Black Mad Wheel
Josh Malerman
Black Mad Wheel plunges us into the depths of psychological horror, where you can’t always believe everything you hear.THE DANES, the band once known as the ‘Darlings of Detroit’, are washed up and desperate to have another number one hit.When an agent from the US Army approaches them with an unusual offer, they believe it could be the answer to their inspiration drought. So, under the guidance of their front man, Philip Tonka, the Danes decide to embark on a harrowing journey through scorching African desert to track down the source of a strange and debilitating sound.In a Midwestern hospital, a nurse named Ellen tends to a patient recovering from a near-fatal accident. The circumstances that led to his injuries are mysterious, and his broken body heals at a remarkable rate. Ellen will do the impossible for this enigmatic patient as he reveals more about his accident with each passing day.BLACK MAD WHEEL plunges us into the depths of psychological horror, where you can’t always believe everything you hear.
Copyright (#ulink_1c211633-1c1a-5c36-bed4-c32671265665)
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2017
Copyright © Josh Malerman 2017
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017
Josh Malerman asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007530090
Ebook Edition © July 2017 ISBN: 9780007530083
Version: 2017-04-03
Dedication (#ulink_36379824-1c4b-5046-a467-598dc382be7e)
IN MAY OF 2012 the High Strung had just played the record release show for our album ¿Posible ó Imposible?, I’d just set the microphone back upon the stand, and Derek (drums) and I were stumbling out of the bar. From the bar’s shadows, an imp came, a gorgeous pair of bright green eyes and legs so long she must have been standing in the cellar. She spoke, too. “Do you have any more of that face paint?” Before the show I’d used a Sharpie on myself. Easy designs. “Yes,” I told her, reaching into the pocket of my jacket. But the imp had hands and she took hold of my face and rubbed it against her own.
Voilà. A painted face. And the beginning of something, too.
This book is for Allison Laakko, who got Black Mad Wheel piecemeal, spark by spark, as every night I relived for her the day’s excited writing. For that, there will always be a path, tracks, made by a wheel, perhaps, leading from her to me, then to the book and back to us again.
I like that.
We’ll forever know which way the wheels rolled.
I love you, Allison.
Contents
Cover (#u39a9ca29-6562-57ec-89f4-f2637c175688)
Title Page (#u2993ca33-cbbe-597f-84aa-5928e44cb413)
Copyright (#u97ceb624-585f-59d9-9880-cc6394c5d2f9)
Dedication (#uceced74b-d068-589b-9b1f-b9d45a79095d)
Part 1: F 1, 2, 3, 4 … (#u80d32b52-3398-5829-bf46-8a317e58f565)
Chapter 1 (#ue0763c64-7c2e-53b1-beab-cb0f936ccf80)
Chapter 2 (#u739ebe87-0be3-50d2-9a96-21ced38765f9)
Chapter 3 (#u51b4196d-6025-568c-bbac-3fe5caf9aae4)
Chapter 4 (#ua70dbe61-367d-5ea1-8716-05fd5ee87e21)
Chapter 5 (#ucddcc068-d409-560c-b5ee-f47a459d3984)
Chapter 6 (#u2190a822-be06-589f-a211-61cac1908f0c)
Chapter 7 (#u502b2495-6b99-53d5-989e-dde5dd9094d3)
Chapter 8 (#u5aebcc78-ceff-5d39-b0e2-ff0a2bd71e29)
Chapter 9 (#u12f146d8-4149-5cb7-8532-d23cb5b8bc05)
Chapter 10 (#u5968ef40-54cd-5797-8b60-cbf9837da72a)
