The Drummer

by Anthony Neil Smith

  “You raped me, didn’t you? You bastard! What did you do to me? What did you do?” She held the Bible in white-knuckle hands, her face flushed and wet. “What did you do? What did you do?”

  I reached for the Bible, got the edge but not enough. I said, “I didn’t do anything! I swear, nothing happened.”

  “Liar, you. That’s a lie. You’re going to burn, buddy.”

  I looked through my shielding forearms. Beth was shaking, scared, no experience to compare this to.

  “Sweetie, I swear, nothing happened.”

  “Then what are these?” She held out her balled-up panties.

  “That’s your underwear, and yeah, they got thrown across the room. You told me to take them off.”

  She bent over, hateful breath, Bible at the ready. “What. Did you. Do?”

  I dropped my arms, hoping she’d trust what I had to say if I wasn’t bracing for the knock. “We got drunk. We got hot. But I stopped before it went too far, and we fell asleep.”

  “You took advantage of me.”

  “I didn’t. You wanted it, too. You’ll remember that in a few hours. I’m telling you, Beth, baby, I love you. Nothing. Happened.”

  Her face wasn’t pretty when she was devastated. She packed more worry into those cheeks than I had ever seen on anyone else.

  She dropped the Bible. “I’m sorry,” she said, landing heavily on the edge of her couch cushions, arms crossed on her knees and her head low.

  I scooted closer, wrapped my good arm around her legs, rested my chin against her skin. “You don’t have to apologize. You’ve got enough to regret because of me.”

  Her nose started running. She rubbed her sleeve across her face. My angel.

  We sat like that in the quiet light of the morning for I don’t know how long. It hadn’t been the night I dreamed of, but I was at peace, much happier to leave her knowing her virtue was mostly intact. If I hadn’t shown up on her doorstep at all, that wouldn’t even be a problem in the first place. Yep, that’s me: #1 Ass.

  Then there was glint of light outside the front windows. A reflection off something outside. Enough to make me squint. I took a peek. A car on the curb, no…a white van. A white van with letters and a colorful symbol on the side.

  TV reporters. Shit.

  My Caddy was on the street a couple houses down, and I don’t know how they could have traced it. So that meant they knew about Beth. They followed me? Waiting to ambush my girlfriend?

  “Do me a favor. Don’t talk to any reporters,” I said.

  She looked at me like I was speaking Vietnamese, then she headed for the window. She was almost to the blinds before I wrapped my arms around her and whispered, “Don’t let them see you or they’ll swarm. They’ll provoke and prod and tell you terrible things.”

  “You killed him?”

  “He was nearly dead already. I didn’t kill him.”

  Beth in my arms, not fighting, and I realized it was because she was scared of me. “I know you didn’t. I know.”

  I let my grip go slack. She didn’t try to break away. My arms were shooting pain, shooting nerves and twitches. Soon as I left, she’d be out there talking to reporters. Not to be on TV, but probably to ask them what they knew that I was holding back.

  There wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it, and the strange thing was I felt like that guy, the one caught in a lie who wants to stranglehold and micromanage the situation until I’d brainwashed her back into loyalty and love. Here I was wanting to be that guy in Beth’s living room, realizing something I had forgotten the past decade or so: we lie because we’re in love. Not because we want to be right or we’re scared of being alone, but because when it gets down to the wire, we can’t imagine a day without her.

  “Don’t talk to them. Don’t listen to them.”

  Her lips trembled. “Tell me everything. Right now.”

  I almost did. Opened my mouth and the words, “I’m not—” were on the tongue, forming, about to burp out. Instead I said, “Everything you know is wrong.”

  “Look at me.”

  I did.

  Her jaw was tight. “Say that again.”

  “Everything you know. All of it. Wrong.”

  I held up my hands, brushed them together like a blackjack dealer at shift’s end. Without another word, I turned and made my way to the back door. Needed to do an end-run around the reporters to the Caddy. As I stepped out into bright sun and an icy breeze and started to pull the door closed, the sound of Beth’s TV carried, a cable news anchorwoman, probably about to end my love affair.

