This is what I mean. The shit that comes out of her mouth sends me to the goddamn moon.
Next I asked her if she wanted to hear something weird. When she gave me the go-ahead, I asked her if she knew her brother wasn't the original guitarist in Bananafish.
She said no, and her tone implied she was awaiting a good plot twist. So I told her how we had this other guy, Mike Barnes, and she stopped me right there. She didn't believe the guy's name was Mike.
A zillion times I swore over my life. Then I told her the whole story, how Barnes was very Molly Hatchet, and finally, when I couldn't take his goddamn “Flirtin' with Disaster” riffs a minute longer, I canned him, five days before our first gig. We had to replace him fast, so I hung flyers on every goddamn telephone pole and brick wall from the FDR to the Westside Highway. “But here's the weird part,” I said, trying to really grip her. I told her how we'd scheduled auditions at the rehearsal space, and at the time, Michael was working as a peon for some advertising firm that had a storage unit across from ours, and he stopped by that day to pick something up. He had no idea we were having auditions, but he came in, played us a song, and got the job.
Eliza seemed to be grasping the significance of the story, but I spelled it out for her anyway: F-A-T-E. Michael and I meeting. She and I meeting. Our Doug Blackman connection.
“That's not fate,” she said.
Well, if it wasn't fate, I asked her, what the hell did she call it?
She studied the scar on her wrist for a long time. Eventually she glanced up, but the sun was in my eyes and I couldn't tell if she was looking at me or the sky.
“Let me tell you a little something about fate,” she said. “Fate is just another word for people's choices coming to a head. Destiny, coincidence, whatever you name it. It inevitably lies in our own hands.”
This has been a presentation of Paul Hudson's diary.
Over and out.
It was true love. In the truest sense of the word. I was in love with Paul and, more importantly, I believed he was in love with me. It was in the way he had of calling me at work and saying things like, “Did you know nondairy creamer is flammable?” or “The dial tone of this phone is in the key of F,” and for the rest of the day even Lucy Enfield would seem tolerable; it was in the way he had of ordering the spinach and ricotta pizza from Rosario's because it was my favorite, even though he would've rather had the pepperoni; it was in the way he set one of my favorite poems, “The Still Time,” to music, and sang it to me when a plane would crash somewhere in the world or I would hear “Born to Run” on the radio or life would just feel heavy and I couldn't sleep with all that weight on top of me.
Sometimes I would open my eyes when we were kissing, I would watch him and I could see it. I could actually see LOVE—not words, not an emotion, not an abstract concept or a subjective state of mind, but a living, breathing thing. I'd known for a long time that LOVE had a sound, but after Adam left, I wasn't sure it had a face and body, too. Especially one that would show itself to me for the first time on a subway platform, fidgeting nervously, with pale, luminescent eyes, dark, limp hair, and a cocky-bastard smile that could boil water.
But I knew.
I could tell.
And I would've done anything for him.
I broke the news to Vera first, knowing she would then do my dirty work for me—that is, tell Michael. Her reaction left much to be desired. Mostly, it was the depth of my feelings for Paul that concerned her.
“Sleep with the guy, fine,” she said. “But don't fall in love with him. Geesh. I certainly hope you've been putting a cap over that been-there-done-that dick of his.”
Vera and I were watching Bananafish do their sound-check at a small club in Brooklyn called Warsaw, where, with Terry North's help, I had booked the band a gig opening for a popular space-rock band from Scotland.
The Warsaw was actually the Polish National Home, but when there were no Polkas to draw a crowd, rock bands played there. The show that night was sold out.
“I've never felt like this before,” I told Vera. “Not even with Adam.”
Vera cocked her head. “Don't get me wrong; I like Paul. As a person. But I can't fathom any girl thinking he's boyfriend material. He's a rock star, for Pete's sake.”
“I think you need more than ten fans to be a rock star.”
“That's not what I mean. It's the attitude. Asking Paul not to fool around is like asking the Pope not to pray.”
“People change,” I said wistfully. “Don't you think people can change?”
We both looked over at Paul. He was in the process of trying to hock up a lugie and spit it on Angelo, prompting Vera to put on a piteous smile that told me she loved me, but also told me she thought I was being naïve. “Do you think people can change?”
I nodded, refusing to consider the possibility that any of us are doomed to die the same sorry people we sometimes become.
Paul began an impromptu rendering of the Cure's “Just Like Heaven,” and Vera put her arm through mine. “Remember when I said I applied to Columbia? Well, I not only applied, I got in. I start in January.”
I was trying to listen to the song but Vera was ruining it. She was ruining everything.
“If the band isn't signed by Christmas,” she went on, squeezing my elbow, “Michael understands it's over. I hope you can, too.”
I should have congratulated Vera. I should have said something nice to her. I could tell this is what she wanted from me. But all I did was take my arm away.
In the background, Paul was singing about a raging sea.
Soft and only.
Lost and lonely.
When Paul finished the song, he walked over to Michael and they started writing up the night's set list. They looked like comrades. Brothers in arms. Potential energy waiting to be set in motion.
“They'll be signed by Christmas,” I said.