Chapter 11 (#uad7cdb8a-23f7-5732-ab6b-e9c817d4574f)
Chapter 12 (#u474edb2f-6056-5fc4-937a-899195e5b2a8)
Chapter 13 (#ubff6e2d5-b46a-5d77-a7ad-1a83ac02b545)
Chapter 14 (#u1cc060c2-ca15-574b-9e52-7045fb35519b)
Chapter 15 (#u00d6cd10-8fb4-5fd8-a5f2-aeca660bbd69)
Chapter 16 (#u4e5b63c0-f40b-5a36-b63c-59f4963bb39d)
Chapter 17 (#u6ffa0e8a-3169-54fc-9672-ab578103f696)
Chapter 18 (#ufdb305c1-ef1d-56fc-81be-efb829eb8d2d)
Chapter 19 (#ud7c197e4-d36f-5ec9-a223-9d2a8e3538ab)
Chapter 20 (#u39183622-8a10-53df-9bd1-39380042f48f)
Chapter 21 (#u33d1fcdd-fc7a-5fa6-85a2-ae358ef66259)
Chapter 22 (#u04bd4be0-7340-51f2-bc51-541d19333e0e)
Chapter 23 (#u2848db1c-5463-5e61-811c-f16bd35d074b)
Chapter 24 (#ubf11744f-3782-5b4e-a0e3-7a7dd5d1415d)
Chapter 25 (#u2d01aea5-63a1-50f6-ad3e-1c99981cc06f)
Chapter 26 (#u8a8dfed0-eb54-5434-bb88-cf5fbee58aa8)
Chapter 27 (#udc502d23-7990-5e80-8e5e-aaa845dd0d9f)
Chapter 28 (#ue7afe87f-7ba4-5a22-b667-ed70fe212ae6)
Chapter 29 (#u02e27bf0-201d-5f6a-bff7-2ecde7eb0705)
Chapter 30 (#u956037d1-f93e-537f-b07e-2435fabf2133)
Chapter 31 (#u98c59d04-f0e8-5193-9e45-a6c9b7e12e7f)
Chapter 32 (#u682b97ad-f051-5319-a31c-6d2dd5d2b3cf)
Chapter 33 (#u2671d662-2699-56fb-bf65-5b9b4f7380bf)
Chapter 34 (#u690deaf9-ed69-58f8-9d10-352bfad40622)
Chapter 35 (#u32cb7331-693c-55db-bea5-795bd193c127)
Chapter 36 (#u02a52df5-4e8f-573b-91c0-424af49144cb)
Chapter 37 (#u0c5eec5b-95dd-50ea-a56f-d6d474832d43)
Chapter 38 (#u456c3d3b-b513-58a3-8b35-0aa65ddb6129)
Chapter 39 (#u29e32bff-95fa-563c-9180-ecbe1ada23a0)
Chapter 40 (#uff3ed822-f1d8-5ed3-a235-7494130a62a1)
Chapter 41 (#u5b4eb223-7cff-57fd-a15b-a3c6149295e5)
Chapter 42 (#u971f8392-1e07-5ea8-b8f4-2536a80373a8)
Chapter 43 (#u24c3f117-97cb-5c1b-ad7a-b3973e9310fc)
Chapter 44 (#u0541b663-1bb2-56fc-b852-f87031ea89ae)
Chapter 45 (#u532eaf7c-f800-5e38-8ad9-d2922f35dd9b)
Chapter 46 (#u03f8e9af-6637-55a6-9dcc-3af58ec031be)
Chapter 47 (#ue14a9c76-323f-5b17-ac0c-9ba3bcd2622c)
Chapter 48 (#u6bc0ae68-cb4c-59c7-90cd-4de28906c811)
Chapter 49 (#ue18db079-ee17-5428-9a30-6ea0289077f6)
Chapter 50 (#u1e13e580-1488-52bb-8201-7bf825a06ca8)
Chapter 51 (#u41d0436b-f32e-566d-a334-b2f3b8c6c0a9)
Part 2: Every Good Boy Does Fine (#ud2611530-6376-529e-8f68-68502f789bf2)
Chapter 52 (#u7fc60ccf-355d-51f9-8b25-89a3416f7dec)
Chapter 53 (#ucc7da3b4-9366-5544-93f3-6567caedef63)
Chapter 54 (#u4bf11001-23d0-5851-b26a-a2a9caa8eb13)
Chapter 55 (#u6cfcd350-9789-5f1e-8685-90ef89cb38e4)
Chapter 56 (#udeaee4bd-eeb6-56dc-bdff-3e987a67a582)
Chapter 57 (#uae6abdaa-18cc-5cba-8b71-a82ace15658f)
Chapter 58 (#u20c7d944-9792-5b91-8a3f-a5ba43951d7d)
Chapter 59 (#udd9082a1-7da6-5874-968e-ea2e1b157c1d)
Chapter 60 (#u9f30e332-15d8-5bf3-a8ce-635911e16231)
Chapter 61 (#u314ff459-0222-5c68-9392-807d0b9589da)
Acknowledgments (#ufb7a2586-7fb0-5346-a2a1-22bc94d4aa35)
About the Author (#u84e1ca7b-337a-50fc-919f-5375809764da)
Also by Josh Malerman (#uad2c161a-5159-5add-bf8d-dce16d81fdac)
About the Publisher (#uaf6ab9ce-cf41-5a71-8702-0c6987df648f)
(#ulink_bf9c5581-d840-5a43-a7f9-ff5e75c37e50)
1 (#ulink_21bc1773-4167-5aed-a618-ecc10b8e2695)
The patient is awake. A song he wrote is fading out, as if, as he slept, it played on a loop, the soundtrack of his unbelievable slumber.
He remembers every detail of the desert.
