Luv,
Marky (your boyfrend)
Marky fell back on the trashed mattress and sighed, missing Sally, trying to think of ways to get her out of the population farm. It was going to be a motherfucker and he knew it.
He lit up some shit; fried his head. Looked up at the dripping pipes, remembering the first time.
It had been in the morning. He hadn't eaten in two weeks and some of the Creepos were paying cash for organs that weren't hurt too badly by the storm. So, he and Eddie, his oldest and best buddy, had run across a fucked-up bum, cut the guy open and ripped him off. Took what they could, sold it.
That night, they'd eaten like kings. Cans of every flavor they wanted: fish, chicken. Man, those were days. Like taking candy from babies. But now the whole world was paranoid. People didn't go out much. Or they wore fucking steel mesh. When you found them, you went for the gooeys. And you had to move fast—the competition was sicker than sick.
But that first time . . . man. Candy from a baby.
Marky smiled to himself and tried to sleep, but he kept thinking of screaming faces and terrified expressions and dripping, red holes where eyes used to be. It passed soon enough and, as sky-vehicles roamed near the burned-out skyscraper, firing search beams, he rolled over and fell asleep.
I’m Always Here
"I'm always here,
Please never cry.
You may refuse,
You might ask why.
One life as two,
Two lives as one.
I am your rose,
You are my sun."
5:47 P.M.
Daddy is still. He stuck himself and he's sleeping bad. Blowtorching; fevered. His veins blister and rush. All the rust and suffering is going for his throat. He twists and moans, soaking in nightmares. It'll hit Baby soon. His dyed hair is black crepe on white, casket skin.
I've been on the road with them for three days.
I picked-up the tour in L.A., as it slid slow and sensual across America, coming up that Gibson-neck heartland and making people feel again. Be alive again.
All the major venues, S.R.O. Critical raves. Brilliant this, brilliant that. ". . . wonderment." ". . . perfection." ". . . horror." I covered Elvis in '76, through his Australia/Japan tour, for the STONE, and it feels the same. Powerful. Out of control.
Sacred.
Nashville is close. Light quilts feed the ground; warm veins. I hit PLAY and walk over to sit beside Daddy and Baby.
"How you feelin' Baby? Can we talk a little more?"
We've already laid down five hours worth. Schooling. Family. Bones. We keep our voices low. Daddy talks in his sleep. She stares out the Lear's swim-mask window, cradles freckled fingers. Nods. "Let's get a little more into some history. I've read you and Daddy met when you were thirteen. . ."
She fingers her 7-UP. Slips a delicate finger into a hollowed cube, watches it melt; a momentary ring.
"I was just a little girl."
Her blonde hair smells like apples. I tell her and she smiles. Her voice is soft. Gentle.
"I used to listen to Daddy sing when I was a kid. Had all his records. He was all that made me happy." Her accent is Kentucky; a calming sound. "My folks drank heavy, argued heavy. It was violent. Real violent."
Her expression falls somehow to its knees and weeps helplessly even though it barely changes. She looks at me, sad and happy.
"Daddy sang like an angel. Sounded a little like Hank Williams. I wore out every album I had. Learned to sing harmony that was perfect with him." She whispers. "We're not talking too loud are we? He has to sleep."
Daddy moans a little. The coral bed inside his nervous system cuts him. Baby strokes his brow, kisses it.
"Okay, Daddy," she whispers. "I'm here. I'm always here."
I smile.
Baby nods, gently hums the melody to "I'm Always Here", and I remember hearing the haunting ballad when I was losing my marriage; drowning. It soared with mournful, aching confession and always made me cry.
"I loved that song, first time I heard Daddy sing it. That's when I knew for sure I'd do anything for him." She looks off. "Literally anything."
The Lear is slashing clouds and they bleed grey. We'll be landing in Nashville in ten minutes. Daddy and Baby go on at eight-thirty, right after the Oak Ridge Boys. I have orchestra pit, dead center. ROLLING STONE wants it all from up close. The faces. The music.
