Текст книги "Cages and Those Who Hold the Keys"
Автор книги: Gary A. Braunbeck
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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 31 страниц)
5
When I was a kid, I wanted so much to be a rock star. The music, the adulation, the fame and riches, all of it.
But mostly the music.
I tried my hand at half a dozen different instruments; the harmonica, the guitar, bass, drums, the piano, and even—hand to God—the flute (hey, if Ian Anderson could use it to make Jethro Tull one of the greatest groups of all time, why the hell not?). I was a failure at all of them, except for the guitar, and even then I had the sense to realize that if I dedicated myself to the instrument, if I practiced for ten hours a day every day for the rest of my life, I would be an at-best average guitar player…and the world has too many of those already.
So I contented myself with the fantasy of rock stardom, and my love of music. Classical, country, prog, blues, rock, metal—I loved it all. And my admiration for anyone who can pull a tune out of the ether and make it real has never lessened. Even if it’s a crap song, it’s still a song, something that didn’t exist until someone heard it in the back of their head and put it out into the world.
But I never understood why so many rock stars went down in flames. I could never dredge up much sympathy for someone who made millions doing what they loved, creating something that gave so much pleasure to the rest of the world, and then pissed it all away on drug and booze or whatever the poison of choice was at the time. But then, that’s an easy judgment call to make when you’re not the one who has to live with the pressure of always having to be on for the world, of not being able to go anywhere without people following you, wanting your autograph, your picture, a lock of your hair, or whatever else is required so that they can prove to themselves that they once touched greatness…even if that greatness was fleeting, or only in their minds, or even manufactured.
I guess any culture needs its popular icons, something for the rest of its populace to aspire to, knowing they’ll never make it. Hell, there was probably some prima donna cave-wall painter back in the Neolithic days who started to believe it when his fans told him that his shit didn’t stink.
I don’t know how many times during the next hour or so I wanted to turn around and ask Morrison or any of the others why they’d allowed themselves to fall victim to their self-indulgences when they’d died still having so much more to give to the world…then just as quickly realized how goddamned selfish that was. Maybe that Neil Young song hit it on the head about it being better to burn out than fade away.
People like you and me will never know, so how can we be made to understand?
Over the next hour, we picked up Keith Moon and John Entwistle (both from The Who), Gary Thain and David Byron (of Uriah Heep), Tommy Bolin (The James Gang and Deep Purple), Paul Kossoff (Free), the great blues guitarist Roy Buchanan, as well as Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, and Billie Holiday—to whom everyone paid the greatest respect and courtesy.
The Reverend gave them each welcome and coffee, and asked each of them the same questions: How did you get here? Why are you here? Where are we taking you?
“Honey,” said Billie Holiday, laying a thin and elegant hand against the Reverend’s cheek, “what we got to do, we got to do. ‘Taint nobody’s business but ours, and that’s just how it’s gotta be. You got that look in your eyes, you know that?” “What look is that?” “Like you already know whatever it is you’re tryin’ to get one of us to say.” “Can we get out of this fuckin’ cold already?” said Cobain. I put the van in gear and drove back to the shelter. “Sam doesn’t say much,” Morrison announced to the others. “Ah, a quiet one,” said Entwistle, grinning. Keith Moon shook his head. “Bloody birds of a feather.” And began to beat a tattoo against his legs.
Morrison leaned forward, resting his elbows, respectively, on the back of the Reverend’s seat and my own. “I gotta hand it to you two, you’re not freaking out like I expected. I—whoa, pull over.” We did, and Jerry Garcia climbed in. “Come see Uncle John’s band,” I muttered under my breath. “I always hated that fuckin’ song,” said Garcia. “Really?” asked Cobain. “That’s, like, one of my guilty-favorite tunes of all time.” Garcia shrugged. “What’s it hurt to admit it now?” Cobain thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “I see what you mean.”
“Hey, Nevermind was a great record,” said Garcia. “You were a great songwriter, my friend. Sloppy guitarist, but a great songwriter.”
“Thanks,” said Cobain. “I think.”
“You’re welcome,” said Garcia. “Maybe.”
I looked over at the Reverend. “If Ms. Holiday was right, Reverend, if you got some idea what’s going on, I’d sure appreciate being let in on the secret.”
