Pinball

by Jerzy Kosiński

  “Everybody is free to try to find out,” said Nash, “and believe me, almost everybody has tried. Do you remember when all the fan magazines were offering rewards to anyone who could name Goddard or produce a verifiable photograph of him? When hundreds of guys came forward, each one claiming to be Goddard—and some even singing like him? When, after the real Goddard failed to show up to accept his first Grammy Award—the first of three he’s won so far—the news and wire services all went after him. And so did every Dick Tracy, every disc jockey, every sleuth and gumshoe of the Record Industry Association of America, every frustrated music critic, song writer and rumor-monger—and everybody else on Tin Pan Alley—the central coterie of songwriters, music pluggers, and record companies! And what did they uncover? Nothing, apart from all the usual red herring and guesswork: that he stays out of sight because he’s crippled; that his face was destroyed in a car accident; that he has Saint Vitus’ dance; that he had a premonition early on that if he ever came out of hiding he would get a bullet—instead of flowers and kisses—from one of his fans or envious enemies. Others, who claimed to have fucked him or supposedly helped him to write his music or lyrics or both, say that he’s heavy into smack—a heroin addict who doesn’t want to be cured; or get this, that he’s a wireheading freak, with wire implants in his brain that give him hallucinogenic jolts and let him and his wireheaded lovers trip for hours on electrosex! Still others say that his invisibility is nothing but clever record company hype—the best ever. It keeps the public excited and it keeps the star safe from all the crazies; because as long as nobody knows who Goddard is, nobody can take a shot at him. A singer who loses his head over his public will be publicly beheaded. Remember John Lennon?”

  Nash finished his beer and glanced at his watch. “I’d give up if I were you,” he concluded. “Everyone else has. Goddard says it all when he sings those lines from Joyce’s Ulysses:

  I am the boy

  That can enjoy

  Invisibility.

  And why shouldn’t he enjoy his invisibility? If anybody as good as he is wants to be a mystery, I say let him. And I wonder if anybody really gives a fuck, any longer.”

  “My partner does,” said Domostroy. “What do I tell her?”

  “Tell her to go after me instead. I’ve got a sound mind, the looks of a rock star, and what’s more, I don’t hide!”

  In the New York Public Library, Domostroy pored over one article after another, and they all bore out what he already knew without offering any fresh clues. Each year Goddard’s records continued to top the charts of best-sellers, and each week the sound of his music grew in popularity until it seemed to fill the airwaves, yet no one had managed to discover who he was. His mystery remained inviolate, in spite of elaborate efforts to crack it. One San Francisco textual music scholar claimed that Goddard was an ex-student of his at Berkeley who followed the Descartes credo “Larvatus prodeo—I walk about masked” and who had written essays that sounded a lot like the lyrics of Goddard’s bestselling song “The Passion of the Soul.” The scholar related how, when he tried to contact the student, the man had disappeared, and none of his friends would provide any reliable information about him. A Manhattan disc jockey announced with similar assurance that Goddard was a farmer with a wife and three children who lived on a remote farm in upper New York State. And a well-known English rock guitarist was convinced that he and Goddard used to hang out in a certain London jazz club before either of them had made it.

  Each of a number of psychics hired by tabloid newspapers and fan magazines had come up with a different composite of the man. One saw Goddard as a pathologically shy small-town youth holed up in a private asylum where with the collaboration of his music editors he wrote and recorded his music; another clearly pictured him as a drug addict in an industrial city, requiring periodic hospitalization; a third said that before he turned invisible, Goddard was known to the world under another name as a second-rate country singer and that only by means of a CIA conspiracy, coupled with the help of hired professional music writers and of his influential big business friends and his mistress, who was a well-known Hollywood agent, Goddard had managed to go so long unmasked.

  Reluctantly, Domostroy decided to take a look at the Goddard Beat, a popular West Side discotheque that was named after Goddard and featured his music. The Goddard Beat differed from most discos in that, instead of hiring disc jockeys to program records, it employed live performers, often the most inventive rock ‘n’ roll and pop groups available, to whom doing a gig at the Goddard Beat was tantamount to reaching Mecca.

