Feldman said, “Winkle wants to talk to you ASAP.” So I sat there like an idiot, paging through the contract, while Feldman's secretary got Winkle on the line, and over Feldman's speakerphone Winkle not only claimed he'd been wrong about the Michaels, he also claimed he was prepared to nurture Bananafish, to allow me to develop and grow into one of the label's more respectable “career artists.”
The next thing he said was, “I see you along the lines of the Drones.”
The guy knows how to get my attention, I'll give him that. Before we hung up, I promised Winkle I'd seriously consider the offer, but I should point out that as soon as I said it my pancreas started to throb.
Feldman said, “This is a no-brainer, Paul. And it's not just the monetary difference between Jack and Winkle you need to consider, it's the amount of exposure the band will get. Underdog admittedly provides little promotion for their artists, and Winkle's got a major PR machine behind him.”
I made Feldman promise not to let me turn into a musical heathen or soulless pop pagan, and he goes: “That's Peepers talking.”
They were Doug Blackman's words, actually. Eliza just borrowed them. But I didn't feel like getting into that with Feldman. I don't think he likes Eliza. Not since she so eloquently denounced 66 in Sonica. And even though she's really helped us out a lot, Feldman's nose is a little out of joint about it. It's an ego thing. He wants us to be successful, but only if he's responsible for the success.
In all fairness, Eliza doesn't like Feldman either. She thinks he's creepy and always says, “Paul, if I live to be a hundred I'll never understand what you see in that guy.”
But my point to Feldman was this: I don't want to sell out to some corporate goddamn executive who doesn't know his ass from an amplifier. Of course, Feldman was quick to remind me that we were talking about the man who discovered the Drones. Winkle might be an asshole but he has a good track record.
If I sound like I'm trying to convince myself, it's because I am.
Then, without an announcement or a knock, the door to Feldman's office flew open and I turned around to see Amanda Strunk standing in the doorway. She was the last person in the world I felt like chatting with. I grabbed my coat and tried to make a quick getaway, but she stretched her leg out to block my exit, fiddled with the top button of my shirt, and said, “Wanna go have a drink with me, pussycat?”
These goddamn people, I swear.
I snatched her hand off of my chest, and the disdain I felt in that moment for Amanda Strunk, for what she represented, and for the advantage that people like she and Winkle had over me, made me want to snap her wrist in two. I envied their emptiness. I envied the simplicity of their goals. I envied how little it took to make them happy. I almost envied their greed.
“Let's go wet our whistles,” Amanda said. “I promise not to tell your girlfriend.”
I stepped over her foot and told her to go to hell.
“Two words,” Feldman clamored after me. “The Drones, Paul. The Drones.”
I'm going to take Jack's advice and consult a lawyer, and I assured Feldman he'd have an answer by the end of the week.
A no-brainer, right?
Over.
Before Paul gave Feldman the go-ahead, he and I met the band, along with Paul's new lawyer, Damien Weiss, at the rehearsal space for one last powwow.
“What's Yoko doing here?” Angelo said when he saw me. He was only teasing and I laughed. But Paul stared him down for what felt like an hour, until Angelo said, “Jeeze. It was a joke. Fucking lighten up.”
I hated the rehearsal space. It was a dark, cramped unit with cinderblock walls, no windows, and a stifling lack of fresh air. The furnishings consisted of a ratty futon, carpet remnants scattered here and there, and mounds of instruments, cords, and amps taking up every inch of space. There was barely room for the band, let alone guests, and I had to lean against the door.
Unsurprisingly, the vote among the Michaels was unanimous in favor of Winkle, and when Damien Weiss arrived bearing gifts of admonition, Paul was the only one pendulous about the deal.
Damien Weiss bugged me, too. He was a tall, starched shirt, he spoke with a deep, condescending tone, and his Adam's apple was so big he looked like he'd swallowed a golf ball. And do I need to add that I saw The Omen when I was a kid? All I'm saying is, Damien was the name of the devil child.
