The Drummer

by Anthony Neil Smith

  The downside: I would sit at bars on cold nights and wish the hell I could order a gumbo and listen to hot music, every style, lined up one after the other in dives full of energy, excitement, appreciation. I’d miss my adopted city more than anything or anyone except Beth. I would mourn the rest of my life, not able to tell anyone about my Big Easy home for fear of a connection being made. I could’ve avoided it all—made lousy music for a few more years, paid off the IRS, and retired more quietly and modestly.

  Whatever. These drugs made me melancholy.

  I started up the stairs. Three steps. Then I heard a hiss. More than imagination, like it was a word. Another hiss. Sharp.

  “Listen. Hear it?”

  Whisper. It wasn’t me. My gaze shifted to my security panel at the top of the stairs. Why the hell hadn’t I noticed it flashing?

  Red Red Red Red Red…

  Someone had broken in. I stopped mid-step, froze solid and held my breath and every muscle.

  “You’re freaking out.”

  “Man, I’m telling you I heard something.”

  “Bugging. We would hear him if he came back, that fucking garage door. There ain’t been dead folks here in a long time, either. You scared of ghosts?”

  “Scared if they can hurt me.”

  “We’re almost done.”

  Shit. If dead sober I could probably move steadily enough to get up the stairs without any noise, get to the old .22 rifle in my bedroom.

  If I weren’t hopped up.

  The next step creaked like feedback.

  “Out the back!” one said, no need to whisper. Heavy steps crossed the parlor where I kept the drums, passing quickly by the stairs as I started up faster. Two shadows moved inches from me as I hit the landing, reached out for one. His jacket slipped away. I flicked the lights and followed, run dammit run, not getting a good look as they hit the door at the back stairs leading down to the garage. They dropped most of my stuff on the way—master tapes and floppies of my music.

  Through the back door I took the stairs at a tumble, barely keeping upright, three four at a time, until I hit the ground and heard scrambling through another old door on my left, dark as night except for sunlight filtering through the rotting ceiling above the garage. I kicked a box and fell. Shit. How the hell did they get in? Where were they?

  Up again just in time to see two men heading out the back, glass covering the ground where they’d bashed a window out. They fucking well knew—the alarm was for me alone, not hooked up to some agency, and they chose a time I wasn’t there.

  The guy in front, I didn’t get a good look, definitely a white guy, red baseball cap and cheap windbreaker. The other guy looked back at me right before he split outside. A black guy, light-skinned, familiar. The clothes had changed—baggy khakis, Saints track suit jacket—but it was the fucker who tried to mug me. Half a second, a look of fear, then he disappeared.

  My head cleared instantly.

  Faster than I thought I could run, out that door and on the mugger’s tail in the empty parking lot, the other guy not far ahead, heading for the neighborhood behind us. The mugger was going all out, took a look back to find me closing, then stumbled. Face first into the pavement. His cheek was bloody, coated with pebbles, and he yelled to his partner for help.

  I was on the guy, flipped him over and shoved my hand tight against his throat. He gagged and I enjoyed it.

  “Wanted to try again?” I said, spitting with every word. “Finish me off? You’ve been following me?”

  “It’s not me! I’m doing what I’m told. I swear, man, I ain’t out to hurt you.”

  “It is you, asshole. You’re the one who’s here.”

  “Honest, just what I’m told. Not supposed to hurt you. Just get close to you, try to take you with me. I never meant to cut you.” It was panic talk, fast and high-pitched, and it confused me.

  “Who told you?”

  “I swear—”

  “Hey.” The voice came from above me.

  I looked up. The other guy had come back. Another familiar face. Couldn’t place it.

  I let go of the mugger’s throat and lurched to charge the big guy. He kicked me in the chest, knocked my wind out. Another kick, harder, in my side, and I flopped off the mugger and curled into a ball, bracing for another kick. It never came. Fast steps ran away. I didn’t pass out, only wished I had.

  I lay there trying to catch my breath, not opening my eyes or listening, replaying the big guy’s face in my head. Freeze frame. I knew that face, those eyes.

  He was wearing the cap. No sideburns. Bald. He was bald.

  Son of a bitch.

  The same guy who beat me up outside Justin’s bar, the one trying to get in Justin’s pants. Remembered what Justin called him, he was about to pummel me: “That’s enough, David.”

  That’s when I realized it was too late to run away and start over. They had me dead in sight. That was even more clear when I finally worked out the cramps and limped inside to find that they’d taken Todd’s microrecorder. I hadn’t erased our conversation. It was the solid evidence that I actually existed—hell, I admitted it.

  A cardinal rule of disappearing: Deny everything.

  I’d have to remember that next time. If there was a next time.

  22

  Justin saw me outside the door of the bar and didn’t even let me come in. He walked over, blocked the door, arms bracing the frame. I bumped his chest and tried to push by. I was too weak.

  He whispered hard in my ear. “You’re not welcome here anymore.”

  “Listen, we really need to talk.”

  “Got nothing to talk about. I don’t know you.”

  I turned my head, made eye contact, and spoke up. “Nobody knows me, all right? Put that line to bed and talk to me, goddamnit. This is important.”

