“How’s your paper coming, Lucas?”

“Good, I found something that feels like a breakthrough.”

I’m surprised to see Mr. Coleman outside the cafeteria on a Saturday morning. I’ve just had a quick breakfast with Sofía, before heading to the Northwest Folklife Festival in Seattle with Eric. One of the Folklife Festival organizers heard the Sea Slugs at the street fair last weekend and gave them a slot on the String Band Stage tomorrow morning. Eric, who joined the Slugs for the street fair gig, is also competing in a guitar contest at the Folklife Festival this afternoon. Walt and Sally drove up yesterday with Tracy and his new girlfriend, leaving Eric to take the Greyhound, and since Walt told me that the entire Northwest old-time music scene will be at the festival, I decided to tag along with Eric. I’m hoping to find some people to play tunes with, if only by following Walt and Sally around.

“That’s great. What have you found?”

“Well, I borrowed this record from Mr. Emerson called Anthology of American Folk Music, recordings from the 1920s and ’30s, country music, blues, folk ballads, gospel songs, and some fiddle tunes. But this one tune, ‘Sail Away Lady,’ stood out. It’s a pretty common tune, but the version was striking, with a consistent kind of syncopation I hadn’t heard before. The fiddler seemed to be dividing every two bars into groups of three beats, two beats, and three beats, but starting on the fourth beat of the measure, so the accents are four, one-two-three-four, one-two-three four, one-two-three-four, one-two-three, and all the phrases are accented in the same way.”

“Interesting. What are the other instruments doing, rhythmically?”

“It’s just one fiddler, Uncle Bunt Stephens, and he’s quite good. People say that old-time fiddle music comes from Scotland and Ireland, from immigrants who ended up in the southern Appalachian Mountains. But none of the Scottish- or Irish-sounding tunes we play at the square dance have a rhythm anything like that. I asked Liam about it—he’s been learning traditional Irish fiddling—and he says he hasn’t heard any accents like that in Irish music.”

“So, you think it might be African in origin?”

“Exactly. There’s also this weird fiddle tune called ‘Indian War Whoop’ that has phrases in groups of three and five, with a couple of guitars playing a fast 2/4 bum-ditty rhythm. So, you have these 3/4 and 5/4 phrases against 2/4, which makes them sound more like 6/4 and 10/4, I guess. The liner notes say it’s not Native American music, but more like the kind of music you hear in old westerns. It doesn’t sound like corny fake-Indian movie music to me, but it also doesn’t sound African.”

“So where do you think it comes from?”

“I have no idea, but again, it’s doesn’t sound Scots-Irish.”

“OK, so . . .”

“And then there’s a song, ‘Old Country Stomp,’ by a singer and guitar player named Henry Thomas, who’s black, I think. It sounds like it’s going to be some sort of blues, but the first words he sings are square dance calls: ‘Take your partners, promenade, promenade all around.’” And the guitar rhythm is close to old-time guitar rhythm.”

“So, you’re definitely finding some mixing of white and black music.”

“Yeah, and the fact that you have this black man singing square dance calls, which . . . why would he do that if he hadn’t played for square dances? . . . and these white fiddlers playing rhythms that definitely didn’t come from the British Isles, it made me think that maybe slaves could have played for dances in the South. They could have been playing tunes from the British Isles that their masters made them play, but then, maybe they evolved a way of playing with rhythms and phrasing that were more natural to them. And maybe after Emancipation, poor whites became the dance musicians in the South, but they were so used to the way slaves played the tunes, they kept playing them that way. Or something like that. It’s a wild guess, obviously.”

“Do you have anything to back this theory up, other than those particular tunes?”

“No, not at all.”

“That’s OK. Great discoveries have sprung from less.”

“I’ll keep digging around. But after I noticed that syncopated rhythm on ‘Sail Away Lady,’ I started hearing it on other things, though not as pronounced, like this fiddler Tommy Jarrell, who’s from North Carolina, I think. But I guess I’ll have to, I don’t know, try to find historical accounts or newspapers from the 1800s, to see if there’s any record of black square dance bands.”

“There are a few slave narratives you might check out. In Frederick Douglass’s autobiography he talks about a group of slaves walking up to their master’s house to receive their monthly allowance, singing as they went. He described them as ‘wild songs, revealing at once the highest joy and the deepest sadness.’ I always remember that. I don’t know if there’s much else about music in his writing, about slaves playing stringed instruments or for dances, but you should check it out.”

