A Slipping-Down Life

6

Drum Casey’s drummer’s name was David Elliott. Some people had tried calling him “Guitar” for a joke, just rounding things off, but David was the kind who slid out from under nicknames. He was not light-minded enough. He played the drums intently, watching his hands, sitting very straight instead of hunkering over the way other drummers did. This made him seem childlike, although he was a good six feet tall. He had white-blond hair that fell in an even line, hiding his eyebrows. His face was fine-boned and his eyes transparent, the color of old blue Mason jars. Yet girls never took to him. They liked his looks but not his seriousness. He spoke too definitely; there was a constant, edgy impatience in the way he moved, and he planned ahead too much. “We’re good. We’re going good,” he told girls. “I want to hit a night club next. We’re getting up there. We’re ready to move.” Drum, beside him, was slow and cool and dark. He made plans too; but while David talked about up, Drum talked about out. “When we get out of this place, I want me a custom car. Going to go so far I’ll lose the way home, forget the name of the town, mislay the map. Also new singing clothes; I want me something shiny.” Girls understood what he meant. They fluttered after him when he drifted off, and David stayed behind to think up more publicity.

David solicited clubs and roadhouses and church organizations. During the day he sold insurance policies door to door, but he never forgot to work the conversation around to music. “Spring is here. Are you going to have a dance? Do you know of any dances? You’ll need a band, records aren’t the same. What about Mrs. Howard, the one in the house on the hill? She gives a dance every May. Won’t she need a band? Ask her. It’s cheaper to hire the two of us; those big groups can get out of hand.” He believed in gimmicks, little eyecatching traps for people to fall into while they were making up their minds. Bright red cards with gilt lettering on them—“Drumstrings with guitar, David with the sticks, 839-3036”—were thumbtacked to every bulletin board. David’s Jeep was painted with psychedelic swirls and a purple telephone number. In December, he had sent Christmas cards picturing an orchestra of angels to every leading businessman in Pulqua, Farinia, and Tar City. He instructed Drum to carry his guitar slung over his shoulder at all times, but Drum didn’t. (“In the pharmacy?” Drum said. “At the liquor store? You’re putting me on.”) And when Evie Decker slashed “Casey” across her forehead, it was David who called the newspaper photographer. “This is why you need a manager,” he told Drum. “Would you have thought of it by yourself? You haven’t got the eye for it.”

“You’re right, I ain’t,” said Drum. “I got to hand it to you.”

Drum got along well with David, better than other people did. He liked riding on the tail of all that energy, letting someone else do the organizing, listening to the rapid, precise flow of talk which he thought came from David’s having spent half a semester at Campbell College. But it was only words that should be so precise, not drums. David’s drums never skipped a beat, and yet somehow the spirit was missing. Other drummers went into frenzies; David remained tight, expressionless, speeding faster and faster without so much as bending forward. “You drag,” said Drum. “Oh, I feel it.”

“I don’t drag. I’m there all the way.”

“Well, but you’re holding me back somehow. Tying me in. I don’t now.”

“Get another drummer, if you feel like that.”

But he never did. Together they went over each new piece, juggling lines and bickering and giving little wheezes of disgust at each other. When it came to music, Drum always won. He had the feel for it. “What’s this talking out in the middle of a piece?” David once asked. “Where does that get you? Most of what you say is not even connected.”

“I ain’t going to argue about that,” said Drum. “I just do it. If you have to ask why, you shouldn’t be here.”

“Oh, all right. I don’t care.”

He had the sense not to go against Drum on things like that. He believed that Drum was a real musician, someone who deserved to climb straight to the top. When an audience talked instead of listening, David muttered curses at them all the while he played. When Drum hit one of his low moods, David followed him around rescuing scraps of songs from wastebaskets. “What call have you got to slump around like this? What you throw away those other cats would give their teeth to write. You’re nearly there. You’ve almost made it.”

“You reckon so? I don’t know. Maybe you’re right,” Drum would say finally.

David paid a visit to Evie Decker on a Saturday afternoon during finals. She was on her front porch studying. She lay in a wooden swing with her head on a flattened, flowered cushion, one foot trailing to the floor to keep her rocking. When she heard the Jeep, she turned and blinked. Swirls of color chased around its body and across the canvas top, where they blurred and softened. And there came Drum Casey’s drummer out of the little tacked-on door, smoothing down his bangs with his fingers. “The Missouri Compromise,” Evie went on out loud, “was supposed to maintain a …” but her eyes were on David. She watched him cross her yard and climb her steps, rifle-straight and full of purpose. Because of the edgeless shimmer of his hair in the sunlight, he seemed only another daydream, nothing to get nervous about. “Afternoon,” he said.

“Afternoon,” said Evie. She sat up, laying a finger in her history book to mark the place.

