Tinker and Blue (39 page)

Karma was asleep when Blue entered the room. He turned on the lowest lamp and began to undress, noticing as he did that Karma's ninth life had finally begun. Weeks of sketches and torn pages and her final, blank panel on the wall. It was now a wash of forms that could have been waterfalls or cliffs, but at least it had begun. He slipped under the duvet beside her and began kissing her awake. “I finished ‘The Red Lobster' he whispered when she began to moan her way toward consciousness. His words reached into her sleep and her eyes opened, smiling.

“That's wonderful, Blue! When?”

“Well, I didn't go to Alcatraz after all, so I could of asked you to come for the walk with me and Barney. But then maybe it wouldn't of happened, right? Anyway, I was down at the wharf and I heard this guy singing, and guess what he was singing? ‘Failure To Love,' if you can believe that.”

“I can believe that.”

“Here's something you'll like believing even better. He says the song changed his thinking about the world. It's got more hope now or something like that. Anyway, he went to get something to eat and I sat there with his guitar and before I even had time to think about it the words were all there. Me and Barney sang it all the way to Peter?'s where we went to tell Tinker, then all the way home to tell you. And what do I see but some progress of your own on the wall. You got your picture started.”

“Started, yes, but I'm still guessing a lot about it.”

“Well, I woke you up to celebrate my song,” Blue told Karma, who drew him to her.

—

Afterwards, Blue said, “When your painting is finished maybe we can celebrate it the same way.”

“I hope so, Blue, I hope so.”

“I suppose you're going right back to sleep and I'm going to be awake all night just thinking about ‘The Red Lobster',” Blue said, sliding into dreams before Karma closed her eyes.

66

Blue, Gerry and Nathan stretched their necks, uncomfortable in rented tuxedos. Each of them, faced with the manners of their respective upbringing, could not bring themselves to attend a wedding wearing nothing but dust and denim, ignoring the reason they were being paid. Only Barney, wearing a tie-dyed neckerchief, was in character. Getting ready on the stage, Blue surveyed the rented estate where the reception was being held, the couple having already arrived from the church leading a long convoy of gift-bearing guests. With her father picking up the price of the band, Blue figured that the newlyweds would come out ahead on this deal by a few thousand bucks.

The wedding party milled around the food tents, sipping wine; most of them, Blue realized, weren't any more comfortable in their formality than himself. They weren't into long-haired music of any kind, classical or hippie rock, and Blue Cacophony was about to crash their party. The younger people might enjoy the band's sound, he thought, but like most weddings, this one was more populated by friends of the bride and groom's parents than their own. Blue guessed that the bride's guests were Merle Haggard fans, and the groom's were more comfortable with Frank Sinatra.

“We're all set to go here,” he said into the microphone, his voice attracting the attention of the guests, including the official photographer who found his way to the stage through the viewfinder, his shutter winking. “You all know what the other fellow says about wedding pictures, don't you, that if the wedding was any good then the pictures will be the only proof it ever happened, even for the people who were there. Especially for the people who were there, I guess, and judging from the size of the liquor bar over there, I'd say we're in for one hell of a wedding.

“Now the only way to start off any reception, of course, is with ‘The Wedding Waltz,' and my friend Gerry here is going to play just that for the bride and groom to get things started. Take her away, Gerry!”

The introduction stunned Gerry who was preparing for Blue Cacophony's intro number. “What are you doing, Blue? I'm not ready for that. I'm not even in tune.”

“What the hell's the difference,” Blue barked back. “Nine out of ten people out there won't even know the difference.”

“And one out of three on the stage,” Gerry snapped.

“We're having a little technical problem here, ladies and gentlemen,” Blue said into the mic, “but Gerry will be with you in just one moment.”

Holding the violin between his knees, Gerry tuned it to the challenge Blue had forced on him, then began to play, his one-armed style attracting as much attention as his music, but its romantic tone brought the bride and groom onto the dance platform in front of the stage, and the guests turned to watch.

“What are you doing?” Peter? asked as he, Tinker and Kathy, who had just arrived in the Plymouth, walked toward the band.

“What?”

“What's with these clothes, this music?” he asked, nodding toward the tuxedoed Gerry. “You look like some silly act on
The Ed Sullivan Show
.”

“What's wrong with Ed Sullivan?” Blue asked, thrusting his chin forward, ready to physically defend the variety show host.