“I will.”

“Did you see this article in the Cooper Point Journal about the Vice President being in town?”

“What Vice President?” Eric says.

“Ford. The Vice President of the United States? He was at a fundraiser in Lacey for some congressman. There were protestors, seventy-five of them, and twenty-two policemen.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s a good story. Tell it again.”

The Greyhound passes the Nisqually exit and I search the Delta for a flash of white, though the great snowy owl I saw in December is probably hunting in the Alaskan tundra at this time of year. Eric is deep into a book, The Philosopher’s Stone, by the English writer Colin Wilson, but he humors my interruptions.

“Here’s another fascinating, action-packed story about Nixon speaking at the Spokane Expo,” I say, trying to adopt an ironic tone. “There’s nothing about Watergate, or the impeachment hearings, or anything political, but the reporter did find a good pizza joint in Ellensburg on his way home.”

“The CPJ is well-known for its groundbreaking journalism,” Eric says ironically, his eyes still on his book.

“Listen to this: ‘Outside the pavilion where Nixon addressed the crowd, a small coterie of poorly dressed hecklers and puerile protestors made noise. I suppose that some consider it necessary to produce a physical manifestation of dissatisfaction in order to maintain a facade of balance, so the news coverage can acknowledge it, so the public can be made aware. Personally, I find the manifestation of dissatisfaction distasteful and shabby. When something lacks esthetics, it lacks effectiveness.’ Jeez, who does this idiot think he is, Henry James?”

“Henry James wouldn’t have said ‘manifestation of dissatisfaction’ twice in one paragraph. Sounds like some sort of parody.”

“It’s more like a parody of the things the CPJ used to run, back at the beginning of the year. The Journal has been so boring lately, full of articles about internal Evergreen politics, but nothing outside the ’greener bubble. I heard there were rumors about Nixon resigning, but you wouldn’t know it from this rag.”

“You heard a rumor there was a rumor?”

“Pretty much sums up the kind of political news I’m privy to.”

“You know, my problem with politics is that to defend a political stance, you have to earnestly believe that what you’re saying is actually true,” Eric says, closing his book, “that there are no mitigating factors, or contradictions, or large numbers of situations in which what you believe is absolutely not true.

“For Americans, politics is like religion. People hold these beliefs, cling to their inherited ideologies, and just accept whatever they’re told. The one thing about religion I can understand, though, is that we’re all just trying to figure out what the hell is going on, why we’re here on this particular orb, what the universe is all about, how we should live in the world. For some reason, humans were given this whole consciousness thing, the awareness of ourselves as individual beings with finite lives. Which makes us aware that we are going to die. Or, not that we are going to die, but that I am going to die, and that you are going to die. So, then, we want to know why. But nobody ever seems to get that the reason we all die is that there’s just not enough room for everybody on this planet. If new humans are constantly being created, we have to get rid of some of those who are already here. That’s why the idea of immortality is ridiculous. Imagine if everyone ever born on Earth were still alive. Earth would be a hellhole. Where would you put everyone?”

“Underwater?”

“Huh?”

“I’m kidding.” Eric is often startled by interruptions to his train of thought.

“I think the fact that there are so many religions and belief systems is evidence that humans will never understand existence,” he continues. “Individual humans create their own worlds, their own realities—they decide which things to notice, which things to care about, which things to ignore, or pretend don’t exist. Every experience is unique. Tell a hundred people to, I don’t know, walk from the dorms to the Westside, and you will have a hundred different stories about their walk; everyone’s experience will be different. But politics ignores that.”

“But,” I say, “where politics matters is that everyone’s experience of this hypothetical walk of yours will be determined by, say, whether they have sturdy shoes, or a raincoat, whether they can afford to get something to eat on the way, whether they can summon a chauffeur to pick them up if they get tired. And it’ll be different for people who have spent their lives working outdoors at some backbreaking job than for privileged white folk for whom a lazy stroll through the countryside is a refreshing break in a day spent lolling about their country estate or poring over their ledger books.”