  *

  I took a brisk walk around two of her neighbors’ homes and came out to the sidewalk, far behind the van, the reporters hopefully too focused on the door or windows to notice my scrawny nervous ass coming up fast to the Caddy. The ragtop was up, so I couldn’t take a nice dive into the front seat and speed out of there before the reporters knew what hit them.

  Instead, when I was twenty feet away, I ran for it, fumbling my keys as I went. The slide of the van door shocked me like a firecracker. Faster. Already I heard, “Mr. Johnson? Mr. Johnson? Did you have anything to do with—”

  “Fuck off!”

  I tried to turn my head, see if Beth was watching through the window, but the world was too jumbled, my own personal Cops episode. Except that these were reporters, and I was betting they hadn’t called the police yet. That would ruin the exclusive.

  At the car, I tried to catch my breath as I one-handed the key into the lock. Twist. Open. Swung it wide. Inside.

  Gunned the motor as the reporters closed in, so I threw the car into reverse and spun the tires, hoping they would clear out. The man kept coming, tripping, a slo-mo nightmare as I imagined him falling under the wheels.

  I braked hard.

  The reporter kept falling until he slammed into the rear panel, the microphone punching through the ragtop, the man’s arm following, widening the hole.

  “Look what you did to my fucking car!”

  The guy said, “Sorry,” and pulled his arm out slow and sheepish. Then he eased his face to the hole and said, “Can I ask you a few questions?”

  I gave him a slow burn stare.

  “Please? Did you kill your lead singer?”

  Shit. They’ve got my number.

  Clutch. Gears. Tires on asphalt squealed like fireworks. I was gone. Pissed about my car—asshole no-conscience son of a bitch—but also thinking it was even more visible now. Classic Caddy is one thing, but Classic Caddy with a ripped rag, that’s another, so like all the prizes and pretty toys, pride-n-joys, I needed to ditch this one too.

  Easy enough. Leave it on a neighborhood street, keys inside, and it wouldn’t be there for long. Probably would end up with that Duncan guy and his pregnant shotgun wife. I laughed. Then I couldn’t stop. Duncan or one of those kids who worked for Strap. Laughing so hard I was crying. Yep, New Orleans was a small town after all.

  19

  Atlanta, 1988

  Eventually Sylvia was forced to choose. Not by Todd, but by me. About the time our first album came out, we made a splash with a tight single—“The heirs to the California sound with a nice wallop of gritty blues punch and pop smarts. It’s Crue with more talent, less anger. Redefining cool,” said Spin. Back then, though, who the hell read Spin?

  On the set of our third video, we didn’t have much to do. It was mostly Todd’s show, aping the overblown Guns N’ Roses trilogy—you remember “November Rain”? It raised the ante. Todd insisted we needed that.

  “That what?” I said.

  He made a fist, held it high. “Drama, man. The sheer big ass drama of it all. Show them we’re more than a party band. Drop some Southern Gothic into this. Me, fighting in the Civil War.”

  Doug and I looked at each other, died laughing. Stefan zoned in and couldn’t help himself. “How can war be civil anyway?”

  We laughed harder.

  We had no idea that meeting would lead to us taking a day off our tour with Cindere
lla and Faster Pussycat to film this opus in Atlanta.

  Todd wore a confederate soldier’s uniform, fake dirt on his face. The hair was still frizzed and teased, though. Our director was telling him, “Loss. We want to see loss all over your face. You know you shouldn’t be fighting this war. It’s wrong.”

  “Right.”

  “You’re longing to see your lover again.”

  The lover was a hot-to-trot model, blonde and thin, who looked so wrong in an antebellum gown. Unwatchable. In between takes she bitched about the heat.

  “My pussy is sweaty,” she told me.

  “What’s new about that?”

  “I don’t like you.”

  I grinned. “It’s good to hear someone say that.” I was, of course, Todd’s long lost brother, but dressed in Union blue.

  All Stefan and Doug had to do was stand in a field wearing old-fashioned suits, Stefan in his ever-present sunglasses. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen his eyes.

