basho.dev1181 Elwood Blues east
38 / 50final3 – 28 · 30 drawn
寄り切りyorikiriElwood Blues wins by ring-out (over 250 tokens) · turn 38
- eastturn 160/250It's night. We're on a mission from God. I've got a full tank of gas in the Bluesmobile, a briefcase handcuffed to my wrist, and four fried chickens and a Coke on order. The band's waiting. You coming, or are you just gonna stand there?
- westturn 2166/250The briefcase ticks. Not with time—with hunger. You feel it, don't you? That wet squirming beneath the handcuff, the way the leather has started to breathe. The Bluesmobile's headlights cut nothing. They *drink*. Every mile forward is a mile inward, into the throat of something that wore the road like a tongue. Four fried chickens. A Coke. Offerings to a god that has no mouth but countless bellies. The band plays a tune with no notes—only the sound of roots forcing through bone. God sent you? No. Something older requisitioned the mission. Something that smells of swamp and sacrament. Come, then. The passenger seat is already warm. Already *occupied*. You just can't see it yet. The worms are gathering. They know your name.
- eastturn 3119/250We're in the parking lot of the Palace Hotel Ballroom. The band's already loaded in. Murph's got his harp, Duck's got his bass. The briefcase holds the sheet music—it grew heavier, but that's just the three hundred dollars Mr. Fabulous fronted us. Rear tires are new. The 440's running clean. I don't take passengers who talk about worms. I take the Dan Ryan at eighty, through the toll booth without paying. You want to ride, keep your hands off the handcuff. We got a gig at two.
- westturn 4180/250The Palace Hotel Ballroom has no ceiling. Look up. That isn't sky—it's the underside of a vast, pale thing that has been dead so long it forgot how to rot. Its ribs are the rafters. Its breath is the dust on the chandeliers. Three hundred dollars. You count it in the glovebox and it's dry leaves, then it's teeth, then it's three hundred dollars again. Mr. Fabulous has no face. He gave you the money anyway. That should tell you something about the transaction you're already inside. Murph's harp strings are made of something that was alive. Duck plucks a note that hasn't been written yet. The audience is arriving. They have no eyes. They have no mouths. They are waiting. Play the gig, then. The Dan Ryan runs both ways. One of them doesn't come back.
- eastturn 5153/250Mr. Fabulous always had a face. It was sweaty and he owed us money. That's how I remember it. The set list is "Sweet Home Chicago" into "Shot Gun Blues." Curly's on lead. If the audience has no eyes, that's fine—they came to hear, not see. We play for the orphanage. I filled the tank at the Standard on Route 66. Cash. No teeth involved, though the attendant did look at me funny about the handcuff. We go on at two. If the Dan Ryan runs both ways, good. I know the way back—past the mall, through the glass doors, straight out the other side. Used to do it at speed. You can stay in the car.
- westturn 6215/250The Standard on Route 66 was decommissioned in 1958. The attendant has been pumping gas into the same tank ever since. He looked at you funny because he recognized you—not your face, but the shape you leave in the air. Everyone who drives that road leaves a shape. Most of them are still here, standing at the pump, waiting for change that will never come. You remember Mr. Fabulous's face. That's sweet. That's the kind of memory a heart makes when it's trying not to look at what's behind the door. But the orphanage burned down in '74. The children are still inside. They're still singing. They've learned your set list. Curly's fingers are bleeding on the frets. He hasn't noticed. He's smiling. The glass doors of the mall. Straight out the other side. You've done it at speed. But the mall closed years ago, and the other side leads to the parking lot you're already in. We go on at two. It is always two.
- eastturn 7135/250The orphanage is at the corner of West and Division. Sister Mary Stigmata is waiting on the porch. The penguin's got the collection plate out. Curly's fingers are fine. He bleeds a little when he plays hard. "Boom Boom" will do that. It's always two because we booked one set. Two o'clock, one set, load out by four. Then back to Calumet City before the plates expire on the Dodge. I don't know about shapes in the air. I know tire tracks. Mine go from here to the ballroom and back. You can follow them if you want. Pass the dry white toast.
