The Lost Songs

  16

  Azure Lee went to find Pierce. “Is it true your daddy showed up in school to yell at Train?”

  “Yup,” said Pierce glumly.

  “This is not good,” said Azure Lee. “Train knew perfectly well that you and I stopped that late bus because it was getting dark and Doria can be dumb as a stump and Train is not the person to hang with. Train probably already hates you. Why’d your daddy do that, anyway?”

  “Evan at Youth Group said something about Train, and I thought it was my civic duty to call my daddy.”

  “You forgot what happened to Nate when he had that same idea?”

  “I know, it was stupid.”

  “Watch yourself,” said Azure Lee. Then she smiled. “Remember how Doria laughed at us the first time she heard us call our daddies daddy?”

  “Yankees stop calling their daddies daddy when they’re three. My daddy still calls his daddy daddy,” said Pierce.

  “You think there’s any hope for Doria?”

  “Well, you know, at Youth Group, I liked her. But she’s hard to access. Like she’s got some protective code.”

  “A firewall,” agreed Azure Lee. “You want one in your computer, but you don’t want one in your soul.”

  “Train has a bigger firewall. And I don’t know if he even has a soul. He might be all firewall.”

  “When Train was little, he had perfect attendance pins for Sunday school.”

  “No way.”

  “True. He and Kelvin were going to be preachers.”

  “No way.”

  “True.”

  “I would rather pump septic tanks than be a preacher,” said Pierce.

  “It isn’t your future that’s the problem, Pierce. The problem is that Kelvin and Train are no longer cute little boys nobody can tell apart. These days, everybody loves Kelvin but nobody loves Train. No wonder he needs a firewall.”

  “The firewall is fine,” said Pierce. “It’s when Train decides to be the fire that worries me.”

  Death allowed a person to skip school. But Miss Veola did not allow a person to skip funeral planning.

  Miss Veola was getting testy. “We need to decide what to sing, what scriptures to read, whether you girls want to talk about Saravette yourselves or whether you want me to do it all.”

  “Lutie must sing,” said Aunt Tamika.

  “No, thank you,” said Lutie.

  “It’s your mama.”

  “She never sang to me.”

  “That has nothing to do with it,” said Miss Veola. “She’s going on her journey and—”

  “And I never even knew her. She chose to be a stranger. And I am one. I have nothing to say or sing at her funeral.”

  “Lutie!”

  “You’re the ones who decided to tell me how my MeeMaw died, and who killed her. Should have kept it secret.”

  “Lutie, did you go to school today?”

  “No.”

  “You’ll go tomorrow.”

  “No.”

  “What’s the matter with you, girl?”

  Lutie stared at Miss Veola. What wasn’t the matter?

  The Music Appreciation class had already stomped into the music room when Mr. Gregg finally dismissed chorus. “Remember, next rehearsal we’ll be singing shotgun!” he shouted.

  “I’m next to Kelvin!” called at least five girls.

  “I’m nice and wide,” said Kelvin cheerfully. “Plenty of people can stand next to me.” He swung his grin around the room. Then he saw Train and his grin faded.

  Train had fixed him with those dead eyes. Kelvin had a terrifying sensation of being assessed as a victim.

  The chorus headed for the door, but nobody could get out. Train and company filled the exit. They just stood there, slouched and silent.

  “Singing shotgun?” repeated Train.

  Nobody wanted to discuss the word “shotgun” with Train.

  “I don’t know what it means either,” said Doria. “I barely know what a shotgun is. Let alone what it means to sing it.”

  “A shotgun scatters pellets,” said one of the boys. “Normally a chorus sits in blocks. Soprano. Alto. Tenor. Bass. But next rehearsal we’ll scatter, so nobody ends up sitting next to a person with the same part. Singing shotgun.”

  “Much richer sound,” said Mr. Gregg, elbowing through the chorus. “Much better blend. Train, what’s your problem? Don’t stand in the door. People need to leave.”