  Justin looked over his shoulder at the mostly empty bar. His only other customer, a regular named Will, stared at us from his coffee and morning paper. The place wasn’t really open, but it also really never closed. Several foil-covered dishes lined the bar, the first of many to come. A couple of pitchers of iced tea off to the side, a nice spicy smell. Getting ready for the annual potluck. I came to it the previous year, brought a pie. Justin, some friends, their “chosen” family.

  He sighed, let go of the doorframe and took my arm. “Come on. Over there.”

  We walked across the street and settled against the wall of an abandoned brick building, rotting wood shutters pretending to stand guard. Probably full of Quarter bohemians sleeping off crank. I should have been sleeping myself.

  Justin was pissed, arms crossed and already speaking before I zoned in on the words, “—occur to you to say ‘Oh, yeah, by the way. I’m in hiding, so maybe we need to get that out of the way first.’”

  “I couldn’t do that.”

  “No, you’re too selfish for that, right? Make friends, spin all this bullshit and gain our trust. A con man, that’s all you are. Everything you’ve ever said to me has been a lie. You don’t have any friends. You have characters in your little theater of a life.”

  I held up a hand. “Wait a minute. I deserve it all, I know—”

  “Yeah, you do. I’m going to walk away now and call the cops. I’m going to call in the tip they’re waiting for. How about that? I’m starting to think you did kill that guy. He was your singer, right? It all makes sense.” He was getting into it, a nice performance.

  “Shut up and listen to me. Are you telling me you were all open and pure before you came out of the closet? Like shit. When was it, only your senior year of college, right? Your Dad didn’t speak to you for nearly a year.”

  His face grew red, but he kept quiet and stayed rock still.

  I said, “All this you told me, and now you want to get all high and mighty over me. I wanted to be Merle Johnson for the rest of my life in this town. That was my choice, to leave my good ol’ days behind. It’s a matter of life and death for me. Life in prison? I can’t handle it. The money I worke
d so fucking hard for? I’d kill myself first. I did it once before, and I was starting to think things would work out fine. But they didn’t, and I need someone to help me. Real help. I’m five feet in my own grave here.”

  He was quiet for a long time, eyes darting everywhere but my face. He leaned against the wall. I hoped he was thinking it over. Only a few people on the streets before noon on Thanksgiving Day, a crispy breeze but sunny. I knew that Justin always had the potluck at the bar before he handed over the shift to someone else and drove up to Baton Rouge to see his parents, his brother and sister and their families. His dad refused to let Justin bring a boyfriend home. I also knew that every year, after the dinner—going through the motions of family, his parents inviting him to church, again, hoping their prayers would be answered and the spirit of homosexuality would be ripped from poor Justin’s soul—he drove home in tears. Never treated his folks badly, confronted their beliefs, yelled or walked out. He took it all in calmly, then unleashed the pain on the drive home.

  I knew because he had told me. This and many other secrets, memories, hopes, dreams, fantasies. He was right—I treated the people in my life as props, fakes, whatever. My only defense: My own life was a prop, too. It was the hell I chose in order to have a small piece of heaven.

  Finally, Justin spoke, still staring back at his bar. “What do I call you?”

  “Lying bastard, if you want.”

  “Name?”

  “I told you, I want to be Merle. That name on the news, Cal Christopher, you want to know the truth?”

  He pushed off the wall and rolled his eyes. “Please. Is that even possible with you?”

  “Calvin Christopher isn’t my name either. I made it up on the trip to L.A.”

  “Jesus.” He shook his head. “So, no real name.”

  I tossed my arm around his shoulder and gave him a squeeze. “I’ll tell you later. Right now, like I said, you need to listen to me.”

  “Let’s go back inside. Beer’s on me.”

  “I won’t argue.”

  As we started across the road, he said, “Of all the bands, though, why a hair band? Why couldn’t you be on the run from Oasis or something?”

  *

  Justin drew me a pint of Abita Amber and we sat at the end of the bar closest to the street, wanting the noise to cover our conversation. After a few awkward moments of silence, Justin asked the other guys in the bar to go to the store, pick up some napkins, plastic cups.

  “About fifteen minutes, Will,” he said as one guy rustled his paper and looked annoyed. “Just need to talk to Merle a few minutes.”

  I knew Will, he knew me, but the look he shot my way as he headed for the door made me wonder what the paper said. Some reward for info? A big photo spread? Tempted to take a peek.

  “Quickly,” Justin said. “We’re good, you’re forgiven, but I’m still pissed off at you. Make it up to me.”

  I stretched my arms. Along with the bruising from the kicks, it felt like I snapped some tendons, my body making up aches so I’d take more pills. “Until about an hour ago, I was ready to hop in the truck and disappear again.”

  “Then I guess you’re taking a stand? No more running?”

  “Hell no, I’m running as soon as I get the chance. There’s a new problem.”

  “Don’t ask me to lie for you.”

  “Wait.” I took a sip of the beer. The cold hurt, too. I rasped out, “David, you still talk to David?”

  Justin deflated a bit. “He was jealous that night, I swear it was nothing. He wasn’t going to hurt you.”

  “He did hurt me.”