The poignant impossibility.
"After Daddy won the Grammy for best album in '81, it all started going bad. We've all heard about his marriage failing, money troubles. Why did he lose it all?"
I'm already tinkering with the header for the piece. But it needs work. Something that plays with "seamless." I'm not happy with it.
Baby shades a palm over tired eyes; a priest closing the lids on a dead face. She thinks back, seeing the photo album that always hurts, the one that's always half-open; memories bound and trapped. A phrase occurs to me: "terrible questions, sad answers." From one of Daddy's early songs, "Being Left Ain't Right."
". . . drugs. All kinds. Daddy's still fighting it. It's hard for him. He's so sensitive." She takes his sleeping hand as a nightmare wraps him in barbed wire. "But more than that, I guess you'd really have to call it loneliness. From the deepest part of himself. First time I managed to get backstage and talk to Daddy, I could see his eyes were like . . . wounds. It was more than being an addict. It was. . ." she licks girlish lips, "I don't know, the despair, I suppose. Everybody he cared about was gone. His heroes. His family. They'd all left, abandoned him."
She sipped more of the 7-UP. Wiped her soft mouth with a "DADDY AND BABY '88 TOUR" napkin.
"I wanted to be there for him. So. . ."
"So, you followed him."
"Yes."
"Everywhere?"
"Yes."
"Like a groupie?"
"People said it. I never was that. I was his friend. His mother. Later, it's true . . . his lover."
I pull out a cassette. Baby and Daddy's first album, MOTHER AND LOVER. Baby takes it, feels it in her curious, childlike hands.
"He dedicated all the songs to me. 'Course the biggest was . . ."
"I'm Always Here."
"I'm Always Here,' yes. It was our biggest seller, until the new album. But you can never feel the same as the first one. The thrill."
We've gotten to the hard part.
About the procedure.
I choose words carefully, watching her features for reaction, as if staring at a radar screen, checking for impending collisions.
"This question is . . . very personal . . ."
"It's alright. Go ahead."
". . . did it hurt?"
She smiles the way some people do when they're in terrible pain.
"Yes. It was extremely painful. After, that is. It hadn't been done before. But the doctor was reassuring . . . he'd been researching . . . in the same area of . . . procedure."
"Only in reverse."
"That's right."
"How long did it take?"
"Almost two days. Thirty-seven hours."
She laughs a little. "You're probably wondering how I talked Daddy into it, right? Most folks wonder that."
She grows serious, once again.
"When I met him, he told me he had nothing left and nowhere to go. He was sick. Owed money to agents, promoters, the government . . . it was awful."
"And he was ill."
"That's why he finally agreed. The doctors said he would die. He was weak. His whole body was like . . . a crumbling statue. It was just a matter of time." Her voice becomes loving, confessional. "I had to help. No one else cared like me."
I check through my notes. Lawsuits. Divorce papers, bankruptcy bullshit. The guy's life hit the wall at a hundred, and the windshield cut him into bloody, monthly payments that were impossible.
"He was dying. You have to understand. This giant talent laying in the hospital bed like some frail . . . child. The man I'd loved since I was a little girl
. I gave blood, organs . . . whatever they needed."
"It wasn't enough." I was reading from an article in NEWSWEEK, "Medical Breakthroughs" page. Couple years back.
She shakes her head. No. It wasn't enough.
The Lear starts down at a crash angle. I kill the tape recorder, return to my seat, click my belt on. I glance over and see Baby talking softly into Daddy's ear, combing his hair with maternal fingers. She kisses his colorless hand and I can see he's speeding, sweating; tissues beyond repair.
It starts to hit Baby as the jet lands and she cries on Daddy's shoulder, like a little girl, a faint agony tearing her in half.
9:15 P.M.
Scalpers are getting rich.
The guy behind me is standing and stomping. "Yeah! Baby we luuvvv you, hon!"
I turn when he whistles. He's some six-pack crammed into a fat Stetson, and he's clapping and whooping it up along with the rest of the screaming Grand ol' Opry House.
