Nine Volt Heart (23 page)

“No, I had better go.”

“I don’t think ‘better’ and ‘go’ belong in the same
sentence, Susi. May I take you out to dinner tomorrow? I promise to get a
reservation where it isn’t noisy and the people don’t wear too much perfume.”

“That would be nice.”

“Of course. I’m a nice guy, right?”

JASON

“Y
OU’RE PLANNING TO RETURN to
your safe little indie world, aren’t you? Jason? I hear you breathing and not
speaking, so I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Goodbye, Ephraim.”

“Don’t hang up, Jason. Let me talk you out of any numbskull
decisions. You’ll spend the rest of your life selling t-shirts to cover the
cost of touring. You’ll get up every morning to stick CDs in bubble-packs for
the FedEx guy to deliver to your Internet fans.”

“I don’t need to get rich, Ephraim. I don’t need three
million so-called fans screwing up my life. I need to make my own music.”

“Jason, after last year’s success, you can get your label to
let you do that. What you don’t need is a reputation for being difficult to
work with. You complain that Dominique’s a diva, yet you play prima donna. Be
professional. Finish this album. Then re-sign with your label.”

“You guys put every musician into the packages you know how
to sell. You have Dominique, who’s dying for that. I never fit the mold, and
you know I never will. I don’t need the mainstream fans you dug up for me.”

“Stop looking down your nose at your new fans. If you get
rich, your indie fans will hate you. It has nothing to do with the quality of
your music. Listen to yourself, not your bitchy little indie fans. You always
know what’s best for the music.”

“I sold out once. I need to buy my soul back.”

“Quit reading about yourself on the blogs, Jason. ‘Sell out’
means you made money, so people feel jealous. ‘Different direction’ means you
aren’t churning out the same sounds people liked a year ago. When you make
money, you can buy the opportunity to go in another direction. But, my friend,
you need to listen to advice.”

“I’ve had the experience twice now of a studio making my
music into something that isn’t what I want. Six years ago, the studio made our
sound over into retro rockabilly. You made me sound like—oh geez, I don’t know.
It wasn’t what I intended.”

“You had a more than reasonable hit six years ago, a less
modest one two years ago, and now a big one. You’re twenty-eight. No one can
afford to get that second opportunity and then let it go by.”

“In between I got to write and play what I wanted. That’s
all I need out of the rest of my life.”

“In between you ate happy-hour bar food and brushed your
teeth at freeway rest stops.”

“We got very good and very tight doing it the way we did. I
created a repertoire of songs that will keep me in chicken feed until I die.”

“Jason, you can’t throw away this kind of opportunity. You
won’t take advantage of your father’s legacy, which I understand. But you can’t
throw away your own legacy before you have a chance to create it.”

“I feel like I’m listening to Satan on the mountain top.”

“For the temptation I’m offering, you aren’t required to
commit any sin. Just compromise a bit.”

“There’s that word. I knew it was coming.”

“It’s what adults do, Jason. Damn, it’s easier to work with
a truckload of self-destructive jerks like your father than it is to work with
one self-righteous jerk like you.”

“It’s self-confidence, not self-righteousness. It gets the
work done.”

“You are just like your father, aren’t you? You’ll end up
the same way, with a miniscule cult following and no one else remembering you
ten years after you die. You’ll be sleeping with barmaids just to have a home
to go to at night.”

“When I’m alone with myself, I can stand the company, Ephraim.
I’m better than my father in that way at least.”

“You pathetic bastard. My request still stands. Please
consider it.”

“It’s raining in Seattle, Ephraim, so I won’t be considering
it today.”

“I’m an optimist. Perhaps the sun will shine tomorrow. Tell me,
where did you find the new vocalist? Is it that woman I’ve seen you with? Her
voice is a fantastic fit with your material. I had to keep Dominique from
listening, because I know she won’t like it.”

“How did you hear? We aren’t recording at the studio.”

“That cut on your blog. I heard it this morning.”

“Oh fuck me. Hang up. I need to call Karl.”

JASON

“K
ARL, I NEED—”

“Good god, as clients go, you are the neediest mo’fo’ I have
the pleasure to bill. I earned my retainer today, my friend. You win the DNA
war. It’s all yours. One hundred percent. The judge declared it this
afternoon.”

“Do you mean Beau’s estate?”

“Not a single one of those pretenders could prove a DNA case
for himself as Jesse’s son. Funny that it was all lost sons coming after a
piece of it. No lost daughters. By the way, your archivist friend contacted me.
Do you know who he is?”

