We finish the next set without him and without a PA. Unplugged. The chatter of the audience is many times louder than the instruments.
It is rather enjoyable.
After the gig, Van drives along Hollywood Boulevard, on our way to my house, where Krystal is probably asleep. She used to come to my gigs, sit at the bar, her eyes alight with promises of unspeakable bedroom acts as I played. Now she doesn’t even bother. Her faded interest in my music is another nail in our relationship coffin. Back then, I looked to her like a fascinating and anguished artist, playing eclectic music with panache and passion. Now I suspect that I look like a pathetic has-been.
“So, Krystal is moving out.”
“No shit? Why?”
“The music has died.”
“Huh?”
Van lights a smoke.
“You OK with that?”
“No. Yes. I have no fucking idea.”
“Time you settled down, Meyer. You’re forty already. Ask her to marry you.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“She’ll point out my failings until I die.”
“Ah, right.”
“And while you’re calling the kettle black, why aren’t you marrying Marion?”
“Trust-fund babies are not required to get married. It’s in the Bill of Rights.”
We are silent for a while.
“I would prefer it if she didn’t move out right now.”
“Why?”
“Dread, Van, dread. Not a good companion for being alone.”
CHAPTER 8
I NEED TO pause here, develop some context. I am in danger of creating for myself an embarrassing midlife crisis. It’s not that. It cannot be that, it is too much of a cliché. A midlife crisis, as dissected by countless movies and books and shrinks, happens when a man hits a certain age, beyond the blush of youth, beyond the rigors of adolescence, beyond first careers, love affairs, and marriages, and enters that part of life where the future is now less compelling than the past. Where possibilities are no longer endless, where the certainties of aging color and limit everything. Reactions to such existential realities generally range from affairs to divorce, from fast cars to drugs, from shedding careers to newfound spirituality.
Pah. That’s not me, I tell myself. My problems are far more poetic than that. In fact, to be fair, I have no problems—at least not internal ones. I have issues, doubts, questions, bewilderments, resignations, bemusements, sure. But not problems. I am not concerned by my age, which is at the top of the roller coaster, heading downhill from here. Not concerned about the metaphysics of it all, the big questions—Why are we here? What’s it all about?—and other such nonsense. Too much introspection on these matters can lead to early-onset depression, followed by dementia and death. Not to mention loss of libido. It’s just my life, really, no need to go all Sartre about it.
No. My issues are more narrowly narcissistic than that. For instance, how come I don’t stand up to the prick CEO? I like my job and all, but somebody has to do something about this guy. For instance, why can’t I accept the end of Krystal? Why can I not stop worrying about my kids when the odds say everything will be fine? Why didn’t I stay with Grace and build an uncomplicated life? Why did I marry Bunny, when we had nothing in common except sex? Why don’t I marry Krystal and work on the things in my personality that irritate her? I refuse to see a psychologist because I do not consider myself in need of paid help; I mean, after all, I’m generally a functioning, happy individual, beset by the onset of justifiable dread.
Farzad would have all sorts of palliative advice, but he’s my friend, so he can’t charge me, so he is never going to give me the sort of quality expert advice that his paying clients get. He can offer amateur advice only, which by definition is bargain basement. This is an odd thought. Perhaps I should ask him for a four-week crash consultation for my next birthday. Wait. In normal circumstances, he might buy me a book for my birthday. Or a CD for my old car. This costs him, oh, about $15. Which would buy maybe five minutes of his time. Not even enough time to exchange a few good insults.
“Hi, Grace. It’s Meyer.”
I don’t speak to Grace much. Occasional calls to swap stories and concerns about Innocent. An email exchange on birthdays and Christmas. She moved on easily after our fleeting little dalliance. She still lives in LA, but the size of this city can make a mere neighbor a foreigner. Having a child with someone like Grace creates the sort of bond that does not necessarily tie, but always connects. She brought Innocent up, while I did drugs and had late nights and bad relationships and tried to find the door to adulthood. She raised him despite the deprivations of single motherhood, the constant shortage of time and money, the competing calls for her attention from Innocent and work, the need to combat the loneliness of dependency. Innocent always came first. She triumphed in the mothering department. I tried to help where I could, but I was hopeless, bewildered, unskilled. She didn’t need me.
In parenting there is only failure. That failure is simply a matter of degree. One can never do enough, never lay the perfect groundwork, never set the best moral foundation, never create an environmental hermetically sealed cocoon against the exigencies of a child’s constant need for independence. It is an imperfect world, and within that I was an imperfect father.
“Hi, Meyer. What’s up?”
I’m not sure why I am calling.
“I’m sorry.”
“Huh?”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For not being better when Innocent was young. A better dad, I mean. I left you with the burden.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah.”
“Meyer, that was twenty years ago. It’s history. Innocent is fine, I am fine. Apologies are not required, I assure you.”
“Even so …”
“OK. How are you? How’s Chrysalis?”
“Krystal.”
“Right.”
“She’s fine. We’re fine. No, wait. I am pretty sure she’s moving out.”
