A Soft Barren Aftershock

by F. Paul Wilson

  Typical.

  He tried the doorknob. It turned. He went in.

  A pigsty. That’s what it was—a pigsty. Empty Kentucky Fried Chicken buckets caught the breeze from the door, rolling among the Big Mac boxes and countless candy bar wrappers littering the floor. Dust everywhere. The rug had once been red—possibly; hard to tell in the dim light. Cobwebs in all the ceiling corners. Clothes strewn everywhere. Acrid smoke layered out at three distinct levels in the air of the room, undulating sensuously in the draft.

  And there in the middle of the room, sitting cross-legged like some black-skinned maharishi, his emaciated body naked but for a stained pair of jockey shorts, was Flip Goodloe, staring off into space while he picked and chorded an aimless melody from the Martin clutched before him. His hair was a rat’s nest, looking like he had tried to weave a natural into dreadlocks but had given up halfway along.

  “Flip,” Lenny said, raising his voice to break through the noise. “Flip!”

  Rheumy, red-rimmed eyes focused on Lenny through pinpoint pupils. A slow smile spread across Flip’s features.

  “Well, if it ain’t my old friend, Lenny. Been seeing you on TV pushing those moldy oldies collections. You got fat, man. You look like Porky Pig on the tube. Yeah. L. Weinstein, a.k.a. Daddy Shoog, a.k.a. Lenny Winter, former dj, former owner of countless tiny record companies—bankrupt record companies—and now known as Mister Golden Oldies.”

  Lenny bowed—not an easy trick with his girth—more to escape the naked hostility in Flip’s eyes and voice than to accept the sarcastic approbation.

  “Oh, yeah. I almost forgot: former collaborator. I must be the only guy in rock who collaborated with someone who’s never written a single lyric or note of music in his life.”

  Not the only, Lenny thought. Plenty of others.

  Flip switched to a Kingfisher voice: “Ah guess dat makes yo’ de collaborator, an’ me de collaboratee.”

  “That’s all water under the bridge, Flip,” Lenny said, uncomfortable. This man had no class—no class at all. “Whatever disagreements we had in the past, we can bury now. I’ve got a deal for you. A great deal. It’ll mean your comeback. Chuck Berry came back. You can, too—bigger than ever!”

  Flip’s smile finally faded. “What makes you think I wanna comeback?”

  Lenny ignored the remark. Every has-been wants a comeback. He went on to explain the details of the ninth annual “One Mo’ Once Golden Oldies Revival” tour, how it was going to be the biggest and best ever of its kind. And how he, Lenny Winter, out of the goodness of his heart, had decided to let Flip Goodloe headline the tour.

  What he didn’t say was that he needed Flip as headliner to put the icing on the cake, so to speak. The back-to-basics influence of the latest hits was having its effect, and Lenny was going to cash in on it. He’d always been able to pick up trends. It was his big talent, what had made him Daddy Shoog back in the old days. He sensed new interest growing in old-time rock ‘n’ roll, especially in the unpretentious, down-and-dirty, no-holds-barred guitar style of someone like the Flipper. Lenny could feel it in his gut—Flip Goodloe leading the bill would turn a successful, reasonably profitable tour into a gold rush.

  He needed Flip. And he was going to get him. .

  “Not interested,” Flip said.

  “You don’t mean that. What else have you got going for you?”

  “Religion, Lenny. I got religion.”

  Lenny kept his face straight but mentally rolled his eyes. Who’s the guru this time?

  “Born again?” he said.

  “No way. I worship the great god Doolang.”

  “Doolang.” Great.

  “Yeah.” Flip pointed toward the ceiling. “Behold His image.”

  Lenny squinted into the hazy air. Hanging from a thread thumbtacked to the ceiling was a wire coat hanger twisted into an “S”-like configuration . . . like a cross between a G-clef and a dollar sign.

  “Doolang?”

  “You got it. The God of Aging Rockers. I already burned my offering to Him and was just warming up to sing His favorite hymn.”

  “Is that what I smell? What did you burn?”

  “Rod Stewart’s latest.” He giggled. “Know what hymn he likes best?”

  Lenny sighed. “I’ll bite—what?”

