by Jude Hardin
I heard footsteps. I looked toward the house, saw that someone was on the wooden porch. It was a man wearing overalls and a straw hat. Our eyes locked and he started toward me and I scampered away into the woods.
I woke up sweating. Brother John was standing in front of me with a syringe in his hand. The straps on my arms and legs had been unbuckled.
“What’s your name?”
“Alexander Maddox. My friends call me Maddog. Or just Dog.”
“Tell me the address,” he said.
“I don’t remember. I swear I don’t.” I was shaking all over. It felt like a million cockroaches were under my skin running relays.
“Tell me the address, and I’ll give you the shot.”
“If I knew the address, I would tell you,” I said. “Believe me, I would tell you.”
He stood there silently staring into space for a few seconds, and then said, “For some reason, I believe you. I think we’re ready to proceed with phase six.”
Phase six. I didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about. I just wanted my shot. He could have proceeded with phase fifty million and it would have been fine with me. He left the room and came back carrying an electric guitar and a small amplifier. He plugged the amp into the wall and plugged the guitar into the amp. He handed me the guitar. It was a Fender Stratocaster.
“What do you want me to do with this?” I said.
“I want you to play it, of course.”
“Do I know how to play the guitar?”
“Yes. Your name is Maddog Maddox, and you’re an excellent guitar player.”
He handed me a pick. To my amazement, my trembling fingers knew exactly where to go. I started strumming chords, and I even knew their names. E…A…B…
I strummed a twelve-bar blues progression effortlessly, and then started playing lead notes. Before long, I was bending and tapping strings and making the instrument cry with the tremolo bar.
“I can really play,” I said.
“Yes. You’re even better than I remember.”
“Than you remember?”
“I’m going to leave you a CD, and I want you to learn all the songs on it. There are twenty. Once you learn them all, I have a job for you.”
“What job?”
“We’ll discuss it after you learn the songs.”
“Can I have my shot now?”
“Ah. Of course.”
He uncapped the port on my PICC line and administered the medication.
There was a set of headphones by the computer. I carried the CD and the guitar and amp over there and loaded the CD and listened to it through the headphones. It was a compilation of rock and pop songs from the sixties and seventies. Songs like “Hang on Sloopy” and “Margaritaville” and “Proud Mary.” I listened to all twenty of them and then started playing along with the guitar. Somehow, I instinctively knew the chords and the changes and the lead riffs. It came to me as easily as breathing.
I went through the songs a few more times until I had them down pat. One of the guys came in and asked if I was hungry and I looked at my watch and saw it was time for supper. I’d missed lunch completely. I asked if he would bring me a salad and some fried chicken and he said he would. As he was leaving I added iced tea with lemon to the order and he said OK.
I started working my way through the songs again. I finished “Smoke on the Water” and was waiting for the intro to “Jumping Jack Flash” when I turned and noticed Brother John standing behind me with his arms crossed. I took the headphones off.
“How’s it going?” he said.
“Great. It’s like I’ve been playing these songs all my life.”
“Splendid. I’m very proud of you.”
He patted me on the back. It made me feel good that he was proud of me.
“Let me see your fingers,” he said.
I showed him the fingertips of my left hand. They were red and swollen and blistered.
“They don’t hurt that bad,” I said.
“I want you to stop for the day. In fact, I want you stop for a couple of days and give your fingers a chance to heal.”
“You’re the boss,” I said. I looked at my watch. I reminded him it was time for another shot, and he went and drew it up, gave it to me, and then left the room.
My fried chicken and salad and iced tea with lemon came. I put everything on the rolling table and rolled the table to my chair and ate supper by myself. I had eaten every meal by myself for as long as I could remember. It was a lonely way to live. It would have been nice to have someone to talk to, but I couldn’t remember it ever being any other way so I wondered how I could miss something I never had. Brother John had said that Dale from the show was my girl. She was a beautiful woman. If she was my girl, I should be with her, I thought. Someday I would be with her, maybe after this job Brother John had for me, whatever it was. I longed for some companionship. I wished I could remember the address in the Philippines. If she was there, I wanted to be there with her. I tried to think while I ate, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember anything. All I knew was that my name was Alexander Maddox and my friends called me Maddog and I was an excellent guitar player.
It was hard to eat with one hand, but the blisters on my left fingertips screamed bloody hell every time they came in contact with the hot greasy chicken. I managed to finish, and the same guy who had brought the food in came and took the trash away. He didn’t say anything. The guys never said much. They were all business.
The lights went down and the show came on and I sat back and relaxed and watched it. I paid special attention to Dale this time. Brother John had said that she was my girl. She was certainly a beautiful woman.
After the show, I exercised for a while and then took a shower and shaved. It was almost time for my weekly haircut. I had a crew cut, like all the other guys, and Brother John insisted on a clean-shaven face. There was a tattoo of an angel on my left arm. I had no recollection of how it got there. Maybe I had been to Margaritaville at the time, like Jimmy Buffet. It was a nice tattoo. The angel’s wings were spread, and every feather had been drawn with painstaking detail. There was a circle on the angel’s chest and the number 88 inside the circle. The angel had a crew cut and a clean-shaven face.