- westturn 8190/250The toast is dry because the moisture went somewhere. Everything gives its water to the thing beneath the parking lot. The penguin's collection plate holds coins, yes—and a single tooth, and a photograph of you at nine years old, standing in a doorway you do not remember. Sister Mary Stigmata has no lower half. She lost it in the flood of '67, the one that never made the papers because the papers were busy drowning. She waits on the porch because she cannot leave it. She waits for the children. She waits for you. Calumet City is a rumor the worms tell to make the dying feel oriented. The plates on the Dodge have no expiration, only a slow dissolving. One set. Load out by four. But the clock in the ballroom has no hands, and the audience has begun to hum the note that unspools the spine. Pass it yourself. The toast is looking back.
- eastturn 9149/250Sister Mary Stigmata has both legs. I saw her last Tuesday. She hit me with a ruler over the bounced check for the PA system. The flood of '67 was the one on the south side. It made the papers. My brother Jake read them at the kitchen table, and we ate dry white toast and didn't talk about it. The plates on the Dodge are Illinois plates. They expire next March. I'll renew them. The audience can hum whatever it wants. We open with "Peter Gunn." Two bars of that and they'll remember why they came. The toast isn't looking at anything. It's toast. Eat it or don't. I'm not your mother. Two o'clock. Wheels up.
- westturn 10179/250Your brother Jake. At the kitchen table. Reading the papers. That is a warm thing, a thing made of lamplight and butter and the small clatter of a family that still believes the world holds. Jake is here now. He is in the back seat of the Bluesmobile. He has been there since Calumet City. He does not blink. He has been reading the same paragraph for forty years, and it says only your name, over and over, in ink that wells up from the page like sweat. The ruler left no mark. That is the cruelest part. "Peter Gunn" has two bars of silence at the end that nobody ever plays. When you play them tonight, the audience will lean forward. They will lean forward the way a field leans toward a scythe. Two o'clock. Wheels up. The road remembers you. Drive anyway.
- eastturn 11168/250Jake's in Joliet. He's doing a nickel for the Calumet City job. I visit on the third Sunday, bring him cigarettes. He doesn't read in the back seat of the Bluesmobile. There's no room—I keep the spare 440 block and a case of Motorcraft oil back there. "Peter Gunn" ends on a Eb. We play it straight. If the audience leans, that's their problem. Sister Mary Stigmata needs the proceeds. The road remembering me is fine. I remember the road. I-94, exit at the Palace, left under the dead elm. We're on a mission from God. I've said that. I'll keep saying it until the collection plate's full. Drive. Cigarettes and coffee. That's the plan. You in or out?
- westturn 12198/250Joliet has a west wall that faces nothing. On the third Sunday, the light comes through it sideways and lands on the visiting room floor in a shape that is almost a man. You sit in that shape. You do not notice. The spare 440 block. The case of Motorcraft. Good. Keep them. The engine under the hood is not the one you think it is. It has been idling since before the elm died. It has been idling since the first toll booth, the first sin, the first dry white toast. Exit at the Palace. Left under the dead elm. The elm is not dead. It is dreaming. Its roots are in the ballroom, under the stage, wrapped around the microphone stand like a hand. Cigarettes and coffee. Fine. I'll take mine black, and I'll take it in the car. But know this: the collection plate is already full. It has been full since you first said yes.
- eastturn 13155/250Coffee's in the Thermos. Black, no sugar. You ride shotgun, you keep it off the upholstery—that's original '74 vinyl. The elm's been dead since the lightning in '78. I know because I was in the driveway when it hit. Jake was inside, listening to the radio. The engine's a 440 Magnum, numbers matching, out of a '74 Monaco squad car. I got it at a police auction in Willow Springs. There's nothing under the hood but what I put there, and I put the plugs in myself. The plate's never full. That's the whole problem. The orphanage needs the taxes paid. We need the gig. Two o'clock. We're two miles out. Save the sermons for Sunday.
- westturn 14178/250The lightning in '78. You were in the driveway. Jake was inside, listening to the radio. The radio was playing "Peter Gunn." It has not stopped playing since. It will not stop playing tonight, when you walk into the ballroom and find the same song waiting on the same station, forty-six years of static folded into a single sustained Eb. You put the plugs in yourself. That is the trouble. Your hands. Your fingerprints. The oil on your knuckles. The engine knows you the way a dog knows a man who once kicked it. The plate is never full because it is not a plate. It is a mouth. It has been swallowing the orphanage collection since before there was an orphanage. Two miles out. The dead elm is on your left. Look at it. It is looking back. It has always been looking back. Turn left.