Damien was trying to find someplace to stand, and he had a copy of Paul's eighty-seven-page contract in his hands. He asked if Paul had read the document.
“Not word for word. Some of the sentences are ten paragraphs long.”
Paul assured Damien that Feldman had explained it in great detail, and Damien set the document down on the table so that Paul could see it. Then he spoke as if he were teaching a class of first graders. “Has anyone ever heard the word recoupment?”
Paul pushed his bangs behind his ears and nodded. “It's the amount of money the record company has to make back before I get any royalties.”
Damien nodded with him. “And did Mr. Feldman explain just how much your recoupment costs are going to be if you sign this?” He turned to a section he'd highlighted in yellow and pointed to the math he'd done in the margin. “I calculated a number of your definite expenses—the advance, the recording budget, band salaries, and promotion. Now, look at this.” He flipped a few more pages. “This is the percentage you receive from record sales—before taxes.” He flipped back to the original number and then turned the page over, where there were half a dozen more equations, plus another seven-digit number that had a * by it.
“What's that?” Paul asked.
“That,” Damien said, “is the staggering number of records you'll have to sell before you see one cent of your royalties.”
Paul's face wilted first. The Michaels followed like Dominos.
Damien Weiss was on my last nerve. I set my hands on my hips, jutted my pelvis out to the side like Daphne from Scooby Doo, and said, “Who are you to say they can't sell that many records?”
“Listen,” devil man said. “I'm not saying they can't sell that many records. But let's just say they don't. Then what?”
Being an artist in the music industry is a lot like being a gay man in the army. A thousand-to-one, the guy's not welcome. Which is not to say he can't sneak in unnoticed and, by sheer luck and a bit of self-control, have a long and successful career, but let General Winkle catch Private Hudson with a dick in his mouth and trust me, things could get ugly.
It's not like I don't understand the nature of the business. But the whole process is a dichotomy to me…Hold on…What the hell was I going to talk about? Oh, yeah. Recoupment. Before I made my final decision, Eliza and I went to Feldman's office and had one last discussion on recoupment.
“Contrary to what anyone tells you,” Feldman said. “Recoupment is essentially a nonissue.”
Eliza nodded in agreement. I can't tell you how weird it was to see Eliza and Feldman in harmony against me.
Feldman went on to outline his reasoning in two parts—the upside and the downside. The upside was to assume we'd sell enough records to pay back the initial costs. “Which I believe you will,” he said. “Eventually. And when that happens, you'll start seeing more money.”
As a sidebar, I should probably add that Feldman gets seventeen cents of every dollar I make.
The downside was to assume that, worst case scenario, we didn't sell any records—in this instance Bananafish flounders and dies and I get screwed, but the record company gets screwed harder because they haven't seen a return on their investment, whereas I get to keep the advance, which whether the record fails or not is a pretty goddamn significant amount of money—more than I ever imagined I'd see in my life, that's for sure. And certainly enough to live on if Winkle sells me down the river.
“See? Problem solved,” Eliza said.
Feldman told me my girlfriend was smart and I should listen to her. He even called her Eliza. He'd obviously put his contempt on hold. Matter of fact, he sudd
enly looked like he wanted to stick his head between her legs.
One final snag came when a timeframe was presented. The company, which I have dubbed Winkle Records, wanted us to go into the studio right away. They were going to give us six weeks to make the first of five records I would be under contract to deliver. Winkle hoped to have the first CD in stores by spring.
Feldman and Eliza both begged me not to start another pissing match, but I had one more point of contention. I've been writing songs a long time. I'm not bragging about how prolific I am, but I have close to sixty songs to sort through. I need time to do nothing but rehearse and work on the arrangements. And I want to make the record without a clock ticking.
No one was more surprised than I was when my demands were met. Still, I held out until one last carrot was dangled—
The Drones. They're tentatively scheduled to launch a big American tour about a year from now. Winkle said their audience is my future audience and he promised to do everything in his power to get Bananafish the opening slot.
