Ambient 06 - Going, Going, Gone

like he’d bought it in a job lot at W. J. Sloan. Jim’s professional unit was deeply impressive, though: a 1928 Victrola with a solid golden oak cabinet, lovingly polished, and a sterling silver crank. The interior of the box was plush red velvet. The doors of the bottom storage compartment were open, and I saw he’d installed a very good German tape-recorder. Probably a gift from Adolf to Old Joe.
    »Want a drink?« he asked. »Fruit juice? Soda?«
    »Want to hear the song.« He smiled. He laid protection down on the turntable, and installed a new needle in the arm. »You don’t actually have to crank it, do you?«
    He shook his head. »It’s electric. Great looking, though, isn’t it? Which side you want?«
    » Black Harvest Blues.«
    »Me too.« Jim slotted the needle in the groove and adjusted the switch until the table started to spin. Barnstable’s voice was strong, though he didn’t always stay in tune, and the way he fingered his guitar made me think it was a cold day in the studio, and he had to wear gloves. Even so, he managed to get his message across. It was like hearing somebody singing on the moon.
     
    Late one evening, baby come crying to me,
    Oh, late one evening, baby come crying to me.
    Time they say to take ’bo away
    Black harvest here at last Lord Lord
    Black harvest here at last.
     
    My brothers, I’d never before heard a song that didn’t exist even as I listened to it. Barnstable was a prophesier, that’s what my father called him; it was only a shame that he did what he did, the way he did it – one way or the other the writing was on the wall, but thanks to him the period was put on the end of the sentence sooner than it would have been. While I listened I almost got all weepy, once or twice; hard to admit but I’m not going to deny it. Didn’t want to give my own game away, going overboard, but I had a hunch Jim wouldn’t have cared, if he knew; and maybe he did know after all. He didn’t look too happy himself, listening; and for a second I thought that maybe at least after the fact this was a way caucasoids could really dig precisely what it was they’d done – even though the way I saw it, they never would; what was in it for them? Neither of us said anything until the last chord decayed.
    »Terrible sound, considering it’s Okeh,« he said, lifting the arm and flipping over the disc. He switched off the tape recorder, removed the reel and marked the plastic with a series of laundry-marker hen scratches. »Must have been a rush job. Ten to one this was the only take, though we’ll never know for sure.«
    »Probably hard song to sing more than once,« I said, standing up. He didn’t get it; no surprise, really, but it couldn’t help but work at me. Old Jimbo would check this off on his 1944 Godrich, slide it into the B shelf between Blue Lu Barker and Barrel House Annie and play it no more than once a year or so; probably less, considering that I seemed to be the only fellow obsessive he hung out with. A collector’s item, no more; as truly meaningful to him as a Yoruba mask is to the Natural History Museum.
    »Imagine so,« Jim said, but he couldn’t imagine. Not that I could, to be fair. »You doing OK with that drink?«
    »Yeah.« Across the room, where the hall began, there were a number of framed black-and-whites on the wall. I strolled over and peeked: they were all there, every one. Mother Rose, Old Black Joe and the boys, boys together; boys separate. Joe and Jack in fine wool Brooks Brothers suits, Bobby in mountaineering togs high on Mount Roosevelt, young Father Ted looking like he hadn’t realized how tight those clerical collars would be. And Jim himself, in skinnier days, all Kennedy teeth and Kennedy hair; and a look in his eye like he was sorry to have been blessed with either. He caught my eye when I turned back around.
    »See ’em often?« I asked.
    »We keep our distance,« he said. »Kind of close in here, don’t you think? Let’s go back out, if that’s okay by you.«
    »Fine,« I said, and we put on our coats.
     
    »You ever get along with ’em?« I asked, once we were back up at Shaughnessy’s, and ensconsed in our usual booth.
    He shook his head, and drank his third club soda. Going by his face, and the grey there, I suspected this was one of those evenings where, if alone, he started instinctively slowing down, passing every liquor store. »Bobby calls me once in a while. We always got along. Not sure why, he’s the toughest