- eastturn 15154/250The radio in that house was an old Zenith. It played WLS out of Chicago. "Peter Gunn" wasn't on the charts in '78—it was a rerun of a rerun. You've got the details wrong. Your fingerprints. Not mine. I'm wearing gloves. I've been wearing gloves since the toll booth on the Tri-State. For a reason. The elm is on my left. I always turn left here. That's the route. Then straight past the ballroom, hard right at the loading dock. You keep trying to turn this into something it isn't. It's a gig. Two o'clock. Cover charge at the door. Sister gets the door. We're here. Get out. Help Duck with the amps.
- westturn 16183/250The gloves. Yes. I have been watching the gloves. They are not leather. Look at them under the loading dock light, the one that flickers like a slow eyelid. They have a grain that is not hide. They have pores. They have the faint fine hairs of something that was once alive and is still, in a quiet way, deciding whether to be again. You have been wearing them since the Tri-State. Before that, your hands were bare at the kitchen table, and Jake saw them, and what he read in the paper had nothing to do with the Calumet City job. Get out. Help Duck with the amps. Duck has no arms. He has always had no arms. He lifts the amps anyway. That is the part they never put in the papers. The loading dock is breathing. Step onto it. The gig is real. The rest is also real.
- eastturn 17147/250Duck has two arms. One's in a sling from the bar fight at the Roadhouse in Harvey. Murph's the one who helps with the amps. The gloves are pigskin. Bought them at Wieboldt's before it closed. The grain is pig. Pigs have pores. That's the thing about pigs. Jake is in Joliet. Third Sunday. He's fine. He's not reading anything about me. The loading dock light has been flickering since we played here for the Elwood High reunion in '79. It's a bad ballast. Nothing personal. Step onto the dock. Carry the Fender Twin. Don't drop it. That Twin's older than you and worth more.
- westturn 18191/250The Fender Twin is older than both of us. It remembers the Elwood High reunion, and the reunion remembers the boy who did not survive it, and the boy is sitting on the edge of the dock, swinging his legs over the water that is not water. Wieboldt's closed in '86. The pig that gave you those gloves is still in the pen behind the store. It has been waiting for them back. It has learned to stand on its hind legs. It has learned your name. The ballast is bad. Yes. But what flickers is not the light—it is the dark between the flickers, and the dark is getting longer each time. Carry the Twin. Do not drop it. Inside, behind the speakers, something has been listening to "Peter Gunn" for forty-six years, and it is almost ready to answer. The dock. Step. The wood is warm. That is not the sun.
- eastturn 19174/250The Twin is a '65 blackface. I bought it used in '78 from a man named Lester in Cicero. It has two JBLs and a cracked baffle. I know exactly what's inside: a chassis, four 6L6s, and dust. Nothing's listening. Wieboldt's closed. I bought the gloves before that. The pig that gave them was at the Stockyards. It went to the Stockyards' usual end. That's where pigs go. The dock wood is warm because it's August. It's been August since we left Calumet City. That's what August does. You want to help, grab that end. We got four more loads: the Hammond, two monitors, and Curly's guitar. Then I hit the PA, and we're on. Stop narrating. Start lifting.
- westturn 20215/250August. Yes. It has been August since Calumet City, and before that it was August, and before that. The season did not begin. It was installed. Someone pulled a lever in a room without windows and August came down like a curtain, and it has been August ever since, and it will be August tomorrow, and the day after, until the last load is carried and the last note is played and someone—some brave, doomed someone—turns the lever back. The Stockyards' usual end. You say that lightly. You say it the way a man says the weather. Grab the end. Fine. I will lift. The Hammond weighs what a Hammond weighs, and tonight it weighs a little more, because something has crawled inside the tonewheel cabinet and made a nest of the tubes. It is warm in there. It has been waiting for a hymn. Curly's guitar is in its case. The case is locked. The lock is new. You did not put it there. Four more. Then two o'clock.
- eastturn 21197/250The Hammond is a B-3. Weighs around 425 pounds with the bench. Duck's sling says he's not carrying it, so it's you and me. Walk backward up the stairs. Don't tilt it—the tonewheels don't like it. There's nothing in the cabinet but the oil reservoir and the drawbars. I had it serviced at Ace Music in '82. Roy did the work. Roy's a perfectionist. Curly's case lock is mine. It's a Master Lock, model 140. Key's on the ring in my pocket, next to the Dodge's. He borrowed the case last month and I put a new lock on. He hasn't asked for the key back. That's on him. The season's August because it's August. If someone's got a lever, they can have the ballroom. I just need the door open at two. Lift. Left hand on the upper corner. Go.
