Blue Calhoun - Couverture rigide

Price

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0689121717 ISBN 13 : 9780689121715

Editeur : Prentice Hall & IBD, 1992

A propos du livre

Extrait :

Chapter 1

This starts with the happiest I ever was, though it brought down suffering on everybody near me. Short as it lasted and long ago, I've never laid it all out yet, not start to finish. But if I try and half succeed, you may wind up understanding things, choosing a better road for yourself and maybe not blaming the dead past but living for the here and now, each day a clean page. At least you'll see how certain things in my long life have gone down fast as one of those Japanese domino shows where two million pieces trip each other in hot succession and set off the unexpected jackpot -- an exploding mountain or a rocket blast that hurls men farther than they've yet gone, to Neptune or worse.

The time I'll tell about ran its course when I was thirty five, then thirty six. Till then I'd lived a fairly normal life, if normal includes some badly drunk years -- and I think it does in America still. So honest to God, I doubt you need to know much about me before the latter half of that day when everything started streaking downhill. Of course I'll add the odd event that feels worth knowing or tells a good story. Stories are something I'm better at than life; and that one year was built like a story, whoever built it. It had a low start that stoked up fast to such a heat that hinges on doors were melting away; and pent up people were tearing loose and running for what looked like daylight till, at some weird invisible signal, everything started cooling again.

And everybody slowed to average speed and drew deep breaths to treat their burns and wonder if they could stand the sight of each other's faces from then till death or just for that day. Some said Yes; a few said No; and everybody thought I'd caused the wreck, which may have been true. Even my mother, a certified saint, called me out to the country house and said "Now, son, you've ruined two lives -- your own blood child and the girl you claimed to love so strongly. How do you plan on living the rest of the time you've got with that on your mind, that blood on your hands?"

Blood was a figure of speech at the time, and she well knew it. I'd almost certainly killed four Germans in the Second War but nothing since. So I said what I believed was true, "Look, Mother. Nobody's dead." I was technically right.

But her deep blue eyes never flinched, and she said "Far worse than dead -- far worse."

Then I saw that the thing I dreaded had happened. I'd badly harmed three worthwhile souls that trusted me; and I knew no way on Earth to mend them -- not till your and my past months together, thirty years on. Know this first though (it's some of the worst you'll know about me) -- I drove myself back home from Mother's that late spring night in a tardy frost with my face grinning each mile of the way. I could see it in the mirror, dark as it was. My body was still that pleased with the memory; it still is today. Maybe my mind and heart just figured I'd taken enough from God or fate, my family and the U.S. Infantry -- not to mention the Nazis -- to earn me some substantial relief and nourishment. Whatever, I flat-out gorged myself for twelve full months. So here much further on in time, I'm hoping to make my slim amends by telling this history that's all but true.

I'm Blue Calhoun as you well know; and wild as I've been, I still like the sound. The full name's Bluford and the middle name's August, but there can't be more than ten people left who know that much about me still -- to the world I'm Blue and have always been. Except for the war and the times I was wild -- and our hard time overseas just now -- I've mostly stayed near my birthplace: a capital city, Raleigh, N.C. When I was a child, Raleigh called itself "The City of Oaks." But don't try to find an oak these days in the criminal mess that money and the chloroformed City Council have made from innocent fertile dirt and what grew in it.

I'm drifting already but here's the start. As I said, I'd climbed the sizable hill of my thirty fifth birthday -- a rough time for men, the downhill side. I think I was sane; people from all walks of life assured me I was not bad to see. I'd been stone sober for nineteen months -- the longest ever up to that point -- and as it turned out, I've stayed sober the rest of my life to this night now. I worked the best job I'd had in years; and to my knowledge, no part of my life was starved or frozen. I didn't stare off at sunsets and grieve. I thought I cherished my only spouse, born Myra Burns, a friend since childhood and your grandmother that you'd have prized.

We'd been married for fifteen years, and Myra had tried her absolute best. As you well know we had a daughter that I near worshiped named Madelyn (called Mattie or Matt from the day of her birth, according to how we felt at the moment). Matt was the finest influence on me of anybody yet. I owed her the world and was aiming to give it, minute by minute from here on out -- upright kindness and every decent thought and act I could see she needed. But then that one day fell down on me from a clear spring sky, no word of warning. It tore the ground from under my feet, and everything round me shook the way a mad dog shakes a howling child.