The first thing he sees is a person. That person is the doctor. Wearing khaki pants and a Hawaiian shirt, he doesn’t dress like a doctor, but the bright science in his eyes gives him away.
“You’ve been hurt very badly.” His voice is confidence. His voice is control. “It’s an unparalleled injury, Private Tonka. To live through something so …” He makes fists about chest high, as though catching a falling word. “… unfair.”
Philip recognizes more than medicine in the man who stands a foot from the end of his cot. The strong, lean physique. The unnaturally perfect hair, the skin as unwrinkled as a desert dune.
This doctor is military.
“Now,” the doctor says, “let me tell you why this is such an incredibly difficult thing to do.” Philip hasn’t fully processed the room he is in. The borders of his vision are blurred. How long has he been here? Where is here? But the doctor isn’t answering unasked questions like these. “Had you broken only your wrists and your elbows, we might surmise that you fell, hit the ground in just such a way. But you’ve broken your humeri, radii, and ulnae, too; your radial tuberosities; coracoid processes, trochleas, and each of the twenty-seven bones in your hands.” He smiles. His smile says Philip ought to share in the astonishment. “I don’t expect you to know the names of every bone in the human body, Philip, but what I’m telling you is that you didn’t just break your wrists and elbows. You broke almost everything.”
Sudden whispers from somewhere Philip can’t see. Maybe voices in a hall. Philip tries to turn his head to look.
He can’t. He can’t move his neck at all.
He opens his mouth to say something, to say he can’t move, but his throat is dry as summer sand.
He closes his eyes. He sees hoofprints in that sand.
“Now, had you broken only both hands and arms, I might dream up an accident you were involved in; the victim of a press, say, a vise of some sort; possibly both your arms were on a table when a heavy weight fell upon them. But, of course, it was not only your hands and arms that were broken. The femurs, tibiae, and fibulae on both legs were cracked, too, as were the patellae, medial epicondyles, every transverse axis (which ought to have been enough to cause a coma itself), as well as most of the twenty-six bones in each of your feet.” The doctor speaks with such freedom, moves with such health that Philip feels parodied by comparison. “I suppose one might reenact the scene, place you on a cliff’s edge, arms and legs hanging over that chasm, as something so cruelly shaped, just wrong enough to connect with each of the aforementioned bones, fell from the sky, delivering you the most violent community of fractures I’ve ever observed. But no. Your woes do not stop there.”
Behind the doctor, where the beige wall meets the powder-blue ceiling, Philip sees an African desert at midday.
He thinks of the Danes.
“Your pubis, ilium, sacrum … crushed. The pubic symphysis, anterior longitudinal … ruptured. Your ribs, Philip, each and every one … along with every intervertebral disc, the sternum, manubrium, clavicles, up through the neck, to the mandible, zygomatics, temporals, frontal, and … even some teeth.” The doctor smiles, showing his own. “Now, one might hypothesize such a result befalling a man who had been lying down upon a stone slab, unaware that a second stone slab would drop from a height, crushing him entirely, all at once. Such a theory might be of interest had each of the fractures been close to the same distance from the surface of your body. But, of course, this isn’t the case. The fracture in your anterior longitudinal is a full inch disparate from the one suffered by your mandible. In fact, there isn’t a single uniform break in your body; no pattern to divine an object, a cause, a picture of what hurt you. In other words, Philip … this wasn’t caused by a single solid object, and yet … it all occurred at the same time.”
The doctor steps aside, revealing what looks to Philip like black canvases glowing with shining white paint. Unfinished shapes. Cracked patterns.
X-rays.
More than one of them look like hoofprints in the sand.
“I dare say,” the doctor marvels, “it’s the most breathtaking injury I’ve ever encountered. Some would call it … uncanny. Observe for yourself, Philip.”
More whispers from somewhere Philip can’t see.
“Now,” the doctor says, turning from the X-rays to face Philip again. “You’ve just woken up … just come to, and I realize this must all be a considerable shock. You’ve been our charge, comatose, for six months.” The number is impossible. The number is cruel. The number adds distance between himself and the Danes. “That’s six months you couldn’t possibly be aware of, and so now must begin the process of healing. Both physically and emotionally.” He brings a forefinger and thumb to his chin. “But there are questions.”
“Where are the Danes?” Philip croaks. And his voice is creaking wooden stairs. His voice is an old piano bench tested.
A whispered gasp from out of Philip’s field of vision. A female voice.
He spoke! it said.
“The obvious initial question,” the doctor continues, ignoring Philip’s own, “is … how could a man survive such a thing?”
A breeze stirs his manicured brown hair.
Philip tries to raise an arm, can’t.
