Ephraim, poker-faced, didn’t look at her. In fact, when I observed closely, the two of them moved as if in separate glass bubbles, not like two people who cohabited and traveled everywhere together. “Jason, I’m happy you’ve come around. Are you going to be difficult about the billing? What if you swap in each city?”
“Ephraim, don’t agree to that.”
“Jason, does the billing matter to you?” Ephraim asked.
“No, but she has to do at least half of her set as covers. My own band plays originals. Only originals.”
“That might work. Her voice is better suited to other writers’ songs than yours. She still needs you, Jason.”
“Ephraim, why are you telling him that? I don’t need him.”
“No, it’s the other way, Dominique. He doesn’t need you. I think we can agree to all of this, except for one thing, Jason.”
“Damn it, Ephraim!” she said at the same moment that I did.
“Damn it, Ephraim. I have to give on everything. You already have total surrender from me.”
“Just one more thing, Jason. You have to play the Stoneway set, too. Ian and Toby can opt out, but you have to play. We still have time to find good musicians, but not enough time to recreate the Stoneway sound without you. Oh, take your head out of your hands, Jason. We agreed that it’s time to get past the drama.”
“I have to think about it.”
“And I have to take care of business, Jason.”
We stared at each other for about as long as it took God to separate the light from the dark.
Ephraim said, “Whatever you decide, we’ll announce the opening act on Saturday when tickets go on sale. I think we can create enough buzz about the Jason Taylor Band to raise ticket prices a notch. Dominique, I believe you have something to say to Jason.”
“I don’t like it.”
“That doesn’t matter this time. Please tell Jason what you have to say.”
“I’m sorry—I mean, I apologize for letting those rumors start and for what happened with Beau.”
“Thanks a lot, Dominique. I feel so much better now.”
“So, aren’t you going to say it, Jason?”
“Say what?”
“That you’re sorry too?”
“Dominique, I don’t believe I have anything to apologize for.”
“You are still a self-righteous asshole, aren’t you?”
“I admit to that, Dominique. I don’t see a need to apologize for it.”
Karl cleared his throat. “So we’re done here? Have we sorted out the difference between being in Stoneway and being married? Will you both sign these papers now, so I can file them today?”
“I don’t want to be married to this fucker any longer.” Dominique stabbed at the paper with her pen.
“Sweeter words you never spoke,” I said. The judge would be able to read my handwriting, because I signed so carefully.
“Sixty days,” Karl said. “Counting from today.”
86 ~ “Big Boss Man”
JASON
WHEN DOMINIQUE WENT TO fix her ever-perfect face in the women’s room, Ephraim turned to me as if I were his best friend.
“You’re doing everything right, Jason. When it’s this hard and you’re doing this well, you must be feeling good about it.”
“Thank you.” My voice broke, because it was a giant lie that I was doing well at all, and I didn’t want Ephraim to know even half of it.
“Dominique wants to get on to the next thing too, so we just have to endure the next few weeks and keep it from getting bumpy.”
I was spinning through the worst turbulence I had ever experienced, and Karl’s office didn’t have barf bags, so I just nodded.
“Listen, Jason. You have to acknowledge that I managed to get you extraordinary freedom for your work. Albion let you choose the studio. You can join the tour and still use your new band name.”
“I pay for it either way, so it’s big of you to let me spend my money where I want.”
“You have your own engineers and technicians. I let you do the arrangements the way you want.”
“Not exactly. You let me decide to give you what you want.”
“I only said no once, and you expected that when you proposed songs she can’t sing, just to get under her skin. You still have greater freedom than other labels would give you. If you took this same music to record in Nashville, you’d never get out of town alive.”
“It’s still not the music I’d be writing and playing if I didn’t have to compromise with Dominique and Albion Records.”
“She’ll be gone from your life in sixty days. Jason. Listen, I told you I’m moving on as soon as we finish the business for this album. I’m leaving Albion Records to join my brother’s label. It’s an opportunity for me to help good alternative bands succeed in the market. I want you to sign with my brother’s label.”
“So that my money stays in your family, one way or another?”
“If you want to disparage it in that way, it won’t bother me.”
“How long of a leash does your brother give you?”
“Long enough to accommodate the entire range of music you played on Saturday. Even the folkie stuff you played earlier that day. If that’s what you want to do.”
“Do you have other musicians who want to give up the safety of a big label like Albion for your brother’s little vanity project?”
“Let’s see. If my brother has his own label, it’s a vanity project. If you go indie and ship CDs from the back of a bus, what is that, Jason?”
“I didn’t mean to be insulting,” I said. “I apologize. But I intend to go my own way.”
“Who is going to take care of your business?”
“I’ll see to the business myself.”
“You and who else? The lawyer who used to drive your bus? The ever efficient Cynthia? You don’t have Beau now. Who’s going to be the bad guy when you need it? Who’s going to look ahead?”
“How many times do I have to say no to you, Ephraim?”
At this point, spinning in free-fall the way I was, I could still look Ephraim in the eye and see—what? He seemed almost hurt.
