Pete didn't say anything, or do anything in particular, but apparently he didn't have to.
"Howdy!" exclaimed the stranger, and thrust out a plump, pink hand to match his plump, pink smile.
"Uh," said Pete.
"Pleased to find you at home!"
"I'm not, uh...if you're looking for Ulysses McGill, I ain't him." Pete took the hand reluctantly. It was soft enough to feel unclean. "If you tell me your business I can fetch him for you, though." The stranger shook his head, still smiling.
"Oh, it hardly matters who I speak to. May I come in?"
"That all depends. What do you want?"
"Why, I'd like to come inside and explain to you!"
"You kin explain just as well right here." Pete didn't move. This man made him bristle. He wore a linen suit and a straw hat and sweat like cheese left in the sun. He smelled of body odor and talcum powder. His grin did not shrink, though it grew stiff around the edges.
"There's really no call for this sorta alarm, sir. My business is entirely legitimate, rest assured. It's simply outta concern for your privacy that I wonder… if you might not prefer–"
"I ain't concerned for my privacy," said Pete stonily. He realized as he did this was not, in fact, true. "That is–"
"Well, Pete, who is it?" called Everett.
"Someone as won't say!" replied Pete, without breaking eye-contact.
"You ask him?"
"Yeah, I ast him, I ain't thick!"
"As a matter of fact, I don't believe we'd come around to the matter of innerductions," said the stranger, as cheerfully as ever. Pete didn't appreciate that. "Astor Roth, of the Ridgeland Daily Telegraph. Pleased to make your acquaintance…?"
"Pete," said Pete.
"Pete," said Astor Roth. He paused for a moment. "You're a musician." Pete wasn't sure. He said nothing. "Founding member of the Soggy Bottom Boys, smash hit and perennial mystery?"
"Maybe."
"Do you have a minute to talk? Folks are just dying to know the men behind the music, you know." Pete didn't answer.
"Everett?" he shouted instead.
"Yeah?"
"It's some kinda newspaper-man! Wants to know if we'se musicians!" Before Pete had finished speaking, Everett was pushing him aside.
"Hello and good mornin' to ya, neighbor. Ulysses Everett McGill. It's a pleasure. You're a reporter, I hear? A journalist?"
"That's exactly right. Astor Roth's the name. I'm with the Ridgeland Daily Telegraph. Straight from the shining city to your front door, wondering if any a' you gennelman would grant me a innerview. Half the country knows your song by now and all a' Mississippi heard you live with the governor on Friday, but that's about the most anybody knows about it. But let me be the first to tell you…" leaned in conspiratorially. "They'd sure like to know more. As long as you're willing, that is–I'd hate to impose."
"We'd be more than willing, Mr. Roth. We'd be delighted!" Everett swept Pete, and the door, to the side and beamed. "Lemme show you through here and we can get started straight away." Mr. Roth looked relieved around the eyes and cadaverous around the mouth.
"...May I come in, then?" he asked after a beat. At least Everett was better than the reporter, Pete thought with a rush of approval, at grinning all-the-way-up, but even Everett hesitated.
"Why, you have my express invitation!" he exclaimed warmly, all the same. Mr. Roth nodded graciously and stepped over the threshold.
"Gals," Everett announced, "We've got company! Xanthe, say good morning to Mr. Roth." He set her on her feet in passing, and pocketing her crayon. She looked mutely between them all. Her chin crumpled. "There's a good girl." Everett kissed her exuberantly and tossed the crayon upstairs. Xanthe scampered after it on all fours.
"You've already met Pete–this here's another associate of ours, Delmar O'Donnell. Delmar, Mr. Roth. We're gettin' interviewed for the paper."
"The paper?"
"The Ridgeland Daily Telegraph," said Mr. Roth.
"Oh, okay."
"Pete, why don't you fetch that pitcher a' Mrs. McGill's tea outta the icebox and–"
"...Mrs. McGill?"
"Yes, Delmar. I'll bring the glasses–go ahead and set the baby down."
"Mighty fine tea," said Mr. Roth. He was settled blissfully in Penny's mother's aunt's wicker slider, spats on the settee and a glass in hand fairly glittering with sugar.
"You bet! Can't beat it. Now, Mr. Roth, I don't mean to presume, but what sort of a feature did you have in mind? You lookin' for biographical details? We'd be happy to expound on recent experience more specifically, if you'd prefer, of course." The boys sat hip to hip in Penny's mother's aunt's wicker loveseat, Pete to the right and Everett to the left and Delmar in the middle. Other arrangements made their skin crawl. They were all models of good posture.
"Biographical!" Mr. Roth mused, smiling cherubically. "What a fine idea."
"Stellar! Well, I was born, one fine April day, all the way up in Danville. Mother and Dad had moved often. See, my father was a renowned, though widely unrecognized, sensation of the dramatic stage. Mother–"
"Thought your old man was in Vaudeville," said Pete.
"That's what I said. That was after he'd been a preacher–before my time. Made our way coast to coast four times by rail 'fore he landed a job here in Ithaca. Schoolteacher, grades six n' seven. As I meant to say, Mother was a piano teacher. Guess you could say that's where I got my start, musically. What about you, Delmar? Where'd you learn to sing?"
