Radiant Days by Elizabeth Hand Page A

their name wrong and printed it as the Deadly Raisins. So, like, their really tight fans call them the Raisins. Ted was so incredibly brilliant, you wouldn’t believe it. I saw them once and I’m not kidding, he was better than Hendrix.”
    “Like
you
saw Hendrix,” said Tiny.
    “I saw that Woodstock movie. Believe me, Ted was better.”
    Everything I ever heard about Ted was pretty much the same story—that the Rays were a great band but they never made it, mostly because they were a bunch of drunks who would screw up anytime they played, usually on purpose. The band was Ted and his brother and two of their friends from a Catholic high school out in PG County; they’d wear dresses onstage, or perform naked, or dress up as priests. Sometimes Ted would play guitar with a pork chop taped to his leg. David said that after they recorded their most famous album, they got royally pissed at somebody, stole the master tapes, and threw them into the Potomac at Great Falls. The album was never released.
    I pointed at David’s boom box. “So how come you’ve got all those tapes?”
    “Because Ted recorded all the songs on a little bitty tape player and sold the tape to Marginal Records, and they released it. Therest of the band completely freaked. That’s when they threw him out. Some of them still live around here, but they won’t even talk to him. Poor Ted.”
    “So were they, like, punk?” I asked.
    David shook his head sadly. “They were everything.”
    I’d seen Ted a few times since then, always in Georgetown, where he’d shamble along M Street bumming smokes. I’d heard he liked to fish, also that he’d sometimes play his guitar on the street for spare change, but I’d never heard him play.
    Now I stood and watched him, wondering if he’d get pissed off if I tried to sketch him. Probably. After a while he took a long drag from his cigarette, leaned forward to toss it into the river, reeled his line back in, and reached for the paper bag. He pulled out a bottle and turned to look at me.
    “Huh.” He grunted and spit on the ground, took a swallow. His eyes were pale amber, clouded like an old beer bottle. “Is it Tuesday?”
    “No. It’s Sunday.”
    “Good. If it’s Tuesday, it must be Bellevue. Lookit that.”
    He tipped his head toward the water. A heron flew past, long legs trailing so they almost touched the surface, like a gigantic mayfly. We watched it disappear in the haze of trees on the far side of the river. Ted took another swig from the bottle and held it out.
    “Want a taste?”
    I hesitated, then took the bottle, which wasn’t a bottle at all but some kind of old leather canteen. Not very hygienic-looking, butseeing as how I’d spent the last few weeks living without running water, I wasn’t going to complain. I took a big swallow, immediately choked and doubled over, fighting to catch my breath. Whatever I’d drunk was slightly viscous, and so strong I felt like I’d gulped down butane that had been set alight.
    Ted grabbed the canteen from me. “Jesus Q. Murphy, you’re a flyweight.” He popped the cork back in, shoved it into the paper bag, and lit another cigarette.
    “Smoke?” He squinted at me and scowled. “Nah, I forgot. Flyweight.”
    He was unshaven, his face grizzled gray, his eyes so bloodshot there seemed to be no white surrounding the topaz iris, only red.
    “I’m Ted Kampfert from the Deadly Rays.” He said it all in a rush, as though that was his entire name.
    “Yeah, I know.” I spit to get the bad taste from my mouth. “Can I have a cigarette?”
    He closed one eye, staring at me like I was the bull’s-eye in a target, finally held out his pack. His fingers were cracked, the fingertips scarred and calloused. Some of the nails were black; not with dirt, but as though they’d been slammed with a hammer.
    I took a cigarette. Ted drew his scarred fingers together and made a quick motion as though flicking water; held a scant, gas-blue flame to the