Success is so unbelievably relative. To think that twenty-nine thousand people went out and spent their hard-earned money on a collection of songs that came from my goddamn heart and soul makes me wanna do the Hustle down Broadway.
Winkle considers it a failure.
“Dead,” he said for the fourth time in sixty seconds.
“What about the ‘career artist’ approach? Nurturing the band?” Feldman huffed, his face as pink as a baby's newborn ass.
Winkle had the nerve to say he was doing just that. It was the reason, he said, for sending me back into the studio ASAP.
Studio? I asked Winkle what happened to Europe, and shit, I know I sounded desperate, but I WAS desperate. Getting out of New York was the only thing I had to look forward to. I should probably add that a little over a week ago I gave Jilly Bean the old heave-ho. The more I saw her walking around my apartment in her mishmash of under things, sitting on Eliza's window ledge with a goddamn cigarette hanging from her mouth, the more I wanted to catapult myself off the goddamn roof.
“Europe?” Winkle said the word as if the entire continent had just been nuked and was no longer existent. He yapped for a long time about his reasons for canceling the European tour. Not surprisingly, they all came down to money.
“Do you have any idea how much we'd lose?” he said, looking straight at me and clearly relishing his domination over my life.
Winkle said that between rehearsals, flying us over there, the buses, the gigs, the merchandise, they'd be spending ten times as much as they earned.
“Hell,” he said, “even a mid-level band has a hard time breaking even on the road.”
Whah, Whah, Whah. He'd started to sound like Charlie Brown's teacher.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and pretended Eliza's hand was on my chest. This soothed me for about half a second, and then made my heart feel like it was being ripped apart by a grizzly bear.
Even now it hurts to think about.
I didn't refocus until Winkle announced he had a big surprise for me, a proposition that was going to make up for all the disappointments.
“The Gap,” he said.
I could tell by the look on Feldman's face he already knew about this. He had that “Please, just listen, Paul” expression going on.
Turns out my ex-employer wants to use me and one of my songs in a commercial. It's a “white” campaign: White jeans, white shirts, white denim jackets. Some kind of upcoming winter holiday thing. They think “Avalanche” and I would be perfect.
Winkle said the Gap pays musicians out the ass and clearly thought this was all it would take to convince me. Meanwhile, I couldn't figure out how the guy had gotten as far as he had in life, being that he was so goddamn stupid.
I informed Winkle and Feldman that the campaign would have to be white and red if they put me in it, because they'd have to fucking shoot me first.
I think that was the straw that broke Winkle's back. He threatened to shoot me himself. And after realizing that nothing he said was going to change my mind, he shifted back to the new record. He wanted to know how many songs I had in the can.
The whole time he was talking I felt myself retreating from reality. Like in the movies when the camera zooms away from the character on the screen, and the character keeps getting smaller and smaller until he's finally nothing but an undetectable little blip. I was that blip.
Winkle snap-yelled my name and shouted, “Are you listening to me? How many songs have you got?”
I told him I had thirty thousand songs. Then I laughed so hard my eyes watered. It was my only defense. My way of spitting in Winkle's face without having to hock up a lugie.
Winkle asked Feldman what the hell I was on and I told him I was high on life. This is the honest-to-God truth—I'm really trying hard. I haven't smoked pot in three months. And seeing a roadie talk Ian Lessing down from a trip just so he could finish a set was enough to keep me away from the rough stuff forever.
So there I was, sitting at that table. On my left I had Winkle looking like he wanted to kill me. Across from me there's Feldman, probably wondering if John, Paul, George, and Ringo ever gave Brian Epstein this much trouble. My pancreas was burning like a son of a bitch, my career was slipping through my hands, and all I could think about was Eliza.
Pitiful.
I wanted to run out and find her and tell her how much I hated her. And I do. Because I'm sure I could make it through these cataclysms and survive my undoing with genuine amusement if only she were down on Ludlow Street waiting for me.