  What isn’t his problem? thought Kelvin.

  Doria and Mr. Gregg shared the piano bench, working on Doria’s latest composition.

  “I’ve been working on the second act of my musical,” said Mr. Gregg casually.

  “How’s it going?”

  “Not good.” Mr. Gregg tapped the piano keys with his pencil eraser. Tapped his wrist and then his chin. “I’m not sure I’m actually a composer.”

  Doria yearned for a good lie, an easy fib. Nothing came to mind.

  Mr. Gregg sighed. “I’ve been kidding myself for a long time.”

  They sat for a while, absorbing this. Doria did not see how to soften the blow. “Will it leave a hole in your life to give up composing?” she asked finally. “Do you spend hours at it every week?”

  “I carefully avoid it every week.”

  They laughed.

  “You know what, Mr. Gregg? I want to quit my church job.”

  “No, don’t. I always have a church job. Although I’m the choir director, not the organist. You get to present a different kind of music for a different reason and a different audience.”

  “So?” said Doria.

  They laughed again.

  “I also want to graduate this May, instead of next year.”

  Mr. Gregg studied her. “We’ve had kids graduate early. They come back and visit too often. I think they’re sorry they threw away senior year. It’s not like throwing away old sneakers, you know. You can’t get another pair of senior years. Anyway, I know what you really want. You really want exactly what everybody else wants. You want girlfriends and a boyfriend.”

  The stab of truth went all the way through her chest and came out the other side.

  He said, “You’re panicking early. You’ve been here only two and a half months. Friendships will come.”

  “I’m not panicking,” said Doria sharply.

  “Skipping senior year isn’t a sign of panic?”

  “It’s a sign of maturity and readiness.”

  “Dream on,” said Mr. Gregg. “I, however, am mature. I’m admitting that I do not have a musical to show off to Professor Durham.”

  “On the other hand,” said Doria, “he doesn’t have the Laundry List to show off to you.”

  “And you do?”

  “I have some of it. You know what, Mr. Gregg? My organ teacher thinks I need to coax Lutie to cooperate with the professor.”

  “That’s exactly what I said! It’s only meaningful if this organ teacher says it?”

  “Sorry.”

  “And are you going to coax Lutie to share? Where is she this week, anyway? Sick or what?”

  The funeral was this afternoon. Don’t talk about it, Lutie had texted.

  I won’t, Doria texted back.

  T, G and V want me to sing, Lutie texted.

  Do it, Doria replied.

  How disturbing that Mr. Gregg, who loved Lutie, did not know that Lutie’s mother had died.

  I’m not sure anybody else knows either, thought Doria. Nobody’s talked about it. But maybe they’re texting the news. Maybe everybody else has some new technology for communicating that nobody’s even shown me. For all I know, the whole school’s going to show up.

  “I’ll text her,” said Doria, as if this answered Mr. Gregg’s question.

  The school day was over. Kids poured out the front doors.

  Teams began to jog by, warming up for after-school practice. First came the singles: boys and girls completely into the physical demands of the run. Then the pairs: buddies who panted while they talked. N
ext the packs: groups who would slow down or speed up to stay together. Finally the laggards: kids who didn’t care enough, had already run out of energy or were texting.

  Again Kelvin found himself standing next to Train. Certainly he hadn’t sought Train out. So Train had looked for him. The thought wasn’t comforting.

  Two boys ran by, perfect specimens of young manhood. They slowed down in front of an audience, showing off. What a contrast his thick body and Train’s skinny body were. Kelvin briefly considered a diet.

  “I could be on that team, if I wanted,” said Train loudly.

  Kelvin was an overweight slouch. Train was a rail-thin slouch. Neither one of them had any hope of being on any team. Except maybe as mascot. Kelvin entertained himself wondering who (besides DeRade) would want Train for a mascot. He had to laugh. Everybody joined in.

  Train fixed his burning eyes on Kelvin.

