“We were there once. With our other daughter. Be mindful. These are dangerous times for prayer.”
Carmencita looked at the strings.
“May I ask your name?” she said. “Even if it does not matter?”
“He is known as El Pelé,” the wife said.
Carmencita walked into the mist. A minute later, she turned, but they were gone.
On her way home, Carmencita put the strings inside a small purse, planning to give them to El Maestro upon the birth of their child. That night, during the storm, she had the purse with her in the cathedral where she went to light a candle not only for the baby, but for the gypsy family she had met that morning. She said her prayers, fell over in pain, dropped the purse, and never saw it again. Never saw the rack of candles overturned by the raiders. Never saw the fire from her lighted prayer candles join the larger fire, consuming everything in its path.
The next day, when police in Villareal searched through the ruins, they found the charred remains of Carmencita’s badly burned corpse. The raiders, having assumed she was a nun—due to the tunic that draped her—had desecrated her body. It was too gruesome to identify, and her bones were quickly buried in an unmarked grave.
Two days later, a teenage boy was scavenging through the wreckage; he found a small purse, which had inexplicably survived the flames. Inside was an identification card. The boy returned the purse to the listed address, handing it to the person who answered the door.
A tall, blind man named Carlos Andres Presto.
Better known as El Maestro.
He grabbed the purse and stumbled to a chair. He realized what this meant—why his wife had not returned in three days. He spilled the contents on the wooden table. He felt a coiled object.
“What is this?” he asked the boy.
“It looks like strings.”
“For the guitar?”
“Yes.”
El Maestro bit his lip.
“Leave me alone. Now!”
The boy left quickly.
Holding the undelivered gift, his wife’s final kindness, El Maestro broke down. He wept until nightfall, never leaving the chair. Then he put everything back inside the purse and hid it in a closet. Those strings, with the “lives” inside them, remained unused for years, just as the story of a stranger’s kindness remained untold.
Weeks later, the man known as “El Pelé” rushed to help a priest who was being beaten by Republic soldiers. He was arrested and ordered to surrender his rosary. When he refused, a firing squad shot him. The killers saw his body crumple, but they did not see something else: the rosary, at the moment of his death, turning a burning shade of blue.
Decades later, El Pelé would be canonized by the Catholic Church as its first gypsy saint. People still speak about his courage, his humility, and, of course, that rosary.
No one mentions the strings he gave away.
They would tell a story of their own.
27
1969
* * *
THE WOMAN IN THE VAN WAS KISSING HER WAY UP FRANKIE’S NECK. He felt so heavy, he couldn’t move. He gazed down the side of her body, the orange cotton top; the denim shorts; the tan legs; and the painted toenails, red, black, purple.
“No blue,” he mumbled.
“Hmm?”
“You don’t have blue.”
“Blue toenails? You’re funny.”
“Am I blue . . . ,” Frankie half-sang.
“I know who you are.”
“Hmm?”
She kissed him some more.
“You’re the singer—”
“My wife is waiting—”
“Frankie Presto.”
“Breakfast—”
“Are you really gonna play onstage?”
“I have to cook these eggs.”
“You didn’t finish the story. After you ran away.”
“I played my guitar.”
“You were just a kid.”
“I was good.”
“How good?”
“I saved her life.”
“Who?”
“Aurora.”
“Who’s Aurora?”
Frankie’s eyes went glassy.
“Keep singing to me . . .” the woman said.
But Frankie’s jumbled thoughts were on the blue strings and Aurora York and where he left her, pregnant, sleeping on a blanket. He knew he had to get back, he didn’t want to disappoint her, to be irresponsible, as he’d been so many nights before.
“I have to go—” he suddenly said.
He pushed up so quickly that the woman slid off him, thudding to the floor. He grabbed his things and stumbled out the sliding doors, which growled like lions as he pulled them apart.
“Hey, what the hell?” she yelled after him.
28
1951
* * *
“WHAT THE HELL?” A MAN SCREAMED, OPENING HIS CAR TRUNK. His name was Hampton Belgrave, and he was staring at a teenaged Frankie curled around his dog.
“I can explain,” Frankie said, blinking.
“You ’bout give me a heart attack!”
“Is this Tennessee?”
“Is this my car?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then I ask the questions!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“Frankie, sir.”
“Frankie who?”
“Presto, sir.”
“Whose dog is that?”
“Mine, sir.”
“Why you in my trunk?”
“Marcus Belgrave, sir.”
“My cousin Marcus?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The musician Marcus?”
“Yes, sir.”
“He put you in this trunk?”
“No, sir.”
“Then why you in it?”
“To get to Tennessee, sir.”
“Whynchu take a train?”
“Can’t afford it.”
