Painted Black

by Greg Kihn

  “Hey, baby, what’s happenin’? Dig, you know what? Let’s get down to business. Yeah, I tell you, brother, it’s outta sight here, didn’t even rain, no buttons to push … I’d like to dedicate this song to everybody here with hearts, any kind of hearts, and ears …”

  He slid into “Like a Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan like a thief, starting up a riff that couldn’t possibly be it, but then it was. He ran through the set list like a maniac, devouring each song, milking every minute. His guitar work was revolutionary. No one had ever heard anything like it before. Like Charlie Parker or Louis Armstrong, Hendrix was an American original, a true genius. Everyone at the fairgrounds realized it at the same time. Suddenly, it was all okay. They got it.

  He won the audience over in one song and took them on a journey they would never forget. He played the Stratocaster behind his back, with his teeth, with his tongue, over his head, and every conceivable way to make a noise.

  He blasted through his first single, “Hey Joe.” Then it was three Hendrix originals in row. “Can You See Me?” “The Wind Cries Mary.” “Purple Haze.”

  There comes a time in every show when you know something is coming, but you don’t know what it is. But you know it’s out there, coming fast, and it’s gonna hit you like a mystery asteroid. Clovis, Brian, and Dust Bin Bob felt that moment approaching. The hair on their arms stood up.

  Their ears were ringing from the volume. A constant hum vibrated somewhere in the sound system. Jimi kept everything turned all the way up, all the faders and dials, the amp, treble, bass, and middle, master volume, distortion, all up to ten. His guitar ceased to be a guitar. It became a theremin, a foghorn, a freight train, a chorus of heavenly angels, a train wreck, and a garbage truck.

  He’s still chewing that same piece of gum, Clovis thought. That’s remarkable staying power, I wonder if here’s any flavor left?

  Jimi began to talk. He rambled on in a stoned monologue.

  “You know, I could sit up here and say thank you, thank you, thank you … But, I wish I could just grab you, man. … But dig, man, I just can’t do that. So what I’m gonna do is sacrifice something that I really love.”

  Just then Noel Redding thumped his bass to check the tuning. Jimi paused and looked at him.

  “Thank you very much from Bob Dylan’s grandmother.”

  Noel stopped.

  “So, anyway, I’m gonna sacrifice something that I really love, and don’t think I’m silly, because I don’t think I’m losing my mind, although last night … Ooh God … Wait! Wait! Anyway, I’m not losing my mind, but this is for everybody here, this is the only way I can do it. This is the English and American anthem combined. Don’t get mad. I want everybody to join in, too.”

  An extended free-form feedback solo the likes of which no one had ever heard before began. Jimi coaxed sounds out of the guitar that were almost human.

  Now Hendrix was pointing to his ears. What did that mean? Was he signaling the monitor man to turn up his monitor? The monitor man had given up and had gone over to the beer concession long ago. Was he signaling to turn up the main house system? Who knew anymore?

  Hendrix went through a simulation of sex with his guitar. He humped it, stroked it, pulled the most nasty sounds out of it. The night took on a strangeness that made it all seem overly psychedelic. It certainly was for Jimi, who was tripping like mad the entire time he was onstage.

  How was that possible?

  Then the moment came that swept them all away, the one that would be remembered as one of those defining moments in rock and roll history where time stands still and you’re sucked into the black hole of genius.

  Jimi humped his guitar into his amp. He violently smashed it into the speaker cabinet while wild shrieks of feedback howled. It was much more sexual that when Pete Townsend did it. Jimi made love to his guitar. Finally, he got on top of it and grabbed the whammy bar and rode the guitar like he’d rode Renee the night before. The feedback squealed like it was having an orgasm. The bump and grind of Jimi’s hips were hard to misinterpret. For the first time onstage or anywhere, this was shrieking guitar sex.

