by Martha Reed
Rocking back, he crossed his legs. “But I was in a bad place, Jane, a very, very bad place. Drugs were involved, major drugs and not just blow. H, ‘ludes, X, you name it. Alphabet stew. If it got me high, I ate it, in massive quantities. Used to have shit delivered right to my door. And I was drinking on top of it. Had that shit delivered, too, by the case.” His tired sigh carried across the darkness. “Hope you never experience that depth, that depravity. It’s the abyss.”
Been there. Jane rolled the bland bubbly club soda across her tongue. Done that. “What year was this?”
Ken gave it some thought. “1984. Leslie showed up at my door in June of ’84. Carlton said there was this girl standing on the sidewalk insisting that she talk to me.” Ken coughed a chuckle. “I asked him if she looked pregnant. When he said ‘no,’ I figured what the hell. It’d been months since anyone had wanted to talk to me. I told him to send her up.”
He paused to let an RTA 88 bus rumble by. “I opened the door and there she stood. Leslie Broussard, this tiny little thing with wild and crazy hair. Just turned eighteen, barely even legal. Marched right in like she owned the place. Said she fell in love with me the first time she saw “Love Power” on MTV. Decided then and there that I was her soul mate, that we were meant to be.” He chortled another laugh.
“She heard I was in bad shape. Hitchhiked to New York to take me home. Took one look at my place and said I needed to start over, start fresh. Christ! She was a child, still a kid. So fucking innocent. I was charmed.” He raised his index finger. “No, that’s not it. I was beguiled. There’s a difference. Leslie cast her spell on me. And now, here I am. Here we are.” He finished his drink. “NOLA was her home, not mine, but Christ! I’ve been living here for thirty-four years. That’s insane.”
Jane’s curiosity niggled. Digging her fingernails into the railing’s rotten wood, she risked a couple of questions. “Ken? What happened to The WarBirds? Why did the band break up?”
“Et tu, Jane?” He rattled the ice cubes in his glass. “Et tu?”
“We don’t have to talk about it if you’d rather not.”
“I wondered when you’d finally put two and two together. Did Ryan clue you in?”
“He did.”
“That boy.” Ken snorted. Raising his eyebrows, he studied the ice cubes in his glass. “Better watch him, Jane. He’s using me to get into your pants.” The splintery porch boards cracked as he began to rock. “Who’s your favorite bassist, Jane? You’re too young to remember Cliff Burton or Jaco Pastorius. Can I guess? Was it Geezer Butler or maybe even me?”
“Of all time? I’d have to go with Aimee Mann.”
“Don’t fuck with me, woman.” Ken chuckled. “I’m trying to relax. I meant heavy metal hitters and you know it. Name me a slasher if you can.”
“My dad’s favorite was Geddy Lee. He played with Rush.”
“Christ! I know who Geddy Lee is, damn your eyes! Your ‘dad’s favorite’? Fuck, Jane. Thanks for making me feel old.”
“Ken, all of this happened before I was born -”
“Stop doing that, you heartless bitch!” He wheezed another laugh. “How much do you know?”
“I know you wrote “Love Power”. I know The WarBirds were working on a studio album that never got done.”
“That’s right. Blood Sport.” Ken rested his empty glass on his thigh. “All of that is very, very true.”
“Why did you stop?”
“Death stopped us, Jane. Death stopped us cold.”
Ken set his glass down next to his heel. “It’s our duty to rattle this human cage while we can. It’s an act of defiance, to prove to God we exist.” He pointed his index finger again. “The WarBirds were doing just that. Four punk kids from Prairie Village, Kansas, as white bread middle America as you can get. Think Mike Pence.” Raising his arms, he roared. “We were shaking the pillars of heaven!”
Wiping his eyes with his odd thumbs, he settled back. “We’d been in the studio for fourteen months, for over a solid year, and it wasn’t working. The songs were getting worse, instead of better. They started sounding brittle, over-produced. Frankie Malcolm, our producer, was sweating bullets. Frankie was starting to panic, afraid we were losing our rawness, losing our edge.”
