Grantville Gazette 43 Read online

  The meeting broke up, and Nancy went to talk to the youngsters she had in mind as replacements. It had to be faced, unfortunately. The band members were all getting old and some, like Bucky, were getting downright frail. If the music was going to go on, they had to do something.

  ****

  Johan was working on one of the up-timer songs and he was getting more and more confused. The words made sense individually, sort of. But the stories the songs told! "Tom Dooley," for instance. Bucky said that Tom Dooley probably wasn't a murderer, that an old girlfriend had actually done the deed. But the lyrics of the song clearly pointed to Dooley's death by hanging for murder.

  There had to be a better story to tell, Johan decided. Something uplifting. Something that had to do with today's world, not the world of that other future. Something noble. He sat back to think of stories like that. He remembered a recent news story that claimed that Ducos, a French agent had murdered Joe Buckley, as well as trying to kill the pope. Or something like that. Joe Buckley had died, but he had died for something, not because he was a jealous jerk or whatever Tom Dooley was.

  Johan started to write. And when he finished, he went to find Rudi Finkel and his guitar.

  "If I remember right, they talked that first bit about love triangles?" Rudi asked.

  "Yes, that's right. Why?"

  Rudi started playing the tune of "Tom Dooley" on his guitar and after a moment said, "Throughout history there have been many ways of fighting for Liberty. But the up-timers newsman is a tradition of courage and integrity that we need to honor. This is the story of Joe Buckley, who fought for freedom through words."

  After another measure, Johan started singing in his bass range . . .

  Joe Buckley was a newsman

  He wrote what he did see

  He saw one too many truths

  And died for what he'd seen

  Joe Buckley was a newsman

  Oh, hang your head and cry

  Joe Buckley was a newsman

  And he was doomed to die

  I followed the story where it led me

  I wrote what I did see.

  I saw one too many truths

  and died for what I'd seen.

  Joe Buckley was a newsman

  Oh, hang your head and cry

  Joe Buckley was a newsman

  And he was doomed to die

  It was in a loft in Venice

  That's where I met my fate.

  From one who feared my witness

  From a man lost to hate

  Joe Buckley was a newsman

  Oh, hang your head and cry

  Joe Buckley was a newsman

  And he was doomed to die

  My bones are in a graveyard

  But my words live on and free.

  Hadn't a-been for Ducos

  I'd be alive in Italy

  Joe Buckley was a newsman

  Oh, hang your head and cry

  Joe Buckley was a newsman

  And he was doomed to die

  By this time tomorrow

  You'll throw the paper away.

  And read another story

  written for another day.

  Joe Buckley was a newsman

  Oh, hang your head and cry

  Joe Buckley was a newsman

  And he was doomed to die

  But I won't be forgotten

  For words inform your days.

  And there'll be other newsmen

  To inform in other ways.

  Joe Buckley was a newsman

  Oh, hang your head and cry

  Joe Buckley was a newsman

  And he was doomed to die

  Joe Buckley was a newsman

  Oh, hang your head and cry

  Joe Buckley was a newsman

  And he was doomed to die

  ****

  Nancy Simmons was listening through the kitchen window while the boys were working. By now she understood the German fairly well, though speaking it was quite another thing. She could follow the story, sort of. They made her proud. It was a better theme than "Tom Dooley."

  All these boys and girls made her proud. She'd lost all her children and grandchildren to the Ring of Fire. The band was about the only thing that made life worth living. But now these boys and girls were lifting her heart for her. Making life seem richer. She used a dish towel to wipe her eyes, then stepped onto the back porch.

  "That was fine, boys. Real fine," she said. "Beautiful, even. So which song are you going to do next?"

  Johan looked a bit embarrassed, Nancy thought. Probably that they'd been overheard before the song was truly ready. Well, he might as well get over that, she figured. It was obvious that the kid had talent and she wasn't going to let him hide his light under a bushel.

  "How about something for one of the girls to sing?" she asked. "Maybe Uschi? She's in the soprano range. Ought to sound right fine on . . . what about 'Wayward Wind'? That ought to work well for her range."