Tinker and Kathy, official guests of Mike, the bride's father, eased themselves away from the tension that surrounded the stage, especially Blue, and made their way to the food tent. On the dance platform, guests began joining the wedding couple as Gerry's violin grew more and more comfortable in his hand, like an amnesia victim suddenly remembering a previous life.

“Look, Peter?, I know what I'm doing here. You don't have to worry about people finding out that Blue Cacophony was playing ‘The Wedding Waltz,' because
The Subterranean
doesn't review weddings. Your reputation and your revolution's safe,” Blue said as Gerry's music softly ended to solid applause.

“Let's hear it for Gerry,” Blue said, jumping onto the stage and grabbing the mic again. “Now you're probably wondering what's a bagpiper doing at a wedding. It's an instrument usually reserved for funerals, as the other fellow says, but there's those people who say what's the difference between them? Well, Nathan here adds something really different to Blue Cacophony's music, and I'm going to ask him to play something lively to get this place hopping. A waltz's okay for those in love, but what about the rest of us, huh, those of us who aren't getting married today or maybe ever. We need something lively, right, and let me tell you, nobody's ever heard anything as lively as ‘The Mexican Hat Dance' played on the bagpipes. Take her away, Nathan.”

Like Gerry, Nathan was caught in the spotlight of the wedding guests' attention, barely able to comprehend the situation in which Blue had cast him, but in the few moments it took to prepare his pipes, Gerry ran through the hat dance quietly to trigger Nathan's memory. By the time Nathan had found his way into the popular party tune, the guests had begun to bounce in place, then began dancing the giddy steps that changed the tempo of the reception. People began clowning on the dance platform, forgetting the strangulation of their neck-ties, the ankle-wrenching fact of their high heels.

For the next couple of hours, Blue managed the stage in a way that kept the rhythm of the party going, with Gerry and Nathan finding themselves willing accomplices to the war-time tunes and nasal country of Blue's version of some Nashville ballads, making their own contributions by retrieving from hundreds of hours of practice, the standard music that both had long ago left behind, but would never forget. The wedding guests danced themselves dizzy.

“I have a special treat for you now,” Blue told the crowd. “I'm going to have a friend of mine come up here and sing a few songs for you. He's a wedding guest so we don't even have to pay him, but wait until you hear this guy, and if you like what you hear, then you can hear him any day you want because he sings for his supper, as the other fellow says. Ladies and gentlemen, let's have a big hand for my friend Tinker, the best street singer in San Francisco.”

Reluctant and uncertain, Tinker joined the band on the stage. Blue passed him his guitar and while Tinker started with “Dock of the Bay,” Blue jumped down and made his way to the liquor tent as the lights of the estate lawn suddenly lit up against the falling darkness. He ordered a beer and leaned against the bar, watching the party. Gerry and Nathan were improvising on stage. Kathy pulled the sullen Peter? onto the dance floor. Mike, the bride's father, wandered off the dance floor toward the bar.

“You guys are great!” he said, spotting Blue. “I never figured a famous band like yours would be playing songs people could dance to without drugs. And listen to this guy! He's got a great voice, but I've always known that.”

“You did?” Blue asked.

“You should have heard him in the tunnel. Some of us would be working on the face and all of a sudden you could hear this voice travelling through the tunnel while he was tearing apart some machine. Shit, I miss him down there. You guys go way back, I take it.”

“Yeah, buddy, we go way back,” Blue said, pulling a deep drink from his beer, “and any day now we're going way back where we come from. Back where we belong.”

Blue ordered another beer and taking it with him walked away from the bar toward the parking lot where he sat on the hood of the Plymouth, parked among the newer models. Alone, he lit a cigarette, listening to the faint but clear sound of Tinker's voice carrying on the still air, and wished Karma was with him.

—

Two weeks earlier, Blue had walked into their bedroom to discover Karma making inspired progress on the last panel of her nine lives. Sitting on the bed, he watched her, paint-smudged, working feverishly at her painting. Studying the picture, recognition came to him.

“Hey, I know that place. That's the waterfalls at the commune in Colorado, the place where we went swimming that first time. And those people are— us. Wait a minute. What's going on here, Karm? That's me, you and Barney. I thought you were doing your past lives, not the one you're living now?”

Karma's brush had stopped but she kept her back to him.

“Karm? Karma?”