Ken paused as another city bus whined by. “Mick heard about this music festival in California that Steve Wozniak was putting together. You remember Wozniak, the Apple guy?” He snapped his thick fingers. “The US Festival in San Bernardino over Labor Day weekend of ’83. Sunday was ‘Heavy Metal Day.’ Mick wanted The WarBirds to play alongside of Ozzy, Quiet Riot, Judas Priest, Motley Crue.” He ticked the competing bands off of his fingertips. “Those guys were our heroes, although personally, in my humble opinion, I agree with your dad that Geddy Lee is the closest thing to God that we have on this planet.” He dismissively waved his hand. “Anyway, fuck, Frankie didn’t want us to go, but we insisted. We went hoping the festival would freshen our sound back up.”
The rocking chair slowed to a full stop. “Van Halen was headlining Heavy Metal Day. Can you believe it? Van fucking Halen. Eddie was an okay guy, but that Dave was a showboating ass wipe.” He repeatedly drummed his right knee with his fingers. “They got paid a million and a half for a two-hour set. One point five.” Ken whispered. “Joe Strummer found out about the money and he went ballistic, because The Clash was only getting half a million. Shit. Half a million dollars for one set. Even that was real money back then. Things were getting ugly, out of hand, and then Bowie flew in on his private 747. The thin white duke shamed ‘em all. Told them to stop acting like pussies. Reminded them they were professional musicians. Bowie shut everyone down. That’s right. He was smack in the middle of promoting Let’s Dance.”
“Sounds like a dream gig.”
“It should’ve been, Jane. I should’ve been.” Pushing off his toes, Ken slowly started rocking again. “We left New York that Tuesday. Sent the roadies on ahead with the gear. The idea was that we would take four days to drive to California on the tour bus. Take some time to clear our heads, focus on our music and get out of that fucking studio.” Ken clutched his throat dramatically with both hands. “The walls were closing in on us, Jane! We felt trapped, like in prison. And we wanted to party a bit, too, I’ll admit. First stop was Fulton, Indiana. Scottie had a friend there who owned a farm with a private airstrip.” He waggled his eyebrows. “If you know what I mean.”
“Scottie’s friend grew pot as a cash crop?”
“On the nose.” Ken winked. “We got to Fulton and I needed to crash. We’d been going at it pretty hard. Needed a fucking time out. I stayed on the bus to grab some sleep, but the rest of the guys were wired tight and still going strong. Scottie’s friend, Rory, had a single engine prop plane. The four of them tried to get me up to go for a joy ride, but I told them to fuck off. I was beat. So Scottie, Mick, Lemonhead and Rory went up in the plane.” Ken stared at the ceiling. “I could hear them up there, buzzing the cornfields, coming in plenty low. Then those assholes started buzzing the bus, trying to make it shake. Must’ve thought it was hilarious. I imagined them up in the plane, yelling: ‘Rock and roll, sucker! Rock and roll’!”
Ken’s voice faded to a whisper. “I got royally pissed off, because they were fucking with me and keeping me up. I still think about that, that my last thought about those guys was rage. Then there was this BANG and the whole bus rolled over, slow-mo and I heard a BOOM like the ending of the world. I wound up kneeling on the inside of the roof. I crawled to the front of the bus and I kicked out the windshield. All I could see was this wall of flame. The plane had flipped into a bunch of trees. The fire was so hot it melted the windows on that side of the bus.”
Holy shit. Jane swallowed. I remember my dad telling me this.
“Everyone died in the fire, except me.” Ken repeatedly moistened his lips. “Rory’s farm was so remote it took the fire trucks forty minutes to find us. There was nothing they could do, really, except put out the trees. That whole for
est blackened down to charcoal briquettes. Mick, Scottie, Lemonhead, Rory had to be identified by the fillings in their teeth.”
Ken rested his head on the back of the chair. “Never went to the festival. Couldn’t make myself go. I was alive, but The WarBirds were dead. So, I turned around and I headed back to The Dakota. Put The Warbirds songs in my axe case and locked my Fender away.” He rubbed his huge hands together. “Then I lit a fire and I burned the session tapes.”
“What? Why’d you burn the tapes?”
“I was drunk. Seemed fitting, at the time.” He shrugged. “Ignored Frankie’s calls. Never finished Blood Sport. Never wrote another goddamn song. Decided I was done with all of that. Seemed pretty clear to me it was the end of that particular road.”
Frowning, he picked at a callous on his palm. “Those WarBirds songs had seriously bad mojo, Jane, an active evil karma. Spent a year trying to drink myself to death until Leslie showed up and carried me to NOLA.” He settled back. “She started feeding me health food, making me practice Tai Chi. Yea, how the mighty have fallen.” He circled his finger at the derelict porch. “Now you know. That’s who I really am. Kenny Pascoe, the man who wrote “Love Power”, the world’s most notorious one hit wonder.”