April 28th, 1956 was an early scorcher; and I met my fate when a girl turned up in the midst of my job. The place I worked was on Fayetteville Street near the Capitol building -- Atkinson Music Company, a long narrow store with high old ceilings, gentle light and air that smelled antique and soothing. Up front was the sheet music department, then the phonograph records and concert tickets. From there on back it was musical hardware of every description. First the small things -- fiddles, accordions, ukuleles, flutes. Then you worked your way through banjos and mandolins, the big band instruments, tall gold harps and sets of drums you prayed your neighbors would never buy. Then you finished up with Steinway grands, Hammond organs and one enormous church size console with pipes enough to sweep back the roof and blow you skyward if a person that knew how to play it lit in.

I truly liked the actual job. For a man with no enormous mind and what he thought were normal ambitions, it offered a peaceful eight hour day, a respectable paycheck every two weeks and music around him, dawn to dusk -- real music made by live human beings, not piped-in syrup. As for making music I myself never got that far past whistling, despite my mother's early dream that I wind up as what she called "a poet of the keyboard." I took piano from the fourth grade on into early high school when baseball got me, but I seldom practiced and learned next to nothing except what music really is -- far and away man's best creation -- and how it can help when nothing else will.

When I flunked out of college at nineteen, and hadn't begun to lean on liquor, I and my thumb made numerous tours of the U.S. east of the Mississippi. In those free years I'd often end up wet or cold in the night with nobody near but a small harmonica that my dad gave me when I first pushed off. However gruesome or lonesome I got, there were very few times when even a talentless boy like me couldn't improvise a song or hymn and wind up glad to be on Earth plus ready to sleep. But I quit that too when I came back and grounded myself.

To this day now I regret that laziness. Even more often after I got married, I'd sink very near the floor of this world -- the black sub basement -- and every one of those desperate times, I'd hear some mangled piece of my mind start begging for music -- any music on Earth from nursery rhymes to opera on the radio that all but etches the window glass. If only I'd learned some lapsize instrument like the guitar, I might well have spent less time in Hell than I've since done.

Speaking of Hell, on the day in question, the whole world still wasn't air conditioned. And dim as it was, the store was stifling. Business was slack, the staff was mostly dozing upright; and I was on the verge of sleep behind the pianos. Then the street door opened and played its chime. A woman walked in, broad in the beam. The sun on the glass was blinding bright and I'm nearsighted, so I couldn't see her face right off. I gave her no thought anyhow. Somebody up front would help her if needed, and I could still doze.

But in maybe a minute, a voice sang out -- a woman's unashamed high sound in one long line of a song new to me, then a laugh and silence.

I thought right off how strange it was that, after these months of work among children blasting away on saxophones and pounding drums, I'd yet to hear a human voice sing so much as part of a tune and it sounded grand. I stepped forward five yards and tried to see if that broad woman had done us the favor -- she plainly had the chest to do it. It took a few seconds to realize she was more than one person. There were two females and they must have walked in single file. The other one looked like a slender child and was close beside the broad one at the sheet music counter. One of them must have been demonstrating the tune of a song she didn't know the name of. The singing voice had sounded grown, and I edged onward another few steps before I saw that the child was still -- still as a post and watching me. And not a child.

I was pulled right on another few yards. The girl never blinked or turned aside. I was maybe twenty feet away; and her look was so strong, I had to glance down. On the showcase beside me was a pear-wood mandolin perfectly made. I strummed it once and tried to pretend I knew how to tune it. When I had it sounding halfway right, I looked again. Now the girl was smiling, and her mother was striding on towards me as if I'd made some last mistake.

The mother was ten feet off, and mad, when I recognized her as somebody I'd known centuries past in grammar school -- the very same scared old-time girl was hid in this stout woman's body. I held up a hand to slow her and said "Rita, old flame, you've kept your figure."

No brick wall could have stopped her faster. Her three chins shivered and her eyes went flat but stayed right on me. Then her thin mouth said "I'm way too stout and I don't know you."

I said "I've known you, down to the ground, for thirty five years" (not strictly true, more like twenty nine). By then the girl had come up behind her but I still watched Rita.

And Rita kept hunting my face for a sign. Old as I was and badly behaved, I hated to think my face had aged past recognition.

That instant a stock boy passed, bumped me and said "Old Blue."

Rita said "Blue?"

I held in place.

"Not Blue Calhoun?"

I nodded and grinned. "-- His cold remains."

She stood a second, then made a little graceful skip and a glide, then took my hands. "If you're cold, child, then cool my skin."

