Since Eliza doesn't fly but longs to travel all the same, this is a dream come true for her. Unfortunately I never get to bed before the middle of the night, so I sleep half the day, but my betrothed is always up at the butt crack of dawn to run. She usually sleeps while the bus is moving, then she hangs out with Loring—this was part of the deal with Sonica. Lucy let her have the two weeks, but only if Eliza agreed to do a daily online diary of life on the road with Loring Blackman. Basically, Eliza follows Loring to soundchecks, hangs out with him backstage, compiles set lists, takes a few candid digital photos, then hooks into the Sonica website and posts it all.
It's not like I mind—theoretically—but Eliza and Loring have been spending a lot of time together, and there was this one incident a few days back…probably not even worth mentioning, but it's on my mind so I'm going to document it.
We had a day off in Chicago, and Eliza and I had been sharing a room with Michael all week, so I forked over cash out-of-pocket and got us our own one bedroom suite. As soon as she got back from a run with Loring, which has become a daily event, she and I were going to do some sightseeing and then go shopping for wedding rings. I was expecting her back by eleven. At noon I heard a commotion in the hallway, and when I looked out the peephole, Loring was standing in front of the door, carrying Eliza on his back and trying to get the card key in the slot without dropping her. They were laughing in this relaxed, familiar way that seemed, I don't know, way too relaxed and familiar. Her arms were holding his shoulders, his furled like a pair of goddamn wings around her legs.
I didn't know what to do so I went back into the bedroom and waited. There was a half wall dividing the sitting room and bedroom, and I was pretty sure they wouldn't be able to see me when they came in.
I watched Loring set Eliza on the couch like she was breakable. “RICE,” he said. “Rest, ice, compression, elevation.” Whatever the fuck that is.
She took off her shoe and propped her foot on the arm of the couch while Loring grabbed a towel and filled it with ice. Then he cradled her ankle like Prince Charming testing the goddamn glass slipper and set the ice pack on top if it.
I kept watching Loring watching Eliza and a disturbing thought came to me. But it wasn't a strike of lightning or anything. More like a subtle tap on the shoulder, which is why I didn't go ballistic. Besides, I trust my betrothed.
This is not to say I wasn't put off by the way Loring's eyes darted around Eliza's face when she wasn't paying attention to him. And by the way they both laughed when the towel slipped and ice spilled all over the floor.
I got up and made like I'd been sleeping, and both of their heads spun in my direction. Eliza seemed genuinely happy to see me, which made me feel better, but Loring acted like a teenager who'd been caught screwing in his parent's bed.
I asked Eliza if she was okay. She laughed and looked at Loring and said she thought her ankle was broken, giving me the impression “broken” was some kind of inside joke told for Loring's benefit because he laughed right back at her and said, “It's not broken. She just twisted it. It'll be fine in a few days.”
I looked at her ankle. It was definitely swollen, and there was a bruise forming on the left side. When I asked her what happened she started telling me Loring had tripped her. Then he raised his hand and cut her off, claiming she'd wanted to race, and because he's considerably faster than she is—his exact words—she purposely stepped on his heel and then fell.
I'd never heard Loring talk so goddamn fast, so loudly, or so clearly.
Eliza started moaning, and right away Loring volunteered to go get her some Advil. I told him not to bother, I had some, and I might have sounded rude. Actually, I'm sure I did, because Loring gathered up all the spilt ice, dumped it into the sink, and said he'd see us later.
Eliza thanked him a zillion times and he gave her one of those charming, humble smiles that make the sorority girls swoon. When the door shut behind him, Eliza looked up at me and said, “You're in a lousy mood today.”
Lousy mood? I wasn't in a lousy mood. It was just that, as I pointed out, I blew the whole goddamn morning waiting for her while she was gallivanting around Chicago with Loring.
Using her pissed-off, I'm-about-to-kick-you voice, she huffed and told me she hadn't been gallivanting. She said when you can barely walk, gallivanting is literally impossible.
