At Whittier Junior High, I spent a summer afternoon throwing a baseball so beat up it was more thread than leather, bouncing it off the brick wall behind the gym. The building was empty except for a janitor who wandered out now and then to toss with me, both of us killing time.
Between the slap of ball on brick, I heard something faint——a mariachi line, or close enough——drifting from the west. I pocketed the ruined ball and followed the sound down Pearl Street.
The first thing I saw was a donkey cart: real donkey, fake cactus, and a brown-eyed singer with a smile that could stop traffic. Mill workers in sombreros circled her, singing in accents I couldn’t place. I might have stayed longer if someone——her brother, I learned later——hadn’t flicked a switchblade in my direction, just enough glint to suggest I should keep moving.
A block away, in front of the little Lorain Theater, a flatbed truck held a hillbilly combo: slapping bass, two guitars, a blond girl of about thirteen, and her older sister with fringe and a tambourine. They were yee-hawing through Bob Wills numbers when I climbed aboard, trying to introduce myself, mostly to the younger sister.
A man stepped forward——their father——and asked my intention. He had a .32-20 tucked in his belt. Not brandished. Just present.
“To play a little harp and sing a little,” I said, watching his hand.
“Have at it,” he said, nodding toward a microphone.
I pulled out my seventy-five-cent Hohner and stepped up. I wasn’t much of a singer, but I could wail when the moment called for it.
“It was July the second, 1953,” I piped, the sound bouncing off the storefront tiles. “Three o’clock in the morning, I was sleeping in my cell…”
The band caught the groove, and a young guitarist with a woven red cord on his Gibson stepped in beside me. I blew some Sonny Boy, leaning into it, letting the harp do the heavy lifting.
The truck jolted forward. I caught my balance. Carol brushed against me and stayed there for a heartbeat.
“We’re headed to the Fish and Game Club dance in Amherst,” she said. “You want to jump off now or come with us?”
“Your daddy’s not going to shoot me, is he?”
“Naw. He’s president of the club. Carries the night’s take to the bank drop-off. That’s why he has the gun.”
I stayed on the flatbed all the way to Amherst, listening to rockabilly and Bob Wills and Hank Williams with his hot rod Ford and two-dollar bill. Between sets I told them about Moondog Alan Freed and how he bayed at the moon.
And before the night was over, I howled at it myself.
Dale Scherfling is a full-time writer and poet, a former newspaper sportswriter, editor, and photographer, and a retired U.S. Navy photojournalist. He teaches creative writing and photography at the college level, and his work has appeared in The Monterey Poetry Review, Chiron Review, San Diego Poetry Annual, and other journals. His favorite revenge story is Gladiator (2000), so much so that he had “SPQR” tattooed on his arm.
