“I know, Dad.”
“OK?”
“OK.”
“Love you, sweetie.”
“Love you, Daddy.”
Not Isobel. Not Innocent. But everything else is fucking temporary. Especially the good stuff.
Grace would know how to behave. She always had the sort of demeanor that would calmly deconstruct crises into piffling minutiae. She would have words of succor. She would have composure and balm. She would have wisdom. She would think her way through the problems and the obstructions and then act swiftly to clear the debris.
Am I rose-painting her? Have I elevated her unrealistically? Is my memory of her aggrandized and inflated into a comic cliché? Perhaps. Perhaps.
But I miss her with searing clarity.
CHAPTER 48
THE NEXT DAY Hyman Meyer dies. I receive the call at 5 a.m., jolting awake to the handset’s shrill and alarming insistency.
“Is this Joshua Meyer?” No more is necessary.
My father is dead. He has not died in his bed. He has not died at the home. He has been found lying on the sidewalk, miles away, with a small suitcase under his head. The suitcase contains two pairs of underwear, a swim suit, pajamas, a Hawaiian cotton shirt, a white T-shirt, a pair of shorts, sandals, a beach towel, a toothbrush, a razor, a spare set of dentures, and a comb. And his passport together with an obsolete 35mm Olympus camera. There is $500 in his wallet.
The sidewalk on which he died is outside a travel agency. A travel agency that specializes in cruises. It is miles from the home. They have a discounted “Singles Special” to the Bahamas advertised in the window. Nobody knows how he got there.
I fly to Miami that same day, trying to make the strict twenty-four-hour burial rule imposed by some of my less considerate ancestors. I take a taxi to the GoldLife Jewish Senior Living Center. I am met there by earnest-looking staff and a rabbi, a bedraggled-looking fellow who seems uncomfortable in the role.
I am always deeply interested in rabbis and priests and other men and women of the cloth. They all seem so out of their depth, acting as conduit between their flocks and the All Powerful. I can’t imagine the horror of that role. What if you wake up one day with a bad headache and go and minister and advise, and do a suboptimal job, thereby sending people to fates terrible and tortured? It’s almost like being a doctor, who can at least take out insurance against the consequences of bad advice and incorrect dosages. In this line of work if you make a mistake, you are in eternal shit.
I take a walk with the rabbi.
“I am sorry for your loss.”
“Yes, thank you. Death duty, huh?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Did you know my dad?”
“No, I didn’t. Apparently, he was pretty secular. He didn’t attend synagogue.”
“So what are you going to say?”
“I was hoping to get a background from you.”
“But that would be cheating, wouldn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t pretend to know him if you don’t.”
“If you wish it, I will simply say the prayers. The Kaddish.”
“In what language? Hebrew?”
“Yes.”
“Does God understand English?”
“I suppose.”
“So why Hebrew?”
“Tradition and ritual.”
“Perhaps we shouldn’t say any prayers. As you say, he was pretty secular.”
“We have to, Joshua.”
“Why?”
“Because they won’t bury him unless the service is done.”
“Ah. Pretty strict, these burial authorities.”
“I suppose. But the history behind this is long and rich.”
“I’ve had a tough couple of weeks, Rabbi. Do the whole thing. Hebrew is fine. Say a few words if you like.”
“Tell me about him.”
And I do. I tell him that fathers like mine are rare. I tell him that men whose goodness is manifold and whose flaws are superficial are to sons as water is to plants. My father, I say, died at the right age. Perhaps he died for the right reasons. But he died at the wrong time because I had not told him enough how much I loved him, and had he lived forever I still would not have had enough time.
I tell him that sons need heroes, not the sort who fly with capes across screens or who pitch perfect games. Not one who can conquer the curse of polio or one who can put together the notes of an ensemble horn section in a way that arrests the heart and enflames the emotions. Sons need a quiet hero. A man who will protect them without condition or recompense, who will revel in their every small victory. For whom pride requires no ingredient other than the line of blood.
I tell him that I have heard that when a father dies, the son finally becomes a man. I tell him that it’s bullshit. Sons become men when they have fathers who are men, men to whom they can raise their gaze and find someone who does right. When he sees someone for whom family is sacrosanct and for whom life is to be gently and humorously lived.
If the son sees all of this and stills fails to become the man of his father’s example, then he deserves the sorry state of his fucking life.
