Emerald City (4 page)

Mike was tall, with thickly muscled shoulders and arms, probably not too surprising in a drummer. His hair was long, hidden under a net to protect the food, and his beard was thick. Under a plaid shirt he wore a long sleeve t-shirt, with a waffle undershirt beneath that.

“Hey Laura, you want coffee?” he yelled. I knew he'd been out here a long time, but I could still hear a trace of New England in his voice.

“I'm looking for you,” I told him.

He raised his eyebrows in surprise, then he smiled and said, “Give me five minutes, okay? Over by the bakery.”

That made sense. The bakery was where his girlfriend Deb worked, and she'd stoke him up with free pastries during the day to sugar-rush him through his shift. I pushed my way back through the crowds.

The bakery was on a little side corridor that went nowhere except to some
stairs. They did a good line in cakes and some excellent cheese bread I didn't dare eat too often. I bought one for later and ordered a mocha. There was no sign of Deb. Maybe it was her day off.

Mike trotted over about fifteen minutes later, five minutes in Seattle time. Without a word the barista pulled an espresso, put it in a paper cup and handed it to him.

“Deb off today?”

“I guess you haven't heard,” he said with a dark, embarrassed frown. “We split up. She moved out a couple of weeks ago.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.” I was, too. I liked her, funny, pretty and bubbly. And Mike single meant he could be a bit flirtatious.

“Shit happens.” He shrugged and gave me an appraising look. “You want to talk about Craig, right?”

“Yeah.”

I followed him down the main stairs to the concrete landing. He leaned on the railing, lit a cigarette and looked out at the container ships moving along Puget Sound. A busker was playing, guitar case open for money, his performance of Paul Simon classics more hopeful than good.

“I couldn't believe that shit,” Mike said slowly, smoke curling upwards from his mouth. “I loved that guy. It's like losing family.”

“And you were close to a deal.”

“Close? We had the deal,” he said angrily. “But fuck that, man. Yeah, it would have been good and everything.” He exhaled slowly. “Craig, though, I cared about him more than any record deal.” I could see his eyes beginning to glisten, and he turned his face away from me.

“Did you know he was using again?”

He turned back and shook his head. “I know he wasn't using,” he insisted. “That's the truth. Yeah, I know what happened last year, he never tried to keep that quiet. It caused enough grief in the band, but he'd kicked it. Seriously, he hadn't touched any of that shit in months. We all told him, do it again and we're out of here. And he listened.” He looked across at me. “I mean it. The guy wasn't using.”

The breeze brought the smell of salt air off the water. Mike finished his coffee and scrunched up the cup, then stomped out the cigarette butt and lit another.

“So how come you're interested in Craig?” he asked.

“I'm writing about him for The Rocket,” I replied.

He raised his eyebrows. “What, like an obituary?”

“An article. Trying to figure out why he died.”

He snorted. “Good luck. He pulled some stupid shit. That's your answer right there.”

“He ODed,” I said, although I was beginning to think that wasn't true. But I wanted Mike's opinion.

“That's my point.” There was a mix of anger and pain in his voice. “I guess he thought he could shoot up and it would be cool. Just one time, maybe. I don't know.”

“But he was clean, you're sure of that?”

“Yeah, I'm certain he was. You can't play in a band with a guy and not know that. No track marks, nothing.”

“Some people take heroin and maintain regular lives.”

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Maybe they do. All I know is that Craig wasn't using any more. He'd still smoke weed and drink and that was it. He just fucked up big time, that's what it is. You want to know more you'd better talk to Sandy. She knew him better than any of us.”

I let the silence fill the air for a long minute, watching seagulls swoop for the crumbs tourists dropped. Traffic swooshed along the raised levels of the Alaskan Way Viaduct before disappearing into the mystery of the Battery Street tunnel. Mike seemed willing to talk and there was more I needed to know.

“What was the story with the record label?”