The doctor easily extends an open, flat palm, as though showing Philip the difference, now, between them.
“But then … here you are … you’ve survived. And so the second, more urgent question is … what happened out there, Private Tonka?” He plants his hands on his knees, bends at the waist, and brings his blue eyes level with Philip’s own. “What did you and the Danes find in the desert? Or, rather …” The doctor waves his hands in the air, playfully erasing this train of thought. The gesture is so out of place as to seem irreverent. “Let’s forget your fellow musicians, your band, the Danes.” The cold measure in his eyes suggests he already has. Again, Philip sees hoofprints, a trail of them extending.
He hears a sound, too, sickening and sentient, creating a trail of its own, curling up and over the horizon of his memory. He tries to fight it with his own song. His and the Danes’. The song that kept him company as he slept.
But the doctor’s voice quiets it once again.
“The question is not what you found … but what found you?”
2 (#ulink_e9a5030e-d459-5887-bbea-4bf122a8d10b)
Philip is on the Path. That’s what he’s always called it. The Path. Not the Right Path or the Wrong Path. He’s careful not to specify. So when any of his friends or family ask him if he’s drinking too much, wonder aloud if he’s hanging out in the bars too often, he always answers the same way.
Hey, broom off. I’m on the Path.
Philip’s symbol for the Path is a single piano key, an F, worn on a necklace. The key itself was torn from the first piano Philip saw when he returned from the war, World War II: a trashed upright left on a curb not two hundred yards from the airport in Detroit, Michigan. Despite its missing leg, cracked wood, and flaked yellow paint, the piano was a portent to Philip; a welcoming committee couldn’t have given him a warmer reception. After hugging his parents hello, after stowing his bags in their new 1945 Chrysler, Philip asked them to wait, so he could bring a little of the piano home with him.
Into the future with him. Postwar.
Onto the Path.
Choosing the key was easy. F. Because F was the only note in both mnemonics for beginner piano players:
EGBDF (Every Good Boy Does Fine)
FACE
One mnemonic ends, another begins.
As ends war, so begins life … at home.
Life on the Path.
Twelve years later, at thirty-one years old, Philip may not have the same army physique he had when he and the Danes performed for soldiers in England, but he has the same philosophy he had back then. Let his acquaintances in Detroit (and there are many of them; the Danes are bar owls) think the Path is religious, unreligious, unhealthy, delusional, or insane. It doesn’t matter. After a world war and a hit song, living free is the only path to walk.
Today the Path has led him to a good place. A recording studio in downtown Detroit, at Elizabeth and Woodward, in this, the year 1957. The Danes (“the Darlings of Detroit,” as the Free Press named them) own it. A four-way split. Larry, the fun-loving bassist of the Danes, the long-haired freak, found the place. An empty square made of cinder blocks, once used for plucking livestock, the acoustics were too perfect to let go.
This is it, Larry had said months ago, extending his hands out, palms up, like the goofy host of the game show Who Do You Trust? on television. This is Wonderland.
But not all the other Danes were convinced. A former chicken coop didn’t quite feel like the place to make hit records.
You love everything, Duane said, the first time you see it.
And you, Larry said, pointing at the other half of the Danes’ fabled rhythm section, are way too conservative to play rock ’n’ roll. Did you see the elevator?
Duane frowned.
You mean the wooden box full of chicken feathers?
I like it, Philip said, already seeing the partition that would separate the control room from the live room.
Well, shit, Duane said. Once you got Philip on board it’s a done deal. He looked around the cold space and saw Ross was smiling, too. Shit again. We’re doing this, aren’t we?
Larry put his arm around Duane’s shoulder.
Can you see it?
Nope. I can’t see it.
Right there … a sparkling set. Larry snapped his fingers, as if capable of manifesting Duane’s Slingerland drums.
I don’t see it, Larry.
Oh yes you do.
I see a cold place to record come December.
Larry laughed. His leather coat crinkled as he pulled Duane closer.
Come here.
Where?
To the window.
The window was just a small square cut unevenly into the white cinder-block wall. The four bandmates pressed close together and looked out at Detroit below.
Look at that girl. Ross whistled softly.
I know her, Philip said.
Know her? Ross asked. How is it that you know every girl in Detroit, Philip?
Philip shrugged.
Girls like the piano, Ross.
Well, shit, man. All my life I heard that it was girls and guitars, guitars and girls. I picked up the guitar for girls. And now you’re telling me—
Look. Larry pointed. There’s another one. Just as fine.
The Danes grew quiet. Their ears were almost touching.
You know her, too, Philip?
Philip paused for effect.
Naw. I don’t know her.
But I bet she walks by every day, Duane said, his voice distant.
