by Tim Wynveen
While Nigel sat beside Ronnie’s bed and spoke softly about what he was planning, Cyrus got the latest report from Doreen. Pneumonia was the danger now, she said. Then she took his broken hand in hers and reminded him he had his own medical problems to take care of. He nodded, though he had no intention of following her advice. That would mean going back to Toronto, and he wasn’t ready to do that just yet.
Cyrus returned to Ronnie’s bedside and listened to Nigel chat about the football scores. When they were preparing to leave, Doreen came in and said there was a man on the phone. “He wants to speak to someone in the Conger family. I thought you two might be close enough.”
Cyrus followed her down the hall to the nurse’s station. A familiar voice on the other end of the phone said, “I have only just heard. I have only just heard and my heart aches at the news, and yet, and yet I want so much to give you my deepest condolences in this time of sadness. He was like a saviour to me, your Ronald. He saved me and anointed me and brought me out of the wilderness and gave me a voice. I tell you truthfully that I would take his place if I could.”
Cyrus waited until the first pause in that mellifluous flow of words, and then said, “Jim, it’s me. It’s Cyrus Owen.”
“Oh, Lord,” he said. “This is luck. When I first read the news, I knew I had to reach you somehow and tell you how sorry I am for your misfortune, one musician to another. Tell me, now, what is the prognosis? When do they think you will play again?”
Cyrus explained what the specialists had told him, but to hear it in his own words, without the doctor’s authority, made the outlook seem hopeless.
Jim clucked his tongue sadly. “Get yourself home, young man. Do not dilly-dally with somethin’ like this. The stakes are too high.”
“I intend to,” he replied, “but not just yet. We’re organizing a benefit concert for Ronnie. I have to stick around for that.”
After a moment’s pause, Jim cleared his throat and said, “I know I am not the star I once was, not that I ever was such a big attraction, but I would be most honoured if you would consider me as a possible performer. And, if not onstage, then in some other capacity. I have realized this past while that I owe Ronnie more than I could ever repay. I would be most grateful, you know, if I could help out.”
Cyrus took Jim’s phone number, in a place called Waldorf, Nebraska, and said he would phone in a day or two. But considering the role Jim’s music had played in Ronnie’s life, Cyrus more or less promised him a spot onstage.
Nigel was thrilled. “A reunion of the Revival,” he said excitedly. “Imagine if we could convince Gil Gannon. It’d be fucking brilliant.”
Cyrus called Jim the next day. A woman answered on the second ring. “Billie’s House of Music, Billie speaking.”
“Sorry. I was looking for Jimmy Waters.”
“He’s with a customer right now. Can he call you back?”
“Well, I guess. I’m calling from England—”
“Lord love a duck!” she exclaimed. Then, half-covering the mouthpiece, she shouted, “Jim, git your fanny over here. It’s that fella from England.” Back in her phone voice, she said, “He’s coming. And next time don’t be so mealy-mouthed. I imagine this is costing you an arm and a leg.”
Cyrus heard what sounded like a bit of sexual roughhouse, full of slap and tickle and girlish giggles. Then Jim said, “Young man, I am in high spirits today. This is good news, I hope.”
When Cyrus said they wanted him to reunite the Revival, Jim actually whooped with delight. “The very thing I wanted to hear. I have already taken the liberty of callin’ Sonny and the others, and they are ready to roll. I would prefer to have you with us, naturally, but considerin’ your circumstances I have asked Derek De Groome to fill in, as he did so well when you and Eura left us those many years ago. But if you could talk that lovely lady of yours into joinin’ us onstage, I’d be most honoured.”
Cyrus cleared his throat and said, “I haven’t spoken to Eura in a while. We split up. I don’t even know where she lives.”
“Ah, what a pity. I did think you two would last. But then I never have been very wise in matters of the heart.”
In order to bring the conversation back to a safer footing, Cyrus said, “You work in a music store?”
“Hard to call it workin’, my friend. I am havin’ the time of my life.”