“It was all set,” he answered, his tone full of vanished dreams. “ARP had flown us down to LA, they'd come to see us play at the Central a couple of times, and they liked what they saw. They loved Craig's songs. We'd made a demo tape for them, all the stuff that would be on the album. We'd got a lawyer and all that shit, man, and it was going to be big time. We were due to sign next week. Tickets booked. Done deal.”

“So why would Craig want to shoot up now?” I asked.

“That's what I'd like to know,” Mike said. I could hear the frustration tight in his voice. “You think I haven't asked myself that a million times since Saturday?”

“What now?”

“I don't know. I mean it, I really don't know.” He looked at his watch. “Hey, I've got to get back.” Mike gave a sour smile. “Better keep the boss happy. Looks like I'll be working there a while yet. If you ever want to meet up for a drink...”

I smiled and said nothing, watching as he walked away.

He left me there, looking down on the traffic and the sound of the busker switching to Cat Stevens. People passed, happy and animated, on vacation to grab everything we had to offer here. After being way off the beaten track we'd turned into big business. Seattle was a destination now; businesses rubbed their hands, talking eagerly of tourist dollars. New hotels were opening. But it was all cosmetic. Scratch the surface and Seattle was still the same place it had always been. Stroll around anywhere and there were panhandlers on the corners with their big-eyed dogs and pleas for spare change, and all the winos and junkies. At night the missions were all full and people were asleep in doorways. Get past the new gloss on the city there was plenty of grit underneath.

There were still two other members of Snakeblood to talk to: Tony and Warren, brothers who'd moved up from Texas a couple of years before to escape the heat and the conservatism of Dallas. They'd arrived with some money inherited from their grandfather and used it to open a small record store on Capitol Hill. One or both of them would be around, and the weather was fair enough to walk up there.

I headed up Pike Street as it stretched past the crumbling glory of the
Paramount Theater and welfare apartments that surrounded it, then into the businesses on the lower part of the hill, garages, gay bathhouses, and a few chic little places near the top of the slope. I cut over to Pine Street and then along Broadway.

Heaven and Hell Records was in the tidy block near the big Fred Meyer market, across from the QFC supermarket, surrounded by trendy restaurants and boutiques, a place to see and be seen. Everyone was cool here, as if it was a prerequisite written into the rental agreements.

Capitol Hill was also Seattle's main gay area; if anyone didn't like the sight of two men or two women holding hands and kissing, they could move on. Businesses all along the strip catered to the powerful gay dollar. I'd lived up here once in my early twenties. For three months I'd loved the constant bustle, but by the time my lease ended I'd had enough and moved somewhere quieter. Now I came here for a meal at the Deluxe or for meetings of my feminist group.

Heaven and Hell wasn't like its neighbors. It stood out defiantly among the chic designer shopfronts, dark posters filling the windows and heavy, clattering music banging from inside.

Tony and Warren loved the heavy barrage of industrial music. Ministry were their gods and the daily soundtrack in the store was heavy on the bass, thick drums and wailed vocals. The Butthole Surfers were playing loud when I arrived. Tony was deep in conversation with a customer while Warren was rearranging stock.

It was a small place with a tiny stockroom in the back, most of the music out or in racks, used LPs and tapes upstairs on the balcony. I'd found a few bargains here before, and it was sometimes a good place to trade in all those
promotional discs I received but didn't want to keep.

“Hey, Laura, you got some stuff for us?” Warren asked. He kissed me on both cheeks in that French way that seemed at odds with his Texas accent. He was taller than me, skinny as wire, good-looking in a very American way with hair that looked wild but was artfully, expensively cut. Underneath it was a surprisingly gentle face, blue eyes twinkling, mouth always on the edge of a smile. I liked him; he'd always accepted me as a writer and my interest in music as genuine.

“Not today,” I told him. “You got a minute?”

“I guess,” he said dubiously. “What do you need?”

“I want to talk about Craig.”

“Oh, man.” He glanced over at his brother and held up five fingers. Tony nodded and we headed out on to Broadway. The sun was trying to break through and people were parading around in tight t-shirts that showed gym bodies, even as goosebumps showed on their arms.

