You Don't Love Me Yet

by Jonathan Lethem

  The complainer raised his hand. “Sir?”

  “Yes, Beatle?”

  “Our guitarist needs a chair.”

  “Chair.”

  Bedwin nodded shamefully.

  “And,” the complainer went on, “I think I’d prefer to lie on the floor.”

  “Are you sick?” asked Denise.

  “No, it’s for the song. Can we put the microphone on the floor?”

  “You want to sing on the floor?” said Matthew.

  “I need to sing on the floor, yes.”

  “You won’t be able to play the keyboard,” said Denise.

  “You don’t need me on keyboard.”

  No one could argue that point.

  “I need to be on the floor to get the right emotion. I’ve just had a realization, that I wasn’t giving the band my all. Art requires sacrifice, even of one’s dignity.”

  Lucinda loved most of all his careening integrity to his impulses, even if he might seem to be careening away from her. She would have played her bass on the floor if only to be beside him. But even if it was possible, there wasn’t room.

  “Six minutes,” said the engineer. “I better get a sound check.”

  Everyone waited for Autumnbreast, who said at last, “Mike Beatle on the floor, Morsel.”

  “Thank you,” said Carl. “And a chair for Bedwin.”

  “And a chair.”

  The engineer Autumnbreast had called Morsel tramped from behind her instrument panel, through the rubber-sealed doors, which opened with a sound like a sneeze, and into the sound booth. She rearranged the complainer’s mike stand, loosening the hinge and capsizing the microphone so it hovered a few inches from the carpet. She was pure efficiency, a human clock ticking toward their on-air deadline. The band could only watch, reduced to an autistic helplessness. Fancher Autumnbreast sat cross-legged against the lip of the booth’s window, his back to Harvey, Bramlett, and Felsh, bridging his forehead with his fingers, radiating philosophical detachment from all present events.

  “Try this,” said Morsel.

  The complainer threaded his sneakered feet through Denise’s kit, laid his right arm under Lucinda’s mike stand, and settled his bulk across the cables that ribboned the carpet. Jules Harvey tapped on the window of the glass booth and mouthed inaudible suggestions. Rhodes Bramlett came through the door with a folding chair, which Matthew passed to Bedwin, who settled on it like a dog for a nap, tucking one foot under his thigh, curling the other into the chair’s struts and himself around his guitar. Bramlett didn’t depart, but instead squatted low against the wall, hiding behind Matthew. He raised a finger to his lips, pleading with the band not to finger him to Autumnbreast, who hadn’t seemed to register the A&R man’s intrusion. Mick Felsh, on the other side, looked perturbed that Bramlett had achieved this coup. He leaned in to whisper to Harvey, who remained serene.

  Morsel scurried past Autumnbreast, through the sound-sealed door, and reseated at her control panel. Autumnbreast, like a human buttress, revealed no trace of urgency. His wide hand now fully masked his face, thumb and fingertips over his eyes, Hamlet with a headache.

  “Three minutes,” said Morsel on the PA. “Everybody want to give me a little something? First, uh, the person on the floor.”

  “I’m the man who wrote ‘Monster Eyes,’” began the complainer from the floor, in falsetto, as if improvising a new song, about himself.

  “Okay, that’s fine,” interrupted Morsel. “Lead vocal, I grabbed your levels already. Chair guy, play a chord or two.” The engineer circumnavigated the room, eliciting twangs and mumbles. “Fair enough, sounds good, sounds good…Mr. Autumnbreast, we should probably get you into the booth.”

  Autumnbreast turned and looked at her as if startled.

  “One minute, sir,” said Morsel apologetically.

  “Sure,” said Autumnbreast, coming out of his trance. “Okeedoke, kittens. This is radio.”

  The band waited to understand.

  “You won’t see me,” said Autumnbreast, “but I’m with you, all over and through you.”

  “Give them the pep talk,” said Morsel on the PA.

  “Pep talk.”

  “They’re nervous, I believe.”

  “Okeedoke. Listen. Million bands have done the Jaw. Here’s what I say. Secret to radio is, think of your favorite person. Got a favorite person?”

  “Alex Chilton,” said Bedwin.

  Autumnbreast winced. “Only think, not say.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Chilton set fire to my wallet,” mused Autumnbreast. “Paris, 1974. Marianne was there. Trying to impress her.”

  “Thirty seconds, sir.”

  “You were saying think of our favorite person,” nudged Matthew.