“But politics is so freaking tedious and pointless and . . . stupid. On one hand, you’ve got the ‘everybody should have the same opportunities in life’ people, which, have you read any history? Has this ever happened, anywhere? You are familiar with the great communistic experiments, aren’t you? The Soviet Union? China? How did those work out? The people in power just threw up their hands, walked away, and left the po’ folk in charge, did they? And on the other side, you’ve got the ‘teach a man to fish, and he’ll never be hungry again’ swindlers, whose great-grandfathers probably built the fisheries and who now control access to the rivers. That kind of dogmatic thinking is so confining and unimaginative.”

“Agreed, but . . .”

“I’m interested in music, stories, experiences, sounds, structures, interactions—things that change, that evolve or devolve, that mirror existence, that aren’t set in stone, that affect everyone who experiences them in a different way. That, to me, is a truer way of being in the world and a closer link to whatever the thing is that people call God.”

“Can’t argue with that. Hey, not to change the subject, but where are you staying tonight? I forgot to ask.”

“Sally said we could stay at her house. Her parents are coming to the festival, and they can give us a ride afterward.”

“Perfect. Did I tell you I got that job on the Evergreen grounds crew?”

“No. So, you’re staying in Olympia then?”

“If I take the job. I have to let them know by Wednesday, but I don’t have a place to live yet. I’m going to ask Walt if he knows of anything.”

“Maybe we should get a house together.”

“Why? Are you thinking of spending the summer in Olympia?”

“Maybe. I don’t have any job prospects in Portland, and my parents said they would be fine with me not working this summer. I just want to practice all day, and read, but no commitments.”

Living with Eric could work. He’s eccentric and a bit of a windbag, but he makes me think; his rants are surprising, neither the usual back-to-the-land, post-hippie, escapist blather or square-chinned, libertarian paranoia. And he’s not always “on”—he’s comfortable with silence, and he’s a reader. He’s always recommending books I’ve never heard of. And while I’ve submerged myself in the old-time fiddle world lately, living with Eric would be good for my guitar playing. He’s always working on new things and is happy to share what he’s learned.

“There they are, next to that crowd.”

“Hey boys. You just get here?” Sally asks as Eric and I join the amoebic clump clustered around some musicians playing a breakneck square dance tune.

“Pretty much. We walked through that Food Circus thing and got sandwiches.”

“Do you know who that is?

“Who? Where?”

“The band that’s playing, there, in the middle.”

“It’s not a jam?”

“No, it’s the Skunk Farm String Band, with Clyde Demuth.”

“Far out.”

“Let’s try to get closer.”

We insinuate ourselves into the mob surrounding the band, waiting for someone to move so we can wedge our way in closer. Soon, Sally and I are right at the front. Six musicians—two fiddlers, a banjo player, a mandolinist, a guitar player, and a bassist—are playing a familiar-sounding dance tune. I recognize a couple of them from the square dance we went to on spring break. They all look to be about ten years older than us. Most of the guys have long, stringy hair and droopy mustaches and are wearing colorful long-sleeve patchwork shirts, though one of the fiddlers is dressed more conservatively than the others, as if he’s just fled an institutional desk job. The rhythm section is female: the guitarist, dressed in a light-green flower-print dress, has short, curly brown hair; the ponytailed bass player is wearing a red-and-gray flannel shirt and worn blue jeans. Their groove is ferocious, but they have the blank expressions of surfers waiting patiently for the next ridable wave.

The plainly attired fiddler appears to be leading the tune—the rest of the band watch him closely, while he stares intently at his fingerboard—but the goateed banjo player, his long, straight hair restrained by a maroon-and-yellow-checked headband, seems to be the soul of the band: his infectious, unwavering smile exudes a welcoming beneficence and joy.

When they finish the tune, they mill about for a few minutes, chatting with various people in the ad hoc audience. The next song, “If I Lose, Let Me Lose,” sung by the mandolin player, who never stops bouncing on his toes, begins raggedly: the long-haired fiddler, whose round, wire-rim glasses frame a scowling face, impatiently kicks off the song while the banjo player is taking a sip from an audience member’s brown paper bag and the bass player bids a friend goodbye, her arms transferred temporarily from the behemoth stringed instrument to the shoulders of a tall, attractive blond man.

“These guys are great,” I say to Sally.

“Aren’t they? The fiddler with the short hair is one of my favorites, but he doesn’t usually play with them.”

“What’s his name?”