“What's with this shit?” he complained as we walked. “I thought it was supposed to rain here until July.”

“Don't worry,” I assured him, “it'll get wet again. Tomorrow, if you're lucky.”

We stopped at an espresso cart and I ordered a couple of lattes. There was a restaurant down the street where we could have sat and talked, but Warren seemed eager to be moving.

“I'm sorry about Craig,” I said as we headed down towards the reservoir. It was a curious space, not quite a park, not quite a lake, set back from the street and surrounded by a chain link fence with gates. People were walking
their dogs, a few joggers shed sweat as they ran laps around the water.

“It's wrong,” he said, glancing at me. “I mean it, honey, it's wrong.” His voice played over the word, stretching it into something large and long.

“Wrong how?”

He shook his head quietly as if he didn't have the words to describe it. “So why do you want to talk about him?” he asked instead. A pair of girls wandered by, both of them staring at him. He didn't even notice.

“I'm writing about him,” I explained. “For The Rocket.”

“Okay,” he said finally. “I guess that's cool. What are you going to write?”

“Whatever I find. Hopefully the truth.”

He shook his head. “There's not a fuck of a lot of truth around anywhere, you know that, right?”

“Then I'd better try and find some,” I told him. “It's why I'm here.”

“Ah, who the hell knows?” He finished his coffee and pitched the cup into a garbage can, a perfect three-pointer. He held his thumb and first finger a quarter of an inch apart. “We were that close. That fucking close to making it. And the shithead has to go and start sticking a needle into himself again.”

“I don't think he wanted to die,” I said.

Warren's anger deflated. “Yeah, I know. I'm just mad at him. And it hurts to have a buddy do that, it hurts like fuck. I can't figure it out. You know Craig came by the store on Saturday afternoon? He'd been visiting someone over here and he stopped by. He was happy, he was joking. He was psyched about signing the deal; we'd made it.”

“Who'd he been to see?” I asked, suddenly wondering how he'd spent his last day, whether he'd talked to the brothers when he already had the smack
in his pocket.

“I don't know. Somebody. I don't think he ever said.”

“How long did he stay?”

“Not long. He just checked through the used stuff and took an old Leonard Cohen album. He didn't have any money on him so Tony said he could pay us at rehearsal.”

“What happens now?” I asked.

“I don't know. The funeral,” he replied slowly, pushing a hand through his hair. “I guess his family will be in touch or something. Maybe Sandy. Fucking dick.”

“And after that?”

He looked blank for a moment then sadness filled his eyes. “Shit, I don't even know if there is an after that. It's not like the label's going to want us. Craig wrote the songs, Craig sang the songs, Craig played lead guitar. We were just the band. Take him away and you've got nothing anyone's going to want.”

I started to speak but he held his finger to my lips.

“Don't even say it. Craig was something special. I know it, you know it, the label knew it. He was the golden boy.”

“What about Tony?”

“Tony? He doesn't even want to talk about it. He's just been shutting himself in his room and banging his fucking head since we heard. We were going to be there, man, all of us together, walking into that office right behind Craig. You know what that means? I've been playing bass since I was thirteen. I used to dream about stuff like that, 'cause I knew it never really happened in
the real world. Craig gave it to me, and then he took it away again. I love him, I don't know why he did it, but I hate him for it, too.”

He turned and walked away with long, angry strides, just leaving me standing there.

I caught the bus back to Queen Anne, stopping at Safeway at the top of the hill to buy food for dinner. We'd developed a system; I'd buy the food one month, Steve would purchase it the next. When I had money I preferred Thriftway with its yuppie selection and prices, but right now I was feeling poor. There was money due from magazines, some of it months late. Until it arrived I was scraping by; fifty cents less on a frozen pizza seemed like a good deal. Steve paid his share, but money was still tight. I loved what I did but I wouldn't have complained if it paid a little better.