Oh man, Larry said, turning to face the drummer. Oh MAN, Duane!
Now, hang on, I didn’t say—
We’re doing this, Duane!
Now hang on, Larry—
We’re buying our own fucking studio space!
Today, Wonderland is full. The Danes have been hired to produce an album, a rock and roll record, because they’re good at what they do and the space they got is legendary around the city for its “room sound.” Even jazz players have recorded with the Danes, despite the band’s reputation as being crazy. That room might be as professional as my uncle’s liquor cabinet, Clay Daniels once said, but fuck me if it doesn’t sound like gold. The Danes recorded a hit song and two follow-ups in Wonderland. “Make Noise” reached number seventeen on the regional charts and “Killer Crawl” spiked at number six. But it was “Be Here,” at number one, that propelled them. And still, the fact that they served in World War II is the bigger draw. It doesn’t matter that they weren’t on the front lines. To most Americans, being in the army band was just as good as being in the army. And the tag veteran is the reason locals who have no interest in music at all stop in to see what happens at Wonderland.
Some of these people have become drinking buddies. Others have walked away worried about Philip Tonka, the piano player who took more shots than he played notes.
Broom off. I’m on the Path.
What Path?
Look down. You don’t see it? You’re standing right on it, too.
Some think the Danes are damaged. They drink more than the veterans of World War I. They never miss a party. And they’re spontaneously writing the postwar soundtrack that’s equal parts angry, joyful, confused, and intentionally ignorant. As in, let’s move on. As in, that was yesterday. The name of their number-one hit song unintentionally sums up their collective worldview.
Be here.
Breathe it.
Be it.
“Put a blanket in it,” Larry says into the control room microphone. Today they have a job to do. But will they do it?
“Really?” the kid drummer of the Sparklers asks. Through the glass he looks like a lost child. “A blanket in a bass drum?”
Duane gets up from the control room couch and speaks into the microphone. His deep voice has always been the most authoritative of the Danes’.
“Makes it less plastic, son. More of a thud. Trust Larry. Put a blanket in the bass drum.”
The Sparklers’ drummer, a suburban kid, clean curly blond hair, looks for a blanket.
“On the cots,” Philip says, pointing through the glass. He sips from a bottle of Ronrico rum. The Sparklers’ guitar player is helping his drummer look. He accidentally knocks the tuning pegs of his Fender Stratocaster against the wall. Because he’s already amped, the sound blasts through the control room speakers.
“You see those four cots in the back?” Duane tells them.
The Danes often sleep in the studio; wild nights, wee hours, right where they need to be come morning. The floor is littered with empty fifths.
The drummer picks up a sleeping bag.
“No,” Larry says into the mic. “Too thick. Something lighter.”
Now the drummer is blushing. Thinks he’s being put on. The band’s manager, Arthur, a rich kid from Birmingham, looks bothered. He’s standing by the leather couch in the control room.
“Fellas, we hired you to make a record, not decorate Fred’s drum kit!”
“You see that yellow-and-black blanket there, Art?” Larry asks him, pointing with a pencil through the glass to an unmade cot against the far wall.
“Yes. Of course I see it.”
“That’s the same one we used on ‘Be Here.’”
The manager crosses the control room quickly. He takes the microphone from Larry.
“Freddie,” he says. “How about the yellow-and-black blanket on the mattress by your knees?”
The drummer’s pants slide down his butt as he bends to get it.
Philip plants a hand on the manager’s shoulder.
“You know what your boys need?” he asks.
“What?” Art checks his watch. He keeps checking his watch. He’s worried about time. Time and money.
“Your boys need an afternoon out of the house.”
“No way,” Art says, holding out both palms toward Philip. Philip sees a flash of what Art will look like when he’s older, when managing bands is a novelty item on the shelf of his past. “We’ve been here for two hours and still haven’t done a lick of work.”
“What do you mean?” Duane asks. “We picked out the blanket, didn’t we?”
Philip takes the manager by the wrist.
“Take your watch off,” he says.
Art covers his watch with his other hand. As if he’s being mugged. By Philip. The Danes have that quality about them.
“What is it with you, Tonka?”
“I mean it. Take your watch off.”
Hesitantly, the manager does. He hands the watch to Philip.
“What are you going to do with it?”
“I’m gonna smash it.”
“Wait!”
Philip smiles.
“I’m gonna wear it is what.”
Philip puts it on his wrist, adjusts the clasp.
“Hey, Tonka! We agreed on a price, fair and square!”
“We did,” Philip says. “But that’s half the problem.”
“You want to renegotiate? Dammit, I knew I couldn’t trust you guys!”
“Who said anything about renegotiating? Relax. We agreed. Fair and square. The ‘square’ is the problem.”