A vintage convertible Cadillac Eldorado completely ignored the stop sign at the corner of Plessy Street, blasting through the intersection before squealing to a stop in front of the Big House. The driver parked the cranberry red car under a streetlamp before enthusiastically tapping out “shave and a haircut, two bits” on the horn which was immediately followed by a raucous chorus of high-pitched, drunken female laughter.
“Better batten down the hatches, Jane.” Ken muttered. “Gigi’s brought her friends, Death and Destruction. It’s about to get loud around here.”
“Come on, girls! It’s party time!” Shoving her door open, the driver raised a silvery gift-wrapped bottle that sparkled under the streetlight. “Hiya, Pops! We have arrived!”
“I can see that.” Tipping the chair forward, Ken stood. “Gigi, you’re late. Your mother’s been looking for you.”
“Got here as soon as I could.” She marched across the rough dirt yard. “Where is the birthday girl?”
“Hiding in the kitchen, as usual.”
A tall black woman wearing crotch hugging white shorts and a midriff baring sequined mohair sweater strolled around the Eldorado’s trunk. She looked as leanly muscled as a competitive body builder. Her legs were three quarters the length of her entire body.
“Hey there, sex bomb,” she called, carefully picking her way over in six-inch silver stilettos. “I can see you standing there. You waitin’ on me, Ken? Looking for a date? How you doin’, sugar?”
“Hello, Fancy,” Ken said. “Glad to see you could make it.”
“Oh, honey.” Choosing a bare patch of dirt between two tufts of grass, Fancy paused. Digging into her silver evening bag, she pulled out a mother-of-pearl case and lit a cigarette. Jane caught another whiff of sweetly scented smoke. Correction. It’s a cherry blunt.
“Sugar? I always make it.” Gripping the blunt between her eyeteeth, Fancy snapped her fingers. “Making it is what I do best.”
Gigi lithely stepped up onto the porch and into the light. Jane felt a spasm of surprise so tight it tingled her toes. Why am I shocked? This is New Orleans, after all. Gigi Pascoe was a man.
Chapter Eight
Jane shut her mouth so fast her molars clicked. Gigi Pascoe was petite like Leslie, but she had Ken’s stronger features including his deeply set eyes and full lips. Her pointed elfin chin was all her own. She wore a striped Oxford cloth dress shirt belted tight over fitted trousers and velvet slip-ons without socks. Dark brown curls brushed her collar. She had wide shoulders and slim square hips and an Adam’s apple. If I passed her on the street, I’d call her a man, but when I look closer there is something in her face that’s pinging me she’s a woman.
“Come here, you.” Ken pulled Gigi into a hug. “Jane, meet my daughter, Gigi. Jane is our new tenant.”
“Wattup?” Cocking her hip, Gigi stretched out her hand, meeting Jane eye to eye. “Liking it so far?”
Her voice was mid-range contralto, but Jane gripped a square hand that felt distinctly masculine. The cobalt blue nail polish threw her off balance again. “Suits me down to the ground.”
“Fantastic! I know Maman will be over the moon seeing some income again. Delilah? Yo, girlfriend. Meet M&D’s new tenant.”
Jane blinked as an absolute vision climbed the porch steps. She was still getting used to NOLA’s flamboyance. This woman was pushing the limit in a black lace bustier, fishnet stockings and calf-length button up Victorian boots. Her shoulders and bare arms were covered to her wrists with gaily tattooed sleeves featuring twining pink hibiscus flowers, ruby hummingbirds and yellow butterflies. She had a broad moon shaped face with raven-colored hair, heavily mascaraed eyes, scarlet lips, and a silver nose ring that pierced her septum. The right side of her head was shaved bald. Her bare scalp sported a spider web tattoo.
“Good evening, Delilah,” Ken offered gallantly. “You look stunning, as always.”
“Thanks for the invite, Ken. I brought Leslie a present. Where should I set it?”
Delilah had a childish, baby doll voice. She proffered a gift wrapped in aluminum foil with a black lace ribbon. “It’s a selection of her favorite teas hand-picked from my shop.”
“That was very thoughtful. I’m sure she’ll love it. Put it on the table, right inside.”
“Jane?” Gigi said. “Meet Delilah, my roommate.”
