“Reeeally now?” he asks.
“I produce shows all the time. I run shoots, manage people and money. A hundred times bigger than this. I made sure the booth was handled. Then I went back so I could catch you guys onstage. For the encore. Feel what that’s like—”
“Ho, now,” he says. “Feel what that’s like? To be onstage? In the band? You’re not. Ron doesn’t strut about onstage, bowing. The applause is for us. We four. Who play. Who practice. Who give everything up. Like watching concerts—”
“Look, Bossman,” I say, “don’t you dare scold me. I’m not some groupie intern. You don’t pay me. I pay for your electricity, gas, telephone, and most of your food. I never see my lover. I live in a TV show, with strangers traipsing around my house. At all hours. For your band.”
“My band? Is that all this is to you?”
“Hey, hey,” Jonathan says. “We’re supposed to be celebrating.”
“Mercurial Visions wouldn’t even be playing Metro without me. I bankrolled your home slash rehearsing studio, your food, your electricity—all that. Without me, you’d be living in some South Side shithole, playing the corner bar for fifty bucks and a free drink, pretending you have a chance.”
“Look, bitch,” Scott says, “we didn’t need you. We certainly don’t need you now.”
“Don’t need me? Really?” I ask, yanking the thick stack money out of the bag and shaking it at him.
Uncertain, his eyes shoot back and forth between the money and me.
“Well, then. Here’s what you don’t need me for,” I throw the stack of bills at him.
The stack bursts in midair. Bills flitter all over the bar, falling on tables, the floor, and people’s heads and arms.
“You cunt!” Scott shouts, leaping up to chase down all the bills.
Nancy, AnnMarie, and Ron scramble to snatch up the bills before anyone else does. Jonathan stands there, his mouth gaping.
I storm away and out the door. I don’t know if Chris is following me.
Don’t give a rat’s ass.
Near North Ave, Chris catches up to me, and we walk in silence to my car. I cannot speak. I’m beyond furious at Jonathan. I want to hear how Scott looked scrambling around for his money, but I turn on the radio instead. Chris silently stares out a window until I drop her off at her car. At the loft, I walk to the mattress and start undressing while Scott’s bitchy, condescending speech, his calling me a cunt, and the expression on his face when I hurled the money at him play over and over again in my mind. I stomp to the bathroom. Leaning over the sink, I yank open the water faucet and start splashing my face.
“And you said nothing,” I scold Jonathan as if he were in the mirror. “You stood there, mouth hanging open. Didn’t even leave the bar. You two deserve each other.”
I stare at the water dripping from my nose and chin. “At least I know where I stand: nowhere.”
I’m around to pay for dinner. Drive ’em around. Be available to fuck.
“Inspiration?” I shake my head.
“Bullshit,” I say to my reflection. “Not this girl.”
The soap scrubs up into a thick, white froth.
“This is it.”
I rinse the lather from my face.
“I’m not doing this anymore.”
After blotting my face dry, I toss the towel into the corner and yank open the door to step back into the silent loft.
Jonathan’s standing right by the doorway, which gives me a jolt.
“The money went everywhere,” he says. “No idea how much we lost. What the hell’s going on?”
“Jesus fucking-ass Christ! Are you stupid? I pay rent. I pay your bills. Pay his bills. Pay the band’s bills. I am part of this. I’m your lover. Supposedly. Not some groupie whore or starry-eyed intern he can order around. Come on!”
“Of course,” he says. “I see it. I do. Have.”
“What the hell, John-boy?”
“I’m working my ass off to—”
“Be a rock ’n’ roll star. ‘Money for nothing and chicks for free.’”
“Wrong. So I don’t wake up some sorry-ass fifty-year-old waiter who could’ve been. Without this band, without my music, I’m nothing but a fucking waiter. But now that can change; it’s there. Right there. An inch away. Years of work. All I need is that one last inch.”