“What do you mean?”
Philip leans over the control room microphone.
“Gentlemen,” he says. “Set your instruments down. We’re going out.”
Behind the glass the band looks scared.
“There’s a hole in your soul,” Duane tells the manager. “Big enough to swim through.”
“And you’re going to fill it?”
“Not all in one afternoon,” Larry says, already putting on his leather jacket. He runs his callused fingertips through his long hair. “But we’re gonna try.”
Art is shaking his head, pleading, whining, as Duane slips into his black leather coat and Philip checks his jean jacket for money. The Sparklers enter the control room, slumped, confused.
“Come on, guys,” Philip says.
“Where?” the guitarist asks.
“We’re going to get inspired.”
On the way out, as they’re leaving the studio, the phone rings. Philip pauses at the door and looks.
Some rings, Philip thinks, are more loaded than others. As if a man might be able to hear an important call … before answering.
He locks the studio up and follows the others outside.
3 (#ulink_8161beff-da3f-5444-9017-8ca88084759a)
Philip can move more today than he could yesterday, but that little is frighteningly small. He remembers all of it: The Danes. Africa. The desert. The sound. But right now these memories must wait; the current state of his body is all that matters.
And the hospital. The motives behind this place. Philip has been around enough military to know that almost none of it is on the level. And the stuff that is is uneven at that.
He wants a drink. So badly he wants a drink.
He’s alone, looking to where the beige wallpaper meets the powder-blue ceiling, the colors of the Namib at noon. To his right, where he can’t see, a fan whirs. A radio plays, a quiet drama that does battle with the sound of classical music coming from another room farther down the hall.
Philip’s room is big. He knows this because he’s speaking out loud, gauging its size by the length of the echo on his voice.
“Mom,” he says. “I’m alive.”
Philip has been scared before. Many times, in many ways. From the basement in the house on Wyoming Street, the cellar where he learned the piano, to the flight to England in ’44, when he and the Danes and the rest of the army band were set to entertain a thousand young men who knew they were too young to die.
“Dad. I’m alive. I’m okay.”
But he’s not okay. And saying it doesn’t make it so.
There’s a musical instrument in the room. Philip isn’t sure what kind yet, but the sympathetic vibration tells him it has strings.
A guitar, then? Maybe.
A flapping to his left. He thinks it’s drapes, moved by a breeze. A window, then. So the light upon the ceiling could be sunlight.
He listens for a ticking. A clock. He finds one. Far off. So quiet that it could be coming from outside.
He counts along with it, desperate for something to relax the nerves he can’t stabilize. Meditation.
The Danes followed hoofprints in the desert. Only two. As if the beast walked upright …
Philip has to focus on something else. He closes his eyes. Imagines himself at that piano in the cellar. His sneaker tapping an intro on the dirt by the pedals.
“One, two, three, four …”
But counting one two three four reminds him of Duane on the drums, of a Danes song just beginning, of the fact that Philip can’t move a finger, will probably never play piano again.
“Duane,” he says. “Larry. Ross. I’m alive.”
Then a voice, so close to his ear, Philip would jump if he could move.
“That’s a good thing.”
“Hey!” Philip yells.
Some gentle laughter. It’s a woman.
“I haven’t scared someone like that since Halloween 1949,” the voice says. And the voice is the same he heard whispering when he woke. “Hid under my daughter’s bed. Wore a rubber dish glove. Grabbed her ankle.”
“Who are you?! Show yourself!”
“Relax,” she says. “I’m Nurse Ellen. I’m the one who’s been taking care of you for six months.”
A creaking chair beside him. A face emerging from his right.
She looks young. Fresh-faced. Bright. Freckles across her nose. Granite-gray eyes. Black hair. White uniform.
“Are you hungry?” she asks.
Philip doesn’t respond. He stares. When she speaks, her head tilts to the side. Does she realize how easily she moves?
“Let me get you something to eat.”
She rises and vanishes somewhere to Philip’s right again. Her heels against the unit tiles give him a better sense of space than his own voice echoing did. At what could be the door, she speaks.
“I can’t tell you how glad I am you’re awake.”
Then she exits and Philip listens to her footfalls in the hall.
He imagines other people, silent in the unit with him. Other faces, other eyes. And the faces he sees are military. And the eyes in those faces want to know more than if he’s hungry.
“Hello?” he asks, trembling, unable to abate the anxiety that’s consumed him since waking. The Danes. The Danes. Where are the rest of the Danes? “Is anybody else in here with me?”
The nurse, Ellen, taught him something very important in the half minute they shared: not only can Philip barely move … but he can’t know who watches him try.
And the faces he imagines open their mouths. And questions pour forth like grains of bodily sand.
