Gilligan dropped a coconut on the Skipper’s foot and the Skipper yelled at Gilligan and the phone exploded and I picked up the receiver on the first ring with a trembling hand. And I’d only done two lines that afternoon. What I heard on the other end didn’t settle me down.
“Bill. Please. Come down here.”
“Heather?”
Between the low whisper and panic in her throat, I honestly couldn’t tell.
“Bill. Please. He’s ...”
“Thomas? Thomas is what? Christ, speak up.”
“I can’t, he’s in the kitchen and ...”
And then the dial tone droned in my ear and I tore off down the hall to Thomas and Heather’s room. It was too short a sprint, just six suites down, to imagine what the worst scenario might be, but even if I’d had the time, what I saw when I banged on their door and Thomas shouted “Come on in” wouldn’t have been it.
“Afternoon, Buckskin. Excuse our mess here, but we’re kind of in the middle of something.” To Heather, “Would you bring me the rest of the tomatoes, darlin’?”
Heather was sitting on the bed by the phone. She looked relieved that I’d come but unsure what to do now that I was there. I saw her put a hand to her freshly purpled eye but warned myself not to jump to conclusions. I nodded toward the little kitchenette and winked and she got up and left Thomas and me alone.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” Thomas said. “And don’t forget to wash them good, now.”
He was naked except for his jeans and sunglasses and was sitting on the floor with his bony feet sticking out from underneath the coffee table like it was a miniature desk. Except that instead of books and papers, the table was covered in carrot peelings, the unused ends of tomatoes, loose lettuce leaves, a package of paper plates, and a roll of Saran Wrap. In his hand was the biggest knife I’d ever seen outside of Tarzan movies. He hadn’t looked up since I’d come through the door.
“What are you up to, Thomas?”
He whacked the last tomato on the table into six pieces like he was hammering a row of nails. A cigarette with a two-inch ash hung from his lips.
“I’m making salads, Buckskin,” he said. He shook his head like I was either stupid or putting him on and butchered the six slices into six more. I was amazed he still had all ten fingers.
I looked around the room and he sure had been making salads. The unmade bed and both end tables, the couch and easy chair and the desk and its chair, even the top of the TV—every available surface in the room—was covered with what my ballpark figure put at around a hundred of the most pathetic-looking salads in the history of haute cuisine. Seeing as there wasn’t anywhere else to put them, the decision had obviously been made long ago to start stacking the damp, limp paper plates loaded with a couple hunks of iceberg lettuce topped off with a few maimed tomatoes and carrots and wrapped tightly underneath a Saran Wrap lid two and now three deep throughout the suite. Heather was peeking around the entrance to the living room, Thomas’s requested tomatoes filling up her hands. I signalled for her to go back inside.
“What’s going on?” I said, motioning around the room.
He ripped a clump out of a head of lettuce.
“Thomas, what’s going on?”
He didn’t look up but did stop tearing at the lettuce; stared out the window at the exclusive Marmont view of everything green and growing that downtown L.A. wasn’t.
“All people are good,” he said. “But some people act bad. They act bad not because they are bad but because they’re ignorant. And it’s the job of those who aren’t ignorant to help those who are so they can learn how not to be so they can be good. I’m making as many salads as I can so Heather and I can give them away at tonight’s show. At the door. Free of charge.” He looked over at me. “People need to understand, Buckskin.”
I saw a good inch of the white ash from his cigarette fall into the salad he’d been working on, but just nodded along with what he said. He nodded too and then packaged up his newest creation with the see-through wrap, ash and all, and stacked it on top of three teetering others. He finally crushed out his cigarette in an overflowing ashtray and bulldozed away the vegetable debris in front of him with the dull end of his knife. Underneath the mess, the table was covered in a thousand tiny scars. He called out to the kitchen.
“Heather, I said I was out of tomatoes, darlin’. Now, I can’t make a proper salad if I don’t have the proper ingredients, can I?”
