e were gathered as we often were in the back of the store. Otis Goins who ran the store now, was up front, looking out the screen door.
"Morning, Laura," we heard him say. We all got up and looked, because even though she was now well into her forties, nobody was going to pass up a chance of looking at Laura Dewitt. Laura's husband had been gone for years, killed in the Korean conflict. She owned the dress shop just down the street and was on her way to open up.
"Morning, Otis, nice day," she said and passed on out of our view.
As we moved back to our seats, Billy Blackburn shook his head and heaved a sigh. "What's that supposed to mean?" somebody asked.
"What it means," somebody else said, "is don't make no difference how many home runs he claims to have had, he ain't never going to get to first base there."
"Better men than him has tried and failed," Carlisle Cope said, speaking from experience.
That must have stung a little. "Next time you run into one, bring him around. I'd like to meet him. And if you ask me nicely, I'll whup his ass for you," Billy said.
"I expect you think you're God's gift to womankind," Carlisle said.
"I wouldn't say that, but I'll tell you this, I know what women like. Ever woman's got a sweet spot and if you know where it is, she's yours."
"Well, where is it?" somebody asked.
"It varies," Billy said. "The secret is knowing where to try."
"And I expect you know all them places," Carlisle said.
"I ain't never had no complaints," Billy said.
"What about that man over in Princeton?" somebody said. "I heard he's going to blow your balls off with a shotgun if he ever catches you around his house again."
Beechum Luvel, who was our mayor when he was working, had been rared back in his chair quietly plunking on the Jews harp he always carried with him. He put it back in his shirt pocket and brought the front chair legs down hard to signal for attention.
"I just been setting here thinking about the leg fiddle," he said.
We all got ready for another of Beechum's tales. Nobody, including Beechum himself, I suspect, knows whether there's any truth in his stories or not, but most of us have learned it's best not to bet against him. And it doesn't really matter. The stories are worth listening to anyway. It took Beechum thirty years to get home from World War Two, which time he let it be believed was spent in traveling the world. Only I know that his world during a good part of those thirty years was Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. But maybe, like Thoreau, he traveled far in that place.
"A leg what?" somebody asked.
"Leg fiddle," Beechum said. "It ain't as big as a bull fiddle, but it's a right smart bigger than a vi-ola. To play one of the blamed things, you have to set in a chair and hold it between your legs. Only a woman can play one right."
"I seen one of them on TV," Billy said. "It was in a big orchestra. But they didn't call it a leg fiddle."
"They probably called it a cello, but it's right name is leg fiddle. Viola da gamba is what the Eye-talians call it, and they ought to know, they're the ones who invented it in the first place. Viola da gamba is leg fiddle in English. Bet it was a woman playing it."
"Yes, it was."
"Knowed it," Beechum said. "Well, wunst when I was living in Vi-enna, I went to hear this string quartet everybody in town was talking about and it had a woman in it that played the leg fiddle. Caught my eye right away. She was thin and willowy and even setting down I could tell she was tall. Had hair black as midnight, parted in the middle and pulled back into a knot. Face long and narrow, wide-set dark eyes and skin like ivory. Had on a long black dress that left her arms bare but covered everything else except her feet. She was wearing silver sandals.
The quartet begun with some pieces played allegro that brought us to the edge of our seats and set our heads a- nodding and our toes a-tapping. Them white arms flashed and flirted as she bowed and noted that leg fiddle, and though her expression didn't change, her face seemed to radiate her pleasure at the music. The last of the set was one of Mozart's show-off pieces done prestissimo and them arms become white blurs as she played the notes.
After that, they played some adagios and ended up with piece that featured the leg fiddle. Played right, no instrument in the world has a sweeter sound. She played it right.
It begun in silence. Ever body got quiet. The other musicians was poised, waiting. She was setting there, her head tilted to one side, bow at the ready, like she was listening for some word from that fiddle. Then maybe some signal did pass between them, I don't know, but the bow moved and the fiddle begun to hum, deep and low at first, then higher and louder, until the sound filled the room, filled all of us in the room, set the very bones in our heads to ringing.
The piece went on. She was leaning forward now, her head still turned aside, her eyes closed, the instrument held close, left hand noting the strings, right stroking them lovingly with the bow. The music rose and fell as it progressed through its intricate pattern. She begun to sway and move her head slightly from side to side. I could see light glisten off the sweat on her upper lip. Then the music dipped way down, got growly, and I saw her lips part, heard the quick intake of breath, saw a faint flush rise in her neck and face. The piece ended as it started, in silence. Slowly she leaned back, her eyes still closed, like she was exhausted. Then the applause begun, and she stood and bowed with the others.
I'd never laid eyes on that woman before in my life. I had set there and watched her for less than two hours. Yet here I was, against all sense or reason, head over heels in love with her.
I went back ever night. Set as close as I could get to that little raised platform she played on. One night before they started my eye caught hers and she nodded to me. It was all I needed. I waited outside after the performance, and when she come out with that leg fiddle, I offered to carry it for her and she let me. As we walked, I told her my name and something about myself but she never spoke a word. We come to her apartment building and walked up the three flights of stairs to her door. She unlocked it and turned to take her fiddle. I couldn't help myself. I put my arms around her and tried to tell her what I felt for her. She laid the tips of her fingers on my lips and stopped me.
"I know," she said. She spoke English with a heavy accent. Her voice sounded like that leg fiddle. "I watch you watch me, and I know. But it cannot be. I belong to another. I am- -how do you say?--possessed. I give myself totally each night. You are nice man, but there is no more room. You understand?"
I understood that whoever this guy was, he wasn't near good enough for her. He never come to her performances, and he left her to walk home in the dark by herself carrying that heavy leg fiddle. Where was he, anyway? And then with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach I begun to realize that it wasn't a man she was talking about at all. Night after night, I'd watched her being possessed by and giving herself up to that leg fiddle, listened as it spoke sweet words in her ear, all the while touching and caressing and vibrating her inner thighs until she was aroused almost beyond endurance and then with a low growl bringing her to orgasm.
I loved her as I had never loved before or have since, but she was right, there was no room for me.
She kissed me softly and slipped from my arms.
"Arividerci, Bee-chum," she said, pronouncing my name like it was two words."
After Beechum finished, we sat in silence, digesting it all. I was wondering if Beechum had not revealed something of his inner self to us.
After a while, Billy, who like most of the Blackburns couldn't stand for anybody to outshine him and had just enough sense to snap at the bait left dangling, said, "Arividerci is Eye-talian. Vi-enna is in Austria where they speak German or something.
"Sure," Beechum said, setting the hook, "that's where it is now ."