The apartment was stuffy, so I opened the sliding glass door to draw in the breeze and settled down to write. I started with an assignment I'd begged from The Rocket, a review of a debut cassette by a local band called the Posies. I'd gone out with a girlfriend one night back in January and chanced into Squid Row just as they began to play. I'd only planned on sticking around for two songs. I was still there when the last note had died away. They had energy, and a songwriting style that was pure, glittering pop, capping it all with a driving version of the Hollies' King Midas In Reverse, the harmonies breathtakingly note-perfect.

They were so young, barely legal drinking age, with thick mops of hair, and so eager and happy to be onstage that they seemed to bounce as they sang. They brought out everything I'd always loved about pop music, as if they'd just heard Big Star and been inspired to start playing. In a better world
they'd be breakout big. In this world, I wanted to write about them.

There's something happening here, I began, and what it is is very clear. The Posies have created a delicious debut dish that's one part Big Star, two parts power pop, and three parts British Invasion, then added their own secret herbs and spices...

It took over an hour to shape it properly, changing words, chopping them, starting over then deciding I was wrong, but finally I had something I could live with, not perfect but as close as I was likely to come today. I'd carefully avoided the Seattle tag; it was starting to take on too many connotations, and that was a shame. The truth was that the city was a broad musical church and there was plenty of room for the Young Fresh Fellows, the Fastbacks, the Walkabouts and the metal bands next to the Soundgardens, Mudhoneys and the Mother Love Bones who looked set to break big. Who wanted to keep eating the same thing when there was a full menu?

The Seattle music scene was really a little secret village that existed within the city. That was part of its beauty. Even inside this town, locked in by water to one side and the mountains on the other, you could feel like an outsider. The music tradition went back to the days of jazz on Jackson Street in the 1940s, when Quincy Jones and Ray Charles were playing together in the Cotton Club, through the Wailers at Spanish Castle in the 1950s with a teenage Jimi Hendrix following them around hoping to sit in, all the way down to now when you could go to the Central in Pioneer Square on a Saturday night, pay five bucks and hear some music that refused to conform. They were all sounds forged in the rain and the moss up here, the place I knew so well, where I'd grown up. I was proud of it, proud of my hometown and the Northwest. Maybe that was why I felt it in my soul and it moved me the way nothing else ever had.

I turned to the other review, one I'd been dreading, for a singer-songwriter who'd opened for Steve's band at a gig. Someone had told her I was a music journalist and she'd given me her tape then kept pestering to ask when I was going to write about it, saying that as a woman I should be supportive. I hated that kind of thing. Good was good and bad didn't need the column inches. I cobbled something together, a patchwork of neutral phrases that looked good but meant nothing.

Then, finally, I typed up my notes for the Craig Adler story, transcribing the interview with his neighbor, the encounters with Mike and Warren, and I understood just how little I had.

Everyone said Craig hadn't used heroin in months. Yet he'd died from an overdose. He'd bought it somewhere and put a needle in his arm when his band was all set to sign a good record deal. Had he suddenly decided to use some smack that night? Or had someone used the heroin to murder him? Until the threat, I'd believed it was just a sad accident. Now I had to keep digging until I found the truth. I sat back and thought, chewing on a strand of hair; it was a habit I'd kept since childhood, and one of the reasons I didn't cut my hair.

The only one who might have any sort of answer was Sandy. All I could do was hope she'd call me. Without her I didn't have much of a story at all. And it was a story. The phone message underlined that.

I'd just finished by the time Steve came home, the warm smell of dish detergent on his skin. He gave me one of the goofy smiles that he could do so well, all teeth and eyes, then one of the long kisses that always melted my heart, a reminder that he really did feel a deep passion for me. When he wanted, Steve could be deliciously sensual. And he was kind in a natural way
that none of my other boyfriends had ever managed, thoughtful and sweet. He cared. He stroked my hair before flopping on to the couch with a beer, boots resting on the table, then took a drink and sighed.