“Take a bus, then.”
“Can’t afford that, either.”
“So you hide in my trunk?”
“Yes, sir.”
“With a damn dog?”
“Sorry, sir.”
“How long you been in there?”
“Since Detroit, sir.”
“I left Detroit yesterday!”
“Yes, sir.”
“You ain’t eat since then?”
“No, sir.”
“Ain’t drink since then?”
“No, sir.”
“Ain’t pee since then?”
“No, sir.”
“You think I give a damn?”
“No, sir?”
“Damn right, I don’t! You a stowaway—”
“No, sir—”
“—want to go to Tennessee.”
“Yes, sir—”
“You best not peed in my trunk, boy.”
“No, sir.”
“That dog best not peed, neither!”
“No, sir—”
“How you know where I’m going?”
“Are we there, sir?”
“I ain’t said where we are. But I got me a gun in my glove compartment—”
“Marcus told me, sir!”
“How did Marcus know?”
“You’re his cousin! Your name is Hampton! You told him you were driving back to Tennessee!”
“Why would Marcus tell you that?”
“I work for him.”
“White boy work for Marcus? Come on now. What you do?”
“I play music.”
“Tell the truth.”
“In his band.”
“You play with Marcus?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You just a kid!”
“I’m about fifteen, sir.”
“About?”
“Don’t know for sure, sir.”
“What you play?”
“Guitar. It’s right here, sir.”
“Wait a minute . . .”
“You see?”
“Take that hat off!”
“Why—”
“You that boy! The one who play so fast!”
“Yes, sir.”
“I was there! I saw that! You done hypnotized the man with the knife!”
“Yes, sir—”
“You the devil!”
“No, sir!”
“In my trunk!”
“Please—”
“The devil in my trunk!”
“No—”
“With his devil dog!”
“I just play—”
“No earthly man play like that—”
“She was in trouble, sir—”
“What you want with me, devil?”
“I’m not the devil!”
“Swear it!”
“I swear it!”
“Swear to Jesus!”
“I swear to Jesus!”
“Why you here, then, boy?”
“Where?”
“Tennessee.”
“We’re here?”
“Dammit, don’t fool me!”
“The girl, sir.”
“What girl?”
“The girl with that man.”
“The one almost have her throat slit?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What about her?”
“She lives here.”
“Says who?”
“The man.”
“With the knife?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So what?”
“I know her.”
“That girl?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You know that girl?”
“Her name’s Aurora.”
“Aurora.”
“I think.”
“You think?”
“It’s been a while.”
“How long?”
“We were kids.”
“Oh, Lord—”
“In another country—”
“Get out.”
“Really, sir?”
“You ain’t no devil.”
“No, sir—”
“Just a fool.”
“No, sir—”
“The worst kind—”
“No, sir—”
“A fool in love.”
“No, sir, I—”
“Get in them woods and pee. The damn dog, too. Then go sit up front. We’ll drive into town, find you somethin’ to eat.”
“Thank you, sir. Thank you so much.”
“What you thankin’ me for, boy? You just rode two days in the trunk of a car—for a girl.”
He snickered. “You’d be better off if you’s the devil.”
29
1952
* * *
A BIT OF CATCH-UP NOW (OR AN “ANACRUSIS,” THE NOTES that run up to the first downbeat of a song, like the “happy” in “Happy Birthday”).
Frankie ran away from the orphanage after reuniting with the hairless dog. In the months that followed, he found work in the Black Bottom section of Detroit, where, despite his age, he played nightly shows with jazz groups in exchange for plates of food for himself and the dog, and a mattress in the club basements. It was there he befriended the trumpeter Marcus Belgrave, sat in with his quartet, and, one night, saved the life of a young blond girl by distracting her attacker with his astonishing guitar speed.
And, although she looked much older now, Frankie believed this blonde was Aurora York, the girl in the tree. The man with the knife had confessed that he’d just met her and said that she was visiting from Tennessee. Which is why Frankie stowed away in a car headed south.
Next thing he knew, he was sleeping on the couch of Hampton Belgrave, Marcus’s cousin.
Everyone joins a band in this life.
Some are by accident.
Six months after that ride in the trunk, Frankie had secured his first solo engagement, in hopes of drawing Aurora to him: singing in front of a Nashville automobile dealership.
Cars, cars, cars,
We’ve got cars, cars, cars . . .
The owner, Mr. Rutland Vines, of Vines Fine Cadillacs, was a baldheaded, double-chinned businessman who liked to hook his fingers around his suspenders. He had hired Frankie (in hopes of luring buyers) at the urging of his mechanic, Hampton Belgrave (who had inadvertently transported the boy to Tennessee).
