Stief accepted the gig for us to play a Halloween show in Centralia. We told him to back out, that we’d land us a spot at Urban Bloodbath and we wouldn’t have to leave Chicago. Stief told us how much more we’d get paid and showed us an article about a statue in a Centralia cemetery. The statue is of a little girl and her violin. Stief read that the girl, Annie, died when she was 11 and that some people still hear her violin at night. “This website says her statue glows on Halloween,” Stief marveled.
“Then it must be true,” I mumbled. I wasn’t going to spend Halloween waiting for a dead girl to glow.
“Think about it,” Steif said, stretching his arms wide. “It could be the most holy music you ever hear. She could inspire us for years.” Stief believes everything. Darla said what if we don’t ever make it there? What if we move out west or the band breaks up or we run out of ideas? I said those things happen to every band and a shit gig wouldn’t keep us from them. Stief said fine but at least it was a paying gig.
We got to Centralia in the early evening when the Halloween parade had just ended. We lay out in the park in our black clothes, hearing the bells of the carillon ring out over the town.
The bar’s nod to holiday décor was a single cardboard skeleton. Everybody took pictures with it too. I wanted to hurry through the show but Steif slowed down his drumming so I slowed down my bass and Darla slowed down her guitar and singing. Nobody danced. Afterwards, the manager who booked us was the only one to buy a CD.
We stopped at a gas station on the way to the cemetery.
“Should we buy things for her?” Darla asked. “For Annie.”
“You didn’t bring anything?” Stief took a little wooden box of violin rosin out of his jacket pocket.
“I’ll get her some chocolate milk,” Darla said.
“It’s a little impersonal, but—“
“Stief, this is an 11 year old girl who died in 1890. None of us knows her. Nobody alive anywhere knows her. For all we know, there was never any girl and there’s just a statue.” As I said it, I realized I was still mad that he threw off our timing at the show. And that I was still mad that we came all the way to Centralia for this, missing a show that would’ve been a lot more fun to play.
“I’ll get her a toy,” I conceded. “Steif, do you think she’d like this? It’s one of those toys where the little guy climbs a ladder.”
He didn’t say anything.
I pounded an energy drink in the parking lot. Stief said there’d probably be a lot local kids gathered around Annie too. There weren’t any.
At first Annie was a shadow among treetops and headstones. But then the outlines became clearer. The whole cemetery was dark and all we could see was Annie, holding her violin up to the sky. Even though she wasn’t playing for us and certainly wasn’t illuminated, it was hard to look away.
“Should we sing to her? Her favorite song?” Darla whispered.
“I don’t know. What was your favorite song when you were 11?” I asked.
“Love Will Tear Us Apart.”
I’d never heard our voices like this before, all together in the lower register. No music, just empty space. I had no idea whether we sounded good or not.
Stief took the rosin box out and laid it on the grave, still singing. Darla laid down her chocolate milk, still singing. I laid down the toy, still singing.
We were glowing and ringing out in the darkness of the world. We stared up at that stone girl and she gave us nothing back.