AT 29 Page 2

  In the distance, a figure appeared surrounded by bright light; a woman, floating, like him, with a baby in her arms. She came nearer, eyes down, smiling at her child. Her image filled him with remorse. Then they were gone, but the light remained. He knew he must follow it, that he would see his wife and child no more. The light grew brighter, tugging him into the ether.

  Jimmy woke abruptly with the recurring dream still fresh. He was on his back in a bed with railings. He turned his head to see that he was alone although there was an empty bed next to his. Sunlight blasted through the windows, shining directly into his eyes. He surmised that it was the reason he awoke. He closed his eyes in self-defense, but the disconcerting dream lingered, forcing him to open them again. More windows framed a door to a corridor where people dressed in white walked by. A hospital, he realized. His head pounded as he looked down at the sheets covering his body up to his chest. His arms were outside the sheets and a tube was connected by tape across the top of his right hand, no doubt penetrating a vein. Not his guitar hand he noted, thankfully. It was a purplish color, but there was no pain, just his head. A tall black presence appeared at the door.

  “Ah, you’re awake.”

  He knew the face and the voice, but he couldn’t find the name in his memory. Then it came to him as the slender, clean-shaven visitor moved through the door to his side.

  “Ellis,” he said, in a voice barely above a whisper, aggravating his aching brain.

  “It’s me, yes.”

  Ellis was his agent and friend, with him from the earliest moments of his tepid stardom, first as a member of his band then later when he switched to promotion and became his agent.

  “What happened to me?”

  “You gave us a scare, Jimmy boy.” Ellis found a chair and slid it to the bedside.

  “My head hurts.”

  “You got real sick. Cindy called an ambulance.”

  “What kind of sick?”

  “You had too much to drink, got the shakes so bad your eyes rolled back into your head. Then you turned blue and passed out.”

  “Not good.”

  “More serious than your typical binges, but the doctor says you’re gonna be okay.”

  “Where’s Cindy?”

  Ellis looked away. Jimmy knew this gesture. It was his way of collecting himself before delivering bad news.

  “Gone.”

  Jimmy was not surprised. Lately, his relationship with Cindy was shaky. In the past few months his drinking had become more earnest.

  “How was the gig?”

  Ellis cleared his throat, stood and walked slowly to the other side of the bed, blocking the sun with his body. He wore a black suit with a black tee shirt and a few gold chains around his neck. On his wrist was a mammoth Rolex, bejeweled and glistening. His perfectly proportioned head was shaven and shiny, no doubt due to some sort of cream that had been applied with expert care. Ellis regarded himself as a stud and rightly so since beneath the exterior grooming was a lean, muscular body.

  “Well, that’s the issue, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Apart from the drinking and all, the music’s not where it ought to be.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “They booed you off the stage.”

  “And now? I’m laying in a hospital?”

  “I think the booze compounded the effect of the beating.”

  “Beating?”

  “No black eyes or cuts, just a little swelling around the cheeks. I pulled Benson off and told him to go home.”

  Benson again. “What about the others?”

  “Mitch and Ralphie are with him. Sonny’s back at the restaurant in the city.”

  “Booed off the stage?”

  “Yeah, not your best performance.”

  “Tell me.”

  “You didn’t exactly hit the notes on some of the songs.” Ellis looked away again. “Of course, you were just the warm up. They all came to see VooDoo9 and maybe the crowd just wanted to get on with it.”

  Jimmy felt a pang of embarrassment. A year earlier he was a headliner. A few minor hits had spawned a loyal following that filled small venues across the country. But the hits had stopped and lately Ellis could only find front-end gigs, warming up audiences for more popular groups. Jimmy wanted to ignore the truth, but he knew it was the booze.

  “What does this mean?”

  The agent flashed a nervous smile, not a good sign. “It’s too early to know. The good thing is we don’t have anything lined up so we won’t lose a payday.”

  “That’s good? Nothing from nothing.” Jimmy dropped his chin.

  “Yeah, ‘cause you need to heal and then I think you need to take some time to get straightened out. You’ve got a little money. Use it to clean up so we can get back on track.”

  “Fine for me, but the rest of the band needs to work.”

  Ellis looked away again. “Well, that’s an issue, too. Benson refuses to work with you anymore. He’s forming his own group, starting with Mitch and Ralphie.

  “All this since last night?”

  “Last night? Today is Tuesday. The gig was Sunday. Maybe I need to replay this for you. You drank yourself into a coma and came close to meeting your maker. You’re in intensive care and you haven’t opened your eyes for two days.”

  A cute nurse appeared at the door with a tray of food. She carried it to Jimmy’s bedside, set it down on a sliding table and maneuvered it over the center of his bed.

  “How’s the patient?” she asked, smiling with perfect teeth.

