No, it couldn’t be, Andrew thought. Bloody Christ. Evidently, Simon and Christian hadn’t put two and two together yet, or weren’t nearly as fazed as Andrew was by the fact that one of the world’s greatest managers now sat a few feet away from them.
Perhaps that was for the best. The last thing Andrew wanted was for them to appear desperate, and Christian would never be able to control his excitement if he knew who this man truly was. Being in a band had never lost its initial thrill for him despite the sleepless nights, the rotten food, and the endless headaches. Getting someone like Neil St. John to back them would be huge. Beyond huge. Andrew felt his mouth go dry and his ADD make its way out of his hands as they began to play the underside of the table, fast and faster until he forced them flat in his lap.
“I was impressed by what I heard tonight. It’s raw and needs work, a lot of work actually, but it’s got something, something that could be incredible if you do the right things. You recorded an album. On what label?”
Andrew blinked, and his mind raced to comprehend the situation before him. “We don’t have one. It’s self-financed.” He was not sure this was what Neil wanted to hear, yet the man’s face gave nothing away. Christ, he had to stop his hands from shaking. Neil St. John. The Neil St. John.
“No manager, no agent?”
“Nothing.”
“How do you do it?”
“Well…” Andrew took a deep breath. How did they do it? In the beginning, they had hired one Mr. Lou Fratteni, a squat, paunchy chartered-accountant type from Liverpool who claimed he knew the business inside and out. He ended up disappearing one night with most of their money and Andrew’s best Cherryburst Les Paul. After that, they swore off the idea, deciding to manage the band on their own. It worked, or had worked for a while. Andrew knew they couldn’t go on like this forever though; they needed help. It was too much—too much work, too much tension, too much everything.
“We manage pretty well. We exploit every form of social media we can get our hands on, and we’re obsessively fan driven. Arrange our shows where we can gather the most bodies. Like tonight, we knew a ton of our fans would show up if we could book that particular site. See, we can usually fill up houses that way, that and by word-of-mouth. There isn’t much left over for marketing—a little radio, flyers, and whatever the venue is willing to front.” Andrew wanted to sound intelligent or at least intelligible, but his excitement left him rocking back and forth like his seat was on fire.
“We’re the rock geek darlings of the Internet,” Simon added, peering briefly over his glasses at his band mate. “We give our knickers away for free online, let ’em listen to our music, get them hooked, but make them pay at the door to hear it live.” His hand curled around the handle of his glass, the letters I-R-O-N tattooed on the back of his fingers. Simon wiggled his pinky, emblazoned with a Y.
Over the next Guinness, Andrew could feel the anticipation hum around them much like the bristling nervous edge of walking onstage. It was apparent that Neil was interested; he seemed full of questions and noted their answers in errant scribbles on the paper placemats. How interested, who knew, but the communal sense of unease of a few minutes ago had given way to fast conversation, people talking over people, and in the back of Andrew’s mind the future was quickly being reduced to this booth on Saturday, December 27, 2009. Their first conversation, the anthologies would say. He could see the article in Spin, with a black and white picture of the four of them leaning against the tattered booth.
“Wait, you’ve been touring for how long?” Neil asked, bringing Andrew back down to earth.
“Two straight years with no breaks,” Christian answered, a hint of pride mingled with disbelief in his tone. “Unless you account for the time we took to record the album and the two weeks off for Christmas so my parents could scream at me for squandering my Cambridge scholarship. I told them I just couldn’t get enough of living in a van with Euro-trash degenerates and using travel-sized mini-soaps.”
Neil laughed out loud at that, which allowed the rest of them to join along.
“Christian was playing jazz downtown when we saved him from wasting his fine talents on decent pay,” Simon interrupted, wanting to set the record straight. “We had left university and thought it would be a healthy career choice for him as well.”
“Proving that slavery never died,” added Christian.
“And you two? How did you meet?” Neil looked between Andrew and Simon.
“Go ahead,” Simon offered with a wave of his glass, R-O-N-Y stretching wide. It was a story they had recited countless times, never tiring in the retelling, as it always gave them the opportunity to get a rise out of the other. “I’ll correct it anyway. You always fuck it up, trying to make yourself look superior with that Byronic sex appeal.”
“Christ.” Andrew blew the long hair out of his eyes and shook his head, to which Neil took a measured swig of his drink.
“Simon ruined my otherwise exemplary boarding school experience. He got me thrown into detention more times than I can remember, the git. For the first two years of school we tortured each other—tor-tured each other,” Andrew said, grinning and slapping his hand against the table as he dragged out the syllables.
“Then one day a music professor, who was either mental or more likely bloody sick of us, set us to compose our first piece of music together. He locked us in a rehearsal room—I mean literally locked us in with a few bottles of water and a tin of stale biscuits. We didn’t leave that godforsaken place for fifteen hours, despite the kicking and the screaming.”
“And the begging,” interjected Simon.
“You begged. I never begged.”
“Paulie boy here had to get taken down a notch or two. He needed to realize that there was a greater talent other than his out there under the sun. Everyone thought he could walk on water.”
“Paulie?” Neil asked, smirking at Andrew.
