The Very Best of Charles De Lint

  10

  Tomorrow is Christmas day and I’m going down to the soup kitchen to help serve the Christmas dinners. It’ll be my first Christmas without Gina. My parents wanted me to come home, but I put them off until tomorrow night. I just want to sit here tonight with Fritzie and remember. He lives with me because Gina asked me to take care of him, but he’s not the same dog he was when Gina was alive. He misses her too much.

  I’m sitting by the window, watching the snow fall. On the table in front of me I’ve spread out the contents of a box of memories: The casing for Gina’s demo tape. My twig people and the other things we made. All those letters and cards that Gina sent me over the years. I haven’t been able to reread them yet, but I’ve looked at the drawings and I’ve held them in my hands, turning them over and over, one by one. The demo tape is playing softly on my stereo. It’s the first time I’ve been able to listen to it since Gina died.

  Through the snow I can see the gargoyle on the building across the street. I know now what Gina meant about wanting to live in their world and be invisible. When you’re invisible, no one can see that you’re different.

  Thinking about Gina hurts so much, but there’s good things to remember, too. I don’t know what would have become of me if she hadn’t rescued me in that playground all those years ago and welcomed me into her life. It’s so sad that the uniqueness about her that made me love her so much was what caused her so much pain.

  The bells of St. Paul’s Cathedral strike midnight. They remind me of the child I was, trying to stay up late enough to hear my cat talk. I guess that’s what Gina meant to me. While everybody else grew up, Gina retained all the best things about childhood: goodness and innocence and an endless wonder. But she carried the downside of being a child inside her as well. She always lived in the present moment, the way we do when we’re young, and that must be why her despair was so overwhelming for her.

  “I tried to save her,” a voice says in the room behind me as the last echo of St. Paul’s bells fades away. “But she wouldn’t let me. She was too strong for me.”

  I don’t move. I don’t dare move at all. On the demo tape, Gina’s guitar starts to strum the intro to another song. Against the drone of the guitar’s strings, the voice goes on.

  “I know she’ll always live on so long as we keep her memory alive,” it says, “but sometimes that’s just not enough. Sometimes I miss her so much I don’t think I can go on.”

  I turn slowly then, but there’s only me in the room. Me and Fritzie, and one small Christmas miracle to remind me that everything magic didn’t die when Gina walked into the lake.

  “Me, too,” I tell Fritzie.

  I get up from my chair and cross the room to where he’s sitting up, looking at me with those sad eyes of his. I put my arms around his neck. I bury my face in his rough fur and we stay there like that for a long time, listening to Gina sing.

  That Was Radio Clash

  December 23, 2002

  “Why so down?” the bartender asked the girl with the dark blue hair.

  She looked up, surprised, maybe, that anyone had even noticed.

  At night, the Rhatigan was one of the last decent live jazz clubs in town. The kind of place where you didn’t necessarily know the players, but one thing the music always did was swing. There was none of your smooth jazz or other ambient crap here. But during the day, it was like any other low-end bar, a third full of serious drinkers and no one that looked like her.

  “Joe Strummer died yesterday,” she said.

  Alphonse is a good guy. He used to play the keys until an unpaid debt resulted in some serious damage to his melody hand. He can still play, but where he used to soar, now he just walks along on the everyday side of genius with the rest of us. And while maybe he can’t express the way things feel with his music anymore, the heart that made him one of the most generous players you could sit in with is still beating inside that barrel chest of his.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Was he a friend of yours?”

  The hint of a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, but the sadness in her eyes didn’t change.

  “Hardly,” she said. “It’s just that he was the heart and soul of the only band that matters and his dying reminds me of how everything that’s good eventually fades away.”

  “The only band that matters,” Alphonse repeated, obviously not getting the reference. In his head he was probably running through various Monk or Davis lineups.

  “That’s what they used to call the Clash.”

  “Oh, I remember them. What was that hit of theirs?” It took him a moment, but then he half-sang the chorus and title of “Should I Stay or Should I Go.”

  She nodded. “Except that was more Mick Jones’s. Joe’s lyrics were the ones with a political agenda.”

  “I don’t much care for politics,” Alphonse said.

  “Yeah, most people don’t. And that’s why the world’s as fucked up as it is.”

  Alphonse shrugged and went to serve a customer at the other end of the bar. The blue-haired girl returned her attention to her beer, staring down into the amber liquid.

  “Did you ever meet him?” I asked.

  She looked up to where I was sitting a couple of barstools away. Her eyes were as blue as her hair, such a vibrant colour that I figured they must be contacts. She had a pierced eyebrow—the left—and pale skin, but by the middle of winter, most people have pretty much lost their summer colour. She was dressed like she was auditioning for a black and white movie: black jersey, cargos and boots, a grey sweater. The only colour was in her hair. And those amazing eyes.

  “No,” she said. “But I saw them play at the Standish in ’84.”

  I smiled. “And you were what? Five years old?”

  “Now you’re just sucking up.”