My photographer is Green Beret, squat-crawling across the footlights like they were land mines. He's snapping Nikon slices of Daddy and Baby taking bows.
They're dressed in sparkly, Country Western outfits that cost over ten-thousand dollars. I ask them at their Marriott penthouse, when they were dressing for tonight's show; a story I can't begin to convey.
By then, I will tell you, Baby was completely high. But it doesn't hit her as hard as Daddy. His system swallows most of it. She told me after the pain subsides, she feels numb and giddy. Sometimes paranoid.
Daddy told her he was doing his best to cut the stuff off. Leave it. Drive past it, like a hideous accident you never wanted to see.
But it'll take a few more months. Their doctors are furious. Everyone is trying to understand. Baby helps them when they see the love she has for Daddy.
Baby said it was worth it for her to wait.
A dozen rosy kleigs bouquet on the empty stage and, as the two step into its calming circle, they thank the crowd; bow more. Baby smiles.
Daddy looks serious, deeper; sadder.
Then, he softly touches the guitar strings at his waist and a radiant chord begins the trance. The audience feels it. I feel it. My photographer, changing film, stops moving, stares up at the stage.
Daddy starts to sing a low, suffering lullaby and Baby joins him, a foamy background harmony. He sings his half, looking into her eyes.
"I need to tell you,
I would've died.
To say it outright
Should bruise my pride.
But without your love
To feed my life,
Without your heart,
At my side...
Honey, it's all for nothing."
I look around and see tears fill a thousand eyes as Baby twists her head to look at Daddy. They sing the chorus together, as if cutting themselves open and mixing their blood.
"I'm always here,
Please never cry.
You may refuse,
You might ask why.
One life as two,
Two lives as one.
I am your rose,
You are my sun.
The melody is slow, beautiful; feeling.
The notes are inevitable and Baby's smile is a twenty-year-old Madonna looking at her perfect child. As they sing, their separate bodies now joined as one, which feeds Daddy, he is singing pure and strong like the old days. Like when he got up there with Hank Williams and Merle Haggard and Carl Perkins and knocked everybody dead.
How the surgeon was able to fuse their bodies, allowing Baby's younger, healthier fluids and strength to nurture Daddy's ailing flesh, has been discussed on talk shows, analyzed on news shows, lampooned on comedy shows. It's shocking and touching to people. Repugnant and life-affirming. Everybody has a reaction.
I found it a hideous misuse of medical technique when I first heard about it. A grotesque immorality. Before I'd met Baby and Daddy. Until I saw the love she felt for him and the total dependency he couldn't hide, no matter how strong or renowned he once was. Bathed in the warmth of her giving and her love, he had returned to being a child, carried not in her womb but outside it.
The lights have dimmed to a single spot, and Daddy and Baby are singing a cappella, staring into one another's eyes; lovers, friends, mother and child.
"I'm always here,
Please never cry.
You may refuse,
You might ask why."
Throughout the Old Opry House, couples are embracing, looking in silhouette like countless Daddy's and Baby's, joined in unguarded vulnerability. As I look around, I fight remembering how wonderful it was to be in love and hold my wife close when we were going strong.
I look up at Daddy and he's smiling for the first time all day. Baby whispers she loves him, as the crowd screams for more, and I suddenly notice how alone I feel.
"One life as Iwo,
Two lives as one.
I am your rose,
You are my sun."
The applause swirls around me, and I start to cry, wanting so bad to be close to someone again.
Hell
August. 2:13 a.m.
L.A. was turning on a spit and teenagers were out in cars everywhere, cooking alive, tortured. The insanity of summer sauna made the city grow wet and irritable, and blood bubbled at a sluggish boil in the flesh. Animals slept deeply, too hot to move, fur smelling of moist lethargy. Chewing gum came to life on sidewalks, like one-celled creatures growing in the heat, and the glow of fires created arsonist sunsets on the foothills which rimmed the city.