I tell him that all dread leads here. This is the end point foreboding.
We men wheel the pale and plain pine coffin along the well-trodden cement paths of the cemetery, just the few of us—a couple of ancient residents of the institution, some of the management, and those cemetery employees press-ganged into service, giving us just enough pallbearers to keep the coffin rolling. This old patriarchal ritual, of men handling the heavy lifting and the mourning women walking behind, dates to an age where such things were commonplace. It seems spectacularly anachronistic now and at the same time solidly bolstered by immutable traditions that have gotten us from there to here, the tribe still vibrant and intact.
The rabbi has done some intoning at the reception building, Hebrew words spilling out like so much gravel, sounding to my secular ears as strange incantations from an alien world. I have been to a number of Jewish funerals. Their effect on me is strangely calming, even in the midst of bereavement and grief, my secular contempt and bruising cynicism evaporating in the face of the primitive ancestral call.
There are perhaps ten mourners in all, not counting the press-gang—mainly a shriveled group of aging men and women whose attendance at these events must by now be a familiar ritual, a series of practice runs for their own hour upon this final stage. As we walk we pass countless headstones, mostly modest in keeping with tradition, bearing witness to names that ring familiar to us all. Morrie Sachs, Loving Husband, Father and Brother. Born 1912. Sarah Rappaport, Beloved Daughter, Born 2012. Rebecca Stern, Harry Rosen, Jerry Baum, Kerri Frankel, Cohen, Cohn, Kohan, Levy, Levine, Name-stein, Name-sky, Name-berg, Name-witz, Name-off. And everyone in between, collected here in the presence of familiars, names cast in stone, memories whispered and receding.
And then, the lowering of the coffin and that ancient sadness, the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead, the translation of which is opaque, but whose cadences and cries and imprecations and blessings comfort me in ways I do not understand, even as I stand here, weeping without restraint.
My father was going to take that cruise. He was going to meet a pretty girl, he was going to marry her, have a couple of kids, start a career, buy a house, live happily ever after.
Death took him away from his dreams.
Death took him away from me.
CHAPTER 49
MY HOUSE BURNS down while I am on my way to my last gig.
I am driving down Beachwood Drive to The Beast Belly to say goodbye to yet another part of my life. As I reach the bottom of the canyon and into the maw of Hollywood, the fire engines turn in from Franklin, rushing past me, cacophonous with sirens and sure-footed omen. I glance in the rearview mirror. High on the hill, below the “D” of the Hollywood sign I can see smoke and flames. I don’t bother to turn around. There can be no other home for whom this
particular bell tolls. It can only be the worst of imaginings, because that is what I am—a receptacle for the worst of imaginings. A toy for a toddler to smash.
I conjure it up. The fire will start in the alcove outside the kitchen, where the power supply and distribution board parse out their goodies. A small mouse will have happily chewed through an important rubber-coated length of copper, leaving it dangling under gravity, swaying to and fro, making contact with conductive materials, sparking, combusting. A small flame at first, greedily seeking sustenance. Finding a splintered corner of the fucking woodframe, perhaps. Or lint, collected in a clump from years of intermittent and neglectful cleaning. And then an exponential acceleration of rage—flames leaping and cackling, jumping to ever greater challenges, curtains, carpets, chairs, tables, eventually reaching my bedroom, sprinting to cupboards and drawers, destruction now an urgent and inviolable intent. My passport. My clothes, neatly hung on plastic hangers. My shoes, including the cowboy boots I wore when I played behind Guns N’ Roses in a stadium gig twenty years ago. My books with handwritten inscriptions from my parents. My music. My piano. My bed, sadly unmade. Toothbrush. Hairbrush. The dirty clothes hamper. My tax forms. Spare car keys. The computer. My beautiful piano, a battered old Steinway baby grand, procured at an auction subsequent to the death of an old German professor. Medals, certificates, awards, degrees. And then the photo albums. The one of me and Rebbe and Mom and Dad on a beach somewhere, my mother smiling, hand carelessly draped on her husband’s bare shoulder, while her three-year-old twins shriek with laughter at some photographer’s antic. The one of me at the Hollywood Bowl playing with Mark Knopfler in the early 1990s. Backstage with Lauryn Hill. The one in a bar, sitting in with Rickie Lee Jones. At a party with Grace, Innocent tucked in against her chest, a sleepy look of happiness on his face. The one of me and Bunny and Isobel, just before her big starring role in the school play, her smile wide, eyes apprehensive. Objects large and small, each with its own story to tell, the threads of Farzad’s tapestry. I see it clearly, the ravage dying down, the house slowly crumbling down the hillside, my life becoming embers.