  And unspoken, but implied in those few words was, You don’t have a chance with me.

  But I never thought I did. I mean, look at me. A has-been trumpet player who lost his lip. Never touched the glory Alphonse did when he played—not on my own—but I sat in with musicians who did.

  But that’s not what she’d be seeing. She’d be seeing one more lost soul with haunted eyes, trying to drown old sorrows in a pint of draught. If she was in her teens when she caught the Clash at the Standish, she’d still only be in her mid- to late-thirties now, ten years my junior. But time passes differently for people like her and people like me. I looked half again my age, and shabby. And I knew it.

  No, all I was doing here was enjoying the opportunity for a little piece of conversation with someone who wasn’t a drunk, or what she thought me to be: on the prowl.

  “I knew him in London,” I said. “Back in the seventies when we were all living in squats in Camden Town.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  I shrugged and went on as though she hadn’t spoken. “I remember their energy the most. They’d play these crap gigs with speakers made out of crates and broomstick mike stands. Very punk—lots of noise and big choppy chords.” I smiled. “And not a hell of a lot of chords, either. But they already had a conscience—not like the Pistols who were only ever in it for the money. Right from the start they were giving voice to a whole generation that the system had let down.”

  She studied me for a moment.

  “Well, at least you know your stuff,” she said. “Are you a musician?”

  I nodded. “I used to play the trumpet, but I don’t have the lip for it anymore.”

  “Did you ever play with him?”

  “No, I was in an R&B cover band in the seventies, but times were hard and I ended up living in the squats for a while, same as him. The closest I got to playing the punk scene was when I was in a ska band, and later doing some Two-Tone. But the music I loved to play the most was always jazz.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Eddie Ramone.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  I smiled. “No, and before you ask, I got my name honestly—from my dad.”

/>   “I’m Sarah Blue.”

  I glanced at her hair. “So which came first?”

  “The name. Like you, it came with the family.”

  “I guess people who knew you could really say they knew the Blues.”

  “Ha ha.”

  “Sorry.”

  “’sokay.”

  I waited a moment, then asked, “So is there more to your melancholy than the loss of an old favourite musician?”

  She shrugged. “It just brought it all home to me, how that night at the Standish was, like, one of those pivotal moments in my life, only I didn’t recognize it. Or maybe it’s just that that’s when I started making a lot of bad choices.” She touched her hair. “It’s funny, but the first thing I did when I heard he’d died was put the eyebrow piercing back in and dye my hair blue like it was in those days—by way of mourning. But I think I’m mourning the me I lost as much as his passing.”

  “We can change our lives.”

  “Well, sure. But we can’t change the past. See that night I hooked up with Brian. I thought he was into all the things I was. I wanted to change the world and make a difference. Through music, but also through activism.”

  “So you played?”

  “Yeah. Guitar—electric guitar—and I sang. I wrote songs, too.”

  “What happened?”

  “I pissed it all away. Brian had no ambition except to party hearty and that whole way of life slipped into mine like a virus. I never even saw the years slide away.”

  “And Brian?”

  “I dumped him after a couple of years, but by then I’d just lost my momentum.”

  “You could still regain it.”

  She shook her head. “Music’s a young person’s game. I do what I can in terms of being an environmental and social activist, but the music was the soul of it for me. It was everything. Whatever I do now, I just feel like I’m going through the motions.”

  “You don’t have to be young to make music.”

  “Maybe not. But whatever muse I had back in those days pissed off and left me a long time ago. Believe me, I’ve tried. I used to get home from work and pick up my guitar almost every day, but the spark was just never there. I don’t even try anymore.”

  “I hear you,” I said. “I never had the genius—I just saw it in others. And when you know what you could be doing, when the music in your head’s so far beyond what you can pull out of your instrument….”

  “Why bother.”

  I gave a slow nod, then studied her for a moment. “So if you could go back and change something, is that what it would be? You’d go to that night and go your own way instead of hooking up with this Brian guy?”

  She laughed. “I guess. Though I’d have to apply myself as well.”

  “I can send you back.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  I didn’t take my gaze from those blue eyes of hers. I just repeated what I’d said. “I can send you back.”

  She let me hold her gaze for a couple of heartbeats, then shook her head.

  “You almost had me going there,” she said.

  “I can send you back,” I said a third time.

  Third time’s the charm and she looked uneasy.

  “Send me back in time.”

  I nodded.

  “To warn myself.”

  “No. You’d go back, with all you know now. And it’s not really back. Time doesn’t run in a straight line, it all happens at the same time. Past, present, future. It’s like this is you now.” I touched my left shoulder. “And this is you then.” I touched the end of a finger on my left hand. “If I hold my arm straight, it seems linear, right?”

  She gave me a dubious nod.

  “But really—” I crooked my left arm so that my finger was touching my shoulder, “—the two times are right beside each other. It’s not such a big jump.”

  “And you can send me there?”

  I nodded. “On one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You come back here on this exact same day and ask for me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s how it works.”

