Characters in You Know They Got a Hell of a Band

“Slim Harpo . . . Bob ‘Bear’ Hite . . . Stevie Ray Vaughan . . .” “Twenty-three,” Sissy told her, and on stage Alan Freed went on screaming names at the almost empty town common as the stars came out, first a hundred stars, then a thousand, then too …

The young waitress looked from one to the other with her frightened, bloodshot eyes. “That ain’t half-bad,” Buddy Holly said. “You and y’man ought to think about hangin on a little while, though. Stay for the concert tonight, at least.

… forgetting the many times he had found his way unerringly along strange roads to their planned destinations (Clark Willingham was one of those millions of American men who are firmly convinced they have a compass in their heads)—but he continued to push on, at first stubbornly convinced that they must …

I only know he’s meaner than cat-dirt now. I don’t care. I only wish you’d gotten away, and I’d do it again. Besides, Crystal takes care of me.” Sissy nodded toward the nurse, who had stopped looking at the stars and was now looking at them.

No sooner had she realized that than she knew who his illustrated companion was: Duane Allman, killed when his motorcycle skidded beneath a tractor-trailer rig twenty years ago. He took something from the pocket of his denim jacket and bit into it.

Hope you can stay with us for awhile. Town ain’t much to look at, but we’re neighborly, and we take care of our own.” He stuck out a hand on which three absurdly large rings glittered. “I’m the mayor round these parts. Name’s Elvis Presley.”

This is my husband, Clark.” “Pleased to meet you,” the waitress said. “Your hand . . .” Mary trailed off, not sure how to go on. “Frankie did it.” Sissy spoke with the deep indifference of one who is riding the pink horse down Dream Street. “Frankie Lymon.

Mary opened her mouth to say he must be mistaken, ready to brand such an idea ludicrous even though she herself now found it impossible to believe that the redheaded waitress was anyone but the years-dead blues shouter Janis Joplin.

“Then let’s go . . . BECAUSE ROCK AND ROLL WILL NEVER DIE!” As the show-lights came up and the band swung into the first song of that night’s long, long concert—“I’ll Be Doggone,” with Marvin Gaye doing the vocal—Mary thought: That’s what I’m afraid of.

The young waitress turned away with a sad, sick grimace, raising one blocking hand to her face. And for Mary Willingham, who suddenly understood they had very likely been playing with her all along, running ceased to be something she had planned and became an instinctive reaction.

Mary couldn’t be sure, but she thought the local law was Otis Redding. The man in the shades and black jeans was now standing directly in front of them, his thumbs hooked into his belt-loops, his pale hands dangling like dead spiders.

He took something from the pocket of his denim jacket and bit into it. Mary saw with no surprise at all that it was a peach. Rick Nelson burst out of the Rock-a-Boogie. Buddy Holly was right behind him, the entire left side of his face now drenched in blood.

… mostly they were the young ones, and as he spoke the names of Ronnie Van Zant and Steve Gaines, she heard the words of one of their songs tolling in her mind, the one that went Oooh, that smell, can’t you smell that smell, and yes, you bet she certainly …

she wanted to scream. Forget about the gunslinger strut and move your ass! The bell jingled and the door opened as Clark reached for the knob, and two more dead Texans came in. The one wearing the dark glasses was Roy Orbison. The one wearing the hornrims was Buddy Holly.

“They gave us jobs,” Clark said dully. “He gave us jobs. The mayor. The one who looks like Elvis Presley.” “He is Elvis,” Sissy Thomas said, but Clark just went on staring at the stage. He was not prepared to even think this yet, let alone hear it.