Then Again

by Rick Boling

  The applause was a little overdone, I thought. Even Heyoka and Aurie joined in with silent but enthusiastic handclaps. I probably should have been suspicious, but my ego must have kicked in, because I got a hint of that familiar, warm feeling I remembered from my days on the stage.

  “Damn, man, you need to record that,” said Jackson. “In fact, you need to climb out of that cocoon you’ve woven around yourself and start playing again. You’ll have the time now, and you’ve easily got a couple of albums worth of songs just in the stuff you’ve written for Sarah and Patsy, not to mention yours truly.”

  There was encouragement all around, but I wasn’t about to climb out on that particular limb. I no longer felt confident in my ability to perform, and I could not imagine risking humiliation by appearing before an audience of strangers. “I appreciate the sentiment,” I said, “but I think it’s a little too late for that.”

  “Horseshit,” Jackson said. “Despite what Carole King said, it’s never ‘too late, baby.’ And Carole should know. Remember what happened when James took her on tour with him? Nobody knew her from Adam’s housecat, but all it took was JT telling the audience that all the songs she was going to play were her own compositions. And when they heard those familiar hits, she brought down the house at every stop. That tour launched Tapestry, you know, and practically everyone on the face of the earth now owns a copy.”

  “Yeah, but I’m no Carole King,” I said. “I’m a stodgy old businessman who hasn’t seen a stage since Sam and Sarah and I were diddling around with a folk trio that never went anywhere. I appreciate the compliment, but I just don’t have the chops for that kind of thing anymore.”

  This elicited a few moans and murmured disagreements, but I knew these were colored by love and friendship, and were not an objective response to my performance. So I stuck to my guns, gently deflecting their arguments until things calmed down and the party began to break up.

  I was looking around for my guitar case when Jackson came up beside me. “Listen,” he said. “We need to talk. It’s not that late, so why don’t we go somewhere and get a drink?”

  Not having had much experience in this life with alcohol, I was feeling the effects of the champagne and beer, and the mild high brought back a long-forgotten desire to continue. For the first time in decades I was in a position of freedom, and with that freedom—influenced no doubt by the alcohol—came an almost angry, fuck-it attitude. Heyoka and Aurélie had dematerialized, and Ellie, Sam, and Doris were in deep conversation about financial crap that didn’t interest me in the least, so I decided to accept Jackson’s offer.

  We were heading for the door, when Doris looked up. “And where do you two think you’re going?” she said, though her tone wasn’t quite as admonishing as she tried to make it sound.

  I looked at Jackson, then we both turned to her. “Out!” we said in unison. And before she could object, we were gone.

  I knew of half a dozen fancy cocktail lounges downtown, but I had a feeling this might turn out to be more than a two-drink night, with the potential to result in embarrassing rumors about the man who was still CEO of Blue Note Enterprises. So I suggested we go to a little bar off the beaten path called Jerry’s.

  I’d been a loyal patron of Jerry’s place in my first life, and he and I knew each other casually in this one. Jerry was the kind of old-school bartender who would tell phoning wives and girlfriends their significant others had just left, or deny they’d even been there if that was called for. The interior of the bar was dark, with several booths that provided privacy and a jukebox kept just loud enough to obscure private conversations without damaging eardrums.

  For food, Jerry offered the standard assortment of Slim Jims, pickled pigs feet, and beef jerky. But his signature culinary offering was free roasted peanuts, the shells of which carpeted the floor. The bar’s olfactory ambience was reminiscent of a football locker room that had been set on fire by smoldering cigarette butts then extinguished with a splash of stale beer and urine. Needless to say, Jerry’s attracted a ‘select’ clientele, and was the perfect venue for patrons who wanted to be left alone to drink, talk sports or politics, and hook up with the two or three working girls who were always hanging around.

  Jackson and I found an empty booth, and Helen—the bar’s only waitress—showed up seconds later. Helen was one of those fixtures you see characterized in TV sitcoms set in Miami or California: frazzled reddish-gray hair with the requisite pencil stuck in it; animated facial features surrounding a tired but sincere smile; and a skinny, sun-browned body that looked like it had been carved from a hunk of rusty angle iron.

