“Good going, man. I owe you one.”
“Yeah, fine. Stop fighting the crowd and sing your ass off. That’ll do.”
Sylvia said, “You guys want to get noticed, then get a sound and stick with it. No more lousy keyboards, right?”
I smiled. “She’s got a point.”
Todd slid his arm around her and squeezed.
“No more Top 40 covers, no more joke songs,” I said. “We do what we want, what we agree on.”
The band nodded together. That was that.
“And more harmony from Doug,” Alison said.
He looked a little sheepish, but we liked the idea.
That was when it all started to click. Soon, we were packing big ass crowds all over the Panhandle. Even got a few New Orleans gigs. Sylvia reined Todd in. His voice soared, his attitude onstage did a one-eighty, and he was more than a singer. He was the leader, pushing us to keep up with him.
The more I think about it, I think the “big fish, small pond” times were the best we had as a band, as friends, as lovers, maybe even as people. We weren’t rich, weren’t famous, but we fucking believed we deserved it.
8
New Orleans, 2004
Must’ve dozed some. I felt fuzzy and couldn’t remember my last thought. I slapped myself in the face, sending a little cloud of dust into my eyes. Another shock wave thump sounded and I tried to slide up the wall. It was too rough. Pushed myself, knees stiff but able.
A guy was kneeling beside me. He followed as I stood, like a ghost in the corner of my eye. I stepped out from behind the dumpster as I took his inventory—loose gangsta track suit and a single gold chain, bright cross trainers, knuckles of one hand slapping the palm of his other, a steady nervous rhythm. He had light cinnamon skin and freckles.
“You all right, dawg?” he said, twanging it full-bore.
My eyes were tearing up. I rubbed them with dusty palms. Didn’t help much. “Fine, thanks, fine.”
“You don’t look so sharp.”
I waved him off. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll deal.”
We were in a service alley between buildings. This guy crowded me, pushing us farther from the street, a subtle thing. I took some steps back and circled him prizefighter style, needing another minute for my eyes to stop burning.
The gangsta said, “You get lost or something? Need to sleep off a high?”
“Something like that. I can find my own way back now.”
“Let me help you here.” Still keeping close.
“Thanks, that’s great.”
“Guardian Angel, that’s me.”
I stopped circling, felt up to strength, took a step for the road. Gangsta blocked it, like I thought he would. He was alone. The scavenger types usually worked in groups—better chance to muscle a tough guy, grab him before a gun got pulled, shit like that. Working alone didn’t make sense. Maybe he stumbled on me by luck. A drunk guy, easy to roll. Probably didn’t expect me to snap back so fast.
“You want money?”
A shrug. “Didn’t take dime one while you was out. I’m trustworthy, man. Just follow me and we’ll get you someplace safer.”
Follow him? He must’ve thought I was up on drugs.
A siren echoed from a few miles away, and the gangsta went fidgety again. I took another step towards the street. Gangsta’s hands dove for his pockets, and I knew the game then.
He reached for my shoulder. I blocked him with a high forearm and shoved him back, aimed a fist for his jaw. Knicked his chin, barely enough to do shit.
He swung wildly. I tried to grab his wrist. Missed. Something ripped across and stung like crazy through the web between thumb and forefinger and across my palm. He tried again. I got his wrist, cranked his arm, spun him round, slammed him into the building. His face hit hard, bloodied a cheek.
I let go and cradled my hand, blood slicked and throbbing. A deep cut. I thought about how my drumming would be fucked up if he damaged a nerve. I sent the gangsta to the ground, searched him for the blade. A box cutter with a long yellow plastic handle. I shook blood off my hand, picked up the box cutter with the other, and turned to this mugger. He should have been out cold, but he was still kicking, survival instinct working tough. I straddled him, pinned his arms and held the box cutter an inch away from one of those insect eyes.
“I need your shirt,” I said.
“The fuck you talking about?” he mumbled.
“I’m going to cut off a piece of your shirt, wrap up my hand. You’re going to let me and keep your mouth shut.”