  “ ‘He’s So Fine.’ By the Chiffons. Remember?”

  Lenny thought back. Oh, yeah: Doolang-doolang-doolang.

  He laughed. “I get it.”

  Flip began to laugh, too. “I can also sing Him ‘My Sweet Lord.’ I’m not sure ol’ Doolang knows the difference.”

  He laughed harder. He flopped back on the floor and spread his arms and laughed from deep in his gut.

  Lenny saw the tracks on Flip’s arms and his own laughter died, strangled in coils of pity and revulsion. Flip must have noticed the direction of his gaze, for he suddenly fell silent. He sat up and folded his arms across his chest, hiding the scars.

  “Doolang don’t mind if someone shoots up once in a while. Especially if they been blackballed out of the industry.”

  Fury blasted a wave of heat through him. A hopped-up Flip Goodloe would be a liability rather than an asset. There’d be a constant risk of his getting busted making a score in K.C. or Montgomery or some other burg and that would be it for the tour. Finis. Caput. Dead.

  “Don’t give me this Doolang crap!” Lenny shouted. “You’re screwing up your—”

  Flip was on his feet in a flash, his face barely an inch from Lenny’s.

  “Don’t you dare take the name of the great god Doolang in vain! Your lips aren’t even worthy to speak His name in praise! You’d better watch out, L. Weinstein. Doolang’s pretty pissed at you. You’ve screwed more rockers than anybody else in history. One day He may decide to get even!”

  That did it. The Flipper was completely meshugge. His brain was fried. He’d mainlined once too often.

  Lenny pulled five C-notes from his wallet and threw them on the floor.

  “Here! Buy yourself a nice load of smack, a bunch of schmaltzy records, and a truckload of coat hangers. Twist the hangers into cute little curlicues, burn the records, and shoot up to your heart’s content. I don’t want to hear about it!”

  He spun and lurched out the door, away from the stink, away from the madness, away from the sight of the man he had ruined twenty years ago.

  Twenty years . . . had it been that long?

  A third Goodloe song, “Coin’ Home,” immediately followed the second. Flip’s music was starting to get on his nerves. He went back to where he had left his cigar. Smoke ran straight up in a thin wavering line from the tip. Near the ceiling it curled into a twisted shape almost like a G-clef.

  Lenny gave it passing notice as he knocked off the ash, then wandered around the trophy room in a pensive mood.

  Flip had accused him of screwing more rockers than anyone else in history. A rotten thing to say. Sure, a lot of them felt screwed, but in truth they owed Lenny Winter a debt of thanks for giving them a chance in the first place. He’d pulled some fast ones—no use kidding himself—but he felt no guilt. In fact, he could not help but take a certain amount of pride in his fancy footwork.

  He had realized early on the power wielded by a New York City dj He could make a new artist by raving about the record and playing it every half hour, or he could abort a career simply by losing the record. Those were heady days. Every agent, every manager, every PR man for every label was pushing gifts, trips, girls, and cash at him. He took everything they offered—except the cash.

  Not to say he didn’t want the dough. He wanted that most of all. But he saw the dangers from the start. For obvious reasons, you couldn’t declare the money as income, and that left you open to a federal charge of income tax evasion if a scandal arose. You wouldn’t just lose your job then—you could be headed for Leavenworth if the IRS boys built up a good case against you.

  So cash was out for Lenny unless it could be laundered and declared. It nearly killed him to say
no to all the easy dinero being pushed at him . . . until the spring of ‘55 when he came up with a revolutionary scam. It happened the day a portly Negro—that was what they were called then—from a small Washington, DC label brought in a regional hit called “Georgia-Mae” by someone named Flip Goodloe. Lenny knew instantly it was special. He’d never heard a guitar played that way. It seemed to feed directly into the central nervous system. His sixth sense told him this artist and this record had almost everything needed for a big hit. Almost.

  “There’s just one problem,” Lenny had told the company rep. “That name won’t play around here.”

  “Y’mean ‘Flip’?” the black had said.

  “No. I mean ‘Georgia-Mae.’ It’s too hick, daddy. City kids won’t dig it.”

