“The letter is dated September 2, 1978. It states you have twenty days to consider the offer.”
Jesse made a trip to New Orleans the next day, which was Sunday. It was going to have to be a quick trip. He had to be back up north by Wednesday. The band was playing a four-night stand at the Barmuda Triangle, the club where the assistant manager had been shot and killed on ladies night.
Jesse had two things to do in New Orleans. One, read the Mory contract with Casey and see if it was worth signing. And, two, go see Carmen about the Voodoo voice.
Finding Casey was easy. One phone call and he came over to the Tchoupitoulas Street apartment within twenty minutes. He read the entire contract out loud to Jesse and Amy, pausing here and there to explain certain points.
Casey’s tone was low and lawyerly. “This contract is pretty one sided. First of all, it’s exclusive. That means anything you do from now on must be through him, except for bookings. I like that he doesn’t get anything on gigs you book for yourself. What I don’t like is he’s the only one who can try to get you a record deal. What about that guy from Capitol who was going to put you in that famous studio in Muscle Shoals?”
“He’s waiting for a demo tape.” Jesse thought back to Tony and how the voice called him a thief.
Casey put down the contract. “The tape you no longer have.”
“Right,” Jesse said.
Amy turned to Jesse. “I thought the attorney was going to mail us a copy?”
“He was but he hasn’t,” Jesse said.
Casey looked at Jesse. “Why didn’t you make a copy before you mailed it back to him?”
Jesse hung his head in frustration. “I don’t know. He made it sound like I was stealing from him. I didn’t want him to think that.”
“Okay, I get that. But can’t you do another recording somewhere else?”
Jesse held his hands up. “Who’s going to pay for it?”
Casey looked at Amy and Amy looked at Jesse and Jesse looked at Casey.
Casey stood up from his chair to summarize. “All right, I’m no entertainment attorney. But I don’t like the exclusivity this attorney is giving himself. I say don’t sign the deal until you get that exclusive bullshit out of there. Besides, we don’t really know what this guy can do. How many artists do we hear about who sign bad deals with people who can’t deliver?”
Jesse looked at Amy. She shrugged her shoulders at first but then responded. “I have to agree with Casey. I don’t know this guy from Adam. Why put your career in his hands when he’s not even saying what he can do for you?”
“He did make us a killer demo tape,” Jesse said.
Amy stood up. “A tape I have yet to hear.”
“How did you not listen to it when it was here?” Casey asked.
Jesse held his hands in the air. “It was on a reel-to-reel tape and I never got it to a machine that could play it.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
BOX OF TIME
The door to Carmen’s shop was open. Jesse walked in slowly so as not to make the floor boards creak too loudly.
Carmen heard him enter. “Come on back, Jesse.”
Jesse walked through the beaded doorway and saw Carmen and Ruthie the duck lady waiting for him like he was late for an appointment.
Jesse hugged Carmen and Ruthie together. “How could you possibly know it was me?”
Carmen answered with a broad smile. “We’ve been expecting you.”
“The person you call the mystery man told us you would be coming today,” Ruthie said.
Jesse was confused. “How would he know?
Carmen looked at Ruthie as she began speaking. “The Voodoo world is abuzz about The Divebomberz. As you know, the band is at a crossroads. There is trouble in the air. Death is stalking the band.”
Jesse was surprised Carmen and Ruthie knew what the voice had told him. “That’s why I’m here. The Voodoo voice told me the drummer must die. What’s with that? If it’s telling me I have to kill somebody, I can tell you right now I’m not going to do it. What I’m really worried about is that the voice might kill Rene. Is that possible?”
Carmen tried to soothe him with a new calm in her voice. “The power of Voodoo has taken many, many lives. Where were you when the voice spoke to you? What were you doing? What were you seeing?”
Jesse told the two magical women about the wedding and the beach fire and the dream about Rene dying on the slave ship.
“What did he say in the dream just before he died?” Ruthie asked.
