Read an Excerpt

The Drifter's Wheel

St. Martin's Press

"The gun exploded, blood erupted, and Jacob lay dying on the brothel floor." My visitor coughed. "There's the way to start a story. None of this 'hair was flaxen by candlelight' or 'night as black as an empty grave.' Start with the murder. Let the rest of it unfold, like history. Sometimes history turns on that little: a single moment, a single bullet."

"Go on." I glanced at my Wollensak tape recorder, made certain that it was running smoothly — I'd just turned it on, though he'd been talking for a while. I didn't want to let anything else go unrecorded. His story was too strange to miss another second.

"It happened in the autumn of the year, when murder feels at home, because so many other things are dying." More coughing. "The murderer spat as they led him away from the body. I'll tell you who he was in a minute, the murderer. The victim, Jacob, was nearly sixty, and would not see the coming morning. He had just made love with a prostitute from Buenos Aires. As a result of that union, quite unexpectedly, a baby would be born. Jacob and the woman had slept in bed for an hour or so, and then come downstairs to practice a new dance the prostitute had brought from Buenos Aires: the Tango. It was late, the house was quiet, they had no music."

His coat was army surplus, double breasted, olive green, button epaulets at the shoulder. At least a size too large, it grazed the floor when he walked. He'd most likely purchased it for next to nothing — or maybe it had been donated to a shelter where he'd found it. Aside from the coat, there was nothing to tell me who or what he was except the remarkable face. Not a wrinkle or a pore, it could have been a boy's face, except for the eyes, which belonged to a man who was at least two hundred years old.

I had no idea what he was doing in my house. I'd come home in the early evening from Eden Cemetery. It was mid-October and the leaves were blazing; the maple and oak trees around the graveyard looked like fire from a distance. If you sat under them, in that fine and private place, you could hear the burning away of the old year, smell the smoke of smoldering leaves. It had been a useful occupation for me. I was all too ready to set flame to the old year, anticipating the clean white snow that might come in a month or two. Some others in my little town seemed to find it odd that I would go to a cemetery for repose, but I spent so much of my time among the dead, it didn't seem the least bit out of place to me.

When I'd arrived home, there he had been: a tattered rag on a stick, black hair covering his eyes, asleep on my front porch. If he had been anyone from Blue Mountain he would have known the front door wasn't locked, and he might have been asleep on the sofa. I always kept the front room perfectly cleaned, in the great Southern tradition, for unexpected company.

He'd come awake when my truck pulled up to the house, and sat rubbing his eyes until I put my foot on the steps. Then, without a word of introduction or explanation, he'd simply started talking. He'd followed me in through the living room and into the kitchen. All the rooms downstairs were, in fact, one big room. Bronzed oak beams framed the place. A larger than normal galley kitchen lay to the right as you came in the front door. A cast-iron stove had been set into the stone hearth to the left by a large picture window. Quilts on the walls suggested church windows; the blond wooden staircase in the far corner led up to the bedrooms.

Obviously someone had told the man that I collected stories — maybe he even thought he could get money or a meal out of me. He could have used both.

"Where was this again?" I was taking notes while I listened. It's never enough just to tape-record a folk informant. I wanted to describe his demeanor as he was telling me his rambling tale.

"Madam Briscoe's House in Chicago, long after the Civil War. Damn, Fever, keep up! Is that what you said your name was? Fever? Odd name for a man."

In fact I had not told him my name. I only nodded.

He mumbled something incoherent, then, "Where was I?"

"Dancing the Tango."

"That night the city slept under the merest sliver of moon." He picked up the story as if he'd never faltered. "It was a splinter of light stuck in the black sky. The house was clean, the floors softened by Persian rugs, thick pillows strewn casually in the corners. The front door was red, but the rest of the edifice was dove white. Aside from the parlor and a modest kitchen, the downstairs was occupied primarily by the madam. Her rooms and office took up most of the ground floor. On the second, third, and fourth floors were only bedrooms. Each had been painted a slightly different color; other than that they were exactly the same: a frame bed, a thick rug, clean sheets, dark curtains, a large mirror, a table with a basin and pitcher, a small chifforobe, and a photograph of Lincoln."

His eyes were darting everywhere, as if he were sizing up the house. It made me nervous. Maybe he had plans to try something like a robbery. He wouldn't have been much of a match for a man my size. In fact, he was in more danger than I was. When I'm nervous, and a little frightened, I'm liable to strike first.