Lauren pulled her VW Rabbit into the view area off Mulholland, damp hair sticking to her forehead in fang shapes. The Rabbit rolled against the concrete headstone, at the parking slot's end, that prevented berserkos from driving over the edge, and she killed the engine. Hollywood was spread before her, eating electricity, hibachi-bright. To her side, in the two other parked cars, she saw silhouette couples, in back seats, groping, fucking; glistening under the swelter.
Her skull was slowly steaming open and she punched on the AM-FM as insects broiled on her radiator like tiny steaks. She tuned in a station and a moody deejay came-to over the airwaves, laughing softly like a rapist. Lauren was numb from the burning night and rolled down her window more, letting in the oven.
"Here's a track the needle loves to lick." He made a faint licking noise. Laughed more, soft and cruel. "Mick and the boys given' us some sympathy for a bad man. In case you're wonderin' about L.A.'s needle . . . it's in the red, babies. Hundred and two in the dark. I feel hot . . . how 'bout you?"
He chuckled, as if tying a woman up and lowering onto her terrified body. Then, "Sympathy for the Devil "s rhythmic trance began and Lauren leaned back, staring out the windshield, sweat glazing her forehead. Hot wind blew air that felt sour and old, and smog stuck to everything. They called it riot weather, after the Watts' riots back in the sixties.
Bad wind. Poison days.
She rubbed her eyes and remembered the heat and humidity of that kerosene summer a million years ago. It had put a blister on top of L.A. and all those welfare cases, cooking-up in their crackerbox hells, went insane. Killed. Looted. Shoved broken glass into cop's throats and watched them bleed to death for fun. People said it was the thermometer that finally triggered it. Just a hot, wet, summer day that made people itch and drink and lose their tempers and carve each other up for relief.
She tapped tiredly on the wheel, following Jagger's voice as it stabbed, pulled the knife out, stabbed again. Ran fingers through sweat-salted hair, feeling as if she'd taken her clothes out of a dryer half-wet and put them on.
The song thinned to nothing and the deejay was groaning, sounding like it was all over and he needed a cigarette. She wiped her forehead, starting to feel sick from the heat which crept in her windows. She unbuttoned her blouse lower, inviting what breeze hadn't been baked solid, and felt her mouth parting, her breathing slow. The two cars beside hers started and pulled away, leaving her surrounded by shapes the exhaust formed
under moonlight.
The deejay came out of a commercial for a de-tox clinic and hissed lewd amusement.
"Hope you're with the one who makes you get hideous out there." He paused and Lauren could see him grinning, cynically, like a psycho killer in a courtroom, enjoying the grotesque evidence. "Temperature . . . a hundred and two and a half. How 'bout some Doors? 'Back Door Man, 'summer of '69. Where were you?" Sensual, torturer's breathing. "And. . . who were you tormenting?"
The night felt suddenly swampier as requiem notes hit the air, and Lauren closed her eyes, spinning, sweating, feeling creeks of perspiration run down her ribs. She drifted farther, remembering a beach party, in August of '69, when she'd taken her first acid trip and glided for eight hours in a Disney borealis, able to listen to handfuls of sand that spoke to her in frantic whispers. What was it it had said? She tried to remember . . . something about mankind suffering. Hating itself. It had terrified her.
She opened her eyes, trying to forget, as another car pulled into the slot beside hers—a teenage, muscle cruiser; primered, deafening. Heavy Metal howled and, though the windows were tinted, she could see cigarette tips roving inside, as whoever drove watched the city.
She wiped sweat, which slid between her breasts, and watched two other cars racing closer, up Mulholland, headlights jabbing; hunting. The cars finally prowled into the view area, one beside her, one behind. She felt massive engines shaking the pavement and the cars, on either side, were so close she realized she couldn't open her doors. They had tinted windows, like the one on the left, and inside she saw cigarettes, maybe joints, making slow moving graffiti patterns. Heard muted laughter; unsettling voices. Male and female.
Restless.
She tried her doors and neither would open; blocked.
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