She was hot as a stove and had always been, even in the old days back in school. I could still see her eyes the day she quit the seventh grade -- all of us knew she was far gone pregnant (she'd failed a grade and was one year older).

I let Rita hold me as long as she would, and I looked beyond her now towards the girl. She was tall for what I guessed was her age -- seventeen or a little more -- and she had great handfuls of dark brown hair that looked as pliant and strong as cable. In the midst her skin was a perfect white; and her eyes were bluer even than my mother's, so deep you thought they were purple or navy. Her lips were full and wide -- wider still since she went on smiling.

Then Rita faced her. "Luna, say hey to one fine gentleman."

I couldn't think why Rita said that much. But it touched my heart -- whether I was any sort of gentleman or not, she'd likely known few in her hard life. I'm always too susceptible to joy, and I was scared I'd pour out a tear there on the spot where the staff could see me. I was also scrambling back through memory, trying to know what kindness I'd done to Rita Bapp (I suddenly knew that was her maiden name).

Young Luna said "Hey --"

It hit me bullseye, square in my chest. I put out my hand and said "Luna what?"

The girl looked puzzled but Rita said "Tell him Absher -- Absher. I'm a widow, Blue." Then she sailed right on. "This boy -- Bluford Calhoun -- in this nice suit: he gave me an arrowhead the last day I saw him. Recall that, Blue?"

I suddenly did -- the best belonging of my whole childhood, a spear-point big as a pullet egg that one of my uncles brought me from Mexico after he'd fought some banditos down there with the National Guard. I'd had it with me the day our class got final word that Rita was out; and when she looked my way that noon as she emptied her school desk forever, I wrapped the point in a sheet of lined paper and held it towards her. I couldn't think what on Earth I meant, but Rita Bapp reached out and took it last thing and left. Today I nodded and said to her bright eyes "Sure, I recall. I hope it helped."

Rita said "Oh more than you'll ever know. My son's got it now, or he will once he's out; and Blue, he needs all the help he can get."

I thought I'd read a few years back that Rita's son had gone to prison for something earnest like killing a highway patrolman or worse. Luna though -- was she Rita's daughter or what? The girl's face and body were so much finer, I was trying hard not to meet her eyes. So I said to Rita "I know you're proud of this girl here."

Rita glanced at her, then back at me. "You truly think pride's called for here?" She seemed dead serious.

I said "Absolutely, you've outdone yourself."

Rita still didn't smile. She asked how many children I had.

"A daughter -- just one child, age thirteen."

"Ain't they a heartbreak?" Rita said.

Luna said "Mother --" and looked to me.

So I said "Maybe I've had better luck."

Rita smiled. "You always had scads of luck." She took Luna's elbow. "Here, look at this man. I knew him back when he was bad off as me; and he's bettered himself -- fine job, nice shoes." That was not strictly right, but I didn't stop her, and she looked my way. "You tell her, Blue. I've about give up."

I'd been a fair joker most of my life, and I tried to think of some funny advice. But while I waited my eyes caught Luna's again and held. From the day I was born, I'd also been a soul that loves women -- most everything about them, day and night -- but for all my past adventures among them, I'll have to say I never felt so caught before. Not trapped but held. My whole body felt like a child a-borning, pushed helpless down a dim long tunnel towards strong new light.

Suddenly Luna said "Come on."

I barely heard her and I understood less. Come where, for what?

Luna said "Please --" and Rita slapped her arm.

So I pulled my mind back into my body and said "Set eyes on your mark and run, girl -- run."

Rita nodded like I'd offered a blessing.

Luna tried not to smile; but those slant eyes -- that looked out at you from a cool dark recess far in the woods, that deep at least -- those eyes couldn't hide the powerful joy she took in watching me hang out there in the helpless air beyond her. Sh...

Biographie de l'auteur :

Reynolds Price (1933-2011) was born in Macon, North Carolina. Educated at Duke University and, as a Rhodes Scholar, at Merton College, Oxford University, he taught at Duke beginning in 1958 and was the James B. Duke Professor of English at the time of his death. His first short stories, and many later ones, are published in his Collected Stories. A Long and Happy Life was published in 1962 and won the William Faulkner Award for a best first novel. Kate Vaiden was published in 1986 and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. The Good Priest's Son in 2005 was his fourteenth novel. Among his thirty-seven volumes are further collections of fiction, poetry, plays, essays, and translations. Price is a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and his work has been translated into seventeen languages.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Prentice Hall & IBD
• Date d'édition: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0689121717
• ISBN 13: 9780689121715
• Reliure: Relié