He said, “I heard you play last Saturday. I want you to succeed. If I’m not part of making it happen, I swear I’ll die with regrets.”
“What we’re playing is just a logical progression of the same music you screwed up last year.”
“No, it’s not, Jason. You know it’s more than that. Your songwriting has transformed. And your beautiful new vocalist can make angels weep. She makes me believe in angels.”
“She’s a guest of the band. She’s not in the band.”
“Screw it, Jason. I want to sign both of you. I’d work my ass off to make sure North America and all of Europe hear what true genius sounds like.”
Dominique stood in the doorway, having heard who the heck knows what all.
“Are we leaving now, Ephraim?” she said. “Have you traded away enough of my assets before lunch to satisfy yourself?”
“Yes. We’ll see you in the studio tomorrow, Jason. Ten more days and we’re done with that and then rehearsing for the road, right, friend?”
~
“Sixty days and you’re free, buddy.” Karl rubbed his hands, pleased.
“Dominique is supposed to show up in the studio tomorrow and lay vocals down over our studio tracks.”
“Yes, but you can handle her now. Ephraim is being very helpful.”
“Karl, my stalker friend stole the master tapes.”
“Oh shit.”
“So now I have to talk Ian and Toby into playing in the studio with Dominique, because there isn’t enough time to both re-record and work with her separately.”
“They won’t like it.”
“Nope. I’ve posted coded pleas on my blog, begging my so-called brother to return the tapes. I’m not a big believer in luck at this point.”
“Ephraim will shit himself when he hears this.”
“I would prefer he didn’t hear.”
“There’s your other work. Once you get past this.”
“Sort of. Only a couple of those tapes turned up missing. Nobody will hear that work unless our mysterious friend posts tracks from those tapes on the Internet.”
“Nobody will complain about working with Susi to re-record.”
“No. Except she won’t work with us anymore.” I stopped myself from including the band. “Me, I mean. She won’t work with me.”
“Oh shit.”
87 ~ “Excuse Me If I Break My Own Heart Tonight”
JASON
NOBODY YELLED AT ME.
Nobody started one of those infamous fist fights that herald the end of a band.
It was still early when I told people, and I hadn’t eaten. The only question came from Angelia, who had phoned in sick to that school all week so she could record with us in the studio. She wondered why I didn’t tell people the night before.
“Because I hoped to wake up this morning and find out it wasn’t true.”
Then Sonny said it was his fault the tapes were gone, since he’d been hired to do security.
“Don’t pay me for the extra hours in the studio,” he said. “I blew it.”
“No, it didn’t happen on the territory you are covering, man. It just happened.”
Ian said, “We know what we’re playing, so it won’t be like last year,” but the whole time he was staring at the floor and not at me.
Angelia and Toby spent a lot of time just looking at each other, and finally Toby said, “I’ll be here in the morning. I know you can’t control the Dragon Woman, so we’ll have to just fake our way through it.”
“Just so we get to play the new music afterwards with Susi,” Ian said, still watching the floor.
Zak and Sonny were both silent.
I said, “We are touring as two bands, with separate sets. We’ll be playing originals as the Jason Taylor Band. I’m hoping you will all come along for that. The label is putting together musicians as Stoneway to support Dominique. I’ll be playing the Stoneway sets. Anyone else want to share that half of the gig?”
They all left me sucking wind, until Sonny said, “I need the bread. I can’t be fussy.”
“Me, too,” Ian the floor-man said.
“I don’t,” Toby said. And Angelia’s instrument was never part of the songs for Dominique.
“Thanks. I understand. And I apologize for asking you this late.”
“It’s bearable because we still get to play with Susi,” Ian said. “That’s worth paying a toll to the devil.”
“She doesn’t want to sing pop music,” I said, as calmly as I could.
“I’ll talk to her,” Angelia said, simultaneously with Cynthia and Sonny.
I shook my head, because I couldn’t say no out loud.
Ian said, “So we’ll just do the backporch stuff with her, huh? A mostly acoustic set? That’s cool. We can make the twang and fuzz work almost as well without—oh crap.”
Ian can read my face. For that skill, he didn’t need an effing high school diploma either.
~
I made it through that rehearsal. I’d be a liar if I didn’t say it was Ian who led us back to the music, starting with a rage piece I wrote when I first learned that Uncle Beau was ill. We were recording each instrument on separate tracks, of course, so it will be easy to cut out how badly I played and replace it later. Everyone else knew how to stay professional, doing their best the entire time.
Afterward, Zak came up to say how stoked he was that I respected him enough to invite him on the road.
“Hey man, I think you should call home, though. I hear your mother was pretty upset yesterday about you quitting school.” Which screwed up Susi’s life and my hopes, I didn’t say.
Zak blinked. “I moved out of the house two weeks ago. She just now noticed? It must have sunk in when Sonny and I moved the Hammond B3 out of the basement.”
At home in the evening, it was only Ian and me, picking at the same material we had worked on last winter, as if we had to check that the music still linked us so that harmony will occur on cue, no matter what.