  Jimi fell to his knees. His guitar lay in front of him, and he bent over and kissed it. The lighter fluid came out of nowhere. He just seemed to have it in his hands all of a sudden. He squirted lighter fluid all over the guitar. Then he took an ordinary book of cardboard matches and struck one. It flared yellow and bright. Jimi held it for a moment, then tossed it onto the guitar.

  The guitar went up like a signal fire. The body of the guitar burst into flames. The finish of the guitar began to crack and bubble. Jimi tossed the guitar high in the air and let it fall. The Stratocaster’s neck snapped off. The guitar kept burning. He picked it up and swung it over his head bashing it into the ground. The burning pickups in the guitar body were still sending out a signal, and the guitar cried for mercy.

  Bobby and Clovis took a look at Brian. He was rapt. His eyes were as big as saucers. He was completely sucked into the performance.

  As Jimi’s guitar died its final death, he tossed the severed neck to Clovis who was sitting in the front row. Brian was transfixed. His life had changed yet again. Julius Cheeks, Janis Joplin, Ravi Shankar, Otis Redding, the Who, and now Jimi Hendrix, it had been quite a ride. He would never be the same musically again. He had seen too much.

  He looked at Bobby as Jimi left the stage. Tears were streaming down his face.

  “That was amazing …”

  The Mamas and the Papas were about go on next and close out the festival. But it had already been closed out. And, like Pete Townsend said, nobody could follow Hendrix. Not now, not ever.

  Brian was numb.

  Their ears were ringing as they left the venue.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Stray Cat Blues

  Brian had a fit of paranoia after Jimi’s show. He saw Hendrix swept away by a crowd of well-wishers as soon as the smoke cleared from his burning guitar. Clovis still held Jimi’s splintered guitar neck, expecting to hand it back to Hendrix, but Jimi showed no interest in it at all. Clovis looked down at his hand. Was he holding a historical artifact of rock and roll, or just a piece of wood?

  Brian said, “Let’s get out of here before we get busted. Spangler saw me introduce Jimi; he knows I’m here.”

  They wasted no time. Clovis drove the rented station wagon. They returned to the hotel to pick up a few items before heading for the airport. As Clovis drove into the parking lot, he saw three cop cars parked there, lights flashing. They were in the general vicinity of their rooms.

  Brian’s eyes were wide and he gaped at the cops. Residual effects of the STP flooded his senses. Their flashing red and blue lights were hypnotic. Brian sat low in the seat, trying not to be noticed.

  “Somebody’s getting busted. I sincerely hope it’s not us.”

  Clovis pulled right back out of the parking lot and parked on the street, away from the entrance.

  “You guys stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  He got out of the car and circled around the lot to get a better view. He walked along the periphery, staying low; trying to see whose room the cops were interested in.

  He saw one of the cops holding Brian’s gold cape. No doubt about that, there wasn’t another one of those within two thousand light-years. Clovis backtracked the way he’d come. He still had the guitar neck in his hand as if it were a magic talisman that would protect him. He wondered why he still had it. He hadn’t let go of it since Jimi handed it to him at the end of his performance.

  As he retraced his steps behind the cars, he saw somebody else standing in the shadows.

  He could see a shadowy figure. Coming closer, by the light of the streetlamp, he could now see the mystery figure. It was unmistakably Acid King Leon Silverman.

  “You!” Clovis said in surprise. “You got another bust set up? You fuckin’ narc!”

/>   Silverman lunged at Clovis.

  “You lose, asshole!”

  Clovis parried and danced away.

  “He’s here!” Silverman shouted to the cops. “He’s—”

  Clovis swung the Fender Stratocaster neck like a baseball bat. He whacked Silverman on the side of the head. The last word hung in his mouth as he went down.

  Silverman dropped like a sand bag. He crumpled to the blacktop, instantly unconscious.

  “That was for Redlands … asshole.”

  Clovis walked briskly back to the car. He got behind the wheel and started the engine. He drove casually out of the area and got onto State Route 1, the Pacific Coast Highway, along the ocean. He put as much distance as he could between them and Monterey.

