Joe Hill - Horns

More than anything, he wanted rest, wanted no more madness. He wanted the touch of a cool hand on his brow. He wanted Merrin back-wanted to cry with his face buried in her lap and her fingers moving over the nape of his neck. All thoughts of peace were wrapped up in her. Every restful memory seemed to include her: A breezy July afternoon, lying in the grass above the river. A rainy October, drinking cider with her in her living room, huddled together under a knitted blanket, Merrin’s cold nose against his ear.

He cast his gaze around the room, considering the detritus of the life he’d lived here. He spied his old trumpet case, sticking out a little from under the bed, and picked it up, set it on the mattress. Within was his silver horn. It was tarnished, the keys worn smooth, as if it had seen hard use.

It had. Even once he knew that his weak lungs would not allow him to play the trumpet-ever-Ig had, for reasons he no longer understood, continued to practice. After his parents sent him to bed, he would play in the dark, lying on his back under the sheets, his fingers flying over the keys. He played Miles Davis and Wynton Marsalis and Louis Armstrong. But the music was only in his head. For while he placed the mouthpiece to his lips, he did not dare blow, for fear of bringing on a wave of light-headedness and a storm of black snow. It seemed now an absurd waste of time, all that practice to no useful end.

He emptied the case onto the floor in a sudden convulsion of fury, cast out the trumpet, and the rest of his horn paraphernalia-leadpipes and valve oil, spare mouthpiece-chucking it all. The last thing he grabbed was a mute, a Tom Crown, a thing that looked like a great Christmas ornament made out of brushed copper. He meant to launch it across the room, and he even made the throwing motion, but his fingers wouldn’t open, wouldn’t allow it to be flung. It was a beautiful piece of metalwork, but that wasn’t why he held on to it. He didn’t know why he held on to it.

What you did with a Tom Crown, you shoved it down into the bell of the horn to choke off the sound; if used properly, it produced a lascivious, hand-up-the-skirt squall. Ig stared down at it now, frowning, an imperceptible something tugging at his consciousness. It wasn’t an idea, not yet. It wasn’t even half an idea. It was a drifting, confused notion. Something about horns. Something about the way they were played.

Finally Ig set the mute aside, turned again to the trumpet case. He pulled out the foam padding, packed in a change of clothes, then went looking for his passport. Not because he thought he was leaving the country but because he wanted to take everything that was important with him, so he wouldn’t have to come back later.

His passport was tucked into the fancy-pants Bible in the top drawer of his dresser, a King James with a white leather cover and the words of Jesus printed in gold. Terry called it his Neil Diamond Bible. He had won it as a child, playing Scriptural Jeopardy in his Sunday-school class. When faced with answers from the Bible, Ig had all the right questions.

Ig picked his passport out of the Good Book, then paused, looking at a column of dots and lines in blurred pencil scrawled on the endpapers. It was a key to Morse code. Ig had copied it into the back of the Neil Diamond Bible himself, more than ten years before. He once believed that Merrin Williams had sent him a message in Morse code, and he spent two weeks working out a reply to be sent the same way. The response he had come up with was still scribbled there in a string of circles and dashes: his favorite prayer in the book.

He threw the Bible into the trumpet case as well. There had to be something in there, some useful tips for his situation, a homeopathic remedy you could apply when you came down with a bad case of the devil.

It was time to go, to get out before he saw anyone else, but at the bottom of the stairs he noticed how dry and tacky his mouth felt and that it was painful to swallow. Ig detoured into the kitchen and drank from the sink. He cupped his hands together and splashed water into his face and then held the sides of the sink with his face dripping and shook himself like a dog. He rubbed his face dry with a dish towel, enjoying the rough feel of it against his raw, cold-shocked skin. At last Ig tossed down the towel and turned, to find his brother standing behind him.

TERRY LEANED AGAINST THE WALL, just inside the swinging door. He didn’t look so well-the jet lag, maybe. He needed a shave, and his eyelids had a puffy, swollen look, as if he were suffering from allergies. Terry was allergic to everything-pollen, peanut butter; he had once nearly died of a bee sting. His black silk shirt and tweed slacks hung loose on his frame, as if he had lost weight.

They regarded each other. Ig and Terry had not been in the same room together since the weekend Merrin had been killed, and Terry hadn’t looked much better then, had been inarticulate with grief for her, and for Ig. Terence had left for the West Coast shortly after-supposedly for rehearsals, although Ig suspected he’d been summoned for a damage-control meeting with the execs at Fox-and had not been back since, and no surprise. Terry had not much cared for Gideon even before the murder.

Terry said, “I didn’t know you were here. I didn’t hear you come in. Did you grow horns? While I was gone?”

“I thought it was time for a new look. Do you like them?”

His brother shook his head. “I want to tell you something,” Terry said, and his Adam’s apple jugged up and down in his throat.

“Join the club.”

“I want to tell you something, but I don’t want to tell you. I’m afraid.”

“Go ahead. Spill it. It probably isn’t so bad. I don’t think anything you could have to say would bother me much. Mom just told me she never wants to see me again. Dad told me he wishes I had gone to jail forever.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Oh, Ig,” Terry said. His eyes were watering. “I feel so bad. About everything. About how things turned out for you. I know how much you loved her. I loved her, too, you know. Merrin. She was a hell of a kid.”

Ig nodded.

“I want you to know…” Terry said in a choked voice.

“Go ahead,” Ig said gently.

“I didn’t kill her.”

Ig stared, a pins-and-needles sensation beginning to spread across his chest. The thought that Terry might have raped and killed her had never crossed his mind, was impossible.

Ig said, “Of course you didn’t.”

“I loved you two guys and wanted you to be happy. I never would’ve done anything to hurt her.”

“I know that,” Ig said.

“And if I had any idea Lee Tourneau was going to kill her, I would’ve tried to stop it,” Terry said. “I thought Lee was her friend. I’ve wanted to tell you so bad, but Lee made me keep quiet. He made me.”

“EEEEEEEEEE,” Ig screamed.

“He’s awful, Ig,” Terry said. “You don’t know him. You think you do, but you don’t have any idea.”

“EEEEEEEEEEEE,” Ig went on.

“Lee fixed you and me both, and I’ve been in hell ever since,” Terry said.

Ig fled into the hallway, ran through the dark for the front door, slammed through the screen, stumbled out into the sudden blinding glare of day, eyes blurring with tears, missed the steps, fell into the yard. He picked himself up, gasping. He had dropped his trumpet case-had hardly even been aware he was still carrying it-and he snatched it back up out of the grass.

He lurched across the lawn, barely looking where he was going. The corners of his eyes were damp, and he thought he might be crying, but when he touched his fingers to his face, they came away bloody. He lifted his hands to his horns. The points had ruptured through the skin, and blood was trickling down his face. He was aware of a steady throbbing in the horns, and although there was a feeling of soreness in them, there was also a kind of nervous thrill shooting through his temples, a sensation of release not unlike orgasm. He staggered along, and from his mouth poured a stream of curses, choked obscenities. He hated how hard it was to breathe, hated the sticky blood on his cheeks and hands, the too-bright blue sky, the smell of himself, hated, hated, hated.