“Think I’ll go to bed early,” Ian said after we had picked the music to pieces. “Are we starting at eight tomorrow?”
“Not until ten. I have prep to do.”
“Cynthia could talk to her, Jason.”
“No.”
“Or Angelia.”
“No. When I have a better handle on this work with Dominique, I’ll talk to her again. She came in right after I found out about the tapes, mad at me because Zak quit school, and I sort of went berserk on her. Lord, I need to get a grip.”
“Yeah, maybe a little. Jason, it’s better if you just ignore what your stalker friend is doing now.”
“Ignore that our tapes are gone? How can I do that?”
“I mean ignore what he’s saying about Susi. You know, the bit he’s been hammering on the blogs for the last couple of days, about how Ephraim is hitting on your girlfriend after stealing your wife, because you don’t know how to take care of your women. We all know it’s just B.S.”
88 ~ “Till I Get It Right”
JASON
I FORCED MYSELF TO NOT look. It was the week’s sole moral victory on my part. I turned on my laptop. I logged on, but I didn’t go cruising anywhere that would make me mad. Or crazy. I finished the notes for the next meeting with Ephraim and Dominique, giving her every last thing she needed to prepare for the session. Then I tried to relax by just cruising other blogs to find diverting information—not music blogs, but news and art and people’s general craziness preserved for all time through the glory of the World Wide Web. Or at least as long as they paid their Internet service provider bills.
Nothing engaged me enough to either pacify my agitation or divert my attention from the anxiety gnawing at my insides. I checked a couple of my private lists and traded bland news about old musicians, their influences, and their legacy. After about twenty minutes of proving to my Internet friends that I was more intelligent than a doorstop, Chas popped an instant message.
Chas1933: Steven told me who you are.
Sebastian: I hope you don’t take my artifice as a personal insult. The only place where I can be myself right now is with my friends on the Internet.
Chas1933: After poking around on Google, I can see the pressure you’re under. Susi would understand if you tell her.
Sebastian: We aren’t exactly in communication now. Steven will be relieved, I’m sure.
Chas1933: For myself, I’m sorry to hear it. I wanted to ask you some questions about the Lost Sons material you got me access to.
Sebastian: I’ll try, but I confess that I haven’t studied up much myself.
Chas1933: Guess I’ll ask the hardest question first. Why won’t you acknowledge in public who your father is?
Sebastian: Of course you’d start with the most brutal question. So you believe the rumors on the Internet?
Chas1933: It’s in the source material.
Sebastian: Somewhere along the line I came to hate Jesse Rufus as an irresponsible bastard who hurt people. I don’t want to be like him, and I don’t want people to think of me and Jesse Rufus in the context of music, which is hard to achieve, since my voice sounds like his. Or in the context of life, which is easy if I don’t say anything about who my father is.
Chas1933: It isn’t because you aren’t sure which brother is actually your father?
~
Chas1933: Are you there? Did my last message get lost?
Sebastian: I’m here. I’m trying to think what to type in the little box. I never once in my life considered it a possibility.
Chas1933: Even after seeing ten years’ worth of correspondence between your mother and Beau? Now I’m stuck between a rock and the hard place you’re in. I want to publish what I’m finding—about how Beau and Jesse worked together on music and lyrics. Everyone has assumed that Jesse wrote the lyrics, but with th
ese letters, it is clear that Beau wrote poetry to your mother that pre-dates similar material in their songs. I can’t point to my data, though, if you don’t want the world to see it.
Sebastian: I have to confess right now that I’m hurting. I don’t know how to think.
Chas1933: Perhaps you should start by reading some of their letters. It’s pretty powerful stuff.
Sebastian: Do you have anything electronic I can look at?
Chas1933: I’m mailing attachments to you right now. Want to read and then talk about it in the morning?
It was freezing cold in the basement. Cynthia had turned the main heat off because it was supposed to be spring and she doesn’t like sleeping in warm rooms. I tried to read lying in bed with the laptop, a blanket pulled over my head.
My mother was in love with Beau.
She stopped singing in the band and wouldn’t go on tour with them, because Jesse came onto her while she was secretly in love with Beau. For all I can tell, I’m the result of a one-time date-rape.
She never told Jesse. From the scant evidence of the few letters Chas forwarded, Beau wrote to her for years and came back to visit when I was five. And wasn’t I a big surprise? He fell in love with her and then kept coming back again and again over all those years, until she wasn’t there to come back to anymore.
~
After I threw up, I wept.
Well, what would you do? How much machismo—or machisma—would a person have to have in order to not hurl and weep?
I needed to talk it over with someone, and it was too close to midnight to go looking for Chas1933.
~
“Did Beau ever say anything to you about my mother?”
Ian lay in bed watching dieselpunk videos yet again.
“I could build that,” he said.
Cynthia shook her head. “No, honey. Your hands aren’t allowed near metal lathes.” She was idly rubbing his shaved head while reading an Inspector Montalban story.
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