Prompt: country and guitar

Folsom Prison Blues

"No, put your pinky finger down here. And keep it there. It has to be on the E string. If it's not, the chord isn't right." He took her finger with his own and placed it against the bottom string of six strings stretched across the guitar's neck.

"John, my finger doesn't want to stay down there."

He held the finger against the string. "Elizabeth, it has to stay down there."

With a sigh, Elizabeth took John's guitar off of her lap and handed it back to him. Reflexively, he sat it down on his, and held his hand ready against the neck of the instrument.

"Here, you play something," Elizabeth said, crossing her arms across her chest. "You're giving me guitar lessons, and I've barely even seen you play."

John's eyebrows rose. "Well, then, what do you want me to play?"

"Anything."

A mischievous smile lit his face. "Anything?" he asked.

A little warily, Elizabeth considered the lieutenant colonel before finally agreeing, "Anything you want."

"Alright." His fingers assumed a position on the neck of the guitar in what Elizabeth knew from John's instructing a moment previous, was a G chord. He drew the pick across the strings and began a fairly quick beat. After a moment, he added words in a surprisingly alright singing voice.

"I hear the train a-comin', it's rollin' 'round the bend," he sang. "And I ain't seen the sunshine since I don'know when…"

Surprised, Elizabeth's eyes widened and John stopped. "Whoa, what the heck was that?" she asked.

"Country," he answered. "Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison Blues, to be precise."

One of Elizabeth's eyebrows arched at him. "You listen to country?"

He shrugged. "Not really, but it's Johnny Cash… You absolutely can't dislike Johnny Cash."

Elizabeth shook her head at him. "How in the world can you sing a song about a train?"

"The song's not about a train, Elizabeth," he replied. "Not at all."

"Well, then, what is it about?"

With a grin, John picked up right where he'd left off. "…I'm stuck in Folsom Prison, and time keeps dra-gin' on. But that train keeps a-rollin' on down to San Antone. When I was just a baby, my mama told me son, always be a good boy, don't ever play with guns. But I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die… When—"

"Stop!" Elizabeth demanded. He did. "How can you sing that? 'I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die'?"

"Like this," John replied, picking up the tune again. "I shot—" When Elizabeth shot him a glare, he stopped again. "Really, Liz. It's country. That's just the way it is."