And then he stopped. He was ready. His raw throat was burning, the muscles of his neck were knotted ropes, his eyes were swollen to slits, and his head felt like a blast furnace. His voice was ready for the take, qualified. He was ready. The song was ready. It was time. He swallowed and it was pure fire.

He walked up through the meadow to the house with slow purpose. On the porch, Car, Jo, and Celia were drinking ice tea and playing cards with Slider. "Well now, if it isn't the wolfman," Slider said when Dietz got close enough to hear him. Car was wearing jeans and a black sleeveless t-shirt with a smiling dolphin in a top hat printed cerulean on the front of it. She folded her cards and put them down on the table in a neat rectangle; Jo and Celia threw theirs in and leaned forward in their chairs. The women stood. The Twisted Pears were ready, always ready for Dietz. They had flown down while he took the train. He hated to fly.

Slider sighed. This wasn't going to be easy. Dietz didn't like to lay down tracks, he liked to lay down the whole goddamn song. One take, no fuckups. Death or Glory. One-take recording might be an accomplishment for the artist, but it was a motherfucker for the engineer. If the artists got it right and the engineer didn't... well, there was no place to look for forgiveness. Slider threw down his cards and cracked his knuckles, inhaling through his nose. Dietz climbed the stairs and pointed to the screen door. They went through it one at a time, past the living room to the stairs to the basement where the recording studio was set up. No one spoke.

Car knew they couldn't afford to waste this week helping Dietz finish his cd. They needed to be on the road, keeping their name out front, keeping their picture on the city walls. She wanted to be in Austin. But she was here because she couldn't help it. Dietz's disregard for the rules maddened her and thrilled her. She knew he could be big, very big, if he would just make an effort, the slightest effort, to make his stuff more accessible, more... more for airplay. But he wouldn't. He just did his thing his way. He was a comet, swinging in close, so close, to the sun and then burrowing deep into the dark, dark night. She knew he could be a star, if he only wanted it. If only he wanted it, she corrected herself as she stepped off the bottom step of the stair.

They split into three groups. Slider went into the booth, Dietz into studio B, and Car, Jo and Celia into the studio A. Dietz picked up his guitar and plugged it in. Duct tape completely wrapped his microphone cable. He slung the strap over his shoulder and checked the tuning. He used 444 tuning, it pissed off the piano players, but it suited his voice. He tapped the microphone and looked through the window at Slider. Slider nodded. Dietz looked through the other window to the women. Each was wearing headphones, watching him intently from behind their microphones, perforated orbs suspended from coiled springs.

Dietz leaned forward to his mic and croaked, "Slider -- you ready?" Dietz's voice was rusty washers on sandpaper, it came from a part of him that Slider had never heard before. The edge in it frightened him. Slider held up his left thumb.

"Car -- you ready?" She nodded, her mouth open, keeping her eyes on his, holding her headphones tight to her ears with both hands. Dietz savored the form of her underarms. The memory of their tang and bristle on his tongue made the saliva come fresh in his mouth and he knew he was ready to sing.

"Jo -- ready?" the rasp in his voice was thicker now, stronger. "Yeah, I'm ready." She licked her lips.

"Celia?" She stood straighter, "Let's do it now."

Dietz spread his feet, balancing. He closed his eyes.

Slider started the recording, the backup tapes, his fingers trembling across the board. Dietz slid his hand up the neck of his guitar, familiar to him as a part of his body. Car Cox stretched the muscles of her back.

The song was softer than his other stuff and he caressed the strings of his silver guitar into the opening notes. He was doing it different than they had practiced, and Car felt the blood singing in her arms. She looked at Celia and Jo. We can do this. Dietz brought the lead intro down the frets of the neck into the low chords, Celia swaying and tapping her left foot. Jo was breathing slow and deep. Dietz leaned into the microphone and his broken and dusty voice rose up from the depths his cut, from his most private crucible. If what he did was singing, he sang, his voice a cement mixer full of gravel.

In the morning
     one day

with white
and beige
and black
and black and white
and black
she sheathes herself.

And from the mirror
her eyes a moment linger
along the fabric's dark and curving edge
against her pale convexity,
then move on
     assured.

In the sunshine
     one day

she dances on the sand
and with her feet
she sweeps and traces
obscures—almost—
the marks left there
the night before
     by death.

In the evening
     one day

she sits
with her companion laughing,
and at their parting warm embraces radiate;
but as she steps across the curb
her face assumes its street-set, stiffened
     the laughter all evaporated.

At night
     one night

unsheathed now, sleeping
she rustles sheets.

     And in the darkness of a room adjoining,
          I listen to her quiet breathing
          through the curtain,
          heartpierced
          by the jagged stab of all I chose to jettison.

