The Fiddle Playing Psycho

 

    THE FIDDLE PLAYING PSYCHO

 

If there were fiddles, I don’t remember. Even if there were, it wouldn’t have mattered. I walked on, road crossing to sleeping tavern to busy bee town. Wasted, but in a good way. Flying even. What about fiddles? Could have been a marching band for all I cared. Not a care in the world. Stealing cars in between walking. Trying to figure out the puzzle of being inside the clam. Or jail. Never a judge, never a bail magistrate, just suddenly, returned to the land of the living dead. Deading dead.

   The future seemed to never arrive. Having got there, there was always more. Fielding a team for the local softball league proved a challenge. I went straight to the homeless camp. Signed a bunch of non-draftees and general minor league flunkies from the 1999s. That year seemed a decade anyway. Borderline good team. Short stop problems, not enough power. Speed was an issue. Tagging baserunners was our specialty. Had some decent leg slingers. Won a few games. No great ‘bad news bears’ kinda run. But we had fun.

   Dying to hear a good fiddle tune. I used to hitchhike back and forth between Bee Town and Bee City. About 60 miles as the crow flies. Or as any bird I guess. Well, not a hummingbird. If you watch a hummingbird in a slow motion camera, they appear to dance in chaotic interlocking loops. A frenzied ballerina. Here came a car, seemingly born out of smoky moonlight. I slipped on a gravel piece as I got into the car. Jarred my shin on the rocker panel. The driver seemed preoccupied. Didn’t ask me a thing, not where I was going, where I was coming from, what my intentions were. Just what were they? Well not good since I robbed the shit out of him at gunpoint. Left him on the side of the road, unharmed, under a yule tree. It was June, in the middle of nowhere, so that was an odd detail. I assume he was unharmed, no idea of his fate after that night. I ran out of gas after a mile, and had to hitch hike again. Apparently the other guy wasn’t hitchhiker material and the second driver skipped him and thought I was okay. I decided not to steal his car. He was chatty. And seemed genuinely interested in my softball league. Probably just nervous energy, and insincere, but I always appreciate courtesy, whether forced or not. And you can never fault a good actor, even if they have dark secrets.

   After ten miles of great conversation, lukewarm green tea and riveting cloud formations, he finally said: “I gotta let you out now. My wife don’t like strangers.’ I said, ‘fine, I understand. My last wife was always rude to children. Didn’t care for that trait.’ Driver, ‘Alright then. Take her easy.’ I loved the emphasis on ‘her’. What a great guy. But, that said, I was back to hoofin’ it. I wished a spooky little or sleepy little tavern would appear around a bend. Dry counties for a while.

   I walked and I walked and I walked and I walked. I was jonesing a bit to steal a car. Who knows, I was game for even a semi truck. The highway was my prophet and my religion, the car my church.

   The Old Man From No Where, seemingly out of Blue, came a-walkin’. Well, from the East peaks anyway. Just walking the lonely road, westing, as they say. I asked him if he was headed for Californy—yeah, in a corny accent for effect—and he said, ‘Where’s that?’ Imagine never hearing told of that place? I laughed. He didn’t. I asked if I might walk a spell with him and he just shrugged. ‘You a fiddle player?’ I asked. Another shrug. Not a talker. IF he had a car, I’d be stealing it.

   We walked for several miles together, in shrugging silence. The clouds overhead took on many strange shapes and hues. From yellow, to blue, to Lavender, to brown, to matte black. Like a thousand different storms absorbing the night, congruent and chaotic at the same time, a hummingbird swarm of clouds. Traveling 23 miles a day. Point A to Point A, because B has no real definition. I was also hit by many locusts. The old man didn’t seem to mind them, but I sure was wishing I was wiping them off a car windshield. Well, with the stolen car’s wipers. I don’t claim the cars I steal as my own. Because, what kind of ignorant, selfish, disturbed philosophy is that? Here’s how I view it: I borrow cars, and pay for them in clam time. But I’m also of the competitive spirit, so I’m not just going to turn myself in freely. There’s sport in avoiding responsibility. And even more sport in riddling the police.