These clever goddamn people. They really know how to play a guy. But holy Hell, their biggest skill is raping you, all the while making you think you're having consensual sex.
My gut and pancreas were screaming Underdog—Jack and I understand each other, and I trust Jack. But it's not that simple. A year ago, it would have been, but not anymore. I have people besides myself to think about. And for the first time I see something on the road up ahead that I've never noticed. Something I'm looking forward to: the future.
Ultimately, I don't want to be one of those assholes who make decisions based on money, but I'm not stupid either. Here I am, twenty-eight and still folding shirts to pay my rent. I've never had more than a couple hundred dollars in my bank account at one time and, frankly, I've never given much thought to the day after tomorrow, let alone all the days following all the tomorrows.
I want more. I want a life that extends beyond retail sales, a crappy apartment, and cheap coffee. And I know that doesn't make me a bad person, just more honest than I've ever been. I also know my dream goddamn future will look a lot brighter if I let Winkle fuck me in the ass.
And so I did. This morning, a frigid but perfectly clear December day, the kind of day that feels like a snow cone in your lungs, after weeks of negotiations, doubts, and deliberation, I traipsed like a soldier into a gleaming high-rise not far from Rockefeller Center and signed a deal with one of the largest, most powerful multimedia conglomerates in the world.
Facing caterpillar eyebrows, you know what I did? I picked up the pen, scribbled my name as fast as I could, and rallied the nerve to do something I've always wanted to do—I winked at Winkle.
Immediately after leaving Winkle's office with a big-ass check in my hand, I headed down Sixth Ave with my heart aching and my pancreas burning.
I walked forty-plus blocks, all the way to the Gap, and resigned. Then I went to the bank. Needless to say, it was turning into a major goddamn day and it wasn't over yet. I was contemplating one more big move; I just needed someplace meditational to think it over.
I was right near St. Joseph's in the Village. I'm not a religious guy but I decided there were worse places to ruminate. Unbeknownst to me, the church had a daily mass that I'd inconveniently shown up in the middle of. Quickly taking a seat in the second-to-last pew, I felt like an imposter, like anyone who turned around and looked at me would know I didn't belong.
When the priest asked the congregation to kneel, I knelt too. Then I bowed my head and tried to think about what it all meant—the contract, the band, the money, my goddamn career. I hate the connotation of the word “career.” It doesn't seem to truly account for the way I spend my time. It embodies all the direct opposites of my hows and whys and most of all it implies a choice, and I've never felt like I had any choice. I do what I do out of need and necessity, and because it's the only thing I've ever been good at, not as a means to an end, not even for money or the adulation of the world, but for my own measly survival.
Not that I won't welcome all that if it comes my way, right? Let me tell you, depositing a check for seven hundred grand did not suck.
The priest said, “Peace be with you.”
“And also with you,” everyone responded.
Then the guy suggested we all make peace with each other, and the whole place started shaking hands with whoever they could reach. Something about the scene made my heartache go away. I wanted to hug every person in that church, but I was the only one in my row. I had no one to touch so I got back down on my knees and picked up where I'd left off.
It's like this: I feel almost cursed by the overwhelming and admittedly self-induced pressure I've placed on my shoulders. On the other hand, I feel like if I stay focused I'll find value in the journey. And the bottom line is I want Eliza along for the ride.
I am of the theory that all of our transcendental connections, anything we're drawn to, be it a person, a song, a painting on a wall—they're magnetic. The art is the alloy, so to speak. And our souls are equipped with whatever properties are required to attract that alloy. I'm no scientist so I don't really know what the hell these properties are, but my point is we're drawn to stuff that we've already got a connection to. Part of the thing is already inside of us.
That's what I mean when I say fate. Fate is the magnetic pull of our souls toward the people, places, and things we belong with.
