"How long do they go on?"
Sissy didn't answer for nearly a minute, and Mary was getting ready to restate the question, thinking the girl either hadn't heard or hadn't understood, when she said: "A long time. I mean, the show will be over by midnight, they always are, it's a town ordinance, but still... they go on a long time. Because time is different here. It might be... oh, I dunno... I think when the guys really get cooking, they sometimes go on for a year or more."
A cold gray frost began creeping up Mary's arms and back. She tried to imagine having to sit through a year-long rock show and couldn't do it. This is a dream and you'll wake up, she told herself, but that thought, persuasive enough as they stood listening to Elvis Presley in the sunlight by The Magic Bus, was now losing a lot of its force and believability.
"Drivin out this road here wouldn't do you no good no how," Elvis had told them. "It don't go no place but Umpqua Swamp. No roads in there, just a lot of polk salad. And quicksand." He had paused then, the lenses of his shades glittering like dark furnaces in the late-afternoon sun. "And other things."
"Bears," the policeman who might be Otis Redding had volunteered from behind them.
"Bears, yep," Elvis agreed, and then his lips had curled up in the too-knowing smile Mary remembered so well from TV and the movies. "And other things."
Mary had begun: "If we stay for the show..."
Elvis nodded emphatically. "The show! Oh yeah, you gotta stay for the show! We really rock. You just see if we don't."
"Ain't nothin' but a stone fact," the policeman had added.
"If we stay for the show... can we go when it's over?"
Elvis and the cop had exchanged a glance that had looked serious but felt like a smile. "Well, you know, ma'am," the erstwhile King of Rock and Roll said at last, "we're real far out in the boonies here, and attractin' an audience is kinda slow work... although once they hear us, everybody stays around for more... and we was kinda hopin' you'd stick around yourselves for awhile. See a few shows and kind of enjoy our hospitality." He had pushed his sunglasses up on his forehead then, for a moment revealing wrinkled, empty eyesockets. Then they were Elvis's dark-blue eyes again, regarding them with somber interest.
"I think," he had said, "you might even decide you want to settle down."
There were more stars in the sky now; it was almost full dark. Over the stage, orange spots were coming on, soft as night-blooming flowers, illuminating the mike-stands one by one.
"They gave us jobs," Clark said dully. "He gave us jobs. The mayor. The one who looks like Elvis Presley."
"He is Elvis," Sissy Thomas said, but Clark just went on staring at the stage. He was not prepared to even think this yet, let alone hear it.
"Mary is supposed to go to work in the Be-Bop Beauty Bar tomorrow," he went on. "She has an English degree and a teacher's certificate, but she's supposed to spend the next God-knows-how-long as a shampoo girl. Then he looked at me and he says, 'Whuh bo\i-chew, sir? Whuh-c/jore speciality?' " Clark spoke in a vicious imitation of the mayor's Memphis drawl, and at last a genuine expression began to show in the waitress's stoned eyes. Mary thought it was fear.
"You hadn't ought to make fun," she said. "Makin fun can get you in trouble around here... and you don't want to get in trouble." She slowly raised her bandage-wrapped hand. Clark stared at it, wet lips quivering, until she lowered it into her lap again, and when he spoke again, it was in a lower voice.
"I told him I was a computer software expert, and he said there weren't any computers in town... although they 'sho would admiah to git a Ticketron outlet or two.' Then the other guy laughed and said there was a stockboy's job open down at the superette, and -- "
A bright white spotlight speared the forestage. A short man in a sportcoat so wild it made Buddy Holly's look tame strode into its beam, his hands raised as if to stifle a huge comber of applause.
"Who's that?" Mary asked Sissy.
"Some oldtime disc jockey who used to run a lot of these shows. His name is Alan Tweed or Alan Breed or something like that. We hardly ever see him except here. I think he drinks. He sleeps all day -- that I do know."
And as soon as the name was out of the girl's mouth, the cocoon which had sheltered Mary disappeared and the last of her disbelief melted away. She and Clark had stumbled into Rock and Roll Heaven, but it was actually Rock and Roll Hell. This had not happened because they were evil people; it had not happened because the old gods were punishing them; it had happened because they had gotten lost in the woods, that was all, and getting lost in the woods was a thing that could happen to anybody.
"Got a great show for ya tonight!" the emcee was shouting enthusiastically into his mike. "We got the Big Bopper... Freddie Mercury, just in from London-Town... Jim Croce... my main man Johnny Ace..."