“Give him whatever access he wants. I can’t think about it
right now. That effing stalker managed to snatch tapes of our rehearsal two
nights ago and then hacked a music file onto my blog. I had my site manager
take the MP3 down. What else can I do? Come on, Karl. You wasted your time in
law school when you could have been our manager. Tell me how to control this
creep.”

“I’m equipped to do contracts, not criminal law. If you
don’t know who it is, you can’t get a restraining order. I have to think about
it. Do you want the security guys to work Ian’s house?”

“I already have friends of Sonny’s doing that.”

“Oh, that’s reassuring. Are they watching your little Susi’s
house, too? I can call her to arrange—”

“No. Do not call her. Let me emphasize. I do not want her to
know.”

“You haven’t told her who you are yet, have you?”

“She knows all about the real me. She doesn’t need to know
the sordid parts. Do you tell your wife everything?”

“I can’t because of attorney-client privilege.”

“So, Karl, did you tell your wife about the time you were in
Phoenix with us and you—”

“No. She doesn’t need any additional proof that I’m a jerk.
She finds her own proof every chance she gets.”

“I rest my case. I’m trying to get Susi to admit she’s in
love with me. Of all the attributes I want her to admire, ‘pursued by scummy
stalker fan’ is not one that promises to be an aphrodisiac.”

“The Phoenix event consisted mostly of humiliation and
vomit. Knowing about it wouldn’t help my wife keep herself safe.”

“I’m taking care of that.”

“Why am I not made easy by that idea, Jason?”

“What’s a good vegetarian place to eat in Madison Park? I
don’t want to go downtown tonight.”

~

I paid a waiter I didn’t even know a hundred bucks to keep
people away from us. We were at the dead end of Madison, down where the streets
are lined with BMWs and Saabs while their drivers enjoy their Friday dinner,
and out of deference to Susi’s taste in manners, I went hatless. I’d shaved the
week’s stubble into a goatee.

We were dining on tofu, four-dollar-a-pound wild spring
greens, and shiitake mushrooms. Susi became animated and talkative, relaxed to
be with me, loving the food and telling me about how she got one of her voice
students to agree to a summer session at Julliard in advance of going there
this fall, which would be the girl’s salvation. I didn’t understand the point
of the story, but it was clearly important to her, so I was listening closely.

Then some jerk pounded on the window to wave hello to me.

Frickin’ hell, do we have to eat in the effing kitchen to be
let alone?

Touching Susi’s hand because it had startled her, I nodded
and smiled at our would-be friend, who fortunately didn’t look like the slimy
stalker type, just a good ol’ boy with no sense and worse manners.

At the same moment, a skanky guy in torn jeans and a work
shirt spun our friend around and laid a finger on his chest. The greeter
swatted the finger away, and skank-man pushed him again with two fingers.

I had a pretty fair notion that I’d set a bad scene in
motion.

“Excuse me.” I left Susi to the shiitake mushrooms and waded
out into the flotsam and jetsam of my life.

“Hey, friends.” I shook the greeter’s hand while laying my
other hand on my protector’s shoulder.

“Shoot, you’re Jason Taylor. Man, I used to see you play at
the Tractor Tavern ten years ago. I was there the time you opened for Neil
Young in Portland.”

“How you doing?” I gave him the old hippy grip with my right
hand, while feeling my protector hunch up under my left hand. “No offense meant
here, but my buddy was trying to help me have a quiet dinner with my lady friend.”

“Man, I’m cool with it. My old lady is going to freak when
she finds out you were eating right where we had dinner last week. She really
digs on your new album.”

I let go of my protector and felt in my shirt pocket for a
pen. All I had was a bus pass from coming across town to meet Susi, but I
signed it, addressing it to the guy’s woman friend. He left happy enough, and
then I had to turn and make friends with my guardian.

“Thanks for your help,” I said, shaking his hand, too.

“I’m Russ. A friend of Sonny’s.”

“I appreciate what you are doing.” I took out my wallet and
advanced him the hundred bucks he was supposed to get paid for lurking in the
night. “Please go easy on people, though. Better if you call the police than
create a scene.”

Russ laughed. “Me? Call the cops?”

As if on cue, a police cruiser pulled up to the curb, and
the officer on the passenger side stepped out. It was Officer Lee Page from
days before, now cruising on the other side of town.

“How are you gentlemen tonight?”

Standing as close as I was to Russ, I felt a fight-or-flight
jolt surge through him. He stayed though. We both rode out the officer’s
request for identification.

“A woman on a cell phone reported an altercation. We were in
this neighborhood and happened by.”

“She must have misunderstood,” I said. “We were just saying
hello to an old acquaintance. I’m about to rejoin my friend for dinner.”

