The Drummer

by Anthony Neil Smith

  I wanted to tell her she had. Big gaping holes that I didn’t want to mortar up again. New worlds, a new life, all the starting over from scratch cliches on the tip of my tongue. I didn’t say anything because she was right. I was waiting for something, thought it would be obvious when it happened, but the ‘it’ kept changing and maybe Sylvia—or no one—could break me down.

  I slid out of bed, crawled to her.

  “Put your shorts on,” she said.

  I didn’t. Kept crawling. I ran my hands up her calves, eased my head into her lap. Her thighs were warm and soft, but her knees were cold.

  “I need you,” I said.

  One of her hands brushed through my hair while the other ran across my back.

  “Please, Cal.”

  “I don’t want to lose you, but I can’t be the secret man anymore.”

  “Please…”

  “Why? Can you tell me why him?”

  A long pause, then she said, “Todd doesn’t get it. He’s not going to see the potential in me that you see. He needs me. He can’t get through all of this we’re doing without me. It’s not about control, though. I admire him. I love him for being exactly what he is. And I can guide him. When’s the last time you needed me? If this band falls apart tomorrow and I made suggestions for your career, what would you do?”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Yes it is. What would you do?”

  “You know I’d pay attention.”

  Sylvia laughed. Her hands lifted. I sat up.

  “Here’s what you’d do,” she said. “You’d go back to L. A. for a while, try to put together a band you had total control over. You’d ditch all my advice, every wish. You’d even leave Doug behind.”

  I didn’t say anything. She was right.

  “You want to challenge me? You want an equal? Fine. But you want it to be a boxing match for the rest of our lives. I can’t take that.”

  “I’d never touch you—”

  “Shit, you’re smarter than that. I mean a mental boxing match.” She twisted her lips. “You knew I meant that. Don’t play with me.”

  “Really? You think I’m playing now?”

  She stood, arms tight across her chest, the look on her face like pity. Pity. For me. I turned on her and crawled back to the bed, buried my face in the pillow.

  I felt her weight on the mattress. She said, “Don’t shut down, please. We’ve talked about this before, and I need your friendship. I still want that.”

  I mumbled into the pillow, “How convenient.”

  “What?”

  “Just go. You can’t choose Todd over me and expect me to like it.”

  “Cal—”

  I shot upright, shocked by my own volume, in her face yelling, “Him over me! And I’m the one who’s playing, right? That’s a practical joke if you ask me, so don’t even say another word, sweetie, sugar, pumpkin, baby-doll, whore.”

  Pure disgust, my voice, her eyes.

  I kept going. “I’ll fuck up any ideas you have for the band. All the goodwill between us is dead. Rotting. Stinking. Everyone will smell it. Don’t even talk about friendship when you can fuck me, then fuck Todd, until you got bored or power hungry. Might as well warn Doug, too.”

  She slapped the living shit out of me. Her fingernail sliced my temple. It echoed like a gunshot. That’s when I grabbed her wrists and dragged her across the room to the door. When I lost grip on her wrist, I grabbed her hair and kept it up in spite of whatever noise she was making, opened the door to the hall and threw her ass outside. I closed the door, locked it, blocked out her shouting: “—Pay for this, you—the last mistake you’ll ever—and every fucking minute was a fake. FAKE!”

  I climbed back into bed, aiming my own screams deep into the pillow, the bed, the floor, hell, the devil himself, swearing I was through with love. Tears burned the cut above my eye, blood and saline staining the sheets. I don’t know how long I lay there tensed, aching, out of breath, but when the phone finally rang, I composed myself enough to answer. The road manager asked if I was all right, told me to get my ass in gear for the show.

  I said, “Man, I’m exhausted.”

  “You’ve got to play the show, pussy boy.”

  “Need to get through it, I know. Need some help.”

  He went “Hm” and then whispered, “You sure?”

  “Rock and roll.”

  The pause was too long. I didn’t expect it. We both knew what this meant. The level-headed one in the band was throwing in with the dark side.

  He said, “You want to shoot or snort?”