  “Like bar fight hurt. Come on, you’ve had worse.”

  “Did he ask about me, though?”

  Justin’s forehead wrinkled, prepared to go angry or sad depending. “What’s this about?”

  “Did he ask about me? Like how long we’ve known each other, my hobbies, my vehicles, all that?”

  My friend stepped away from the bar, took quiet steps toward the well, pulled out a bottle of low carb beer and twisted the cap off.

  “He did?” I said.

  “He apologized about beating you up, and I, well, caved. He was curious, and wanted to see if I was willing to play fair with him. If you weren’t really my side action, then telling him a little wouldn’t hurt. So I thought.”

  “Here’s a wild guess. You still haven’t slept with him.”

  One hand held his beer and the other rubbed the condensation off the bottle. He wiped it on his neck. “He wanted more time. I was finally ready, but he wanted more time.”

  I let it hang, let him prepare for what I was going to say. He expected something, had a good idea where this was going.

  “Is he a reporter? Private eye?” Justin asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “But?”

  I said, “He broke into my house this morning, him and the guy who cut my hand. For a minute or two, I thought the mugger had cased me, wanted a second shot. He starts talking like he was hired by someone else. That’s when David busted me up again.”

  Justin set his beer down, shook his head. “All these weeks. Goddamn, he was smooth. I had no idea.”

  “No way you should’ve. He was on the scene before Todd, kept out of sight, knew you were a conduit to me.”

  “If I knew, I’d have kept my mouth shut—”

  “This is my fault. Right now, here’s where I’m stuck. Someone knew about me before Todd blew into town. I don’t think they were working together, either.”

  “Don’t you think they would’ve turned you in by now?”

  “I’m more valuable if they sell me out to the press first.”

  “They haven’t, though.” Justin rose to full stature. His eyes were damp, a good cry interrupted, but he could have that on his way home from dinner.

  “There were reporters at Beth’s house this morning. You know about that, right?”

  “Yeah, I saw the tape. No, listen, before your singer died, before the truth got leaked. They had to know before then and they didn’t pull back the curtain.”

  He made sense.

  I said, “There’s one person Todd must have said something to. I need to give her a call.”

  “You’re talking about his ex?”

  Sure as shit no way to hide the surprise on my face. Justin pointed to Will’s paper. “His ex-wife is flying in to claim the body. You knew her, too?”

  I nodded. “Sylvia. We were close. Long time ago.”

  “Had to be, right?”

  It came out as sarcasm and he winced soon as the words left his lips. It didn’t really bother me. I stepped over to the door and took in a dose of air. I was thinking of Sylvia, Todd, Doug, even Alison. The reasons why I made a clean break, far more personal than money or fame. I couldn’t handle the reality we were facing. No one wanted our music anymore. We would slowly slip back into the crowds, normal people, and have to deal with each other as adults. We’d never really had to do that before.

  I said, “One of my closest friends was gay.”

  Justin came and stood beside me. “When was this?”

  “He was in the band. The bass player.”

  “Huh. I always wondered why you were comfortable here. I thought it was because you were a liberal.”

  I smiled. “Liberals and their taxes are why I’m hiding in the first place.”

  “The bass player? Really?”

  “Oh, yeah. I’ve only told two other people. Sylvia, years ago, and now you. The other thing was he caught AIDS.”

  Justin hissed air. “Man, I’m sorry. That’s tough stuff. He didn’t make it?”

  “I don’t know. I lost track after going underground. Could still be alive if the money held out. Nobody in the press ever knew he was gay or positive. Sylvia handled that. It was one of the last times I really talked to her, giving her the news.” I pounded my fist on the frame. “I need to see her. You want to help me out?”

  “Doing what?”

  “You’ve g
ot the town wired. I need to know where she’s staying, like in the next ten minutes.”

  Justin said, “Sure, okay. Listen, about earlier—”

  “Come on, don’t.” I shrugged it off. “We’ll drink that away later. If I don’t get caught, I mean.”

  He reached for my cheek, rubbed my three-day stubble. “I was going to suggest drag, but never mind.”

  23

  England, 1990

  Before I give you another history lesson: Todd and Sylvia were married shortly after the band broke up, after I skipped out of existence. She’d been his rock throughout the rest of Savage Night’s run, although she didn’t come on as many tours anymore, too busy helping run the band’s business from L. A. to live the rock star girlfriend’s life anymore. Anyone could see her genius with handling publicity. I still saw her at recording sessions, group meetings, writing sessions between Todd and me at his house. We were cordial but cold, distant. Todd thought it was the Yoko stigma and told me to lighten up.

  I shrugged him off, hating every minute of every day I knew they were together, hating him more for sleeping around on the road in front of God and everyone while she went to bat for him every other way. Thanks to her, Todd could be the troubled artist and free-spirit poet. She’s the one who shaped the image, the sage lover façade that the groupies fantasized about as they went down on his cock.

  Sylvia sat at home, mired in phone calls and meetings, alone at night.

  I slept with anyone I wanted, wished they were all her, and numbed the sadness I felt with more pills than I could count.

  It wasn’t until we had a bigger problem to deal with that I had to give her a call.