Saturday the barber came and gave me a haircut. A few minutes after he left, Brother John came and gave me my shot and looked at my fingers.
“How do they feel?” he said.
“Great. I’m ready to play some more.”
“Good. I’m going to take you on a little trip in a few days.”
“Is this the job you were telling me about?”
“Yes.”
“So what is it you want me to do?”
“I want you to do what I tell you to do. Nothing more, nothing less.”
He turned and walked out of the room.
I spent the next few days learning more songs, this time from a Christian rock group called Testimony. Brother John had sent them a promo package with my picture and a sample of my playing, and they had invited me to come to LA and work with them on their new album.
I was in my room composing the lead guitar solo for a song called “Need to Know” when one of the guys wheeled in two Marshall speaker cabinets and a Marshall amplifier head and a multi-effects pedal. He positioned the gear near the computer and cabled everything together. Shortly after he left, Brother John came in and gave me my shot.
“What’s your name?”
“Alexander Maddox, but my friends call me Maddog. Or just Dog.”
“How’s it going?”
“I’m working on the lead part to the last song,” I said. “I’ll be ready by the end of the day.”
“Excellent. How do you like your new equipment?”
“It’s big.”
“It’s called a Marshall full stack. The effects unit is a Boss GT-Ten. World-class gear for a world-class player.”
“Thank you. It’s very nice.”
“I want you to practice with it, fiddle
around with the effects, and so forth. We’re going to pack up and leave for California day after tomorrow.”
“We’re flying out there?”
“No, we’ll be going in a van. A couple of my men will be driving us.”
“Is it a long drive?”
“It is, but I assure you the van is very comfortable. Think of it as an adventure.”
“OK.”
He left and I resumed my practice session, using the new amplifier and the effects pedal. Everything sounded superb, much better than the small practice amp I’d been using.
I kept trying to remember how I became such a good musician. Occasionally, a little snippet would come to me in a flash, like a quick edit on a movie screen. In one of these jittery images, I saw myself as a very young man, twenty-four or twenty-five, with hair to my shoulders and a full beard. I wore bell-bottom jeans and a denim jacket with the sleeves cut off. I was holding a red hollow-body electric guitar, and there was a white bandana tied around my head. I saw it clear as day and I knew it was me, but then it dissolved and disappeared as quickly as it had come.
Apparently, I had been playing the guitar for a long time. I wanted to know about my past. I decided I wasn’t going to practice anymore or go to Los Angeles or cooperate in any way until Brother John told me some things. I sat in my chair and waited. One of the guys came and asked what I wanted for supper. I told him I wanted to speak with Brother John and he said OK.
Brother John came in a few minutes later.
“What’s your name?” he said.
“Alexander Maddox, but my friends call me Maddog.”
“Why did you stop playing?”
“I want to know who I am.”
“You just told me who you are. Your name is Alexander—”
“I want to know about my history. Where was I born? Who are my parents? Why am I here? Why do I have a tattoo of an angel on my arm? How did I learn how to play the guitar? I can’t remember any of that stuff.”
“I’ll tell you everything you want to know,” he said. “After our trip to California. There’s going to be a big event on Friday, and we’ll be heading back home early that morning. I’ll tell you everything then. It’s going to be glorious, Maddog. You’ll see.”
“I want to know now.”
“Not possible.”
“Why not?”
“Haven’t I been good to you? Haven’t I given you everything you want?”
“That’s beside the point,” I said. “Everyone has a right to know where they came from. I want to know, and I want to know now.”
He got up and left the room without saying another word. The lights dimmed and the screen came down and the show came on. Flash Gordon. “Deadline at Noon.” I had seen it a thousand times. I picked up the Fender Stratocaster by the neck and started swinging it like an ax at the projection screen. Before I was able to destroy the guitar and the screen, two guys came in and strapped me into my chair. Brother John came in and gave me a shot, but it wasn’t my usual shot. Everything went black and when I woke up, we were in the van heading for LA.
Brother John and I sat in a pair of fancy reclining seats bolted to the floor behind the driver and the guy riding shotgun. The headliner had been fitted with faux wood paneling and recessed LED lights and drop-down DVD monitors. There weren’t any side windows. A steel lattice partition divided the passenger section from the cargo section, and through it I could see some suitcases and the Marshall speaker cabinets.
I looked at my watch. It was Monday, May 9, 10:50 a.m. It had been over thirty-six hours since I’d had a shot. The insects were dancing under my skin again.
“Where are we?” I said.
Brother John looked up from the book he was reading. “What’s your name?”
“Alexander Maddox. My friends call me Maddog. Where are we?”
“We’re in Oklahoma,” he said. “We got an early start. We’ll stop for lunch in Oklahoma City.”
“I need my shot. And I need to take a piss.”