  Jackson ordered a draft, and I was about to do the same, when I suddenly changed my mind. “Double Jack on the rocks,” I said, mentally savoring the prospect of tasting whiskey for the first time in over twenty-three years.

  “Didn’t know you were a hard-liquor man,” Jackson said.

  “Never touch the stuff,” I said. “Not in this life, anyway. In my other one I singlehandedly kept the legend of Jasper Newton Daniel alive, ruining a couple of kidneys, a liver, and half a heart in the process.”

  “Here ya go, boys,” Helen said, setting our drinks down in front of us along with a bowl of peanuts. “Gimmie a yell when you’re ready for more.”

  Remembering the ‘good old days,’ I thought about ordering another one right then, but common sense got the better of me. “To emancipation,” I said, raising my glass. Jackson clinked it with his, and we both took a drink. For a second, the taste brought back fond memories, but when I swallowed it felt like molten lava had been poured down my throat. I managed to keep from regurgitating, but I could feel my eyes trying to burst from their sockets as the liquor seared its way down my esophagus.

  When things came back into focus, Jackson was staring at me with a concerned look on his face. “You all right?” he asked. “Here, have a sip of my beer.” He handed me his glass and signaled to Helen for another.

  I slurped hungrily at the cool liquid, which did help put out some of the fire, and I had almost regained my ability to speak when Helen arrived with another round. I thought about asking her to take mine back, but just then the alcohol started to hit my brain, and I decided to keep my mouth shut. Many things went through my head as I set the beer down between the two whiskey glasses, not the least of which was an echo of that old saw, “once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.” But this was different: I hadn’t had a drop of liquor since the transfer so I was in control, wasn’t I? All I wanted was one night of freedom, a few hours of relaxation during which I could let loose of the inhibitions and anxiety that had dominated my second life and be … well, be me again.

  I recalled my first taste of whiskey as a teen, and how it had scorched my throat in much the same way. But then there was the aftermath, when Pat had urged me to quickly take another drink, and the burning began to be overpowered by that lightheaded feeling I’d eventually become addicted to. I’d lost my virginity that night in more ways than one, and forever thereafter I’d associated sex with alcohol, as if it were some kind of Willy-Wonka golden ticket that allowed me to enter a new world of sensual pleasure. The only exception to this combination was the year I’d spent sober with Robin, but that hadn’t lasted.

  “So,” Jackson said, interrupting my reverie. “Tell me about your first career. From what I hear, you were quite the star.”

  I was still trying to figure out how to deal with the pallet-scalding, when I had an idea. Raising the half-full whiskey glass, I held my fingers over the top to keep the ice cubes from falling out, and poured the remaining liquor into the beer. “Boilermaker,” I said, in answer to his curious stare, then tilted the glass up and drained it. This time it went down so smoothly, I immediately waved at Helen and mouthed the word “beer.”

  “I’m going to have to have a serious talk with my daughter,” I said. “How much did she tell you?”

  “Quite a bit, actually,” he said. “You shouldn’t be angry with Ellie, though. It w
asn’t her fault. When she first told me what was going on with you, I thought she was joking, but once I got past the disbelief factor all I really wanted to hear about was your music. If it hadn’t been for my bugging her all the time she wouldn’t have gone into so much detail—you know, boy prodigy, perfect pitch, the hits and all that.”

  “Yeah, well, there’s a lot more to it than she knows—than anyone knows, for that matter. Except maybe Aurie, and even she doesn’t know everything.” Helen arrived with my beer, and before she left I told her to bring me another one, plus another double shot of Jack—without ice this time. I mixed my second boilermaker and drank half of it while Jackson waited for me to elaborate.

  “So,” he said when I didn’t continue, “I can’t help but wonder why you didn’t go the same route in this life. I mean, it’s no secret that you could have—still could, if you wanted to. And don’t give me that crap about not having the chops. You might just be the best damned guitarist I’ve ever heard, not to mention the fact that you can write and sing rings around most of the artists I know. Maybe there’s a little rust, but I didn’t hear it. Doesn’t it drive you up the wall having to watch from the sidelines?”