You know what else really kills me? If I didn't know me, and just sort of happened upon myself, I'd think: Wow, man, that guy's got it made. He's got a nice fat advance in the bank. He's traveled the country. Women want to fuck him. He's been on MTV once or twice, and Doug Blackman knows his name.
Sounds like a pretty fucking great life, doesn't it?
The reality is that I still live in a shithole apartment I'm too sentimental to move out of, I smoke too much, I don't take care of myself like I should, I've sold my soul to a devil with cocoon eyebrows, and I'm probably going to spend the rest of my life pining for the girl who left me for the son of my hero.
Pitiful.
No joke, the next sentence I threw at Winkle was this: “Jeeze, Louise, it must be humid outside.”
The reason I said that was because Winkle's eyebrows were fluffier than usual—the cocoon was about to pop and I was ready to lay ten bucks on the table, with the odds on precipitation by mid-afternoon. Actually, I did lay ten bucks on the table. I even verbalized the offer. Twice.
“Come on,” I said. “Who's with me? Who wants to wager a bet? Rain or no rain?” I smiled like a harum-scarum career gambler and nodded for Winkle to ante up. By then he was making steamy, hissing sounds like an old radiator. I had a notion he might try to grab me so I stood up just in case.
He called me an asshole and said, “I'll bury you!” like some comic book villain.
I wanted to fucking scream my head off—I'm not your toy! Your puppet! Your whore! I'm a human goddamn being and I expect to be treated as such!
Instead I told him I didn't want to be buried, I want to be cremated. And I want my ashes stored in a disco ball he can hang over his desk.
Something possessed me to walk over to the guy, grip his face, and kiss him. It was a good one too, right on the mouth. I even twisted my head left to right like the old-time thespians used to do before they were allowed to suck face for real.
I might have been losing it. I might have been having the time of my life. I'll never know.
I left the room, got in the elevator, and rode it down to the lobby. A husky female security guard with the happiest face I'd ever seen opened the giant glass door for me. She wished me a nice afternoon and I kissed her too.
Now comes the sickest part of the whole day. I left the building and walked north. I live south and east but I walked all the way up Broadway, followed the traffic around Columbus Circle, merged onto Central Park West and didn't turn again until I was on 77th Street.
I'm still here.
That's right. This is WP Hudson coming to you live from 77th and Central Park West.
It's not like I can run into her or anything. I overheard Vera say she and The Thief are in Vermont. Probably on some goddamn love retreat, having sex in the woods, hopefully catching Lyme disease or getting poison ivy on their asses.
I'm just looking at the building. I want to feel close to the woman whose guts I hate. I want to imagine what her life is like in there without me. I want to stumble across something on the sidewalk and pretend she dropped it: a flower petal, a scarf. And then I want to set it on fire.
One thing that did slip my mind—the ex-wife. I parked myself on this goddamn bench with my tape recorder, right in front of the south entrance to the Natural History museum, directly across from Loring's building, and never gave a second thought to Justine Blackman. Ten minutes later, guess who walks out the front door? Justine goddamn
Blackman, with a twin on each side. They were all holding hands and I couldn't tell which kid was Sean and which was the other one.
Justine's hair was in a ponytail and when she glanced around for a cab it played peek-a-boo with me from behind her head. I saw her look across the street sort of nonchalantly, then she started to bend down toward one of the boys but she straightened back up, put her hand to her forehead like she was going to salute someone, and peered at me. I probably should've turned away or ducked but I didn't see the goddamn point.
I waved.
Justine waved back, but it was a weak half-wave, like she thought I looked familiar but couldn't place my face. Before she glanced away I saw the recognition hit her. And then the pity. Holy Hell, more pity. Like I don't already have enough self pity— I certainly don't need everyone else's. I folded my arms across my chest, slouched down so that my head could rest against the back of the bench, and waited for her to walk over and offer me an apology, or at least invite me in for coffee. Part of me thinks she should shoulder some of the blame for my maladies. Holy Hell, if she could have learned to appreciate life on tour, if she could have kept her goddamn marriage together, her husband never would've stolen the love of my life, and I wouldn't be sitting in front of her house like the pathetic stalker-freak she probably thinks I am.