* * *
The bar is heaving, packed, spilling over onto the patio and street. Word has gotten out, and these are witnesses to the end of an era. Gordon comes over.
“Hey, Meyer. So this is it.”
“You are fucking up my life, Gordon. Why does anyone and everyone insist on fucking up my life?”
“It’s not about you, my friend.”
“Ha. But it is. At least it should be. And if it’s not, I want to know why.”
The band is setting up, a mood of inappropriate celebration abounds. Mike the drummer is fucked up on something, his eyes not really focusing clearly. He generally plays well when he is flaming as long as he doesn’t head over his pharmaceutical tipping point. Tim is grinning at nothing in particular, his violin/accordion virtuoso status making him much in demand, a bulwark against the curse of musicians’ stress. Billy is nonplussed, predatorily scanning the audience for sexual possibilities.
I gather the forces into an alleyway conference.
“So. We gonna look for another gig or fold it and become street people?”
Tim offers, “I think we’re at the end of the road. Time for new beginnings. I have a shot at a live TV gig. Steady pay, steady hours, great band. Been thinking I’m gonna do that.”
“Really? Who?”
“The Ned Curtis Show. Studio band.”
Ned Curtis is the next big thing, according to those in the know. Talk-show format. Alternative hip guests from new media, music, tech, theater, comedy—the spicy and colorful fringes of everything. Ned is young and funny and smart and a comer. The studio band, whose name is Global Economy, is eclectic and musically literate, and a critical part of the show. A younger and hipper version of Paul Shaffer’s Late Show band. A gig like this is the pot of gold at the end of the steady gig rainbow. I am instantaneously riven with lacerating and cruel jealousy. I revert to a moment of childishness.
“Gee, nice of you to let us know.”
Tim shrugs. I relent and give him a buddy shove.
“Jackpot. Lottery. 77 Virgins. The Excalibur Sword. Royal Flush. Damn, Tim, that’s great.”
Tim just grins and shrugs some more. Every musician who has ever dreamed of stardom but understood its mocking mirage has at some point remolded his aspirations to include this. It’s like being offered a high-paying gig at Google after toiling in the hell of go-nowhere start-ups.
I turn to Mike.
“You, Mike?”
“Yeah. I suppose all things must pass. I’ve been thinking about some travel. Go play drums in Africa or Asia. Somewhere where it’s not that easy to score drugs, you know? I need some clean time.”
“Billy?”
Billy is the youngest of us, about twenty. He is wiry and handsome and boyish. He can trade on things that we can’t.
“Happy to play another gig with you guys, but I guess I should look around. Play some kids’ music, dance stuff. Find some teenage singer and write some songs with her. Maybe hit the big time, who knows.”
I nod. Van puts his arm around me.
“You and me, Meyer. Till the end. Fuck these guys. We’ll form a Simon-and-Garfunkel thing, fill Central Park.”
“Uh huh. Can you sing?”
“Yes. Badly. Can you?”
“Yes. Even worse.”
“OK, maybe not Simon and Garfunkel. But something.”
I look at all of them. Part dreamers, part fuck-ups, part musicians, part along-for-the-riders. Part part-timers like me. It is a strange bond between band members. The coming together of these parts for a few hours of smoke, mirrors, and occasional magic. Then off to our lovers and wives and children and broken toilets and tax returns and other bloodless concerns until the next time.
“Let’s go and tear the roof off this place.”
There is a mood of abandon in the bar. The Santa Anas have gone; now it is just hot. Deep, thick, dry, unrelenting Los Angeles summer heat. I scan the audience. There are a lot of familiar faces. Some friends. Bunny, Krystal. Even Farzad has made the trek from Santa Monica, looking mildly astonished at the tightly spaced pointillist crowd, colorful Hollywood dots in a youthful collage.