It was Morrison who answered. “Hasn’t it crossed your mind to wonder how it is a van that’s designed to hold only eight people is holding almost twice that many right now?”
I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw an empty van reflected back at me. “I guess it’s because you’re all ghosts, right?”
Morrison laughed, as did everyone else. “Shit, no, Sam! Ghosts are, like, the spirits of real people who’re hanging around because they’ve got unfinished business.” “Like that girl up there,” said Hendrix, pointing to a young woman crossing the street. “Do we need to pick her up?” asked the Reverend. Morrison shook his head. “No. She’s got nothing to do with this.” I stared at her. “Who is she?” “Roberta Martin,” said Garcia, Hendrix, and Buchanan simultaneously.
I put the van in park and turned to face them. “Who?”
“The greatest guitar player who ever lived,” said Morrison.
I shrugged. “I’ve never heard of her.”
“No reason you should have,” said Buchanan in his soft, soft voice. “She was killed by a drunk driver on her way to a gig in Nobelsville, Indiana in 1982.”
“Girl was so good it was scary,” said Hendrix.
Garcia nodded. “You got that right.”
“Never recorded a demo for anyone,” said Buchanan. “She was only 22 when she died.”
“I was only 25,” said Tommy Bolin.
“Yeah,” replied Hendrix, “but it was your own fucking fault. By the way, I want my ring back.”
“This one?” said Bolin, holding up his hand. “My girlfriend gave it to me.”
“That was the same ring I was wearing when I died,” said Hendrix. “How the fuck she wound up with it, I don’t know.”
Bolin removed the ring and tossed it to Hendrix. “It was kina tight, anyway.”
“Says you.” Hendrix slipped it back on his finger, and the two men smiled at each other.
“She’s a ghost,” said Cobain, pointing toward Roberta Martin. “We’re…shit, I guess you’d call us…what?” “Ulcerations of the idealized,” replied Entwistle. “Good going,” said Morrison. “We’re more than a memory but less than something alive.” “I still don’t understand.”
“Who says that we do, hon?” asked Billie Holiday.
In the street, Roberta martin stopped and turned toward the van. Everyone inside became quiet. She smiled at us, lifted her hand, waved, and then disappeared into the sleet.
“Girl had the fire,” said Hendrix, his voice suddenly sad. “She sure did,” replied Buchanan. Cobain nodded. “A fuckin’ shame.” Jerry Garcia leaned forward, passing halfway through Janis Joplin, who shared his seat. “You know anything about physics, Sam?” “A little, I guess.” “So you know how black holes are formed by stars that collapse inward on themselves, right?” “Okay…?” “And how matter can be reformed into anything as it passes through…I mean, at least theoretically?” I shrugged. “I guess, sure.”
“Then think of us as a something that’s come out of a black hole…only in this case, it’s a black hole of idealization, formed by a collapsing psyche.”
I opened my mouth to speak, then shook my head and looked at the Reverend.
“They’re not ghosts,” he said to me. “They’re the idealized versions of themselves. They’re not the people they were, they’re the icons, what they were imagined to be by those fans who idealized and worshipped them.”
I nodded. “The legends, not the human beings?”
“Right.” He looked back at our passengers. “Right?”
“Close enough,” said Morrison. “At some point, every one of us has been idolized by someone. Be idolized by enough people, and that idol-image becomes more real to them than you ever could be. Fuck, man, I had so many people calling me a ‘rock god’ that I started believing it myself.”
“I wouldn’t know, mate,” said Paul Kossoff.
I looked back at the guitarist. “But you were good. Back Street Crawler was a kick-ass album.”
“Thanks, mate. But after I left Free…” He shrugged. “All I was to the world—to whatever part of it still noticed me—was ‘ex-Free guitarist…’ And the only thing Free did that people still remember or care about was ‘All Right Now’.”
“But at least that’s remembered,” I said.
Kossoff smiled. “Yeah, there’s that.”
