Anne Tyler: A Slipping-Down Life

Drumstrings Casey was preceded by a blond boy who set out drums in a circle around a stool. The largest drum had a blurry black “Casey” stamped on it with a grocery store stencil. “Now,” Evie said. She sat up straighter, clutching her coat across her chest. A dark boy had followed the blond one out. He had long black hair, too shiny, cut square across his neck and falling in a slanted line over his forehead. His clothes were black denim, a short zippered jacket and tight jeans ending in high leather boots. Instead of walking, he glided. His spangled guitar dragged a tail of cord which the drummer took charge of while Casey slid coolly on, almost keeping time with Mantovani’s violin. “Cut it,” someone shouted. Mantovani stopped playing in the middle of a note. There was a second of pure silence while the blond boy seated himself at the drums. Then he picked up the sticks. He set up a rapid, choppy rhythm that made the dark boy’s foot tap, and after that one second of silence, Drumstrings Casey’s guitar-playing seemed to break the air into splinters around Evie’s ears.

If there were words to his song, Evie couldn’t make them out. She heard a clanging of guitar strings, a patter of drums which sometimes subdued the guitar into a mere jingle at the end of a beat, and a strong reedy voice that softened consonants and spun out vowels. “Nnhnn,” he said occasionally, close to the microphone, Then the singing stopped, but the music went on. Drumstrings turned his narrow, unseeing face toward the audience.

“Why do you walk on my nerves this way? ” he asked suddenly.

Evie turned and looked around her.

“Have I got to tell you again? Have I got to say it?

“We met him on the mountain. He was picking blueberries .

“She was emptying trashcans .

“Don’t leave now!”

The guitar grew louder, and the drums along with it. The song started up no different than before, with the same blurred words. Not many people clapped when it was over.

“Well, thank you for coming,” Evie told Violet as they were starting home.

“Was it like you expected?”

“Oh, more or less.”

They crossed a silent, neon-lit street. Watery reflections of themselves slid along an optician’s darkened window.

“What I meant,” said Violet, “was Drumstrings Casey — was he like you expected?”

“Not exactly,” Evie said.

“You sorry you went?”

“Well, no.”

She paused at the corner, in front of the town library. Their paths were supposed to split here, but instead of turning down Hawthorne Street, Evie stood still with her hands in her pockets and her oxfords set wide apart. “That speaking out he did,” she said.

“That was peculiar,” said Violet. “I never heard anyone do that before.”

“Me neither.”

“Well, in slow songs, of course. Those sappy kinds of songs, some girls reading out a love letter between two verses.”

“This is different. Drumstrings Casey wasn’t sappy.”

“No.”

“What,” said Evie. “You liked it?”

“Well, yes, I did.”

“Me too.” Evie started moving one foot in a slow arc in front of her, watching it closely. “It made me want to answer. You know those girls who scream on the Ed Sullivan show? Well, now I know why they do it.”

“Of course, he is kind of trashy,” said Violet.

“Sure, I know that.”

“That greasy hair.”

“Those tight pants.”

“Walking that slinky way he has.”

“Would you like to come to my house for a Coke?” Evie asked.

“Oh, I might as well.”

They both turned down Hawthorne Street, ambling in fits and starts toward the yellow light above Evie’s porch.

After the show the days seemed longer and duller. Evie walked to school at a slow, aimless pace, stopping often to stare into store windows. She had changed to spring clothes by now. Her skirts were full, with waistbands that kept folding in upon themselves, her sleeveless blouses came untucked and her sandal straps slipped off her heels — all problems needing constant attention. She walked along continually tugging at hems and rebuttoning buttons, as if she were nervous. Yet her face, seen close to, was blank and listless. She complained to Violet that she had nothing to look forward to. “Summer is coming,” she said, “and there I’ll be on the porch. Getting fatter. Reading romances. My father will be home all day just picking at the lawn. Don’t you wish there was something to do?”

“You could be a camp counselor,” Violet said.

Evie only sighed and yanked at a slip strap.

In the changing-room, on gym days, half-dressed girls sat on long wooden benches and named their favorite singers. Their lockers were lined with full-color pictures of the Beatles and the Monkees, their notebooks were decorated with the titles of the top forty, and they traded stacks of pulpy gray magazines filled with new lyrics and autographed photos. Their favorites lived in Detroit or Nashville or London, and switched like baseball players from one group to another, from group-singing to solo, and from an outdated style to a new one. Evie couldn’t keep up with them. While the others talked she dressed behind a slatted partition, shielding the front of her 40-D bra as she reached for a blouse, concentrating glumly on what she overheard.

“Fill in your name, they say. Mail it off. If you win you get a date with the singer of your choice, dinner and dancing and a photograph to remember it by. It tells you right here, see?”

“Yes, but what if I win?”

“Lucky you.”

“I mean, wouldn’t you die?”

“Not me.”

“I would. I wouldn’t say a word all evening. How could you talk to a singing star?”

“That’s why you have to watch who you pick. You can’t just choose for looks, you got to get someone with personality.”

“Paul McCartney has personality.”

“His name isn’t on here.”

One day a tenant farmer’s daughter named Fay-Jean Lindsay said, “Those people in the magazines are all right, I reckon. Those Rolling Stones and all. But me, I’ll take Joseph Ballew.”

“Never heard of him,” someone said.

“He’s from Pulqua. Right around Pulqua.”

“How come we never heard of him?”

“ I don’t know. You ought to have. He sings real nice.”

“Where’s he at now?”

“Pulqua.”

“Well, for heaven’s sake,” they said, and then they changed the subject.

But later, when Evie was fully dressed, she came out from behind her partition to talk to Fay-Jean. Fay-Jean was kneeling on the end of a bench, drawing her comb through a ribbon of pale, shining hair. “I heard you liked Joseph Ballew,” Evie said.

Fay-Jean tucked away the comb and brought out a mirror, which she looked into for some time. There was nothing else to do with it. She had one of those tiny, perfect faces, not yet sharpened enough to show the tenant farmer in her. “Who?” she said finally.

“Joseph Ballew.”

“He’s all right.”

“Was he at that rock show a few weeks back?”

Fay-Jean looked up. “Why, yes, he was,” she said. “I didn’t see you there.”

“I was near the back.”

“Did you like him?”

“Well, really I — which one was he?”

“Oh, you couldn’t have overlooked him. He sang ‘Honeypot.’ Now you remember.”

“Well,” said Evie. “I was wondering. Do you know Drumstrings Casey?”

“Him? Wait a minute.”

Fay-Jean started rummaging through her notebook. She came up with red-slashed quizzes, a Silver Screen magazine, and finally a sheet of ruled paper which she handed to Evie. It was a pencil drawing of a narrow-faced boy with high cheekbones, one eye smaller than the other. His features were vague, hairy lines, and his mouth had been erased several times and redrawn heavily. “Who’s this?” Evie asked.