The kitchen itself remained calm, as it always did. The exposed rafters were hung with spices recently pulled from the garden: bundles of rosemary and tarragon; braids of bay. The light was buttery; the air was pleasantly warm, touched with a hint of cinnamon. The old chrome and Formica table where we sat was mirror clean, and the counters were clear of clutter. Nothing in that room suggested a visitor that was dangerous, but I felt a bit — a trickle — of adrenaline pumping at the back of my neck.

"Could you describe the house more?" I could hear that my voice sounded tense.

"The front porch was imposing; the door was always locked. Any lucky entrant immediately faced a gliding dark-wood staircase daring the visitor to ascend. To the left was the parlor, draped in burgundy, lit by a single twelve-candle chandelier which the madam said was made of French crystal. To the right was a more businesslike office where appointments were made. No one was admitted to the house without advance notice, prior recommendation, and a fee. Or a gun."

He paused, looking around my kitchen. It was probably two in the morning by then. He seemed, for a moment, not to know where he was.

"Do you want some more espresso?" I blinked at his empty cup.

"Oh, yes," he said instantly, "I'd imagine I would. Great stuff. Great taste — considering we're not in Paris, and this isn't the right century."

I stood, refusing once again to take the bait. Twice before he'd made odd references to the current century, obviously expecting me to ask for an explanation. But I knew from dozens of experiences with men like this one — and a lifetime of collecting folk information — that some comments are tests. A good way to stop the flow of strange stories or interesting facts would have been to address any one of his pointed references to time. So:

"Think I'll have a bit more myself." I scooped up my own cup and turned to the espresso machine on the counter.

Outside, the night birds filled up the dark, wood doves made the air kinder, and a nearly full moon silvered every leaf and pine needle.

When I turned back around, there was a gun on my kitchen table.

The stranger was sitting exactly as he had been, eyes a bit unfocused, head to one side. The only thing different was the pistol in his hand — a dandy antique or a replica, I couldn't tell which. His right hand was on top of the handle, but the gun was flat on the table. He seemed not to notice it.

It was the only thing I could see.

"The Tango, you may know, was a scandal because it was so lascivious." His tone had shifted again to a somewhat more scholarly diction. "Two people danced too closely. Public opinion declared it a disgrace to tempt the baser self with such an open display. The Tango, we were told, would be the ruination of Western civilization. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Tango swept Europe off its big ... European feet. In Paris this public passion was exhibited at the Palais des Glaces in 1913, where some couple danced sixty-two straight Tangos and won first prize. But even in that most liberal of cities the dance was seen to be a nearly criminal act, lewd and perilous. Discépolo's famous quote in Les Temps Modernes attempted to explain this in terms of a philosophy. 'The twentieth century is a trash heap. No one can deny it. We are living in a brothel.' Do you know Discépolo? He was called the Tango philosopher. And he was an idiot. Anyone with a more historical eye could have seen the Tango was simply the newest assertion of the ancient movements which engendered our species. The activity of copulation. In the beginning the world was without form, and a vast silence lay upon the deep. All was one. That ended when the One became Two. From two came many, through a popular combination of carnal begetting and cellular mitosis. The Tango was an echo of the begetting. Mitosis, where a single cell spontaneously divides, is harder to understand and involves the theory of biogenesis."

He paused just long enough to give me the eye — again daring me to call him insane, which, I assumed, many before me had done. The gun appeared to have been well used.

I have no idea why my choice of action consisted primarily of academic one-upsmanship. Maybe I thought that if he realized I was a man of letters, he would resist the urge to do something rash. In truth, it had been a long time since I'd talked to anyone with his kind of brain and native intelligence. Even when I was at the university I'd rarely met anyone with his breadth of knowledge. I suppose I thought of the university exactly because his arch diction was more scholarly than conversational. That might have been what prompted me to rise to the occasion with words, at first, rather than actions.

"Perhaps mitosis is only a biological metaphor," I responded, heading back to the table with his espresso. "Greek mythology tells us we were all once one sex in the beginning. We were split in two by angels or gods envious of our bliss. Those gods are dead, but we're still split, looking for our other half. When the two halves find one another at last, they're united. They dance the Great Tango."

Hearing myself talk, I realized why I had chosen to respond in that manner. I wanted him to know that he was dealing with a formidable opponent in the Crazy Game. I knew my comments were partly to engage him intellectually and partly to keep him at bay in case his intention was to shoot at me with his pistol.

He stared at me, a vague grin attached to his face, and then offered me a single nod. Without warning he stood up, scraping his chair backward on my kitchen floor. The pistol was in his hand, lowered, barely visible in the folds of his oversized coat.

"Greek thinking." He reached down and finished his espresso in one sip. "I am reminded of the poet Ovid — a quote that is both pertinent to me and beautiful to hear: 'The spirit wanders, comes now here, now there, and occupies whatever frame it pleases — and so the whole round of motion is gone through again.'"