  “Drive me up the wall?” I said, wondering if that was an accurate description of how I felt. “I don’t know, Jackson. I really don’t. It’s hard for me to describe my feelings about that.” The alcohol was loosening up my tongue, and I didn’t seem to be able to do anything about it. “I guess the only thing that’s really driven me up the wall is the fact that I let Blue Note Enterprises take over my life.”

  “Okay, I get that. But the question is, take it over from what? Aren’t you saying it kept you from doing what you wanted to do? And wouldn’t that be making music yourself rather than producing it for others?”

  Helen delivered the makings of my third boilermaker, and I ordered us another round. Meanwhile, the question of what I would have done had I not gotten so involved in the business rattled around in my brain, poking at my memory and evoking all kinds of emotions. “Bear with me, here,” I said, pouring the whiskey into the beer and stirring it with a finger. I took a long, satisfying drink, then set the glass down and spread my hands out flat on the table. “You know, to be honest, I haven’t given that much thought—the question of what I really want. My first inclination is to say sure, I’d like to write and sing my own music. Problem is, that would be an emotional response, a knee-jerk reaction, and I’ve learned to be careful about making significant changes in my life without first trying to evaluate their long-term impact, not only on me, but on the people I care about.”

  “What if the people you care about want you to get back up on the stage because they know it’s the only thing that will make you happy?” he asked.

  “Well, then, they would have to understand that it would mean a lot of travel and time spent away from them.”

  “Not necessarily. For one thing, Ellie and I are going to be married soon, and then we’ll be hitting the road with the tour, so she’s not going to be around much anyway. And who’s to say Doris wouldn’t want to travel with you? Seems to me like you’re just looking for excuses, though I can’t understand why.”

  He was right about the excuses, and it didn’t take me long to realize that the ‘why’ was all about fear. There was the fear of failure, because for some reason my self-confidence had long-ago taken a hike. Given my life-and-a-half of experience that particular fear didn’t make much sense, but it was there nonetheless. Far more frightening, however, was the looming possibility—probability, actually—of falling back into my old lifestyle. I was already half drunk on boilermakers with no intention of slowing down, and I knew what was likely to happen if I went back on the road, not only with alcohol, but with women as well. Doris would be busy running the foundation and would probably not be traveling with me much if at all, so I would be free to resume my old debauchery, while once again destroying my health. And this time, I wouldn’t have Heyoka and Aurie to bail me out.

  I didn’t want to get into all that with Jackson, but there was one other aspect of returning to the stage that had been preying on my mind. And since we were apparently having one of those honest, heart-to-heart talks, I decided to mention it.

  “Maybe you’re right,” I said. “Maybe it won’t be much of a problem when it comes to Ellie and Doris. But I still have to think about myself, and when I do—when I start to look at what my own motivations would be—I don’t like what I see. Whether I like it or not, part of making that kind of decision has to involve asking myself why? What would I be looking to get out of it?”

  “That’s easy,” he said, “the satisfaction of doing something pure, something that has nothing to do with making money. Isn’t that what every musician craves? You know, Rich, some of us were given a gift, and not sharing that gift with the world is, I don’t know, like blasphemy, like throwing it back in nature’s face. You’ve used your talents to help other artists, but that’s a sort of dilution. In a way, it’s selfish—denying others the benefit of enjoying your undiluted talents.”

  “Very philosophical,” I said. “You trying to make me feel guilty?”

  “No, man. Well, maybe a little. Why? Do you?”

  “I ... okay, yeah, now that you mention it. A little, anyway. The thing is, when I look back at my other life and how I felt about music, it wasn’t anything like that, all the purity and obligation stuff. In fact, if I’m honest about it, my attitude was pretty mercenary.”

  “Mercenary? How do you mean?”