  “That was a close one,” Clovis said.

  “Were they waiting for us to go back to the room?”

  “Yep, with a bag of weed to plant on us, no doubt.”

  “We got out in a nick of time.”

  “It’s about a hundred miles to San Francisco Airport. We can make it in an hour and a half. I don’t want to speed and risk getting pulled over.”

  “You think they know our vehicle?”

  “I think we’re one step ahead of them. They’re still waiting for us to show up at the hotel after the show. Unless they found Silverman.”

  “What did you do to Silverman?” Brian asked.

  “I cleaned clock with Jimi’s guitar neck.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I whacked him on the head and knocked him out cold before he could yell for the cops.”

  “That’s assault,” Bobby said.

  “So what? We’re gettin’ the hell out of here and we ain’t comin’ back!”

  Bobby looked around. “Don’t look now, but there’s a cop on your ass.”

  “Oh, shit!”

  California Highway Patrol Officer Mike Kwan wasn’t looking for anything in particular, and Clovis was within the speed limit. He drove past them without so much as a passing glance. Clovis shivered involuntarily.

  “Phew! That’s a relief. They must not have us in their system yet.”

  “Let’s just get to the airport, man,” Brian said.

  The CHP car disappeared in traffic up ahead. Clovis drove like a pro.

  “I think we’re gonna make it,” Clovis said.

  Bobby kept looking behind them. They took Route 101 right up the peninsula. They passed Menlo Park, Redwood City, San Mateo, and finally Burlingame.

  Bobby noticed a white van sneaking up behind them. Alarms went off in his head. It looked like the same white van they had seen at Monterey.

  “We got company,” Bobby said.

  Everybody looked back just in time to see the white van swerve in front of another car so it could be directly behind Clovis. They got a good look at the driver. It was Spangler, and he looked mad. His hair was messed up and hanging in his sweaty face. He was shouting something but they couldn’t hear.

  The white van inched up on the bumper of their rented 1967 Chevy Caprice station wagon. Clovis gunned the engine and the Caprice leaped ahead just as the white van tried to rear-end the wagon.

  “Look out! He’s nuts!”

  “Here he comes again!”

  Clovis put his foot into the 454 Turbo Jet V-8 Big Block Chevy engine, and the Caprice pulled away. Spangler caught up again and tried to run Clovis off the road. Clovis knew how to drive. He’d stolen cars as a youth and knew how to elude capture.

  “Hang on!” Clovis shouted.

  The station wagon accelerated like a speedboat. The huge land yacht fishtailed across multiple lanes of traffic to get away from the van. The big engine snarled. Clovis pushed it past eighty, past ninety, past one hundred miles per hour. The white van couldn’t keep up. Whatever it had under the hood was no match for the Big Block Chevy.

  The airport exit was coming up. Clovis kept to the inside lane until the last second, then cut across four lanes of traffic to make the exit by inches. The white van tried to repeat the maneuver but it didn’t have the power and it was out of position.

  California Highway Patrol Officer Mike Kwan looked up just in time to see the white van cut cross four lanes of traffic to make the airport exit at about ninety miles per hour. Officer Mosey had missed the Clovis move a moment before when he was distracted by his radio. Tire’s squealed and rubber burned. He flicked his siren and lights on and took off after the van.

  Spangler cursed and pounded his steering wheel. There was no way he could catch Brian now. The CHP car would run him down and pull him over, so resistance would be futile. He knew he’d have to do a lot of explaining, and Brian would be long gone by the time it was over.

  Clovis could see the cop’s lights flashing and heard the siren, but he didn’t stop or slow down. Soon it receded in his rearview mirror. He took the airport exit and drove directly to the departure level.

  “Let’s go!”

  “What about the car?”

  “Just leave it here with the keys. They’ll find it.”

  Clovis, Bobby, and Brian took off on the dead run into the airport. It was late and the place was nearly deserted. They ran down the concourse, toward the gates.

  “What plane are we looking for?”

  “Any plane.”

