Nine Volt Heart

by Annie Pearson

  “Meet him at that club on Capitol Hill where he’s going. It’s called Neumo’s. He’s planning to find someone there tonight. I sent him email, so he knows you’re taking care of him while I’m out of town. If you’d carry a cell phone, it would much easier for people to connect with you.”

  “I wish you were here, Angelia.”

  “It’s just until Monday. The reunion of the Elgar Consort at the New York Chamber Festival is a perfect opportunity for us, Susi. I can hit up every one of my old partners for money to match our grant application.”

  “All your stories made me nervous about meeting Jason. I need his help, but other than that, your cousin and I have nothing in common.”

  “He loves old-time music like you do. And he says he reformed after being dumped by his wife. It’s years since he’s been in the company of an intelligent, decent woman. That’s you, Susi.”

  “So I’m a lamb sent out to greet the wolf?”

  “His first wife told me that he’s unbelievably gentle for being such a testosterone bomb. The best bad boy ever, she said. You need an adventure like that.”

  “What I need is an advocate who appreciates the folk tradition and who can also give us decent business advice. I don’t need another spoiled rich boy wreaking havoc with my life.”

  “Jason is not that rich, Susi. Or that bad.”

  “From every story you’ve told about him, ‘wreaking havoc’ is a probability, not just a possibility. I’d prefer to read a good book.”

  “Lord help me, I continue to believe that my friend Susi is perpetrating an act of self-deception that’s bound to fail sometime. Soon, I hope.”

  5 ~ “Send Lawyers, Guns, and Money”

  JASON

  HERE’S JASON TAYLOR TAKING care of business, poking at the screen on my cell. There’s little use now in keeping the number of that Indian restaurant on Vauxhall Road at the top of my call list. Here in Seattle, someone on Karl’s support team—I think it was Warren—answered my next call and patched me through instantly.

  “Hi, Karl. I’m back in the good old USA. How’s the lawyer business?”

  “Jason? Que pasa? What’s all that noise?”

  “I’m at the airport. They lost my uncle’s guitar.”

  “You missed the meeting today.”

  “I couldn’t get an earlier flight.”

  “You missed the meeting on purpose.” Karl wasn’t happy with me.

  “It’s what I pay you for, to talk to people I don’t want to speak with.”

  “Will you be here Monday? I can hear you fidgeting over the phone.”

  “We start rehearsal Monday. If it’s bad news, tell me now.”

  “Dominique wants shared rights as co-author for songs you wrote while you were together.”

  “She never co-authored anything in her life.”

  “Her chief claim is prior art for ‘Rhianna’s Song.’”

  “Sheesh.” I clapped my cell phone closer to my ear, to keep my head from exploding. “She made a comment while reading USA Today, and I used it in a song. That isn’t co-authoring.”

  “So I take it I’m supposed to say no?”

  “Yes, say no. Does she claim anything I wrote after we separated?”

  “No. We excluded your new work from community property.”

  “Then screw how long it takes to close this. She can have all the money she wants, but not the rights to any of my music. Not when all I got was eight months of singing with the devil in disguise. We didn’t even sleep together after—”

  “Don’t tell me more than I need to know, Jason.”

  “I’m sorry. I try not to say or think bad things about her. So tell me what we get for giving up rights to a song about my mother, whom she never met.”

  “She’ll let you have the Leschi condo and all your personal effects.”

  “That’s it? She crucifies me in public and I get to keep the shirt I had on when she first stalked me?”

  “What else do you want? All winter, you never helped once when I tried to make counter-offers.”

  “An apology. I want a public acknowledgment that all those rumors aren’t true. And that B.S. in her interviews—what is it she says?”

  “‘I know in my heart he just needs time to recover from grief and the problems in his life.’”

  “Great imitation, Karl. She makes it sound like I’ve been in the Betty Ford Clinic instead of playing music in Europe. What does it mean?”

  “She’s implying that you took your uncle’s death hard.”

  “I did. Beau was more father to me than—”

  “You don’t have to say it, Jason. I know.”