“Happy to hear it, gentlemen. Mr. Taylor, if we might have a
word.”

Officer Lee invited me to sit in the patrol car while we
chatted. It was far friendlier than the last time I sat in the rear of a patrol
car, with the officer commenting on the coincidence of being transferred to
this neighborhood and then meeting me here. It wasn’t more than half a second,
though, before Russ disappeared.

“That gentleman used to sell smack a little farther up the
street. Word is, he’s clean now, but we wanted to be sure of your well-being.”

“He tried to stop someone from harassing me, as a friendly
gesture.”

“Just so we know you’re safe. Did you make any progress on
your lost instrument, Mr. Taylor?”

“No. My friends and I took pictures to several pawn shops
and promised a reward, and we faxed pictures to a bunch of other stores. Thanks
for making that suggestion.”

“Wish we could help you solve that problem. If we can help
in any other way, please be sure to call.”

“I appreciate it.”

“You know, my wife about lost it when I told her I met you
again.”

I didn’t have another bus transfer, but he gave me a piece
of paper, and I wrote a greeting to his wife, too, with a line from her favorite
song. Once again we parted friends.

I could see as I returned to the café that my companion had
lost her enthusiasm for the food, her success with young musicians and,
apparently, her pleasure in dining out with me.

“We all went to junior high together,” I said, like an effing
idiot. On the next beat I managed to come up with a lyric line that seemed to
salvage the evening. We talked about the music that we’d worked on over the
past week. What we heard in Toby’s and Angelia’s duets. Her amazement at finding
a dedicated musician under Sonny’s jagged exterior.

“I understand Zak better now,” she said. “Paul said Zak had
enormous potential in the recommendation he wrote to Berklee. I only understood
Zak’s enthusiasm before, not what he was struggling to master. Now I know why
he prefers the drums when he’s so gifted at the piano.”

“He certainly has enthusiasm in spades.” I didn’t know about
Zak and the piano. It caused me to lose track of what she was saying for a
moment.

“Now, if he would only come to class.”

“He’s learning plenty at our night school. How about you,
Susi?”

“Playing with your friends has felt like a baptism or an
initiation into a secret club I didn’t know existed.”

“Do you enjoy the work?”

“Joy is too small a word for it.”

“You can’t know how happy that makes me. May I come play
music with your bluegrass friends on Sunday night?”

As soon as I asked, I realized that I was impinging where I
shouldn’t and began back-pedaling.

“Actually, I don’t know if I’ll be able to. I shouldn’t have
asked.”

“It’s OK, Jason. Yes, please come.”

“How are your other plans are coming? Have you heard
anything about your grant?”

“We had phone calls asking us for more information. I’m
still holding my breath.”

“Will you let me know if I can help find more money for you?”

She gave me a funny look that I strained to interpret and
couldn’t. “You’ve done enough,” she said.

When we finished dinner and headed for the door, she said,
“Gambling debts again? Is that what you do all day? Play cards?”

“No, that was an old debt. I play music all day.”

“What a nice way to spend your time. Who were those men
really?”

“Old friends,” I said. “Since I’ve lived in Seattle all my
life, I run into people everywhere.”

Oh geez, busted again. I can’t lie for shit. This wasn’t
going to work.

She went home. Alone.

I didn’t get lucky, though I hadn’t begun the evening with
much hope. It wasn’t as if I thought that I could write a stupid song she liked
to sing and then she’d sleep with me again. Back to playing the fox hoping to
out-wait the Little Prince. Or was it the other way around?

What kind of joke is it anyway, pretending as if being with
her means the same as “getting lucky”? I went to an after-hours club, but there
wasn’t an invitation to sit in with anyone playing and no magic to the music,
compared to what had been happening in Ian’s living room. I took the world’s
longest shower and reduced the pretentious goatee to a soul patch, since a
beard didn’t prevent a single person from recognizing me. Now I’m sitting here
in my own private Internet café—Ian’s basement—drinking coffee and listening to
music through headphones (because Cynthia came down and reminded me that I’m a
self-centered effing asshole with no consideration for others), keyed up
because I’m alone. After spending all of last year celebrating that I could
finally be alone again at night, glorying in the freedom of solitude, here I am
writing another letter to myself—my email box is full of them now—complaining
to myself that I’m here instead of where she is.

I’m down to sending email to myself and answering hardly
anyone, except a handful of musicology friends like Chas who have nothing to do
with my every-day life in Wallingford. I haven’t posted anything to any of my
blogs in days and days. If anyone else saw how monomaniacal the inside of my
mind has become, they would shrink in horror.

I always thought that high-lonesome crap in love songs was
made up, just a pose to make girls feel sorry for you.