After news of my burgeoning relationship with Eliza got out, Angelo made a joke about how my new girlfriend was liable to be the Yoko Ono of Bananafish. I swear I almost bashed him over the head with my guitar case when he said it. Holy Hell, Yoko gets a bad rap. John loved that woman. And we should never ever blame a guy for love.
But Michael's reaction hit me the hardest. Sunday night, during practice, his face was like a goddamn rubber band about to snap and finally, after he barked at me for accidentally unplugging his amp, I told him we needed to go somewhere and talk.
I steered him down the street and into a pool hall, and once we both had beers in our hands I told him that until he set me straight, I would be assuming he didn't approve of me as an acceptable suitor for his sister, and he goes, “If I were you and you were me, would you want me dating YOUR sister?”
While I tried to work through the linguistics of that question, Michael turned his attention to some crazy cab driver who burst through the door yelling about an emergency outside. The guy seemed upset, but this is New York. Hardly anyone looked over, so the cabbie went around asking random people if they were veterinarians. He asked Michael first. Then he asked a woman in a short black skirt.
Outside, horns were beeping like crazy. I leaned back to look out the window. The cabbie had left his car in the middle of the street and traffic was stopped dead.
I asked the guy what happened and he told me he hit a pigeon. The bird was apparently in pretty bad shape, but not dead yet. When the guy started walking away I stopped him. I wanted to know why he didn't wonder if I was a vet. Trust me, I look more like a vet than the chick in the black skirt. But he never answered me because a cop came in and took him back to his car.
“Listen, it's a free country,” Michael said.
I cracked a peanut out of its shell and set it aside, then strategically positioned mine and Michael's bottles as a sort of goal line and flicked the peanut around, playing finger hockey.
Michael said, “I know I can't tell you or Eliza what to do, but she's been through a lot in the last year and I don't want her to have to
go through it again. I don't want her to get hurt.”
Michael loves his sister. He worries a lot about her. This I know. But the thing is, sometimes people can have so much love between them, they end up treating each other like retards.
“I'm not going to hurt her,” I said.
I aimed and shot the peanut-puck through the middle of the bottles. It bounced off the wall behind the bar and landed mere inches away from its point of departure.
This is where Michael started lecturing me about how Eliza wasn't like most girls I know. He said she wasn't Avril or Beth or Amanda, “or any of the random floozies who follow you around like flies on shit.”
First of all, I know this. Second, I didn't need Michael reminding me of my numerous lapses of judgment.
“I'm in love with her,” I announced at double speed, hoping that saying it quickly might lessen the weight of its impact.
He looked at me with doom in his eyes and goes, “Jesus Christ, Paul.”
I said, “I mean it. Like deep crazy soul love.”
Michael almost choked. “Deep WHAT?”
I laid it all out for him: Eliza believes in me, she moves me, and she's moved BY me. She makes me happy, she makes me sad, she makes me try harder, she makes me laugh, and she makes me feel like I can fly. Isn't that the goddamn definition of love?
I was trying to appeal to Michael's romantic side but all he said was, “This is a joke, right?”
I cracked open another peanut and sulked. “Thanks a lot,” I said. “That's real nice. See if I ever spill my guts to you again.”
Michael apologized and said it was just that he'd never heard me use the word love unless it was in reference to a song. Again, not the vote of confidence I was looking for.
To help my argument, I pointed out how much I've changed since I met Eliza: I'm down to half a pack of cigarettes a day, I haven't smoked pot in weeks, and my pancreatic cancer has miraculously gone into remission.
Michael started shaking his head. Nothing seemed to be sinking in. That's when I knew there was something else going on. Something he wasn't telling me. He seemed more on edge than I'd ever seen him. And when I asked him to give it to me straight, he told me Vera got into Columbia. This means barring a record deal falling from the sky in the next two months, I'll be looking for a new guitarist come December.
Michael said he was sorry at least ten times. He sounded devastated.
“Things are progressing with Stone,” I told him. “There's plenty of time for a deal to come together.”
I think I said that because I needed to believe it just as much as Michael did.
Then I told Michael I had to go because Eliza was making dinner, and he said, “My sister's cooking? Jesus, she must be in love.”
Outside, Michael and I walked down the middle of the street looking for the pigeon. We found it near the curb, all dis-combobulated. There was no blood on it anywhere, but it wasn't moving so I bent down and poked at it with my finger.
Michael told me not to touch it. He said it probably had germs galore, but I kept poking at it anyway to make sure it couldn't be saved.
Nothing. Nada. It was dead as a goddamn doornail.
Over.
Sorry it's been so long. I've had a crazy month and a half. Let me back up to where I think I left off.
Jack Stone. Jack Stone. Jack Stone. Try saying that fast about ten times.
Not long after my first meeting with Jack, back in September, a chivalrous courtship began. It was nothing like being preyed upon by Winkle. Au contraire, my dear diary, it was polite and respectful and made me feel more like one of Vesta's sacred virgins than some cheap Eighth Avenue whore.