“You Evie Decker?”

But he would have known, having seen her forehead by now. She didn’t answer.

“I’m David Elliott. I play with Drum Casey.”

“I know, I recognized you,” said Evie. She waited for him to go on, but he seemed to be getting his bearings. He gazed at the dim white house, at the lawn twinkling beneath a sprinkler, and finally at Evie herself, who wore a billowing muu-muu and no shoes. Then he said, “Mind if I talk with you a moment?”

“All right.”

He sat on the top porch step, with his forearms resting on his knees. Now that he was in the shade he had lost his shimmer. He was made of solid flesh, damp from the heat. Evie began swinging back and forth very rapidly.

“I’m also his manager,” said David.

“Yes, I know.”

“I do his publicity, line up parties and things. I think we got a good sound going.” He flashed her a look. “Drum has.”

Evie stopped swinging.

“Drum has really got it,” he told her. Why was he watching her feet? She curled her toes under. “Don’t you think so?” he asked.

“Well, yes,” said Evie. “You know I do.” She brushed a loose piece of hair off her forehead. David peered at the scars and then lowered his eyes — something that usually made her angry. “What was it that you wanted to talk about?” she asked him.

“Oh. Well, you spoke to Drum the other day about a plan you had. Plan for publicity.”

“Tuesday,” said Evie.

“Was that right, you had a plan?”

“I thought if I went to his shows, and sat up front. You know. People would say, ‘This boy has got to be good, look at what she did because of him.’ Only your friend said—”

“It’s not a bad idea,” said David.

“Your friend said no.”

“Ah, he don’t know. That’s why he has me.”

“He said he couldn’t sing under those conditions.”

“What does he know?”

“He knows if he can sing or not,” Evie said.

“Look. Do you want to try it? Just once, just tonight. If people take notice, you can stay. If not, you go. All right?”

“What, try just sitting there?”

“That’s right. Tonight. I’ll give you a lift, pick you up at eight. Three dollars and beer. Only don’t drink a lot, you hear? It wouldn’t look good.”

“I never have but one beer anyway.”

“Though on second thought, nothing wrong if you did drink a lot. It wouldn’t hurt anything.”

“I never have but one,” Evie said.

“Oh, well.”

He stood up and Evie stood with him, clutching her book. “Wait,” she said.

“What is it?”

“Well, I don’t know. I haven’t thought it out yet, really—”

He paused, not arguing, just waiting. “About your friend,” she said. “Drum, I mean. Well, I hate to go against him this way. Riding right over what he said to me. What will he do? Did he say anything about you coming here?”

“He didn’t know about it,” David said.

“Oh,” said Evie.

“He leaves this kind of thing to me,” David told her. He looked up suddenly, straight into her eyes. “You can’t ever listen to him. Then where would he be? Playing in a room to himself, wasting all that music alone. I hate to see things wasted.”

It seemed more settled then. Evie nodded and let him go.

At eight o’clock that night Evie came down the front steps in a skirt and blouse, her vinyl sandals, and a blue plastic headband that kept her hair off her face. The Jeep was already parked outside. In the back seat, behind David, Drum Casey sprawled out with both feet up and his guitar in the crook of his arm. It hadn’t occurred to Evie that he might be there. She froze on the sidewalk, gripping her purse. Then David said, “Nope. It’s not what I was thinking of.”

“What?” she said.

“You need something black. Dressy.”

“No one dresses up at the Unicorn.”

“You do. You want to stand out. We’ll wait.”

“What? You want me to change now? I can’t do that, my father will start wondering. He thinks I’m at a friend’s.”

“We’ll wait around the block then.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” said Drum. David shooed him away with one hand.

“You leave this to me,” he said. “I’ve got it all clear in my mind. We’ll be over there, Evie.”

Evie ran back to her room. She changed in a rush, mislaying things that had been right at her fingertips and tearing stockings, jamming zippers, tripping over cast-off clothing. If she took one minute too long, she felt, the Jeep would vanish. It would drift off like a tiny, weightless boat, piloted by careless people with short memories. She put on a scoop-necked black blouse and a black skirt. Then she picked up a pair of pumps and ran down the stairs in stocking feet. “Back in a while, Daddy,” she called. Her father didn’t answer. He might not even have heard.

The Jeep waited around the corner. Drum was plucking one guitar string over and over. He didn’t stop when she climbed into the front seat, but David looked her over carefully and said, “That’s right. Much better.”

“Is this what I should wear all the time?”

“All the time?” said Drum. “How often you figure on doing this?”

Evie looked at David, who was backing the car up. He didn’t answer. Finally she turned toward the back seat, and without actually meeting Drum’s eyes she said, “If it works out, I’m coming every week.”

“Ah, David,” Drum said. “You’ve went too far this time.”