  I hadn’t really meant to say that, but apparently the booze was acting like a truth serum. So, what did I mean by saying my attitude was mercenary? I thought for a minute, then said, “I guess what I mean is that music came so easy to me. I never had to work hard at it, except maybe to develop some of the physical things. The mental stuff was just … there. I took it for granted, like being able to walk or breathe. I didn’t appreciate it and I don’t think I ever actually loved it, at least not in the pure sense you’re talking about. If I had I would have studied, pursued it academically, gone to Julliard or something. Helen got me started on the piano and gave me some voice lessons, but hell, man, I never even took the time to learn how to sight read.”

  “Sounds like me,” He said. “I took some lessons when I was real young, played the trumpet for a while. After that I picked most everything up on my own.”

  “Yeah, but you did something with your talents, all the activism and political stuff. Me, I used music as a tool to get what I wanted, not like it was a gift I was obligated to share with the world.”

  “And what was it you wanted, exactly?”

  “Nothing noble or valuable, that’s for sure. It was mainly an ego thing. I craved the recognition, the applause, the sex and drugs and booze. And the money was nice, though after my two so-called hits, I never made much of that. But, truth be told, I never was that good of a musician. Most of the time I didn’t know what I was doing, I just did it. I was so good at faking stuff, I sometimes look back and all I see is a clever con man who happened to be blessed with an ear for music and decent singing voice.”

  “And the ability to write,” he added. “So what is your reluctance now? You’ve still got the talent, and now you don’t even have to worry about money, so you can do just about anything you want. Maybe make up for some of that stuff you seem to be feeling guilty about.”

  Helen delivered another round while I considered his question. She wasn’t very good about cleaning tables, and as I watched her finally clear ours, I counted five pairs of empty glasses being removed from my side of the table. The room hadn’t started to spin yet, but if I kept drinking at this rate I knew it wouldn’t be long.

  “Look,” I said, as soon as Helen was out of earshot, “I’ve got a lot to do before I can even consider what I want for myself. For one thing, there’s going to be a lot of crap involved in the liquidation, making sure everyone is properly taken care of and approving the buyouts and other deals. But most imp
ortantly I have to figure out how to get rid of this Chapman lunatic before Lennon exposes himself on the international stage promoting your charity tour. And speaking of that, Ellie’s been hassling me about using my influence to get a bunch of other acts on board. I managed to get commitments from Springsteen and Stevie Wonder, and now she wants me to approach McCartney, but you and I both know there’s about as much chance of him getting involved as there is building a snowman in hell. The point is, I don’t really have time to think about anything else, at least for a while.”

  “Get rid of Chapman?” He said, frowning. “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know what it means, Jackson. I wish I did. Things have changed from the way they were in my first life, and now the danger is not only to John, but to everybody involved in the tour, including Ellie and even you. I’ve got a couple of private investigators working on it, and we’re still more than a year away from the original date of the shooting, but there’s no way to know exactly how much time we have, given the new situation and the fact that we’re dealing with a crazy person. So if you’re asking if I’m considering some kind of drastic action, you’re damned right I am.”

  “Drastic?” he said. “You’re not suggesting—”

  “Taking him out? Yes, I’ve given that some thought. It would be a simple solution to an incredibly complex problem, one I have yet to figure out how to handle. Thing is, I don’t think I’m capable of having someone killed. Oh, I could do it, probably pretty cleanly, in a way that would never be traced back to me. But as much as I might want to, it’s just not in my nature to take a human life.”

  “Well, that’s good to hear,” he said. “So what are you going to do?”

  “I wish I knew, my friend. I wish I knew.”

  The Morning After

  The last hangover I’d experienced was at the villa, but that had been the result of drinking Heyoka’s fake Jack with its simulated aftereffects. This one, however, was the real thing, featuring all the typical miseries; the only untypical thing being that each of those miseries was amplified by a factor of approximately ten thousand. The result was an exquisitely-vicious migraine; hours of throat-tearing, fire-hose vomiting; and a severe case of intestinal tsunami; all followed by a seemingly endless round of dry heaves that threatened to rip my stomach from its moorings.