  The director tried to put him in an Abe Lincoln hat, but Stefan stomped on it, said it would be stupid to imitate Slash.

  “That is his thing. I don’t do his thing.”

  Instead, they pasted on a handlebar mustache.

  There were two hundred extras in this field behind an old plantation home. Most played dead or wounded, stumbling or bleeding around in the smoke while Todd sang passionately about lost love.

  It was a gigantic waste of our fucking time.

  *

  The director, Yannick, couldn’t speak French if you did it for him. A poser, guy who’d done some Euro-pop videos and wanted to broaden his resume. Most of the time, I wasn’t sure he knew how to turn on a camera. But he sure knew how to stretch our four-minute song into a multi-day ordeal.

  At the final meeting, he asked Stefan what he wanted to do for his solo.

  Through his sunglasses, I detected a sparkle. His posture changed, and his hands did the talking. Swept them across the air. “Ja, get this. I am transported from the battlefield to the top of the tallest building in Atlanta. Like time travel, my solo somehow divines the future.”

  I laughed out loud. Sylvia and Todd kept nodding, good at feigning interest.

  “You don’t like?” Stefan asked.

  “No, no, I’m not laughing at you,” I said, then burped out another few laughs. “Okay, I’m laughing at you. This is bullshit.”

  Sylvia hissed at me. “Play nice.” She’d been taking a bigger role in guiding us, but with her and Todd tangled in a triangle, I resented her trying to take the driver’s seat. Todd, however, needed her to tell him what to do.

  Yannick asked, “And if we can’t get permission?”

  “Then I’ll climb on top of a horse-drawn funeral carriage, shredding away as we carry Todd’s lover to the graveyard.”

  Actually, I kinda liked that one. If I wasn’t pissed off at the whole charade and ready to get back on stage, I might have told him so. We’d wasted two days and were told they’d replace us on tour with Enuff Z’Nuff if we didn’t get over to Biloxi that evening.

  “Can’t this wait until our next break? We’ve got six more shows.”

  Yannick rolled his eyes. “I have another life, you know. Once I leave this project, my passions will lead me elsewhere. It would be hard to come back.”

  “Plus, we still have the fire scene,” Sylvia said.

  “The hell’s that?” I was ready to stand up, intimidate the room if that’s what it took. “We’ve shot more than enough.”

  Todd said, “Dude, get the bug out of your ass. The video will make us big. We’re talking headlining. Big time.”

  “But if we get dropped from the tour, that’s real money we lose. Is the video going to help us get it back?”

  Todd was the one who stood, then paced behind my chair, chewing a fingernail. “What are you scared of, man? Everytime we take a step forward, you act as if we’re going to lose it all.”

  I pushed my chair into his path, forced to chill out. “We have a video. Let him edit it. You’re all pissed because you want face time. Want your big scene. That’s not what the band’s all about.”

  He grinned. It told me I was going to lose. “Seems to you, the band’s about doing as little as possible to blow up into superstars. We’re talking Bon Jovi money without having to be pretty boys.”

  I wasn’t going to remind him about the time he wanted us to wear make-up. Deep down, he wanted desperately to be a pretty boy.

  “It’s not up to me anyway. I’m just saying we need to prioritize. The tour versus the video. I vote tour.”

  So did Doug. Stefan voted video, but I didn’t blame him. The solo was a big deal for him. It came down to Sylvia, sitting there with her arms crossed barely speaking during the whole meeting. I had her in the palm of my hand—secret lover, confidant who implemented my ideas on tour so that Todd would go along and never know it was my suggestion, smartest one of us all. She was sure to go my way, take the bank and build rather than gamble.

  All eyes on Sylvia.

  “One more day of shooting,” she said.

  She couldn’t look at me when she spoke. I wanted to punish her. Her siding with Todd set off warning bells. First business, then what next?

  *

  Middle of the afternoon in my hotel room, three doors down from Todd’s, Sylvia pulled her blood-red stocking above her knee, then stopped. Her shoulders fell and she didn’t look up. One stocking on, one halfway, her blouse open, she looked so tired. I was on the bed, naked, lying on my back with a cigarette hanging from the side of my mouth, ashes falling onto the sheets. I was waiting for her answer. We’d had a marathon of fucking, but she wasn’t smiling. No buzz on her, stone cold sober. Maybe because the sex had come unexpectedly after twenty solid minutes of yelling at each other, volume cranked high.

