It was a lie. All I'd eaten on the bus was a bag of trail mix and an apple, but the lewd twinkle in Paul's eye made me nervous and I blurted it out.
He remained standing in the doorway. Another thirty seconds went by before he said, “Well, will you at least come and keep me company then?”
I had a notion he would have waited there all night had I not yielded to his request. I walked to the sofa, sat down, and felt one of its springs like a gun in my back.
“Weren't you supposed to be here yesterday?” Paul asked, puttering around the kitchen.
“I missed my flight,” I said, picking at a small burn in the sofa's fabric. When I looked up, Paul was nodding slowly, like he knew the score, and he knew I knew, but he let it go.
He was smiling again. He had, I decided, a cocky-bastard smile.
“So,” I said. “You're the singer, right?”
It was a stupid question. I knew he was the singer.
Preposterous, I told myself, that I could spend three hours in a hotel room with Doug Blackman and eventually manage to stop crying and act normal, yet here was this little rocker wanna-be making my palms sweat.
“Yeah,” Paul smirked. “I'm the singer.”
He sprinkled a handful of black beans on the dough and then set about opening a can of tuna while I tried to sneak another look at his tattoo. He caught me and said, “You can even come over and touch it if you want.”
“Don't be gay,” I mumbled, blushing.
“Don't be gay?” He howled. “Uh, I'm assuming you mean that in the seventh grade, don't-be-an-idiot kind of way, as opposed to calling me a homosexual, right?”
“Yes.”
“All right. I won't be gay if you promise not to be a lesbo.”
Laughing, I turned to look out the window and felt Paul's eyes trained on me like flashlights. I could have sworn he was looking at the scar on my wrist, and this made me feel self-conscious. It also made me want to kick him.
“Do you mind?” I finally huffed.
He slid the pizza into the oven and said, “Hey, don't take this the wrong way, but suffice it to say that if I'd seen you in the subway station and not been there looking for you, I would've wished I was.”
I blushed again and wondered what the wrong way to take that could possibly be. I couldn't tell if Paul was flirting, or he simply had no tact, but either way I was flattered, namely because I'd been on the bus all day and was certain I looked like a mess.
“Oh,” he said next, squirting dishwashing liquid over a pile of dirty dishes in the sink like he was practicing soap calligraphy. “I read your Doug Blackman piece, the one in Sonica. It was incredible.”
“You like Doug Blackman?”
“Like him? He's my hero. I wouldn't be a musician if it hadn't been for that man. He's the greatest songwriter ever. I mean, it's Dylan, Lennon, and Blackman, right?”
I immediately wondered why neither Michael nor Vera bothered to inform me that I had a hero in common with my new roommate.
“How the hell did you get him to talk to you like that?” Paul said. “Supposedly Doug Blackman never talks to reporters.”
I tucked my legs underneath my body, sat back down, and said, “It was his big farewell tour. He's officially retired from the road now. I guess he was feeling nostalgic. And, well, I think he felt sorry for me.”
“I loved his theory that the state of music is a metaphor for America. My favorite line was: Tell me what you listen to and I'll tell you who you are.”
Paul was nodding as if he'd never heard anything more brilliant. In my mind, this elevated Paul to the status of friend, although I was first to admit I didn't have a lot of friends who made me dizzy and whose chests I longed to touch.
Adam, as irony would have it, hadn't been a Doug Blackman fan. When he'd wanted to piss me off he would call Doug pompous or overrated. Once he had even accused me of liking Doug more than I liked him, which was ridiculous. I had adored Adam. Everything he owned was blue: his car, his clothes, his drum set, his couch. At one point, even his hair. It sounds weird now, but at the time I found it endearing.
“So you sent the article to Sonica,” Paul went on, “and they not only printed it, they hired you?”
I nodded.
Paul hopped over the back of the couch, sat down, and, with a gossipy zeal, said, “Just between you and me, did you fuck him?”
Paul said “fuck” the same way as Doug—as if it were equivalent to offering someone a piece of gum or asking them to pick a card. Maybe that was the key to getting rid of the loneliness, I thought. Treating love as entertainment, not as salvation.
