Spoiler! :
313
Brazilian rosewood, back and sides, Hard-Maple top unfinished. Clock ticked twelve, too late to be in the workshop. He took the curved body carefully under his arm and set it down to rest.
Upstairs, the fridge opened with a gasp, hurling a stake of light across the hard wood, which moaned in the usual spots under bare feet. He eased himself into the hammock; in the moonlight, it cast a great spider web over the cedar deck. The breeze gently rocked him, bringing winter’s timbre down from the Southern Alps as he took in a mouthful of stout. The bottle was placed on the deck and he took his ole girl, thumbing over the strings. He plucked and twanged, then sipped and thought, humming a tune on misty breath. And so on.
Sometimes he slept out there. Tonight, however he still had the energy to creep to bed and before he fell, he eyed the old cotton sheets, peach like a mother’s bosom. With a sigh and red eyes he went.
***
The afternoon came. He sat, looking strange, thick hard jaw, glasses pinched at the end of his nose, which bent to the side under years of rugby boots and late match fists. The varnish steeped into the hardtop body. He drew the brush to the edge in lethargic strokes, admiring the swan neck, the nickel tuners. He lit a joint and sat back with hands on head, watching it all dry. An hour moved by, and not once did his dopey red eyes falter. The dark slick tempered, leaving a grainy matte. He opened a set of strings and threaded them against the wood, into the tuners. It was perfect, his masterpiece. His name in inky strokes.
Daniel Mora
No. 313
For Ace Brown
It was ready. No. 313
For Ace Brown
Hands gently coddling its throat and body, he moved first to the fridge then to the deck. Rocking in the cindering light - the seconds before the pins began to prick the sky’s fibre - he swallowed bitter stout and plucked hard strings. The same chords echoed, cleaner and tighter. Then with the nuanced frailty of a newborn into its mother’s arms, the guitar went into its satin keep.
***
“Ace, you old cat.”
“Mora, that you?” his voice came down the line hoarse, “Tell me it’s ready,”
“Just warmed her up for you,” he teased.
“You keep those hands off her, I want to be the first,” he said, then laughed until he coughed. “So I have an issue, Mora, I’m heading to Aus next Thursday for a tour and Julie wants me to spend some time with Willow before I go.”
“You know the rules Ace,” he said, thinking he suddenly sounded like a cop. “I’ve practically come out of retirement for this.”
“You know I have makers lining up to-“
“-Don’t start with all that, I’ve made the damn thing now. The price is the same, eleven in cash and a show, always the same, Ace.”
“Alright, alright, I’ll get a car at the airport. You know Julie’s going to hate you, right?”
“I will always be her number one, Ace,” he said, and he could almost hear him smile, “We will take the dogs for a walk and if we get a pig, you can take home a leg.”
***
He hadn’t seen much of Ace since the eighties, he couldn't figure why. Even then, it was fleeting, money swapping hands a private recital then he was gone. He used to bring Julie too - Mora had known Julie longer than Ace - but that all stopped. In their teen years, Mora played rugby and chased girls and Ace would tag along; they raced the old Fairmont and even had a band. Mora had never taken him hunting, though.
The dogs howled and yapped at a red late-model Prius that preceded a billowing spray of stone and dust, disposable morality. From the deck, he watched the car halt, then out stepped Ace’s lean frame, handling a duffel bag, moving toward the door. Three firm knocks.
“Ace, its open, come on up,” he called over the deck’s eave. The door opened into the foyer and cowboy boots clapped on each step, up the helix.
He reached the top and his black brows moved high, pressing the curved creases higher. He turned side on, feet together, arms drawn wide and fingers spread.
“Guess who’s back?”
Mora’s smile came like a cracked eggshell. They caught each other’s grip with a pop and shoulders meet, hands on backs.
“Been too long.”
“Sure has.”
“So,” He began casting about the open space of the living room and kitchen, “Where is she?”
Mora jerked his head toward the deck. Sleek in the morning glow it sat. Ace heaved out an exaggerated breath, eyes lazily rolling back.
“You are a genius,” he said making sure to separate each word with a drawn breath. He picked it up with the same newborn attention and ran his fingers across the strings, studying it. “Wow, here she is, a masterpiece. Thanks for this Mora, and on such short notice.”
Without invitation, he claimed the hammocks reserve, eyes wrapped in dark glass, fingers lewd with silver and gold. His hand contorted, like a spider’s stuttering dance about the fret board, and with the other, he caressed the strings, plucking each at a time, a solo as entrée. Then he pulled himself from the hammock taking the duffel bag under arm.
“Where should I dump this?”
“Here, I will put it in the loft. I have made a bed up. I hope you’ve got a coat and leggings in here, you northerners can’t handle a stiff southerly, and the bush ain’t no place for shorts.”