I wanted to come right out and say what was on my mind, but I didn't want to spend the day in a big goddamn fight. Still, I knew I'd feel better if I threw my worries up in the air and watched to see where they bounced so I asked Eliza, very calmly, if it had escaped her attention that she'd spent more time with Loring in the last week than she had with me.
She goes: “You exaggerate, Paul.”
Next I asked her if she and Loring were like, best friends now or something, and she said, “Well, we're friends, I guess. Does that bother you?”
I asked her if it should.
A honey-sweetened smile crossed her face, her head tilted down, her eyes blinked toward the sky, and all the doubts plaguing my feeble fucking mind dissipated into the air.
Jesus, she would kick my ass if she knew I'd just recounted that story. This one's between you and me. Thanks for listening.
Over.
The band got the news before the show in D.C., when Feldman showed up unexpectedly, flying into the dressing room like a bomber ready to drop its payload, swooping down on Paul who, along with the Michaels, sat huddled around an advanced copy of Sonica, which had a review of Bananafish's just-released, eponymously titled record.
“Swear over your life you didn't tell him what to write,” Paul yelled at me over his shoulder.
I was on the floor near a phone jack, computer on my lap, sending in a diary entry. “I swear,” I said. I'd made no secret of tirelessly pleading with Lucy to assign someone to review the record, but beyond that it was out of my hands. Lucy's position on Bananafish was still critical at best. Although she did admit, after I miraculously convinced her to attend Bananafish's last Ring of Saturn show, that Paul had an incredible voice, she also couldn't help but throw in a typically negative but—
“He looks like a junkie.”
And when Lucy heard Bananafish would be replacing Dogwalker for the two-week tour with Loring, she said, “Eliza, does your fiancé know you've screwed half the Blackman family?”
Sonica called Bananafish “a promising, intense debut,” and said Paul was a songwriter possessing “the heart of a madman, the soul of a hopeful romantic, and the voice of a god. Definitely worth a listen.”
Time Out also did a piece on the band, heralding them as “light at the end of a long, dark, pop-music tunnel. A post-rock, rock ‘n’ roll tour de force.”
Not everyone liked it. Rolling Stone only gave it two stars, equating the songs to “self-indulgent Hallmark cards.” Oddly enough, this review pleased Paul, as Rolling Stone had recently given three-and-a-half stars to a famous dancer-slash-actress-slash-singer whose musical success, Paul claimed, was proof of the decline of civilization.
Feldman grabbed Paul's arm. “We gotta talk. It's about the Drones tour.”
The whole band had been in the clouds for months over the possibility of a tour with the Drones. Their faces shriveled instantly. But I could tell Feldman was hiding something. His cheeks were like pomegranates, round and pink and ready to burst with juicy little seeds of pleasure.
Feldman made a fist and shadowboxed a one-two punch. “Pack your bags,” he said. “You're in.”
I stood to the side and watched one Paul and three Michaels go slack-jaw, their tongues lying motionless like dead fish in their mouths. Then wild revelry broke out among them, complete with high-fives and cries for alcohol. Michael borrowed Paul's phone to call Vera. And when Paul dove to embrace me, the look on his face was one of absolute, perfect joy—the kind of joy that can't be reproached, stolen, or marred—the kind that only the innocent or the ignorant are capable of experiencing.
I wanted to freeze the moment
. Freeze it and jump inside of it and stay there until it melted into the warm, swishy liquid of happy memories.
Feldman threw his arm across Paul's back and said, “I'm really proud of you,” and I found myself filled with momentary affection for Feldman. I thanked him and even kissed his pinguid cheek. But as I continued to watch the celebration, my feelings got more and more convoluted. I was thrilled for Paul, for Michael, and the rest of the band—I wanted nothing more for them than this—but there was a prickling underneath my skin that felt like a portent to heartbreak.
My own, not theirs.
I was scared.
I already felt left behind.