  Domostroy abhorred discos and had stayed away from them even when, at the time of his own popularity, he’d been invited to go to them with friends. His reason was simple: mixed by a computer, amplified by a robot, and danced to by human automatons, disco music was not art.

  As Domostroy entered the Goddard Beat, members of one of the alternating bands of the evening were noisily removing electronic gear from the stage while another band’s members were setting up theirs. Before Domostroy could push his way through the sweaty crowd to a place at the bar, the new band hit its first number, and all around him couples began to sway, tightly embraced.

  When he finally reached the bar and ordered a Cuba Libre, the bartender, a Latin with a fierce mustache, glared at him and asked, “What was that?”

  “Cuba Libre!” Domostroy repeated in a louder voice.

  “Cuba what?” asked the man angrily.

  “Cuba Libre,” said Domostroy slowly, controlling himself. “You’re a bartender, aren’t you? That’s rum with coke and a slice of lime!”

  “I know what a Cuba Libre is. I’m Cuban!” snapped the bartender. “But Libre means ‘free,’” he went on, “and I happen to know that Cuba is not free, Señor, so instead of calling your drink a Cuba Libre—which is a lie—I suggest, Señor, that you call it a Big Lie! Do you understand?”

  “I understand,” said Domostroy, deadpan. “Then give me a double Big Lie. With two slices of lime, please.”

  A girl sitting at the bar next to Domostroy started to laugh, and Domostroy turned defensively to face her. She was also Latin, with expressive brown eyes, jet-black hair, and teeth that seemed almost too white.

  He felt out of place as she continued to stare at him and laugh, but he neither shifted his gaze nor neglected to take in her full, high breasts and compact figure.

  “Don’t be mad, Dad!” she said to him. “Next time, ask for a Tequila Sunrise.”

  “I’m not your dad,” said Domostroy.

  “You could be,” she said, and she turned toward him on her bar stool, ready to start up a conversation.

  “I could be a lot of things,” he said, trying to figure out whether she was a lonely flirt, which he wouldn’t have minded, or a professional hooker, whom he knew he couldn’t afford.

  “You could also have a better haircut,” she said, studying him.

  “Why?”

  “It’s cut too short,” she said with conviction. “All wrong for your face.”

  “What should I do about it?” he asked with a grin.

  “Let it grow for a month or two. Then have it cut right.”

  “By whom?”

  She gave him a coquettish look. “By me, for instance.”

  “Why you?”

  “I’m a beautician. Fully licensed to cut hair.” She promptly reached into her shoulder bag, pulled out a usiness card, and handed it to him.

  He read the card: “Angelina Jimenez, Beauty Expert. Formerly of Hotel Casa de Campo, La Romana, Dominican Republic.” The address was in mid-Manhattan.

  “Everybody calls me Angel,” she said.

  Domostroy introduced himself and apologized for not having a card to give her.

  “I cut their hair,” she said, pointing proudly at the band on the stage. “I cut most of the big New Wave musicians.” She paused, as if expecting him to register surprise, and when he didn’t, she said, “Any time you see a great haircut that stands out on a
new punk, funk, rock, or pop album cover, you can be pretty sure it’s mine. I make them all original—and I know them all personally!”

  “I’m impressed,” he said, sensing an opportunity. He moved his stool closer to her.

  “Don’t tell me you cut hair too,” she said.

  “No. I cut—used to cut—records.”

  “No kidding. What kind of records?”

  “My own music,” he said.

  She gave him a long look. “Should I know you?” she asked then, a touch of awe in her voice. “I mean, would I know your stuff?”

  “I doubt it. When I wrote it, you weren’t born yet.”

  “You’re not that old,” she reassured him. Then she added, quite seriously, “I’ll bet you still have most of your own teeth.”

  “Most,” he told her. “Capped, some of them, but mine.

  “‘Your teeth are clean, but your mind is capped,’” she recited. “That’s from John Lennon. But what about your music?” she went on.