“Inch? More like a thousand miles. This rock-star thing?” I shake my head. “You make no money. We’re in debt. If we’re lucky, this tour will let us pay rent. You still wait tables!”
“I have a chance.”
“Is this what it’s going to be like from now on?”
“Wendy. She loses her job, who’d she be? Can you imagine Chris not painting? Charlene? She had that something—before she fell.” He takes a breath. “You? What? Going to clubs? Being an assistant whatever? What if your life isn’t a twenty-four-hour photo spread? What if you actually were on a TV show?”
“What’s this shit? Do not change the subject.”
“At Exit. Just now. You said you lived on TV. Like always—comparing yourself, or what you’re doing, to this show or that movie or some character in whatever. As if you’re only real if you’ve seen it on TV.”
“My god,” I say. “This isn’t even about music. Or money. This is a game for you. You like pushing us to the brink. Pushing us to almost break up, and then we get to make up. From suffering to ‘we’re in love’ again. Teeter-tottering from one extreme to the other.”
“Oh, now who’s the one changing the subject here?”
“No. I won’t do this anymore.”
“Won’t do what?”
“I need a smoke,” I say.
“What won’t you do?”
“This,” I say, waving my hand around at the equipment, boxes of merchandise, this TV studio I’m living in.
“It’s a bitch,” he says, lighting a cigarette and giving it to me. “I know. I’ve been killing myself like this for years.”
“For what? Interviews? Groupies? Your picture on the cover of a magazine? To see yourself on MTV? You wanna look at yourself from the outside?”
“Freedom.”
“Oh, come off it. That’s so late-night infomercial,” I say, blowing out a thick cloud of smoke at him.
“I’m deadly serious,” he says, waving away the smoke. “When we make enough money for me to quit my straight job and hire people to tend the stands and lug our shit around, I’m free to concentrate on music. To simply play, and write, and perform. To make people feel things they might never have before. Or have forgotten feeling. Or thought they’d never feel again.”
“I’m not even in that future. What? You need to be free of me?”
I smack his face so hard my hand stings.
“You’re free, then. Enjoy it.”
Chapter 43
C-Town
—Jennifer—
I step onto the skinny sidewalk between the asphalt of the parking lot and the tall fences of rough, wooden slats enclosing all the patios behind the apartment building. I’m supposed to look for a painted ceramic plaque reading “Home Sweet Home.” That would be his mom’s place.
This is hardly what I expected to be doing a week after throwing the money at Scott and then basically being told I was not part of Jonathan’s future plans. He looked so stunned when I smacked him. I was a little surprised myself; that was more Scarlett O’Hara than I knew I had in me.
But after a moment, his expression got so serious and mischievous; I’d never seen anything like that on him—or anyone. It was as if he’d realized he had something devilish to do.
Then he grabbed my hand and pulled us to the mattress. I tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let go. His breath was hot against my cheek.
I’d been so angry, but now I was starting to feel scared, especially when I felt his hand
slide between my legs and start up the inside of my thigh. I squeezed my legs closed, pinning his hand.
“Stop it,” I said. “Now.” I grabbed his wrist and tried to wrench his hand from between my legs.
That imp’s grin of his spread across his face. He looked me right in the eyes. I saw his lips start to move. He was mouthing something about being able to do anything he wanted to me.
I’d never been scared like this. His eyes grew so intense.
All at once, he froze. His eyes grew wide, his mouth shaped as if he were saying “Oh.”
Then he went slack, sat up, and tried to pull his hand from between my legs.
“I, um,” he said, “deserved that smack. I thought you meant … That you wanted me to—No …” He shook his head. “It did sting. Does.”
Wary, and with my heart still racing, I let go of his wrist and relaxed my legs slightly. He took his hand back and placed it on his lap.
“Well. Jennifer.” He said my name so carefully, enunciating each syllable. “I wanted to tell you something earlier. Think you might … like it.”
Better be good.
