And, like everything else since Les’s failed knuckle ball, it took forever to happen. Long enough for me to hear that little lopsided plastic ball rattling in Amber Watson’s whistle right before she set her feet and blew it. Long enough for me to see the legs of a single fly, following us down. Long enough for me to hear my chanted name stop in the middle.
This wasn’t just a freak thing happening, anymore.
We were stepping over into legend, now.
Because the town was always on alert these days, Amber Watson’s whistle was going to line the fence with people in under five minutes, and now everybody on the field and in the dugout, they were going to be witness to this, were each going to have their own better vantage point to tell the story from.
Meaning, instead of me being the star, everybody else would be.
And, Amber Watson.
It hurt to even think about.
We were going to have a special bond, now, sure, but not the kind where I was ever going to get to buy her a spirit ribbon. Not the kind where she’d ever tell me to quit smoking, because it was bad for me.
If I even got to live that long, I mean. If the yearbook staff wasn’t already working my class photo onto the casualties page.
I wasn’t there yet, though.
This wasn’t the top of a rocket, I mean.
Sure, I was on my back in left field, and Michael T was over me, pinning me down by accident, the slobber and blood and brain juice stringing down from his lips, swinging right in front of my face so that I wanted to scream, but I could still kick him away, right? Lock my arms against his chest, keep my mouth closed so nothing dripped in it.
All of which would have happened, too.
Except for Les.
He’d picked up the bat that I guess I’d dragged through the chalk between second and third, so that, when he slapped it into the side of Michael T’s head, a puff of white kind of breathed up. At first I thought it was bone, powdered skull—the whole top of Michael T’s rotted-out head was coming off—but then there was sunlight above me again, and Les was hauling me up, and, on the sidewalk, Amber Watson was just staring at me, her whistle still in her mouth, her hair still wet enough to have left a dark patch on the canvas of the sneakers looped over her shoulder.
I put two of my fingers to my eyebrow like I’d seen my dad do, launched them off in salute to her, and in return she shook her head in disappointment. At the kid I still obviously was. So, yeah, if you want to know what it’s like living with zombies, this is it, pretty much: they mess everything up. And if you want to know why I never went pro, it’s because I got in the habit of charging the mound too much, like I had all this momentum from that day, all this unfairness built up inside. And if you want to know about Amber Watson, ask Les Moore—that’s his real, stupid name, yeah. After that day he saved my life, after Les became the real Indian because he’d been the one to scalp Michael T, he stopped coming to the diamond so much, started spending more time at the pool, his hair bleaching in the sun, his reflexes gone, always thirty-five cents in his trunks to buy a lifeguard a lemonade if she wanted.
And she did, she does.
And, me? Some nights I still go to the old park, spiral up to the top of the rocket with a “Bury the Tomahawk” or “Circle the Wagons” spirit ribbon, and I let it flutter a bit through the grimy bars before letting it go, down through space, down to the planet I used to know, miles and miles from here.
The Day the Music Died
Joe McKinney
“But this changes everything,” Isaac Glassman said. “You see that, right? I mean you gotta see that. We can’t . . . I mean, Steve, you can’t . . . I mean, shit, he’s dead. Tommy Grind is dead! How can you say nothing’s changed?”
“Isaac,” I said. “Calm down. This isn’t that big of a deal.”
He huffed into the phone. “Great. You’re making fun of me now. I’m talking about the death of the biggest rock star since The Beatles, and you’re cracking jokes. I’m telling you, Steve, this is fucking tragic.”
I let out a tired sigh. I should have known Isaac was going to be a problem. Lawyers are always a problem. He’d been with us since Tommy’s first heroin possession charge back in 2002. That little imbroglio kept us in the LA courts for the better part of a year, but we got The Cells of Los Angeles album out of it and that went double platinum, so at least it hadn’t been a total disaster. And Tommy was so happy with Isaac Glassman that he added him to the payroll. I objected. I looked at Isaac and I saw a short, unkempt, Quasimodo-looking guy in a cheap suit in the midst of a schoolgirl’s crush. “He’s in love with you,” I told Tommy. “And I mean in the creepy way.” But Tommy laughed it off. He said Isaac was just star struck. It’d wear off after a few months.