Jesse was surprised to have Ruthie playing such an active role in the Voodoo diagnosis. He hadn’t realized until that moment that Carmen and Ruthie might be two separate visions of the same spiritual force. The thought was so heavy it made him want to sit down. Ruthie and Carmen were sitting in the only two chairs in the room and neither one of them seemed inclined to help him find a chair of his own.
Carmen reached up to take him by the arm. “What did Rene say in the dream?”
“He was blaming me for getting caught and sold into slavery and dying on a godforsaken slave ship.” Jesse leaned back like the forces of Voodoo had him up against the wall.
Ruthie pressed for details. “How real was this dream? Could you smell things in the dream?”
The horrible odor came back to Jesse. “The dream was the worst experience of my life. It was even more terrible than the dream of the Voodoo slave uprising. And, yes, I could smell shit and puke and rotting blood and flesh.”
He was becoming upset and agitated as the visions of the slave ship became real in his mind once again.
Carmen tried to settle him down. “The first thing you need to understand is that these are not just dreams. These experiences are not something you wake up from and forget halfway through your morning coffee. You can die in these altered states of reality.”
Ruthie stood up. “What makes you think right now is any different than the Voodoo dimensions you have been allowed to visit?”
“I’m still myself,” Jesse said.
“And that is the problem,” Carmen said. “The Voodoo voice is trying to show you a way out of your self. Right now, the drummer is part of your personal prison. No doubt, he’s fighting you for control of the band.”
Jesse nodded that she was correct. He was amazed at her intuition about the power struggle. He had not discussed the Rene situation with either Carmen or Ruthie.
Ruthie tried to explain. “You don’t need to kill the drummer. You need to stop trying to control things. The voice said the drummer must die. That might be as simple as finding another drummer. Or it might mean you need to stop fighting with your notion of who the drummer is and what he represents. It doesn’t mean you need to take any action.”
Jesse began to calm down. “I get that. I don’t need to be in charge. What I don’t get is why I’m hearing the voice in the first place.”
Carmen closed her eyes like she might be going into a trance. “The voice and spirit and power of Voodoo are there for everyone at anytime.”
“Seek and you shall find,” Ruthie said.
Jesse was relieved to see Carmen open her eyes. He spoke to Ruthie. “That sounds pretty Christian. Is Voodoo the same thing as God?”
Carmen and Ruthie looked at each other as if trying to decide which one of them would address the issue. Carmen accepted the challenge. “We live in a box of time and space. Our minds cannot understand the infinity of space or the eternity of time. Think of the Voodoo voice as an angel, leading you out of your mind’s box of time.”
Ruthie picked up where Carmen left off. “Into something you can’t understand. But something you don’t need to understand. Trying to understand things causes most of the world’s problems. People make up all kinds of ridiculous rules and reasons to explain who God is and what God does.”
Carmen concluded. “God is that which we cannot understand.”
“That’s just about everything,” Jesse said.
Ruthie tried to help. “Voo
doo helps connect you to everything you don’t understand so you don’t worry so much about not understanding it.”
Jesse began to feel uncomfortable. “What about the ship captain? The Russian we helped jump ship. I guess he heard the voice too, didn’t he? How’s he doing?”
“He’s having a ball, being gay in the French Quarter and cooking at Rod’s,” Ruthie said.
Carmen raised her eyebrows. “And don’t you want to know that Dupre heard the voice and paid attention.”
Jesse was so surprised he straightened off the wall. “Dupre, with the Wheelers?”
Ruthie raised her right index finger. “Not anymore. He quit dealing and drugging. He even quit the motorcycle gang and left town. He’s off with some Buddhist woman in Boulder, Colorado.”
Jesse was having trouble with his timeline. “That can’t be. I just saw him in a bar brawl in Shreveport.”
“This just happened,” Ruthie said. “He was in this very room less than a month ago.”