NIGEL WAS BACK IN THE STUDIO, producing an album for Newton’s Apple, a band that had seemingly perfected the art of stadium rock. (Every record contained six or seven ponderous tunes of drug-induced splendour and implied significance that always—and this was the secret—sounded best in the vast echoing confines of a football stadium or hockey arena.) At the end of each day of recording, the band returned to the pleasures of London, and Nigel turned to the arrangements for the benefit. He seldom had more than a word of greeting for Cyrus. Sophie and Patrick had switched their focus to the studio’s new clients. Sometimes Cyrus felt he had become invisible; at other times he thought he had become something even worse, something only partly visible and wholly upsetting.
In the days after he had spoken to Jim and made the arrangements for him and the others to fly over, Cyrus did little more than stroll about the grounds of Hidey-Hole. As the promotion for the concert increased, however, reporters asked him to explain what Ronnie was really like, to describe the dreadful attack. The interviews invariably left him feeling sorry for himself. He almost always ended those days with a few solitary rounds at the Two Poofs.
After one particularly depressing interview and the ensuing pints of bitter, he called Janice. More than anything, he wanted to hear her voice, one of the happiest sounds he had ever known. But this time he heard worry. She had read the news stories and had spoken with Izzy. She wanted to know how he was doing; she wanted details. And no matter how he tried to shift topics, she came back to her central concern until, finally, he told her everything.
“I’m supposed to have a few operations,” he said. “But it doesn’t look good. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“Are you asking for advice?”
“No,” he said, “not really. I just wanted to hear your voice, I guess. How are things there?”
She told him that Isabel had bought back the old farm and was turning it into a trailer park, with Hank as superintendent. “Just last week,” she said, “he bought a mobile home. He’s already living out there. Drives around in a little golf cart. I’m invited for dinner tomorrow night.”
Every time he phoned Wilbury, it seemed the fabric of the world had become unravelled and knitted together again in some new pattern. “I assume Izzy’s paying for all this,” Cyrus said.
“I’m not the one you should ask. It’s none of my business. But I think Ruby helped him get started. She’s been very generous lately.”
“I guess you heard about Orchard Knoll. Bet you never thought I’d be a farmer.”
“You’ll also be a landlord soon. Ruby’s living in town now. Izzy found her a condo down by the marina.” Cyrus wasn’t surprised that Ruby wanted to live closer to her friends, but the news hit him hard. The combination of Ruby and Orchard Knoll had always been his salvation. When he didn’t respond, Janice continued. “I told you, didn’t I, that I was thinking of moving to Wilbury more permanently? I mean, I’ll always keep my studio in the city, but being back here, even at my mother’s place, has been good for me. My work is going well, I feel good about my classes, I’ve enjoyed being with Ruby and your brother and sister, and, well, they rented me the farm, Orchard Knoll, I mean. Two weeks from now I’ll be living out there with all those apples. Donny Pentangeles, Frank’s son, is going to help me move around some of the equipment in the barn so I can work out there. You don’t mind, do you?”
What he minded was that he wasn’t in Wilbury with her. The people he cared about—Janice, Hank, Izzy, Jim—hadn’t forgotten him, but they had created new lives without him. In a voice drained of energy, he said, “That’s fine, Janice. I’m glad you’re
staying out there. Maybe I’ll come see you someday.”
“You’d better, and soon. Right after you see about that hand.”
They said their goodbyes, then Cyrus went to his room and tried to sleep, wondering what he’d done so wrong that his life had turned out this way.
THE BENEFIT WAS MORE SUCCESSFUL than anyone had bargained for. Sixty thousand people arrived on the chilly grounds of Knebworth to witness the spectacle. The BBC filmed it for a special. Nigel recorded every second of it for a live album. There were T-shirts and posters on sale, information booths, petitions to be signed. They made the front page of both the Guardian and the Times.
The backstage area was a paparazzo’s dream: David Bowie and Elton John in animated conversation in the food tent; Peters Frampton, Townshend and Gabriel mugging for the television cameras. And that sense of communion carried over to the show itself, which became a monster jam session with several drummers, banks of guitarists and no end of singers and percussionists and keyboard players.
