordion.” He holds up a hand when Sarah begins to protest. “An accordion’s gonna hit right at your center of gravity, you being on the short side.”

“And just who am I going to play accordion with?” Sarah wants to know, sounding highly skeptical. “Is the circus in town?”

Monster looks at Emma. “How ’bout it, Em? Everybody’s got a thing for a sister act.”

Emma looks like she’s trying to decide just how crazy this idea is. Her expression suggests: pretty freakin’ crazy.

But then Todd leans over and puts a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Klezmer music, babe. Think about it. You’d be a natural.”

Emma’s expression brightens. “Klezmer music,” she says dreamily. “I love klezmer music.”

Todd gives her a nudge. “Huh? Huh? I think you know what I’m saying.”

“You want to start a klezmer band?” Emma asks, turning to Sarah, still not sounding 100 percent sure that this is a good idea. “Could be fun.”

“Klezmer band?” Sarah looks at her sister as though questioning her sanity. At the same time, there’s a little glimmer in her eye. An Emma opportunity! “I don’t even know what that is.”

I take a step back. Not only does Sarah not know something, she has just freely admitted it.

Change is definitely in the air.

“Klezmer is Jewish folk music,” Emma explains, sounding like the Lyman sisters performing in a Jewish folk music band is the most natural thing in the world.

“But we’re not Jewish,” Sarah points out. “We’re Catholic.”

“So what? There’s no rule that you have to be Jewish.”

Todd stands behind Emma and rubs her shoulders. “‘I am large, I contain multitudes.’”

Emma twists around and gives Todd a glowing smile. “Whitman.” She sighs. “He gets everything right.”

“Hey!” Verbena exclaims. “If it’s folk music, you guys could play at Janie’s mom’s hooten-athingy!”

“Excellent!” Emma exclaims, as though needing no further explanation of what a hooten-athingy is. She gestures enthusiastically at Sarah. “Monster, let’s get this girl an accordion, and one for me, too.”

“I know a guy who can hook me up,” Monster says. “Anybody else need one?”

Todd, Verbena, and I all politely decline.

Back at our table, waiting for Todd’s friend’s old-time fiddle and vintage jazz band to start its set, we order another round of coffee. When it arrives, Emma holds up her mug. “To Mrs. Septima Brown and Mr. and Mrs. Harlan Pritchard,” she toasts. “Knights of the Realm.”

“Hear, hear,” we chorus, even Verbena, who has no idea what Emma is talking about.

Todd puts an affectionate arm around Emma. “To us,” he toasts her, and then he looks around the table. “Live large.”

“Live large,” we say, lifting our mugs, and then I bump Sarah’s shoulder with mine, and she doesn’t even get mad when coffee spills onto her lap.

“Hear, hear,” she says. And then again, whispering, “Hear, hear.”