“Will you leave it to me?” said David.

“You’ve went too far, man.”

They drove the rest of the way without speaking. David frowned at the road, making some sort of calculations, shaking his head from time to time and then brightening as if an idea had struck. In the back, Drum kept plucking at the guitar string. Whenever the Jeep slowed, Evie could hear the single note repeating itself tinnily in the twilight.

They pulled in beside a motorcycle in the Unicorn’s parking lot. Not many other cars had arrived yet. After he had shut the motor off, David said, “Now, listen. You’ll sit at a table for one, right up front. I’ve brought you a candle. It’ll stand out. While the other guy’s on, Joseph Ballew, read a newspaper.”

“By candle?”

“Oh, shoot now,” Drum said. “Joseph Ballew is a friend of mine. She can’t do that.”

“Oh, all right. Stare down at your beer, then. What I want is a difference, you follow me? A difference that people will notice when Drum comes on. Sit up. Look close. I was thinking of some other things, but there hasn’t been time to work them out. Sending him flowers, for instance.”

“I would send them back,” said Drum.

“I figured you would.”

“Another thing,” said Drum. “I want you both to listen good, now. I am not for any part of this plan. I don’t approve, I never will approve. It makes me sick. And on top of that it won’t work, because while I am playing, my entire audience will be whispering and pointing at a fat girl with a name on her forehead. I just thought you should know that.”

Evie said, “Oh, well, I don’t want to—”

“Got you,” David told Drum. “Then I had thought of having her scream, maybe, but I guess not. She’s not the type for it.”

He looked at Evie for a minute longer, and then shook his head and climbed out of the Jeep. Evie had to trail behind them all the way across the parking lot.

The policeman at the door recognized her. He nodded at her and then rested his hands awkwardly on his gunbelt and stared into the distance. The proprietor recognized her too. When she walked in, he stepped out from behind the bar, smoothing his apron and looking worried. “You’re the girl that, uh. Look, I hope you’re not planning to pull something like that again. I had an awful time. Cops were down my neck all night, thinking there had been a cutting.”

“There had been,” David said.

“Not that kind.”

“Well, never mind. She’s here to watch Drum sing, that’s all. Have you got a table for one?”

“You know I ain’t. People like sitting in groups.”

“Give me a bar stool then, we’ll use that.”

He dragged the stool up next to the dance platform, and set a chair beside. It was the right height for a table but much too small, which David said was all for the better. “Ruin everything if someone came and sat with you,” he said. From a brown paper bag he took a tablecloth and a netcovered vase with a candle in it, the kind used in restaurants. Meanwhile Evie stood by awkwardly with her hands across her purse. Drum had disappeared somewhere. From a door behind the dance platform she heard laughter and the twanging of guitars.

“Sit down,” said David.

She sat.

“No, not like that, Straighter. And don’t put your purse on the table. I want you half-turned from the audience, not quite sideways, so that they can get a glimpse of—”

“I know how,” Evie said. “Leave it to me. I can figure it out for myself.”

And she did. She sat erect, her hands folded in her lap, an untouched beer in front of her. The candle glimmered more brightly on her face as the room grew darker. People filing in called out greetings to the proprietor, joked with their dates and scraped paths for themselves between the chairs, but when they saw the candle their voices seemed to skip a beat. They glanced at the candle and then at Evie. Evie stared straight ahead at nothing at all.

Drum Casey was the first to play that night. When he came onto the platform Evie looked up; nothing more. David signaled to her silently all through the first piece: “Do something. Move around. Could you stand? Take a drink.” Evie ignored him. “My girl has done and boarded a Carolina Trailways,” Drum sang, “She’s scared to death of planes and she can’t stand railways,” and Evie stared at his face without blinking. Out of all the chattering couples dancing or at least beating time, Evie was the only one motionless. She showed them the white mound of her back disappearing into a scoop of black cotton, the curve of one cheek turned rigidly away. Her dowdy clothes gave her a matronly look; her scars, what could be seen of them, seemed in the candlelight to be mainly vertical, a new kind of age-line or tear track which made her appear experienced and incapable of being surprised. “See that girl?” someone whispered. “I believe it’s the one in the newspaper. No, wait till she turns. Remember when I showed you her picture?” They were careful not to point. Girls indicated her by no more than a glance. “That’s her. No, don’t look now.” In the back of the room, a boy half stood to peer at her before Fay-Jean Lindsay pulled him sharply down.

“Will you see me to the door?” Casey asked.

“Don’t come no further.

“Don’t mind the lights.

“When you going to leave off that hammering?

“When they going to let me be?”

Evie looked down at the table. David had stopped signaling to her by now. His eyes skimmed the roomful of people, who stared from Evie to Drum as if following a dotted line. Then he nodded to himself and turned all his attention to the song.