“Downeast somewhere. Castine? Rockland?” He shook his head. “Don’t remember. I know she dropped out of college to get married, and her folks were pissed at her. Probably double pissed when she got divorced. I think she runs a restaurant, one of those lobster shack things, but don’t quote me. You guys had it bad, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” I said. “We sure did.”

He nodded. “Young love. Nothin on earth like it. Not sure I’d want to see her these days, because the old Soda Burger was steppin dynamite back then. Steppin nitro. Wasn’t she?”

“Yes,” I said, thinking of the ruined cabin next to Skytop. And the iron rod. How it glowed red when the lightning struck it. “Yes, she was.”

For a moment we said nothing, then he clapped me on the shoulder. “Anyway, what do you think? Gonna gig with us? You better say yes, because the band’s gonna be fuckin lame if you say no.”

“You’re in the band? The Castle Rock All-Stars? Kenny too?”

“Sure. We don’t play much anymore—not like the old days—but no way we could turn this one down.”

“Did my brother Terry put you up to this?”

“He might’ve thought you’d come up for a tune or two, but no. He just wanted a band from the old days, and me and Kenny are about the only ones from back then who are still alive, still hanging around this shit-all neck of the woods, and still playing. Our rhythm guy’s a carpenter from Lisbon Falls, and last Wednesday he fell off a roof and broke both legs.”

“Ouch,” I said.

“His ouch is my gain,” Norm Irving said. “We were gonna play as a trio, which, as you know, sucks the bird. Three out of four Chrome Roses ain’t bad, considering we played our last gig at the PAL hop up-the-city over thirty-five years ago. So come on. Reunion tour, and all that.”

“Norm, I don’t have a guitar.”

“I got three in the truck,” he said. “You can take your pick. Just remember, we still start with ‘Hang On Sloopy.’”

 • • •

We trooped onstage to enthusiastic, alcohol-fueled applause. Kenny Laughlin, as thin as ever but now sporting several less than lovely moles on his face, looked up from adjusting the strap on his Fender P-Bass and dapped me. I wasn’t nervous, as I had been the first time I stood on this stage with a guitar in my hands, but I did feel as if I were having a particularly vivid dream.

Norm adjusted his mike one-handed, just as he always had, and addressed the audience waiting to bust a few of their old-time rock-and-roll moves. “It says Castle Rock All-Stars on the drumkit, folks, but tonight we’ve got a special guest on rhythm, and for the next couple of hours, we’re Chrome Roses again. Kick it in, Jamie.”

I thought of kissing Astrid under the fire escape. I thought of Norm’s rusty microbus and of his father, Cicero, sitting on the busted-down sofa in his old trailer, rolling dope in Zig-Zag papers and telling me if I wanted to get my license first crack out of the basket, I’d better cut my fucking hair. I thought of playing teen dances at the Auburn RolloDrome, and how we never stopped when the inevitable fights broke out between the kids from Edward Little and Lisbon High, or those from Lewiston High and St. Dom’s; we just turned it up louder. I thought of how life had been before I realized I was a frog in a pot.

I shouted: “One, two, you-know-what-to-do!”

We kicked it in.

Key of E.

All that shit starts in E.

 • • •

In the seventies, we might have played until one-o’clock curfew, but this was no longer the seventies, and by eleven o’clock we were dripping sweat and exhausted. That was okay; on Terry’s orders, the beer and wine had been whisked away at ten, and with no more firewater, the crowd thinned out fast. Most of those remaining had resumed their seats, content to listen but too exhausted to dance.

“You’re a hell of a lot better than you used to be, freshie,” Norm said as we racked our instruments.

“So are you.” Which was as much a lie as you look great. At fourteen I never would have believed the day would come when I’d be a better rock guitarist than Norman Irving, but that day had come. He gave me a smile to say he knew what was better left unspoken. Kenny joined us, and the three remaining members of Chrome Roses huddled in a hug we would have called “faggot stuff” when we were in high school.

Terry joined us, along with Terry Jr., his eldest son. My brother looked tired, but he also looked supremely happy. “Listen, Con and his friend took a bunch of folks who were too loaded to drive back to Castle Rock. Will you haul a bunch of Harlow folks in the King Cab, if I lend you Terry Jr. to copilot?”

I said I’d be happy to, and after a final so-long to Norm and Kenny (accompanied by those weird limp-fish handshakes peculiar to musicians), I gathered up my load of drunkies and set off. For awhile my nephew gave me instructions I hardly needed, even in the dark, but by the time I offloaded the last two or three couples out on Stackpole Road, he had ceased. I looked over and saw the kid was leaning against the passenger window, fast asleep. I woke him when we got back to the home place on Methodist Road. He kissed my cheek (which touched me more deeply than he could know), and stumbled into the house, where he would probably sleep until noon on Sunday, as adolescents are prone to do. I wondered if he would do so in my old room, and decided probably not; he’d be quartered in the new addition. Time changes everything, and maybe that’s okay.

I hung the King Cab’s keys on the rack in the hall, headed out to my rental car, and spied lights in the barn. I walked over, peeped in, and there was Terry. He had changed out of his party duds and into a coverall. His newest toy, a Chevy SS from the late sixties or early seventies, gleamed under the hanging lights like a blue jewel. He was Simonizing it.

He looked up when I came in. “Can’t sleep just yet. Too much excitement. I’ll buff on this baby for awhile, then toddle off to bed.”

I ran my hand up the hood. “It’s beautiful.”

“Now it is, but you should have seen it when I picked it up at auction down in Portsmouth. Looked like junk to most of the buyers there, but I thought I could bring it back.”

“Revive it,” I said. Not really talking to Terry.

He gave me a thoughtful look, then shrugged. “You could call it that, I guess, and once I drop a new tranny in er, it’ll be most of the way there. Not much like the old Road Rockets, is it?”

I laughed. “You remember when the first one went ass over teapot at the Speedway?”

Terry rolled his eyes. “First lap. Fucking Duane Robichaud. I think he got his license at Sears and Roebuck.”

“Is he still around?”

“Nah, dead ten years. Ten at least. Brain cancer. By the time they found it, poor bastard never had a chance.”

Suppose I were a neurosurgeon, Jacobs had said that day at The Latches. Suppose I told you your chances of dying were twenty-five percent. Wouldn’t you still go ahead?

“That’s tough.”

He nodded. “Remember what we used to say when we were kids? ‘What’s tough? Life. What’s Life? A magazine. How much does it cost? Fifteen cents. I only got a dime. That’s tough. What’s tough? Life.’ Around and around it went.”

“I remember. Back then we thought it was a joke.” I hesitated. “Do you think of Claire very much, Terry?”

He tossed his polishing rag into a bucket and went to the sink to wash his hands. There had been nothing but one faucet back in the day—just cold—but now there were two. He turned them on, grabbed a cake of Lava, and began to soap up. All the way to the elbows, just as Dad had taught us.

“Every damn day. I think of Andy, too, but less often. That was what you call the natural order of things, I guess, although he might have lived a little longer if he hadn’t been so fond of his knife and fork. What happened to Claire, though . . . that was just fucking wrong. You know?”