“All it takes,” said Buchanan, “is one person. One person idolizes you, and you’re screwed. Like it or not, from that moment on…you kinda split in two. Some part of you is always aware of the idol-half” he gave his head a little shake. “And it can mess with you.” “Amen,” said Cobain. Morrison tapped my shoulder. “You need to get moving again.” “Where are we going?” “Back to the good Reverend’s shelter.” “Why there?” “Because,” said Entwistle, “the source of the ulceration that brought us here should be there by now.” “You and your bloody loopy syntax,” said Keith Moon. “You always talked just like you played. Too damned busy for its own good.” “Coming from you,” said Entwistle, “I take that as a compliment.” “You would.” Then Moon smiled. “Good to see you again, Ox.” “Likewise.” I looked at the Reverend. “I’m scared.” He said nothing in return, and I knew. Despite what Morrison had said to us, the Reverend was scared, as well.
6
It didn’t help that none of them said a word after that, just sat back there staring out at the night and looking more and more like the ghosts they claimed not to be.
They filed into the shelter silently, each finding a cot or a chair at various spots around the main floor, where they sat, watching all the doors and windows.
The dog—Lump—sat up as soon as we came inside, his ears jerking. Missy sat down to pet him when he started growling, and Beth looked at her daughter, then to me.
“Lump never growls,” she said. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him all of a sudden.” “It’s just a bad night,” I said, as if that could explain everything. “Where’s your son—sorry, I forgot his name.” “Kyle? He’s downstairs taking a shower.” “How’re you doing?” “Hm? Oh, me…I’m okay.” She patted her stomach. “The food really hit the spot.” “Well, if anybody wants seconds…” “You’re very nice.” “I try.”
“Would it be all right if the kids watched Rudolph again? Kyle and Missy really like it, even though the Bumble kinda scares them.” “The Bumble?” “The Abominable Snow Monster. Remember, Yukon Cornelius calls it the ‘Bumble’?” “That’s right. Huh. Thing scared me half to death when I was a kid and saw it for the first time.”
The Reverend called me over to the kitchen area, where he, Jackson, and Grant McCullers were warming up some stew and wrapping other food for the refrigerator. Grant was doing most of the wrapping, and doing it quickly. I only mention this because he’s got a bad hand that looks more like a claw than it does a human hand. It’s been that way for as long as I’ve known him. Arthritis. But he can play a mean harmonica better, serve drinks more smoothly, and wrap food faster and with more dexterity than anyone I’ve ever seen.
“Hey, Sam, I hear you’re something of a music expert,” said Grant.
“Not an expert, but I know trivia. Some trivia.” “Did you ever hear of a band called Parallax?” asked Grant. I looked at Jackson and the Reverend, both of whom were staring at me like the answer to this was something important. “Sure. They only did three albums, but they were pretty good.” Grant finished wrapping a half-pound of hamburger, tossed it onto the pile of to-be-frozen foods. “They were from Ohio, right?” I nodded. “Two of them were from Zanesville, but the guitarist, Byron Knight, he was from here, from Cedar Hill.”
Grant exchanged an I-told-you-so look with Jackson, who nodded his head and gestured for the Reverend and me to follow him into the back. “It was real nice of you to bring over all this food,” I said to Grant. “The new freezer’s a tad smaller than I’d planned, so I had to do something with this chow, y’know?” I grinned at his white lie. “How’s the Hangman coming along?” “I look to re-open in about two weeks.” “You gonna replace the old jukebox?”
He stopped for a moment, thought about something, then shook his head. “You know, I don’t think I will. It works just fine. In fact, I’m getting rid of that new one.”
The reverend came up behind me. “Are you two finished with this architectural discussion? I could use Sam’s help.”
“You can always use Sam’s help,” said Grant. “In fact, I wonder if you’d get anything done if you didn’t have Sam’s help.” “And yours, and Ted’s, and God’s. I am useless without any of you.” Grant laughed. “Just wanted to hear you say it.” “It’s unbecoming of you, Grant. Fishing for a compliment.” “Been a bad couple of months. But you don’t want to hear about my dreadful personality problems.” “Your lips to God’s ear.” They looked at one another and smiled. The Reverend took hold of my elbow and we fell into step behind the sheriff. “This guy was in pretty bad shape,” said Jackson, “so Grant and I put him back in your office. Hope you don’t mind too much.” “As long as he hasn’t puked on everything.”
Jackson grinned. “Not that kind of bad shape. The guy was shit-scared half out of his mind. Wanted to be put someplace where no one could see him.” “Did he get here before or after Bill Emerson?” “After.” Jackson grinned. “Can’t say any of us were much help to Bill.” “Still no word about Joe, then?” “Afraid not. I’ve got my deputies out looking for him, as well, now. Don’t worry, We’ll find him.” “God, I hope so.”