I wanted her to stay where she was, but as soon as she heard Thomas’s voice out she shot, weighed down with the goods. She carefully unloaded the tomatoes on the tabletop and he started right in chopping away.
“Juan said the kitchen would have those boxes for us any time after five. Would you be a sweetheart and go down and get them?” he said. Heather grabbed the room key and was out the door before I could shoot her an approving look. You don’t need to tell a trapped animal to run.
“You won’t mind giving us a hand carrying these down to Christopher will you, Buckskin?”
“No. No, no problem.”
“I think I’ve got enough tomatoes for about ten more salads but that’s going to be about it. Can’t say I like the idea of showing up down there with not enough to go around for everybody, but we can only do what we can do.” He picked up a carrot and hacked off a quarter-inch on each end.
“How’s Heather doing?” I said.
Thomas finished up doing his best imitation of peeling a carrot and carefully laid the end result down on the table; picked up another orange victim, then set it right back down.
“What are you asking me, Buckskin? I don’t think I understand exactly what it is you’re asking me.”
“I don’t know. I guess I’m just thinking that it must be kind of hard on her to have to keep the crazy hours we do and deal with all the stuff we’ve had to go through. I suppose it must be sort of tough on her, that’s all.”
He lifted his sunglasses up on his head and looked at me straight on. His pupils were so dilated his eyes looked too big for his face.
“Heather understands, Buckskin. She might not hear what we hear or see what we see but ... she understands. She understands and is patient. Oh, she is patient. She is so, so patient.”
And I was so, so glad Heather came through the door with the cardboard boxes when she did. Because even if there were tears rolling down Thomas’s cheeks, I wasn’t going to be the one to coax him into setting down his knife long enough so I could give him a great big hug. Heather dropped the boxes to the floor, got down on her knees beside him, and did.
Then she started to cry, too, and Thomas began to cry harder and they pulled at each other tighter and tighter and Thomas kissed her hair and her forehead and her wet cheeks and finally her lips. I let myself out and went back to my room.
Where the Skipper was still yelling and Gilligan was still in trouble. And Ginger was nowhere in sight.
74.
IT WAS CHRISTINE’S FAULT.
If she hadn’t been so busy trying to save the world she would have tuned in to what was going on in her own backyard and supplied Heather with enough books on the dynamics of abusive relationships and the necessity of positive female self-esteem so that if Thomas ever pulled that kind of crap again he’d get his heart broken as well as his testicles. As it was, she complimented Heather on her brand new makeup job. Heather touched her pancaked eye and said thanks.
It was Thomas’s fault.
No one knows what goes on between a man and a woman when the door gets shut, but boys don’t hit girls. Sandbox Commandment Number One: Boys don’t hit girls. It doesn’t matter what she said or even what she did when you weren’t around. Curse, yell, bust up her record collection if you must, only don’t touch the girl. It’s just one of the rules. Thomas broke the rules.
It was Heather’s fault.
What do you expect when, whenever your master’s voice calls, you’re there before the words are out of his mouth? Don’t you know that need feeds need? Maybe
next time you come running as usual but not quite quickly enough. Maybe next time you don’t love him enough or read his mind well enough or forgive him enough.
It wasn’t my fault.
Like the bumper sticker says, Don’t Blame Me, I Didn’t Vote for What’s-His-Name. I didn’t actually make it to the voting booth myself, but I wanted the other guy to win. You know who I mean. What’s-His-Name.
75.
SATURDAY NIGHT SO SOON, and everyone but Colin and me not anywhere near as tickled as they were supposed to be about the Whisky asking us back for seven more nights. Between Rod’s rave in Open Wound and general groovy word of mouth, by the end of the week people were starting to talk and the club was always busy if never quite full. Colin let us know the good news right after what was supposed to be our final sound check. He joined us up on stage balancing a bottle of Dom Perignon, five glasses, and a bottle of Coke for Slippery.