“Simon is convinced he’s John Lennon’s love child. Long story,” Andrew explained with a dismissive wave at Simon. “So by default, I’m Paul. Or I should say, he requires a Paul.”
“And I, of course, look exactly like George,” remarked Christian with a jangle of his dreads. “Not to mention that I’ve met Simon’s mom, and I know for a fact she has a major problem with the whole love child thing. She knows exactly who the fathers are of all her children.”
“And I’m her best hope. The rest of her family are out driving trolleys or doing construction if they’re not drinking themselves shit-faced, while I’m off on scholarship to boarding school and university. No, I am firmly entrenched in the warm bosom of me mum, though she’s not talking to me at the present. Hates the band as much as Christian’s lot does. Thank God for Claudia. Now there’s a peach of a woman, putting up with all our shit. I’d bloody marry the woman if she’d have me, but then I’d be related to this twat and I’d be forced to shoot myself.”
“Claudia?” Neil repeated, his glass halfway to his lips.
“Andrew’s mum. Thank God for her. She’s our benefactor. Meal ticket. When we find ourselves in times of trouble, you get the picture.”
“She lives nearby?” Neil asked, more insistent now.
Full of the swell of goodwill rising up inside of him, not to mention the continued flow of stout, Andrew formulated the idea on the spot. “Listen, we’re heading over there next. She’s having a small get together for us before we push off again, and it’s loads more comfortable. Would you care to join us?”
Neil appeared aghast; in Andrew’s dimming focus, it took him a minute to realize that it was already nearing midnight, and the thought of crashing some unknown lady’s flat, no matter how posh, certainly wouldn’t be his cup of tea. But instead of politely backing out, Neil’s eyes focused directly on Andrew’s.
“When are you going out on the road? Where?”
Andrew tried to look away but couldn’t; Neil’s gaze was too severe. “Well…we’ve got three shows set up in Glasgow first, and from the
re we’ll head over to Edinburgh, then south to—”
“Andrew likes to keep moving. Thinks he’ll find her if he visits every city on the globe,” said Simon dryly.
“Who?” Neil asked.
“His muse.”
“Excuse me?”
“Shut it, Simon,” Andrew warned. The silence stretched thin between the two men. Simon downed the rest of his pint.
A string of idle small talk unraveled itself about the table before Neil hesitated and eyed his watch. “I must apologize, but I have another engagement, and I’m late, in fact.”
All three men got up when Neil stood. The abruptness of his departure made Andrew want to pound the wall. Why the hell couldn’t Simon keep his mouth shut? Why bring it up now when Neil would think he was certifiable? Fuck! But then Neil said the miraculous, causing all three musicians to stare at him in shock.
“You know, I’m remodeling a house in San Francisco and converting it into flats. It’s a nasty business, headache and all. Can’t really rent it in its current shape, but if you ever need a place to crash, I mean, if you find yourself in the city, it’s yours. I could line up some gigs for you as well, keep you busy for some time.”
“That’s an incredibly generous offer.”
As if sensing the incredulity in Simon’s voice, Neil went on. “No really, you haven’t seen the house. It’s falling down around one’s ears at the present. Rather difficult to retain a crew, you see. It’s haunted. Charming, really.” He added this last part as more of an excuse than explanation.
“Haunted?” Andrew blinked at Neil, wondering if he had heard him correctly. “As in a ghost?”
“No.”
“Thank God, for a minute there I thought you said—”
“As in ghosts. Plural. Lovers, I suppose. They can’t seem to locate one another other as they’ve never been seen in the same room at the same time. I gather it frustrates them, from the wailings going on. My wife even named them—Nick and Nora,” he concluded as though he had no desire to discuss it further.
And with that, all of Andrew’s hopes and dreams of the last few minutes came crashing down like an armful of cymbals. The man was mental. He believed in ghosts, literary ghosts perhaps, but ghosts nonetheless. Andrew glanced over to Simon and Christian to see if this revelation had the same effect on them but saw they were still slack jawed with wonder.
“Here’s my card.” They all stared down at the crisp, expensive-looking business card Neil placed on the table, ending for Andrew any chance of further clarification on the subject of the supernatural. “Like I said, look me up. I still have some pull in the industry, and there are plenty of first-rate venues to show off your talent properly, and we could chat more about your future. There’s only so long you can continue to do this on your own, you know. You really need to take the next step.”
With that, he tossed a sizable wad of cash on the table to cover the drinks and then some, shook their hands, and departed.
“Holy…fucking…hell.” Simon grabbed the card as they all sat back down, but Christian pushed him aside, wrestling it from his hands.
Andrew’s fingers began their incessant drumming again.
“Neil St. John. Neil fucking St. John.” Simon whistled, his back slamming against the booth. “Neil St. John. Andrew, do you believe this? Lord Almighty. Here’s what we’re going to do. We go to San Francisco, play his gigs, and stay there as long as it takes to drag the bloke out of retirement. We’ll offer to remodel the place on our own, if that’s what’s necessary.”
Andrew didn’t respond but sat staring at the door.
“Andrew…”
“No, I understand. This is bloody amazing…”
“But what?”
“But ghosts? The man sees ghosts. Multiple ghosts. He’s named them.”