  For an instant Jimmy forgot his headache. He noted how attractive she looked in white with short blond hair and a smile that said, ‘I’m interested if you are’. He had an antenna for this, well honed over the years. He looked down at the food.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “You haven’t had anything solid since you were brought in. You need to eat. I’ll stay to help if you like.”

  Ellis seized this opportunity to avoid delivering more bad news. He shuffled toward the door, mumbling that he ought to leave so Jimmy could eat and get some rest.

  “I’ll come back later when you’re feeling better? We can figure things out then.”

  Jimmy nodded, trying to smile in spite of his pain. He needed Ellis’ friendship more than his professional efforts at that moment, but his agent plainly wanted to leave and he would not hold him just to take the edge off his own discomfort. Ellis was gone in a flash and Jimmy turned back to the nurse.

  “Let’s give it a try,” she coaxed. “It will help you feel better.”

  She unwrapped the plate of food and picked up a fork. He thought she would hand the utensil to him, but she plunged it into some cottage cheese and lifted it to his lips, careful to hold her other palm beneath his chin to catch anything that might fall. He took the food chagrined that he had brought himself to this helpless state, but she was smiling and focused on feeding him so he let her. When he finished she took the tray and placed it on the chair, poured him some water and re-arranged the pillows behind his back.

  “If you need me just call.” She pointed to a button intertwined around the railing near the tube running to his hand. Then she picked up the tray and turned to the door.

  “I’m Marsha”.

  He watched her leave then returned to pondering the fool he’d become.

  Two

  On February 26, 1814, Jonathan Whitehurst reached his seventeenth birthday. Until that day he had spent his entire life on a small parcel of land his father rented on the vast estate of a local nobleman. Together with his six siblings of whom he was the second to youngest, Jonathan followed his father’s orders, tending to a meager store of crops, fetching wood for the fire and keeping the thatched roof of the family’s cottage in repair. His life was drudgery directed by an emotionless parent who showed his son no warmth.

  Like his father, mother, four brothe
rs and two sisters, Jonathan was illiterate. Schooling was not available and even if it was, his family saw no use for letters when there was the daily struggle to put food on the table. Still, he was curious and imaginative and, he loved to sing. He used his spare time to walk the hills and forests near his home in northern England, examining everything he saw, not for practical purposes, but to feed his insatiable interest in what shared space with him on this earth. During his solitary walks he made up songs in his head, testing them with his voice and committing each to memory so he could sing them over and over again, changing a note here and there to make each melody better. He knew of London and he even heard tell of other countries like France and Spain. This, he discovered by listening to the occasional pilgrims who stopped to ask for water or the right to make a fire for the night.

  Sometimes the local Vicar came by to visit with his mother. His father ignored the preacher, but he did not interfere with his wife’s contact with the church. Vicar Daniel was a big man. In fact, he was a giant for those times, standing six foot five without his boots. Whenever he appeared Jonathan’s mother shooed everyone from the small cottage, stopped her work and sat alone with her visitor over tea at a crude wooden table just inside the door. Often their talks ran well into the afternoon and Jonathan could hear her laugh as the preacher sang a tune for their mutual amusement, an unusual occurrence in the family’s otherwise austere world. Vicar Daniel paid scant attention to the Whitehurst brood, but there were occasions when Jonathan caught him looking his way with a curious gaze. Otherwise, the Vicar spoke little to anyone, but his mother.

  No one in the melancholy family matched the remarkable size of the preacher except Jonathan. The youth, unlike his parents or siblings, could look him in the eye, still growing, but thinner because Vicar Daniel was better fed. Jonathan’s brothers taunted him from time to time because of his size, but they steered clear of making him angry lest they be forced to deal physically with their victim. However, Jonathan was not angered easily. He eschewed their abuse, preferring to deal gently with his world. He enjoyed his few chances to be alone among the fields and forests, especially at night during summer when he would lie on his back for hours, singing and studying the stars.

  This birthday held special significance. He selected it as the day he would strike out on his own. For months he planned his departure, alternating between destinations such as York and London. He even considered Edinburgh, but dropped the thought when he realized he did not know where it was precisely. Of course, that was true of the other two towns as well, but he believed they were somewhere to the south and, most important, in England. He was confident that when he struck out on the road leaving his village, he would eventually find his way.

  He made a leather pouch to carry food for his journey. It was hidden under a corner of the cottage roof where he took it down, unseen, to add barley and dried fruits whenever he could stealthily slip them from the table where his mother served the family’s meals. This day the pouch was full. He planned to leave in the dark after everyone was asleep. He did not fear discovery because he had slipped away many times to look at the night sky.

  The decision to depart without notice was paramount. If his father knew of his plan he would deny him the chance, even if it meant gathering all of his brothers to hold Jonathan down and tie him up. All hands were needed to keep the family in food and shelter. His brothers and sisters were little more than strangers, so cowed by his parents that no bond between Jonathan and them ever formed. They would not miss him although they would lament his lost contribution to the daily work. In truth, he never felt a part of the Whitehurst clan. His father showed him no kindness. His mother spoke to him little, preferring to spend nearly all of her time with his sisters. What little affection that existed in the cottage did not extend to Jonathan. He felt neither love nor loyalty toward his family.