  Hard to believe now that he actually talked like that in those days.

  The black guy shrugged. “He wrote it, he can change it. What’s in a name?”

  “Everything, as far as this record’s concerned. Tell him to change it to something more . . . American sounding, if you get my drift.” The message was clear: Change it to a white-sounding name. “Then I can make it a biggy.”

  The black guy had been sharp. “Can? Or will?”

  Lenny had been ready to do his silent routine and see what was offered when it struck him that he had just made a significant contribution to this Flip Goodloe’s song. Fighting a burst of excitement that nearly lifted him from his chair, he spoke calmly, as if making a routine proposal.

  “I want to go down as co-composer of this song and of the B-side as well. And if I make it a hit—which I will—I want half credit on his next ten releases.”

  The company rep had shaken his head. “Don’t know about that. I don’t think the Flipper will go for it.”

  Lenny wrote “L. Weinstein” on a slip of paper, then stood and opened the door to his office.

  “He will if he wants to get out of DC.” He handed the slip to the rep. “And that’s the name of his new songwriting partner.”

  Lenny never did find out what transpired back in the offices of Backgammon Records, but four weeks later he received a promo 45 by Flip Goodloe called “Mary-Liz”—exactly the same song but for the name. And under the title was “(P. Goodloe-L. Weinstein).”

  Lenny began to play it two or three times an hour that very night. The record went gold before the summer. Half of all composer royalties went to Lenny. All legal, all aboveboard and, he knew, utterly brilliant.

  Not a stunt he could pull if a song came from the Brill Building or one of the other Tin Pan Alley tune mills, but it became a standard practice for Lenny with new artists who wrote their own material. Trouble was, there weren’t enough of them.

  Then it occurred to him: He had struck gold at the composer level. Why not get in on other levels?

  So he did. He started a record company and a publishing company, found an a-cappella group with a few songs of their own, recorded them with an instrumental backup, and published their music. All without anyone having the slightest notion that the famous Lenny Winter was involved. Lenny then pushed the record on his show and more often than not it became a hit. Lenny knew nothing about music, could not sing a note. But he knew what would sell.

  When sales for the record had dried up and all the royalties were in, Lenny closed up his operation and opened up down the street under a different name. The artists came looking for their money and found an empty office.

  Lenny followed the formula for years, funneling all profits through Winter Promotions, the company he had set up to finance his plans for live rock ‘n’ roll shows, the kind Alan Freed was doing hand-over-fist business with in places like the Brooklyn Paramount.

  “Down the Road and Around the Bend,” another Flip Goodloe hit, started through the speakers.

  Come on! Too bad about Flip being dead and all, but enough was enough.

  Lenny went over to the tuner. He noticed some wires had fallen out from behind the system. They were twisted into a configuration that looked something like a dollar sign. He kicked them back out of sight and twisted the tuner dial a few degrees to the left until he caught the neighboring FM station.

  The opening chords of “You’re Mine Mine Mine” by the Camellows filled the room.

  Lenny smiled and shook his head. This must be oldies night or something. He had recorded the Camellows on his Landlubber label back in ‘58. This was their only hit. Unfortunately, Landlubber records folded before any royalties could be paid. Such a shame.

  He moved along the wall to a poster from the fall of ‘59 proclaiming his first rock ‘n’ roll show. His own face—younger, leaner in the cheeks—grinned from the top, and below ran a list of his stars, some of them the very same acts he had recorded and deserted during the preceding years. A great lineup, even if he did say so himself.

  The shows—that was where the money was. Continuous shows ten a.m. ‘til midnight for a week or two straight. One horde of pimple-pussed kids after another buying tickets, streaming in with their money clutched in their sweaty fists, streaming out with programs and pictures and records in place of that money. Lenny had wanted a piece of that action.

  But he had to start small. He didn’t have enough to bankroll a really big show the first time out, so he found the Bixby, a medium-sized theatre in Astoria whose owners, what with the movie business in a slump and all, were interested in a little extra revenue. The place was a leftover from those Depression-era movie palaces and not adequately wired for the lighting needed for a live show. No matter: A wad of bills stuffed into the pocket of the local building inspector took care of that permit. From then on it was full speed ahead. The acts were lined up, and he began the buildup on his radio show.