Carmen seemed pleased to add another surprise to the mix. “And Gypsy’s working on a fishing boat in Alaska.”
It took Jesse some time to respond. “No, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
“We’re not kidding,” Ruthie said. “So, let me ask you. Are you seeing any patterns here?”
“Between me and the ship captain and Dupre?”
“Right,” they said in unison.
“I guess we’re all in the process of changing direction in our lives.”
“Bingo,” they said.
Jesse returned to the topic of Rene. “So what about the drummer must die stuff?”
Carmen spoke to him like a mother speaks to a child asking too many questions. “The voice was speaking to you, not to the drummer. But I’d have to say that Rene had better change some habits in a hurry if he wants to stay alive.”
“He does get high and drive like a maniac,” Jesse said. “We’ve been afraid he’ll kill us all someday.”
“My guess is the voice is telling you to end your relationship with the drummer,” Ruthie said.
Carmen disagreed. “I feel it is more ominous than that.”
Jesse was relieved to see that neither of them knew exactly what the voice was really saying.
Carmen opened her arms. “The interpretation is up to you. Remember, the signs have no intrinsic value. They mean different things to different people.”
“They also mean different things to the same person, depending on when he is interpreting them,” Ruthie said. “It’s all up to you. We can’t tell you what to feel.”
Carmen added another thought. “Trust your feelings. You know how to listen now. Trust how the voice makes you feel and act accordingly.” She bent close to him and wiggled her nose as if beginning to taste a fine wine. “I sense a major change coming your way soon. It will be a good one.”
“What makes you say that?” Jesse asked. “Is it something about the way I smell?”
“It’s not about smell like you smell hamburgers on the grill,” Carmen said. “It’s more like what you call pheromones. Sometimes we know things on a visceral level before the concept makes it all the way up to our brain.”
Jesse decided to accept that explanation without asking any more questions. He hugged Carmen and Ruthie and thanked them as he said goodbye. He felt like he was floating on air as he walked out the door and into the drunken clown parade that was Bourbon Street.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
THE END
Jesse and Tim were playing warm and friendly music on the front steps of Tim’s house on Annunciation Street in New Orleans when the news arrived like a bucket of ice water tragedy.
They saw Butch walking down the sidewalk and right through the gaggle of children, who were dancing to the music. He didn’t even acknowledge their presence. That wasn’t like Butch. He had his head down and he was walking fast. Something was wrong. He walked up the four, wooden steps and sat down next to Jesse without saying a word.
Jesse let him sit for a minute before asking, “What’s wrong?”
Butch didn’t speak.
Tim moved closer to Butch and put his arm around him. “What’s wrong, Butch? Come on, you can talk to us.”
Butch sighed deeply and looked across the street without focusing. Jesse and Tim could tell he had been crying. They waited for him to gather himself.
“Rene is dead,” he finally said as he dropped his head on his knees.
Jesse and Tim looked at each other in shock, unable to speak. How could Rene be gone? He was a huge part of their lives.
Jesse had told Tim weeks earlier about the Voodoo voice saying, “The drummer must die.” They’d had long talks about it. Neither one of them expected the morbid prophesy to become reality.
Now, Butch and Tim and Jesse sat on Tim’s porch in disbelief. Butch lifted his head and put his hands over his face to hide his tears. “I just got the call from his father about twenty minutes ago. Rene lost control of his truck on a curve. He was going too fast, probably. Anyway, the truck spun around and slammed into a tree, backwards. Rene hit his head on the back window and died at the scene.”
“Was there another car in the crash?” Jesse asked.
Butch uncovered his face and looked at Jesse. “No, but there was a passenger in Rene’s truck. And here’s the weird part. The passenger wasn’t hurt at all.”
Tim leaned in for more information. “When did this happen? Where did it happen?”
Butch shook his head like he really didn’t know much. “I guess it happened yesterday afternoon on some back country road near Shreveport. His dad told me some particulars, but he’s so upset he’s not making a lot of sense. I can’t remember much of what he said. I guess I’m not able to process any of this.”