   After ten miles or so, I realized the Old Man was walking on the other side of the road. I guess I lost the train of my thoughts, thinking about being/non-being, the future, reward/punishment dialectics, responsibility, the past and the clouds. They really were doing odd things. Every so often headlights emerged, grew larger, brightened, then were suddenly snuffed out. Fog, I suppose. I crossed the road to rejoin my walking companion.

   ‘You not much of a talker, are ye?’ I guess that could have been taken as parody of an ancient, book character East Tennessean. So I immediately corrected that with, ‘I mean, sir.’ He had a long beard, more gray than black.

   “Shrug.”

   We finally came to a roadside tavern, after several miles of doing zig zags on the road, since he kept crossing back and forth to avoid walking with me. I guess he could have reversed course, and I would not have followed then. Or went off either side into the woods. Woods scare the shit out of me, especially at night. The place had a gravel parking lot and the beer lights were still on. A few juicy cars were still in the lot too.

   We both stopped in for a beer. The bartender was surprisingly perky. Not a bad trait in a wife. The old man tried to sit on the opposite side of the bar from me, but I had his number.

 After two beers, his face turned a fun shade of red. The others looked at us like we was aliens. Like, sometimes in Tennessee just being from a neighboring county makes you an alien in their book. A jukebox jiggled a tune. Not fiddly.

   Suddenly the old man spoke. “You know, motherfucker. I used to be a pretty damn good short stop in my time. Made it all the way up to Double A ball. I just had the knack for covering all the angles, and had superior, one in a million eye hand coordination. Thing was, I could turn a filthy double play, and come right back up and slap hit or bunt a single. Had some damn good speed. But I was blocked by a couple superstars, one in AAA, and an even bigger one in the Bigs. I ain’t gonna bother with his name, look him up if you want. Kept begging for a trade, but that never happened. Fucking zero power too. Couldn’t barrel a ball to save my life. Then I fucked up my knee, had ACL surgery, and was never the same. Grinded out another 2 years, thought about playing over in Korea, but nothing ever came of that either. Goddamn incompetent asshole for an agent. Already saddled with a wife and three kids. I thought about coaching, but I started drinking, and well. My wife was murdered, which sent me into an even deeper spiral of drinking. My in-laws eventually got custody of the kids. I tried to play the father, but we all know how that story goes. They hate me now, won’t answer my letters anyway. So, I walk the highways looking for my wife’s killer. Never caught. He was a drifter, just off a train, slipped in our home while I was drinking with my baseball buddies, cut her throat wide open. Left the kids alone, thankfully. Didn’t do anything else to her either. Just flashed in, cut her throat, didn’t steal a fucking thing. Fully clothed, un-raped. And ghosted off into the night. Some train horn going off in the distance too, I imagine. Don’t worry, you’re too young to be her killer. I still don’t like you much though.”

“I’m sorry about your wife. Maybe the killer is long dead, or in jail. What makes you think he’s still out there after all this time?”

   The old man finished off his third cold one, shrugged, paid the bartender. Got up and left. She smiled at me. Boy, that smile sure made me want to stay. You know how that goes.

   I remembered the story of the Fiddle playing psycho. Rushed out and caught up with the walking old stranger. ‘Hey, hey.. I suddenly remembered a story my great grandmother told me. I think it’s your kiler, old man. I mean, the story always struck me as absurd and racist, but here goes. I was staying over one night, parents off to a concert or something, and she fed me ice cream, green beans and starting talking about this black man who rode the trains, and would sometimes get off at a random town, then knock on doors of lonely ladies, ply them with some fiddle playing and if they let him in, he would rush in and cut their heads off. I mean, some of the details are off. My grandmother said he raped all the women with their heads sitting up on a nightstand, or resting up next to him on a pillow. Then would gorge on all the food in their kitchens, leaving a bloody mess every where.. but it kinda fits… I wonder if her tall tale had some truth to it now.’

   The old man proceeded to beat the shit out of me, a pretty solid set of combination punches actually. Could have been a decent boxer as well as short stop. While I was bleeding from my nose, sitting on the shoulder, he said, ‘You’re a fucking idiot. Stop following me.’

I went back to the bar then, bloody face and all, in the back of my mind still hoping to get laid.