by Lee Irby
Gibson is holding nothing back. She reminds me of a combination of Janis Joplin and Brigitte Bardot, a gravelly, whiskey-soaked voice with the body of a sex kitten. It’s captivating to watch her, even if I can’t make out the words of the songs. What she has can’t be taught, the visceral, seething performance that comes from a dark place yet is suffused with blazing light. She can become a star. Maybe nobody but me in this crapulous venue can see it, but Gibson has the wow factor. It’s impossible not to watch her and she seems to know that she possesses the power to command attention.
The song abruptly ends. Gibson wanders around the small stage as the drummer taps on the rim of his kettle as if to keep the beat for the next number. Then the lead guitarist starts shouting at someone in the audience, and the heckler then takes it upon himself to spring up on the stage, where he assumes a karate stance to threaten the guitarist. The crowd starts booing and hissing, and suddenly the guitarist takes a swing at the guy using his instrument as a baseball bat. But he misses when his nimble target jumps backward, causing him to knock into Gibson, who because of the unforeseen collision then tumbles off the stage and lands more or less in the mosh pit. Bedlam quickly erupts and fights break out in about six different locations at once. I rush over to check on Gibson, who’s supine on the beer-splattered floor and in danger of getting trampled by panicked punks whose heavy boots could crush her. I have to shove several of the marauding wastrels away, but when she sees it’s me coming to her rescue, she smiles thinly as she yells choice curse words at the people knocking into her.
“You okay?” I ask, after I’ve hoisted her up.
“Yeah, I guess. My ankle hurts. Asshole!” She shoves a small banshee with gusto, sending him sprawling. Bouncers and bartenders struggle to regain control of the melee. Someone grabs the mike and begs for everyone to “chill the fuck out,” which actually does help calm down the situation. But confusion still lurks as Hazzie Mattie attempts to regroup in front of the stage. The lead guitarist has a bloody nose and his guitar has a broken neck, which he waves around as he vows vengeance.
“I’ll kill that little piece of shit! He won’t live to see tomorrow!”
The drummer takes umbrage at his mate’s bravado. “You didn’t need to get into it with him during our set, man. Now look. It’s all fucked up. Gibson was killing it, too.”
“Fuck you, man. Fuck this band.”
With that last imprecation, the lead guitarist storms off, possibly heralding the breakup of Hazzie Mattie. The bassist gives chase but then gives up and returns with a defeated shrug.
“Let him go,” the drummer counsels. “He was way too into smack for me. And he sucked.”
“Now we need to find somebody else,” Gibson says resolutely, already thinking of a solution to the problem. No quit in her, a very admirable trait and one I don’t share.
A man around my age with spiked salt-and-pepper hair and a huge looping earring comes up to the remnants of the band. He’s probably the club’s owner and he’s most likely going to banish them forever, given the fracas that broke out.
“That was awesome, guys!” he gushes. “That was smoking hot. Loved the look, the energy.” He’s staring right at Gibson when he says this, showing that he’s no fool. “I want you guys to come back for another set.”
“Really? When?” Gibson knows an opportunity when she sees one, and it’s smart of her to nail him down on the details.
“Next Friday? Does that work? Can you find a replacement for Dog?” Gibson had mentioned him, the lead guitarist and founder of Hazzie Mattie.
“It’s his band. We’ll need a new name.”
“Whatever, you’ll think of something. We can pay you a hundred bucks. That’s what the opening act gets. We booked a group from Norfolk to play here, I Stole This. Heard of them? They just signed with Rummage Records. They kick ass.”
“Hell yes!” the drummer yells and gives Gibson a hug, but she’s not interested in him. She’s flirting with the owner, the decision-maker, displaying again a toughness that’ll take her far in this sexist world. She’s giggling and flipping her hair and touching his arm, just like Lola did when she first tried to seduce me. Who can resist these blandishments?
