Angel's Greatest Hits, Volume 1
Nov. 28th, 2005 01:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lostakashaHere's a quartet of old school C&W drabbles, written for this week's Open On Sunday challenge with the theme: Country Music.
Title: Mournful Whistle
Rating: G
Character: Angel
Disclaimer: Whedon, ME & Co own all. I got nothing.
A/N If this reads like a longer story, I think it might be one. Eventually.
Summary: Angel doesn't sing in public for reasons other than his ability to carry a tune.
Prologue
The choirmaster approved of his voice; not angelic, but sturdy, serviceable. A decent baritone for a boy of 12. Later he would sing with his chums at the sheeben, always the loudest, leading the room in raucous, randy rounds. He’d gotten many a tavern girl on her knees that way.
After his soulless rebirth there were symphonies and serenades and nights of song, all for his amusement. Soundtracks for more fascinating and hideous things.
Since regaining a soul, he aches to sing. Burns for it. Irish to the core.
Angel stays silent, refusing to allow himself that blessed, undeserved grace.
1952 (Southwest)
The radio tuner knob didn’t fall off by Tucumcari, so Angel figures it’s there to stay.
Every town between Flagstaff and Amarillo has their own country and western station, and he listens to them all as he drives, putting as much road as he can between himself and the Hyperion, absorbing as many songs as he can before midnight and the endless hours of white noise before Sunrise Serenade.
He stays on Route 66 because it is there, his only destination being farther from L.A.’s darkness.
He drives, dreading the announcer’s solemn reminder of ‘the end of our broadcast day.’
1952 (Midwest)
Saturday night he picks up KWKH drifting in and out on a wave of ghostly static, all the way from Shreveport.
…midnight train is whinin’ low…
Angel grips the tuner between bloodless fingers, as if sheer will can keep the signal steady.
. . .I’m so lonesome I could cry…
Will is never enough, and the signal fades to a hiss, then silence.
Then catches again, barely.
“…Hank Williams live at the Grand Ole’ Opry next Saturday night, so be sure to tune in, after the Louisiana Hayride, right here on K…”
Six days away, Nashville seems like a plan.
1954
Jimmie wants to teach him to play the pedal steel. “You got natural hands,” he insists.
The innocent prize shines like a reward for being quiet and good natured, and he wants it so badly that his fingertips twitch.
Desire is his signal for departure.
Angel sets the RCA portable record player in the trunk, alongside the milk crate full of 78’s and 45’s. Hank Williams. Ernest Tubb. Kitty Wells. Eddy Arnold. A new girl singer, Patsy Cline.
He needs to be somewhere colder. Quieter. Meaner.
New York? Cold. Mean, but unquiet. Tarnished by memories best left undisturbed.
Boston, then.
End
Title: Mournful Whistle
Rating: G
Character: Angel
Disclaimer: Whedon, ME & Co own all. I got nothing.
A/N If this reads like a longer story, I think it might be one. Eventually.
Summary: Angel doesn't sing in public for reasons other than his ability to carry a tune.
Prologue
The choirmaster approved of his voice; not angelic, but sturdy, serviceable. A decent baritone for a boy of 12. Later he would sing with his chums at the sheeben, always the loudest, leading the room in raucous, randy rounds. He’d gotten many a tavern girl on her knees that way.
After his soulless rebirth there were symphonies and serenades and nights of song, all for his amusement. Soundtracks for more fascinating and hideous things.
Since regaining a soul, he aches to sing. Burns for it. Irish to the core.
Angel stays silent, refusing to allow himself that blessed, undeserved grace.
1952 (Southwest)
The radio tuner knob didn’t fall off by Tucumcari, so Angel figures it’s there to stay.
Every town between Flagstaff and Amarillo has their own country and western station, and he listens to them all as he drives, putting as much road as he can between himself and the Hyperion, absorbing as many songs as he can before midnight and the endless hours of white noise before Sunrise Serenade.
He stays on Route 66 because it is there, his only destination being farther from L.A.’s darkness.
He drives, dreading the announcer’s solemn reminder of ‘the end of our broadcast day.’
1952 (Midwest)
Saturday night he picks up KWKH drifting in and out on a wave of ghostly static, all the way from Shreveport.
…midnight train is whinin’ low…
Angel grips the tuner between bloodless fingers, as if sheer will can keep the signal steady.
. . .I’m so lonesome I could cry…
Will is never enough, and the signal fades to a hiss, then silence.
Then catches again, barely.
“…Hank Williams live at the Grand Ole’ Opry next Saturday night, so be sure to tune in, after the Louisiana Hayride, right here on K…”
Six days away, Nashville seems like a plan.
1954
Jimmie wants to teach him to play the pedal steel. “You got natural hands,” he insists.
The innocent prize shines like a reward for being quiet and good natured, and he wants it so badly that his fingertips twitch.
Desire is his signal for departure.
Angel sets the RCA portable record player in the trunk, alongside the milk crate full of 78’s and 45’s. Hank Williams. Ernest Tubb. Kitty Wells. Eddy Arnold. A new girl singer, Patsy Cline.
He needs to be somewhere colder. Quieter. Meaner.
New York? Cold. Mean, but unquiet. Tarnished by memories best left undisturbed.
Boston, then.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-28 06:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-28 09:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-28 06:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-28 09:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-28 06:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-28 09:05 pm (UTC):::wibbles:::
I love the idea that he won't sing because he loves music so much and he doesn't deserve it. Plus it props up the canon of his bad voice -- hundres of years of unuse, plus shame and all those memories and voile: bad!mandy.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-28 07:57 pm (UTC)I loved this! The choirboy intro, the aimless wandering in the those "lost" years - gorgeous.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-28 09:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-28 08:39 pm (UTC)I'm going to add my voice to the chorus of "more"! I can see him making it a regular thing going to Boston Pops concerts and pretending to be the maestro in his grungy basement apartment. :D
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-28 09:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-29 02:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-29 02:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-29 05:36 am (UTC)Since regaining a soul, he aches to sing. Burns for it. Irish to the core.
Angel stays silent, refusing to allow himself that blessed, undeserved grace.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-26 02:15 am (UTC)squee, Angel was here in Nashville??? wahhhhhhhhh, too bad I wasn't born yet :(
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-28 11:22 pm (UTC)I love themed ficlets/drabbles...I like how they force focus.
And I love the idea of Angel driving, alone, listening to music. It is both utterly human and incredible isolating.
Beautiful.