“And we’ve already got two more print interviews lined up for next week and are real close to getting you a local TV slot on a fundraiser for the free clinic the night of your last gig. Some of the best bands from around here are dying to get on. It’ll be incredible exposure.”
“I’m not missing the sit-down on the eleventh,” Christine said. “I haven’t gone without sleep for four days just so I can stand around smiling for some cameraman.”
After every night’s show Lee and Emily would whisk Christine off to do whatever it was they did to get ready for the protest. Although they were never anything but smiley-smile nice to me for the few minutes I saw them post-gig, I’d begun to periodically and without any warning whatsoever feel furious hot flashes of intensely physical rage toward them for trying to slowly turn Christine against me and, at the same time, convert her into a lesbian like them. I had no proof, not a scrap of evidence, and absolutely no reason for believing any of this. Not that that made me feel any better when I’d swim my laps and imagine with every stroke bludgeoning each of them to a chlorinated death. To my credit, though, I did notice that I tended to get most worked up when I was most coked up, so I never said anything.
“The eleventh is not a problem,” Colin said, working on the champagne bottle’s cork. “The sit-down is in the afternoon and the fundraiser is an all-day and all-night deal. They’re talking about you guys playing the 3 a.m. spot. We’ll all drive over right after your show here. And I think it’s just great the way you guys have become such a part of the community so quickly.”
Slippery stood up behind his instrument. He took out a Marlboro and stuck it in the side of his mouth.
“One more week,” he said, “that’s it. Then we start north.” It was supposed to be a question, I think, but that’s not how it came out.
“Theoretically, yes,” Colin said. “The way we’re going gangbusters in the studio, we should have the album wrapped up by Monday, Tuesday at the latest. Then we start mixing. But you never know what’s going to happen.”
“Meaning?” Christine said.
“Meaning, I didn’t want to say anything until we knew more about it, but ...” He popped the cork and a brief slosh of champagne splashed onto the stage. Mine was the only outstretched glass. He filled it first.
“C’mon,” I said. “But what?”
“I didn’t want to spook you guys at the time, but I know the guy who manages the Byrds pretty well and he tipped me off that McGuinn and Hillman were coming down to catch your act on Wednesday night. And it turns out that they really dug it, Hillman especially.”
Colin looked over at Thomas, who still had his guitar around his neck and was slumped over with his back to us sitting on top of his amplifier near the rear of the stage. He hadn’t had his pre-show snorts yet and, what was more, judging by the way he’d mumbled his way through the sound check, I was pretty sure he’d snuck down a Nembutal on the way over. I should have known something was up when he asked Christine to drive.
“Hillman played mandolin in a bluegrass band for a couple of years before he even picked up an electric bass, you know,” Colin called out.
It hadn’t taken him long to get over the sight of Thomas and Heather greeting amused but confused Whisky-goers of a couple nights before with freshly made salads and the repeated boost that “Vegetarians taste better,” even if Colin and his guest for the evening, Fillmore East mover and shaker Bill Graham, were among the slightly stunned recipients. Afterward, Graham told Colin he’d loved our act and would be in touch. Colin had been ecstatic.
“I think the name of their band was the Hillmen,” Colin said. “You ever heard of them?” Thomas didn’t move or speak. Colin turned back to us.
“Anyway, it turns out that the Byrds are heading out on a mini-tour of the east coast at the beginning of January, and the Springfield, who were supposed to open up for them, have decided that since their own album is coming out they’re not going to do anything but headline any more, so the opportunity is there and I’ve made a few calls and ...” He raised his eyebrows and with one hand crossed his fingers and with the other motioned with the end of the champagne bottle for Christine and Heather to get with the program and raise their glasses.