Once everyone calmed down and Michael got off the phone, Feldman expanded on the details of the tour: The band would be flown to San Francisco the first week of March to meet up with the Drones. They would travel down the coast, through most of the Western states, the Midwest, Texas, the East Coast, Florida, and then culminate with a show at Madison Square Garden in early July.
“Madison Square Garden,” Paul mumbled in disbelief.
“And this isn't your average sideshow carnival,” Feldman said. “We're talking first class all the way. The Drones are gonna cart your asses around in a 737, for Christ's sake. Boys, we ain't in Kansas anymore.”
Feldman had said: “737.”
I had heard: “Potential rudder reversal problem.”
Vivid images came slashing through my head like a machete, hacking away at my tenuous, oscillating bliss: March, 1991. Slash. I skipped school to watch the news after United flight #585—a 737-200—crashed in Colorado Springs, killing all twenty-five people on board. Slash. The USAir flight that went down outside of Pittsburgh in 1994. Again, a 737.
Judo, Bananafish's tour manager, told the band it was time to hit the stage, and Paul gripped the sides of my face. “Can you believe this?” he said. “We'll go a few days early. San Francisco can be our honeymoon.”
“Let's go,” Judo yelled.
Paul moved in to kiss me but I couldn't seem to kiss him back.
“What's wrong?” he said. “You haven't changed your mind about the honeymoon, have you?”
I shook my head.
It was supposed to be a love scene of sorts.
It wasn't the time or the place to say anything else.
The show that night was so spectacular I couldn't watch it. I felt like a hanger-on. No better than Starr or Brandy or any nameless fan who wanted to be a part of the Bananafish world, but in reality would never be anything more than an interloper.
I asked Feldman to tell Paul I was tired, and I headed back to the bus. In the parking lot I thought I saw Loring walking towards me, carrying a pizza.
“Shouldn't you be inside?” I said. The guy looked up and I chuckled. “Sorry. I thought you were Loring.” I stepped back and surveyed the guy's face. “Anyone ever say you look like him? In the dark, anyway.”
“They usually say he's better looking.”
Whoever they are, they're right, I thought. The guy was a mutant Loring. His features were the same shape, but the sizes were off. Smaller eyes. Bigger teeth. Fifteen extra pounds. And his hair was a drab version of Loring's thick, shiny-bronze locks.
I started walking away, and mutant Loring, who was eying the laminated pass around my neck, said, “Ten bucks says your name's Eliza.”
I froze, not sure whether to be amused or spooked.
Mutant Loring extended his hand. “Leith Blackman.”
“Oh.” I nodded. “The only Blackman I haven't met yet.”
Leith and I chatted outside the bus for a few minutes. Or rather, Loring's brother chatted and I listened while he filled me in on all the details of his life. He was four years younger than Loring, single, and in town cutting a documentary on the Smithsonian.
Leith may not have had Loring's looks, but he certainly annunciated better. “By the way,” he said. “I caught some of your boyfriend's show. Impressive.” He opened the pizza box and offered me a slice.
“No, thanks. I was just on my way to back to the bus. It was nice meeting you.”
“You, too,” Leith said. “I'm sure I'll see you around.”
“Paul, I threw up on a skycap's shoes! Just thinking about a forty-five-minute flight from Cleveland to New York and I spilled my cookies all over the man's loafers. Imagine what would happen if I had to fly every day. I'd have a heart attack. I'd die.”
“Holy Hell, you won't die.”
Paul was sitting on the bus, in Angelo's bunk, his hands tearing through his hair. Standing above him, I could see his white-blue eyes pointing up at me, reminding me, as they often did, of flashlights. Aligned with the severe angle of his nose, the effect was one of a man possessed.
“You promised,” he said with the crushed disappointment of a child.
I hadn't wanted to have this conversation until we got back to New York, but my brother had to offer his unwelcome opinion. “Dream on,” I'd heard Michael say as he and Paul boarded the bus. “There's no way you'll get my sister on that plane.”