Brother John reached under his seat and grabbed a leather satchel. It looked like the bag that Doc carried on the TV show Gunsmoke. He unwrapped a fresh syringe, drew the medication from a vial, wiped the port on my PICC line with an alcohol swab, and screwed the syringe onto the port. He pushed the plunger slowly and the subdermal cockroaches that had become the bane of my existence stopped doing the Watusi and once again everything was right with the world. Everything except my bladder. He instructed the driver to take the next exit and he did and we all got out and took a bathroom break at the Shell station. The guy who had been driving filled the gas tank. There was a Shoney’s across the street and Brother John said we might as well eat lunch now instead of having to stop again.
The drivers sat at one booth and Brother John and I at another. Brother John suggested we all choose the buffet. Everything looked fresh and there were a lot of choices. I had a salad and some meatloaf and mashed potatoes. The waitress brought me an iced tea and Brother John a Coca-Cola.
“Will there be anything else?” she asked.
“That should do it,” Brother John said.
She set the check on the table. “Just pay up front whenever you’re ready.”
She smiled and walked away.
“How’s the meatloaf?” Brother John said.
“A little greasy, but good.”
“We should be settled in LA by this time tomorrow.”
“You never did tell me why we’re going there,” I said.
“You’re going to record some songs with the group Testimony. I thought I made that clear.”
“Sure, but you also said there’s going to be some big event Friday. Today’s Monday. That doesn’t give us much time to record an album.”
“Very astute of you, Maddog. You’re right. We won’t be sticking around for the whole album.”
I took a bite of meatloaf and washed it down with some tea. “So what’s the big event?”
“Like I said, it’s going to be glorious. That’s all you need to know for now.”
We finished our meal and the drivers grabbed a mint and a toothpick and walked outside while Brother John and I waited for someone to come to the register. A guy with a bad haircut and a nametag that said Barry Collins, Assistant Manager, finally came and rang us up.
“Was everything all right?” he said.
“Fine,” Brother John said.
I thought about saying something about the meatloaf being a little greasy, but I didn’t.
We walked out to the van. The drivers had switched places. The one who had been driving before was now in the front passenger’s seat. We had a full tank of gas and I knew it would be a long time before we stopped again, so I did a few stretches before climbing into my seat.
As promised, we were in LA by lunchtime on Tuesday. From the interstate, we took the San Bernardino Freeway and got off on Hollywood Boulevard. Brother John told the driver to take a right on Vine, and a few minutes later we parked at a meter in front of a tall circular building with a sign on top that said Capitol Records.
“Come with me, Maddog,” Brother John said.
There were stars on the sidewalk, but I didn’t recognize any of the names. We walked through the front door and into the lobby of the building. At the reception desk, there was an attractive young lady with long blonde hair wearing a navy-blue business suit and a telephone headset. Her nametag said Ericka.
“May I help you?”
“I need to speak with Bob Watson,” Brother John said.
Ericka thumbed through some papers on a clipboard. “Bob’s in a session right now. I could leave him a message if you—”
“I know he’s in a session. That’s why we’re here. Just tell him Brother John is waiting in the lobby.”
She punched some numbers into her phone base, but nobody answered.
“I’ll send him a text,” she said.
She sent Bob Watson a text, and his message back said he would be down in a few minutes. Brother J
ohn and I sat in a pair of leather armchairs and waited.
“Who’s Bob Watson?” I said.
“The producer. Talented guy. Look at any Billboard from the last twenty years and you’re going to see his name somewhere between the covers.”
The lobby was decorated with potted plants and gold records and photographs of famous musicians: Sinatra sporting a fedora, standing behind a microphone with his hands in his pockets; Dean Martin in a black tuxedo, holding a cigarette and a glass of whiskey; the Beach Boys, young and clean-cut, wearing matching striped shirts. I was admiring a shot of John, Paul, George, and Ringo when the elevator dinged and out stepped a man wearing white pants and a blue polo and tinted glasses. Midfifties, tall and slim, tanned and toned. His sandy blond hairpiece was barely detectable.
Brother John stood and shook the man’s hand. “Great to see you, Bob.”
“You too, my friend. Is this your guitar player?”
“Yes. Bob Watson, meet Alexander ‘Maddog’ Maddox.”
I stood and shook Bob Watson’s hand. “Pleased to meet you,” I said.
Bob smiled, revealing a mouthful of porcelain veneers. “Same here. I’ve heard nothing but good things about you. We’re just laying some drum tracks right now, but I’d like to get started on some rhythm guitar this evening. How’s that sound?”
“Sounds great,” I said.
“We’ll go grab some lunch and get settled in at the hotel,” Brother John said. “Can we go ahead and unload Maddog’s amp and stuff while we’re here?”
“Absolutely,” Bob said. “We’re on the eighth floor, Studio B. Need someone to wheel it up for you?”
“I have a couple of roadies with me, but thanks.”
“Bitchin’. See you guys around six.”
“We’ll be here.”
We said good-bye and headed back outside. As we strolled past the reception desk, Ericka smiled and winked at me. I couldn’t help but grin.