  When he slid from his grass-strewn berth and tiptoed into the night he breathed in deeply with no small measure of excitement. He was glad to be leaving alone in the still darkness. From then and forever he intended to be free. He did not dwell on his small amount of food or that he was penniless. Just as well because that is the way it would frequently be for him throughout his long life.

  Four days of walking brought Jonathan to a fork in the road at twilight. A faded wooden sign marked the way to London, but the uneducated youth could make no sense of it. He reached into his empty pouch, hoping there was some morsel to be had, but his hand came out empty. He was tired, dirty and confused, the grand adventure no longer enchanting to his naïve imagination. From his years alone exploring the hills and forests around his home, he knew that east to west followed the sun across the sky. He was traveling east, but he was certain that London was south. The rutted route should have turned that way long before.

  To his right he spied a path leading into an expanse of forest beyond. Cautious, he entered it, intending to go only a short distance to find a place to rest. He would let the night pass before continuing on. He followed the trail into the wild, soon reaching the forest. In a way, he was more comfortable among the trees that reminded him of home. A lone, motherless fawn stood at the edge of the trail, nibbling at ferns that grew in a group. He allowed himself to smile at this innocent creature with a suspect future like his own. Then, off in the distance, he saw smoke. It was, perhaps, two hundred yards ahead, gray-blue and wispy, a cooking fire.

  Jonathan hesitated, considering what to do. His fear was great, but his empty stomach signaled his brain to act. If only he could find something here on the trail. Then he could veer off the path and rest as his intuition told him to do. Yet the smoke lured him to its source like a magnet. He trudged onward, glancing all around to be sure he would spot anyone lurking among the trees before they saw him. As he neared the source of the smoke he left the trail, making a wide circle around the spot where he knew the fire would be. Shortly, the location came into view and he stopped behind a tree to survey the image before him. It was, as he suspected, a clearing carved among the trees with white tents interspersed around a large fire. Men in red coats, soiled frocks and high black boots were gathered around the fire. They occasionally cut pieces from a pig roasting on a spit above the flames. He could hear them talking as they ate. Muskets were arrayed against the sides of the tents, bayonets skyward.

  Jonathan knew of the vaunted British army. Few in England let them go by unnoticed for its regiments served the dual purpose of protector and antagonist, alternately shielding remote villages from vandals while terrorizing those same villages whenever the opportunity to pillage and rape caught the soldiers’ fancy. York, not far away although Jonathan did not know this, was a stopover for regiments traveling to and from the northlands where they were deployed to keep peace among feuding clans. Jonathan had heard of their vicious actions against both the guilty and the innocent.

  The enticing smell of the roasting pig brought all-consuming hunger. Although cautious, he could think of nothing but the tantalizing feast before him. Transfixed, he let down his vigilance, unaware of the movement nearby. When he felt the poke of a bayonet at his back he nearly fainted. Of course, he was not trained in military ways and he knew nothing of sentries. He had been spotted long before he settled behind the tree.

  He turned slowly to look at the man behind him only to find that he was a mere boy, certainly younger than Jonathan and almost as nervous. He had shaggy red hair that fell over his eyebrows as he looked up at his captive, massively larger and a head taller. As they faced each other the boy stepped back, but held his musket firmly with the bayonet pointed at Jonathan’s chest.

  “Captain!” the soldier shouted. “Intruder!”

  Jonathan could hear rustling coming from the encampment as the other soldiers jumped to retrieve their weapons.

  “Report!” came a booming reply. The boy used his musket to motion Jonathan toward the camp. Jonathan turned, heart sinking, toward his unknown fate.

  They entered the clearing confronted by twen
ty soldiers in uneven order each with musket in hand. The men wore curious expressions, but uttered no sound as they waited for their leader to take control. When Jonathan and his captor were within several feet of the soldiers, an order to stop came from behind the line. Then an older, grizzled man stepped forward. The captain did not speak as he walked around, looking the captive up and down. He raised his hand to finger Jonathan’s ragged tunic, brushing away bits of dirt and grass that had caked onto the coarse cloth.

  “You look like a farmer,” he said, with suspicion in his voice.

  “I am from the north.”

  “Why are you lurking near my camp?”

  “I spied your fire and smelled something to eat.”

  Some of the soldiers shifted in their positions, but none spoke as their leader interrogated the stranger.

  “If you are a farmer why are you here in this forest, dirty and hungry?”

  Jonathan was afraid to answer for fear that the soldier might find some fault. The Captain stood with a stern expression, waiting for a reply.

  “I am traveling to London.”

  “London? Why would a hungry farmer from the north be traveling to London town?”