But after the owner is gone, general euphoria sets in among the band members, who’ve just tasted their first portion of success. They kick around ideas for the name of their new band, including such gems as Barney Fife and Snirtle. They’re all shouting at each other like they’re trading hog futures, and something tells me they won’t come together tonight. Still, it’s uplifting to see Gibson standing on the cusp, with her future beckoning, while my past lumbers on. I really don’t know what to do with myself, since Paula hasn’t arrived. I stand a respectable distance from the ebullient group, on the lookout for a woman who will be the oldest person in here once she arrives. Maybe I should call Paula and tell her not to bother, since the show was aborted. I could meet her elsewhere for a drink.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I think I see Lola. Just a fleeting glimpse of a young woman bounding up the stairs. No way, impossible, and yet I find myself moving, legs churning, heart pounding, fear gripping me around the throat…it’s happening, the sure-loser gambit she’s forced me to take to counter her own bold opening…and now I blindly pursue quarry with no firm grasp of the endgame. Yes, I’ll admit I’m thrilled she’s apparently stood up her online lover to seek my company, if in fact it is her.
Which it isn’t. Once I reach the top of the stairs, and the light grows brighter, I can plainly see that the woman in question isn’t Lola and isn’t a woman, but a very effeminate and tall transvestite. Disappointed, crushed even, I lope back down the stairs just in time to run into Gibson and her cohort.
“I think we’re going out,” she tells me sweetly. “You’re more than welcome to join us.”
“No, go, go! I’m going to meet up with Paula for a drink.”
“Cool! She’s a super cool woman. She’s always telling me to go for it and have no regrets.”
“She’s a smart person then.”
“It’s so awesome that you came! Sorry about how screwed up things got.”
“You were amazing. Seriously. You’re going to be a star.”
“Shut up!”
“I’m not kidding! You guys got a paid gig out of this and it’s all because of you. Not them.”
“I’m sorry I was such a bitch to you earlier. There’s only so much I can put up with when it comes to my family and I was at my limit.”
I nod in commiseration. “Promise me you won’t stay out late tonight. Tomorrow’s a big day and we need to be functional. Maybe even cheerful.”
“I’m tight.”
She hugs me in a daughterly way, and I feel very protective of her. Since I’ll never have kids, this is as close to fatherhood as I’ll ever get. Right on cue, as she’s about to leave, I see a familiar face hovering nearby, that of the man whose wife is a cop with a service revolver and a bad attitude. I recognize his strong jawline and chiseled features. “Wait a second,” I say in a hushed tone. “Isn’t that the married guy who lied to you and almost got us killed?”
“He just showed up! Yell at him, not me.”
“I’m not yelling at anyone. Don’t you think you should stay away from him?”
“Probably.”
“Are you going to stay away?”
“Probably not.”
“There you have it, ladies and gentlemen, poor decision-making! He’s a liar. The worst kind of liar. Some liars are sort of entertaining, but he’s toxic.”
“I got nothing better to do. You’re the one I’m worried about.”
“Me? I’ve never been better.”
“Yeah, right. If you say so.”
With that last salvo, she spins around and catches up to her group of friends and fans and lovers who’ve misled her, while I loiter in a darkened club where no one knows me. Another band is setting up onstage, and I allow myself to study them. Chances are, they won’t make it
any farther than this stage, and yet they carefully set up their equipment as if they’re getting ready to play a sold-out stadium. Some might call that courage, others vanity. I cross my arms in grudging admiration. Why did I never follow through with my music? Why did the idea of joining a band strike me as ridiculous? Was it the fear of failure? The fact that I lacked talent? Since when did lack of talent ever stop anyone from pursuing a dream? Lola thinks that I can write a very great book. She’s told me so many times and seems to mean it, but it’s hard to tell with her.
Paula! I need to call her and save her a trip to this decrepit part of town. I lug out my phone and see that Lola has texted me. It’s beyond uncanny how she manages to insinuate herself into my life during my darkest moments, when I feel completely lost and adrift, when I despise myself for missing her.
Her message is simple:
O M G
Then appears a picture. Of a man. Of a man’s penis. Of a man’s penis that looks like it was made in a rubber factory in Liberia. The pigmentation of his appendage suggests African origin but I don’t want to perpetuate racial stereotypes. I will say that he is no larger than Thor, who was white (and insufferable). But there is something poignant about Lola being with this person of color, especially as I stand in the city of Richmond, Virginia, on a hot, dry night in July. In many ways, the Confederate States of America was based on one noxious concept: the fear of miscegenation, the outlandish idea that a white woman would commingle with a black man, who, once freed from the civilized bonds of slavery, would rampage through his master’s house raping and pillaging. The election of Lincoln, the fire-eaters argued, would unleash the beast within these hypersexual subhumans, and once the votes were counted in 1860, fear gripped the South and secession soon followed. It was a form of pornography, really, this morbid fascination with black men befouling white women, though few Southerners would ever admit to it. Hence, the myth of the Lost Cause, the noble fight for states’ rights, replaced the prurient vitriol of race-mixing and led to the erection of statues along Monument Avenue, the most famous of which, of General Lee, stands not two blocks away from me.