Tim kept asking questions. “Who was the passenger? It wasn’t Polly was it?”
“No, it was some guy helping Rene move a couch or something. I can’t remember his name but it was nobody we know.”
Tim stood up. “Shit. Shit. Shit. How could this be happening?”
Butch and Jesse stood up and the three band members hugged each other in silent mourning. Tim’s girlfriend, Loretta, came halfway out the front screen door. “What’s the matter? What happened?”
Tim was grim. “Rene was killed in a truck crash. We’d better call Dale and Rick.”
Loretta gasped and put her hand to her mouth. The screen door slammed shut behind her as she ran back into the apartment to get to the telephone. The children stopped dancing on the sidewalk below. They could tell something very bad had happened. They walked away without saying a word.
It was the middle of November, 1978. The band had been bouncing back and forth between the same old clubs since the wedding. They had performances booked through the spring of 1979. Rene’s sudden death changed everything. The band’s immediate future had been in doubt anyway. The crowds at Johnny’s had been getting smaller and smaller each time the band went back to play there. The last thing Johnny said to Jesse was, “You can’t play the same place too much. People find out your shit stinks.”
The Divebomberz held a meeting at Tortilla Flats the day after hearing the news of Rene’s death. Rick wasn’t there. He surprised everybody by saying he was quitting the band anyway, and that he’d made the decision even before Rene died. Actually, it wasn’t that big of a surprise. Rick had been threatening to leave for months. He said he didn’t see much future in being on the road without a record label promoting and supporting the tour.
He was right, of course. Everybody was more than tired of being broke, stumbling from one gig to the next. Jesse was beginning to feel like he couldn’t keep going much longer. He knew Amy’s patience and support were wearing thin.
Dale wondered aloud. “So, what do we do? Go back to Fritzel’s?”
Butch took a long swig of beer. “No way. What we do is we get another drummer and another keyboard player. Bands go through personnel changes all the time.”
Jesse was pretty sure Butch
knew it wouldn’t be that easy. “I don’t know any drummers who aren’t already with a band. Let alone any drummers with a truck and a father who’s ready and able to help a band stay on the road.”
Dale grabbed Jesse’s shoulder. “What about Atty. Mory? He could help us, couldn’t he?”
Jesse stared into his beer. “He doesn’t want anything to do with us if we won’t sign his contract.”
Dale waited for Jesse to look up at him. “So, why don’t we just sign the contract?”
Butch sighed and answered the question one more time. “Because we don’t want just one guy in charge of the rest of our lives.”
Dale took his hand off Jesse’s shoulder and slapped it on the table. “How bad is it. We finally get a demo tape done and then we can’t do anything with it.”
“Sounds like you’re siding with Rick and Rene,” Jesse said.
Butch waited a moment before leaning in to the table. “Nobody’s siding with Rene.”
They sat in mournful silence for a moment until Jesse recovered enough to propose a toast. “Here’s to Rene. He was a great drummer. He took us to new heights. We didn’t always agree on everything but we’re sure going to miss him.”
The band cheered half-heartedly and then settled back into an awkward silence.
Tim got practical. “Looks like we’d better cancel our bookings and fall back for a while to regroup. We can’t do those gigs without a drummer. It’s going to take a few weeks, anyway, to put a new lineup together.”
Dale poured himself another glass of beer from the pitcher. “Oh, man. The worst thing we could do is start cancelling gigs.”
“It doesn’t look like we have much choice,” Butch said.
The band kept kicking around possibilities for another couple rounds of drinks. The wind had been sucked out of their sails. They heard a train rumbling down the nearby tracks. Nobody felt like jumping it.
Jesse was more than shaken by Rene’s death. In some weird way, he felt responsible for causing the tragedy. After all, it was his Voodoo voice that predicted it.
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