“Who the hell cares?”
“You don’t think it’s a little strange that the man actually admits to seeing ghosts?”
“And you don’t?”
“It’s not the same.”
“Oh, hell yes, it is. And the only difference is that he’s met his ghosts and you never will.”
“We should play the gigs we’ve lined up, finish out here before we—”
“Oh no. Oh no, no, no. Stop it. Stop it now. You can’t be at all serious? You’re not turning down this opportunity because the guy sees a few dead people. He could be blowing Elvis for all I care. When are you going to realize she’s not out there? Even if we play every shithole from here to Bucharest, you’re not going to find her. She’s in your head. In your head, man—but I sure as hell wish she were flesh and blood so I could strangle her with my bare hands.”
“I beg to differ,” Christian offered, trying to diffuse the situation. “Personally, I’m cool with her living up in his head, or Graceland for that matter, as long as she keeps paying him a visit in his dreams every now and then. Makes for some incredible music. It’s best not to mess with one’s muse. Riles up the ghost world.”
Simon rolled his eyes. “Cut the voodoo hoodoo shit.”
“Hey, I learned that shit on my tante’s knee. Our boy’s haunted too. You got to respect that.”
“No he’s not! That muse of his isn’t some ghost. She never was real and never will be real. He’s got to give it up—it’s not healthy.” Simon turned to Andrew, trying to reason with him. “Listen, okay, listen…independent of this muse obsession of yours, or Christian’s ghost world, or this bloody Nick and Nora, I think we all need some time to get our heads screwed on straight after the last two years. We’ve been on the road constantly. You especially—you’ve been going at it like a madman, writing all hours of the night, never sleeping, pushing yourself to do everything to fucking perfection. You drive yourself to the brink during every performance. And don’t tell me you rested over Christmas. I know you didn’t. Your mum told us you were haunting the pubs. You’re going burn out or break down. Do you want to go through all that shit again?”
Andrew didn’t answer.
“I think we need to stay in one place for a while. And not for just a few days, either. Let’s relax for once before we head out again. This is a good thing. We play the gigs he lines up, he’s stoked, he—”
“He what, Simon? Comes out of retirement and manages us?” Andrew caught himself. It was what he wanted, what he had fantasized about only minutes ago before Neil went delusional. But to stop moving, to drop anchor in one place?
“I don’t know. But it sure as hell beats chasing after a woman that doesn’t exist. You have to live in the real world. I’m not going back to Dublin with nothing to show for it, and I’m not playing studio back up for the rest of whatever. This is our chance.”
The two men stared at each other; neither one moved. The few late night patrons had gone silent, and even Christian sat forward, convinced that this time Simon might actually haul off and punch his best friend.
“Because you know what, Paulie?” Simon slowly reached over and took hold of the malt vinegar bottle, IRONY tightening around the neck. Andrew didn’t blink. Simon clenched it tighter. This is it, Christian’s face read. He’s going to beat the living shit out of him. Simon moved the bottle to his mouth as though he might rip the top off with his teeth, but instead he held it to his lips like a microphone. A second later he began to belt to all who would listen about pictures fading to black and white and time standing still.
A loud groan rose from the customers as they hunkered down under the new vocal onslaught. Andrew sat back, shaking his head and scrubbing his face with his hands while Simon carried on.
Christian pointed his finger at Andrew.
“Elton John,” he shouted over the caterwauling. “Off of Caribou, nineteen seventy-four. Covers, again tons, but Maynard Ferguson did a wicked jazz rendition of it.”
“You frighten me, Andrew, you really do. Hey, but seriously, have you had any other visitations from your muse? Any dreams?”
Andrew swallowed at Christian’s question and dropped his gla
nce into the bottom of his Guinness. “No.”
Christian had always been completely accepting of Andrew’s muse, which made Andrew feel a little less crazy, but he had searched for her all his life and he knew Christian was right. He was haunted in ways he could never explain and barely understood himself.
At some point during the last refrain, the cook trudged out of the kitchen brandishing a spatula, and Simon reluctantly sat back down. He grabbed another onion ring and waved it at Andrew.
“Forget her, my friend. Long term women, fantasy or otherwise, are not in the cards right now. And who needs them? Look at us, I mean, who would’ve thought we’d be sitting in this most fashionable dining establishment, feasting on these most succulent grease delivery vehicles when only a few years ago we were starving uni students?”
“I’ve got news for you, Simon. We’re still starving.”
“Ah, yes, but now we’re starving and about to be dead famous,” he said and popped the onion ring into his mouth.
“He’s got a point,” Christian said, nodding.
“I haven’t said yes yet.”
“But you will.”
2
* * *
The Lost Boys at the Skellar, 9 p.m.
Friday and Saturday, February 27th and 28th.
Cover charge.
“Nervy. Heartrending. Explosive. Vocals that electrify the hairs on the back of your neck and evoke a post-grunge pathos, and music with enough raw power to run a small country, San Francisco’s newly arrived Andrew Hayes, Christian Wood, and Simon Godden of The Lost Boys stun crowds whenever they perform.”
Grave Refrain: A Love/Ghost Story Page 2