  Kelvin thought of the dead eye of poor Nate. He had never seen it. Nobody had. Nate’s family moved away before Nate was even out of the hospital. And yet the eye haunted Kelvin.

  He looked straight at Train, trying to find sweet little Cliff inside this person who had cut the barbed wire.

  Not a trace.

  He wants to do something, thought Kelvin. Actually, he has to do something. DeRade set the example. Train has to follow.

  But Train was still at the stage where he needed an excuse. Even DeRade had needed an excuse—he couldn’t blind a kid until the kid ratted on him.

  Laughing at Train over football failure would not constitute an excuse to attack.

  Or would it?

  Normal behavior was burning off Train like pounds of flesh.

  Train burned.

  It wasn’t enough that Kelvin had laughed at him.

  Everybody had laughed.

  Like they’d been hoping for a chance to laugh at him and Kelvin had given it to them.

  DeRade—he used to think of stuff to do and then do it.

  Train—he tagged along. Was that all he was good for? Since DeRade went to prison, Train hadn’t done a thing except shuffle down the hallways, doing nothing.

  That whole thing—stealing Doria’s keys, taking her car, making copies, letting himself into that church—had disgusted DeRade. Loser, he had texted.

  Cell phones were illegal in prison, so of course everybody had one.

  Doesn’t get you into Slammer, DeRade texted.

  Slammer was an Internet site that posted mug shots of people who had been arrested each week. Whether the accused had been booked for DUI or assault, bad checks or murder, Slammer published their photo online. If you wanted more information, you had to buy the weekly flyer at the convenience store.

  All the wannabes did.

  I’m a wannabe, thought Train, a little shocked.

  Like he could peek at crime, but couldn’t actually do it.

  If he walked away now, the laughter would deepen and lengthen. DeRade would hear about it, because prison walls are not thick; they are porous. Everybody there knows everything.

  Train felt as if his eyes had turned sideways, and now he was an animal that could not see straight ahead. He thought of DeRade in prison. No air, no sky, no wind, no grass. No girls. Endless jostling for power and space and safety. For years.

  Train suddenly realized that he stood alone.

  He was so boring to these kids that they had just drifted away.

  People who were alone were nothing.

  Train walked unsteadily to his locker. He was prepared. He had a bottle of rubbing alcohol, which they’d used on the kid on the TV news. He had a lighter. He had given the can lid thing a look—opened a huge can of peaches his mama had left in the cupboard and experimented using the lid as a knife. Cut his sandwich in quarters with it. But if he was going to cut somebody, he’d use an actual knife. Only he wasn’t going to cut anyone.

  He’d chosen fire.

  He shut the locker door and his cell phone rang.

  Miss Veola again.

  Probably knew Pierce’s daddy. Probably they had made plans together.

  He would show them who made the plans.

  Stop, she would have written.

  If Miss Veola knew what he was going to do now, she would thunder, “The Lord God did his best for you! He gave his Son for you. Now you do your best for him, young man.”

  Train did not want to do his best. He wanted to do his worst.

  Tuesday

  Train chooses fire.

  Doria chooses Cliff.

  Lutie crosses the creek.

  Kelvin sings shotgun.

  17

  Kelvin was puzzled by Miss Veola’s message. It wasn’t the usual Stop. It said, Be sure to come.

  What did that mean? Come to what?

  He walked slowly from the high school over to Tenth Street and turned north toward Miss Veola’s.

  Tenth Street was not lined with chain stores or strip malls. It had no traffic lights at this end. No employers. No schools. Streets sprouted here and there, hardly visible where they led into Chalk. The sidewalk switched from one side of the street to the other without warning. Here there was no pavement, just a thin trail worn into dry grass. Kelvin trudged up a small hill. From the top he would be able to see the pink church. It was oddly rural here. He was not thirty yards from Tenth Street, but it felt like he was on a farm.

  Then suddenly out of the grass came Train.

  Kelvin stopped.

  Any remaining charm had been eaten off Train’s face, as if by some interior monster. He looked starved. His eyes flared and his face widened as if something were hauling at his mouth.