After leaving the church, I kept heading south down Sixth Ave., turned left on Grand, and went into a shop I'd gone into a dozen times in the past two weeks, where I had a long talk with Harry, the man behind the counter. Harry called me Mr. Hudson no matter how many times I told him Paul was fine.
“All right,” I said. “Let's do it.”
Now I'm back at home, waiting. I killed some time folding and putting away all the clothes on my floor. Following that task I chewed up a piece of gum and used it to paste a note to the door that said: ON THE ROOF. Then I climbed up the fire escape with a pen and an envelope full of index cards.
It's been almost an hour. I'm still up here waiting for her. I'm cold and nervous as shit.
Over.
According to the weatherman, the day's high was thirty-three degrees. I guessed it hadn't reached that number, but when I found Paul on the roof he was perched near the edge wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. No hat, no gloves, no coat. He looked like a refugee from an Eastern Bloc country. And there was something about the way he was standing with his shoulders slumped, together with the bleak expression on his face, that caused me pain.
I couldn't make out what he was doing. All I saw were index cards that he seemed to be ripping up and tossing off the side of the building.
“Hey, rock star,” I said, hoping to generate some enthusiasm.
He looked back, smiled tensely, and called me over. As I approached, I noticed he was watching shards of paper dance to the sidewalk. And each of his index cards had different words written on them, things like:
FEAR
COMPROMISE
LONELINESS
ANGST
“What are you doing?”
“Getting rid of all the goddamn negativity in my life.”
I looked down at the mess he was making.
“I know,” he said, his lips moving in frozen slow motion. “I'm going to clean it when I'm done.”
After ripping up the last of his cards, he sat down on the ledge and pulled me in so that I was between his legs. He put his hands inside my coat, rested his head on my chest and squeezed. His whole body was shivering.
“I talked to Michael. He said everything went well. He's euphoric.” I lifted Paul's chin. “Why aren't you?”
He sighed. “My name is Linus Van Pelt. It's dawn, I'm standing in the pumpkin patch, I've been here all night, I skipped trick-or-treating for this shit and what do I get? Nothing. Nada. The Great Pumpkin never showed up. The Great Pumpkin doesn't exist.”
Paul's uncharacteristic frailty was melting me. ??
?Hey. Do you realize what you accomplished today? You're supposed to be happy right now.”
“I am. That's the most fucked-up part,” he said. “I've never been happier in my life. But when dreams come true in reality they never feel the same as when you imagine them, and you know what that means? It means that no matter how good things are, maybe they'll never be good enough, and there's something seriously wrong with that.”
I kissed him and tried to warm his ears with my mitten-covered hands. “All your cocky-bastard nonsense, it's an act, isn't it?”
“If I said yes, would you love me less?”
“I'd probably love you more.”
“I'm so glad you said that.” He began to pace back and forth in a line, speaking to my feet. “Eliza, I need to ask you something. And all I want is an answer. Not an answer in the form of a question, not a goddamn soliloquy on my future as the savior of the heathens and pagans, just what's in your heart, all right? I need to know that wherever I end up, in the stars or in the gutter, you're along for the ride.”
It felt like a trick question. “What do you mean?”
He actually stomped his feet. “What did I just say about answering a question with a question?” He spun me around and made me sit in the spot he'd just vacated while he resumed his pacing. “It's like this: What if I decided to pump gas for the rest of my life? Would you stick around?”
If I'd had a hammer I would've nailed his feet to the ground. “Are you a gas pumper who plays guitar and sings, or are you a gas pumper who sits around smoking pot and drinking beer in his spare time?”
“I'm the first guy, mostly. “There was an innocence and sincerity on his face that made me ache. “Bottom line, Eliza— you're my home and my family, and I don't want to lose you. I could lose everything else, and as long as I still had you and a guitar I know I'd be all right. Do you get what I'm saying?”
In the six years Adam and I were together, he'd never said anything so important to me. I'd only known Paul for five months and already I was sure I never wanted to spend a night without him.