I knew he was wrong about Isaac even then.
Just like I knew Isaac was going to be trouble now.
Behind me, closed up behind the Plexiglas screen I’d hastily installed across the entrance to Tommy’s private bedroom after he’d overdosed and died from whatever the hell kind of mushroom it was he took, Tommy was finishing up on the arm of a groupie I’d brought him. The girl was a seventeen-year-old nobody, a runaway. I’d met her outside a club on Austin’s 6th Street two nights earlier. “Hey,” I asked her, “you wanna go get high with Tommy Grind?” The girl nearly beat me to my car. And now, after two days of eating on the old long pig, Tommy was almost done with her. There’d be some cleanup: femurs, a skull, a mandible, stuff like that, but nothing a couple of trash bags and some cleaning products wouldn’t be able to handle. Long as the paparazzi didn’t go through the garbage, things’d be fine.
I turned my attention back to the phone call with Isaac.
“Look,” I said. “This isn’t a tragedy, okay? Stop being such a drama queen. And secondly, The Beatles weren’t a rock star. They were four rock stars. A group, you know? It’s a totally different thing.”
“Jesus, this really is a joke to you, isn’t it?” Now he sounded genuinely hurt.
“No, it’s not a joke.” I looked over my shoulder at Tommy. He was at the barrier, looking at me, bloody hands smearing the Plexiglas, a rope of red muscle—what was left of the girl’s triceps—hanging from the corner of his mouth. I said, “I’m deathly serious about this, Isaac.”
“Yeah, well, that’s comforting.”
“It should be. Look, I’m telling you, I got this under control.”
“He’s a zombie, Steve. How can you possibly have that under control?”
Tommy was banging on the Plexiglas now. One hand slapping on the barrier. I could hear him groaning.
“He’s a rock star, Isaac. Nothing’s changed. He’s a zombie now, so what? Hell, I bet Kid Rock’s been a zombie since 2007.”
“So what? So what? Steve, I saw him last night, eating that girl. He looked horrible. People are gonna know he isn’t right when they see him.”
For the last three years or so, Tommy Grind and Tom Petty had been in a running contest to see who could be the grungiest middle-aged rock star in America. Up until Tommy died and then came back as one of the living dead, I would have said Tom Petty had him beat. But now, I don’t know. They’re probably tied.
“Nobody’s gonna know anything,” I said into the phone. “Look, I’ve been his manager for twenty years now, ever since he was a renegade cowboy singing the beer joints in South Houston. I sign all the checks. I make all the booking arrangements and the recording deals and handle the press and get him his groupie girls for him to work out his sexual frustrations on. I got this covered. The show’ll go on, just like it always has.”
“Yeah, except now he’s eating the groupies, Steve.” I thought I heard a wounded tone in his voice. He didn’t like to hear about Tommy’s other playthings, even before he started eating them.
“True,” I said.
“How’re you gonna cover that up? I mean, there’s gonna be bones and shit left over.”
“We’ll be careful,” I said.
“Careful?”<
br />
“Get him nobodies, like this girl he’s got now. Girls nobody’ll miss. The streets are loaded with ’em.”
I turned and watched Tommy picking the girl’s hair out of his teeth with a hand that wouldn’t quite work right. No more guitar work, that’s for sure. But then, that was no big deal. I had got him a cameo in Guitar Hero XXI the year before. Tommy Grind’s reputation was secure, even if he never played another note.
Finally, Isaac said, “Did he finish that girl yet?”
Good boy, Isaac, I thought.
“Yeah,” I said. “Just a little while ago.”
