HILL TOWNS / 109
“She was a cheerleader?” “She was. Prettiest girl at ’Bama that year. Like to dazzled me right out of my mind. Stars fell on Alabama, like the song says.” That amused me. I began to sing, softly, “We lived our little drama, we kissed in a field of white, and stars fell on Alabama…last night.” He chimed in on the last line, in a good voice, tenor, smoky with bourbon. The group at the bar turned to look at us, smiled, and turned away. “But you didn’t stay,” I said. “May I have some more bourbon?” “Here you go; hold your glass steady. No. I didn’t. I started to grow and change and she didn’t, and I just got to where I had painted everything there was to paint around Tuscaloosa, Alabama. So I finally moved on. I think, on the main, she was right relieved.” “And the rest is history.” “The rest, as they say, is history.” From behind us, far up the hill, a voice wailed out of the darkness, a high, long tremolo. The lament of a lost soul. It died away in a kind of sobbing. “What was that?” I said, my flesh creeping with chill. I turned and looked up but could only see the dark bulk of the huge building high above us, and above that the sky, full of stars. “That was one of the good denizens of Regina Coeli,” he said, getting up and going to the parapet and leaning his forearms on it. I followed, staggering slightly. “Every now and then one of them gives voice. It’s the Roman version of urban coyotes. The gentleman says he wants a lawyer. It’s usually that or a woman. If it weren’t dark you could see the guards prowling on the walls with Uzis. Gives a lot of tone to the neighborhood.”