"'Only the bodies,'" I continued the quote, "'of which this eternal, imperishable, incomprehensible Self is the indweller, are said to have an end.' It's from Metamorphoses."

"It is indeed," he said softly, "and truer words were never spoken."

"Why do you mention it — the quote from Ovid?" I couldn't resist the question.

"Why do I mention it?" He seemed to have come to the conclusion that I was an idiot. "It's only the point of the story. The whole point. The spirit wanders!"

I looked him straight in the eye, a direct confrontation. Either he would calm down or he would shoot me — anything was better than worrying about that gun.

"Sit down." I fixed him with an overwhelming gaze. "Finish your story."

He took a deep breath. I sat. He did not.

"Yes." He was confused again; he set the gun down on the table. "Where was I? What haven't I told you?"

"Who killed the man? You were going to tell me that."

He began pacing in the kitchen, the barrel of the pistol disappearing into the coat's long sleeve.

"When the Tango music started," he went on, as if answering my question, "the two dancers crushed together, laughing and stumbling — a sad and funny parody of the dance that would soon sweep Europe. The killer stepped up close beside them. Anyone would have thought he was about to cut in. He tapped Jacob on the back. Jacob turned around, unable to focus his eyes because of the enormous amount of whiskey he'd consumed. There is no way to tell if Jacob recognized the man or not, but the man said, 'Let us go out to the field.' Do you recognize it?"

I nodded. "It's what Cain said before he killed his brother, Abel."

You can't grow up on my mountain, partially raised by rabid Pentecostal preacher Hezekiah Cotage, and not know your Bible. I was momentarily afraid that he was working himself up to fire his gun, but instead my response seemed to calm him a bit. His response, on the other hand, did nothing to soothe me.

"That's when the gun exploded." He closed his eyes, tired. "The woman, who was called La Gauchina, looked down at the body, then at the man who had fired bullets into it. 'What did he do to you?' she said. 'Who was he?' The man spat: 'I'll tell you what he did: He left his family in time of need. I'll tell you who he was: He was my older brother, and should have done better.' The killer had fought for the Confederacy, you understand, and the dead man had taken a Union uniform."

"I see." I tried my best to be steady — the man was looking increasingly unbalanced.

"The woman, La Gauchina, had no idea she was pregnant at that moment, but she was. At the sight of Jacob's dead body, La Gauchina renounced her life in the brothels and worked, instead, for the rest of her life, as a guitarist in an all-girl orchestra. Her babe was fed each day on the milk of song."

His hands were trembling, and his eyes seemed to focus on moments long past. It was obvious that nothing in the present seemed real to him. All I could see was the black muzzle of his pistol quivering like a divining rod.

"Her baby was born in 1901, the same year President McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist and Queen Victoria died all on her own."

"An era will end," I ventured cautiously, "one way or another."

"The twentieth century had begun," he agreed. "I find it significant that in that same year the hormone adrenaline was first isolated — a defining discovery in my mind. It was the end of the Victorian Age and the beginning of the Age of Adrenaline."

Once again I had the sense that he was goading me, or somehow trying to intimidate me with his knowledge, the way some men in academia would have done. I sensed that I could not let it pass.

"Yes." I did my best to sound impatient rather than frightened. "Also in that year Marconi transmitted his first telegraph radio messages, so we might just as certainly refer to it as the Age of Irritatingly Instant Communication. I feel I can match you senseless fact for meaningless statistic all night long in the historical trivia category."

It could have agitated him further. Luckily for me, it only egged him on instead.

"And against such a background," he drawled, "that baby came into this world. All life, in my opinion, is built on such shaky emotional scaffolding. It's a wonder that any of us is ever born at all."

"But born is just exactly what it was," I said, deliberately trying to lighten the mood, steer things away from the factoidal challenge, and the violence it might provoke.

"Nine pounds, seven ounces," he nodded. "The mother called him Truck."

"That was his name?"

"The mother was in some pain when she made her final push. She said, 'What is that down there, a baby or a truck?' and the doctor winked. 'He's a big one!'"

The night had pushed on with no help from either of us, and stars were winking through the trees, white beaded bells whose only sound was light. I had a distinct ringing in my ears and realized I was clenching my teeth so hard it was making my jaw hurt.

"All right." He sat down at the table once again. "Time to finish the story — and get to the punch line, the great reveal. Ready?"

"I don't know." I started to say more, but he interrupted.

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Excerpted from The Drifter's Wheel by Phillip DePoy. Copyright © 2008 Philip DePoy. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
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