“Hey!”
I look up and see Paula, who’s managed to change into attire more befitting the urban landscape than my J. Crew ensemble.
“I was just getting ready to call you! Gibson’s night ended early and that’s a funny story.”
“I know, I just ran into her. She said it went great, though. I’m so proud of her. She’s a tough chick, like her mama.”
“We don’t have to stay here.”
“It might get loud.”
I don’t know Richmond like I once did, but I guess that if we walk back toward Grace Street we’ll find a little watering hole or bistro more to our liking. “I’m sure there’s something nearby,” I say as I gently place my hand on the small of her back to indicate that we should leave.
Back outside, even more street urchins have gathered near a barbershop on Broad Street, where a rap battle is in full throat. We steer clear of the commotion and instead stroll toward a bank, which for some reason seems safer. “My cabdriver didn’t believe me when I told him where to go,” Paula mirthfully explains. “He kept asking me if I was sure.”
“Just wait. In one block, you’ll feel as though you’ve gone back in time. In Richmond the contrasts are very stark.”
“That’s very perceptive. Most of the men I know couldn’t provide half that level of insight.”
“I don’t like to brag, but I’m an intellectual.”
“I can tell.”
We both dissolve into an easy laugh, turning right on Allen Avenue, where as I predicted within a block, on Grace Street, sit enormous brick mansions that harken back to a stately prominence not found in the tattoo parlors and boarded-up shops we just left. “Wow!” Paula gasps, admiring the lovely streetscape. “You were right. Look at these places. It reminds me of parts of London, almost like Belgravia.”
“I’ve heard that before. These are beautiful homes, and the ones on Monument Avenue are even better, and of course there’s that showpiece, too.”
She stops dead in her tracks.
“Is that…Robert E. Lee?” She points at the statue illuminated by spotlights below. It rises a block to our south, with the general astride his horse, both of them hovering in the darkness like ghostly forms. Paula picks up the pace, a moth drawn to the flame of History. “We have to go check that out. I had no idea it was so ginormous.”
“You’ve never seen it?”
“This is my first trip to Richmond. Hard to believe, but true.”
“Well, it’s our city’s most famous landmark, and a real must-see. Shall we?” We zip past a restored school, called Orchard House, and it’s absolutely charming, with big arched windows and neo-Gothic finials to add a Normal Rockwell flair. Ah, the simpler times of Jim Crow segregation! I can imagine all the little white boys and girls at recess marveling at the nearby heroic monument and thinking that they were in proximity to the godhead in the same way that Athenian children would gaze up at the Parthenon marching to Plato’s Academy. “We are nearing hallowed ground, you know. You might want to remove your shoes and bow your head. If you look directly into General Lee’s eyes, your pupils might melt.”
“Very funny. Are you always this droll?”
“No. Weddings bring out the best in me.”
Another flirtatious giggle. What’s this feeling bubbling inside me? Could it be the nascent embryo of attraction? Of course, makes perfect sense! The one woman in the world I really should steer clear of is someone around whom I feel very comfortable, who is single, has no kids, is educated, and thinks I’m droll, which is a wonderful adjective to be called by a lover—but she’s also going to be my step-aunt. I can literally address her as Aunt Paula, in bed and out. How down and dirty is that? Enough to kickstart my groin? Could be, could be. Will miracles never cease?
We come up to the traffic circle that surrounds the Lee monument, which is situated in the middle of a grassy lawn. From our vantage on Allen Avenue, we see the general’s back and the horse’s tail, as General Lee faces south, and so we must go around for a better view.
“I need to get a selfie with this. It’ll be a scream.”
“My ex-wife hated this statue with a passion. She acted like it was my fault it was ever built. I had to keep reminding her that I had nothing to do with it.”
“I know the type. Married one of them myself.”
