A large sectional sofa took up most of the main room, and on the floor in the middle of the couch there was a disassembled tent, pillows, and a box of Legos.
When Loring showed up he was dressed like he'd been running, and he greeted me by apologizing for half a dozen things all in one breath—being late, not having any food ready, making me work on Sunday, the mess on the floor. He seemed uneasy, as if he'd walked into my apartment, not his own, and in so doing he'd made me nervous.
I only seemed to make things worse by hugging him, which I considered common courtesy since we knew each other, and because 9/11 inspired a we're-all-in-this-together mentality. But Loring returned the gesture awkwardly, and I hoped his reserve wasn't going to carry over into the interview, otherwise it was going to be a long day.
“The boys slept here last night,” he said, nodding toward the middle of the couch. “They wanted to go camping. We compromised.” He had a bag of bagels and muffins under his arm. “Does this seem stupid to you? An interview, I mean. In lieu of what's going on in the world.”
“I was thinking the same thing on the way here. But Rudy wants us to try and get back to normal, right? So, let's do it for the mayor.”
I forced a smiled and he smiled back. It was as if we'd made a pact.
“For the mayor,” Loring said.
I followed him into the galley-like kitchen, where everything was made of stainless steel. Opposite the refrigerator, there was a small breakfast bar with four stools that backed up into the living room. Loring filled a teakettle with water and explained his reasons for being late—he'd taken his sons for pancakes, gone for “a quick run,” which turned out to be eight miles, and then stopped for groceries. “I'm sure you have better things to do than wait around for me all morning, but do you mind if I take a shower?”
I wondered if he would use all three shower heads.
Before Loring sped away, I asked him if I could borrow a sweater.
“Are you cold?” he said.
“I'm about three degrees away from being cryogenically frozen.”
Laughing, he fiddled with the thermostat in the hallway and then disappeared. While he was squandering the city's water supply, I took a plate from one of the cupboards, arranged the bagels and muffins, and finished making the tea.
Loring reappeared in less than five minutes, bringing the scent of his cologne with him, which smelled even better on him than it did in the bottle—like sex on freshly cut grass after a summer rain. He handed me a gray cashmere pullover and I slipped it on. The sleeves hung inches below my fingertips.
Loring, barefoot, wore a chocolate-colored T-shirt and navy blue pinstriped slacks. His skin was still dewy from his run, and just tan enough to highlight his soft brown eyes.
The guy was stunning. Really. I didn't think there was any harm in admitting this, at least to myself, and most likely to Vera later on. His face was so perfect I felt inadequate, as if I needed to be cool and beautiful to be in the room with him.
“Are these your kids?” I asked, referring to the numerous photographs on the refrigerator.
“Yeah.” Loring stepped behind me and pointed over my shoulder. “That's Sean, and that's Walker. They just turned five.”
Undoubtedly identical twins, both boys had cute, mischievous smiles and floppy hair that touched their shoulders, much like Rex and Spike, the sons I imagined Paul and I would have some day.
“Your wife?” I asked, alluding to the woman in one of the photos.
“Ex-wife,” he said.
The woman's face was vibrant and approachable. “She's pretty.”
Loring nodded with no semblance of malice or regret and explained that his ex-wife, Justine, lived three floors down. She and Loring had lived there together, and when they divorced he bought the penthouse so he could stay close to the kids.
“Doesn't that get weird? What if you bring a girl home and you're in the elevator, then it stops on her floor and there's the ex?”
He chuckled. “Unfortunately, I haven't had to worry about that lately, but Justine and I are good friends. We get along really well.”
Loring picked up the tray I'd prepared and headed to the living room. I followed close behind, to ride the wave of his cologne.
“Right,” I said. “If you get along so well, why did you get divorced?”
He set the tray down on the coffee table and tried to kick the collapsed tent out of the way. “Can't you beat around the bush before you hit me with the personal stuff?”
“Sorry. I'd rather not pry into your personal life, believe me. But considering every song on Rusted seems to address the topic of crumbling love, it's a pretty unavoidable topic. In other words, you either resign yourself to talking about it, or send me home without a story. And please don't do that because my boss lives to see me fail.”
“Lucy Enfield?” Loring's tone was subtle but managed to convey his negative feelings toward the woman.
I nodded. “The day I got this assignment she was so mad she sent me to Office Depot to buy her a stapler, just to remind me who was in charge.”
“In that case, I'll talk.”
I moved from the couch to the floor, impelled by a nostalgic yearning to be closer to the Legos. Loring followed me to the carpet, attached two blue plastic squares together, and then continued adding pieces while I prodded him about his marriage.
His responses were reticent at first, but eventually he got sidetracked by his project and started rambling about college. I couldn't remember where he'd gone and when I asked him, he muttered “Yale” as if it were the local vocational school.
“What did you study?”
“Art history,” he said, digging through the Lego box. “Well, specifically, it was humanism in renaissance art and architecture, but don't you dare print that.”
“Is that where you met your wife?”
“Ex-wife,” he said again. “And no. I spent my junior year studying in Florence. I met her at the Uffizi. We fell in love staring at Botticelli paintings.”
