Basket Case (2 page)

"That's not what I meant," I say. "I was hoping you would talk to me. Just a few quick questions? I'm sorry, but I'm on a tight deadline—"

"After you get hold of Cleo," Jimmy's sister says, "call me back."

"Do you have her phone number?"

"Sure." She gives it to me, then says: "I've got an address, too. You ought to go out to the condo."

"Good idea," I say, but I hadn't planned to leave the newsroom. I can do five phoners in the time it takes to drive to Silver Beach and back.

Jimmy's sister says, "You want to get this story right, you gotta go meet Cleo." She pauses. "Hey, I'm not tryin' to tell you how to do your job."

"I appreciate the help, but just tell me one thing. How'd your brother die? Was he sick?"

She knows exactly what I mean. "Jimmy's been straight for nine years," she says.

"Then what happened?"

"It was an accident, I guess."

"What kind of accident?"

"Go ask Cleo," says Jimmy's sister, and hangs up.

I'm on my way out the door when Emma cuts me off. She's almost a whole foot shorter than I am; sneaky, too. I seldom see her coming.

She says, "Did you know Rabbi Levine took up hang gliding at age seventy? That's good stuff, Jack."

"Did he die in his hang glider, Emma? Crash into the synagogue, by chance?"

"No," she concedes. "Stroke."

I shrug. "Nice try, but I'm off to visit the widow Stomarti."

Emma doesn't budge. "I like the rabbi better."

Hell. Now she's forcing me to show my cards. I glance quickly around the newsroom and notice, with some relief, that none of the young superstars are working today. That's one good thing about a Sunday shift, the newsroom is like a tomb. Emma wants to take away my story, she'll have to write the damn thing herself.

And Emma, bless her sorority-sister soul, has never been a reporter. Judging by the strenuous syntax of her memos, she likely would have difficulty composing a thank-you note.

So, here goes.

"James Stomarti was Jimmy Stoma," I say.

Emma's brow crinkles. She senses that she ought to know the name. Rather than admitting she doesn't, she waits me out.

"Of Jimmy and the Slut Puppies," I prompt.

"No kidding."

"Remember that song, 'Basket Case'?"

"Sure." Emma turns slightly, her raptor eyes scanning the rows of cubicles. The plan, I know, is to hand off Stoma to another reporter and dispatch me to do the dead rabbi.

But Emma's coming up empty. The only warm body on the city desk is Griffin, the weekend cop guy. Griffin is sixty years old, nasty and untouchable. Emma has no authority over the police reporters. Griffin looks up from his desktop and stares right through her, as if she were smoke.

With a trace of a frown, Emma turns back to me. "Suicide, right?"

"Nope. Accident."

Grudgingly, Emma moves out of my way. "Twelve inches," she says curtly. "That's all we've got, Jack."

"For a dead rock star," I say drily, "a Grammy Award-winning musician who dies tragically at age thirty-nine? Honey, I promise you the New York Times will give it more than twelve inches."

Emma says, "Not on the Death page, they won't."

I smile. "That's right. Not there."

Emma's expression darkens. "Ungh-ugh, Jack. I'm not pushing this for Page One. No way!"

Jesus, what a hoot. The Times won't put Jimmy Stoma out front—he'll be lucky to end up as the lead obit. But Emma's in a sweat, rattled at the possibility of me breaking out of the dungeon. No doubt she perceives that as a career-threatening crisis, for part of her mission as a junior editor is to see that I remain crushed, without hope of redemption. The next best thing to canning me would be to make me quit in disgust, which of course I'll never do.

This is too much fun.

I say to Emma: "You might mention Stoma in the budget meeting, just in case."

"Twelve inches, Jack," she reiterates sternly.

"Because my guess is, there's at least one Slut Puppies fan on the masthead." I'm referring to Abkazion, the new managing editor, who s my age and works weekends.

"Fifteen inches, max," amends Emma.