"I...don't rightly know." Delmar glanced around and smiled at Mr. Roth. Mr. Roth smiled back.
"Say!" said Everett brightly, after a long pause. "Your Momma played the five-string, didn't she?"
"Sure...I done too, a little. Since I been 'round...thirteen, I should think."
"You musta sung then."
"Shouldn't think it'd be the first time I done, though..."
"It's close enough. Certainly vital to your, uh, musical development. Pete here knows a thing or two, as well, from the time of his youth, that has influenced us terrifically as a group." Pete looked panicked. "Ain't that right, Pete!"
"Uh–"
"Picks a fine guitar, and a fine tenor to boot. When you start out, Pete?"
"I learned the guitar in...the last, uh, last few years. Ain't much good, though. It's Tommy as plays on the record."
"Tommy Johnson!" Delmar reiterated.
"Yessir, that's Tommy Johnson, young fella up North a' here a bit, finest bluesman ever picked steel. Didn't happen to've joined us for breakfast this morning, else you could hear him in the flesh. And that's all the boys, right there."
"And I'm from Bayou la Batre," said Pete. He gave Everett a dark glance. "Born January twelve 19-3. Delmar's from up Sunflower County way." Delmar nodded helpfully. "I forget his birthday."
"Third August."
"Oh, yeah."
"Anyhow, we been singing together, oh...a year?"
"'Bout a year."
"How'd you three happen to meet?"
"Well. Uh. Pete here–"
"We was on the chain gang together," said Delmar. "Pete and myself knowed each other some time before Everett was sent up." Astor Roth looked eager.
"Everett?"
"That's Everett," Delmar said, pointing at Everett.
"That there's my middle name, Mr. Roth, rolls off the tongue a mite easier in pleasant conversation than Ulysses, you know. That was my mother's maiden name, you see–a fine appellation for a fine lady–"
"So it's true," said Astor Roth. "Y'all really did escape off the farm."
Pete grit his teeth. Everett sighed through his.
"Technically yes, sir," he said. "But as you may have gathered from the radio feature, we've all three been pardoned by the governor hisself."
"Oh, certainly, certainly, it's all behind you now."
"That's right."
"And Tommy weren't never in jail to begin with," said Delmar.
"After all, I can see clear enough just talking to you gennelmen it wasn't any heinous crime landed y'all up in iron fetters." Everett scoffed and shook his head.
"Why, Mr. Roth...the very idea's just three feet short of an insult. No, we're all set to settle down, maybe cut a few more records, find a little peace in this world. Oh, that reminds me, Mr. Roth, me an' my wife, well, since I made it back whole we figured on reaffirming our vows, so-to-speak, this coming Saturday, and I'd be delighted to extend an invitation to you and any other members of the press."
"Oh my God," said Pete.
"Thank you kindly, Mr. McGill. Why, it'd be my pleasure–no offense, then, I'm sure?"
"Of course not, Mr. Roth, of course not. We've got nothin' to hide, have we, boys?" Delmar nodded. Pete didn't move. Astor Roth smiled for a long time, so still the room got eerie, and then got abruptly to his feet.
"I thank you gennelmen very kindly for inviting me in. I shan't intrude any longer. Best of luck in all y'all's endeavors. I'm looking forward to sending this feature out your way, I can only pray it does y'all justice–" He was hurrying, all the while, towards the door. Bewildered, Everett, Pete, and Delmar followed suit.
When they made it out to the porch, there was no sign of him.
It was a noisy morning, riotous, in a green and insect way. They blinked.
"I sure hope we was a help to him," said Delmar.
"I sure hope he was a help to us," said Everett.
"I sure hope he don't try to help us no more," said Pete.
The hounddog was back.
Tommy thought he'd seen it at the edge of the woods when he went out to draw water before breakfast, but really he'd only been sure of movement. Now it snuffled back and forth, with its baleful eyes, with its eyelids like they'd turned inside-out and melted, just on the line where the grass met the trodden dust before the steps. The steps where he sat. His guitar was on his knee, but he felt too cold to play it. The laundry lines fluttered, and the bottles chimed together on Jackie Gordon's tree. They made the air itself sound fragile.
"Why don't you leave me be?" Tommy said at length. Whatever breeze was sounding off those bottles wasn't reaching him. The hounddog moaned and cocked its head. "You heard me." His hands were heavy.
But when he finally got them to jump to, they played on their own accord. Something dense and loud and jubilant. Tommy's mind was a blank. He heard it all, but he didn't particularly consider it. The dog didn't bolt. It paced. It still had its leash.
"Git," said Tommy, but he couldn't hear himself.
This was new. He didn't know the song. He watched his hands from some great distance. He couldn't feel his tongue.
"Git!" he yelled. "Git, you mean ol–oh, gaw." Tommy wrinkled his nose, and muted the strings. The dog was gagging, loud as a horse, if a horse had a gag reflex. Once, twice, before it vomited a fantastic quantity of what looked like mud.
"As if you weren't foul enough," said Tommy, but it was already gone.