  “Sure, dandelion. Favorite person. When you talk, pretend you’re them. Only it can’t be me. Because that’s who I’m pretending to be.”

  “The booth, sir.”

  Autumnbreast offered them one last expansive gaze, then swept out. Rhodes Bramlett remained wedged to one side of the window. Perhaps Bramlett was beneath consideration, a rat free to scurry where he liked. Silence enveloped the room. Even Morsel’s buzzing dimmed as she bore down on her instrument panel. Jules Harvey stood behind her, head cocked like a terrier. Denise tightened the wing nut on her lone cymbal, her brow furrowed, presenting musicianly integrity in the face of any circumstance. Bedwin appeared to be licking or gnawing his frets. Matthew postured at his mike stand, perhaps attempting to recapture an attitude essential to putting the song across, perhaps even trying out Autumnbreast’s advice. Who was Matthew’s favorite person? Lucinda had never known, a sad thought. The complainer lay with his eyes closed, possibly asleep. His shirt gaped at the buttons, permitting sproutage of unruly hairs. He looked essential, sexual, a fistlike ruddy bulb planted in the garden of the band.

  “Three, two, one,” counted Morsel softly.

  “Welcome,” came Fancher Autumnbreast’s voice. As he’d promised them, he was invisible, yet everywhere at once. He purred through the room, intoned in their bodies like a bass line. “Back. Me Jaw, You Dreaming. Wide-awake Dreaming. So. Here. Guests. Rare. Debut. Silver Lake. Echo Park. Friends. We’ve Heard. You’ve Heard. You’ll Hear. They’re Playing. For You, Live. They Were Four, Now They’re Five. Changes Already.”

  Into the silence that followed came the profound, ear-ringing emptiness of outer space.

  “MONSTER EYES,” said Fancher Autumnbreast. “Real Sweetheart People.”

  At that moment it was unmistakable. Something had resolved from their miasmic hesitation, the band had been named. Fancher Autumnbreast had only to pronounce the syllables, publish them into the ether. Monster Eyes was the banner under which they flew, had perhaps always been so, without them knowing.

  “Talk to Los Angeles, Monster Eyes.”

  Nobody spoke.

  “When, Bunnyrabbits. Where. Names. Influences. Are You Recording or Touring.”

  Starting with Matthew and ending with Carl they each spoke their names, gave faltering hellos and thank yous.

  “Met. How.”

  “Matthew and I were working at a copy shop together.”

  “She and Denise played in a band in school.”

  “We always thought Bedwin was so talented.”

  “I dialed a number I found stickered on a pay phone—”

  “The Song,” interrupted Autumnbreast.

  They were stopped again.

  “Big Party, Major Scene. Everybody Knows Harvey. Jules Harvey. Slayed the Crowd. People Talking.”

  “It’s ironic, actually, because we were originally meant to play silently—”

  “Played It Twice. First Time, Ecstasy. Second Time, Fear.”

  “Sorry?”

  “I Fear You, Monster Eyes.”

  “Uh, thanks a lot, that really means a lot to us, coming from you.”

  “Who.”

  “What?”

  “Wrote It. The Anthem. The Howl.”

  Simul
taneously Bedwin said “Lucinda,” Lucinda said “Carl,” and Denise said “Bedwin.” The complainer, from the floor, said nothing.

  “Group Mind. That’s Who.”

  Through the glass, Lucinda saw Jules Harvey leaning nearer to Morsel, as though to guide the movements of her hands on the control panel with his eyes. He was in the grip of his fetish, sniffing the engineer’s armpit. Lucinda wanted to shout out a warning, but stifled it helplessly. Mick Felsh, staring avidly through the glass at the band, paid no attention.

  Inside the booth, Rhodes Bramlett, still in his feral huddle, produced a pocket tape recorder. He held it half concealed in his cupped hands, tiny red indicator blinking under his chin. He was ready to stealthily record the song, perhaps for a bootleg release, or else to copyright the lyrics and chord changes, a legal obligation he’d brandish over the band until it ended in court. Again Lucinda throttled a cry.

  “Unfetter Your Charisma,” said Autumnbreast. “Los Angeles Is Suffering to Hear You, Monster Eyes.”

  “Sorry?” said Matthew.

  “Sing Your Song.”

  “First I want to explain something,” said the complainer. “Before we sing. If that’s okay.”