“My Cadillacs ain’t no different from the Cadillacs over at Shimey Motors,” Rutland said. “Only difference, I reckon, is the customer experience I give ’em, y’understand?”
Frankie hadn’t really understood. But Hampton said the man would pay him and Frankie understood that part.
“Just do the good churchy music, some gospel, like Red Foley, but also that hillbilly boogie like Tennessee Ernie Ford and maybe some honky-tonk, too,” Rutland instructed. “Keep ’em happy. Ya got it?”
Frankie nodded.
“And you need to dress right. Get yourself a nice tie. And pomade that hair. You got too much of it popping up. Ya hear me?”
That evening, back at Hampton’s house, Frankie planted himself by the radio while Hampton cooked a stew of pork, corn, and onions. The two had been staying together for months, after Hampton phoned his cousin Marcus and Marcus confirmed that Frankie was not, in any way, the devil.
Hampton was a squat man with a short neck and thick elbows, fond of sweet cake, bowler caps, and the blues. He always dreamed of making music, even though, for a living, he fixed automobiles. He played a little harmonica (he took a small amount of me at birth) and at night he put on records as Frankie strummed along.
“You got good ears, boy,” he told Frankie. “You hear it, you play it.”
That evening, Frankie turned the radio dial from one station to another, teaching himself a fast country repertoire. Much of the music the announcers called “honky-tonk” or “hillbilly” was simple enough, three or four chords, pick the bass note, strum. But the singers weren’t easy to imitate, they warbled or drew out the words in a southern accent. Still, Frankie liked this music, because it told stories of heartbreak and love and drunkenness. Also, it was much easier to play than the twelve études of Heitor Villa-Lobos that El Maestro used to put him through.
“Yodel-ley-ee-hee-ho,” Frankie sang, trying to mimic a yodeling sound in a song called “Chime Bells” by Elton Britt. “Yodel-ley-ee-hee-h—”
Hampton rushed in carrying a large soup spoon and snapped off the radio.
“Quit that! You about to drive me crazy!” He shook his head. “Get dressed, boy. I’m gonna take you someplace and show you some real music.”
The hairless dog rose to its feet.
“Can’t take no dogs,” Hampton said.
The dog sat back down.
“Yodeling,” Hampton grumbled. “Lawd help this world.”
That night, Hampton walked Frankie through the streets of Nashville. They passed a redbrick building called the Ryman Auditorium. “That’s where they do the Grand Ole Opry show,” Hampton said. “It’s on the radio clear around the country. That place make you about as famous as you can get.”
“Can I play there?” Frankie asked.
“I reckon you could, once people see how fast you is.”
Hampton rubbed his chin.
“That something you want to do?”
“Sure.”<
br />
“All right then. Maybe you will.”
He walked Frankie to Printer’s Alley, an area of nightclubs that featured country music. When the doors opened they heard fiddles mixing with guitars and upright basses.
“You catchin’ that sound?” Hampton asked.
“Can we go in?”
“You can. Colored clubs is up the block a’ways.”
Frankie didn’t fully understand the “colored” rule Hampton often spoke about. But he knew it was unfair. He wasn’t even from America, and he could enter places Hampton could not.
“Let’s go to those other clubs, then,” Frankie said.
Hampton smiled. “Awright, boy. But you can’t be playing none of the music you hear up there at the car lot. Rutland will throw you out on your rump.”
That night, Hampton took Frankie up and down Jefferson Street, to places called Club Baron, the Del Morocco, Maceo’s, Sugar Hill, and Pee Wee’s. The boy’s eyes bulged at the music he heard, rambling guitars and basses, growling singing, piano players who seemed to be running and walking their fingers at the same time. There was laughing and wailing and people rising from their seats and swinging their hips or yelling, “Go, go, go!” Frankie loved it. It felt as if the music and the crowd were all on the same stage. Even Hampton, wearing his bowler cap, went out and danced awhile, coming back sweaty and waving his hand like a fan.
“Well, now, Hampton, who’s this boy?” asked a man who wandered over holding a drink. “You find yo’self a white son?”
Hampton laughed. “Petey, this boy can play a rope around most pickers in this city. I’m fixin’ to manage him. Get him into the Opry.”
“Manage him?”
“That’s right.”
“You a car mechanic.”
“For now.”
“You know music?”
“I know enough.”
“When you gonna start managing him?”
“Once he find what he’s looking for.”
“What he looking for?”
“What all boys his age looking for?”
They exploded in laughter. Frankie felt himself blushing.
Of course, Frankie had not forgotten the reason he’d come to Nashville: to find Aurora York. He was sure she was the girl in that Detroit nightclub. But he had no idea this city would be so big. The world, to Frankie, just kept getting larger, and everyone in it was getting harder to find.