We arrived at the door to the Reverend’s office-slash-living quarters. Jackson gripped the doorknob, then looked at us. “I was kinda into Parallax, too, when I was younger. That’s why I about fell over when I saw who this was.” He opened the door and we stepped into the room.
Byron Knight—that’s right, the Byron Knight—was laying on a cot beside the Reverend’s desk. It had been almost 30 years since anyone had seen him. Most people who cared to remember him at all assumed that he was dead, what with his dramatic disappearance back in the early 1980s.
The years had not been good to him. His once muscular frame—featured on the covers of both Rolling Stone and Melody Maker the same month—was now an emaciated ruin. The clothes he wore were torn, patched, and tattered. And the sickly-gray pallor of his skin betrayed an illness I was all-too familiar with: cancer. I’d watched it slowly chew my mother to death after Dad abandoned us when I was twelve.
“The source of the ulceration,” whispered the Reverend.
“The source of the what?” asked Jackson.
The Reverend, ignoring the sheriff’s question, turned to me. “You stay here with him, Sam, all right? Don’t let anyone except me or Ted or Grant through the door, understand?”
“Yes sir.”
“What the hell is going on?” asked Jackson. “I only ask because it seems to me that neither one of you were too surprised to see him here. Me, I see a rock star from 30 years ago who I thought was dead, I get curious.” The Reverend took hold of Jackson’s arm and led him out of the room. “Lock the door behind us, Sam.” “Don’t have to tell me twice.” They left, I locked the door, and I heard a voice from behind me say one word. “…mudman….” Wow. Okay, it wasn’t quite the same as hearing Morrison call himself the Lizard King…but it was close.
The Buckeye State has produced only four rock acts that ever amounted to anything more than passing curiosities; Devo (Akron), The James Gang (Cleveland), Guided By Voices (Dayton), and Parallax (Zanesville/Cedar Hill). Parallax came out of central Ohio in the mid-1970s, just as the progressive rock movement was hitting its zenith. Bands like Yes, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Flash, King Crimson, and a trio of Canadian upstarts calling themselves Rush were engulfing the airwaves with long, complex “concept” pieces like “Close to the Edge”, “Tarkus”, and “2112”. It was not uncommon (thanks to the earlier success of Iron Butterfly’s 17-minute “In a Gadda-Da-Vida”) to turn on your FM radio and hear only three songs played over the course of an hour. 10-minute songs were almost short compared to a half-hour epic like “Karn Evil 9.” It seemed that if you were going to be taken seriously in the prog rock movement (by anyone who wasn’t Lester bangs of Creem magazine), you had to produce a “concept” piece that would initially befuddle listeners while giving the DJs time to take a leisurely piss break. A lot of it was pretentious crap, but some of it was kind of amazing. It didn’t matter if you thought Rush’s “The Fountain of Lamneth” was overblown silliness, because Yes’s “The Revealing Science of God” might blow you away right after.
One of these concept pieces that you could hear played on FM radio back then was an 18-minute beauty by Parallax entitled “Kiss of the Mudman.”
What made “Mudman” so unique that even Lester bangs admitted a grumbling admiration for it (Bangs was infamous for loathing everything about the prog-rock movement) was its fusion of traditional blues with Hindi music. Critics were divided on whether or not it was a successful piece, but even those who disliked it had to admit that it was unlike anything produced during the short-lived prog era—and that it was performed by your basic rock trio, using only a bass, drums, and a single guitar, without any studio trickery or overdubs, served, according to Rolling Stone’s review, “…as a testament to Parallax’s serious-minded goals, if not their cumulative musicianship, which seems too agile at times to move ‘Mudman’ into the realm of potential classic. Still, Canada’s Rush might soon have reason to be looking over their shoulders if Knight, Shaw, and Jacobs continue to move in this direction.”
Kiss of the Mudman (both the album and the song) made Parallax instant (if fleeting) icons. Their two previous albums (both of which had done okay but not great) were re-issued and sold like crazy, giving them two gold and one platinum album the same year, 1978.