I wave goodbye with my spiral notebook, and stride toward the elevator. "We'll talk when I get back from visiting Mrs. Stomarti."

"What kind of accident?" Emma calls after me. "How did he die? Jack?"

2

My all-time favorite obituary headline is:

Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam of Mauritius Dies at Age 85.

This did not appear in a Dr. Seuss book, but in the New York Times. Maybe three dozen readers in all Manhattan had ever heard of Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, but that's what made the matter-of-fact tone of the headline so splendid—the dry implication that even non-Mauritians ought to have known who he was.

Obituary headlines often contain helpful (though sometimes unnecessary) identifiers—Joe DiMaggio, Former Baseball Star, Dead at 84—yet no clue was provided as to the occupation or achievements of the departed Ramgoolam patriarch. Perhaps the headline writer was hamstrung by a lack of space, due to the phenomenal length of the deceased's name, though I prefer to believe the succinctness was intentional.

Sir Seewoosagur is gone. Enough said.

I won't be writing the headline on Jimmy Stoma's obituary because, contrary to what readers think, reporters don't come up with the headlines for their stories. Copy editors do.

One time the copy editor on the Death page called in sick, and Emma herself was left with that duty. It was September 11, 1998, and here's what she put above one of my obituaries:

Keith Murtagh, Inventor of French Toast, Dies at 96 After Brief Illness

The man's name was Kenneth Murtaugh, he had invented a toaster oven, and he was sixty-nine when he crashed his Coupe de Ville into a palm tree along Perdido Boulevard. That he died was the only fact Emma managed to get right.

The one who got the angry letters from the dead man's family was me, because it was my name on the story beneath the fucked-up headline. Weeks later, Emma sent me a memo of apology, in which she again misspelled Murtaugh's name. God, if only it had been out of spite and not incompetence…

Driving across Pelican Causeway, I'm imagining the headline possibilities for Jimmy Stoma.

James Stomarti, Former Pop Star, Dies in Accident at 39

Or, slightly better:

Rock Musician Known as Jimmy Stoma Dies in the Bahamas

That's if the story remains on the obit page, where headlines are customarily subdued and colorless. All bets are off if the duty editor bumps Stoma to Metro or Page One, in which case I would give my right testicle to see a "Slut Puppy" reference in 40-point type, such as:

Rocker Jimmy Stoma, Ex-Slut Puppy, Perishes at Age 39 in Bahamas Accident

Now there's a headline to sell papers. You've got the irresistible ingredients of glamour (rock music), notoriety (the famously naughty Slut Puppies), youth (age thirty-nine), tragedy ("perish," an exquisite verb, implying a rich life cut short), all set against an exotic tropical backdrop…

Ugly but true: Death is what pays my bills.

At one time I was a serious reporter doing what passed for serious journalism. Now I write exclusively about the unliving—I go to bed each night thinking about the ones I've laid to rest in tomorrow's paper, and I wake up every morning wondering who will be next. My curiosity is strictly and professionally morbid. Shamelessly I plot to resurrect my newspaper career by yoking my byline to some famous stiff. My days are spent dodging dead Rabbi Levines in the hope that someone more widely known will pass away before the first-edition deadline.

Certainly this is no life to be esteemed. Yet I like to think I bring uncommon style and perspective to the obituary page, which is traditionally a training ground for interns and fresh-out-of-college rookies. Emma, of course, would prefer that her modest stable feature an obit writer who was younger and less experienced than herself; someone she could guide, counsel and occasionally intimidate.

But she's stuck with me, and I make her as jittery as a gerbil in a cobra pit. Emma keeps a stash of Valiums in her top drawer—the pills are disguised in a Bayer aspirin bottle, to avoid discovery by any of her ambitious rival editors. They would unhesitatingly use the information to cast doubt on Emma's fitness for newspaper management.

Poor girl. She has a decent soul, I'm certain, and an untested heart that doesn't deserve to be wrung like an old dishrag. Yet that's what is bound to happen if Emma stays in this miserable profession. I'm determined to save her; she is one of two pressing personal projects.