  The boys just looked at her.

  "What? You're surprised that I agree?"

  They nodded.

  "Well, you don't need to be. I do agree. The music needs to be about here and now, not there and then. You have my support and if anyone gives you any trouble, send them to talk to me."

  "So we try rewriting Vayvard Vind next," Johan said.

  Nancy just looked at him for a moment and then shook her head. "Ah . . . no, maybe not that one, after all. Maybe do 'Careless Love,' instead. Uschi can't really pronounce a 'w' yet, and it sounds funny with the 'v's in there."

  ****

  It wasn't like they didn't have boarders to do it, but the Carpenters liked to do business through their grandchildren, Ducky and Big Dog, who ran a garbage collection company. So when Ducky and Big Dog showed up with a wagon full of old bunk beds and chests of drawers, they were greeted with relief by the residents who had been sleeping on blankets on the floor.

  "Be careful with that!" Mildred hollered. "Don't hit the walls. Paint's expensive, and I ain't getting any younger. I have no aim to paint this place again."

  "Sure thing, Grams," Ducky said. He accepted another headboard from Big Dog. Big Dog had delivered it to the second story by the simple expedient of picking it up and carrying it up the stairs.

  Neither Ducky or Big Dog noticed Osanna watching the play of Big Dog's muscles as he moved the bedstead, but Rudi did and almost laughed at the look on her face.

  Ducky took the headboard with considerably greater effort but managed to get it into the room without scratching Mildred's paint. In the bedroom was Maria, gushing about how nice the new bedsteads were. And they were nice, even if they weren't really very new. They were reconditioned bunk beds from children's rooms. They had small single-shelf book shelves at the head of both the top and bottom bunk, which was very nice and also why the assembled headboard for the bunk beds was a heavy and bulky load.

  Then Ducky started gushing about how nice Maria sang and putting together the bunk beds.

  Uschi elbowed Rudi in the ribs and gestured to Ducky and Maria with her chin, then whispered, "Hormone overload."

  "And both of them going about it all wrong."

  Then Johan came in and started glowering at the couple. Johan muttered, "Will you look at that! She's practically all over him."

  Rudi grinned. "No, she isn't. You're just jealous. You were hoping she'd give you the time of day, weren't you?"

  "Better me than him," Johan said. "She doesn't have a chance with an up-timer, especially that one. Ducky and Big Dog hang out at the 250. They don't like Germans, those people."

  "The 250 hardly has any business these days," Rudi pointed out. "And I heard that they've settled down a lot the last few years. They're respectable businessmen now."

  "Well, they won't stay that way if they don't get someone to handle their books. Mildred and Bucky are great people but, honestly, they aren't the brightest people I've ever met. And Ducky and Big Dog . . . strong backs and weak minds."

  "Don't
be an ass," Rudi said. But he didn't say Johan was wrong.

  ****

  "Greenback Dollar" both confused and relieved the two emergent songwriters. They found at least three, and possibly four, versions of the song and if it was all right for just about everyone up-time who sang the thing to change the lyrics, it had to be all right for them to do the same.

  First, there was a very old recording by someone named Woody Guthrie. Hal Smith had explained to them that Woody Guthrie was a Commie, back in the day, and had had a political agenda for almost everything he sang.

  That didn't bother Johan and Rudi. They'd had politics firmly in mind when they rewrote "Tom Dooley" into "Joe Buckley." But they didn't really understand the whole Commie business. The main thing they noticed about one version was that while the lyrics on the record said "change," it sounded like the singer was singing "chains."

  The next version was pretty clear. A fellow was saying that he loved the girl not for her money, but for herself. Then there was a version about a man who despised money, spent it as fast as he could. After listening to them all, they decided "to heck with it, we'll do our own."

  In addition to using "wanting Green Buck dollars," since the American paper dollars were green and had a deer on them, their version celebrated earning and keeping money.