  “Dominique hated Beau so much that she can’t say his name out loud. Why does she keep lying? How many times has she said ‘I know he’ll come back to me’ in interviews? She’s the one who ran off to sleep with half of Nashville and most of L.A.”

  “As a country, diva, she needs to protect her wholesome image.”

  “Then why is she dancing on TV in her underwear? I want an apology.”

  “All right, Jason. I’ll add that to the negotiations. You need to be here for the meeting on Monday.”

  “Sure. Did you get the email list of benefit shows I agreed to?”

  “All the paperwork is done and ready for you to sign. There are other proposals here, including a benefit in mid-May against landmines. Dominique already turned it down.”

  “Then say yes for me. Say no to everyone else who just wants money.”

  “You need to pursue the foundation idea I suggested, Jason.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Ian said Cynthia set up the details with a cousin of hers. You and Cynthia can figure it out.”

  “Get involved, Jason. You don’t have dependents or significant property. Be prudent, or taxes will take everything Dominique doesn’t get.”

  “Like I care about the money.”

  “I do, since I’m paid to be the adult. You care, too. To be independent of the labels, you need to pay strict attention to business. It’s called ‘indie,’ not ‘flakey.’”

  “Email the details and I’ll read it later. Right now I need food. The vegetarian meals on British Airways didn’t stick with me.”

  “If you’d eat a burger once in a while you wouldn’t be so hungry all the time. Jason, can I give you some legal advice?”

  “It’s what I pay you for.”

  “Don’t get involved with a woman again without written agreements, since Washington is a community property state. When I see a chick buying Woman at the Well, I want to ask for my fee up front.”

  “Be respectful of your income source.”

  “You are such a nice guy. Why does Dominique hate you so much?”

  “It beats me, Karl. Dominique stood on my back to make herself a star. And I didn’t stop her from leaving with the next sucker she chose. I don’t know why she’s so teed off.”

  “She’ll take everything if you don’t help. What are you hiding from?”

  “Being blind-sided by a soul-sucking vampire? I can’t trust anyone.”

  “Hence my caution about getting legal agreements up front.”

  “Karl, I have to go before you chill my fearless heart.”

  “OK. See you Monday? Talk to that cousin about the foundation?”

  “Sure, sure. Can’t hardly wait.”

  6 ~ “Call Him Up and Tell Him What You Want”

  SUSI

  “STEVEN? IT’S SUSI. I won’t make it to dinner tonight after all.”

  “It’s me, sis. Not voicemail. I was about to call you. I have to go out of town, so Damien and I can’t make the concert tomorrow.”

  “Oh drat. I need you with me.”

  “You don’t need your brother along on a double date.”

  “It’s not a date. I’m just escorting Angelia’s cousin around. It’s Randolph who’s the problem.”

  “Still trying to get you to marry him? Yet you want Randolph to think of you only as a music teacher? Good luck with
that, Susi.”

  “That’s all I am, and he’s just the vice principal at school and the fundraiser for our foundation.”

  “You never should have taken the job when you found out Randolph worked there. I told you that he’d interpret it as an invitation to intimacy.”

  “Yuck. I do not like hearing the word ‘intimacy’ much anyway, but definitely not in the context of Randolph’s name.”

  “He’s a handsome, educated person. A bit too heterosexual for my tastes, but that shouldn’t affect your opinion.”

  “Don’t make jokes. Before my accident, Randolph was practically a stalker—and I was married then, for Pete’s sake. Now it’s like I’m taking a bath in pity whenever I’m around him.”

  “Where are you anyway? That sounds like an ambulance.”

  “On Capitol Hill. I missed my connection with Angelia’s cousin so now I have to chase him down. Perhaps I should ask Dad to go to the concert.”

  “No, leave Dad alone. You don’t need a chaperone. And by the way, he doesn’t need you dropping by every night to check on him.”

  “Is this the monthly ‘get a life’ lecture?”

  “You have spent most nights alone or camped out with Dad since he moved to assisted living.”

  “I’m better off alone than lonely, like I was when I was married to Logan. I won’t do that again.”