Angelo had run off with a leggy brunette he'd met backstage, and Michael and Burke were waiting for Paul to finish up with me so we could all go celebrate. I shut the curtain that separated the bus's living quarters from its sleeping quarters and said, “We'll be home tomorrow. Can we talk about this when we have more privacy?”
“I don't care who hears me,” Paul shouted. “I have no intention of spending the first half of my year as a newly-wed away from my wife. What's the point of being together if we're going to live separate lives? You know what Loring told me? He told me it's impossible to maintain a relationship like that. You have to get on the plane.”
“You can't make me get on a plane. Besides, I have a job, remember? I can't just take off for four months.”
Paul said, “This has nothing to do with your job and you know it.”
I knelt down and rested my chin on his lap. “You won't be leaving for almost six weeks. We'll spend every second together until then, I promise.”
“Not acceptable.” He stood up, looking like he wanted to pace, but there was no room. “Eliza, you can't go through life like this. Do you know that on an annual basis, donkeys kill more people than planes?”
“Oh, yeah? Well, do you know that between 1975 and 1981, more than ten percent of the toxicological tests on pilots were positive for alcohol?”
He rolled his head in a circle. “Jesus, where do you get this shit?” He made a growling noise that meant his patience was shot. “Listen, I don't want to demean what happened to your parents, and I know I could never begin to imagine what it was like to lose them like that, but Michael still flies. He's okay, right?”
It wasn't just my parents' ill-fated flight holding me back. What was also swirling through my mind was the terror I'd felt standing on the corner of Broadway and Houston Street watching American Airlines flight 11 aim for the World Trade Center.
Both horrifying events pointed to an unpredictable world where terrible things are completely out of a person's control, and I didn't know how to surrender to that.
Paul must have seen what the conversation was doing to the little equanimity I had. He pulled me up from the floor, held me, and said, “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” kissing the crown of my head in between each apology. “I just want us to be together. You know that, right?”
Sure, I knew. But I didn't think Paul understood fear. Fear, to Paul, was an occasional lapse of cocky-bastard confidence—it was subway grates and selling out. For me, fear was fettering, but it also afforded a strange, almost placid consolation, and a belief that the trauma was too deep to ever have to be faced, which, at times, created a zone of comfort around me, one I obviously didn't have the power or the guts to relinquish.
“Drugs!” Paul cried. “Just this once, Eliza. A couple of pills and a Bloody Mary and I swear to God you won't know the difference between flying on a plane and riding the merry-go-round in Central Park.”
I felt trapped
by the bus, by Paul, and by my anxiety. I couldn't catch a good breath and was afraid that if I didn't get outside I was going to start hyperventilating.
This is what it would feel like to be inside a 737, I thought. My hands were shaking as I hurried to put on my shoes.
“Where do you think you're going?” Paul snapped.
I grabbed my coat and Paul, in turn, pushed past me as if we were in a race to see who could get off the bus the quickest. He split the curtain in half and made his way down the aisle, muttering, “goddamn this” and “goddamn that” and “goddamn” something about his pancreas.
“Let's go celebrate,” he barked at the Michaels, both of whom got up and followed him like disciples. By the time I limped down the steps on my still-sore ankle, the three of them were halfway across the parking lot.
Outside, the cold air was a relief. Thinking I should stay close to the bus, I sat about ten yards away, on the hood of a dirty Camaro, and watched a man in the window of the hotel across the street. For distraction I invented a life for the stranger: He worked in banking, had a wife and two kids at home, drank scotch, liked to watch dirty movies when he was out of town but lied and told his wife he didn't, and he'd read every book Tom Clancy had ever written.
Eventually the man's failure to do anything but remove his tie caused me to lose interest, and for diversion I turned to the soggy Chinese takeout menu someone had left on the Camaro's windshield, but that only made me hungry, so I closed my eyes, bowed my head, and prayed for strength and courage and some kind of baffling Star Trek miracle of flight that would allow me to move quickly through space and time without having to put all my faith in a five-hundred-thousand-pound hunk of metal.