“Oh.” He hesitated, then said, “And you’re sure we can do this? We can just go on like nothing’s happened?”
“Absolutely,” I said.
Tommy was always prolific. He wasn’t much for turning out a polished product—that part we left to the session musicians and the Autotuner people to clean up—but the man had the music in him. He’d spent fifteen hours a day playing songs and singing and just banging around in the studio we built for him in the west wing of the mansion. Just from what I’d heard walking through the house recently, I figured we had enough for three more full-length albums.
It’d just be a matter of having the studio people clean it up. They were used to that. Business as usual when you work for Tommy Grind.
Isaac said, “Steve?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I . . . can I come over and see him?”
“You’re not gonna screw this up, are you? No whistle blowing, right?”
“Right,” he said. “I promise. I just want to see him.”
“Sure, Isaac. Come on over any time.”
“And this is how he’s gonna live? I mean, I know he’s not alive, but this is how it’s gonna be?”
“For now,” I said.
Isaac didn’t look too happy about that. He was watching Tommy Grind through the Plexiglas, bottom lip quivering like he was about to cry. He put his fingers on the barrier and sniffled as Tommy worked on another groupie.
“He looks kind of . . . dirty.”
“He’s a rock star, Isaac. That’s part of the uniform.”
“But shouldn’t we keep him clean or something. I mean, he’s been in those same clothes since he died. I can smell him out here.”
He had a point there, actually. Tommy was really starting to reek. His skin had gone sallow and hung loose on his face. There were open sores on his hands and arms. The truth was I was just too scared to change his clothes for him. I didn’t want to catch whatever that mushroom had done to him.
“How many girls are in there with him?” Isaac asked.
“Two.”
“Just two?” Isaac said, shaking his head in disbelief. “But there’s so many, uh, body parts.”
“His appetite’s getting stronger,” I agreed. “He regularly takes two girls at a time now, sometimes three. So, when you think about it, he’s actually back to where he was before he died.”
“That’s not funny, Steve.”
I didn’t like the milquetoast look he was giving me. I said, “Don’t you dare flake out on me, you hear? Between the record sales and the movie deals and video game endorsements and all the rest of it, Tommy Grind is a one hundred and forty million dollar a year corporation. I’m not about to let that fall apart because of this.”
“Is that what this is about to you, the money? That’s all you care about? What about Tommy? What about what he stood for?”
I laughed.
“Tommy stood for sex, drugs, and rock and roll. That was the world to him.”
“His music was the soundtrack for my life, Steve. It means something.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “It means he liked his women horny, his drugs psychotropic, and his music loud. That was all Tommy Grind ever wanted. Now, all he wants is food. We’re good the way I see it.”
“We should let him out. Let him get some sunshine.”
“Yeah, right,” I said. “Isaac, the paparazzi hide in the bushes across the street just praying for a chance to shoot Tommy Grind while he’s smoking a joint on the lawn. You have any idea how bad that would be to take him out for a stroll? No, if we’re gonna bring him out into the world, we need to do it under controlled circumstances.”
He nodded, then leaned his forehead against the barrier and watched the love of his life pop a finger into his mouth. Smaller parts like that he could eat whole.
“Listen,” I said, “you want a drink?”
“No, thank you. You go ahead. I’m just gonna sit here for a while and watch him.”
I shrugged. “Whatever. I’ll be out in the hot tub.”
I made myself a whiskey over shaved ice and dropped in an orange slice for garnish. Then I stripped and climbed into the hot tub and let the jets massage my back. The hot tub was outside, but the little courtyard where it was located was covered with ivy to prevent helicopters from peaking in on Tommy’s private parties, which were the stuff of legend. One of last year’s parties had included half a dozen A-list porn stars and a pile of cocaine the size of an old lady’s hat.
I took a couple of phone calls and arranged for a cover of Eddie Money’s “I Think I’m In Love” that Tommy had done in his studio a month before he died to appear on That’s What I Call Music, Volume 153.