Mora lead Ace, the grand tour, he had called it. When they found themselves back on the deck, he turned to him.
“Shall we take the dogs out then?”
“For a hunt, you mean?”
“What else, might as well make the most of it, you probably won’t be back for another couple of years.”
“Alright, come on then.” Ace said reluctantly.
They put the rifles across the back seat and tossed the dogs in the wood-framed looped-wire kennels mounted on the back. Loosely garbed, Ace sat. His skinny arms, with a faded sailor’s anchor and gun toting girls, sprouted from polar fleece. And, his legs wrapped in Mora’s old black denim that cut away by the heel, worn to the thread.
One stretch of gravel lead to another, then turning through a gate, they headed along a narrow track, trimmed with reaching blackberry and spiral-pronged ponga trees. It was all too familiar for Mora, who slid through narrow bends and leaned on the horn as he approached crests.
“Just like rally, eh?” Ace said a little uneasy, gripping the dash.
“Know the road like the back of my hand, is all.”
He was here in the bush thirty years ago, screaming and laughing, proudly leaping about the knees of his father who shouldered a bore. He didn’t take the dogs out enough these days, he thought.
“Shit!” The wheels stopped. A dark mass of wiry black hair and brute rumbled alongside the truck for a second then back into the bush. The truck scathed the gravel in a spray of grit and dust.
“Quick, get the gun!” Ace’s eyes moved about wildly in their sockets. “Come on!” Mora called, over the din of hungry dogs leaping from the tailgate. With the base of his tongue and the roof of his mouth, Mora kiss’t and pshh’t the dogs into a frenzy.
“Where is it, Tama? Where is it?” They yelped and sprung about for the next clue. Mora opened a patch of bush with his leg and pointed. “Where is it?” The dogs vanished into the leafy abyss, the crunch of broken twigs and desperate yelps receding. Ace stood, struck silly, like a child after a thunderclap. His eyes panic-white, and his hands shaking around the wooden handle of the rifle. Mora parked the truck a little further, where the bush relinquished some earth as a parking space.
“Well, come on then.” His arms, taut and long, took a .408 rifle from the trucks wooden deck then he slung it over his shoulder like a guitar. He ducked into the bush and with clumsy footfalls and nervous eyes, Ace followed.
They stood, beyond a gentle stream, in the combs of infant ponga – ponga silently unraveling limbs, clutching at the sun. Mora, like his absent hounds do, stood high, expectant of a distant rustle. It wouldn’t come so they pressed on.
It was another half hour trekking; they were so deep, the light barely pierced the native canopy. That’s when the din started towards them, the rustling at first, then hooves like mud falling on a coffin, and finally the dogs yelps. A mugging of snarling jaws and ivory tusk hurtled over a steep towards the two.
“She’s a big bastard.”
Mora pressed Ace’s aimed barrel to the dirt.
“Wait! The dogs will work it, don’t shoot.”
Two dogs tagged the boar; jaws locked its loose fleshy neck. It jerked and hopped, kicking and snorting. The other dogs arrived over the steep, one dripping, head doused in red. The four dogs bailed it, snapping and barking, circling like swindlers. The black beast hurt, blood started from its neck, its shins were bone, its back and underside blotted with mud. One suede-button eye cast about, washed with desperation. The other blinked like a stutter against the lapping blood.
Mora put a fold of steel to his lips, his cheeks expanded and the dogs contracted in uniform, razor grins tearing through the boar. Mora put the whistle back to his lips, this time the dog’s ears sharpened to a point. Then they fell back, leaving the boar laboured and beat.
“So, Rockstar, you can use that cannon now?” The boar sucked breaths, and stumbled to its hooves. Then its legs folded with a smack, one shin breaking like crisp timber.
Ace held the gun as if he was hanging from it, fingers white and trembling. He found the boar, its dying eyes, tusks bloody, all set in the scope.
Mora watched the hapless boar. An easy shot, even for a first timer. Ace squeezed, but the sight had moved inches above the boar. It was dead, but not by his hand.
“Did you hit?” Mora moved forward intently, he unclipped the case on his belt and waved a blade, curved steel and bone-gripped. He took a knuckle of fur and he jerked the head back. Mora forced the blade in and turned it out, like a shovel through a root. The blood fell.
He rolled the boar onto its back and rubbed its belly, dusting away the mud. He pulled a piece of skin like a zipper and drew across it the blade, peeling. With the nuanced precision of a surgeon’s scalpel, he worked from the base of the sternum to the belly. Hands moving about inside, blade swishing, detaching organs from carapace. The carcass rolled back over and he lifted it again, this time it all came out. It fell in colours Ace hadn’t imagined, earth tones, a blend of pink, green and white in a whirl of organs and viscera.