And then Alan Shaw, the bassist, died of a heroin overdose, and Tracy Jacobs, the drummer, was killed in an auto accident (it was later determined that he’d been drunk at the time). Byron Knight recorded a terrific solo album that just bombed, and then he dropped off the radar. Some college stations still dusted off “Mudman” from time to time when the DJs felt like making fun of it (or needed a leisurely piss break), and it, like the band who recorded it, was now nothing more than a curiosity piece.
Still, if you were a fan, (like I’d been) to hear the man who’d written and sang the song mumble the word “…mudman…” was, well…still kind of a thrill, and I couldn’t help but remember the verse that had been all the rage for a few months back when I was a teenager:
“You wonder where it all went wrong and why you feel so dead
why it seems that every day you’re hanging by a thread
Are you still who you were and not what you’ve become?
Is this the taste of failure that lingers on your tongue?
Your dreams are ending in a place
far from where they began
Because what’s on your lips
Is the memory of the kiss
Of the mudman…”
Okay, “Blowin’ in the Wind” it wasn’t, but as a soul-sick cry of loneliness and alienation, it works—and that’s what “Mudman” was, an 18-minute musical suicide note, chronicling the last minutes of a dying rock star’s life as he looks back on all the people he’s hurt and left behind, knowing that none of it—the fame, the money, the women and riches—was worth it, that all he’d ever wanted he’d pissed away, and now had to die alone, and deserved his fate.
I’d always wondered just who or what the Mudman was (as did all the fans of the piece), but Knight would never say.
“…sonofabitch,” he slurred from the cot as he attempted to sit up. I went over and helped him, got him a glass of water, and watched as he pulled a bottle of pills from his pocket and popped two of them into his mouth. “For the pain,” he said, taking a deep drink of the water. Setting down the glass, he wiped his mouth, rubbed his eyes, and looked at me. “Was I dreaming, or did you say something about an ulceration?” I shook my head. “That was someone else, the Reverend, the man who runs this shelter.” “Ah.” He blinked, coughed a few times, and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m kinda sick, I’m afraid.” “Cancer.” It was not a question. He looked at me. “Seen it before, have you?” “Yes.” “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna flip out on you. I just needed to get a little shut-eye in a warm place.” “You’re Byron Knight.”
He paled at the mention of his name. “I was Byron Knight. Now I’m just a sick transient who’s come back to his hometown to die. Think the Reverend would have any objection to my doing it here?”
“We’ve had people pass away before. The Reverend never forces anyone to leave if they don’t want to.”
“That’s good, because I don’t want to. Don’t have anywhere to go, anyway.” He ran his fingers through his hair, then stuck out his hand. “You are?” “Sam,” I said, shaking his hand. “What the fuck happened to that ear of yours?” I touched it, as I always do whenever someone asks me about it. “Frostbite.” “You hear out of it? No, huh?” “Nope.” “So I guess it was a dumb question.” “Not really.” He sniffed, then looked around the room. “Your Reverend, he wouldn’t have any booze stashed around here by chance, would he?” I knew the Reverend kept a bottle of brandy in his desk. I got it out and poured Knight a short one. “Is that a good idea?” I asked him as I handed the glass to him. “I mean, on top of the pain pills?”
He laughed but there was no humor in it. “Sam, I think I’m way past worrying about the effects this’ll have on my health.” He lifted the glass in a toast. “To your health, then.” He downed it in one gulp. “Oh, that’s nice.” He held out the glass. “One more? I promise that’ll be it.” I poured him another, this one a little higher than the last. This time he sipped at it. “I wish you’d stop looking at me like that.” “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just that…I was a big fan.” “That’s nice.” He sounded as if he really meant it. “It’s nice to know that someone remembers.” “You guys were good.”
“No, we could have been good. Fuck—we could’ve been great, but it just got too easy to hear everyone else tell us how great we were. ‘Better the illusion exalts us than ten thousand truths.’ Alexander Pushkin said that. Don’ ask me who he was, I couldn’t tell you. I read that line in a book of quotes somewhere. Always stayed with me.” He dug around in his pocket and produced a hand-rolled cigarette. “Yes, Sam, this is grass, and I’m gonna light up. I can do it in here or we can step outside, it’s up to you.”
I nodded at the joint. “That for the pain, too?”
“Everything’s for the pain these days, Sam.”