The blade shook as I danced it across his cheek on the way down. My sliced hand tremored and I sucked air through my teeth, gashed the guy’s lip.
He tossed his head to the side. “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.”
“What did you expect? An easy target? A pushover? You want something, you need to take it, not expect it.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Go ahead. Tell me how it was supposed to go?”
“Not like this, that’s all I know.”
I held back the urge to spit on him. I moved the blade to his shirt, looked brand new. A Hornets jersey, light blue, made of that shiny rough fabric—better than nothing, better than fouling my own clothes. I traced a square with the box cutter, having to saw through some stretches, pricking the thin skin over his chest. When I was done, I wrapped my hand and shoved the wad in my jacket pocket. Then I pushed myself off, took wide steps back and waited to see what he would do, the whole time thinking about his words: Not like this, that’s all I know.
“Get out of here,” I said.
He sat up, hole in his shirt, red lines and pink puckers all over his cinnamon chest, staring me down with the insect eyes again.
“You first,” he said.
I smiled, pointed the box cutter at him again. “Pretty funny.” Then I backtracked out to the street, eyes on him the whole time until I turned the corner. Looked at my options—an Irish pub, a Thai restaurant. I took the pub, sagged my shoulder against the door and went in. The handful of regulars stared until the bartender served me a pint of Murphy’s. I asked for the bathroom and was pointed the right way.
I locked the door and unwrapped my hand. Serious motherfucking cut, probably ripped more in the fight. Looked like I needed stitches. All I wanted was Beth, though. Beth and a quiet evening and maybe a drink at Justin’s later. I ran cold water on my hand and got the blood off, the fresh sting making me grind my teeth. More blood flowed from the wound down the middle of my palm.
Needed more than a beer. Needed that car—maybe the GPS or some other gizmo could help trace it, I wasn’t sure. That laptop was probably long gone unless Todd’s car was swiped by joy riders who didn’t bother to check the trunk. Once they realized what they had and how much it was worth, well, I was waiting for the bomb to go off. I couldn’t go back to Todd’s room to search around with one hand out of action, cops and techs combing the place, probably already found out about me if that show CSI was even half-assed real.
I wrapped my hand in paper towels, tossed the shirt in the garbage. Someone banged against the door and shouted. I stumbled out, paid for the beer I didn’t drink, then called for a cab to take me to Beth’s. At least I could relax for a while at her place in anonymity before having to think about the next move. I hoped she had painkillers.
9
Beth had Aleve. That was about it. Some old cough syrup from a flu last winter, some allergy tablets, but for pain she had Aleve. I stared at the blue pill in her hand as I stood in the living room of her house, a nice rental near the Lakeshore. Her parents were paying the rent while Beth was a student.
“More,” I said.
“The bottle says two.”
“I need more.”
She gave me puckered lips and a loud sigh, tromped back into the kitchen. Telling her I couldn’t go out to dinner didn’t help. This was supposed to be a celebration for a fake victory in a fake negotiation. Beth thought I was an attorney w
orking for lobbying groups in Washington mostly. Good thing she wasn’t up to speed on politics, because I wasn’t either.
Too early to be dressed for our outing anyway, she wore an old patched denim skirt and oversized Bugs Bunny T-shirt, her hair down and straight, barefoot. She was pissed I caught her “not fixed nice.” Fuck glitz. Beth was gorgeous as is, even when she was rough. I’d never seen her just waking up, though. The way she was built, some might say “a handsome woman,” translated, “Too big for Hollywood.”
Her grouchy pose was Oscar-worthy. My arm muscles ached, the cut still throbbed. Beth tried to take my jacket off, and I flinched, seethed out “Motherfuck.” She slapped my cheek lightly.
“Goodbye, Merle,” she said. Anytime I acted like an ass, she’d walk off, send me home, leave the restaurant, whatever. Power play, I guessed. I put up with it mostly.
“Sorry. It hurts.”
“Promise to be nice.”
I held up my good hand, boy scout pledge. “Promise. But it really hurts. Get the pills.”
I heard her shaking the bottle, and I started for the couch.
Beth shouted, “Stand up! You’re covered in dirt.”