“June third. Come see us perform. Columbus. I’m staying at my mom’s. Just you and I. She’ll feed us. Scott doesn’t need to know.” He nodded his head, looking down at his hands. “Just show up. It’s only a six-hour drive.”
That night’s been impossible to forget. Especially since he left early the next day, and we never had the chance to talk about it anymore. Now, a week later, I’m walking round the noses of cars, looking for a plaque on his mom’s door. I’m still trying to sort out what happened, and I hope that being so far from the loft will help me. Instead this whole trip feels like a scene in a movie where the heroine uncovers an insurmountable truth—like this is some kind of ending.
I find the door with the plaque. Grasping the latch, I take a deep breath.
“Okay, girl.” I open the gate.
The patio is poured concrete, strips of dirt along three of the sides, filled in with a garden of crabgrass and dandelions. I walk up to the sliding-glass doors and see a gap in the drapes. Before knocking, I turn my head sideways to peek through it. I can’t see anything.
I knock.
A chair scrapes. Shoes tap on Formica. The drapes part behind the glass doors. A young chick looks at me. She has red-orange hair with a bright-white streak hanging off to the side, Egyptian cat-eye makeup, a short black skirt, and an Alien Sex Fiends T-shirt. She must be his sister Lisa.
Sliding the door open, she turns. “Lover boy,” she calls, “your woman is here.”
“Thanks for the intro,” I say under my breath.
Then she pulls the drapes completely back for me.
Jonathan appears from a hallway and gives me a hug.
Feels good. Hope that’s a sign there’s no secret to uncover here.
He releases me, and then I notice the smells of frying bacon and freshly cut onion, and then the sounds of sizzling and the steady thunk of a knife on wood. Hunched over a counter, a woman’s chopping onions. His mom.
“Let’s get your stuff up to the room,” he says, taking the bag and my hand. “Come on.” He pulls me behind him around the corner and up a flight of stairs to a short hallway. There he leads me through one of the three doorways and into a small room with a couch, a desk, and some boxes piled along one wall.
“My mother thinks I should sleep on the couch downstairs and you should sleep here. In my old bedroom. You know—I should be a gentleman. She won’t force the issue.” He drops the bag on the bed and pulls me to him. “Oh, I’ve missed you,” he says, and then he kisses me. “Let’s make love. Right now.”
“Oh, no,” I say, shaking my head.
“Dinner won’t be ready for a while.”
“Come on,” I say.
“Why not?”
“Your mother.”
“She’s busy making clam chowder. It won’t be ready for an hour. At least,” he says. “And you’re all I’ve been thinking about since I left.”
“I just got out of the car. I’m whipped. What about your mother and your sister?”
“What about them?” he asks, pretending confusion. “Want me to let them know not to disturb us?”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“Anything for you,” he says, his hand slipping down my cheek and along my neck, finally grazing a breast.
I grab his hand, and hold it there for a second.
“No,” I say, yanking his hand away. “I can’t. Later.”
“I’ll hold you to that promise,” he says and then kisses my forehead. “So. Let’s meet Mom then.” He pulls me to my feet.
“I just got here.”
“If we don’t go down, what do you think she’ll be imagining we’re doing up here, alone? The hanky you’re not pankying. She’s got a filthy mind. All prudes do.”
I let him lead me down the stairs and into the kitchen. His mother’s stirring in a deep pot.
“Mom,” he says.
She turns.
“Jennifer,” he says, looking at me. “Jennifer, Mom.”
I shake her hand. His mother is as short as he had described, but she’s younger looking than I had imagined.
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Mrs. Starks says.
“Me too,” I say.
Then there is only the sound of sizzling.
I stand awkwardly. Why aren’t you saying anything, Jonathan—giving the needed comic relief at this point of the meet-the-parents scene?
Mrs. Starks smiles pleasantly. “Dear,” she says, “could you get the soup tureen?”
I step out of his way and all the way into the living room, where I sit down.
Joining me quickly, he stands next to the couch, laying his hand on my neck.