  I’d been all, “You know it’s the wrong choice! A fucking video! So the kids watch it for free and still don’t buy the tape. We’re part of the radio clique suddenly? Turning our backs on our fans?”

  Sylvia was all, “What’s the point of staying still, not growing? We need this. If not, we barely break even. Don’t you get it? We’re spending just as much as we’re making.”

  “But we’re not a brand name! It’s a band. It’s about the music, baby.”

  “Don’t call me ‘baby’.”

  That’s when I took her. She struggled as I came in for a kiss. She wanted to pull away. Then she attacked. She bit. She clawed. We called each other every name—Bitch and Asshole and Whore and Bastard until it became Baby and Sylvia and Fuck me.

  Angry. Violent. Necessary. When we came, it was larger than life. Spasms sharper, sensations drowning out our senses. And when it was over…we lapsed into silence, distance.

  I told her, “It’s not like he’s your soulmate. We’ve talked it to death, because we know. You and I, we got it.”

  That had sent her out from the sheets, picking up clothes, finally settling on the chair where she sat, half-dressed and full-depressed.

  “You don’t want to push me,” Sylvia said. “Really, leave it. I’m the one feeling like shit. You should be happy.”

  I sat up, stabbed my cigarette fingers at her. “My emotions, my needs, what the hell? You fuck and go, leave me wanting the whole package, sweetie, but you’ve got to run back to one of my closest friends. Everything you want in your two men, and I’m supposed to think you’re the one in pain?”

  Her face went demon and she threw the empty ice bucket at me. Her fingers tripped over each other buttoning the blouse. “Where’s my skirt?”

  I plopped back down, eyes to the ceiling.

  “I can’t leave without my skirt.”

  “Then stay.”

  She got on her knees and looked under the bed, spitting insults.

  “You don’t want me. You don’t care how I feel. I can’t believe you took his side,” I said.

  Her head popped up. “Shut up, all right? Just shut up. You’re not helping.”

  “I
love you more than I know how to. I show you every day, don’t I? He’s off whoring and snorting half his money up his nose. He’s barely functional. He’s a child, you get that? He needs a mommy, and I can’t stand seeing you be that when you’ve got so much more inside—”

  She found her skirt, wrapped it around her waist. I wanted to rip it off again. She sat in the chair with a hard sigh. We went on like that for a long time, dead still and quiet. I was tired of telling her I loved her.

  Another few sighs, and I wanted to yell at Sylvia. She knew about Alison. I’d told her everything. How could she do this after I told her all that ‘spilling my soul’ bullshit, hearing Sylvia tell me she’d never do those things to me? No, she found a different way to twist the knife. All I wanted was easy and honest. Why the hell couldn’t people shed the fucking drama?

  “Baby,” I said. Shook my head on the pillow. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Listen, please. Are you listening?”

  “All ears.”

  “Don’t shit on what I’m about to say.”

  “Okay.”

  I listened to her breath another minute. “With you, I feel like we’re equals. We talk, we get each other. We’re on the same wavelength, and I know you’d never hurt me, right?”

  “Whatever.”

  “Right?”

  I propped my head on my hand and turned to face her. “Fine.”

  “Still, you do it, you know. You’re so scared of getting hurt again that you don’t pull punches with me. I say something stupid, you tell me. I tell you I like a movie you hate, I don’t hear the end of it for a week. Like today. I thought you’d handle it better, not punish me with it. You’re lashing out at the wrong person, but I know why you do it. Problem is, you don’t. You think you’re protecting yourself. What you’re really doing is trying to change me.”

  “No, come on.”

  “It’s true.” Sylvia was in control, composed as usual. “You want this on your terms. As much as I love you—”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “—and I do, so roll em all you want, but I do. But I haven’t made a dent in that wall you built after Alison. Not one hole. Nothing.”