  “Newest Member,” said Autumnbreast. “Lucky Man.”

  “I do feel lucky, yes, thank you,” said the complainer.

  “On the Studio Floor. Like a Drowned Eagle.”

  “That’s what I wanted to explain. It came to me today that ‘Monster Eyes’ is really a song about death. The singer of the song is sort of a zombie, issuing a warning to the living.”

  “Zombie.”

  “Monster Eyes is really the force that degrades every living thing,” said the complainer. “When you look at the world or another person through monster eyes you’re sensing the putrefaction in beautiful things, the spoiled vegetables and tumors and decaying teeth, the funky odors that cling even to babies and beautiful women—”

  The band was frozen. Lucinda spoke as if in a nightmare, to intervene. “I think what Carl means is that when you don’t love someone…you’re prone to…there’s a certain kind…”

  “Some Things Don’t.”

  “Sorry?” said Lucinda, into the aching loud silence.

  Autumnbreast hadn’t finished his thought. He continued: “Need. Saying.”

  “I’m not entirely sure we ought to play this song anymore,” said the complainer. “Maybe since we’ve come all this way, just one last time. But we should sing it honestly, like zombies, since it’s a zombie song.”

  Autumnbreast’s Oz-like voice emitted the sole syllable with which he’d earlier indicted the complainer in person: “Goof.”

  “That’s why I’m lying on the floor, so I can give it a more sepulchral voice-from-the-grave kind of sound.”

  Denise had been silent since speaking her name. Now she raised her sticks and ticked off the song’s beat, voting for a musical escape from their interview. It was what Autumnbreast had requested, after all: their song. Bedwin fell in, lightly riffing the chord. It wasn’t the intro they’d rehearsed, but the song’s form was recognizable, though threadbare. Rhodes Bramlett grinned and aimed his tiny recorder. On the other side of the glass, Morsel stretched her open palms toward the ceiling in sinuous alternation, opening her armpits for Jules Harvey’s nosing study, her eyelids shut and lips pouted as she basked in the attention. Farther back, Mick Felsh had retreated into the shadows, where he consulted with another figure. Was it Autumnbreast, returned to admire their song? Felsh’s hands were clasped at his chest. He appeared to be apologizing to or pleading with this new form in the darkness.

  Lucinda curled two fingers down to flesh the ghostlike song with her bass line. The complainer began to bark out the song’s first lyrics, Matthew’s opening lines, only in a garbled and deranged form. “Better conceal yourself from the light, oooh, my little pumpkin…there are things that come out at night, and they come out galumphing…um, I’m the one who’ll always cut you down to size…ah, excavating your flaws with my monstrous eyes, wow…” The microphone Morsel had set on the floor was well placed, capturing the complainer’s every hissed sibilant.

  “Wait, wait—” Denise quit the beat, so the music unspooled, Bedwin’s chords reduced to choppy nonsense. “Carl, what are you doing?”

  “Well—”

  “That’s Matthew’s part. And you’re singing it wrong.”

  “I’m improvising.” Flat on the floor as if gazing at clouds, the complainer remained blithe. It was as though they were trying to wake a dreamer, demanding he rise and walk. Or maybe the rest of them, destroying their chances on live radio, late for the party that was meant to be their lives, gone to school without pants, were the dreamers.

  “You can’t do that now,” said Denise.

  “It’s my song,” he said. “Matthew can sing it with me.”

  “It’s not your song. You didn’t even write those lyrics, Lucinda did.”

  The shadowy form on the far side of the glass made itself apparent. Dr. Marian. All in black up to her turtleneck collar, she seemed a floating array of white hands and face and skunk’s hair-streak, a dervish of authority. Mick Felsh had been banished from the control room. Now she confronted Jules Harvey. Startled from his pheremonal intoxication, he didn’t stand a chance. The bright disks of his glasses lenses bobbed as he nodded in reply to Dr. Marian’s rebuke. Dr. Marian pointed to the door, making his sole option apparent. Morsel returned to fiddling dials, looking somewhat chagrined, her paleness flawed with color high in her cheeks and at her throat.

  “Let’s try again,” said Lucinda hopelessly. “Matthew, maybe if you just sing—”

  Denise ticked at her drum again, daring them to follow. Lucinda thrummed the bass figure. Rhodes Bramlett nodded approval. He, at least, was undiscouraged. Bedwin, though, had cinched both feet on the lip of his chair, knees twinned as though to protect his guitar from attack. Autumnbreast’s voice was conspicuous in its absence now, and no sign, encouraging or otherwise, came from Morsel.