“Damn. I thought you were finally going to, you know, concretize your life?”
“Concretize my life? What am I, a building site? What the hell kind of word is that?”
She giggles. I love her giggle.
“I am about to get my PhD in Contemporary American Fiction. Weird words have crept into my vernacular. Sorry.”
“Really? So quick?”
“Not that quick. Three years.”
“Mazel tov. I’m proud of you.”
“Thank you.”
“You seeing anybody?”
“Sort of. Not really. None of your business actually.”
“I fucked up with you, Grace. You were the one that got away.”
“Nonsense. Nobody got away. We were kids. We made a mistake, Meyer.”
“But we got Innocent.”
“Yep, that we did.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Oh, you know. College boy. Hardly see him anymore. But he calls me every day.”
“He calls you every day?”
“Yes.”
“What does he tell you?”
“Got another A today. Love you, Mom, bye-bye.”
“He tells you he loves you every day?”
“Has done for twenty years. At least since he could speak.”
“Huh.”
“D’you speak to him?”
“Every few weeks. He doesn’t say, Love you, Dad.”
“Gender thing. What do you speak about?”
“Stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“Boys’ stuff.”
“Like what?”
“Sports. Politics. Girls. And music, of course.”
“Since when is politics boys’ stuff?”
“We should have lunch.”
“Why? The last time we had lunch was about ten years ago.”
“Um … no reason. Can’t I have lunch with the mother of my son?�
�
“OK. You all right, Meyer?”
“Yes, mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“I need to punch my CEO, and I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because he’ll fire me.”
“No, why do you want to punch him?”
“His face irritates me.”
“I see.”
I spent years not really thinking about Grace, other than via the exigencies of our shared child-rearing activities. Then gradually and somewhat aligned to my recent onset of dread, I started thinking about her more and more. Perspective is difficult at the best of times, although perspective with the benefit of hindsight is a gentler hill to climb. Twenty years of plodding mediocrity has sharpened my recollection of our relationship, its colors and edges sharpened in ways that I might have missed at the time. As soon as I hang up, I am sorry—I should have talked longer, reminisced with wit and sparkle, been funnier, entertained her, impressed her, made her want to see me. My apology should have been more sincere, should have left some residue of future intent. She sounds so self-assured, so over me and our premature and barely remembered year of marriage. That hurts. Men are assholes about this. They expect they will always be missed. The truth is often inverse. I expect that if men rifle through all the women who have passed through their lives, from the onset of prepubescent romanticism onward, they would flagellate themselves at the memory of so many opportunities missed, misread, arrogantly ignored, or just plain fucked up. I have become increasingly convinced that Grace was all that and more.
I am sitting at my desk, in my little office. Which I guess is a privilege in this day of shared workspaces and business school–researched communal and collaborative business practices. My laptop is blinking at me. I hibernate it.
Bunny pops into my head. My ex-wife. Courted and married and impregnated when it seemed that settling and sustaining was the way to go. When it became obvious to me that I was becoming a loser and a prick. I met her at some activist event or other. Climate change or something. She was there to be active. I, having discovered the attractive gender ratio of left-wing causes, was there for the wine and the girls. Not to say I wasn’t worried about the environment or global warming or tuna. I was. But I was also a lot more worried about other things. Like how not to end up bitter and alone. So I used these events as, well, dual-purpose hunting grounds—women and self-sanctimony. I met her at the bar, where I was onto my fifth cheap Chardonnay. She ordered a water. Tap water. Which stamped her bona fides as authentic. She saw through me immediately.
“So what do you think of his theory?” she asked.
The he in question was a famous Clinton-era science adviser.
“Um …”
“You haven’t a clue, have you?”
“No, sorry. Is that bad?”
“Yes. Why are you here?”
“I’m interested.”
“In what?”
“Well, right now in you.”
That got me through the door. The rest was plain sailing. And she actually did drag me into her causes. They were good causes too. They still are. Doomed, of course, by realpolitik. But even intentions have value.
Good causes like these were a marker of social status. Not only did you contribute time and energy to causes that seemed, so, well, obviously upstanding, but you could make friends along the way, agree enthusiastically with each other, easily identify Satan’s armies, and sleep with swell of breast. As for myself, my basically liberal bent was bruised and deformed by raging skepticism. I remember a presentation by a scientist who berated the earnest crowd for diluting their efforts. The Amazon, he said, the destruction of the Amazon outweighs all other warm and fuzzy causes by orders of magnitude, because if the destruction continues, we will have no oxygen. Be bold, he said, be realistic, prioritize your energies, turn away from lesser causes.
I suppose. But in the great maelstrom of competition and connivance for your time and money, even science gets damaged. Remember how AIDS was supposed to decimate Africa by 2015? The unraveling of the food chain because of various industrial food technologies? The end of energy? Whales, dolphins, tuna, rhinos, rents in the ozone layer, cloying mercury, electricity pylons, cell phones, pollution, global warming, genetic engineering? The Club of Rome, for fuck’s sake?