He kicked up earth. Burying the waste of organs. Ace watched on, through the folds, still wearing a little boy expression. From a pouch on Mora’s belt came a ball of twine. He strapped the feet.
“Here Ace,” He called.
“I ain’t touching that, Mora, she’s all yours,” he said, stepping back, palms bore.
“Come on you girl’s blouse.” Ace edged closer arms folded. Mora took the boar in a hug and propped it across Ace’s shoulders, who slipped under the weight then set his feet again. “Your first pig,” Mora said, gleaming, all mouth and chin. The silent whistle hailed the dogs, who moved between their heels.
***
Ace was in the shower for a long time. Long enough for the pig to be hung and stripped, meat wrapped and in the freezer. The shinbones crunched and gnawed in the cages. Mora quickly rinsed off the afternoons filth in the piss cold water left in the cylinder. By the time he was dry and dressed, Ace was uncorking 12-year-old scotch.
“I brought you a treat,” he said, dropping a few cubes of ice and pouring two fingers.
“You shouldn’t have Ace,” he said, breathing in a mouthful, “So when’s the show?”
Ace pulled a wooden chair outside, the hammock seating for the audience. He took the masterpiece and the scotch and began. He plucked and sung. His voice, at first rolling like molasses from the tongue, then as the strumming grew loud and his foot tapped, his throat hurled grit and dust.
For his place in the hammock, some would pay thousands. He hadn’t heard these songs like this. He had heard them come with a bray of static over the tinny radio in the truck.
Ace closed his eyes, deep lines cut through his cheeks and across his forehead. His heavy hair like rain clouds, uncouth, rebuffing decades of combs.
They continued to drink, Mora rocked in the hammock, one hand patting his knee, swigging whiskey with the other. He didn’t feel drunk but the whiskey was under the label, and the sun’s last gasp creased the mountains. Ace’s arms loosened. He leisurely threw his fingers about the guitar and Mora watched on, eyes lazy, half-closed.
The last chord seemed to resonate at the base of Mora’s throat. Then he opened his eyes and smiled. Ace had warned it was the last one and it was probably time Mora fixed some dinner. He threw a knuckle of pork into a pot with heaped watercress and they sat about drinking.
“So, how have you been?” Ace began, laying the guitar away.
“What? Since she left I have been beautiful Ace, magnificent.” His words inflected irregularly and his lids hid half his pupils like sunset.
“Oh I didn’t mean that Mora, I mean how you been?” he said carefully. “Oh never mind,” he said swigging another snatch of warm whiskey. The ice had all gone so they drank it neat. Mora stood and began rifling through a drawer in the kitchen; he found it, a clear zip lock bag. He took it and chopped the pungent green mix through a bowl of tobacco, rolled it into paper and lit it. It moved between them, sucked and passed in near silence.
“Why don’t you come to Aus, come on the tour?”
“I don’t have time for that Ace.”
“You have plenty of time. I will sort you flights and accommodation with us. It will be good for you.”
“I’m not obsessed with being a rock star, Ace.” He said and he didn’t need to add like you, Ace heard it. He rolled his head back, pushed his bottom lip out and let two lungs of smoke spill over his face.
The boiling mess permeated the joint’s pungent flavour. They found bowls and downed the soupy mix of pork bones and watercress. Ace returned for another bowl and a third.
Mora just sat eyes washed, face a mossy stonewall.
“One more track Ace,” he demanded, “my ole favourite, For Julie.”
Ace’s red eyes narrowed to a glare, Mora was too stoned to notice. He started slowly, picking a long lustful intro. Mora eyed the guitar with the sappy wide mouthed attention of a boy in love. Ace had gold strewn from his neck, and tight clothes that might have suited a twenty-year-old version of Ace. The sound ascended in an orgasm. Peaking then suddenly ending and Mora beat his hands together with slack wrists, still shaking his head side to side with eyes shut.
“le’me see that thing, Ace.” Mora stood, rocking from one foot to the other, across the lounge.
“Careful Mora, you’re drunk.”
“Jus’ gimme the damn thing.” Mora reached across Ace, who held the guitar by the throat, away from his snatching hands.
“Stop, Mora.”
“You still haven’t paid; it’s mine until you pay.” Mora reached across taking a fast grip of the hole. They pulled, each gripping the guitar.
“Let it go,” Ace said through his teeth. Sweat started on Mora’s brow, he pulled using his elbow levered against Ace’s chest. His lips drew back from his yellow teeth in a snarl. The Guitar was groaning under the stress.
“It’s mine.”
“Let go Mora, for-fucks-sake, use one of the others.” Mora turned his hip against the fret board, and they both tugged hard. In that nature, the matter was decided.
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