“Just a little dust from a building.”
“It’ll make me sneeze.”
She came back with three pills in one hand and a glass of water in the other. I popped the pills in my mouth then took the glass, swallowed the water in two gulps, so cold it hurt my teeth. All one-handed, the other in my jacket pocket.
Beth said, “Have you doctored it yet?”
“It’ll be fine, don’t worry.” Showing her the cut would mean big drama, and I’d have to make up a lie. Most of what she knew about me were lies I’d spun. It felt like debt. “I wanted to see you.”
“You’re early.”
“I couldn’t help it. Surprise.”
She inched closer, rubbing my bad arm. She switched to a baby voice. “Let me see your hand, please. I can kiss it, make it better.”
“Beth, Jesus—”
“Watch it.”
“Baby-doll, I’m telling you.”
Beth was persuasive, insistent, tugging my hand from my pocket. Fighting her took effort, so I let her pull it out. The paper towels were mostly red, half-dry and crinkly. I smelled the blood, turned my head away.
“Oh, honey,” she said, her concern the sweetest music I’d heard in a long time. “What happened?”
Shit. Might as well try the truth. “Guy tried to mug me.”
“Merle.” Stone cold.
“I’m serious. Took a box cutter to it. See?”
She unwrapped the makeshift bandage. Some of the paper stuck to a new scab. She turned my palm left and right, but I could barely feel it. Touch of an angel.
“It’ll get infected. Come on,” she said, already walking with the arm in tow, knowing I’d follow. In her small bathroom, saturated in green—her favorite color—Beth sat me on the fuzzy toilet seat and placed my hand over the sink. She opened the medicine cabinet, pulled out a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, and turned on the water.
“You need stitches.” She poured the peroxide on, little bubbles hissing and popping all along the gash.
“Ow, shit,” I said.
“Can’t you be nice?”
I wondered why she fell for me. All I wanted was to eat fried chicken and watch a DVD with Beth, let her take care of me, snuggle on the couch and rub her legs. I wanted that for years to come, the quiet of it. The tension, the passion, the boredom, all of it.
But not that night. I needed to chase down a stolen car.
*
Heavy-duty stitches held my web together, and fifteen more lined my palm. The ER doc wrapped it tightly to keep me from flexing too much. She prescribed enough codeine for four days. Enough to take the edge off. I wanted more, felt old urges returning strong—used to keep myself floating between concerts, amped to the gills on stage, nearly catatonic at night because even dreams had me worn out the next morning.
Beth stood from her chair in the waiting room when she saw me round the corner. Her face clouded over, so I must have looked pathetic. The waiting room was full of people who looked like ogres, mostly wearing dirty shirts, men with spotty facial hair and women with god-awful pot bellies.
“God, you’re amazing,” I told Beth. She giggled and looked away. I held up my pills. “This stuff’ll keep me down a couple of days.”
She crossed her arms. “It’s just a scratch.”
“That’s not what you said earlier”
“If I have to wait three more days, I want Bayona.”
I gave a regal bow, said with a British accent, “M’lady, I’ll make the reservations.”
She looped her arm through mine and leaned her cheek against me. There came the guilt again—no reservations, no dinner, no nothing in three days. I’d be long gone.
*
I used a pay phone to call Justin, then Beth dropped me off at his apartment. She thought it was mine, but I’d never let her come over.
She leaned over for a long kiss, then asked, “You need help getting upstairs?”
“I can make it.”
“What, you got a secret wife and family up there?”
I opened the car door. “How’d you guess?”
“Merle—”
I stepped out, unfurled to full height, full of cramps. “I’ll call tomorrow. Promise.”
She fiddled with the radio, then revved the engine. I shut the door before her temper flared more and she tried to run me over.
I made my way up the stairs slowly. Justin’s apartment was on the top floor. He had left the key in the usual place. I heard new slick R&B beats coming from the streets below, itchy like cricket noise, syncopated to the lyrics.
