Chapter 10

Shaggy let her beg for awhile before breaking down. “All right, if you have to know.” He looked down at Lindsey, the tiny frame, the blue eyes, the blonde hair, and told her she had two names. “Half of them call you Fairy, half call you Angel, because you look like both.” Lindsey seemed pleased.

Jen looked at him and he smiled. “You, they call Madonna. Not for the singer, but for the religious one. You held a baby once for a mother, just as the sun was going down. You seemed to glow, and Preacher saw you. He declared you a modern Madonna, the symbol of hope and renewal. He even preaches sermons about you now and then, says you’re proof saints still walk on earth.”

Jen glowed with pleasure and embarrassment in equal measure. “And Dean?”

Shaggy seemed reticent, somehow. “Him, we call Warrior. The shelters have televisions, and a lot of us saw the VA series, and the public service announcements. Besides, one look from him when somebody gets too close to either of you makes them realize touching you might not be such a good idea.”

They turned and looked at me and I shrugged. They just grinned and took my arms, leaving Shaggy to struggle with the equipment.

We filmed an old black guy who was an amazing guitarist, a magician with a slide bar. He could make his guitar laugh, cry, cluck like a chicken and bay like a hound. He sang old blues, and introduced himself, tongue in cheek, as Blind Melon Chitlin. He had a younger man with him he called Harp, who was really good on harmonica, and they harmonized together pretty well. They refused to tell us about themselves. I filmed them through several songs, and their patter in between to the audience, before we gave them a hundred bucks and left.