As was I finishing, I heard screams coming from the front lawn. I told the guy from Capitol I had to go, hung up, and jumped out of the hot tub.
Fucking Isaac, I thought. You better not have . . .
But he had. The little idiot had gone and let Tommy out of his bedroom and taken him for a walk down on the front lawn.
When I got there, clothes soaked through and my feet squishing in my shoes, Tommy was staggering around in the middle of the street, a team of terrified paparazzi gathered around him, snapping pictures. The flashes were making Tommy disoriented and he was swiping the air in a futile attempt to grab the photographers.
I waded into the crowd and grabbed Tommy by the back of his black t-shirt and guided him toward the lawn. I looked around and saw Isaac standing on the curb, a drooping question mark in a cheap blue suit.
“You get him inside,” I growled at Tommy.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just wanted to—”
“Go!” I said. “Now.”
He led a reluctant Tommy back to the house. I watched him get most of the way to the front door, my mind scrambling for a way to explain all this, then I turned to the crowd and said, “Okay, people, listen up. Come on, gather around.”
Thirty photographers just looked at me.
“What the hell, people? You don’t recognize a press conference when you see one? Gather around.”
That did it. Soon I was standing in the middle of a tight ring of bodies, cameras rolling.
“All right,” I said, “we were hoping to save this announcement for the Grammy’s, but clearly Tommy Grind wanted to give you guys a sneak peak. Tommy has just completed his first screenplay. It’s called The Zombie King and I’ve just got word from our people in Hollywood that it’s a go for next fall. We’ll be shooting here in Austin starting around the end of next September.”
“A horror film?” one of the paparazzi said.
“That’s right. And it’s gonna be Tommy’s directorial debut, too.”
“So, that was . . . what? A costume?”
“Look,” I said, and sighed for effect, “what do you think is gonna happen when you give a rock star access to a stable full of professional makeup artists? I mean, we’ve all seen Lady Gaga, am I right?”
That got a few laughs. I passed out business cards to everybody and told them to send me an email so I’d have their addresses for future press releases.
They scattered after that to email their photos to their contacts and I went inside to kick Isaac’s ass.
A few weeks later, in early February, I was back in the hot tub, helping another untraceable young lady out of her bikini for a little warm up before she went in to see Tommy. I was sitti
ng on the edge of the tub, and the girl came over and positioned herself between my legs and put her cheek down on my thigh. The drugs in her drink were already starting to take effect, and I had to nudge her a little to get her to pay attention to what she was supposed to be doing.
She had just gotten to it when Isaac Glassman walked through the sliding glass door.
“Jesus, Isaac,” I said, covering up my junk. “What the hell, man?”
“Sorry,” he said. “But we have to talk.”
The girl had pulled away from me and sunk down to her chin in the water. She wouldn’t look at either one of us, even though it was a day late and a dollar short for any pretense at modesty at that point.
“Do you mind?” Isaac said, and pointed at the girl with his chin.
“Just wait for it,” I said.
The girl’s eyelids were drooping shut. I jumped in, caught her just as her face slid under the water, and pulled her out.
“Help me get her out of here,” I said to Isaac.
He reached in and took one arm and I took the other. We pulled her onto her back on the side of the tub. She had great tits, I thought absently. A pity.
I climbed out and slid into my trunks.
“This better be good,” I said.
“What are you gonna do with her?”
“What do you think? You’re gonna help me drag her into Tommy’s room. Then he’s gonna eat her.”
“But you were gonna have her first?”
“I think Tommy’s past the point of jealousy,” I said.
He was uncomfortable, stared at his shoelaces, then at the ivy-covered walls behind me. Then, finally, at me. “That’s what I want to talk to you about,” he said.
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I don’t . . . I don’t like the direction you’re taking Tommy’s career. The Eddie Money cover— ”
“Has been number one on the Billboard charts for two weeks in a row. What are you trying to say?”
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