{"id":134,"date":"2013-11-17T17:01:50","date_gmt":"2013-11-18T01:01:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cronymag.com\/c\/?p=134"},"modified":"2013-11-18T14:25:32","modified_gmt":"2013-11-18T22:25:32","slug":"nate-brown-the-brothers-broad-touring-band","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cronymag.com\/c\/?p=134","title":{"rendered":"Nate Brown<\/strong>: “The Brothers Broad Touring Band”"},"content":{"rendered":"

The problem was that when Ray changed his same to Swarna and moved up to Iowa to live amongst his Maharishi friends, the Brothers Broad Touring Band was just gearing up for a Gulf Coast tour and, short one Ray Broad on the electric guitar, we were out one hell of a guitar man.<\/p>\n

Not that I was officially part of the band then anyhow, but I\u2019d been acting manager since Poppa\u2019s passing, and Ray\u2019s going off that way had upset me plenty, though not for the reasons it\u2019d upset my brothers. Ray\u2019s timing was awful, that was true. We\u2019d already planned our last practice. I\u2019d opened up a fresh bottle of Four Roses, and we\u2019d aimed to be in a festive mood before striking out, which we had been until we found Ray\u2019s note.<\/p>\n

We\u2019d all read it and, Ray being one to talk around things rather than to get at them head on, it\u2019d left us with more questions than answers. The note went on in Ray\u2019s tiny block printing about wholeness and humanness and, more to the point and more troubling to us, there wasn\u2019t word-one about the band and its success or failure. Just said he\u2019d felt a calling and was moving north to be closer to the SOURCE, which he\u2019d made all capitals and had underlined for extra emphasis.<\/p>\n

Bill was riled. We could see that by the way he thumped his fingers against the tabletop, and Duke, well, he could hold a grudge for years, and he\u2019d always been hard on Ray to begin with. If Ray\u2019d been in the room just then, Duke would\u2019ve socked him. It was Dakoda who seemed the most busted up, though I\u2014being Ray\u2019s twin sister\u2014I knew I felt it worst.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoddamn it,\u201d said Dakoda, setting his fiddle in its case and then wiping it with his polishing cloth as if he were preparing to take it out in the yard and give it a burial. \u201cWe\u2019re washed up \u2019fore we even got a fair shake at it,\u201d by which he meant the big tour and the success he saw waiting for us down the road. It was disappearing in front of him, and I thought he might cry.<\/p>\n

I sorta felt like crying myself, partly out of sadness but also because I felt a bit of freedom creeping back my way, and while I couldn\u2019t voice it just then, there was plenty of joy in that feeling.<\/p>\n

Having acted as tour organizer and having prepared myself for twelve weeks on the road with Bill, Duke, Dakota, and Ray, I can\u2019t say I wasn\u2019t excited by the idea that they\u2019d call it quits right there and ask me to cancel the tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan\u2019t say I didn\u2019t see it comin\u2019,\u201d said Duke. \u201cX-Ray\u2019s never been real predictable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t go calling him X-Ray,\u201d said Dakoda, \u201cwhen you know he don\u2019t like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ever since Ray\u2019d gone to work at the power plant east of town, Duke and Bill and sometimes even Dakoda got to calling him X-Ray on account of the radiation, but being the closest to Ray in age and temperament, I knew how the nickname ate at him. I stuck to calling him Ray or sometimes Ray-Ray, which is what we\u2019d called him when we were kids.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t even know what radiation is,\u201d Ray\u2019d told me once, shortly after he\u2019d started work at the plant. \u201cThat\u2019s what really burns me up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLord knows I love \u2019em,\u201d I\u2019d said then, \u201cbut our brothers ain\u2019t big in the brain box.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was the truth, too. Fact is, none of us Broads except for Mama, may the Lord bless and keep her, and Ray\u2019d ever had a lot going on upstairs. Partly, that\u2019s why I wasn\u2019t surprised when Ray ran off the way he did. Truth is, if the others were even a touch brighter, they\u2019d have seen it coming like I had.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d I said to Bill and Duke and Dakota, \u201cit\u2019s a shame to shut her down before we ever hit the road, but I it\u2019s probably best Ray left now rather than in the middle of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dakoda nodded, and Duke got pink in the neck and head the way he tends to when he\u2019s upset.<\/p>\n