But it was crunch time. Time was running out for Michael and as a result, he, Eliza, and I began doing some serious Bananafish campaigning. Eliza got the Village Voice to do a small article on me, she got Time Out to feature the band, and after the three of us made a zillion calls to the local public radio station, she got us booked on one of their most popular music shows—something even Feldman hadn't been able to do. Michael and I did an hour-long acoustic set on the air, and since then Rings of Saturn has been standing room only on Thursday nights.
Jack Stone was extra impressed with our growing fan base and promised that if I signed with him, Bananafish would become the biggest fish in his little Underdog pond. Here's what Jack said to me and Feldman, more or less verbatim, at our last meeting, in Feldman's office:
“You need to understand the way we work. We don't sign an artist simply because we think he or she can make us a lot of money. We sign them because we like their music. As with anything, there are pros and cons to this. Because we like the music, we trust you, which means we give you complete creative control.”
I whistled at the prospect and Feldman gave me a gothic look of scorn.
Jack added, with a quick nod to Feldman, that what he couldn't offer Bananafish was a big advance, a glitzy advertising campaign, and all the promotional brouhaha—yes, he actually said brouhaha. The deal was: keep the costs low and the aim simple. The music's the priority. We make it, Underdog distributes it. That's about it. Although Jack did say Underdog has relationships with a lot of the college stations, as well as a few music publications and the best independent record stores in the country. There would be some initial press, but they couldn't promise much more than that, not that they wouldn't try.
He said what it all came down to, really, was where I saw myself in the big picture. I assured Jack I have a very realistic idea of where I might fit into the big picture. I don't expect to play football stadiums with a laser light show behind me. I just want to be able to quit my day job, keep Michael in the band, buy my girlfriend some sexy lingerie once in a while, and maybe support a family someday.
Note to self: Discuss the possibility of kids with Eliza.
I felt Feldman's dissatisfaction. Apparently Jack felt it too. He tried to offer my manager some consolation. He said that unlike the major labels, Underdog actually pays its artists for every unit sold. Then he went on to elaborate on major-label accounting, claiming that since the dawn of the recording industry, the big companies have managed to come up with incredibly ingenious ways of bookkeeping, ensuring that they always get the lion's share of the profits.
“We don't shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars on extraneous costs,” Jack said, “so we don't have to screw you.”
Feldman informed Jack that he didn't need a lesson in Music Biz 101. That's when Jack asked Feldman if he was against me making a deal with Underdog. Feldman admitted that in the last few months there had been major-label interest and, as my manager, he had to consider what was best for my career.
Jack turned to me and said, “Is that what you want, major-label support?”
I told him the money would be nice. But like I explained to Jack, I don't know why the majors want me. I don't have many songs under five minutes, I never play anything the same way twice, and Michael and I are known to indulge in epic-long guitar drones on stage. You put all that together and you're not looking at major-label material, at least not in this decade.
Before Jack left, he pulled me aside and told me that I should get myself a lawyer, someone with an objective opinion on contracts and careers.
Feldman didn't even get up when Jack left. Then he roared at me from behind his desk. “You most certainly ARE major-label material!” He was pounding on the sides of his chair but the cushy leather on the armrests muted the sound. He wanted to know why I would say a thing like that to Jack, and I told him it was because I like Jack and he said if I like Jack so much I should fuck him, not sign with him. He kept saying, “Your potential is endless. Blah, blah.”
He was having one of his Brian Epstein moments.
Like I told Feldman, I appreciate the faith he has in me, and I owe him a hell of a lot, but I suspect his expectations for my career, and maybe his own, might be a little high. I mean holy Hell, even if he is the twenty-first-century's answer to Brian Epstein, no
one can recreate the Beatles. That was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. And sure, it was talent, but it was also timing. No band will ever be bigger than Jesus again.
Feldman accused me of underestimating myself, but that's not really the problem. I just happen to comprehend the low standards of the majority of the music-buying public, and I don't care how condescending that sounds, it's true. They always go for the shiny gimmicks. Always.
All of a sudden Feldman was smiling like a freak. He got up and stood really close to my face like he was going to kiss me. Then he hands me this huge stack of papers and goes, “I didn't want to say anything in front of Stone, but as far as I'm concerned, Underdog was nothing more than a stepping stone for this.”
I asked him what it was and he goes, “Your ticket outta Liverpool, kid.” The document was so heavy I had to sit down and rest it on my lap.
Feldman asked me if I knew Jack Stone used to work for my favorite record exec—old caterpillar eyebrows. I did not. Apparently the two didn't part on good terms and now everything's a fucking contest.
“No kidding,” Feldman said. “When Winkle got wind that Underdog was after you, he called me in a panic. This morning he sent over that bible you're holding.”
Feldman pointed to the advance. The number had doubled to seven hundred grand. It stopped my heart for a second.
“And don't forget,” Feldman said. “That doesn't include a publishing deal. When all is said and done, we're talking well over a million dollars.”
See, the way it works is you sign a record deal, and then the songwriting, a.k.a. the publishing, is separate. Numbers-wise, a good publishing deal can be as much as the recording advance—there are megabucks to be made selling songs.
According to Feldman, Winkle has also developed a newfound appreciation for the Michaels. He won't sign them, but he'll let me keep them on salary.
Translation: Michael could pay his wife's tuition AND stay in the band AND quit his day job.