“No.”
“No? Come on, he must've at least tried to fuck you.”
The way I saw it, Doug had made no real effort. He'd simply, matter-of-factly offered up the idea. My response hadn't seemed to matter to him either way.
“Actually, Doug talked a lot about his family. He's been married for thirty years, you know. And he has two sons. The youngest one's in film school. The older one, Loring, he's about your age. He just released his second record. His first one did pretty well but Doug thinks this one's going to be huge.”
“I know Loring.” Paul was fiddling with an unlit cigarette. “Well, sort of. I used to play at this place on Avenue A called Emperor's Lounge. They had an open-mike night where anyone could show up with their guitar, and the ones who showed up first got the gigs. Loring and I were always there by noon to make sure we got on. We'd wait around the bar watching talk shows until it was time to play. Back then he went by the name Sam Langhorne and no one knew who he was—even I didn't know until he signed with a major label and I saw his goddamn picture in the paper.”
“He's talented, huh?”
“In a radio-friendly way,” Paul said, which didn't sound like a compliment. “He's a decent songwriter. Honest, at least.”
Paul got quiet as he tinkered around the kitchen, but I wanted to keep talking music with him. “Ever heard of a band called 66?”
He crinkled his nose and stuck out his tongue like he'd just swallowed cough medicine. “My manager works with them. Why?”
“I get to review their show at Irving Plaza tomorrow night,” I said, thrilled about my first real assignment. But Paul burst my bubble.
“I can write that review for you right now,” he said. “They're a saccharin band. Sweet but artificial. Vocalist's name is Amanda Strunk. She's a media-hungry bitch and she can't carry a tune to save her life, but she bought herself a nice pair of tits and now she's famous. Actually, I went out with her a couple times, and I think she still has the hots for me, but even I have standards.”
“Tell me how you really feel.”
Paul shook his head. “We have this weekly gig over at Rings of Saturn—it's a small place, only holds about two hundred people, but it's the best thing that's happened for us yet. Not that it matters because who gets the record deals and the big marketing campaigns? Shitty bands like 66.”
“So why do it, if you feel that way?”
Paul smiled faintly, but all of a sudden he looked sad. “If I could do something else besides make music, believe me, I would. I've been here for over eight years, playing in different bands, trying to put together the right bunch of guys, trying to make a living doing the only thing I care about. But I'm almost thirty and my day job is folding shirts at the Gap. Have you seen my room? I'm not messy. I'm rebelling against folding.”
“Vera says you're talented.”
“I am,” he replied without modesty. “But sometimes talent isn't worth shit. There are tons of talentless people out there making zillions of dollars. And unfortunately, an equal number of brilliant artists whose names and voices you'll never hear.”
The verity of Paul's statement, the idea that the world— that I—might miss out on the life-altering genius of an artist simply because the powers that be couldn't see the light caused my heart to feel stiff and heavy.
Paul pulled a lighter from his pocket and put the cigarette he'd been fingering
into his mouth. “I'm trying to quit,” he said. “Just so you know.”
He lit the cigarette and inhaled so long and so deep it sounded like air being let out of a tire. Then he walked to the window and blew the smoke toward the sky. He was half turned toward me and his eyes, at that angle, took on a fluorescent-white hue.
“It's not that I don't want to be successful,” he said. “I do. But music's not a popularity contest to me. You either mean it or you don't. Fuck the ones who don't. I have no use for them. And I'd rather write some really good songs and sing them into my four-track, songs that no one will ever hear, than be some record executive's tool.” He paused to take another thick hit, and then he put the cigarette out on the window sill, collected the residual ashes into a receptacle he made using the bottom of his shirt, and shook the debris into the night air. “Having said that, I can't deny that sometimes I wish I were smart enough to bite the Big One.”
“Bite the Big One?”
“Sell out,” he said. “Do you know how much I live on after I pay rent and the rest of my bills? Hell, when I splurge on a good cup of coffee I'm in the red for the week. I guess I need to find a happy medium, someplace between giving them what they want and ending up face-down in a pool of my own goddamn integrity.”