The questions will come. Philip knows this. Questions about Africa and the source of the sound. Questions about the rest of the platoon, the Danes, what Philip heard and what he recorded out there. Crazier questions, too. Like who took Ross? Who took the others? And where did he take them? And why do you look so scared, Private Tonka, when we ask these simple things?
The questions will come.
And when they do, how much will Philip tell them?
How much will he sing?
4 (#ulink_48d64478-6eb5-5b2c-9236-72835e465fe4)
Hey, Philip,” Misty says. “Looks like you’ve already been drinking.”
It’s always looks like with Misty.
“I’m all right.” Philip smiles.
“Looks like you’re recording a band of stiffs.” Misty nods to the Sparklers, who stand awkwardly farther down the bar. “What do they call themselves? The Bland?”
“The Sparklers.”
“Jesus H.”
Larry winks at Misty from over Philip’s shoulder.
“It’s our job to loosen them up,” he says.
“You can’t make a record with no grooves,” Misty puns.
“They’ll groove,” Larry says. Then he shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe they won’t.”
“Help us out,” Philip says.
“Sure. What do you want me to give them?”
“Something terrible. Something strong.”
Misty considers this. But not for long. It’s not the first time the Danes have brought a band into Doug’s Den on Beaubien Street. She arranges five shot glasses.
“And we’ll have the same,” Philip adds.
Misty smiles something maternal. Philip likes Misty. With her short dark hair and strong eyes she looks like she could be his sister. And she’s always been good to the Danes.
“You planning on getting any recording done today?” she asks, already pouring the shots.
“We haven’t made it past the drum kit yet.”
Thurston Harris’s “Little Bitty Pretty One” comes on the jukebox.
Duane, dancing as he moves, takes half the shots from Misty. Philip grabs the others. They carry them to the Sparklers, now congregated on the dance floor. But still not dancing.
“You guys like this song?” Philip asks.
“Yeah,” the Sparklers’ bassist says. Philip catches himself reflected in the kid’s glasses. He looks drunk. “It’s fun.”
“Good,” Duane says. “So let’s have fun.”
As he and Philip distribute the shots, the door to Doug’s Den swings open and Ross enters. His hands are stuffed into the pockets of his coat and he’s hunched, as he always is, even when playing the guitar.
The young Sparklers stare at Ross with reverence. After all, it’s his guitar line on “Be Here” that gave the Danes their instrumental hit.
“Sorry I’m late,” he tells Philip. “Long night.”
Philip understands. This isn’t the first time a Dane has pleaded hungover.
“Ross, meet the Sparklers.”
Ross checks them out. He knows Philip well enough to know why he’s brought them to Doug’s.
“You’re Ross Robinson,” the Sparklers’ guitarist says, eyeing Ross’s uncombed curly hair. “I curled my hair so it looks like yours.”
“You look like a clown,” Ross says. Then he takes one of the shot glasses, downs the whiskey within.
“Better?” Larry asks.
Ross wipes his mouth with the sleeve of his corduroy coat.
“Might be worse.”
Philip raises his glass, inspiring the Sparklers to timidly do the same.
Art, the band’s manager, rushes to stop this. His hair is wet with sweat. His tie is loose.
“Now hang on a minute! We’ve got a session to finish! My boys can’t be whooping it up like this!”
The music gets louder. Philip looks over his shoulder. Misty is smiling behind the bar.
“This is all part of the session,” Philip says. “This is tracking.”
Philip downs his shot, grabs the lead singer of the Sparklers, and dances with him. He places the kid’s hand on his back, asking him to lead.
The Path has taken Philip to amazing places, but sometimes, like when he looks into the naïve eyes of a younger musician, he wonders how far it can go.
These kids, Philip knows, haven’t left home yet.
Ross squeezes himself between Philip and the singer with another round of shots.
“No more of this,” Art says, stepping in. “I mean it. No more!”
“Little Bitty Pretty One” ends and Sonny James’s “Young Love” begins. It’s not yet noon and the regulars are watching the Danes. These men, veterans of the First World War, have been here since eight.
Larry starts dancing with the manager of the Sparklers. Art looks like a child in his arms. The drummer of the Sparklers unbuttons his shirt.
“There he goes,” Ross says to Philip. “He’ll be a drunk in no time.”
The Sparklers are getting loose. Strange dance moves. The guitarist is kissing a poster featuring an actress from a new monster movie, From Hell It Came.
The front door opens and daylight cuts a fresh silhouette of a man in the door.
Philip doesn’t see him.
“Think we’re ready to record?” the Sparkler asks Larry.
Larry smiles but shakes his head no.
“In about another twenty years.”