We launch into the set, pushing our high-energy stuff to the front of the playlist, surfing the energy of the crowd. The auspiciousness of the occasion, the specter of an uncertain future, the sense of an ending seem to push us. A hard tailwind, warm and insistent. The band is cooking, heating up, becoming the best it can be. There are no loose notes, the ensemble sections an impermeable unstoppable juggernaut, perfectly shaped, riding high above the rhythm section—the sax, violin, and guitar melded into a rainbow-colored single polyphonic instrument, cogent and oratorical. I glance at Billy and Mike—they are in the rare zone—eyes closed, stitched together in lockstep, building a rail over which the rest of us ride.
And the solos! Even Van, who stays away from front and center, is having his say—long bent notes at the top of the guitar neck held like grief until a glissando down to middle octaves and a scurry and explore across the chords ending low down on the E string, a whisper, a croak of farewell.
Tim is all satire and innovation and good humor: a Celtic jig across the blues, Yiddish klezmer across a country rock standard, a tango mash on top of a Nirvana cover, Arabian scales over Britney Spears.
We reach the end of the set, one more. I turn to the band.
“What’s the saddest shit we know? The saddest song ever written?”
Everyone sort of looks thoughtful.
“‘Oblivion.’ Piazzolla. Seems appropriate. That’s where we’re going.”
And so we drop down, soft, almost whispering, the traditional four percussives on one/two-and/three/four, setting up the melancholic tango underpin. We let the vamp build, with Tim on accordion inventing partially arpeggiated scaffolding, the instrument’s sad and thin voice keening softly. We continue to build, holding off from
the melody launch until I step up to the microphone and hit the low G, roughhewn and breathy, and we are in.
And then I lose myself, just as I have lost the rest. The job, the son, the house, Grace, Dad. I lose myself, eyes squeezed shut. And somebody else takes over, steps in, relieves me of myself. I hear notes and cadences and timbres and phrases that I have never heard before, beautiful and haunting, the melody reborn, shaped into curves and edges that shock me, that wash me clean. And then the solo. Slowly now, languid, notes collecting into phrases, phrases into stories with beginnings and middles and endings, smooth and easy, no repeat of old tales, no cowardly borrowings and half-formed ideas, just small and curious excursions from the majestic melody, nibbling at its edges, catching its echoes, while it holds the center, still commanding its exquisite authority.
We come around again and the band carefully puts the song to bed, gently, laying it down to sleep as if a newborn child. The last note is played and fades. I open my eyes. There is quiet in the audience, as though they have heard something and are trying to find its source. This is new. They were listening. Somebody claps. Someone whistles. The applause slowly builds to a roar.
My eyes are drawn to a table near the back. It is dark, I can’t make out the faces. One of them stands up. The light spills over him. A handsome black face, light skinned, deeply intelligent. I would know it anywhere. He is looking straight at me and frowning. It is royalty. It is the king. It is Wynton Marsalis. The apogee of musical erudition and creativity.
He claps lightly.
Then he nods slightly.
Then he smiles gently.
Wynton Marsalis. Clapping and nodding and smiling. Just enough to grace me. Like a benediction from on high.
And then he mouths a word. I read it as certainly as if he were whispering in my ear, as surely as if he had commissioned a billboard on Sunset. His lips caress the sharp opening consonant, tongue darting to the top teeth to support the second syllable. The word he utters is “Pretty.”
I look down at my feet. They seem so light. So I tap a foot. And then the other. First the toe and then the heel. And then I am dancing. Alone. Arms outstretched, head thrown back. I can see the open pipes and the overhead stage lights and the wiring, and through it, to the night sky, sparkling and winking like an infinity of semaphores. And I am dancing, dancing, knees pumping, hips swinging, swiveling around, shoulders pumping, back arched, bouncing up and down on my private stage, head bobbing this way and that. I can hear laughter and clapping and whoops. I switch to an Irish jig and then a Russian Cossack leg thing and then a faux tap dance, the twist, a broken breakdance, and then I let loose, tearing around like a dervish, jumping, swaying, soaring, spinning, until the sweat is pouring, my breath in rasps, my muscles spent. I look up, through the roof, through the smog, through the clouds. Up to the dark sky, sparkling with stars and hope. And in my ecstasy, I can hear Rebbe, laughing the light sprinkles of a childhood giggle. Dancing. Dancing for my loves, my lives, my losses, my legacies.
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