It started to rain just after Lyle got home with Cody Walsh, the Decent Fellows’ bassist. You Kurlanskys had quite a difficult time tarping the roof—the wind had kicked up along with the rain, and there was lots of shouting and swearing and scraping of ladders along the siding—and then Lyle invited you all in for a beer.
Your brother Sylvan is like a shrink-wrapped version of you: several inches shorter, narrower across the shoulders, less muscle mass overall. Wiry and deeply tanned. Your uncle Viktor is yet another variation: broad like you but meatier, almost squat-looking, with slightly sloped shoulders and round belly. But you all have the same strong brow, broad cheekbones, straight nose, severe mouth. It made me wonder about your middle brother, Mark. Does he manifest all those same Kurlansky genes?
“Sit down, sit down,” Lyle said. So you stopped protesting about your wet clothes and dirty hands and sat, Viktor on a dining chair, Sylvan on the sofa next to Cody and Lyle, you on the floor with the girls and me. I tried not to stare but kept thinking of what you told me Sylvan had said about you being “bunched up under your skin.” You sat in an approximately cross-legged position, but as though your quad muscles couldn’t quite conform to it, so that actually, only your ankles were crossed in their wool work socks, your knees in their soiled denim pointing diagonally to the ceiling and your forearms pinning them in place.
I’m afraid that after the few initial, polite exchanges—how long have you been roofing, what do you think of the new “lifetime” roofing products, what does Lyle do for a living, what sort of music does the band play—you Kurlanskys didn’t have much opportunity to participate in the conversation. You and I were probably the most conspicuously silent, Kurl. Conspicuously is the wrong word, since no one else noticed. Perhaps even you didn’t notice how silent we were. It just occurred to me now, writing this, that we’re both the youngest members of our families. Something in common.
Anyhow, with two of the Decent Fellows in the room, I suppose it was inevitable that bluegrass would be the topic of conversation. At Sylvan’s request, Lyle demonstrated a basic bluegrass forward roll on the banjo.
Bron then told us, “One of the sustaining myths of bluegrass music is that it’s an exclusively white tradition.”
“That’s not a myth,” Cody said. “Bluegrass was white hillbilly music right from the start. Black music was jazz, gospel, and blues. Two totally different things.”
“Before the Civil War,” Bron said, “poor black and poor white people shared most of the same spaces and activities, including their music. The banjo is an African instrument, originally, right, Lyle?”
“Sure,” said Lyle, always affable. “But the banjo didn’t invent bluegrass. Bill Monroe did, and he was white.”
“Bill Monroe is part of the myth,” Bron insisted. “He took all his riffs and picking patterns from the people playing around him when he was growing up. In his biography he makes it crystal clear he didn’t invent anything. He just absorbed, and copied, and then got recorded and popularized and canonized as the father of the whole genre.”
“Really, we’re all a bunch of rednecks,” Lyle joked.
“Maybe you are,” Shayna said, disloyally. “Maybe you’ve raised Jojo and me to be rednecks, too, Lyle.”
“I was just using the Decent Fellows as an example,” Bron said. “Your band is certainly not the exception, when it comes to the erasure of black history.”
“I’m not a redneck, I don’t think,” I said. I was wearing my robin’s-egg blue velvet bow tie and my suede vest, so I knew this would get a laugh.
So I suppose I did contribute one point to the discussion, Kurl. And so did you, now that I’m thinking of it. The pizza arrived, and we passed around the paper napkins and lifted the gooey slices onto our laps. Your brother helped himself to the Meat Lovers’ Supreme, but when you leaned forward to take a slice, your uncle Viktor said, “No, we’ll wait to eat at home. Your mother is cooking.”
I suppose Lyle could see you were starving. “One piece won’t ruin his appetite, right?”
“No, that’s okay, I’m okay,” you said, and sat back, twisting your napkin and stuffing it into your back pocket. You hadn’t touched your cola, either. There was a moment of silence, and chewing, and then Uncle Viktor stood up and said you had better be going.
“How about an official dinner invitation, then, for tomorrow?” Lyle said. “Whatever time you finish the roof. We’ll do Tex-Mex or something.”
He and your uncle shook hands, and then you and Sylvan shook his hand and Cody’s hand, too, and it was “Nice to meet you” and “See you tomorrow” all around.
Sylvan mentioned that you weren’t needed for the rest of the job and you’d be at school today, so maybe I’ll see you at some point this afternoon—but I hope you’ll come by tonight for dinner as well?
Yours truly,
Jonathan Hopkirk
Tuesday, October 13
Dear Little Jo,
Khang just told us she’s through with offering suggested themes to use in our letters. Not that you and I have been using them lately anyway. Khang said that as we must know by now, all writing shares something of yourself. So share away, she said.
Memories though. A memory can’t be shared even when you write about it. Words won’t transfer a memory anywhere or help you reabsorb it. It just sits there, the memory. Pooled up under your skin like a bruise.
For example, I remember there was this bird down by the tracks that hated Mark and me. All black except for a flash of red on each wing. It would come diving out of the trees and flap right into our faces. It left a scratch once under the hair on Mark’s forehead. Its chirp sounded like stones smacking together.
You’re right that you and I didn’t say anything last night over pizza. Once or twice we looked at each other. I thought maybe you were a bit uncomfortable with us there, but maybe that was just in my head. I guess if you don’t talk you can’t really tell.
Give the people what they want, Uncle Viktor says. If they want the cheap shingles, give them the cheap shingles. Cheap shingles is how he underbids AA Roofing, who stole a lot of Kurlansky customers after my father passed. Don’t worry, Jo. We used good quality materials on your roof. The thing about Uncle Viktor is that it’s better just to keep your head down and do what he says and let him think what he thinks. Most of the time I remember and catch myself in time. Like with the pizza at your house. It might seem like a dumb thing. Why can’t I have a slice of pizza? It might be a dumb or embarrassing thing but it’s a little thing. Definitely not worth turning into a big thing.
Mark thought it was hilarious the way this bird kept attacking him but to be honest it creeped me out, how interested it seemed in hurting us. It reminds me of how in ancient wars they would smear crows with tallow, light them on fire, and free them to fly over the enemy walls. You could burn down a whole fort with these firebirds. A whole town.
I found a bird guide in the library and looked up this murderous bird’s name. Surprise surprise: Red-winged Blackbird.
I spent a lot of time at your house yesterday trying not to stare at everything. I’ve never been inside a house like yours before. There is no decoration anywhere that I could see. No drapes, just bare windows. No pictures on the walls or things sitting around on shelves. None of those extra pillows to decorate the sofa. The kitchen has no cabinets, just open shelves with dishes stacked and some mismatched sections of drawers with a plywood countertop.