  ‘It’s nothing I could play here,” he said with a vague gesture.

  “Did you ever play at the hall?”

  “The hall?”

  “Carnegie Hall. A lot of the big pop stars play there.”

  “Yes, I’ve played a few times at Carnegie Hall,” he said.

  “And at the Garden?” she pursued.

  “No, Not there. Madison Square Garden was too big for my music.”

  “Could I find your records in a store?” she asked.

  “You might,” he said. “By now, many of them are collectors’ items.”

  He ordered another round of drinks.

  “What are you doing now?” she asked.

  He smiled. “Having a drink. Letting my hair grow.”

  “Not nowl I mean—in life. You know.”

  “I’m between—” he halted “—records.”

  “Well, before you do the next record, promise you’ll call me. Ill cut your hair and make you up for the album photo. Believe me, a good picture makes all the difference!”

  “Tell me, Angel,” he asked her as they sipped their drinks, “have you ever cut Goddard’s hair?”

  “I wish I had,” she said, flashing her white teeth.

  “Maybe you’ve cut his hair without knowing who he was.”

  “Maybe you’re right. I wouldn’t know, would I?” she reflected.

  “He might even be one of those guys there,” said Domostroy, pointing at the band.

  “No way,” she said. “All of these guys know every note of each other’s voices from records. They could tell Goddard just like that!” She snapped her fingers.

  “Are they curious about him?”

  “Of course they are,” she said. “They’ve been trying to figure him out for years now. They go on and on and on talking about his out-of-the-ballpark sticks and his two-beats and his barrelhouse, his singsongs and his trances and his harmolodics and his fizzles and fuzzboxes and his overdubbing—you name it—and they still can’t figure it out.”

  “Figure what out?” he asked.

  “Why he plays such a mean pinball—why you can never tell which way the guy’s going in a song—like the ball in a pinball machine!”

  “What’s so different about him?”

  “His licks, for one thing. The way he leans on some notes like nobody else around. Some punks swear that Goddard rehearses with an audience—did you know that? They swear that to come on so strong and so good he has to get kicks from real people.”

  “Do they think he has his own studio?”

  “Oh, sure,” she said. “Look, having your own recording studio is not a big gig these days! I cut a lot of people’s hair in their own places. There’s one punk rock guy who has a penthouse studio with all the sound-track equipment and electronic gear you could imagine—right on York Avenue, overlooking the river! And not one of that guy’s funkadelics has ever even hit the top forty!”

  “Who do they say the people are who work with Goddard?”

  “Some guys think that with Nokturn behind him, he’s got the best people in the business working with him. But I cut a lot of hair,” she said with a wide smile, “and quite a few say Goddard might be doing a lot of stuff all by himself. If Stevie Wonder, who’s blind, could play, record, and produce an album like Music of My Mind all alone in his own studio, which he bought with his own money, why couldn’t a smart guy like Goddard do the same thing? Why couldn’t he record on his own gear—you know, his own synthesizers and sidemen and bandboxes and ribbons and wheels, and whatever all the rest of that stuffs called—just like Stevie Wonder?”

  “Do you know anyone who says he knows who Goddard is?” Domostroy tossed off.

  “Oh, sure! Everybody I know says they have some idea,” she said, shrugging, “but between you and me, they don’t. All they know is that there’s nobody like him.”

  “Where do they think he’s from?” he asked. “Is he black or white?”

  “Everybody keeps guessing,” she said. “Most don’t think he’s black, but you really can’t tell. I should be able to tell if he’s Spanish-speaking, but I can’t.”

  “What do you mean?” Domostroy asked.

  “He put out some songs in Spanish. Didn’t you know that?”

  “I didn’t,” said Domostroy.

  “Oh, sure. They’re Mexican. ‘Volver, Volver, Volver’ and “El Rey.’ Old folk songs. Every Latin person knows them!”

  “And how good is Goddard’s Spanish?”

