Fiddler

Fiddler
By H. Courreges LeBlanc
illustration by Shelton Bryant
3 December 2001

November always dragged around the station, but today was one dead
Sunday. Not one car pulled off the interstate all morning. Nothing hit
the drive but a thin steady rain, puddling slow rainbows in the oil. Me
and Harnie just tilted back our chairs against the cigarette rack,
watched the monster movie, and waited for the game to start. The big
flying turtle was about set to barbeque downtown Tokyo when the
drive bell rang, and up sluiced a car so damn gorgeous it hurt to look at
it. A '37 Buick Roadmaster it was, painted a red so rich it was nearly
black, that straight eight engine whispering like a lover while teardrops
of rain rolled down the chrome grill.
Out climbed this tall fellow, dressed like God's grandpa done up for a
wedding or a funeral. His skin was brown as a buckwheat cake, with
creases deep as drainage ditches. Took a mighty long stretch of sweat
and toil, love and birth and dying, to carve a face like that. He flexed
his shoulders, then rolled his neck till it cracked. He pulled a pack of
Camel straights from inside his vest and flipped one out.
"Got a light?" His voice was deep and warm, half gravel, half honey.
I tossed him a pack of matches through the open door; he caught it
left-handed, then flipped it open, folded over a match, and struck it
with his thumb.
"This the town with the dead fiddler?" he said after a long drag on the
smoke.

"You might say so," I said, ignoring the look Harnie gave me. Nobody
talked about her; I wondered how this fellow had even heard about her.
"Ain't a fiddle, though. It's a cello, like in the symphony."
The stranger shrugged. "Close enough."
"She ain't d-dead, neither," Harnie said. "M-more sleeping, like."
He puffed out a wreath of smoke. Then another. "Let's go wake her
up," he said.
"You best not try, mister," I said. "She been sleeping for thirty some
year."
The man grinned. "I'm feeling lucky today. C'mon, boys, let's go."
"Mister, I sure hope you ain't as lucky as you feel. Woman like that,
best not woke at all."
"You scared?" the stranger said.
"Damn right I am," I said. "You'd be too, if you knew."
"I just want to see her, is all."
"She ain't no damn tourist attraction. You wanna play tourist, get back
in that car of yours and drive on up to Graceland. North on 55, three,
four hours."
"I'm no tourist," the stranger said. "You can't spook me." He stepped
over the sill through wreaths of smoke, and leaned against the rack of
pork rinds.
"Look here, mister," I said. "You see how Harnie ain't got no right
hand?"
"M-muh-" Harnie said. "M-my f-f--"
"Take it easy, Harnie," I said, laying my hand on his shoulder. "I'll tell

it."
Harnie scowled and grabbed the remote to turn down the sound of
Tokyo roasting. Then he tilted back and scowled at me again.
"Me and Harnie was just kids," I said, turning back to the stranger.
"Thirteen, fourteen, know what I mean? Harnie fell in love with the
lady the day she come to town."
"Y-you too."
"Sure," I said.
"When was that?"
"Back in the late sixties," I said. "Don't remember the date."
"The d-day they sh-shot Dr. K-King," Harnie said. "She was
b-beautif-ful."
"Sure she was," I said. "Skin like the moon, hair black with red
highlights."
"Like y-yer car," Harnie said.
I hadn't noticed that. "Guess so," I said. "Anyway, she was wearing this
long white dress kinda thing, and at first we figured she was just
another of them hippie gals hitchhiking to the Mardi Gras, come to
sleep in the park."
"L-lots of hippies," Harnie said.
"Sure," I said. "They was everywhere back then. But this 'un was
different. She took that cello out of her case, opened up her legs, and
snugged it up against her."
"She was s-so-so b--"
"Yeah," I said. "Harnie and I was on our bikes, just watching her wrap

her fingers across the strings. She sighed just then, and looked up at
Harnie and me with them green eyes of hers."
"B-blue," Harnie said.
"They was green, Harnie," I said.
"B-bl--"
"Dammit, Harnie..."
"What happened next?" the fellow said.
I looked down at the counter. All that smoke of his was stinging my
eyes. "She smiled at us."
"Ah," the fellow said. The rain whispered steady on the concrete, the
smell of its mist cutting through Camel straights and wasted fuel. "Ah."
"Then she sighed again, her smile melted away, and she shut her eyes.
She just sat there, cello snuggled between her knees, and didn't move