For a second it looked like she was going to come over, but the doorman hailed her a cab, she and the kids hopped in, and off they went.
Bye, bye little Blackmans! I waved like crazy. Bye, bye!
That was a couple hours ago. It's completely dark now and I want to get up and go home, but the longer I stay, the less sure I am about where or what home is. I don't even know who I am anymore. Who the fuck is Paul Hudson, anyway? I can't get a grip on how I arrived at this place. This street is alien. These strange uptown Martians offer me nothing but vigilance and hostility as they shuffle their kids to the other side of the sidewalk so they aren't permanently damaged by the weird guy yelling into a tape recorder.
Yeah, I'm talking to you, lady. What, you've never seen a man in ruins before? Open your goddamn eyes. This is New York. They're everywhere.
I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. That's the only explanation I can figure. I veered left when I should've gone right, but instead of stopping to turn around I just kept going and now I'm so fucking lost I don't think I could get back on track if my life depended on it.
Problem is my life does depend on it.
This is what's going through my head right now: Getting the fuck out. Ending it all. As I sit on this bench trying to figure out which window lets sunlight into Eliza's bedroom, the urge to let go is wiggling itself out from the womb of my psyche, being born into the chaos that is my pitiful goddamn existence.
And you know what? If Eliza was inside that building instead of on a holiday in Vermont, if I could go up to her penthouse and have a five-minute conversation with her, if I could tell her what I'm thinking, even if she doesn't love me anymore, I'm positive she would lower her chin, blink like an angel, and tell me I'm acting like a bastard. Or else she would just kick the notion right out of me. She might even rest her hand on my heart and give me one of her crazy goddamn lectures about being a savior.
As usual, no one's ever around when you need them.
Roger that.
Over.
Doug Blackman turning sixty was big news. Apparently nobody thought he would make it and, accordingly, Loring was putting together a celebration, despite the apathetic cooperation he was getting from the guest of honor.
“Dad, sit down.”
Loring was at the kitchen table in the townhouse where he'd lived for the first eighteen years of his life and he didn't recognize any of it. His mother had just redecorated all four floors and it was as if he'd never been there, as if someone had dug up all his roots and planted a shabby chic field where the funky, familiar, mid-century modern furrows had once been.
There was something outrageously disturbing to Loring about no longer recognizing his childhood home.
“Please,” Loring begged. “Sit.”
Doug had been trying to empty his ashtray into the trash compactor but he couldn't get it open. “Everything's new in here. I don't know how to work a damn thing.”
He put the dirty ashtray back on the table, then sat down and let Loring explain the details of the birthday bash— small venue, astronomical ticket prices, the proceeds going to three charities to be determined.
Doug lit another cigarette. His third in half an hour. That's one every ten minutes, Loring calculated. Six an hour. At this rate, his father would go through a pack every three and a half hours. Even if Doug only smoked for six waking hours, which was doubtful, that still equaled close to two packs a day.
Loring watched a trail of smoke billow out of his father's nostrils and then evaporate. He observed his father's hand as it brought cigarette to mouth. He saw thick blue lines running below the knuckles like cold tributaries flowing down into his father's arm. The hands were see-through gray, the same filmy color as the smoke.
Sometime in the last decade, when Loring wasn't paying attention, his father had acquired the hands of an old man. And when one of his father's old-man hands once again lifted that third cigarette to the waiting lips, Loring followed the hand upward and noticed a face that looked as if it had been left out in a cold wind for thirty years.