  “Jesus, I hate needles.” I imagined Morrison and Hendrix, Bonham and Lynott. Keith Moon. Sid Vicious. Johnny Thunders. Elvis, for Christ’s sake. “Look, how about something I can take with water? Some uppers.”

  “What’re you, in seventh grade? A narc?”

  “Just get it.” I hung up, then flayed my arms out wide and tried to keep my chest from hurting. That was the beginning of the chemical ride for me.

  Did I blame Sylvia? You bet your ass. Why? Because it was easier that way.

  20

  New Orleans, 2004

  Some bands we opened for: Whitesnake, The Scorpions, Guns ‘N Roses, Megadeth, The Cult. I really liked The Cult.

  Damn thing is I can’t remember most of the bands that opened for us. Only Primus stands out because they were damned good and the audience hated them. There was this Japanese group, a Living Colour tribute band. These Japanese teenagers played Living Colour’s entire first album and somehow got their hair to look like the real guys, braids and fades and all that.

  I thought about them as I drove my Caddy back to the Quarter, the lead singer probably only sixteen singing “Cult of Personality.” We didn’t even let them have a soundcheck. Still, they loved us. We laughed at them until Todd told us to shut up and listen. These kids had it down.

  “How much work do you think it took to get so close? They’ve got to know they have no future in it.” He shook his head.

  All that work to sound like a band that would go on to have a couple more albums, none as popular or good as the first. In fact, the all-black metal band thing ended up more a marketing gimmick than most of us thought. Living Colour was the shit, man. Real musicians, Vernon Reid throwing down guitar like a smarter Hendrix. Regardless of how good they were, they ended up a one-hit wonder because of the novelty. So what did we find in Japan? Kids who spent months learning every note and nuance of that first album even though the best that would get them was a few weeks of minor league fame.

  What Todd was getting at—they loved the music.

  I didn’t love it as much as I did myself, my need for attention, adoration. I needed to make Sylvia love me more than she did Todd, needed Alison to make me feel important, needed to drop off the face of the earth and then watch my band fall apart because they couldn’t survive without me. Needed to be the mysterious stranger in New Orleans when I should have tried to blend in more by being friendly, boring, a guy who liked talking about weather.

  The Caddy was an easier target to find now, big rip in the ragtop, so taking it back to the funeral home was out of the question. Keeping it period was no longer an option. Goddamn reporter. Thought he deserved an answer and was willing to fuck up my stuff because he has the right to ask me whatever it was he wanted to get his face on TV an extra three minutes. Grow his career off me? My ego flared again. Put my face on TV if it helps me, not you.

  I felt it. A stab in the heart. Felt what it was like to be me for a moment, realizing what it was like to be in my orbit, to be poisoned by me slowly until the only option was to puke me out of your system. How could anyone love a guy like me? What had I morphed into?

  Down along North Peters on the river, I settled on leaving the car at a meter, dumped an hour’s worth of quarters into her, and left the keys in the ignition. I even put the top down. It would only take about fifteen or twenty minutes to walk back home from there, most of the walk along the Mississippi where I
could avoid the crowds, catch my breath, maybe even clear my head and see if I was past the point of needing pain pills. So I told myself.

  Too late too late too late too late throbbing like a bee sting.

  Just before I hopped out of the Caddy, I flicked on AM radio and waited for the news to cycle around. I wanted to hear it for myself, see what I was up against.

  …Police are still searching for a suspect possibly involved with the death of a heavy metal singer this hour, and just when it looks like the case can’t become anymore bizarre, now we learn that this man might in fact be Calvin Christopher, the drummer for Todd Delacroix’s popular eighties band, Savage Night, long thought dead.

  Sources tell us that according to information turned in by an anonymous tipster, Delacroix discovered the drummer has been living in New Orleans for several years after faking his own death, altering his appearance, and changing his name to Merle Johnson. Police questioned Johnson yesterday after he had called in to report that Delacroix appeared to be in an alcohol-induced coma in his hotel room. He was announced DOA at Methodist Hospital after paramedics were unable to revive him.

