The rest of the afternoon passed that way. I did twice as much playing as I had with any other band. As we moved from our stop at Zales to our stop at Bath & Body Works to our stop at the Gap, Sam and I practically ran behind Mr. Hardiman. I was sorry Sam didn’t get much of a chance to flirt with me and I didn’t get much of a chance to respond with all the enthusiasm of a block of wood. I got the feeling Sam didn’t want to talk to me anyway. Not in front of his father.
A few minutes before six o’clock, we made our last stop in the food court, which was crowded with weekend shoppers. “Dad,” Sam said before his father could launch a song. “We’ve gone flat. Let’s take a minute to tune to the human pitch pipe here.” He flashed his brilliant grin at me.
People munching pizza and kung pao chicken from plastic trays snapped their heads up at us as I bowed an E for Sam and Mr. Hardiman to tune to. Over the note, Mr. Hardiman said, “I don’t know about you two, but I’m plumb tuckered out.”
He meant the three of us had tested each other that afternoon. He was attempting to be friendly.
“Wow, I don’t blame you,” Sam told his father. “Tired after four hours of work.”
Mr. Hardiman stared Sam down, Sam stared back, and I wasn’t sure what this animosity meant.
“ ‘Old Joe Clark’ in A,” Mr. Hardiman barked. Turning to me, he added, “We dress it up a little with a major G.”
I laughed at the idea of a seven chord turning this ancient song avant-garde. “Wow, a major G chord?” I exclaimed sarcastically before I thought.
Mr. Hardiman’s eyes narrowed at me. Suddenly he looked more like Johnny Cash than he had yet, stern and gruff and not afraid to play concerts in maximum-security prisons.
“Um,” I backtracked, feeling a blush creep up my neck. I’d meant all afternoon to make a chord joke to Sam. My attempt had come out at the wrong time. Sheepishly I asked Mr. Hardiman, “Where does the major G go?”
He nodded smugly. “You see? You’ve gotten too big for your britches. All that talent doesn’t mean shit if you won’t shut up long enough to listen to instructions so you can play with the group.”
That stung. Everything bad that adults said about me stung, because all of it was true.
But the pain didn’t have time to settle before Sam stepped in to draw the fire. “Dad!” he called, letting his guitar hang from his neck by the strap so his hands were free to wave between us. “Over here.”
Mr. Hardiman glared at Sam, then at me, then down at his guitar, tuning his E string like I was dismissed.
Sam leaned toward me behind his father’s back. “Sorry,” he mouthed.
I tried to smile a little, to show him I appreciated him sticking up for me, but my lips couldn’t make it.
I played “Old Joe Clark” perfunctorily. The fun was gone for me now, and Sam looked as grim as I felt. Despite our lack of enthusiasm, we gathered another crowd, because we were more interesting to listen to than the Muzak that the mall piped in over the loudspeakers. We played a few more Johnny Cash tunes, and then Mr. Hardiman said, “Last one. ‘Folsom Prison Blues.’ ”
This was another song with a breakneck pace and Cash’s signature freight-train beat. Whenever I stole a glance at Sam, his smile was creeping back, which made me try a little harder when my solo came around. He took his solo, Mr. Hardiman took his and sang the last few verses, and I thought the song would end.
As we were wrapping it up, Mr. Hardiman called over the music, “Not again. Don’t do that, son. I’m warning you.”
I watched them, puzzling through what they were talking about. I couldn’t see that Sam was doing anything unusual, and then I heard it. Under Sam’s pick, the freight-train beat on a major one chord morphed into a slightly different but equally driving rhythm. Confused, I followed along, retracing the one chord with my fiddle, until something developed. I finally recognized the song a measure before Sam started singing it: “Shake Your Body” by the Jacksons.
Mr. Hardiman’s face was beet red by now, but he played along with Sam’s funky beat. He had no choice. Professional musicians didn’t stop in the middle of a song.
I was more intrigued by Sam. I was finally hearing his voice. And it was good. Strong. Soulful. White boy was singing the hell out of some Michael Jackson.
I wasn’t sure what part I was supposed to be playing. For a while I just backed up the chords and doubled the bass line. Then I remembered this was a disco song with violins, so I played the soaring part from memory. That was the right answer, apparently. Sam had stopped singing, anticipating that I would know what to do in the bridge. He flashed me his biggest grin yet and melted my heart.
He picked up singing again in the next verse. His voice was deeper and fuller than Michael’s, but he wasn’t afraid to imitate the wails that made Jackson famous. The crowd loved him, and not just the tweens this time. Shoppers stood three deep around us, gazing at him with their mouths open. Mr. Hardiman could do a mean Johnny Cash, but there was no question who was the star of this show.
The song as I remembered it was drawing to a close, assuming it didn’t morph again into something equally bizarre for a Johnny Cash tribute band like a Bach fugue or a Gregorian chant. Mr. Hardiman watched Sam, presumably for the cutoff. I did, too. As our last notes rang around the vast room and the crowd burst into applause, I finally smiled. My face and my whole body felt light for the first time in a long, dark year. I turned to Sam to tell him so.
But he was looking at his father. And his father lasered him with a glare that made the one they’d given each other when we first met look like a smiley face.
Mr. Hardiman said slowly, clearly, loud enough for the crowd to hear, “Don’t you ever do that again.”
Quite a few people in the audience deduced that if the band was arguing, the good times were over. They exchanged a few words with each other and moved off. But those who’d never seen the likes of a Johnny Cash impersonator get in an argument with his son at the mall sidled into the front spaces the departing crowd had vacated, eager for more.
Sam seemed to realize this was not the time or place for the discussion his father wanted to have. He glanced up at the crowd, then over at me, making my heart jump. He whispered to Mr. Hardiman, “I didn’t co-opt your song. You went with me.”
“I only went with you because she was going with you”—Mr. Hardiman shot me a mean look, then glared at Sam again—“and I wasn’t going to fight two of you in the middle of a performance. You know it and I know it, so cut the shit.”