The last chord drifted to silence and the Twisted Pears let go of the last notes of the harmony.

None of them could move. They breathed together, their hearts beat together, the pores of their skin sweat the same sweat. Celia was the first to break the spell, stripping the headphones from her head and turning her face to the wall. Spider reached up and killed the switch. Car stared at Dietz through the glass. Jo wiped her eyes and sat back on her stool. Dietz just stood there.

Slider was relieved. He knew they had nailed it. The song and the sound.

Car knew the music had been full of the waxing and waning of the moon, the tides, the beauty of the seasons was woven through it all.

Jo knew the woman he was singing about wasn't Car, and that there was no one she would ever tell this to.

Celia knew what it meant to leave love behind.

And all of them knew the deep private magic of collaborating with Dietz on a thing of beauty. And all of them were certain that it was a whole new sound, and it never had a chance to chart.

And they all were wrong.

#1

With a bullet.

---

the quarterback

Shayla's fingers curved gracefully around her steering wheel. She flicked them in time with the music, enjoying the feel of the french cut nails scratching her palms. An hour at the salon never seemed like a real hour, it lasted forever and was over before it started, both at the same time. She checked her eyes in the rear view mirror. A tiny smile pinched her bee-sting lips. A sparkle of glitter on her cheek glistened in the light of a passing streetlight. The engine of her Celica purred down in front of her. She pressed the accelerator, her heel rocking on the dart of her stiletto. She moved her legs inside her black satin pants and they slid against her knees. She did it again. She wore a tuxedo shirt and a little black bow tie. Her short black jacket was folded on the seat next to her. She was twenty two years old and tonight she would be bartending at the quarterback's house.

The humped suburban road stretched out beneath the cover of fat black trees, streetlights marking the corners, the deep cobblestone gutters flanked with granite curbs. A yellow traffic light blinked in the distance. The street was wide, with long, tall hedges, pushed up against the sidewalks on each side. They were sparsely punctuated by iron gates set between brick pillars. She checked the directions again. She wanted sixteen-eighteen, but she was in the fourteen hundred block. She braked, watching the numbers on the left side of the street. A white chevy drifted through a stop sign two blocks ahead, nodding across the lump of the avenue, headlights rocking on the macadam. On the sidewalk to her right, a woman wearing pink sweatpants with a matching visor, walked a white scotty dog on a retractable lead, her eyes on the horizon. Shayla's fingers twisted on the silver vinyl steering wheel, squeezing it.

She saw the entrance to the driveway ahead on the left, gates wide, the stone piers topped with dished lights glowing white in the slow evening. She slowed and turned in. The driveway curved through an immaculate emerald lawn around and down to the main house.

The house was three stories of tan stucco. White blocks ran like zippers up the outside corners. Light radiated from every window, french casements with dangling railings that made splayed shadows on the walls beneath them. An oblong lantern hung in the three-story portico, yellow light and copper tracery shining down on the smooth white pavement. The yard was crowded with cars parked haphazardly on the grass -- Mercedes, Ferraris, Bentleys -- there was an Escalade tricked-out with chrome-on-chrome parked with two wheels up on the front steps. Next to it a motorcycle was kickstanded. A group of drivers were leaning on a limo near the fountain, smoking, not caring, on the clock.

She drove around to the back of the house and parked beside a white truck. She was ten minutes early. She pulled down her sun visor and checked her makeup in the mirror one more time, rubbed a place on her cheek with her little finger. She flipped up the visor, grabbed her jacket and got out of the car. Walking across the flagstone she pulled on the tight jacket, pushing her chest forward to thread her left arm through the sleeve. She went to the door, up a step and into the bright kitchen. The noise of the party threw her off balance. Through her thin shoes on the tile she could feel the throb of the music, the static of the televisions. The kitchen was crowded with the black and white of stiff-faced waiters and waitresses coming with trays of empty glasses, leaving with trays full of champagne, trays of the delicate salty and sour and sweet contrivances. The scent of California herb twisted in her nostrils.

"Shayla. You're here, Vinny's done. All done. Get your ass down that hall to the right, second door on the left, you'll see him. Get going girl."

She smoothed her shirt as she went down the hall, straightened her jacket, her posture perfect. She opened the door into the party and paused, absorbing the full force of the noise of four walk-in televisions, the music, and the desperate laughter. To her left Vinny was swaying behind the bar. Vinny was a twitch going hard down a one-way street. The smile he made reached his mouth but not his ball-bearing eyes, "Hey Shayla, what're you doing later? heh."

"Hey, Vinny, you're done here." She didn't like Vinny.

"Yeah, thanks. See you tomorrow night, right? heh heh." She didn't even like to be in the same room with him.