The first being, to save myself.

Before heading to Silver Beach, I make two quick stops. The first is a record store, where I purchase the only un-remaindered copy of Floating Hospice. Next, with Jimmy Stoma belting from the dashboard of my Mustang—"My baby is a basket case, a bipolar mama in leather and lace!"—I drive to a drugstore that employs a worldly young woman named Carla Candilla.

Carla is the daughter of my favorite ex-girlfriend. She works the drugstore's photo counter. She waves when she spots me standing in line—we are on closer terms than her mother and I.

Carla smiles. "Blackjack!" Her nickname for me, inspired by my occupation.

I lean across the counter for a fatherly hug. "Once again I'm in need of instruction," I say.

"Fire away, old-timer."

"Cleo Rio. There wasn't much in the morgue."

"She's new on the scene," Carla concedes. "Is this research, or personal?"

"That's right, darling, we're a hot item, me and Cleo. Tonight we're going to a rave and later we're getting a suite at Morgan's. Tell that to your mom. Please, Carla, I'll pay you."

When Carla laughs she looks just like Anne, her mother. And Anne laughing is one of my all-time happiest recollections.

Carla asks if Cleo Rio is dead.

"No, it's her husband," I say.

"Oh, that's right. She got married," Carla nods. "It was in Ocean Drive."

Carla keeps track of all local and visiting celebs. At seventeen she is a wily veteran of the club scene and a regular pilgrim to South Beach, where she keeps current on music, movies, dietary trends and fashion. Carla is a key source; my only reliable link to modern youth culture.

"So what has Cleo done to make herself semi-famous? What exactly is she?" I ask.

"More specific please. You mean her sexuality? Nationality? Personality?"

"Carla," I say, "in about twenty minutes I've gotta sit down with this woman and drag three decent quotes out of her. This will require first-class bullshitting."

"She's a singer."

"That helps. What kind of singer?"

"Angry," Carla says, "wounded but not hardened."

"Alanis clone?"

Carla shakes her head. "Cleo's definitely going for a more precious effect. You know the type—the suddenly fuckable former fashion model."

Carla is not trying to shock me. She's talked this way since she was twelve.

"Tell me some of her hits," I say.

"Hit singular, Jack."

"So everything you're giving me is based on one song?"

"Plus the video," Carla says.

"Certainly."

"Directed by Oliver Stone."

"Who else."

"Supposedly she flashes some pubes. That's how she got her name in Spin," Carla reports. "Personally, I don't think it was even Cleo on the video. I think they used a double."

"For pubic hair?"

"Show business, Jack. Hul-lo?" Carla, who has come under the suspicious gaze of the store manager, now pretends to arrange some color slides on the light table for my inspection.

"What was the name of Cleo Rio's one and only song?" I ask.

" 'Me.' " says Carla. "That's all. Just 'Me.' "

"And it charted?"

"Only because of the pube hype."

"Gotcha. Thanks, darling."

"Where's the big interview?"

"Her place."

"I expect a complete debriefing."

"Of course. Hey, you ever hear of Jimmy and the Slut Puppies?"

Carla arches an auburn eyebrow. "They new?" She's afraid she's missed something.

"Nope. Old as the hills."

"Sorry, Jack."

Before leaving the drugstore, I can't stop myself from asking: "So how's your mom?"

"Good," says Carla.

"Really?"

"Really good."

"Shit," I say.

Carla laughs fondly. The fact that I still miss Anne buoys her opinion of me.

"Tell her I said hi."

"You're quite the dreamer, Jack."

Jimmy Stoma's condo is on the nineteenth floor of an eyesore skyscraper at the southernmost tip of Silver Beach. Twenty minutes she keeps me waiting in the lobby, Jimmy's widow, but truthfully I'm surprised she agreed to see me at all. From the briefness of the death notice, it would seem that the family doesn't want much attention.