4
My usual schedule is Sunday through Thursday, with Friday and Saturday off.
But not this Friday.
This Friday, I was assigned to cover the JUST SAY NO TO DRUGS, WIMSY! rally at the high school, Milt Vane having turned the job down cold.
Sometimes, I wonder how Milt Vane got to be first desk.
The rally was set for seven o'clock. I arrived at six-thirty, parked the Camaro in the bus loop behind an old Chevy van and walked across the wide pavement, toward the light spilling from the big front doors. It was snowing tonight–spiteful little spits of ice that stung my face and melted the instant they hit cement.
The banner stretched across the lobby was black, with JUST SAY NO TO DRUGS! in bright red letters. There were about two dozen assorted students and adults about, all wearing the intent expressions of people who suspect they've forgotten something vital. I saw Dan Skat, the Voice's photographer, over by the far wall and moseyed in that direction.
"Hey, Jen."
"Hey, yourself. I thought this was your day off."
He grinned. "My daughter's dance class is on the program, so I figured, since I had to be here anyway…"
"You might as well get paid for it," I finished and nodded. "I understand entirely. Now, if Milt had your work ethic–"
"We'd be living in a whole different world," Dan said, shaking his head. "I wonder how long Bill's going to let him play prima donna before he brings down the boom."
He straightened suddenly, like a cat hearing the sound of a can opener touching a tuna can, and swung his camera into position. I craned my head around looking for what he'd seen, and spied a tallish blonde in a green parka, tight black jeans and high black boots sweeping into the lobby. The parka was unzipped, showing the shine of gold lame beneath.
"Who's that?" I asked Dan.
"Peggy Neuman," he said, naming Wimsy's own rock legend. "See you later, Jen."
"Right," I said, but Dan was already gone, stalking his celebrity obliquely through the bustle.
I unzipped my own parka, made certain of notebook and Bic, settled my pocketbook more comfortably across my shoulder and surveyed the situation.
It was now quarter to show time and the audience was beginning to arrive. Six high school kids took up stations by the busy doors, handing out flyers that had been photocopied onto the ever-popular goldenrod paper. I went forward, moving against the crowd, and claimed a program from a boy with a buzz cut and a varsity sweater.
"Just say no," he told me, serious as stone.
"No," I said obediently, and slipped the flyer from between his fingers with a smile.
*
Forty-five minutes and several presentations later–including a close personal chat with Varny the Drug-Sniffing Dog and his partner, Trooper Ron of the Maine State Police– I put the Bic in my lap and carefully flexed my fingers. On-stage, the denizens of Darby's Dance Studio were performing a parable for our times.
In turn, each child in the troupe was approached by a single child in a black T-shirt emblazoned, front and back, with a bright yellow DRUGS. All, after an inexpertly but enthusiastically pantomimed struggle with their conscience, resisted the blandishments of the black-clad child, who turned out to be none other than Abby, Dan Skat's nine-year-old.
Finally, all the children who had Said No looked at each other, counted their numbers, and turned as one to look at the solitary dusky figure in the center of the stage. DRUGS shifted nervously. The mob moved one step forward. DRUGS prudently did not pause to negotiate: She turned tail and exited, running, stage left, whereupon all the Say-Noers cheered, joined hands and danced an exuberant ring-around-the-rosy before also darting off, stage left. Applause was long and good-natured.
Deep in my center aisle seat, I sighed and looked about me. The auditorium was packed–adults, children, old people–and everyone seemed to be having a wicked good time. Earlier, I'd seen Harry Pelletier and Morris DuChamp jockeying for seats front and center. Harry'd been wearing a black baseball cap with DARE emblazoned in strident orange italics just above the peak. Morris had a button instructing the world to DARE TO KEEP KIDS OFF DRUGS pinned to the front of his good wool coat.
Well, I thought, as entertainment we're doing fine. But did this kind of community feeding frenzy actually keep kids off dope? I had my doubts.
Around me, the applause pattered down, the crowd settled, voices easing, chairs creaking slightly as people hunched forward in their places. I glanced at the flyer on my knee: last act of the evening.
Peggy Neuman, the listing ran, rhythm and rap.
I sat up a little straighter, myself.
The house lights dimmed and the audience sound went down, too, like it was wired to the same rheostat. A spot lanced out of the growing murk and made a bull's eye in the center of the stage, waiting.
The silence was broken by a child's shrill question, quickly shushed.
And from the darkness of stage right came a blonde woman in black jeans and a glittering golden shirt. She carried a wooden stool in one hand and a battered, big-bellied acoustic guitar in the other.
Unhurriedly, she crossed the stage to the spot, set the stool upright with an effortless swing of her arm, then smiled over the dark auditorium before she sat down, hitched one leg up and got the guitar into position.
"Hi, there," she said, and her voice was a mellow alto, husky along the edges, as if she smoked, or used to. She ran her fingers over the strings, testing their mettle, shook her head at a sour note.
"I'm Peggy Neuman," she said, working the pin and the string. Once again, she looked out over the audience she couldn't see. "Some of you know me. I grew up on the Town Farm Road–didn't quite graduate from the old high school, downtown." There was a flutter of laughter at that; up on the stage, she grinned.
"That's all right," she said, trying the strings again. This time, the chording pleased her and she nodded, blonde hair curving along the line of her cheek.
"So, anyway," she said, crossing her arms on the guitar and leaning toward us. "I been out of town awhile–twenty, twenty-two years. Since I've been back home, people've been stopping me on the street–" she paused and aimed a slow grin outward. "I forgot how that happens, in a town like Wimsy." There was an appreciative ruffle of laughter from the audience.
"People stop me on the street," Peggy Neuman continued, "and they ask me where I've been and what I've done and I've tried to say, but it's hard to fit everything in, standing between the IGA and the parking lot, with the wind off the Smoke freezing your ears and other delicate parts." More laughter. I smiled in the deeps of my seat and the woman on stage nodded easily, companionably.
"What I thought I'd do tonight, while I have you all in one place–" She paused, letting the laugh run through while she fingered the strings and ghosted out the beginning of a line. "I thought I'd tell you where I've been and what I've been doing–and I hope you'll take it to heart."
The ghost line solidified, spinning out into the quiet, a silvery cable of rhythm. She let it build until it could almost be seen against the dark, and then she began.
I would have called it talking blues rather than rap, but why quibble? The lady was a master, and she had the whole place in her hand.
"The things I done, the things I seen," was the irregular refrain. We heard how she left home at seventeen, joined her first band, got introduced to grass–"just a little toke, now and then, to feel the music cleaner." How she formed her own band and made a name, did gigs and cut records, how the booze got important, and the dope even more, how she ran out on her marriage, and how her band finally left her.
"But I didn't quit, then, oh my no. I could still look down and see bottom."
This being a teaching parable, she did hit bottom. We heard about the horrors of kicking cocaine. We heard about the daily grind of AA.. We heard how, straight, she pulled together another band and began again, until one of her band members died of an overdose–how she took that as a sign, and came home.
"The things I seen, the things I done," she sighed within her spotlight, and flattened her palm on the strings before looking out over the dark, silent audience. "And I'm one of the lucky ones."
The audience was absolutely silent. On stage, Peggy Neuman stood, a long-legged, deep-bosomed blonde in black and gold, holding a beat-up guitar by the neck. She bowed into the silence, and straightened.
"It's good to be home," she said, and without further fanfare walked off into the blackness of stage left.
More silence, for a long beat of three. I dropped the Bic into my lap, raised my hands and began to clap.
Two seconds later, the rest of the audience joined in.