She waited at the door until he came out from behind the bar. She walked wide around him to the bar. Vinny's head snapped back as they passed, his eyes running down her back and stopping. She ignored him, getting the feel of the room. She went to the bar and began to straighten the bottles, organize the limes and lemons, the ice, the trash, straightening the napkins, the glasses, sizing up the stock. As usual, Vinny had left a mess. She organized the bar for her left-handedness.

She moved the jar of straws across to the other side of the bar. As she was wiping the top, a gigantic black man, a rippling mountain, walked towards her, favoring his right leg, his face relaxed and friendly. He had a cream girl giggling on each arm, each of them half his height and maybe a third of his weight soaking wet. Shayla smiled at him and waited. "Plain soda water for me," he said, showing her a distant smile, "Nora wants a cosmo and Tori wants a gin and tonic." "Make it stronngg," the one that figured to be Tori said, "Strong like Charles," she blinked, pressing her top-heavy body against the knotted ropes of muscle on Charles' arm.

"Hey girl," Charles said, "Be careful with those, don't go popping them tonight. They cost me five grand."

"You treat them rough enough in the limo," Tori pouted, arching her back. Nora laughed, covering her mouth with the back of her hand. Shayla filled the largest glass she had with ice, twisting the top with a crackle from a blue bottle, emptying the whole half-liter into the glass. The music and the noise from the televisions made concentration difficult. She looked up at him, "Lemon or lime?"

"What part of 'plain' don't you understand?" Charles said. The girl's eyes went wide, but Charles smiled and flickered one eye at her as he said it. Shayla held the glass up to him and he took it, the gold rings on his fingers glittering. He moved with the grace of a panther. His biceps were bigger around than her thighs.

"What's your name?" Charles asked her.

Soft she said, "Shayla."

His eyebrows rose. Smiling, he said, "My sister's name is Shayla." He paused, "Charles." He disentangled his right arm and reached his hand to her. She took it, her small hand disappearing into his. She was surprised at the softness in the strength of his palms. His nails were as carefully manicured as hers. "Take care of my women, Shayla." His women giggled and rolled their shoulders.

Charles looked around the room while Shayla poured and mixed. She put their glasses on the top of the bar for them, wrong-sided so they had to reach across each others arms to get them. They leaned forward, their bracelets falling down to their wrists as they took their drinks, first Nora then Tori. Together they lifted their glasses, opened their mouths and drank in tandem. Football players aren't the only ones who practice.

"Word." A man knuckled fists with Charles. The quarterback. The Quarterback.

The quarterback was a tall man -- much taller than she expected from TV -- but his head barely reached to Charles' jaw. His blonde hair was cut short on the top and sides, but longer in the back -- almost to the collar of the gold silk shirt he wore. Shayla stood straight and waited, conscious of the scent he wore; conscious of the way his eyes glittered as they scanned the room, right to left, left to right; conscious of the fit of her tuxedo shirt.

The quarterback looked at the girls, then back to Charles, "Good time tonight?"

"Every night is a good time with Tori and Nora, you know that, redshirt. You look like you're feeling good yourself. Where's Kim?"

Nora and Tori sipped their drinks.

"Kim." The quarterback fiddled with the large gold ring on the middle finger of his left hand. "Kim had to go pick up Tommy from the babysitter's. You know how she is. The babysitter called and said the kid was crying so hard he started puking. Two years old and he has her wrapped around his little goddamned finger." Nora and Tori laughed. Charles didn't react, he stood game-faced. Shayla waited. The quarterback turned the ring around on his finger, jewel-side in.

"What you doing there, redshirt? Not used to your little ring yet?" Charles held out his hand, rippling his fingers, a Super Bowl ring on each one. He laughed again, "Later man. The girls need to get some air." The girls put their empty glasses on the bar as he turned, and the three of them walked away, the girl's high heels toe-out, Charles' white-woven Armani loafers gliding in an uneven cadence on the wall-to-wall.

The quarterback watched them go, his mouth closed, licking his teeth. He turned to Shayla. She stood very still. "Would you like a drink, sir?"

"What do you got?"

"What do you like?"

The quarterback's eyes scanned her her face, flicked across the rest of her. "I'll see for myself what you have."

He came around the bar and studied the arrangement of the bottles. He stood close to her, "What do you recommend?"

"I have some good scotch," she said, reaching for the faceted bottle, turning it so he could see.

Moving closer to her, the quarterback turned to face the room, his eyes scanning the crowd. "Sure. Would you like to pour it for me?" As he spoke, his left hand cradled the curve of her ass, making smooth circles on the black satin. She twisted the top off the bottle, reached for a glass and put three ice cubes in it. The circles got larger, lower. As she poured, the quarterback said, "Don't be stingy now."

She pushed back against the pointed studs of the big ring.

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