  “Carl, will you promise not to come in before Matthew?” said Denise.

  “I promise to embrace the song and everything I feel, and everything you feel, too.” He lay immobile, his belly rising and falling with his breath. His voice filled the room, seeming endless, self-sustaining, horrible, the same voice that had once blazed its trail inside Lucinda, across Falmouth’s complaint line. Now she seemed to behold it from a million miles away, as if a comet in her sky, tail shedding interstellar slush and gravel in the guise of heat and light, now passed through to some other, colder night. “Maybe we should sing it a cappella,” he continued. “Or recite it like a one-act play, which might help bring out the drama in the words—”

  Dr. Marian came through the door and stood spotlit in the band’s midst. Her prowlike chest and chin, her front-heavy bun of hair, nearly a pompadour, her flashing, careworn eyes, all demanded their absolute attention. Even Rhodes Bramlett scrambled to his feet, as though already under indictment. Dr. Marian only scowled at Bramlett once, and waved him to the exit. He slinked off.

  “Mr. Plangent,” Dr. Marian said. “Ms. Hoekke.”

  No one spoke.

  “I begin to see the problem.”

  “You do?” said Lucinda.

  “It’s unmistakable. Mr. Vogelsong—am I saying that right?”

  “That’s my name. Who are you?”

  “That’s not important right now. May I see you outside, Mr. Vogelsong?”

  The complainer was silent. No one rescued him from the cooling clarity of Dr. Marian’s request. He flounced on the tiles, his white hair sloppy, his posture poor even lying on his back, taking up uncommon amounts of space and air. Dr. Marian stood, bulletlike, arms crossed under her breasts, Monitor challenging Merrimac.

  “Do I have to?” he said at last.

  “Yes. You’ve come to an end here, Mr. Vogelsong.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do.”

  “You’re a hard woman to refuse.”
A certain lascivious quality flickered in his tone, pointlessly. He batted his lids at her, upside down.

  “Don’t flatter yourself. You don’t know me that well.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Apology accepted.” She pointed at the door.

  He giggled, feebly.

  Dr. Marian was less the band’s new manager than a figure of death, it seemed to Lucinda. The complainer had invoked the word and she’d come in black to collect him. Now he squirmed onto his stomach and crawled from amid the band’s equipment, making a path around Matthew’s mike stand. Dr. Marian held open the rubber-sealed door. The complainer remained on all fours, his expression that of a supplicant. She offered a curt nod as he passed over the threshold and continued down the corridor, padding along the carpet beneath rows of framed photographs of local luminaries. Dr. Marian went after him with a crisp air of unfinished business. The door sealed behind her.

  The room was restored to silence, underlined by the ambient hum of their amplified unplayed guitars. Morsel sat silent, framed at her console in the control room. She met them with a level, not-unfriendly gaze. Matthew coughed resoundingly, his back to the others. The coils of Denise’s snare rattled in sympathy with the cough. Lucinda swayed hips and instrument rightward, filling some of the space the complainer had vacated. She imagined she could sense the warmth of the complainer’s absented weight through the soles of her sneakers, but it was surely only foolish imagination. Even if so, it was felt only by her. It was otherwise as if they’d come to this room without him. They made a foursome again, a band utterly changed by having accommodated the complainer, having binged on his lyrics and his apartment, yet, embarrassingly, still themselves: Denise, fixed at her set, emanating resolve; Bedwin, clinging to his instrument’s neck for solace; Matthew, infinitely damaged and proud, without even a guitar to disguise his singer’s fear of irrelevance; Lucinda, negotiating between, medium for the band’s yearning and confusion, their betrayer and fool, their bass player. Denise now stirred them with a beat, metronomically clean. Lucinda fitted her bass notes around the drum’s tick. Bedwin joined too, his chords a perfect emanation from his hiding place, his nerd’s gauze of self. There was only a held breath at the point when Matthew ought to have come in and didn’t. The singer stood making himself ready, seeming to weigh the band and the song with his shoulders. They bypassed him to play an instrumental verse, an overture. He met the song at the second pass. Lucinda had never heard him sing this way. She thought she heard a measure of the complainer’s tormented yawp in his approach, as though he’d subsumed Carl’s voice in his own. It didn’t matter. It was the best they ever played.