“So,” Lisa says, appearing in the doorway, twisting the shock of white hair around her finger. “When’re we going to Crazy Mama’s?”
“I figure we’ll leave around ten thirty,” he says.
“Tonight?” I ask.
“Yep,” he says. “We know the owner, and we promised we’d play a gig for him the next time we got back to town. We owe it to him. He always let us play there, even when no one else did. Scott called about an hour ago and said everything’s set for a short, unannounced gig. Just a half hour. Cool crowd. Then we’ll get to party. Have some fun.”
“I’ll get to see you guys play twice,” I say. “Where is he, anyway?”
“Scott? At Tanya’s. With everyone else.”
Then his mother comes into the room.
I straighten up quickly. She sits across from us.
“So,” I say. “How’s it been—the tour I mean?”
“Like I was telling Mom—exhausting. After a show, we pack up the equipment and merchandise. Most of the time before 2:00 a.m. Try to be in bed by three. Up by seven. Hope no one swiped the van. Hit the local diner for breakfast right as the sun’s coming up. Stock up on Jolt Cola and Tums. On the road again. Grab Gurber King, McRonald’s, Wenchy’s, or whatever for lunch on the road. Get wherever we are going. Then we have to find the hotel. Always a pain in the butt. By that time, your brain is cooked: too little sleep, too many hours on the road. Add lousy directions. We got lost in Indianapolis for over three hours.”
I feel my eyes glaze over. I don’t need the blow-by-blow. Just tell me how the shows went.
“Check in. Shower. Nap. Find food. Nap. Get ready for the show. Find out how to get wherever we’re playing. Get there. Set up. Play. Break down. Load the gear back on. Head back to the hotel. Crash. Next city. Next.”
“Yeah, but,” I say, “how have things been going?”
“Well. We sold out in Milwaukee and Madison, and almost in West Lafayette and Indianapolis. Good showing in Cincy. Sold out in Akron. The ticket sales have more than covered the guarantees
for the venues, the gas, and hotels even. With the CD and T-shirt sales, we’re looking at making money—not petty cash. If we keep up like we have here and in Toledo, we’ll clear over ten grand. We can pay rent; put a solid dent in the credit card bills.”
I humph. Thought we’d actually make money.
“Oh, hey,” he says. “I completely forgot. We got a blurb in the Chicago Tribune.” He jumps up and runs into the kitchen, stranding me with his mother and sister for another awkward scene in this romantic comedy we’re playing out.
“Here,” he says, holding a page up, with a ballpoint-blue circle around one paragraph. “I know; the review is about Book of Love. But he writes about us. Right here,” he says, pointing to the circled words.
The opening act, local club faves Mercurial Visions, held up well next to the popularity of Book of Love. Mercurial Visions’ club sound is harder but still synth-pop enough to appeal to the whole crowd, who danced and even knew lyrics to “Joie de Vivre” and “Just Walk Away.” Then, lucky for Book of Love fans, a lot of the up-front crowd left as soon as Mercurial Visions finished—the best kind of compliment for an opening act; these people didn’t come for the headliners.
Chapter 44
Crazy Mama’s
—Jennifer—
“This is the exit,” Jonathan says on the way to Crazy Mama’s.
I guide us off the freeway and onto Lane Avenue. Soon we’re passing along the edge of The Ohio State University. On one side are square, brick projects-like dorms. On the other side are shabby two-story houses with sagging porches, until we turn onto High Street and I can finally see the campus itself. Even at night, it looks like a photo from a college brochure: wide lawns full of trees, and big, imposing brick-and-stone buildings with pointy towers, gables, and columns.
Across from that, I see bars, one after the other, as if there’s nothing to do here but study or drink.
Jonathan points to a neon sign for The North Berg, with an arrow pointing downstairs, below Donato’s Pizza, and tells me, “That’s where it all began one twisted night oh, so many years ago. Playing euchre. We needed a fourth, and Scott volunteered.”
A Perfect Blindness Page 29