  She shook her head. “This is nuts.”

  “Nothing to lose, everything to gain.”

  “I guess…”

  I knew I almost had her, so I smiled and said, “Should you stay or should you go?”

  Her blue gaze held mine again, then she shrugged. Picking up her beer, she chugged the last third down, then set the empty glass on the table.

  “What the hell,” she said. “How does it work?”

  I slipped off my stool and closed the few steps between us.

  “You think about that night,” I said. “Think about it hard. Then I put two fingers on each of your temples—like this. And then I kiss your third eye.”

  I leaned forward and pressed my lips against her brow, halfway between my fingers. Held my lips there for a heartbeat. Another. Then I stepped away.

  She looked at me for a long moment, before standing up. She didn’t say a word, but they never do. She just laid a couple of bills on the bar to pay for her drink and walked out the door.

  * * *

  December 23, 2002

  “I feel like I should know you,” the bartender said when the girl with the dark blue hair walked into the bar and pulled up a stool.

  “My name’s Sarah Blue. What’s yours?”

  “Alphonse,” he said and grinned. “And you’re really Sarah Blue?” He glanced towards the doorway. “I thought you big stars only travelled with an entourage.”

  “All I’ve got is a cab waiting outside. And I’m not such a big star.”

  “Yeah, right. Like ‘Take It to the Streets’ wasn’t the big hit of—when was it? Summer of ’89.”

  “You’ve got a good memory.”

  “It was a good song.”

  “Yeah, it was. I never get tired of playing it. But my hit days were a long time ago. These days I’m just playing theatres and clubs again.”

  “Nothing wrong with that. So what can I get you?”

  “Actually, I was expecting to meet a guy in here today. Do you know an Eddie Ramone?”

  “Sure, I do.” He shook his head. “I should have remembered.”

  “Remembered what?”

  “Hang on.”

  He went to a drawer near the cash and pulled out a stack of envelopes held together with a rubber band. Flipping through them, he returned to where she was sitting and laid one out on the bar in front of her. In an unfamiliar hand was written:

  Sarah Blue

  December 23, 2002

  “Do those all have names and dates on them?” she asked.

  “Every one of them.”

  He showed her the top one. It was addressed to:

  Jonathan Block

  January 27, 2003

  “You think he’ll show?” she asked.

  “You did.”

  She shook her head. “What’s this all about?”

  “Damned if I know. People just drop these off from time to time and sooner or later someone shows up to collect it.”

  “It’s not just Eddie?”

  “No. But most of the time it’s Eddie.”

  “And he’s not here?”

  “Not today. Maybe he tells you why in the letter.”

  “The letter. Right.”

  “I’ll leave you to it,” Alphonse said.

  He walked back to where he’d left the drawer open and dropped the envelopes in. When he looked up, she was still watching him.

  “You want a drink?” he asked.

  “Sure. Whatever’s on tap that’s dark.”

  “You’ve got it.”

  She returned her attention to the letter, staring at it until Alphonse returned with her beer. She thanked him, had a sip, then slid her finger into the top of the envelope and tore it open. There was a single sheet inside, written in the same unfamiliar script that was on the envelope. It said:

  Hello Sarah,


  Well, if you’re reading this, I guess you’re a believer now. I sure hope your life went where you wanted it to go this time.

  Funny thing, that might amuse you. I was talking to Joe, back in the Camden Town days, and I asked him if he had any advice for a big fan who’d be devastated when he finally went to the big gig in the sky.

  The first thing he said was, “Get bent.”

  The second was, “You really think we’re ever going to make it?”

  When I nodded, he thought for a moment, then said, “You tell him or her—it’s a her?—tell her it’s never about the player, is it? It’s always about the music. And the music never dies.”

  And if she wanted to be a musician? I asked him.

  “Tell her that whatever she takes on, stay in for the duration. Maybe you can just bang out a tune or a lyric, maybe it takes you forever. It doesn’t matter how you put it together. All that matters is that it means something to you, and you play it like it means something to you. Anything else is just bollocks.”

  I’m thinking, if you got your life straight this time, you’d probably agree with him.

  But now to business. First off, the reason I’m not here to see you is that this isn’t the same future I sent you back from. That one still exists, running alongside this one, but it’s closed to you because you’re living that other life now. And you know there’s just no point in us meeting again, because we’ve done what needed to be done.

  At least we did it for you.

  If you’re in the music biz now, you know there’s no such thing as a free ride. What I need you to do is, pass it on. You know how to do it. All you’ve got to decide is who.

  Eddie

  Sarah read it twice before she folded the letter up, returned it to the envelope and stowed it in the pocket of her jacket. She had some more of her beer. Alphonse approached as she was setting her glass back down on the bar top.

  “Did that clear it up for you?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Well, that’s Eddie for you. The original man of mystery. He ever start in on his time travel yarns with you?”

  She shook her head again, but only because she wasn’t ready to admit it to anyone. To do so didn’t feel right, and that feeling had made her keep it to herself through all the years.