“Is she Italian?”
“Uptowner,” he said, pointing in a direction that must have been north. “She actually grew up eight blocks from here. She was supposed to be backpacking around Europe and ended up staying with me the whole time.” He fixed two yellow Legos together to form what looked like an arm. “I know the media wrote a lot of crap after we split. They said Justine was seeing someone else and then I was seeing someone else. None of it was true. There were no third parties involved. Nor did I say I hated being married like the Daily News alleged.” Loring's intonation conveyed how important it was to him that I understand this. “Hell, I want to be in love just as much as the next guy.”
I checked to make sure my tape recorder was running. “I can't believe you just said that.”
He didn't raise his head, just his eyes.
“No joke, Lucy gets orgasmic over statements like that. She might even be nice to me for a day. And I'm warning you now, she'll probably put it on the cover.”
“Can I take it back?”
“Not a chance.” I laughed. “So, where did it go wrong? Your marriage, I mean.”
I was trying to construct a multilayered Lego building in which every floor was a different color. The level currently under construction was red. As Loring responded to my question, he passed me half a dozen red rectangles. His hands were distracting. They were lean and strong and perfectly symmetrical to the rest of him.
“Nothing ever really went wrong per se. There was just stuff that was never going to work. Stuff we never discussed until it was too late.”
“What kind of stuff?” I pressed, and when he looked flustered, I said, “May I remind you this was your idea?”
He yielded with a smirk. “The life of a musician, mainly. Justine had no idea what she was in for, like breast-feeding in the back of a tour bus. She wanted a nine-to-five husband whose travel schedule consisted of a Christmas timeshare in Vail.” Loring was searching for a specific Lego. “Eventua
lly she just started staying home, and we grew apart—Justine learned how to say that in therapy—we grew apart. The thing is, we loved each other, and on some level we always will, but when you're twenty-three and you fall in love, you tend to think that love will supercede any problems. That's what Rusted is about. Realizing that no matter how much you love somebody, no matter how desperately you want a relationship to work, life can act as an oxidizer and corrode it to pieces.”
I was saddened by Loring's sentiments, mainly because what happened to him and his wife was exactly what I was afraid was going to happen to me and Paul.
“Can I ask you something? Why did you agree to do this interview?”
He put his Lego creation on hold to slice a bagel and smear it with a thick layer of cream cheese. “My manager had been bugging me to do it forever. Then I met you and, I don't know, I figured you could be trusted. Doug was the one who actually suggested it. He said you were worth talking to. Even if you are a stalker.”
“Don't start that again,” I said, laughing. “Or I'll write that you were rude and difficult, and you waste water with your three-headed shower.”
He cleared his throat and a smile completely devoid of offense appeared on his face. “Someone's been snooping.”
“Uncle Fester told me to make myself at home. Do you always refer to your father by his first name?” I said quickly.
“When I'm talking to a reporter I do.”
“Ugh. Don't think of me as a reporter. Think of me as an old friend.”
Loring nodded, and I launched into a tirade of questions about his childhood. He told me many things I already knew, like how he'd grown up in a townhouse on West Twelfth Street, but that his family also had a farm in Vermont, in the same town where his mother, Lily, was born. She raised horses there. And Loring had a younger brother, Leith, a film editor who lived in TriBeCa.
“When I met your dad he told me you were the last person in the world he thought would end up in this business,” I said, carefully tearing off the top of an elephantine blueberry muffin. “He thinks you're too smart to be a rock star.”
My nerves were gone by now. I felt comfortable talking to Loring. Despite his background and his success, I found him to be disarming, bright, and not the least bit jaded. He was also the only musician I'd ever met who wasn't completely self-absorbed. Hell, even Paul was completely self-absorbed, in his own heartfelt way.
Loring scratched his temple and said, “Can we not talk about me for like, five minutes? I'm boring myself. Besides, it's hardly fair that you know everything about me and I don't know anything about you.”
“There's nothing to know.”
“I don't believe that,” Loring said.
I saw him glance down at my wrist, and that's when I knew that Doug had already told him my whole life story. I flipped my wrist for Loring's inspection. “Paul wants to get a tattoo just like it. Instead of wedding rings, we'll have matching scars.”
“How romantic,” Loring said, but he sounded facetious. And he sounded like he was trying to change the subject. “When are you getting married, anyway?”
“Soon. But Paul's got a lot on his plate right now.”
Loring took a bite of his bagel. There was a warm, sad smile on his face, one that I chalked up to disappointment over his own failed relationship.
I mined around the body of my muffin, trying to locate a blueberry, my thoughts now on Paul. He'd been gone for almost a week, riding around with the Michaels, playing shows on college campuses along the East Coast. I imagined him, that very minute, curled up on the floor of the van in some deserted rest stop, hungover and hungry for a cigarette.
“Loring, can I ask you something? How do you handle all the bullshit that comes along with what you do?”
“Are you asking as a reporter, or as the concerned friend of a potential rock star?”
“Concerned friend,” I said. “Paul is so obsessed—with not selling out, with not compromising, with being unable to maintain his integrity. Every step forward is a battle for him.” I shrugged. “I don't really know what I'm asking, I just worry.”