  Opening night was a smash. Every show was packed for the first three days. He should have known then it couldn’t last. Things were running too smoothly. A screw-up was inevitable.

  Lenny shifted his eyes to the right to where a framed newspaper photo showed his 1959 self-dashing wide-eyed and fright-faced from a smoking doorway carrying an unconscious girl in his arms. That photo occupied a well-deserved place of honor in his trophy room. It had saved his ass.

  She had wandered backstage after the fourth show to meet the great Lenny Winter, the Daddy Shoog of radio fame—a fifteen-year-old blonde who looked older and was absolutely thrilled when he let her sit in his dressing room. They had a few drinks—she found Seven and Seven “really neat-tasting”—and soon she was tipsy and hot and on his lap. As his hand was sliding under her skirt and slip and up along the silky length of her inner thigh, someone yelled “Fire!”

  Lenny dumped her on the cot and ran to look. He saw the smoke, heard the screams from the audience, and knew with icy-veined certainty that even if he got out of here alive, his career as Daddy Shoog was dead.

  He glanced back into his dressing room and saw that the kid had passed out. It wouldn’t do to have a minor with a load of booze in her blood found dead of smoke inhalation in his dressing room. Wouldn’t do at all. So he picked her up and ran for the stage door. By some incredible stroke of luck, a Daily News photog had been riding by, seen the smoke, and snapped Lenny coming out the door with his unconscious burden.

  A hundred and forty-six kids died in the Astoria Bixby fire—most of them trampled by their fellow fans. Fingers of blame were pointed in every direction—at rock ‘n’ roll, at the building inspectors, at the fire department, at teenagers in general. Everywhere but at Lenny Winter. Lenny was safe, protected by that photo.

  Because that picture made page one in the News and was picked up by the wire services. Lenny Winter, “known as ‘Daddy Shoog’ to his fans,” was a hero. He had risked his life to save one of his young fans who had been overcome by smoke.

  And when the payola scandal broke shortly thereafter in the winter of ‘60, that dear, dear photo carried him through. The Senate panels and the New York grand jury questioned everyone—even Dick Clark—but they left Daddy Shoog alone. He was a hero. You didn’t bring
a hero in and ask him about graft.

  Looking back now, Lenny realized that it really hadn’t mattered much what happened then. The whole scene was in flux. Alan Freed went down, the scapegoat for the whole payola scandal. Rock ‘n’ roll was changing. Even its name was being shortened to just plain “rock.” Radio formats were changing, too. Lenny found himself out of the New York market in ‘62, and completely out of touch during the British invasion in the mid-sixties. Those were lean years, but he started coming back in the seventies with his series of “One Mo’ Once Golden Oldies Revival” tours. He was no longer Daddy Shoog, but Mr. Golden Oldies. He sold mail-order collections of oldies on TV. He was a national figure again.

  You can’t keep a good man down.

  A new song came on—“I’m on My Way” by the Lulus. A little bell chimed a sour note in the back of his brain. The Lulus had been one of his groups, too. Coincidence.

  Lenny turned his attention back to the wall and spotted another framed newspaper clipping. He didn’t know why he kept this one. Maybe it was just to remind himself that when Lenny Winter gets even, he gets even.

  A 1962 UPI story. He could have cut it from the Times but he preferred the more lurid News version. The subject of the piece was Flip Goodloe and how he had been discovered en flagrant with a sixteen-year-old white girl. His career took the long slide after that. And even when it had all blown over, he had messed himself up too much with heroin to come back.

  Strange how one thing leads to another, Lenny thought.

  Shortly before the incident described in the article, Flip had refused to give Lenny any further composer credit on his songs. He had called Lenny all sorts of awful things like a no-talent leech, a bloodsucker, a slime ball, and other more colorful street-level epithets. Lenny didn’t get mad. He got even. He knew Flip’s fondness for young stuff—young white stuff. He found a little teenage slut, paid her to get it on with Flip, then sent in the troops. She disappeared afterward, so the case never came to trial. But the morals charges had been filed and the newspaper stories had run and Flip Goodloe was ruined.