  Johnson first appeared to simply be a local friend, although he told hotel employees he was the singer’s agent. Police followed up on Johnson, nearly satisfied with his story until this new information appeared in the form of a recording, apparently a conversation between Johnson and Delacroix, which ends abruptly after what sounds like a physical confrontation between the two men. Police also found computer files detailing sightings of Johnson made by Delacroix during his trip to New Orleans this past month.

  Police now believe Delacroix might have been a victim of foul play at the hands of Johnson, but they cannot confirm if this man is actually Calvin Christopher.

  A reporter for a local ABC affiliate captured a few moments of Johnson on tape as he fled his girlfriend’s house in a Lakeshore neighborhood.

  (Reporter’s voice): He was definitely in a hurry, nearly ran me over, and he cursed at me when I asked him to confirm his identity. All in all, I’d say that whether or not he’s hiding who he really is, he’s certainly hiding something.

  The girlfriend, whose name we’ll withhold at this time, refused to comment except to say, “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

  I turned off the radio and sat another moment, my mind tricking me into thinking my hand was on fire. I knew all those tricks in-and-out, but that didn’t help the burn or the need. Lucky for me I knew the streets around here. A quick stop at a “pharmacy” I had used in the past would help.

  Beth’s words. I heard them as if she had spoken them, not the newsreader. Denying me. Peter denied Jesus. Swore he wouldn’t, but he did, and maybe that was Beth’s message to me—I deny you now, but I’ll love you when you rise again.

  Or I was dreaming and it really meant, You’re dead to me.

  Either way, I didn’t want to feel much of anything until I was out of Merle’s skin.

  *

  A block off Jackson Square, a chain drug store had been erected in a corner building, twenty-four hours right in the heart of French Quarter traffic. The façade was 18th Century Spanish, clashing with the interior’s typical Everywhere USA chain drug store, long rows of thin metal shelves under florescent strip lights. Cheap beads and T-shirts, packets of Hurricane mix, shot glasses and tin ashtrays painted with New Orleans landmarks, made in Taiwan, were like Christmas decorations among cheap beer, wine, booze, and medications. And snacks. I grabbed a bag of pizza-flavored chips and headed for the pharmacy at the back of the store.

  Two people worked behind reinforced glass, a raised dais, a welcoming window. The girl looked college grad school age, about right for a pharmacist. She had Hispanic features, light brown hair, and tiny Ben Franklin glasses.

  “How can I help you?” she said.

  I placed my hands on the counter, the bandaged one dirty. It made me aware of my own odor overpowering the antiseptic quality of the place. Sweat and disinfectant and booze and pussy and my own musk. This girl didn’t flinch.

  “I’m looking for Armand Rasmussen,” I said.

  “I’m sorry, say that again?”

  “I think that’s the name. Armand. Rasmussen.”

  She turned her head, a fast sweep, aiming at the man behind her who looked to be in his forties, hair combed straight back and held like magic, wearing a tie under his white coat. I didn’t know his real name, but this was the same guy who’d supplied me when I first arrived in town. This was my first visit in years. His chin was down. He looked from her to me, then back to her, shrugged with a little head bob thrown in. The girl moved to the side and let this smooth operator step in.

  “What’s the trouble here?” he said, the words flat, tuneless.

  “Some guy with a weird name was supposed to handle my prescription. Does that ring a bell?”

  The girl busied herself, finishing a pill counting job, turned her back to me. The man said, “The name isn’t familiar. You’ve probably got the wrong place, that’s all. There’s another branch right outside the Quarter.” He lifted his arm to point, and I knew the one he meant.

  “I was pretty sure. But whatever.” I stepped back. Maybe he’d stopped dealing out of the back room, or maybe we were being watched. It wasn’t looking good.

  “Here, let me write down the address.”

  “No, really, I think I know.”

  But he already had the pen out and clicked, grabbed a blank label and wrote a few lines. He slid it across the counter, fingers not letting go.

  “You mean the one on the corner, Rampart and—”

  “Take this. I wrote it down.” Something about his tone made me stop squirming and look him in the eye. Steady, calm, no fear or disgust there. “You never know, might forget on your way.”

  I reached for the label, had to tug it from underneath his fingertips. “Thanks.”

  On the street, I looked at what he had written: Jimmy Tropic’s Daiquiris, 2 blocks down, WAIT for me, ten minutes.