  I don't want your title, Grafen

  Plain old Herr is fine with me

  I don't need your castle, Grafen

  Just an opportunity

  They got to talking to Hal Smith about what a Commie was and what Woody Guthrie had believed. It was fairly late. They had all been at the beer and Hal was a fairly conservative fellow. So Johan ended up adding a final verse.

  As I write this purty little ditty

  Woody's spinning in his grave.

  Though my approach ain't so purty

  Lots of folks it will save

  Still in their cups, they added their own spoken lyrics to "Gloom, Despair and Agony On Me."

  "You know, I think Maria is sweet on Ducky," Rudy said.

  "Why do they call him Ducky?" Johan asked.

  "Because he let his education roll off like water off a duck's back," Rudy said. "I asked Big Dog."

  "Education isn't all he isn't picking up."

  Rudy started singing. "Maria's sweet on Ducky, it rolls right off his back."

  Then Johan laughed. "Sing that on stage, I dare you."

  "I am not crazy. Maria would kill me. And Ducky would probably help her."

  "Well, have you seen the way Osanna looks at Big Dog? Tell me, my friend, what is it that women see in gorillas? I have never been able to figure it out."

  "Especially gorillas with low foreheads," Johan commiserated. While Johan was well enough formed, neither he nor Rudi were overly large, especially compared to the Carpenter boys.

  Now, Rudi played and sang. "Osanna loves Big Dog, but he don't get the scent."

  "Well, that's half a verse," Johan said. "What about 'Lovers pass by never seeing . . . '" He shook his head. "No. Doesn't rhyme."

  "Who cares? It's the talk part between the gloom, despair verses."

  "It should still rhyme," Johan insisted with a craftsman's care. "Lovers pass by each other on the wrong track."

  "That rhymes all right, but it doesn't make a lot of sense."

  "And does 'How were we to know they meant the way she was built' make sense?"

  Lovers pass by each other on the wrong track

  Live their lonely lives wondering where love went.

  Maria's sweet on Ducky, it rolls right off his back.

  Osanna likes the Big Dog, but he don't get the scent.

  "Not great," Johan said, "but no one will ever hear it anyway, so who cares?"

  All in all it was a very creative night . . . if not overly disciplined. That came the next morning with the hangovers. Playing the guitar while hung over isn't all that fun. Perhaps it's the echoes bouncing around the cavernous skull and hitting the shriveled raisin that last night was your pickled brain. That was Johan's conclusion, anyway.

  ****

  Osanna liked the new lyrics, those she heard. Especially "Walking after Midnight," which was considerably changed in specifics, but not that much in tone or feel. And gradually there was an increase of the band. Osanna had taken up the harmonica and was doing things with it that seemed alternately angelic and demonic. The up-timers and the records insisted it was fairly standard jazz harmonica with some bluegrass thrown in. Maria had bought a saxophone and was getting fairly good with it. Johan played banjo and Rudy played guitar. They had others on fiddle, mandolin, drums, and the old upright piano in Nancy Simmons house. With a steel guitar added in, they practically had a blue grass orchestra.

  Dobro guitars existed in Grantville. Two of them, but it mattered almost not at all. While there were some copies of the Dobro, by 1634 there were half-a-dozen versions of the resonator guitar—commonly known as the steel guitar—as down-time artist and musical craftsmen experimented with up-time musical concepts. They included the steel mandolin, which was Osanna's second instrument, though she couldn't manage both at once.

  ****

  "Come on, Mama," Ducky Carpenter said to his mother, Ardis. "We'll take you out for your birthday."

  Big Dog just nodded. The men felt that someone had to keep their mother happy and they were more or less elected. If you didn't keep an eye on Mama, there was no telling what she'd get into.

  "Well, all right," Ardis said, sighing. "Club 250 again?"

  "No, Mama. We're going to the Gardens where Gram and Grandpa are playing."

  "So you ain't taking me out to dinner. You're mooching off Mom and Dad." Which complaint had some truth to it, but would have been a lot more justified if Ardis wasn't getting her house from the boys and most of her food money from Gram and Grandpa. They had already loaded up the wagon with the instruments, so all they needed to do was get Mama in the car and go.

