Kathleen Pullman came up to the band, her arms folded in her jacket, and smiled at them. She nodded at Jimmy and rolled her eyes at him, a thing she did sometimes that always meant: Matt. He could see his brother way back sitting in the center of a group of boys on the hood of a car. Matt was drunk. It was his right as a hero, and he took it. In the flashing firelight the black and white scene seemed to Jimmy a tableau from the Iliad. Matt gestured with his arms, telling stories, and the boys laughed.
Their classmates stumbled around the fire, spilling beer, sometimes coming to the edge of the musicians’ platform and toasting them, “You guys are fucking great!” All night long guys and girls came up to Frank and signed his cast, many with bits of charcoal from the fire, initials in black, and smiling faces, until he was smudged thoroughly. Elsewhere in the meadow some couples had paired off, only a few surprises, retiring to the cars as the evening grew late and the fire tumbled into itself every once in a while, sending a thick flock of red cinders pooling briefly into the chilly air.
Between “Satisfaction” and “The House of the Rising Sun,” Mason stepped over to Jimmy and now said, “You’re a little old man at the kids’ picnic.”
Jimmy looked at his friend. They both were tuning their guitars.
“I’m afraid you’re right. I don’t know what that’s about, but I keep looking at the stars, the woods. It’s nine miles to Oakpine, and then what?”
“Let’s do one more and take a break,” Craig said from behind them.
“You got it,” Jimmy said.
“This is good, right, the band?” Mason asked him. “There’s something more to all this than just the music. Let me know if you find out what it is.”
“This is real,” Jimmy said. “This is the best.” His eyes shone. He turned to Frank and Craig. “This is the best.”
“We are rocking,” Frank said. “And I finally know all the lyrics to these songs. That’s really the hard part. And now we are absolutely rocking.”
To no one, he said, “We have a year of this.” And then he turned to his friends and said, “My friends, at the ready! One, two, three . . .”
They did almost four sets of the music they knew, as well as some extended jamming. They played until the fire was a heap of pulsing orange embers and the generator had to be regassed. They played until there were only three cars left in Bear Meadow. Craig Ralston threw his drumsticks onto the glowing coals, and they flamed briefly, white-yellow ciphers in the deep red. He loaded Matt, who was passed out, into his truck and hauled him home. Jimmy, Mason, and Frank put on fresh, dry shirts and jackets and broke down the gear, and they loaded up with the help of four or five of the band’s new followers, including Kathleen Pullman and her girlfriend Marci Engle. Marci came over and put her arms around Jimmy. “You don’t know,” she said to Frank and Mason, looking on, “he might be my boyfriend.” When they were packed up in Mr. Brand’s truck and Kathleen’s car, the boys shoveled a short berm around the ten-foot firepit and then tossed a layer of dirt over the whole pile until it was dark and reduced to two or three steaming streams of smoke.
Mason walked over and rapped on the trunk of Dougie Shelton’s Plymouth to wake Dougie and Yvonne, who weren’t exactly asleep. “Honeymoon is over,” Mason called to them. “Don’t be the last couple on the mountain.” The dark empty space made it feel very late on the mountain, and a kind of seriousness had assumed the lonely place. Jimmy started his truck, and Mason got in. Frank Gunderson climbed into Kathleen’s car with Marci, between them in the front seat, Mason noted.
Marci rolled her window down and called toward Dougie’s car, “Come on, you two bunnies! Three times is enough for any bonfire! You’re going to freeze your parts off!” She laughed, and Kathleen honked. The dark car started, and the lights came on, and Doug called, “That’s a good band you guys have got going.” He backed out and eased tenderly out of the clearing. A moment later Kathleen followed down the mountain. When all the cars were gone, Jimmy stepped out of the idling vehicle. “I’ve got to take a leak.” The two boys stood out behind the vehicle, one facing north and one south, a million worlds within their view. The wheel of stars had broken and turned, and the Big Dipper was a only a handle now, rising from the trees.