In a weird way, his father had always seemed immortal. Doug Blackman was more than a patriarch, more than the man who sat at the head of the table, more than the guy who cheered his son at track meets. He was a legend. A storyteller whose imitable songs had changed lives and histories.
He was also a figure that represented something Loring had been born too inside of to fully understand, and felt too overshadowed by to truly appreciate.
For the first time in his life, it occurred to Loring that someday, probably sooner than later, his father was going to die. He couldn't imagine what a world without Doug Blackman was going to feel like, and he resented the fact that all of America would claim the loss as their own and thus, for Loring, losing his father would be completely incidental to the country losing an icon.
“Tell me how this whole thing is going to work,” Doug said. “What the hell am I going to have to do?”
“For the tenth time, nothing.”
“I'm not performing. I'm retired, remember?”
Doug had promised Lily that the world tour he'd wrapped up in 2000 had been his last, and he hadn't performed live since. But Loring knew there was no way his father would leave the theater that night without singing at least one song. At any rate, he kept this prediction to himself to insure its occurrence.
“All you have to do is get up and thank everybody at the end. Meanwhile, a dozen of your peers will sing your songs, and maybe some of their own as well.”
“No singing Happy Birthday.”
“I can't promise that. Do you have the list?” Weeks ago, Loring had asked Doug for a list of the artists he wanted to invite.
With the cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, Doug reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a handful of papers, and weeded through them, ripping to pieces everything that wasn't what he was looking for. A credit card receipt, a gum wrapper, an empty matchbook all got torn to shreds. The only thing he didn't tear up was a business card. He handed that to Loring. It was from an investment banker at Prudential.
“Other side,” Doug said.
Loring flipped the card. There, his father had penned a roster of names that, because of the small surface area, all ran together like some crazy foreign alphabet.
The list was a who's who of rock ‘n’ roll: old guys, young guys, the famous, and the infamous. But it was the second-to-last name that made Loring stop and catch his breath.
“Dad, you can't be serious.”
Doug stubbed out his cigarette and glanced at the names. “Jesus Christ, Loring, don't get all unglued about that. He's a good kid. He deserves it.”
; Loring picked up his dad's ashtray and emptied it into the trash compactor, which he managed to open without complication via the foot lever Doug had obviously not seen. He set the ashtray in the sink and turned on the water. “No. I don't want him there.”
Doug laughed. “It's not your party. Besides, it's the least you could do after the hell you and your girlfriend put him through.”
Loring tried to keep his cool. Evidently his father believed the myth that Loring had stolen Eliza from Paul. He only wished it could have been that simple.
“It's not just me,” Loring said. “Eliza's not going to want him there either.”
“I already asked Eliza. She didn't seem to have a problem with it.”
Loring watched a pigeon flutter and shake on the window sill. The bird looked like it was trying to shrug something off of its back and lost a feather during the convulsion.
Doug fiddled with his lighter, and after what felt like a calculated silence, he said, “Do you remember that night in Cleveland? The night I met Eliza?”
Through the reflection in the window, Loring watched his father reach for another cigarette and light it. He wanted to grab his father's hand and tell him he'd smoked enough, but he knew Doug would have just waved him off and grumbled about being too old to change.
“I left you a message. Do you remember?”
Loring nodded at his own reflection. Behind him, his father's eyes were glued to the tiny red-orange glow of the cigarette's tip.
“At first I thought she was a crackpot, but the more we got to talking, the more I thought, this girl really gets it.”
“Dad—”
“No, listen. I talked to her for an extra hour because I was waiting for you to show up, but you never did.”
Loring felt his toes twisting, his fists tightening, his insides coiling. It was as though his body was trying to curl itself into a ball.
The ashtray looked clean enough after a little rinsing, but for lack of anything better to do, Loring went over it with a soapy sponge. He wasn't clear on the point his father was trying to make, but guessed it was some kind of comment on fate, and on the obvious fact that Loring had failed to get to Eliza before Paul had.