“Yes.” Delilah giggled. “Lucky me.”
“Nice to meet you.” Still stunned, Jane scrambled for something more to say. “That’s some outfit. Are you practicing for Mardi Gras?”
Ken guffawed and Fancy burst into a musical laugh.
“No girlfriend, this is steam punk.” Delilah protested. “I always dress this way. I’m a fashionista.”
Duh. Jane blushed maroon to the roots of her hair. “Of course it is. Don’t mind me. I’m an idiot.”
“Cut Jane some slack.” Ken chuckled. “She’s still learning the ropes. Hey, bay-bee? Fancy?” He called. “You coming in?”
“Just finishing my cigar, sugar. You know Leslie don’t like me smoking in her house.” Fancy looked up from her phone, her sculpted face lit ghostly pale by the screen. Inhaling one final toke, she dropped the blunt and crushed it out using the toe of her stiletto. “Don’t want to waste it. This shit is fucking dope.” Sliding the phone into her bag, she strolled over. “I am so loving this new Tinder app. Might have me a date for later this evening.”
“Good for you.” Ken raised his empty glass. “Let’s go get a drink for the now.”
“Lead me to the bar, sugar.” She grasped Ken’s forearm. “You know you got my vote.”
“Fancy?” Gee interrupted. “Meet Jane.”
“My goodness me, yes, yes.” Fancy paused, scanning Jane from head to toe. “You are one big, tall white girl, aren’t you?”
“Play nice, Fancy,” Gigi stated, pushing the front door open and leading them into the party. Studying the festive guests, she gave her father two thumbs up. “Nice job, Pops! Listen to the gumbo yaya going on in here! Love the masks and the music. Can’t beat Gene Krupa. I can see where Jane got her Mardi Gras idea.”
“Every day is Mardi Gras with you three around,” Ken stated flatly.
“Ha-ha, funny.” Gee gave him a playful shove.
“The Decadence parade might be closer to the truth,” Fancy drawled, “but I have to say this party is lit.”
“There you are, Fancy!” Aunt Babette swooped over with her basket. “I’ve been waiting for you!” She plucked out a bird mask that erupted into an Aztec spray of blue and green opalescent feathers. “I made this mask for you, special.”
“Give me that,” Fancy said.
“Good evening, Aunt Babette.” Stooping, Gigi gave the elderly woman a kiss on the cheek. “I knew this was all your
doing the minute I saw it.” Reaching into the basket, she plucked out the grinning satanic mask that Ken had already rejected. “This one’s mine. Maman’s in the kitchen?”
“She was the last time I saw her, cher.”
“I’ll go see if she needs help.” Gigi slid the mask over her face. “Dee? You coming?”
“Babette, honey?” Fancy struggled with the fabulous bird of paradise mask. “I’m having trouble fitting this over my eyelashes.”
“Let me help.” Babette set the basket down. “Bend lower, Fancy. You know I can’t reach you with my short little legs.” Stepping back, she clasped both hands over her heart. “Perfect! I knew it would be. Fancy, you look stunning, absolutely stunning.”
“Where’s a mirror?” Turning from side to side, Fancy studied her reflection from across the room, smoothing her fuzzy sweater over her breasts. “Babette? You are hands down my favorite person in this whole world.” She gave the mask a slight tweak. “Always so considerate. Always thinking the best of other people. This world would be a better place if more folks acted like you.” She glanced at the Embrys standing nearby. Cheryl was openly gaping in horror. Fancy raised her voice. “Especially those evangelicals. I swear they are the world’s worst hypocrites, always talking outta both sides of they mouths. You should see my appointment book on Sundays, right after they done with church. I am booked solid for all of next year. Those evangelical men can’t get enough of my chocolate starfish.”
One of the male guests blanched. Cupping his wife’s elbow, he dropped a quick word in her ear. Setting down their drinks, they moved toward the door.
Fancy primped her hair before spotting Ken at the bar. “Ken, sugar? I’m ready for that drink now.” She was so tall that the mask’s green feathers brushed the ceiling fan as she crossed the room. “Bartender? Fill me up. I’d like a Vieux Carre.”
“I don’t ...” Tyler stuttered, “know what that is.”
“Boy?” Fancy cocked her hip. “Where you from? The beer pool? Listen up.” She rudely waggled her fingers in Tyler’s face. “Whiskey, Benedictine, cognac and a tiny drop of sweet Vermouth.”