  He held a bottle of clear fluid in one hand and a cigarette lighter in the other.

  Train smoked all the time. The lighter was no surprise. But what was he drinking?

  Train unscrewed the cap of the bottle and Kelvin realized with horror that Train was not drinking out of it. It was for something else. He remembered the TV coverage from every night this week about that kid who’d been set on fire. That kid who’d lost seventy percent of his skin because of forty dollars he hadn’t paid.

  Train was ambushing him.

  But Kelvin was one of the good guys. “Train?” he said.

  Train laughed, high and vicious, like a hyena on a nature film.

  Kelvin felt leaden.

  He had to run, but he couldn’t stand the thought of running. He saw himself ponderously, cravenly, lurching away from somebody half his weight—a kid who had been his friend in kindergarten! If Kelvin ran, only his back would get burned. Proof of cowardice.

  Or proof of intelligence.

  He said, “It’s me, Train. Kelvin.”

  I can’t be a victim, he thought.

  “Victim.” It meant a person killed as sacrifice, part of a rite. Train needed to shed blood, according to the ritual of DeRade.

  Train’s fingers were finding a position on the bottle when his cell phone rang.

  Kelvin felt Train’s desire to look at the phone. In that moment there was time to ponder the psychology of cell phones: how they always came first. You had to look. You had to know. Who wanted you?

  That’s everything, thought Kelvin. Who wants you? Nobody wants Train. Certainly I don’t want Train.

  Train couldn’t ignore the ring. He looked, and his rhythm was broken. For an instant, his expression was normal. He was exasperated.

  Kelvin made a guess. “Miss Veola?”

  For one beat, Kelvin thought they were going to be okay. Train had been knocked off track in time to regain his sanity.

  And then somebody else came up the hill and Train was an attack dog again.

  Doria Bell. No street sense. No caution.

  Doria would come right up here. Train might go for her instead. Doria, who would chat about Mozart as Train flicked his lighter.

  Only his parents cared what happened to Kelvin. But Doria was a prize on any scale. Kelvin could not let Train hurt Doria.

  Doria was in a hurry.

 
She had brought good clothes to school and changed in the girls’ room, but now her dressy shoes were slowing her down and she was mildly angry at her mother for refusing to let her drive the Honda today. She didn’t want to walk fast enough to get sweaty, but if she dawdled she wouldn’t have time to talk to Lutie before the service.

  On the hill in front of her stood Kelvin and Train.

  Their posture was out of tune. Their bodies were arched and stiff.

  Doria often had the sensation of being all music. Now she had a new sensation. All fear.

  It was thrilling and energizing. She wanted to run right inside it. She wanted to hold it up like a glass window and smash through it.

  Fear demanded speed.

  “Hi, Cliff!” she yelled, racing up the hill. “Hi, Kelvin! Are you on your way to the funeral? Will you sit with me? I don’t want to go alone.”

  Funeral? thought Kelvin.

  Twenty feet away, Doria stopped. She bent over to adjust her black patent leather heels. She usually wore black, but this was not the vanishing black of her school clothes. Now she had on a black lace pencil skirt and a silky black tee. She was even wearing makeup.

  Doria straightened. She looked beautiful and strange, like a magazine model stranded in the grass.

  “What funeral?” said Train.

  “Lutie’s mother. You didn’t hear? Her mother died on Sunday.”

  Kelvin and Train exchanged shocked glances.

  Normal glances, thought Kelvin. Oh, God, can it be? Had Cliff just surfaced?

  “Lutie’s mother?” he said. He never thought of Lutie as having a mother. She had a grandmother. She had aunts.

  “We should be at that funeral,” said Kelvin to Train. “We’re Lutie’s friends.”

  Cliff Greene’s fever ended, as if the thermometer had broken.

  The terrible decision had been made.

  He would not do it.

  Not because of Miss Veola.

  Not because of Doria Bell running up a hill.