Slowly, Karma turned, her eyes meeting Blue's. He didn't like what he saw in them.

“I'm sorry, Blue, but— listen to me, please. I have to go away.”

“No problem, we'll go together.” Blue's offer was tinged with desperation.

“I have to go alone, Blue.”

“Aw, Christ, what did I do? Whatever it is, I'm sorry, but I'll make it up to you. For Christ's sake, don't leave. We were going away together, remember, going to Cape Breton, the two of us, all of us....”

“You didn't do anything, Blue, but I can't go with you. I've known that since the accident. Something happened, Blue, something wonderful. I haven't been able to talk about it really, because the words just aren't there. Maybe if it happened to you— what I mean is that you have a way of turning things into stories.

“Blue, I don't know if I died in the accident or not, or whether your prayers helped bring me back like you believe, or if it was the doctors who helped me, or if I just woke up from a dream. It doesn't matter. What does matter is the knowledge I woke up with. I don't mean answers, because I don't know what the experience itself means. What I do know now is that everything I believe is absolutely true. We are beautiful creatures, Blue. If you could have seen how we look in the light, you would understand, and that's the only way I can describe what I saw. Light, the most beautiful kind of light, filled with beings. Not strange beings, Blue. Us! I don't know if you're friend Danny Danny Dan was among them, but if he knew what was ahead of him, he would give up that eternal funeral of his and go across into the light.” Karma stopped, hoping for a smile from Blue.

“I know you haven't been the same since the accident,” Blue replied, “but I can't tell you what the difference is. I noticed it, though, ask anybody. But that doesn't mean we can't stay together, does it? If you want to go away, well, there's Cape Breton or any place you want to go. I'll go, I mean that, Karma, I'll go.”

“I believe you would, Blue, but you can't. I need to go by myself because what I need to do isn't about us, it's about me. I need to go for me.”

“Go where for how long?” Blue asked.

“India. An ashram in India, and I don't know for how long, Blue, because time has nothing to do with it.”

“India! Good God, girl, that's on the other side of the world. How are you going to get there? Where will you stay? Do you know anybody from home to look after you there? And what about us, Karma, what about us? You're throwing me away like I'm some old gelding ready for the mink farm. What about me?”

“This isn't easy, Blue—”

“You're friggin' right, it's not!” Blue shouted.

“Don't yell, Blue, or we won't be able to talk at all.”

“To hell with talking!” Blue said, storming out of the room, happy that it now had a door he could slam behind him.

Blue left the commune and ran himself to exhaustion through city streets, stopping finally beside a park he had never seen before. He sat on one of the benches, only then noticing that Barney, panting, had followed him from the house. Blue tried to send his thoughts everywhere but where he had just been. It was fruitless. There was no escaping the fact that a hole as large as the San Andreas Fault had opened up in his life with nothing but blackness gaping before him. Nothing distracted him, not music, not food, not thoughts of home. Karma was breaking up with him and running all the way to India to hide. He tried to nurse his anger to rage, imagined returning to the commune, smashing up the place, pounding Capricorn and all his stupid pagan teachings to pulp, then telling Karma to go fuck herself, packing his suitcase and heading out with Tinker in the Plymouth for home. Screw San Francisco. Screw the commune. Screw Blue Cacophony. And screw Karma the Dharma!

“Screw her, Barney, screw her! I suppose she's going to leave you with the commune while she goes off to India to get all her holy answers! Well, the fact is that I just don't care what she does. Her plane can crash for all I care. I wouldn't even go to her funeral!”

Standing beside the bench, Barney placed his head on Blue's thigh, his brown eyes confused by his friend's anger. Blue stroked the dog's head while two slow tears leaked their way down his own cheeks. Blue bent over and buried his face in the dog's neck to hide the shame of his crying eyes from passers-by. He lost all sense of how long he sat there clutching the dog, but dusk was coming when his awareness returned, a coming darkness to match the empty black place inside him.

“We may be made of light, as the other fellow says, Barney, but the bulb in here just burnt out, old buddy, and it will never be bright again in my life. What are we going to do without her? Write some real Nashville songs, I suppose, or maybe not write any more songs, at all. I really don't care.

“She knew this, Barney. She knew when she woke up from the accident that this was going to happen. That's why she's been mostly far away even when we're close together. She was getting ready to write me a Dear John letter. Well, the writing's on the wall now, isn't it, or rather the painting's on the wall.