The highlight, of course, was the surprise reunion of the Jimmy Waters Revival. Even jaded press hounds leapt to their feet as Jim bounded onstage to a loping blues groove. He closed his eyes, threw his head back, threw his arms wide and let the crowd’s energy flow through him. When at last a stillness fell over that vast sea of people, when the only sound was the soft pulse of the bass and drums, a few muted chord spasms from Sonny’s B-3, Jimmy stepped up to the microphone and said:
I’d like to tell you a story now, if I may, about the birds,
the birds we see each day—the meadowlark,
the robins, wrens and chickadees—and how they’ve all descended
from those massive howlin’ greedy beasts
the allosaur and stegosaur and Tyrannosaurus rex.
And I was wonderin’, you know, about these birds,
and thinkin’, if it’s true—and really, this is many millions,
this is many million years—but,
if such things could ever be, and through some kind of magic
a dinosaur transforms into a bird,
a bluebird in a tree, what on earth could we become?
What could I become for you; and
all you lovely children, what could you become for me?
The crowd roared in approval, fists punching the air. At the same time, the rest of the musicians began to file onto the back of the stage, twenty, thirty, forty people rocking side to side with the groove, while Jimmy said:
This is somethin’ we must understand.
If some squiggly protozoa from the deep primordial
slime can develop new behaviour,
a backbone and a brainpan and the jivey wires inside,
the blood and lungs and pumpin’ heart of you
and you and you, all sittin’ in this regal place and lis’nin
to the man—well if, you know, it can
make that crazy leap all the way to me and you,
it makes this whole thing kind of special, don’t it,
almost like a famous solo spinnin’ out its line,
and every note’s another step in time.
Maybe that’s the way it is, another kind of music,
and we don’t know enough to play the part.
We feel there’s somethin’ missin’ but we just can’t find the notes
in our heads, or even in our hearts.
But oh my blessed children, lissen here, lissen here.
Don’t you feel the shape of somethin’ holy?
It’s in the air around you—don’t you feel it drawin’ near?
Just close your eyes and lissen to it only.
It’s there in the music of two billion hearts a-beatin’,
the jangle of those jivey wires inside.
So let it out, let it flow, let the world rejoice
to the fundamental thunder of
our single lifted voice. Fill the empty space
with songs of love and laughter, and
let yourself embrace at last the sweeter life hereafter.
The audience applauded wildly as he strode away, an ovation that built to a resounding climax of hands and voices and stomping feet. When he returned for his encore, he was wiping his face with a white towel, the entire stage cloaked in darkness save for the spotlight trained on his movements. He waited patiently for the cheering to subside. Then, he said, “I’d like to introduce you to a friend of mine. Mr. Gil Gannon.”
The audience roared again, though many remembered the name only dimly. As Gil moved to his microphone, Jim slid quietly to the back of the stage and took his position behind Sonny’s B-3. He adjusted the microphone to accommodate his extra height, and when he was comfortable, when everyone had given him a look of readiness, he leaned forward to the mike and said, “This goes out to Ronnie. We’re all lookin’ forward, friend.” Then he counted in Gil Gannon’s biggest hit.
Gil had gained weight over the years and lost the agility and grace he once had. His voice had dropped an octave. His hair was a comical poof, his face swollen and glistening. He moved about the stage with the heavy deliberate step of an old-time boxer. His suit had the cut and shine of Las Vegas, and not the big-time casinos but the dingy off-the-Strip places that featured washed-up singers and foul-mouthed comics. And yet none of that mattered. He sang as well as he ever had, believing every word.
Keep on ridin’ with the herd,
Runnin’ with the pack,
Flappin’ with the birds,
But honey—don’t look back.