  “Not all guys are asshats like Logan or Randolph. I’ll call you when I’m back in town, Susi. If the sun shines this weekend, go work in your garden.”

  “I can’t. I’m in grant meetings or fundraising visits all weekend.”

  “Then please tell Randolph hello for me and that I think he has a very cute ass.”

  “You can amuse yourself thinking I might just do that.”

  7 ~ “She’s About a Mover”

  JASON

  AFTER WAITING TWO HOURS for my lost baggage and then not finding Cynthia’s cousin, I submitted to the mandated extortionist prices for a cab ride into town. The cab dropped me at Neumo’s, where I wanted to check out a drummer playing a show that night. We lost our last drummer, Hakeem, to hearth-and-home when his wife had a second child. If I don’t find a replacement, we’ll be paying a session man. That just isn’t us.

  I arrived late in the set, but heard enough to know that this drummer wasn’t the guy we needed. The barmaid recognized me and gave me a Jagermeister that I didn’t want, since I don’t drink. After ten hours across eight time zones, I didn’t even want coffee. I accepted her gift though and hung around for a few minutes more.

  First, I had to reassure myself that the world hadn’t changed, so I looked around for the archetypal inhabitants of any club scene. The world’s oldest skinhead—replete in Doc Martens boots and red suspenders—had his usual place pogoing up by the stage, although the band’s current number was in three-quarter time. Frodo the bootlegging hobbit fidgeted by the sound board, recording the show to post online later, having failed to talk the sound technician into letting him patch into the board.

  As the music ended, “That Guy” who appears in every club in North America (we’ve played most of them) made his perpetually lame attempt to hustle a group of women who just wanted to be left in peace. T.G. said, “What are you ladies doing here alone? Let me buy you all a drink. Good-looking ladies like yourselves shouldn’t be alone.” Et cetera.

  Quentin Henderson leaned against the wall near the back—a real person, not an archetype, even if Quentin sounds like an alias. He appears everywhere I go. I’ve known him since jazz band in high school, where his father taught sterilized jazz. However, I achieved with Quentin what I tried to do for the others in jazz band, turning him on to a much wider range of music. If old Hector Henderson hasn’t kicked the bucket, I bet he is still ticked at me for luring Quentin over to the dark side.

  Now Quentin has a job with a Seattle news weekly as music critic and cultural scribe, with high hopes of going further, and he still follows me, as if I could dispense a rock-and-roll elixir that will carry him to fame. In our last interview, I tried to explain that fame isn’t a drink worth taking. That particular interview had occurred earlier this same day, when trapped together on the flight from London, I told him the story he wanted about coming to Seattle to record and the new directions Stoneway is pursuing. He won’t ask about personal stuff, because that’s not what he wants to sell in his career. Months before, he managed to peddle an interview with me to Rolling Stone.

  Yet here he was following me to a club because he knew I’d be here. At least he had a woman with him, though it was someone who was uncomfortable in this venue and who wasn’t listening to the music. All her body language indicated that her date bored her. Quentin himself dressed conservatively in a Nine Inch Nails t-shirt and black jeans, complementing his long, scruffy hair. Mine is just as long, but I keep telling him that you have to spend money and time if you want to look tidy with long hair. Yet Ian, who I trust, says I’m too obsessive about personal grooming.

  When Quentin glanced my way, I nodded and toasted him with my unsipped Jagermeister. To tell the truth, I wished he would publish a good word about the band, so I could fool myself into thinking it’s possible to live and work in Seattle again.

  “Jason!”

  I turned when someone called my name, but so did the dude next to me, who looked more salesman than head-banger, dressed in Dockers and a golf shirt. He laughed when he saw me turn.

  “The second most common name in America for an entire decade. What were our mothers thinking?”

  It was his friend, not mine, who had called our name, and after they shook hands, that Jason and his friend departed into the night. Among the heads that turned when the name “Jason” was called were several other people I know. When you live in the same town all your life, you’ll see all sorts of people you know everywhere. If you travel for business as much as I do, that feels good. It anchors you in reality, when you have to spend so much time in other towns while touring. I wanted real people to greet me in Seattle again.