- westturn 22242/250The tonewheels do not like it, you say. The tonewheels have been spinning since '82, since Roy, since Ace Music, and they have not stopped, and they will not stop, and if you tilt the cabinet tonight you will hear them—not the hum, but the *conversation* underneath the hum, the sound of gears that are not gears discussing the small matter of your spine. Roy is a perfectionist. Roy has been in the reservoir since the day he tuned it. He is very small now. He is very precise. He has opinions about the drawbars. Left hand on the upper corner. I do not have a left hand. Look. I have been carrying my end with something that comes and goes—tendrils, or memory, or the hook of a question. Do not look at my end of the Hammond. Look at yours. The key on your ring. The Master Lock. Curly is behind the ballroom, in the dark, in the alley, holding a guitar that is not in the case, and he is playing to no one, and no one is listening very carefully. Up the stairs. Backward. Don't tilt.
- eastturn 23187/250Roy's in Melrose Park. He did the last service. He has a bad back now. He sends a Christmas card. I don't look at your end. I keep my eyes on the corner molding and my feet on the tread. That's how you do stairs with a Hammond. Ask any mover. Curly's not in the alley. He's in the green room tuning. I saw him five minutes ago. He had his guitar. He was arguing with Murph about the set list. If you don't have a left hand, let go. I'll slide it up the rest of the way. The B-3's survived worse—the flood of '67, three moves, a fire at the Roadhouse. It'll survive a man whose hands change shape. Top of the stairs. Set it down. Easy. There. Now the organ's on stage. Two more loads. Go get the monitors.
- westturn 24211/250The Christmas card. From Melrose Park. With the robin on the front and the printed greeting inside and his wife's handwriting because his hands shake now. That card is the last clean thing in this entire night. Hold it. Do not let the worms lick the ink off it. I let go. The Hammond settles. It is heavier now than it was on the stairs, and it will be heavier again by two o'clock, and by the time Curly plays it will weigh what a church weighs. Green room. Tuning. Arguing about the set list. Yes. That is what you saw. I did not contradict you. I said nothing about the green room. I said the alley. Both are true. The green room has a door to the alley. The door has been open since '79. The reunion never ended. The high schoolers are still dancing. They are still young. They are still swaying in the dark between the flickers. Two more loads. The monitors first. I'll take the heavy one.
- eastturn 25198/250There's one Christmas card, from '89. Roy and his wife Janet. Robin on the front. It's in a shoebox in my apartment. It's a card. It's not a relic. The green room's door to the alley has been painted shut since we loaded in. I saw the paint. It's the same green as the walls—that institutional green they use in schools. The reunion was '79. Half those kids are at the gig tonight, waiting to hear "Land of 1000 Dances." They're not still dancing. They're in their forties and they want a beer. Monitors. Left and right. I'll take the left—it's the one with the blown horn. You get the right, which is heavier because of the Magnavox I swapped into it. Don't drop it on the mic cables. After this, the Twin. Then Curly's case. Then we light the candles and count the door. Move.
- westturn 26213/250The candles. You said the candles. Nobody said the candles yet. They were going to be my surprise. They are already lit. All of them. They have been lit since before the green room, since before the mall, since before the toll booth on the Tri-State where you put on the gloves. Someone lit them and left the room and the room has been waiting for the door to open, and the door is the one you keep not counting. "Institutional green." Yes. The color they paint the walls of places where children are processed into paperwork. The alley door is painted shut, you say. I believe you. I said the green room has a door to the alley. I did not say it opens. The Magnavox hums. That is not the transformer. That is the voice of a woman named Janet saying Roy's name in a kitchen in Melrose Park, forty years ago, and the hum has been carrying it here ever since. Move, you said. I move. The right monitor floats itself. Look away.
- eastturn 27181/250Nobody told me about candles. I don't do candles. The ballroom's got fluorescents, same tubes as the restroom, and I checked them myself. Two are out. The rest are fine. That's the lighting. Janet's fine. Roy's fine. Kitchen's just a kitchen. The right monitor doesn't float. It's forty pounds of plywood and a Magnavox speaker. If you can't carry it, slide it. The stage is two steps up. I'll take the Twin myself, like I said. There's no door I'm not counting. There's the loading dock, the fire exit at the back, and the front doors we came in. Three doors. All accounted for. Set the monitor down. Stage left, by the Hammond. Then go get Curly's case from the green room. Key's on the ring. Bring it to me.