  ****

  Once they got to the Thuringen Gardens, Big Dog led Ardis to the band's table and Duck started dragging instruments to the stage. The Old Folks' Band now had more young folks in it than old folks, and Johan had been given the job of introducing the band members.

  "Hi, Ducky," Johan said. "How's it going?"

  "Mostly ready," Ducky told him.

  "Saw that. I meant, how are things going with you and Big Dog and your business."

  "Better than we expected."

  "How's that?"

  "We've been afraid that the up-time gear would run out and we'd be out of business. You know that what we charge to pick up wouldn't pay for the cost."

  It took Johan a moment to parse that sentence, but he thought it probably meant that the pickup fees wouldn't pay the crews that did the pickup and pay for the natural gas that powered the car that pulled their garbage wagon. "I understand, I think," Johan assured him

  "We make our money off picking through the garbage to find stuff that's still good or can be fixed. Comes down to it, we're dumpster divers who own our own dumpster."

  Johan didn't have a clue what a dumpster diver was, but he didn't try to figure it out. He was too busy trying to get everything organized for the show.

  Meanwhile, Big Dog came up. "'Evening, Johan. How's the music coming? You really writing new lyrics for all the up-time songs?"

  "Well, not all of them and it's more translating. Oh, some new lyrics but just when the up-time lyrics don't make sense down-time. A lot of them are just fine. After all, we down-timers know just as much about drinking as you up-timers do." Johan hadn't meant as a challenge. Just the opposite, in fact. It was more in the way of an admission, but apparently that wasn't the way Big Dog took it.

  The big man grinned. "Ha!" He laughed. "I could drink you and Rudi under the table."

  Ducky came to their defense, sort of. "That's because you're as big as both of them put together, Dog. To make it fair you ought to let them alternate shots."

  "Shots? You mean drinks of beer?" Rudi asked, from the seat whe
re he was tuning his guitar.

  "No. Shots of white lightning," Ducky said. "This is still the Appalachian mountains, even if we're stuck in Germany. Corn squeezings. One good thing about the Ring of Fire, ain't no revenuers."

  Somehow, without quite knowing why, Johan and Rudi found themselves in a drinking contest with Big Dog Carpenter. Johan had dark suspicions that the Duck was behind their dilemma, but that didn't matter now. It was a matter of national pride. One up-timer offering to drink two down-timers under the table? It couldn't be allowed.

  ****

  "Ladies and gentlemen," Johan said into the microphone, and saw Big Dog hold up a shot glass then knock it back. "We have found the fountain of youth." He shrugged at the laughter and continued. "No? Well, it's a worthy thought, after all, and the music makes us feel young. On the stage we have Jerry Simmons on guitar. Hal Smith is hiding from the pilots for the night, so we have Osanna Reich on the steel mandolin. Which, Hal tells us, will never fly. For vocals, we have Mildred Carpenter, Nancy Simmons, Ella Mae Jones, and Regina is here, hiding from Hal. Add to that we have Rudi Finkel on guitar and vocals . . . " He went through the rest of the band and ended with, "And I'm Johan Faber. I play a little banjo and sing a bit. Now, let's play a little music." Johan stepped over to the side of the stage where a shot glass was waiting, filled with a clear liquid. He picked it up and flung it back. And almost missed the first verse of the "Ballad of Joe Buckley," what with all the gagging he did.

  And they were off. From Buckley, they went to "Ramblin' Rose," and another shot, this one Rudi's, after which Rudi sang, supported by Maria's saxophone. Then Uschi sang "Careless Love," and "Magdeburg Waltz," with most of the women harmonizing. Big Dog was holding up another shot glass. There was a row of empties on the table in front of him and a similar row at the edge of the stage. They played, and the original Old Folks sang some of the old standards; then they had a break. A little food and a few shots later, they got back to the show. Another break, and Johan and Rudi had some more of the 'shine with Big Dog, who still claimed that down-timers couldn't hold their likker. By now, there was a considerable stack of shot glasses, but Rudi and Johan were falling behind.