  *

  I sipped a Coke and waited at this overpriced tourist trap, a wall of frozen drink machines behind the counter, signs advertising Grenades and Extra Longnecks full of light beer or hurricanes, old video poker machines. Too bright, too hard, too fake.

  Nine minutes. The pharmacist walked into the bar and headed my way, a nod to the bartender, who didn’t bother asking him if he wanted a drink. He sat beside me, gave me the once over.

  He said, “What the hell was that about? Just so happens that the day you’re all over the news, that’s when you decide to reappear?”

  “Sorry about that. We good here then?”

  He shrugged again, a practiced move he must’ve picked up from a movie. “I’d like some assurance.”

  “You want to take me somewhere, strip me down, make sure I’m not wired, that’s cool. You want to try some evasion in case someone’s watching, it’s all good. I need a goddamn ride out of Hell right now, you get me? I also need some fucking oxycontin.”

  His head snapped around, but the place was empty. The bartender was on the phone at the opposite end of the building.

  The pharmacist made a nasty face. “What was that? Be discrete, or you get nothing.”

  “Cash. How much?”

  A minute of chin-rubbing. I was getting sick of it, so I rattled my ice and slid off the stool.

  “Okay, wait, wait. How much do you want?”

  I pulled a wad of money from my pocket, what was leftover after two days of non-stop go go go. I counted and smoothed the sweaty bills, some of them spotted with blood from my hand, then handed the whole pile to him.

  He counted, said, “Won’t get you much.”

  “Whatever, man. Don’t short me.”

  “My reputation is important to me, obviously. I do what I do with pride.”

  Shut up you pompous bastard, the need was yelling in my head. Easier to raid your pharmacy than do this song and dance.

  I said, “Thanks. You’re a lifesaver.�
�

  21

  The walk home bent time and space. I didn’t remember most of it, but something automatic in my brain kept me from bumping into folks or weaving like a wino. I daydreamed about Eighty-eight, and I was back in the leather with the hair on my shoulders, looking like a star even to those people who didn’t know the band. I had the shit going for me. Calvin Christopher, up-and-coming rock drummer with a band that was limp without him. A singer dumber than a sack of oyster shells, a gay bass player in the closet (we told the groupies he was “shy.”), and a guitarist who thought he was Chopin reincarnate.

  Nothing without the beat. They were a scream, a joke, a fast scale without a purpose. Cal Christopher was Savage Night.

  I couldn’t feel my legs. I couldn’t feel much of anything. Passed the French Market with its fake African sculptures and tie-dyes, T-shirts and wallets, plenty of other junk for sale. The produce hit me like smelling salts. Only another few blocks to the house.

  Fast-forward and there I was, out front, reaching into my pocket for the garage door opener and—

  Where the fuck was it?

  Not in any of my pockets. I either left it at Beth’s or in the Caddy. I left the Caddy on the street, keys in the ignition. My front door key was on that ring.

  “Aw, that’s great,” I told the building, patted the bricks.

  The dope hadn’t knocked me that far out of reality, though. I remembered hiding a key in the tree in the median. I jogged over, found the loose bark, and opened the little door I’d made, the key waiting for me there. What an awful hiding place, now that I think of it. I guess keys weren’t my thing. Cal Christopher never had to open doors for himself.

  Merle Johnson had to all the time.

  It was a lousy thought, the real world invading my fantasy, and I was too buzzed to remember I had chosen to exit the stage.

  Back across the street, key in the door, a couple twists, and it swung open quietly, the inviting shadow of the stairwell calling me inside. Who’s going to bother you here?

  A couple more steps, the carpet like a cloud to my dead tired feet, and I eased the door closed again. By nightfall, my private Batcave would be a memory. I planned on shooting the truck north through Mississippi, Tennessee, keep going until I hit a Great Lake or the Canadian border. Life would have to be simple for the next couple of years—small town, small cabin, no extravagances. Not what I really wanted, but after the heat died down and the legend faded (or grew), whoever I decided to be next could shift back into a more comfortable lifestyle. Canada sounded nice after all. My cash would stretch there, too.