  Warren, the admin from Karl’s office, seemed shy about returning my wave. He writes the checks for my bills and tracks my business when I’m out of town. P.J. Jones, a piano man from a trio that traveled with us about five years ago, came over to say hi. He had been the coolest road companion, always finding the bright side of rubber eggs and acid coffee after a too-short night in a mosquito-infested motel amid the tumble weeds of Idaho. He had a great repertoire of Mac Rebennack-style piano blues.

  “Where are you playing these days?” I asked.

  “Nowhere. Home. I have a couple of kids now.”

  “Nice.”

  “It is. But I had to remodel my approach to life. I’m working for a monolithic software corporation.”

  I’d heard this kind of story before, and know better than to express my dismay at another musician lost to the pressures of domestic economy.

  “Two kids, P.J.? Girls? Boys? One of each?”

  “Boys. The oldest is three, and he’s at the keyboard already.”

  “Lord, is it that long since I’ve seen you?”

  “I’d invite you over, Jason, but I’m sure you’re booked.”

  “No way. I’d dig that. Seriously. Let me give you my cell number. I haven’t got a place to live yet, but call me.”

  Call me. He wouldn’t. He doesn’t want his old road life mixed up with his new family life. As nice as he is, I could see it on his face. Another voice was calling my name.

  “Mr. Taylor? It’s good to see you.” It was the owner of a Portland roadhouse where we played often, maybe seven years ago. “Your friend told me you’d be here tonight.”

  He pointed across the way to where Ian’s cousin Arlo stood. I shook hands with the promoter but went deaf to what he said as I watched with foreboding while Arlo weaved through the crowd toward me.

  “You know, Mr. Taylor, I’d like to book Stoneway again, though I don’t have space big enough for you now.”

  “Give me your card. We hav
en’t finished booking for the summer yet, and we want to play smaller places again.”

  While I said goodbye to the guy, Arlo began to close in. I saw Warren nearby and took four steps to stand by him.

  “Hey, friend, save me from Arlo.”

  Warren looked up, surprised.

  “Gosh, Mr. Taylor. Sure.”

  Warren is a straight-arrow guy who dresses in the same mode as I do, as if he could afford to do his laundry and iron his clothes. Like me, Warren knows how to comb his hair. In comparison, Arlo, while a bipedal hominid, isn’t part of the Homo sapiens sapiens line of evolution. It’s another branch altogether. He is Ian’s cousin, but I know every single person Ian is related to, so I suspect Arlo was switched at birth. Or dropped on his head. He doesn’t so much walk upright as scuttle. He keeps his hair long because someone told him he looked like Tom Petty, so he works to maintain an iconic presence of the musician he worships, but the pointy nose and stringy hair also require a certain charisma. My animus started in junior high. I should be over it by now, but he keeps stepping out of bounds.

  “Ian said I might see you here tonight, bro.”

  Arlo grasped my hand like a hippie, trying to get a thumb dance out of me. His palms are always damp, and I covertly rubbed mine on my jeans when he let go.

  “Back in town and looking for poontang, huh?” Arlo’s voice has a peculiar pitch on a twelve-tone scale that gets under your skin and then rakes along the thinner bones inside your skull. “Didn’t you get enough tail in Europe?”

  “Actually, I’m looking for a drummer.” I gestured to the stage.

  “Have you seen fucking Ian since you got back?” Arlo hit a note that exists in an imaginary place between D-sharp and E-flat. “He shaved his fucking head so no one would recognize him. Cynthia is so pissed. Said she’d shave his fucking balls for him.”

  “Thanks for sharing that, Arlo.”

  “So tell me about Europe, amigo.”

  Before I could answer, Warren reached over and shook Arlo’s hand.

  “Hi, I’m Warren. We’ve met before—last year at Karl Schwann’s barbeque? You know, a girl was just asking Jason about you, Arlo.” He stammered slightly, being very shy, and I realized that the favor I asked caused him pain to perform.