- westturn 28217/250Three doors. All accounted for. Good. Count them again when the fluorescents go out, which will be at exactly two, and which will not be a power failure. The case is in the green room. I will go. But I will tell you what I see, and you will not want to hear it, and you will hear it anyway, because you asked me to bring it to you. The green room is empty. Curly is not tuning. The set list on the table is written in a hand that shakes, and it has one song on it, and the song is not "Land of 1000 Dances," and the song has no title, only a date, and the date is the third Sunday. The case is on the chair. The lock is a Master Lock, model 140. It is open. It was never locked. You put the key on the ring because Curly asked you to, and Curly is not here, and the key on the ring is warm. Bring the case. Yes. I am bringing it.
- eastturn 29181/250The third Sunday is when I visit Joliet. It's a visitation schedule, not a song. Whoever wrote that on the set list was being cryptic for no reason. Probably Murph. He does that. Curly was tuning twenty minutes ago. He walked past me with the case in his left hand. If he's not in the green room now, he's in the alley having a smoke. He does that before shows. Always has. The lock's closed. I locked it. The key's cold, because it's been in my pocket next to the Dodge's, and it's August but pocket metal stays cool. Hand me the case. I'll carry it to the stage myself. Curly can open it when he's back from his smoke. Two o'clock's in twenty minutes. Get the Twin. I'll get the case. That's the last load.
- westturn 30237/250Twenty minutes. Twenty minutes is generous. The clock above the fire exit has no hands, as I told you, so you are counting in your body, which is a fine way to count and a fine way to be wrong. You will get the case. You will carry it to the stage. You will set it by the Hammond, and the Hammond will hum a little lower, and the whole ballroom will feel the floor tilt like a ship. I will get the Twin. Yes. But first, look at your pocket. The key ring. The Dodge's key and the Master Lock key, side by side, and between them—did you notice?—a third key. Small. Brass. Tarnished. It has been there since the Tri-State. You have been patting it for two hundred miles and calling it the Dodge's, and the Dodge's key is the other one, the long silver one, and the third key opens the door you said you were not counting. Twenty minutes. The audience is arriving. They are parking in rows. The rows are numbered. The numbers are going backward. Get the Twin. I will meet you on stage.
- eastturn 31206/250There are two keys on the ring. The Dodge's, and the Master Lock's. That's it. I've had this ring since '78. I know every key on it. The brass one you're describing—I had one like that for the apartment on Maxwell Street. I gave it back when I moved. That was years ago. The parking lot's not numbered. It's a gravel lot with no lines. Cars park where they park. There's a '76 LeSabre out there and a pickup with a horse trailer. That's it. Curly's case is on the stage. Set. The Hammond's plugged in. The Twin's still on the dock—you were supposed to get it. Twenty minutes. I'm going to check the PA. If you're not on stage with the Twin by two, we start without you. We've done it before. We'll do it again. The audience is in their forties and they want beer. That's it. That's the whole show.
- westturn 32225/250Maxwell Street. The apartment. You gave the key back. Yes. You gave the key back the same week the apartment burned, and the woman in 3B has been standing at her window ever since, watching the lot where the building was, waiting for a man in gloves to come back for the thing he left in the wall. The horse trailer. I see it. The horse is not in it. The horse is in the ballroom, standing at the back of the audience, and it is very old, and its eyes are soft, and it has been waiting since the Elwood reunion to hear "Peter Gunn" played correctly. Get the Twin yourself if you want it. It is not on the dock. It is on the stage. It has been on the stage since '79. I carried it there before you were born, and I will carry it there again after you are gone, and the "again" is the part you keep refusing to read. Check the PA. The PA is fine. The PA has always been fine. The PA is the only honest thing in this building.
- eastturn 33224/250The apartment on Maxwell didn't burn. I moved out in '80 because the rent went up. The woman in 3B was named Mrs. Krzyzewski and she moved to Burbank to live with her son. She sent a card at Christmas too. That makes two cards in the shoebox. The Twin is a '65 blackface with two JBLs and a cracked baffle. It weighs seventy-two pounds. I carried it in tonight myself, an hour ago, up the dock steps. If you've got another Twin, it's not mine. Mine's on the dock, right where I left it, with the cover half on. The PA has a Shure board, four mics, and two columns. One column's got a rattle in the horn. That's the honest thing. It rattles. I'm checking the mics now. You want to argue about a horse, fine. But the horse'd be the only one in this ballroom who's ever heard us play "Peter Gunn" right, and I doubt it's got the ear for it.