“There’s a sheriff out in the shelter.”
“So? Here or a jail cell, at least I’ll be inside when I buy the farm.” He fired up a match and inhaled on the joint. The room was instantly filled with the too-sweet aroma.
“Want a hit?” he said, offering the joint.
“No. Go ahead and bogart it, my friend.”
He laughed. “I’ll bet the first time you heard that song, it was in Easy Rider. Am I right? Tell me I’m right.”
“You’re right.”
“Thought so.” He took a couple of more hits, then licked his fingers and doused the business end. “No need to use it all at once.”
The smoke lingered. A lot.
No, wait—lingered isn’t quite the right word. What this smoke did was remain. It didn’t drift off, didn’t start to break apart and dissipate, it just hung in the air, a semi-solid cloud that didn’t appear to be in a hurry to go anywhere. “That must be some strong stuff,” I said. “It does the trick, if used in combination with the right ingredients.” “Like brandy and pain pills?” “Give that man a cigar.” “Can I get you anything else?” He pointed to something beside the door. “You can bring me my ax, if you don’t mind.”
Turning, I saw the beat-up guitar case leaning against the wall. I picked up the case, noted that the handle was about to come off (the duct tape used to re-attach was just about shot), and carried it over to Knight. He opened the case and removed the guitar, a gorgeous, new-looking Takamine 12-string with a dreadnought-sized cutaway white-bound body, solid spruce top and rosewood back and sides, a mahogany neck with white-bound rosewood fretboard, a rosewood bridge, and a black pick-guard.
It was one of the most beautiful instruments I’d ever seen.
“Yeah,” said Knight, seeing the expression on my face, “she’s a beauty. I’ve had this baby for most of my life. Half the time—shit, most of the time—I took better care of her than I did of myself.” He gave it a light strum, and the room filled with that rich, clear sound that only a perfectly-tuned guitar can produce.
“So, Sam…any requests?”
“You should play what you want.”
“Hmm.” He began playing a series of warm-up riffs, nothing spectacular, then slowly eased into a standard blues riff, then the same with variations, something he described as the Blues Minor Pentatonic Scale, consisting of the root, the minor third, the fourth, the fifth and the minor seventh.
“Something to hear, if you know how to listen,” he said. “You know, it never occurred to me before how frighteningly easy it is to re-shape a single note or scale into its own ghost. For example, E-major, C, G, to D will all fit in one scale– the Aeolian minor, or natural minor of a G-major scale. Now, if you add an A-major chord, all you have to do is change the C natural of your scale to a C-sharp for the time you're on the A-major. Music is phrases and feeling, so learning the scales doesn't get you ‘Limehouse Blues’ any more than buying tubes of oil paints gets you a ‘Starry Night,’ but you have to respect the craft enough to realize, no matter how good you are, you’ll never master it. Music will always have the final word.”
And he continued to play.
“Mr. Knight?”
“You can stray here and keep me company, Sam, unless you’re gonna call me ‘Mr. Knight.’ The name is Byron.” “What happened after your solo album? I mean, I don’t want to pry, but you just disappeared. Everyone thought you were dead.” He stopped playing, flexed his fingers, and adjusted the tuning on the ‘E’ string. “Seen any other dead rock stars tonight, Sam?” My mouth went dry. “Yes sir.” “I’m guessing there’s more than a few legends milling around out there in the shelter, am I right?” “Yes.” “Anyone in that crowd seem…I dunno…a little out of place?” “Billie Holiday.” He looked up at me. “No shit? Wow. She actually showed up this time.” “Why her?” “because I loved that voice, Sam. Never has there been a sadder voice in music, never.”
I finally pulled a chair away from the Reverend’s desk and sat across from Knight. “They told us that they weren’t ghosts, that they were—” “—let me guess. They called themselves ‘ulcerations’?” “How did you know?” “Because I’m the source.” I stared at him. “I’m guessing that doesn’t really tell you anything, does it?” “Not really.”
He downed the rest of the brandy, looked at the empty glass, and said, “I’ll tell you one hell of a story, Sam. You’ll be the only person I’ve ever told it to, but it’s gonna cost you one more glass of the good Reverend’s hooch.”
I poured him one more glass. He sipped at it, then played a little as he spoke.
True to his word, he told me one hell of a story.