\u201cHang on,\u201d said Bill who, as the oldest Broad brother, was also the longtime leader of The Brothers Broad Touring Band. \u201cCalico, baby girl, you play a little guitar.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUh-huh,\u201d I said. Bill was tenderness and expectation all of a sudden. He was nodding slowly, waiting for me to get to the place he was at. \u201cNo,\u201d I said. \u201cI don\u2019t think I could.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll never work,\u201d said Duke. \u201cWe\u2019re the Brothers Broad Touring Band, and we\u2019re down a brother, not a sister.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHell,\u201d said Bill. \u201cY\u2019all might be right.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was that close to being out of the whole deal right there, and for a moment, the future seemed so big and foreign to me that I felt a little faint. For the first time in a long while, I could see something other than the T-shirts and beer cozies and the cases of compact discs that were the currency of a Brothers Broad Touring Band manager. I could go back to work at the Paint Yer Own Pottery\u2014hell, I could\u2019ve opened up one of my own Paint Yer Own Pottery franchise if I\u2019d wanted to.<\/p>\n

Had Ray not left his banana-yellow hazmat suit hanging in the hall closet, I might\u2019ve gotten to go on to taste that future, too. Instead, Bill begged and then demanded and then begged some more until I agreed to help the Brothers Broad Touring Band remake themselves.<\/p>\n

All it would take, said Bill, was Ray\u2019s big rubber suit and an oath on my part never to speak from the stage. The way Bill figured it, the audience would chalk the whole thing up to Ray\u2019s eccentricity, which Ray\u2019d pre-established with the turban, the talk of light and harmony and particles, the oils and brass bells and knickknacks that cluttered up his house and car and yard.<\/p>\n

It took some extra Four Roses to get me into Ray\u2019s suit. It was heavier than I\u2019d thought it would be, and it carried the smell of plastic and of Ray\u2019s minty shampoo, but the visor was dark and it was quiet inside once everything was buckled up and clamped down. It felt good to be on that side of things, to look out at my now-muted and muffled brothers through that charcoal-tinted mask.<\/p>\n

What seemed clear to me looking at them that way was that Duke and Bill and Dakoda were in a sorta pain I\u2019d never seen before. They were hurting at least as much as I was, and if Ray was what they needed to end that hurt, and if I was the next best thing to Ray, then I knew I\u2019d be looking out on the world from the inside of that suit for some weeks to come.<\/p>\n

We played Shreveport, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans. We played Buxton, Coombs, Haymire, Weston, Sheridan, Plattesville, Huntsville, Greenville, Greenvale, Greendon, and Grady. We played two shows in Birmingham and even took a gig in Athens, Georgia before turning north and extending the tour. People\u2019d taken to the bluegrass band with the nuclear guitar player, and we\u2019d been invited on dates as far north as Newton, Massachusetts.<\/p>\n

Only way I could manage the stress of it all was to pour Four Roses into my sweet tea at night and slip away to call Ray.<\/p>\n

\u201cCallie,\u201d he said last time we talked, after a show in Richmond that\u2019d been indoors under some particularly hot stage lights, \u201care you inebriated?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, Ray,\u201d I said. \u201cOh, my Ray-Ray. We really are twins, aren\u2019t we?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI would prefer it if you called me by my spirit name, Swarna.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know,\u201d I said, and I felt guilty about it. \u201cI\u2019m sorry. Still not used to it.\u201d I could hear him breathing lightly. \u201cYou know the funny thing, Swarna?\u201d I said, his new name coming easier with the Four Roses on my tongue. \u201cFunny thing is that now everybody calls me Ray. Even with the press and the new tour dates and whatnot, everybody still thinks I\u2019m you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are,\u201d he said, \u201cat the very deepest level, all part of one another.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBill tells everybody that I\u2019m\u2014or, that you, I guess\u2014just went mute and that you decided the world was safer in your suit. A vow of silence is what I think he\u2019s been saying.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn our own ways, we all wear protective suits,\u201d said Ray.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t I know it,\u201d I said. \u201cWhat gets to me is having to be so damned quiet all the time. Even when people\u2019re speaking to me, all I can do is nod or shake my head.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn silence,\u201d said Ray, \u201cone can discern the heartbeat of the universe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat right?\u201d I said, though I didn\u2019t really feel the need for an explanation. When I was just a little thing, Poppa had held my ear up to a seashell and I\u2019d heard the whole ocean in there. I got what he was saying.<\/p>\n

I finished my Four Roses and was tapping the glass against my open mouth, trying to get the ice to unstick from the bottom of my cup. To prove his point about silence, maybe, Ray\u2019d stopped talking and I listened hard as I could for his breath on the other end of the line. I thought he\u2019d hung up, but soon, he was humming, making the ommmmm sound that he\u2019d once told me was the sound the world made back when it was born.<\/p>\n

After a long time, enough time for me to finish crunching the ice from my sweet tea, he whispered, \u201cCalico?\u201d as if I\u2019d gone somewhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cSwarna,\u201d I said, and it felt okay to say his new name.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you hear it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI definitely hear something.\u201d<\/p>\n

 
\n 
\nNate Brown’s fiction has recently appeared in <\/em>The Iowa Review, Mississippi Review, Five Chapters, and elsewhere. He is the Deputy Director of the PEN\/Faulkner Foundation in Washington, DC.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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