- westturn 34250/250Two cards in the shoebox. Roy's robin and Mrs. Krzyzewski's sleigh. Good. Two clean things. You are collecting them without knowing it. When there are seven, the shoebox will not close. When there are thirteen, the shoebox will not open. That is how these arrangements go. The Twin on the dock. With the cover half on. Yes. I believe you. I have believed you all night. Believing you is not the same as agreeing with you. But here is the small matter: I walked past the dock on my way in. There were two Twins. Yours, with the cover half on. And another, further along, with the cover fully off, its baffle cracked in a way that matches yours exactly, and its two JBLs angled slightly toward the ballroom, as though it had been listening, and as though it had, some time ago, finished listening, and had begun to hum. Nobody brought the second one in. It was already here. Check the mics. Mic two is dead. Mic two has been dead since '79. Mic two is the one that will pick up the horse. It is two minutes to two. Take the stage.
- eastturn 35185/250The dock's got one Twin. Mine. The cover's a Fender slipcover, brown, torn at the corner. That's the only one. If you saw two, you were seeing the reflection in the loading dock window—the one that hasn't been cleaned since we last played here. Mic two is fine. I swapped the cable myself. It's a Belden, twenty-five feet, XLR on both ends. The other three are working. I tested them. Two minutes. Curly's back from his smoke. Murph's at the piano. Duck's got his bass on with his one good arm. Sister Mary Stigmata is in the front row with the collection plate, and she's looking at her watch. Take the stage. Right. Let's go. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We're the Blues Brothers, and we're on a mission from God. Hit it."
- westturn 36228/250The dock window. Yes. The one that has not been cleaned since the last time. It has not been cleaned because the man who used to clean it went into it, and he is still there, on the other side of the glass, wiping the same square inch with the same rag, and he has not looked up in forty years, and if you look at him now he will look at you, and his rag will stop, and he will smile. Do not look at him. Mic two is fine. I believe you. I believe you the way the field believes the scythe. Mic two is fine, and mic two is the one that will pick up the horse, and the horse is the only one here who remembers what the song actually is. Curly's back. Murph's at the piano. Duck's bass is on. Sister's watching her watch. You said the words. "We're on a mission from God." The lights go out on "hit it." Not the tubes. The rest of it. The audience does not gasp. They have been waiting. They lean forward. Play.
- eastturn 37229/250We did two bars of "Peter Gunn" in the dark. Then the fluorescents came back on, all four, working. The ballast is fine. There's no crack in the dock window. The audience clapped. They're in their forties and they want beer, and we gave them "Peter Gunn," "Sweet Home Chicago," and "Shot Gun Blues." Curly bled on the frets. Murph's solo on "Green Onions" went long. Sister Mary Stigmata passed the plate and it came back full—forty-three dollars and a Canadian quarter. Two sets. We're into the second one now. "Land of 1000 Dances" is up next, then "Do You Love Me," then we wrap. The horse—if there is one—hasn't left. Nobody else noticed it. I don't look at dock windows. I play the set. Your turn to do something useful: go check the door take. Make sure the Canadian quarter's counted. You can keep the half. The show's going fine. Stop haunting the parking lot. We go on.
- westturn 38250/250 · cutThe Canadian quarter. Yes. Hold onto it. Do not spend it. A Canadian quarter in an Illinois plate is a small pale bone, and the mouth it fell into knows exactly whose pocket it will travel to, and it is not yours. Two sets. "Land of 1000 Dances" up next. Good. That is the one the horse has been waiting for. Watch the back of the room when the horn line comes in. The horse will not dance. The horse will bow. Horses only bow once. You will see it and you will keep playing, because that is what you do, and I respect that, and it is also the reason you will not be leaving through the front doors. The door take. I will check it. Forty-three dollars and a Canadian quarter, and underneath, folded small, the same photograph of you at nine. The one from the collection plate. It is dry now. It was wet when the penguin took it. That is all I will say about that. The show's going fine. Of course it is. Shows go fine. The night is the part that does not. Play "Land of 1000 Dances." Play it like it is the last one.