My senses tingled and I wondered if the place was being watched by cops or reporters. Sure, why not? Former rock star OD’s in a New Orleans hotel room, what a story. Someone must have noticed. Could be that Justin had already ratted me out. I doubted it, but my head was spinning. The only way for Todd to regain fame, seemed to me, was die famously. The paparazzi wouldn’t be far behind and I’d be the scapegoat in the tabloids. Well, “Merle Johnson” would be, anyway.
I keyed open the apartment door, felt like I was sleepwalking. The place was immaculate, made me jealous. Justin wanted to fill it with antiques that shouted “European Royal Family Summer Home”. He lived alone, and I knew he hadn’t dated seriously since the summer. I was safe here for a while, no one to interrupt my sleep.
Justin’s couch, an eighteenth century French number, drew me magnetically. Once settled, I pulled the suicide note from my pocket and read it again, looking for clues, a code, some uncertainty in the flow of ink. Instead, I saw a drunk’s handwriting, a decision made in the fog of ego.
I shoved the paper back into my pocket, and yawned. My hand hurt again when I looked down at the fingers forced together by gauze. Needed the codeine, so I crossed to the bathroom, popped a couple pills in my mouth, and took a mouthful of water directly from the tap. Swallowed hard and caught my breath. The bathroom mirror showed an old man. Older than I’d ever thought of myself. The Keith Richards crags etched around my eyes and mouth. Dark rings under my eyes. Shit, I wasn’t even forty yet. Part of the look was purposeful—I chose to look older because, once again, the Hollywood types wouldn’t understand one of their own trying to tack on age. The cosmetic surgery alone didn’t account for this mad, delirious me in the mirror. I was like the blood-deprived immortal I’d read about in The Vampire Lestat, who, when wearied by the world, went underground to sleep for centuries until he grew bored and reemerged to, of course, embrace the rock star life. My hero, except I’d gone in reverse. Wished I could find his coffin, climb in for a long nap, and only come out again when the world had really gotten over nostalgia trips for hair bands. I hissed at the mirror, doing my best Lugosi, but coughed until my chest was aching instead.
I glanced at my watch. Another couple hours before I was supposed to meet Justin. When I
had called him earlier, I asked if he knew anyone in the stolen car racket. Justin had contacts all over, knew plenty of shady types, so I was hoping maybe he could point me in the right direction to find Todd’s rental car before the cops did—if they had even guessed it was missing yet, a head start on reselling, repainting, dismantling, or hiding the damn thing.
“Better than nothing,” I mumbled to the empty apartment as the codeine kicked in. I hoofed it to the couch and tumbled face-first across it, hoping my mental clock would kick me awake in an hour. No use fighting the sleep. Seemed like that was all I was good for that day.
10
Los Angeles, 1988
“I’m not wearing goddamned make-up,” I told Todd.
His hands went to his hair, all frizzed and sprayed. “No, no, man, it’s, like, theater, not girl make-up.”
“I know what you mean. I know glam. I know KISS. We don’t need that. It’ll fade.”
This after we broke out of Florida and moved to LA. Got the cliché studio apartment—not squalor but not perfect—and didn’t exactly starve while cranking out flyers and trying to get noticed at the clubs. One of hundreds of bands, all of them too drunk to do what was really needed. If it wasn’t for Doug’s job at the mall and Stefan giving guitar lessons, there was no way we could have stayed long enough to get lucky. We slept on worn out mattresses, sheets given to us by fans—women who hung around all the time, buying us beer and fast food. Old pizza boxes and empty bottles, stacked neatly because Doug and Stefan were neat freaks. How did we put up with it?
Persistence kept you going only so far, but it took impressing the right person on the right night to really break out. We knew we had the goods. We didn’t know if we had the patience.
Sylvia sat across the room in our lone chair, arms and legs crossed. She said, “The chicks love it. It’s not like you haven’t already got the hair. Look at Crue. They’re tough as nails wearing blush.”
I smugged at her, this argument feeling like Spinal Tap but not so funny. Eddie Van Halen had said that—go ahead and laugh, but that shit really happens. Girlfriend comes in, tries to run the band, and the singer is head-over-ass smitten.
The Drummer Page 5