I didn’t need any encouragement and took a long gulp from mine. It was my first drink of alcohol that was intended to be actually tasted before carrying out its brain-buzzing duty. It was as if I hadn’t even swallowed anything liquid at all, as if the champagne had vaporized on the back of my tongue before it’d had a chance to go down. And the Byrds had heard of us and saw us and liked us, and these were the actual Byrds, the same guys whose albums I’d bought back in Toronto, the Mr. Tambourine Man and Turn! Turn! Turn! Byrds. I took another, much smaller sip of the champagne and damn if it didn’t lift right off my tongue just like the first time.
“You’re saying we ain’t going north next week,” Slippery said. He hadn’t touched his unopened bottle of Coke.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Colin said, filling up one last flute, Thomas’s. “And for God’s sake, don’t say anything to anybody, especially anyone from the media. But let’s just say I think L.A. is starting to take to you guys as much as you are to it.” He saw my half-filled glass and topped it off; handed Heather Thomas’s glass and raised his own.
“To a great beginning for a great new band. To the Duckhead Secret Society.”
Colin’s and my clink forced Christine and Slippery to chime in with a reluctant ting of their own. Both Heather and Thomas were over by the amp now, Thomas still sitting on top of it and facing away from us, Heather with her hand on his knee, looking up at him.
“Come on, you two,” Colin said, holding up two fingers so the rest of us wouldn’t drink yet. “This is a group toast.”
Heather stared over at us and then up at Thomas and then back at us. She looked like she did the time at the truck stop when she asked me why Thomas kept talking about himself in the third person.
“What is it?” Christine said.
Heather peeked around to get another good look at Thomas, then over our way again.
“Hurry up, you two,” Colin said. “Our bubbles are starting to pop over here.”
Christine handed me her glass and walked over.
“What’s wrong?” Colin asked. “Dom Perignon not good enough for Thomas?” He said it as if it were a joke, but you could tell he was a little miffed. Maybe he was thinking that if it wasn’t for Thomas’s salad giveaway scheme we’d already be booked at the Fillmore. “I guess I should have got Cristal instead.”
“I don’t think it would have mattered,” Christine said, an arm around Heather now and slowly leading her away.
“Why?” he said.
“Take a look for yourself.”
And it is awfully difficult to enjoy even the finest champagne when you’ve passed out sitting upright on an amplifier with an unopened bag of fresh carrots cradled in your hands. Downright impossible, some people would say.
It’s always his momma and not anybody else who always wakes up when Thomas starts his roc
king.
Almost nine now, Thomas doesn’t ride the horse any more. Not when he’s awake, anyway. Everyone, even Thomas, knows he’s outgrown it. But that rocking horse was the best Christmas gift he ever got. The best any kind of gift. There’s a photograph his father took with his new colour Kodak of five-year-old Thomas in his white Doctor Denton one-piece cotton sleeper sitting astride his Toddler Wild Rider. The horse is painted sky blue with a white tail and mane and snout and each eye dabbed a hurried blob of splashed black. Brown wooden foot supports and handles sticking out of the animal’s hard plastic legs and head make sure the rider stays in the saddle, four coiled springs underpinning each rippling thigh keep the horse moving. In the picture, Thomas is looking right into the camera, pajama-clad feet jammed deep into the tiny stirrups, ten little fingers clenched tight around the ribbed handles. It’s hard to tell which is bigger, his all-teeth smile or enormous blue eyes.
Thomas rode that horse. Up in his bedroom, he rode it all day long during his last year at home alone with Selma and his momma. After he started kindergarten he rode it before and after Selma walked him to and from school every day. He even rode it after he’d turned seven and weighed more than the cardboard box the thing came in said he should.
Even his father had to admit that it was kind of cute the way the boy had so taken to the thing. One day he brought him home a cowboy hat and silver-plated gun and holster set from Memphis to complete the getup. Thomas put them both on so his father could take a picture—miniature white Stetson tilted back on his head with both guns raised and blazing—but once his father got the shot he never wore them again. What Thomas liked to do was ride. To get that rhythm going. To make that horse rock and roll until not even him and it any more, just that long slow ride.
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