He twirls the kid.
Philip feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns.
The face he sees, the pale blue eyes, the set jaw, the manicured hair, is more familiar than it is friendly.
Military, Philip thinks. He hasn’t seen a face like this one in a long time. Veterans are one thing, and they change through the years. But the men who give orders do not.
The Path, it seems, is unsteady now. Different footing.
“Philip Tonka?” the man asks.
“Yeah?”
A serious expression grips the lower half of the man’s face, but his eyes still sparkle. Nothing shines, Philip thinks, exactly like military.
Could it be? Here?
“You a fan of the Danes?” Philip asks, hopeful, yet staring at a ghost, an era he thought was over.
The man nods.
“Yes. I am.”
Philip notices the man’s pressed suit. The lint-free overcoat.
“You looking to record a song?” Philip asks. But he’s only stalling.
“My name is Jonathan Mull. Join me for a drink?”
“We’re in the middle of a session.”
Mull surveys the bar. Takes it in.
“This will only take a moment.”
But Philip knows it’s going to be longer than that.
He leads the man to a booth. On the way, Duane watches. Philip meets his drummer’s eyes and they share a silent worry.
Military? Here?
“You’re an army man?”
Mull slides into one side of the booth, Philip the other.
“Good eye. Military intelligence. Most of my colleagues know me as Secretary Mull. This is about an opportunity for you and the rest of the Danes.”
“A gig?”
“Of sorts.”
“Where?”
“Well, that’s what I’d like to talk to you about.”
“Let’s talk, then.”
“Africa.”
Philip has a hard time believing this. Maybe it’s the shots. Maybe it’s the military.
“That’s gonna cost a lot of money.”
“We’re certainly going to pay you. A considerable amount. A lot. But this gig is a little different from what you’re used to.”
“How different is different?” Hope in Philip’s voice. What already feels like a memory, the last vestige of levity.
Mull tents his fingers on the tabletop.
“You won’t be playing any music with this gig. You won’t be making any noise at all. In fact, you’ll be listening for a particular sound instead.”
Philip looks to his bandmates. He feels a sudden longing, as if painfully watching the way the world used to be.
The Path.
Has he stepped off?
“What kind of sound?” Philip asks, turning back to face the military, to face the change.
“A sound you’ve never heard,” the man says.
And Philip doesn’t doubt it. Doesn’t have any reason to believe that anything is familiar where this man wants to send them.
“Can I hear it?”
“Not here.”
“Why not?”
Mull pauses.
“As you know, Private Tonka, the army’s primary function is to protect the country’s citizenry.”
Philip smiles, but not because what the man has said is funny.
“What kind of sound could put people in danger?”
Mull places his elbows on the table and for a beat Philip sees the top of a reel jutting from the breast pocket of his suit coat. Mull’s eyes travel to Philip’s lips, as if asking him to remove the smile.
It isn’t applicable here, he says without words.
“A malevolent one, Private Tonka.”
Philip is still thinking about that reel.
“You make it sound like it’s alive.”
Mull leans back in the booth again.
“Let’s go somewhere quieter to talk.”
As if cued, the ruckus behind them rises. Larry is lifting one of the Sparklers by the waist.
“Wonderland,” Mull suggests.
“To talk,” Philip repeats.
He could stop this now. Whatever this is. He could say no. I like it here. I don’t wanna go anywhere else. You can’t make us.
“To listen,” Mull says.
A malevolent sound, Private Tonka.
“Give me a minute,” Philip says. “I’ll gather the Danes.”
But even as he slides from the booth, as he crosses the bar to retrieve his friends, Philip is telling himself no, no amount of money, no amount of curiosity is enough to leave all this behind.
And yet, the image of that tape in the military man’s pocket …
Maybe it’s because you can’t see where it’ll lead, Philip thinks, as he plants a hand on the shoulder of Ross’s corduroy jacket. Maybe it’s because people can’t see the end that they agree to begin.
“What’s up?” Ross asks. But Ross saw the man, too.
“This fella wants us to go up to the studio. He’s got a reel he wants us to hear.”
Ross hesitates.
“He’s army.”
“Yeah.”
“Is there any money in it?”
“He said it’s ‘considerable.’”
“Is that for them to consider or for us?”
“He said it’s a lot.”
Ross looks to Larry, dancing down the bar.
“Then we’ll come right back down?” he asks Philip.
“Yep,” Philip says.
But the two friends stare into each other’s eyes for a beat, and in that brief rhythm is the truth that they both know they won’t be right back down.
“What is it?”
“A sound.”
Ross smiles. But it’s not a nice one.
“Well, shit, Philip,” he says, sweating now. “How much trouble can one sound be?”
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