The Book of Duels by Michael Garriga Read Free Book Online

peck, note after note and we’re slow-slithering down the mouth of these sounds to a place I want him to see but I want to go faster like snakes swimming with the pull of water coming fast on me in the river, bitten, and I hollered, Mommy , the last word I’d ever speak and my fever burned out my skin and eyes, my swollen tongue filled the whole of my mouth but now I want to go faster and faster and he’s keeping up where I lead him down the river to warn him—faster past snakes’ slitheriness into faster-pulling water, dangerfast—I go strum peck strum peck like the constant ticktock of time measured out one tick at a tock time, by river god, and time thrums through the bones of the world—rocks and trees, birds on wings, the scurry of small things in the night, the slithering of snakes and rivers and snakes in rivers, slithering—the river god’s voice also slithers along the snake’s spine—the bumpy rocks in the white water babbling is also the voice of the river god thrumming, drawing my fingers to his mouth to grab his tongue same as that snake took hold of mine and we will grab hold when we die and enter that great maw forever and we’ll crawl inside like a venom waiting to be spat out in his songs, hallelujah,and summon the others to follow, lure them in for a song, but I must warn this man because he is not ready to sing, he cannot keep up, and this life goes so fast fast fast and the snake’s fangs pierced my tongue, put its venom there and locked my jaw shut, but my hands are free to yell strumpeck strumpeck strumpeck but then he stops.

“Drew Ballinger” 32,
    as Played by Ronny Cox
     
    E veryone here’s missing something—fingers, teeth, half their minds—take this kid, to look at him with his wide eyes and a face bland as a boiled egg you’d never know he is a great banjo picker, a real live hillbilly savant, like you’d only see in movies, and he wants to play with me and I keep thinking what I heard my brother, the professor, once say, Music is time meted out like the pendulum of a grandfather clock measuring our lives one note at a time , and that’s true, I guess, like water steadily sliding away, under a bridge, and gone. In the key of A: G, C, G. Come on, I’m with you —maybe he’s not so special, maybe I’m just naïve—I can’t trust my judgment on these things like when we were in Helena, Arkansas, and I saw this old black man banging spoons against his thighs, his tip hat set out before him, and I shrugged and my brother turned me around, told me how special and antique this style of percussion was—something about the Civil War and drum and fife music. I nail this kid’s eighth and quarter notes, I know that much, but I wish my brother were here now; he went to school to learn to appreciate this kind of thing. Bet he could tell me about the ethnographic importance of this music to this culture—tell me about the history of call and response, the influence of the Scots Irish folk traditions, and its significance in a greater anthropological context—I just want someone to confirm that this kid’s the real deal, that he’s a living relic, and that I’m truly living in the moment and that this is a rare, special time—he picks that banjo so quick I can’t keep up and sweat is beading on my forehead and lip and there’s a fly buzzing in myear but I can’t move my hand to shoo it—this feels so authentic, but how can I tell? I can’t even remember what it’s like to be authentic anymore—everything in life feels prescriptive, like a rehearsal of something I’ve already seen on TV—my brother used to tell me all about it but I never listened enough, never listened to anyone enough, and that’s why I’m here with Lewis, with this boy, with this music, and I’m so tired of all this self-doubt—it’s like I can’t ever get out of my own head, like now, Drew, you’re doing it again and suddenly I’m lost and I say, I’m lost , and the music stops, drowned by