Jim had been playing some in Waldorf, just enough to show people how the keyboards sounded. Occasionally Billie talked him into a song or two—she loved to hear him do Fats Waller. So he was not without chops. But the solo in “Don’t Look Back” required real technique, an edge he’d lost over his years of refusing to play. So, from the moment Cyrus told him about the concert, Jim had practised that solo, playing it over and over again until he could repeat it perfectly, like a prayer. And when the time came, when the band moved through the second chorus and the setup for the instrumental break, when Gil and the other musicians and all the people in the audience turned to him expectantly, Jim was ready to give them The Solo, that raging, Dionysian howl of the free spirit.
But at the very moment he should have begun, when he should have started his signature two-octave gliss up to the minor third, he paused, not a long time, maybe a beat or two, and then quietly began to weave a simpler, sadder, more thoughtful melody, one that summed up more accurately the feelings of the moment, the lives lived, the opportunities lost, the circumstances that had brought them all together. He hadn’t planned it this way. He had wanted to play The Solo one more time for Ronnie’s sake. But in the end it wasn’t possible. He didn’t have the spirit within him to breathe life into the youthful phrasing of long ago. It meant nothing to him anymore; he could scarcely remember who it was that had once played those notes. You can’t step twice into the same stream. Instead he played the melody that hovered somewhere between his heart and mind. It was a more dissonant line this time, heavy with suspensions, the nines and fours, the non-chordal tones; but it was not difficult. It required more feeling than pizzazz. And when he played his final note on that final chord of the passage, he closed his eyes and kept them closed until the song ended. He hoped that Ronnie, that everyone, would forgive him.
THE PARTY BACKSTAGE WOUND DOWN after about an hour. The good deed had been done, and everyone had someplace to go. Back to a tour or a recording. Back to lovers and families and friends. The goodbyes were emotional, tinged with a feeling of satisfaction.
Cyrus, too, had somewhere to go. He had an apartment in Toronto and the prospect of surgery. Not surprisingly, he found it hard to work up much enthusiasm. He didn’t mingle or make merry. As soon as he could, he caught a ride back to Hidey-Hole.
After a sleepless night, he asked Sophie for one final fry-up. He had nearly finished eating when Nigel walked into the room with a guitar case. “I was going to
have Patrick drive you to Heathrow,” he said, “but then I thought we could visit Ronnie before your flight. I’ve dubbed a cassette of the concert. We could play it for him. Oh, and here. I want you to have this.” He set the guitar case beside him. “The National.”
Cyrus stared at the blackness of his coffee. “I can’t play, remember?”
“You’ll think of something. For now a simple thank-you would do.”
They left Hidey-Hole early in the morning and were at the hospital by ten, carrying a portable cassette recorder, two cassettes and two sets of headphones. The authorities had backed off on their plans to hustle Ronnie into a long-term care facility. He could stay until other plans had been made. When Doreen saw their gear, she wasn’t pleased. “No rock and roll parties in here, I’ll have you know.”
“None,” Nigel promised. “Just wanted our friend here to listen to the concert we put on for his benefit. Thought it might cheer him up.”
She looked warily at the two of them. “I was at your concert, and it was too loud. We can’t be having it loud like that in here.”
Again they promised to behave, then hurried to their friend’s room. Nigel put one pair of headphones over Ronnie’s ears and offered the second pair to Cyrus, who had absolutely no interest in hearing the concert again. It had been painful enough the first time. He had no desire to be at the hospital, either. He’d made his peace with Ronnie. Now that he’d decided to go back to Toronto, he wanted to get on with it.
After a few numbers, Cyrus took off the headphones and walked down the hall. When he found Doreen, he gave her his address and phone number. “Let me know how he’s doing, will you? I have to go home.” He waved his busted hand. “If it wasn’t for this, I’d stick around.”
She kissed his cheek. “He’s a lucky man to have friends like you.”
As he walked back along the ward, he tried to think of his own life in those terms. Who’d look out for him when he couldn’t look out for himself? Who’d sit by his bedside when he went in for his operations? Time and again, the answer to the question was the one person he couldn’t bring himself to speak to just now: Isabel.