  “Going where?”

  “Anywhere.”

  They passed a United Airlines red-eye flight to Pittsburgh that was just boarding.

  “Here we go. Perfect.”

  Clovis bought three tickets at the gate with his credit card and they boarded the flight without further delay.

  They arrived in Pittsburgh in the early morning hours and caught a connecting flight to Baltimore.

  As soon as they landed, Cricket picked them up at the airport. She whisked them away back to Southway.

  Erlene had a heartfelt reunion with Clovis. She missed him terribly when he was gone.

  Brian said, “I think it’s time to see the Hi-Dee-Ho Man to make a deal with his friends to keep Spangler off my back.”

  “You got the money?”

  “I can get it.”

  Preston Washington was just opening the store when Clovis, Dust Bin Bob, and Brian Jones walked in.

  “Well, well, what brings you white rock and rollers back to see the Hi-Dee-Ho Man?”

  “I want to make a deal,” Brian said. “I have to get Spangler off my back.”

  Preston nodded.

  “It’s gonna cost you ten grand in cash, plus a slight carrying charge for me, because whenever you deal with the Arnellos, there’s always a risk.”

  “What’s the total?”

  “Fifteen grand.”

  “Done. I’ll need to contact the Stones office in London for an advance.”

  “Well, you better do that right away because you’re gonna need cash.”

  “Then what?” Brian asked.

  “Then you leave it all up to me, Preston Washington. I’ll set up a meeting in a public place; you let me do the talkin’. Arnello hates Spangler, and it’s just about time for some payback as far as he’s concerned. Plus he’s got teenage kids who love you.”

  Brian chuckled. “Always the kids …”

  The place Angelo Arnello chose to meet was Salvatore’s, a restaurant he owned in Baltimore’s Little Italy. Brian caused quite a stir as he entered the tiny Italian eatery. The fact that he was with a big black guy only heightened the effect. The diminutive Golden Stone and the Nubian giant.

  Angelo Arnello sat with his three teenage sons in a private dining room. As soon as Brian arrived and was introduced to the kids, they disappeared.

  Some antipasti magically appeared at the snap of Angelo’s fingers. He folded a thinly sliced piece of salami between his fingers and popped it in his mouth.

  Brian
felt like he was in a movie. Angelo Arnello looked like a real gangster. He was big and intimidating, dressed in what could best be described as Sicilian casual. His silk pants were high-wasted and shiny. He had a neatly trimmed mustache and slicked-back dark hair.

  “So, let’s get down to business. I hear you’ve been having some trouble with Bruce Spangler, correct?”

  Brian nodded.

  “Well, we’ve dealt with Spangler before, haven’t we Mr. Washington?”

  “That is true.”

  “And we found a way to … shall we say, influence him. I’d be willing to bet that that same strategy would work again.”

  Brian swallowed hard. Being in the presence of guys like Arnello was disconcerting, even for regular people, but for rock stars like Brian, it was even worse. It was like being in a movie. He squirmed in his seat.

  “You say you’ve been busted?”

  “Yes, in London. Spangler worked with Scotland Yard! How did he get to London?”

  Angelo shrugged.

  “All cops are the same. Their job is to bust people like you.”

  “Then, in Monterey, we just got away in a nick of time. They always plant something on me.”

  “That’s the way it is, my friend.”

  “Can you get him to stop?”

  Angelo sipped a glass of red table wine. He smiled at Brian.

  “I forget, you’re not from around here, you’re an Englishman. Maybe you don’t understand how it is. But to answer your question, yes, I can most assuredly make him stop. Nothing would bring me greater pleasure. Spangler’s been a thorn in my side long enough.”

  Brian looked at Preston, not sure how to proceed.

  Preston said, “Ahh, I think the boy wants to know the tag.”

  Angelo leaned back in his chair.

  “To influence his behavior a second time will require ten thousand in cash to me and five thousand for our mutual friend and trusted benefactor, Mr. Preston Washington.”