“Clyde Demuth. The bass player isn’t in the band either. She plays with the Deep Gap String Band.”

“Really? I love that band. Walt has one of their records. I didn’t know they were from around here.”

“They’re not. They’re from New York—Ithaca, I think. Maybe she’s visiting.”

Someone taps me on the shoulder—Mike Breedlove, the fiddler we met in Kent.

“What do you think?” he asks. “You heard these guys before?”

“A couple of them played a square dance we went to, but I haven’t heard the whole band.”

“They’re about the best around, and it’s fun to hear them with Clyde. There’s a party at their house tonight. You should come. Everyone will be there.”

“You can do that? Go to a party uninvited?”

“You can come with me, or tell them I invited you, if anyone asks. There’ll be a big crowd, and the house has lots of rooms to play in. Nobody will notice you, and once you pull out your fiddle, you’ll be more than welcome.”

“Did you know about this party, Sally?”

“No. You really think it’s OK for us to come, Mike? Where is it?”

“It’s not far, out Madison on 39th. Like I said, you can come with me if you want.”

“I’ll be with my parents, but we’ll figure something out. You’re staying with us tonight, right Lucas?”

“If you’ll have me.”

“My folks are planning on it. You’ll have to sleep in the living room, though.”

“You know how I feel about parties,” Eric says. He’s a bit glum about not winning the guitar contest, having placed second to an impressive guitarist named Dudley Hill, who Dieter, the guitarist in Quantum Repair, had told me I should check out.

“What do you mean?” Walt asks.

“I can’t deal with small talk. Whenever I enter a room full of people, whether I know any of them or not, I immediately assume that I must be the least interesting person there. But being interesting, or saying anything of interest, is so uncool these days. Small talk is a way of saying, ‘You’re not worth wasting my incredibly perceptive thoughts on. I may be brilliant, but I don’t need to prove it to you. To do so would be to admit that you might be interesting yourself.’ And then if I do meet someone who is as bored of small talk as I am, it’s unlikely that what I’m interested in will be of interest to them, since I generally don’t care much about things that most people like. So, you know, I’m kind of a drag at parties.”

Walt, Sally, Eric, and I are having dinner at Morningtown Pizza in Seattle’s University District. We left the Seattle Center when it began to rain heavily, just after dark. Sally’s parents decided not to come to the festival after all, but Walt has his parents’ car and we’re trying to decide whether to go to the Skunk Farm party or skip it and go straight to Sally’s house. The three of them are worried about getting a good night’s sleep before their set tomorrow morning. I have nothing to do in the next thirty-six hours but play as much music as I can.

“Sally, why don’t I drop you and Eric off at your parents’ and then Lucas and I can go to the party,” Walt says. “You can stay at my house tonight, Lucas.”

“Sure, if that’s easier.”

“Eric said you got the grounds crew job and you’re thinking about finding a house together,” Sally says to me.

“Yeah, I guess.” I look at Eric, and he shrugs. “I’m not sure I’m going to take the job, though.”

“Oh, of course you’re going to take it.” Sally says. “Sofía will be thrilled, won’t she?”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, don’t be coy. I saw you last Sunday. You guys couldn’t get enough of each other.”

It had been Sofía’s first visit to the Sunday-night square dance. I thought we were discreet, but the rarity of a new face at the dance must have drawn attention, not to mention that we hung out at every break and left together without waiting for Walt and Sally, with whom I usually walk back to the dorms.

“Are you two dating?” Eric asks.

“Dating?” I say, laughing. “Do people actually ‘date’? What does that even mean?”

“Whatever you want it to mean, I guess,” Walt says.

“Well, then yeah, we are, uh, hanging out,” I say.

“Called it,” Sally says, winking at Walt.

I don’t know what’s going on with Sofía and me. We did sleep together both nights last weekend, and again on Wednesday and Thursday. It was nice, but a little awkward and dispassionate, like just something else we do together, more convenient than mind-blowing. Although having sex without a puzzling and chilly aftermath is a pleasant change. When spring quarter ends in two weeks, she’ll be moving back to Seattle, and I don’t know what that means for us. But whatever happens, I’m happy to have found a female friend I feel so comfortable with. And it feels good to be taking things so easy and so slow.

“This must be the room Jack was talking about. Hey Mike, nice session you got going here. It’s the talk of the party.”