“I remember one night at Emperor's Lounge, a girl came up to Paul raving about one of his songs. But she was wearing an Aerosmith T-shirt and he freaked out. He said Aerosmith was one of the biggest sellout bands in the world and he couldn't reconcile that someone could like his music and Aerosmith's.”
“That's exactly what I mean. It took me a month to convince him to make a video. And even then, he only agreed to let them film a live performance of the song.”
“Maybe it's just easier for me because I grew up around it, but I think Paul takes his job too seriously. We're not curing cancer. We're not negotiating peace in the Middle East, right? Hell, it's only rock ‘n’ roll.”
I felt my jaw drop.
“Uh-oh,” Loring said. “She's lost all respect for me.”
“Are you sure you're related to Doug Blackman? Because I don't think he would ever raise his son to say something as stupid as It's only rock ‘n’ roll.”
Loring laughed. “You think I'm wrong?”
“What I think is that you can't trivialize art. ‘The Day I Became a Ghost’ changed my life. Do you understand how big that is? That a silly little song can alter the course of a person's destiny? My life would be remarkably different, remarkably less extraordinary, less everything, if it weren't for the mystical force that a second ago you pitifully reduced to only rock ‘n’ roll.”
He was still laughing at me.
“Answer me something,” I said, fired up. “Don't you think what you do has immense, ineffable value?”
“Maybe. But maybe not. All I'm saying is that making a video isn't the end of the world. And the truth is I want my songs played on the radio, I want my videos on TV, I want to sell records. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that.”
“Paul wants that, too. Just not at the expense of his self-respect.”
“He's a lot like my dad that way. Fortunately, Doug's got his own history to back him up. Paul doesn't have the same luxury. Not yet, anyway. I'm sure I don't have to tell you this, but I think Paul could be huge if he would just give in a little.”
“Giving in is against his religion.”
We were both quiet while Loring finished his bagel and I scanned my notes. “Question,” I said, getting back to the interview. “Have you ever had a real job?”
“As opposed to my fake one?”
I chuckled. “Sorry. I just mean, did you ever have to really struggle?”
“I never had to struggle financially, if that's what you're asking. But I did have to clean the horse barn when I was a kid.” His answer came out sheepish and I wondered why he sometimes seemed embarrassed by who he was.
“Can I ask you something?” I said.
“Why do you keep asking me that?”
“It's my way of warning you that my next question could be construed as invasive.”
“You already searched my house. How much more invasive can you get?”
“Why are you so self-conscious about who you are?”
There was a long pause. “I guess one of the reasons is because I've taken a lot of flack for my last name—case in point being the record review in the magazine you work for. Don't get me wrong, I'm proud of my dad. But I never feel like people see me as separate from him. His name is always mentioned when my career is being discussed, yet notice how he has complete autonomy from my shadow. The irony is I don't think I'm a musician because of Doug Blackman.”
He held up his finished product for inspection. It was a robot and it looked like it came straight from a toy store.
“You've obviously had a lot of practice,” I said, comparing it to my structure, which was nothing but a rainbow-colored box. “So, if not for Doug, then why?”
“October, 1982. The Clash and the Who at Shea Stadium. Imagine the impact on a nine-year-old.”
“See? You just proved my point! That's the power of music!”
/> He acquiesced with a shy smile that called to mind Vera's word hottie.
“Don't you think your dad's proud of you?”
“Off the record?” Loring said. “I think he's completely disappointed in my chosen career. He used to give me that old ‘you're too smart to be a musician’ line, but sometimes I think what he really meant was ‘you don't have it in you.’”
“Have what in you?”
“That thing. Like he has, and Paul has. That overwhelming life-or-death need to make music.”
“He sure went on about you when I met him.”
Loring looked surprised by that. “Here's a perfect example of what I mean—I was on the track team in high school. Junior year I could run a mile faster than anyone in the district and my dad bragged about that like it was the greatest accomplishment in the world. But he's never once patted me on the back and said, ‘Congratulations on those number one records, kid.’”
“How fast?”
“What?”
“How fast could you run a mile?”
“I don't know.”
“Yes you do. Tell me.”
“I think my best time was four minutes eleven.”
“Four eleven? Are you kidding? I run six days a week and can't break nine minutes. What about now? If you're sprinting?”
“I could probably manage a four fifty-five, but it would kick my ass.”
“So what's next on your schedule? Writing? Recording? The Olympics?”
“I have two weeks of shows in January—makeup dates we cancelled after September 11. I might record a song for a movie soundtrack next year. Other than that, I plan on taking a lot of time off. I'm going to hang out with my kids and try to cultivate some kind of personal life.”
I began putting the used dishes and napkins back onto the tray and Loring said, “Are we done?” He almost sounded disappointed.
I took off the sweater, folded it like Paul had taught me, and set it on the couch. “Is there anything else you want to say? Any censorship you wish to impart?”
He thought it over. “Actually, I've never understood why what I'm wearing or what I look like is relevant. It would be really cool if someone wrote an article that didn't include that stuff. Oh, and the three-headed shower—that was here when I moved in.”