Lee Johnson - Nitro Mountain

The oak trees in the center of Bordon turn silver in the wind. Streetlamps blink on as another thunderstorm flashes the horizon. The pawnshop that used to be the antique shop along the square is closing; a shirtless man pulls in the sidewalk chalkboard, its slogan, You Lost It We Got It, smearing and running. The stoplight swings, turns red and a car runs right through it as the librarian watches, standing there by a shelf of free books. She stomps the wheel-lock open and rolls the cart back inside. A slinking cat pours off the top of a trash can and runs into the street, the same car missing it by inches.

Carol drives north up 231. Leaving the town limits, she glances over and spots a pack of hounds standing in the field. A practice hunt, this time of year. The hunter has parked his Tacoma on the shoulder. He drops the tailgate, opens the cage and calls for them with a two-fingered whistle when she steers around him. Rain slashes the road, then her windshield. A few miles farther a lane peels off to the left with a row of low-income ranch houses sinking into the earth. The last one is hers. She pulls into the driveway, gets out, eyes heavenward, and asks where her boy went off to this time.

A turkey vulture glides over her house in the oncoming gale and then it’s gone, pulling more clouds and rain along behind it. “An omen,” she says out loud. Lightning flares, capturing each iridescent drop in its moment of falling. She remembers summer storms, but none like this.

The vulture leaves Carol below, slipping upward in a warm whipstream over pastures and forests and fields toward the ridge, the foothills dipping and rising and rolling, streams and train tracks crossing and racing one another, flying higher until the town of Bordon is a spot of mold in the earth’s green carpeting.

The vulture shelters in a tree-hole before the storm crashes in. Finally, with the sky opening, the rain easing, it flies again. Sensing something at the top of the ridge, it circles, finds a towering dead pine and takes roost in the bare branches. A figure in the woods below. The bird turns its head, helmeted in red scalded scar-flesh, toward the scent of carrion.

Inside Larry’s Hickory Honky Tonk, Jones rests an elbow along the copper bar. He’s got Hank moaning through the old cathedral-shaped jukebox. When tears come down, like falling rain . Quarters bulge out his pants pocket and he’s patting them to the beat of the song. It’s happy hour, not late at all, but outside the rain’s pouring down. You’ll toss around, and call my name . Water gushes over the back windows. Out there, Larry has a makeshift marina, the dock made from planks and barrels, enough space for a couple bass boats. There’s also a spot for the pontoon he used to own; it sat in the water and served as the outdoor stage that Jones and his band used to play on. They packed this place during the summer months. But that’s not the deal anymore. Tonight the listening room’s empty, and it’s a goddamn shame — everybody staying home because of a little flash flood warning. Back in the day, folks braved tornadoes to hear Jones Young play.

The tour with Marshall Mac ended on a low note, the band hungry and tired, Jones doing all the driving. After they’d played their last gig in Ohio, he drove Jerry and Matt back to their girlfriends’ houses in central Virginia and decided to take his time getting back south to Ashland, his old home place. He traveled around for a few days in the Econoline, gigging at dives to prove to himself he could still do it. That’s what he did all through high school. And compared to the big rooms he opened for Marshall Mac in, it’s what he prefers. The van’s paid off and he’s been writing his own songs. They’re good, people say. About to finish another one soon. Who needs a band anyway?

“What’re you drinking?” Larry says.

Jones goes over and thumbs more quarters into the jukebox. “Dickel.”

“Come on, don’t start that. Tell me what you want.” Larry points to the line of craft beers on draft. He stopped serving liquor here because of the noise it caused. Somebody would be onstage, and then here comes some loudmouth, half a bottle deep and thinking it’s his or her turn with the mic. The Hickory’s main course now is music, beer for a side. He’ll throw together a few burgers too.

“It’s raining,” Jones says. “Let me bring in my whiskey. It won’t cost you nothing. Nobody’s showing up tonight, man.”

“Must’ve been too long of a tour for you.” Larry turns his head and studies the rain, like this is something he might make sense of. Then he pats the bar with his left hand, the one that’s missing its peace fingers.

“ Too long,” Jones says. “Marshall Mac and the Fuck-You-Tees.”

“How was Nashville? You make any contacts?” Larry’s always getting at Jones about keeping up with the business side. He lost his two fingers in the line of duty, he claims, and soon after, when he realized he’d never be able to play guitar again, he left the force and started the Honky Tonk. Wanted to put his money back into something he loved. Give local and touring musicians a place to play. At the Hickory’s first show, when he heard young Jones stumbling through Tony Rice’s “Old Train,” he came up to him afterward and said he was a boy he could teach to pick like he used to, if Jones’d just listen to him for a minute.

“Hell no, I didn’t make any con tacts,” Jones says. “Some of the band was still trying to figure out the arrangements. There we were, onstage, looking like a bunch of assholes. That’s how Nashville was.”

Larry turns his back, takes a glass and pulls beer into it. “You’ll like this one. Unfiltered IPA. Almost strong as that stuff you like.”

“This shit hurts me,” Jones says, taking the cloudy pint.

“I was expecting your band to be with you.”

“The last bass player we had sucked worse than the one with the broken arm.”

“You had a broken-arm bass player?” Larry says. “Now that’s country music.”

“It was, man. I hated letting him go. Jerry replaced him with a jazz guy who wouldn’t quit walking the neck — bompa-bompa, bompa-bompa — and he had this fretless stick-bass thing that sounded like a synth. And worse, his intonation was haywire. It was embarrassing. I really started missing that first guy.”

“What’s his name?”

“Leon. Just some boy from Bordon, you wouldn’t know him. Dude was in trouble, man. He couldn’t hardly even think straight. Don’t know how he played a lick, and that arm was the least of his problems. But I liked him.”

“Your worst picker’s as good as the band will ever get. That’s what your dad used to say.”

“I know it.”

“He’d be proud of what you’re doing.”

“Maybe.”

“He believed in you, Jones. And he was right about most things.”

“I don’t feel like talking about him.” Jones slugs the rest of the thick brew. “This shit’s awful.”

“All right,” Larry says. “Bring your whiskey in.”

Jones runs out to the van, hoofing through puddles in his cowboy boots, and comes back soaking wet and carrying a tall bottle of tan-label sour mash. Larry sets out a taster and Jones pours a jigger. “To my father.” He lifts it up and waits for a toast.

“Shoot, now. There you go with that talk.” Larry brings out another taster and pours himself one. “To your father.”

They clink and drink. The whiskey sizzles the tip of Jones’s tongue, and he dumps the rest down.