Molasses Cookies and the Third Time the Rooster Crows

instrumental conversations, pt. II

Flat black eyes looked up from over Ian’s hollow-body. Six weeks had passed since the Transverse Music Festival, and Ian had gotten as slow and dark as molasses. I sat down on the bar stool, tracing the white carvings in the black wood with my finger. The stool rocked on its spindly legs.

Ian looked at me from over his hollow-body. A shield. I shrugged. Ian had called me here, and Ian would start the conversation.

The clock- made out of a tire, with oversized hands- ticked heavily. The curtains were closed. I got up and opened them. I went and sat back down, and Ian got up and closed them again.

There was nothing really to do. Ian started playing the song- The Chameleon Glare of Turning Hearts- from the Transverse show, and I got up and started making cookies.

I knew my recipe as well as Ian knew his song, and for ten minutes, our recall went on in perfect rhythm. I cracked an egg into my green mixing bowl while Ian experimented with the first bridge. I measured out molasses while Ian’s molasses eyes followed his fingers up the fretboard. I made little mounds of batter while Ian hummed along with the ending. I set the oven as the last notes rang out, and then I turned around and I could tell Ian was ready to talk.

“It’s been six weeks,” he said slowly. I looked down at my hands. I knew that already, Ian.
“So what do I do?”
“You’re asking me?” I was more surprised than angry, for now, but I could tell that I would be more angry than surprised before this was over. I brushed aside the flour on the counter and sat down.
“I guess not,” sighed Ian. “I wrote a new song. It’s called Peter Grieves. Can I play it for you?”

I knew before he started playing what it was going to say. That was how things were with Ian and me. I thought he was acting like molasses, so I made molasses cookies, pretending they weren’t carrying a message. Ian played the song, pretending it wasn’t talking to me, to give me the message he didn’t dare to speak.

Walks on the water of sparrows and thieves,
Gives up the standard, denies and grieves,
Flies you in through a slate-blue door
Falters and fades and falls cold on the floor.

I don’t think you’re reading the story the way it’s written
These battles and flights of birds are the resurrection..

Peter grieves and Jesus dies
A slave girl blinks her peacock eyes
“Hey, aren’t you one of Jesus’ guys?”
Well, mockingbirds’ mouths are built for lies.
Harsh as birth the rooster sings
Down falls the hawk with broken wings
The owl is sleeping when the wolf-dog springs
You’ve got me, I’ve got nothing.

Down in the streets there are fish and men,
Broken bread and fox’s den
Peter wakes up to a blackbird’s claws,
Over blood-rust cities a black crow caws.

Peter grieves and Jesus dies
Feathers fall down in covered eyes
Rips them open, ignores their cries
a raucous chorus of vows and tries.
I can tell you what daylight brings:
A cold dead air like diamond rings.
Peter fails that to which he clings
And you’ve got me, I’ve got nothing.

Asks without faith and gets quail like hell
Rises like a heron for show and tell
Lives and dies in a phoenix flame
With an upside-down cross to remember his name.

Peter grieves and Jesus dies
Money turns ash by the souls he buys
A new stream bursts and an old one dries
And a crippled pelican finally flies.
Dead birds don’t own fears or kings,
It’s the lives ones that the serpent stings
Peter grieves but Jesus lives,
and we’re red eagles on what he gives.

Ian finished on a D minor, hovered over it to let me get the full effect, and finally lowered his guitar. We watched each other for a while. Then I sighed my surrender.
“Okay, Ian,” I said. “This time you win.”

Ian got up, took off the brown cardigan I had been wondering about. It was too hot in Ian’s apartment for cardigans. Beat me to the oven when the buzzer went.

“Peter grieves...” I said musingly, and Ian made a sort of imaginary movement towards his shield of a guitar. The score still stood pretty even between us, after all.