Monument Avenue is thick with traffic and so we must wait to cross at the light. There is a definite European atmosphere to this part of Richmond. While not the Arc de Triomphe, the Lee monument is no less impressive and erected for an equally spurious reason; one celebrates the nobility of the Lost Cause, the other speaks to the glory of Napoleon Bonaparte. Interestingly, the Lee statue was fabricated in Paris, at the atelier of Marius Jean Antonin Mercié, described as a “short, thick-set, squarely built man, with dark hair and eyes, and short black beard.” Miss Sarah Randolph of the Lee Monument Commission traveled to Paris in the summer of 1887 with Lee’s daughter Mary, who brought to the artist the general’s frock and spurs in the name of verisimilitude…and it was there, amid the charming gardens just off the Avenue de L’Observatorie, that Miss Randolph began a torrid affair with Mercié, whose selection had outraged the locals who’d vied for the commission only to lose out to a Frenchman, albeit one who’d been trained at the Academy des Beaux Arts and who enjoyed an international reputation. Scandal quickly erupted, staining Miss Randolph’s spotless name.
“You know quite a bit about this, huh?” Paula observes as we head over to the wide median that runs down the center of Monument Avenue.
“I guess my wife’s loathing of it caused me to surf online for some historical context.” I pause here, the stand-up comic never far away. “I know how to waste time. It’s maybe my greatest skill.”
“Why is his hat off?”
Indeed, Lee’s hat rests on his thigh, and in the other hand he holds the
reins. The horse beneath him has all four of its legs on the ground, indicating that the pace is a slow walk, not a triumphant gallop. “The artist apparently was adamant that Lee’s brow be visible, because he wanted to capture the depth of the man’s character. Lee is inspecting the troops after the defeat of Gettysburg, a very elegiac moment in the history of our people, for which he took full blame.”
“His expression is somewhat pained. Okay, I need a picture. Where should I stand?”
So now we configure a quick photo shoot, with me as cameraman. She hands me her phone and I place her on top of a park bench, so that in the shot her head appears to be holding up the statue, serving as the plinth, as it were. The lighting isn’t great, but it’ll do. Anyway, I prefer a hard-edged patina to my selfies. Nothing too pretty.
“Say fromage!” I call out.
Paula gives me a wry grin and I snap off two shots. She leaps down and together we check out the results. Her verdict: perfect. “That’s hilarious! It’s like sitting on top of my head. What an eye for proportion you have, Professor Stith.”
I detect a playful tone in the way she pronounces the word “professor,” indicating that she might harbor the remnants of a schoolgirl fantasy, which isn’t uncommon. “How about that drink?” I laugh nervously, fighting back the impulse to tell her everything, and I mean everything.
17
During his last visit to Richmond, Edgar Allan Poe became convinced that the people he cared the most about in the world were dead when in fact they were very much alive. Many scholars have mistakenly attributed these delusional episodes to rampant alcoholism, but Poe no longer was drinking in the summer of 1849. What possibly could have driven the great Poe to fits of psychosis? We know he was broke, constantly badgering editors for money they owed him, and yet hopeful that he could start his own literary magazine, to be called Stylus, if only he could find a benefactor. He gave the last public lecture of his life at the Exchange Hotel on Franklin Street, and charged admission of twenty-five cents. People hung from the rafters to hear the famed author speak on “The Poetic Principle,” hoping that he’d read “The Raven.” Instead Poe delivered a manifesto on beauty that envisioned a poetry unshackled from the “theory-mad” desire for morals or instruction. Here was Poe, facing ruin on many fronts, extolling art for art’s sake, while dismissing as lightweight the busybodies who think poets should capture the Truth. No, said Poe, we should all be striving for something just beyond our reach, that which is floating in clouds, babbling in brooks, rising with mountaintops to the cerulean sky. In the audience was a woman named Mrs. A. B. Shelton, with whom Poe had been in love as a young man. Then called Elmira Royster, she was now a widow, and a wealthy one, and Poe himself was a widower, having lost his child bride two years before. Would his old flame rescue him from financial morass? He’d courted others in New York and Boston, but had never remarried. But by the time he reached Richmond, his situation was deteriorating. In the last letter Poe would ever write, he told his former mother-in-law, “My clothes are so horrible and I am so ill.”