“Amos, how are you? Do you know Lucas?”

It’s four in the morning, and I’m in a small upstairs bedroom at the Skunk Farm house, playing tunes with Mike Breedlove; Louie, the guitar player I met on Vashon Island; and a banjo player I’ve just met named Corinna. I extend my hand to Skunk Farms’ banjo player, whose twinkling eyes are bloodshot but who still sports the gentle smile I remember from the afternoon.

“Nice to meet you,” I say. “You guys sounded great this afternoon.”

“Thanks. Yeah, Folklife is a great hang. Welcome to Skunk House. Where are you from?”

“Uh, Southern California, I guess, but I’m going to school in Olympia.”

“He’s in a band with Walt,” Mike says.

“Oh, you guys are playing tomorrow, right? Or rather, today?” Amos laughs, acknowledging the late hour.

“No, that’s the Sea Slugs, a different band.”

“Groovy. Well, I’m going to turn in,” Amos says. “Stay as long as you want. You’re welcome here any time, and if you’re ever around town on a Thursday night, come sit in at the square dance. In fact, Mike, why don’t you get him to play with you and Louie when you do those two dances in August? You sound great together. You too, Corinna. You’ve got a tight little band right here.” The four of us smile shyly at each other.

“So, see you all tomorrow?”

“Most likely,” Mike says. “Hazel said that Lucas and I can crash in the attic.”

“I meant at Corinna’s party, but that’s cool,” Amos says. “I take it the party is still on at your house tomorrow night, Corinna?”

“Definitely,” she says.

“All right, good night.”

“Are you going to be in town?” Corinna asks me. “If so, you should come. Mike knows where I live, so does Walt— at the bottom of Queen Anne, not far from the Seattle Center.”

The room Mike and I have been allowed to crash in turns out to be a small attic with a couple of beds sandwiched between stacks of old records and books, a few rickety chairs, what looks like a pirate’s chest, and some unlabeled cardboard boxes. Hanging from the wall are two old banjos, each missing a string.

I let Mike take the single bed in the corner, while I’m on a mattress on the floor, next to a small window, from which I can see what will soon be a quarter moon. The smell of pot is either wafting up from a floor below or is baked into the mattress I’m lying on. It’s not much of a bed, but its stack of blankets keep me toasty in the chilly attic.

I explained my theory of the Afro-American origins of old-time music to Mike while we were getting ready for bed, but he was not impressed.

“Well, weirder things have turned out to be true. I guess you know what you’ll be doing next year, at any rate.”

“What do you mean?”

“Walt told me about this country music thing you guys are putting together at Evergreen next year. He tried to talk me into coming down. But I told him that unless it could help me get a teaching certificate, I would pass. My plan is to find a job teaching high school math in some college town and spend summers in the South, hunting down old fiddlers.”

“Is that what you’re doing this summer?”

“No, I have to make some money first. Although I intend to find a way to be at Galax the second week of August.”

Mike is asleep now, but the pot smell is keeping me awake. “Skunk” is right. I also don’t want this day to end. I seem to have become a member of the Pacific Northwest old-time music community in the space of a few hours simply by showing up. It’s a strange feeling to be accepted so unequivocally, like a long-lost cousin welcomed without reservation at the family reunion. It’s enervating but disorienting. I don’t trust it, for some reason. But the thought of spending the summer working and playing music, with no other real responsibilities—no school deadlines, no pressure (internal or external) to “figure out my life,” wondering what I’m “supposed to be doing”—is both exciting and calming.

When I told Walt that Eric and I were thinking of looking for a house on the Westside, he said he had a friend who needed to sublet his two-bedroom house for the summer. He also offered me the use of his bicycle, so I could get back and forth from the Westside to campus for the grounds crew job. I called my parents from a pay phone at the Seattle Center, and they were happy that I might have found someplace to land, especially since the job would pay for my summer in Olympia. My father also seemed relieved, admitting that he had neglected to enquire about a summer job for me at Long Beach State College like he promised.

It’s not any kind of life I envisioned when I boarded the northbound Greyhound eight months ago, but it feels right: spending my days outdoors in the Northwest woods I’ve come to love and my nights playing music with a new crew of friends, a girlfriend an hour away, the wounds of Long Beach a dim memory.

NEXT: Chapter 25: Coda: July 28 and 31