  “Not bad, but he’s got a funny accent. Some people think he’s American-Mexican, but he also might be like me—an American from Santo Domingo!” she exclaimed with pride. “I once cut the hair of a guy who knew everybody at Billboard, CashBox, and Variety, and he said Goddard was—” she searched for the word “—a Jewish musical egghead.”

  “Meaning?” Domostroy asked.

  “That he is smart!” She touched her head with a forefinger. “That if you listen to Goddard real close, you can tell he’s gone to a good music school. Not at all like those guys!” she said, gesturing with her head at the band.

  Two young men from the band came over to tell her they were about to leave, and Angel got up to go. As she thanked Domostroy for the drinks, she gave his face and hands a last hard look. “Your skin’s getting a bit dry,” she said. “You should use a moisturizer. Did you know that pure petroleum jelly is best?” She grinned. “For the hands, glycerin and oxide are also okay. Or, if you want to be fancy, buy yourself some preparations with stearic acid, propylene glycol, glycerol stearates, or purcellin oil.” She obviously enjoyed showing off her professional knowledge. “Purcellin oil is really super. It comes from the glands of ducks and geese. It’s the stuff that makes water roll off a duck’s back!” With that, she left to join her departing friends.

  By now, Domostroy was convinced that any attempt to trace Goddard through music societies, business concerns, or government channels would be useless. Even with Andrea’s help he had neither the means nor the energy to undertake that sort of investigation; furthermore, he had no reason to believe he would succeed where so many others had failed.

  There had to be some path that would lead to Goddard. But which one?

  Domostroy began listening to Goddard’s music, hour after hour, with his eyes closed. The melodic shape was always original: the tempos created an exciting pulse; the singer’s voice remained strong and vibrant, with good diction and coloration; and the lyrics, now turbulent, now tender, seldom robbed the music of its own drama.

  After a while Domostroy began to suspect that Goddard cleverly mixed the sounds of live instruments with a synthesizer, which, by electronically storing the sounds of several instruments, allowed him, at a touch of the keyboard, to accompany himself with a number of instruments or even an entire band. He noticed that only once had Goddard ever recorded music written by anyone else—the two songs in Spanish that Angel had mentioned—and even then he had tailored the songs radically to match the famous Goddard sound. In the pa
st, both of these selections had been performed time and time again by Latin singers, so if Goddard had gone to the trouble of rearranging, translating, and recording them, these simple, folk songs must have been important to him. But nothing on his other records indicated any Latin influence. Had he, perhaps, in his travels, heard the tunes in Mexican nightclubs or at Latin music festivals and liked them enough to commit his time, talent, and effort to popularizing them in the States? Who could tell? There could have been a dozen other reasons equally as plausible.

  Some days after his meeting with Nash, Domostroy went to see Samuel Scales in the offices of Mahler, Strauss, Handel, and Penderecki, a large law firm representing many clients in the field of the arts, and principally musicians. A few years before, Scales had negotiated Domostroy’s contract with Etude Classics, and at that time the two men had often seen each other socially. Scales’s firm—until recently housed in an East Side brownstone—reflected perfectly the mushrooming of the entertainment industry in America, for it now occupied six floors of the Hammer-klavier Building, one of the tallest futuristic additions to the Manhattan skyline.

  Domostroy shared the waiting room with a still glamorous aging movie star and a couple of black rock musicians. As he followed the receptionist to Scales’s office, he passed rows of desks and dozens of cubicles buzzing with the noise of electric typewriters, telexes, telephones, and photocopying machines. Hie sight of so many secretaries working with the newest electronic word processors surprised him, and he suddenly felt intimidated as well as embarrassed at the thought of why he was there.

  Scales stood up behind his large rosewood desk, which was centered in front of a wall-sized window fifty floors above Madison Avenue. Deeply tanned, his silvery hair combed back, his forehead and cheeks smoothed out by plastic surgery, Scales looked like a middle-aged Beverly Hills playboy. He waved Domostroy in. “Well! I’m surprised to see you looking so fit,” he joked, “after all the terrible things I’ve been hearing about you.”

  “What terrible things?” asked Domostroy, forcing a big smile.