Who has the time for all of this? Well, Bunny had time. My attitudes of doubt and cynicism and barely concealed boredom were utterly unpalatable to her, and unraveled the fabric of the marriage.
I am in a calling mood. I call Bunny at work, a verdant, predictably earnest environmental lobbying group. She doesn’t like to get personal calls at work. Especially from ex-husbands who think Gaia is a stupid word.
“Hi, Bunny, it’s Meyer. How’s Isobel?”
“Fine. She’s made up with Cheryl.”
“You’re kidding.”
“She’s fourteen. They make up easily. Me, I haven’t made up with Cheryl. Little slut.”
“Now look who’s nine. How are you? How’s work? Are we in danger of killing the planet yet?”
“Always. Why are you calling?”
“Besides Isobel, no reason.”
“You know I can’t talk at work.”
“What sort of husband was I?”
“Really, Meyer? It’s two p.m. on a Thursday.”
“I thought I was a pretty good husband.”
“OK, Meyer, what’s up?”
“Just shooting the breeze.”
“Sure you are.”
“How’s it going with whatsisname?”
“You know exactly what his name is.”
“How’s it going with fuckface?”
“OK, Meyer, goodbye.”
“No, wait. Sorry. How’s it going with your boyfriend, Daniel?”
“Fine, thank you. Why are you interested?”
“You can’t marry him.”
“I can do whatever I want.”
“Mostly. But you can’t marry him.”
“Why not?”
“It will be confusing for Isobel.”
“How so?”
“You know, two father figures and all.”
“Nonsense, happens all the time. You’re just scared she will bond with Daniel.”
“Am not.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“She is a nearly sexual young woman. We can’t have a full-grown man walking around the house in his underwear. It could damage her.”
“Bye, Meyer.”
“Wait.”
“Bye, Meyer.”
CHAPTER 9
I GO OVER to Van’s house to take a look at some new stuff we want to try out. We are starting to experiment with strange stuff—7/8 time signatures, songs based on nontraditional scales, reworked gypsy mash-ups of old pop songs. Most of it, I assume, unlikely to find favor with audiences. Never mind, it is fun to fuck around. Reminds me of being in the sandbox at nursery school when I was a tyke. You fuck around, and then you go home for a nap. If only life were so.
Marion arrives while we are playing, and pops her head into the bedroom-cum-studio we are using for the fuck-around.
“Hey, Marion.”
She looks sourly at me, but manages a thin smile. “Tea?”
It is a tiny olive branch in a small war that we have never declared. Only the very question deserves its own bitch slap; only pseudo-intellectual Anglophiles offer tea. This is America, for God’s sake—we don’t drink tea, we drink coffee. I realize that I have completely unreasonable enmity toward Marion, but it is mainly because she does not like me, and I have thin skin about that. She retreats without saying a word to Van, which he doesn’t seem to notice.
“Van, I need to ask you something. Seriously.”
He puts down his guitar, and looks at me apprehensively.
“I smoked a doobie earlier, I don’t do serious. Even if I hadn’t smoked a doobie, I don’t do serious.”
“Why does Marion dislike me?”
“Um … what d’you
mean?”
“Your girlfriend doesn’t like me. And it’s affecting our relationship.”
“What relationship?”
“You and me.”
“We don’t have a relationship. We’re men.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Fuck her.”
“Hey, you can’t talk about her that way.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. She’s my girlfriend—I have her honor to protect.”
“Oh, horseshit. You don’t even like her that much.”
“True, but even so …”
Van is a dark soul, with occasional pinpricks of light. These are, in order of priority, his friendship with me, music, and his disinterest in his trust fund. The dark part of his soul is impenetrable. I am rarely allowed in, except when we are under the influence of something, in which case he tends to open up, revealing all manner of colorful moving parts. He is the one person I know for whom drugs allow the better part of him through. When he is straight his face is placid, no emotion can be gleaned from the usual markers of lips, eyes, and eyebrows. He is startlingly handsome in a Johnny Depp sort of way, sort of angular and haunted and dangerously sexual. He is also tall and broad shouldered and athletic looking, graced by the munificence of good genes. I know this because he has never as much as raised a sweat in all the years I have known him.
He talks little about his life before we connected, but I have met his fabulously rich parents a few times. They came into the club once, clapped enthusiastically at his solos, greeted the band politely. I couldn’t fault them. They were sweet and interested in me. They disturbed my preconceptions of the superrich. Even their house, perched in the Holmby Hills and nestled among ostentation and excess, is understated and tasteful. I once asked him about his upbringing, hoping to excavate terrible dysfunction—incest, abuse, neglect.
“So what was life in Holmby Hills like? I mean growing up?”
“It was OK, I guess.”
“Thanks, Van, I’m much more informed now. Give me something I can work with.”
But he didn’t. He remains, even now, a small riddle, with only occasional hints as to the answers that may be his core. We all hide parts of ourselves, I suppose. Not necessarily out of shame, but simply for the joy of privacy. Some more than others. Van is the most private of men. He is my best friend, and I try to take him as he comes.
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