I found myself suffering a considerable amount of admiration for what Paul made himself out to be—a spirited maverick who probably had a long, lonely road ahead of him.
“Then again, I shouldn't complain, considering what your brother's going through,” he rambled. “Not that I have any intention of letting him quit the band, I'll tell you that. He's too good. And too organized. We'd fall apart without him.”
Paul's words slapped me out of my quixotic musings. “Huh?”
“If I'm talking too much, just tell me to shut up,” he said, clearly misinterpreting the look on my face. “I spent the day playing guitar in the rehearsal space. Haven't had a real conversation since breakfast.”
“No, it's not that. What did you mean about Michael quitting?”
Paul's head tilted. “You don't know? I thought you and Vera were like, best friends or something.”
“Vera thinks confiding in her friends is a burden.”
“She never told you about the three-year plan?”
I did know about the three-year plan. Michael and Vera had made a pact before leaving Ohio. Michael got three years to get his music career off the ground, and then it was Vera's turn. For as long as I'd known her, Vera had wanted to go to law school, but in order to live in New York either she or Michael had to work full time. They couldn't afford to chase their respective dreams simultaneously.
“I didn't realize it had been three years already.”
“It will be in November,” Paul said.
“And Michael's okay with this?”
“No. Hence the problem.” Paul put his hand up in the air like a traffic cop. “Can we not discuss this right now? It's throwing me off-rhythm.”
He went to check on the pizza. Standing in front of the oven, he braced himself on the counter and began to moan like he'd just been stabbed.
“See?” He pointed to his right side. “As if being poor and desperate isn't enough,” he said with his hand below his right hip, “I'm pretty sure I have some sort of growth on my pancreas. I'm probably going to die of cancer before I ever cut a record.”
“FYI: Your pancreas is behind your stomach.”
He moved his hand to his lower abdomen.
“Higher,” I said.
He inched up a little more.
“Higher,” I said again.
He waved the hand through the air. “Whatever. The pain is migrant.”
“Maybe it's an ulcer.”
“I don't think so. Both of my parents died of cancer.”
“Pancreatic cancer?”
“No. Breast and brain, but it's obviously in my genes. Hey, there's something else we have in common. We're both orphans.”
As Paul walked by me, his pain inexplicably gone, the phone started ringing and he froze in place, wide-eyed and anxious.
“If it's for me,” he said, nodding at the phone. “I'm not here.”
I was hoping it would be Michael. I picked up the phone and said hello. Without saying hello back, the girl on the other end announced herself as Avril. She pronounced it with a French accent. Then, in what sounded like Long Island twang, she said, “Who are you and why are you answering Paul's phone?”
I wasn't the least bit surprised that Paul Hudson had intrusive girls with names like Avril calling him. I was, however, bothered by it. In my mind, Avril looked like Kelly: big-boned, thick-lipped, with one of those perpetually baffled expressions that bored men find so attractive.
“I'm Michael's sister,” I told her.
“Michael who? Burke, Caelum, or Angelo?”
“What?”
At her wit's end, Avril said, “Bass player, guitarist, or drummer?”
“Guitarist.” I covered the mouthpiece with my hand, turned to Paul and said, “Everyone in your band is named Michael?”
He nodded. “Weird, huh?”
“Put Paul on,” Avril said.
Without thinking, I held the phone toward Paul, impelling him to throw his hands up in a silent, berserk protest as he took the call.
While Paul spoke to Avril, I took a shower. I couldn't get my mind off of Michael. I wanted to help him, but I had less money than he did. Still, I knew how much the band meant to him, and I didn't think I could watch him walk away from that. He'd spent years taking care of me. The least I could do, for once, was to take care of him.
I came out of the bathroom and the pizza, which smelled like dog food, was out of the oven. Paul was trying to slice it with a metal spatula. He told Avril to hold on and whispered, “You're not going to bed, are you?”
“I start work tomorrow. I have to get up early.”
I closed my bedroom door but could still hear Paul talking. He was defensive with Avril, answering questions like a man being interrogated for a crime he had actually committed. After he hung up he went into his room and started talking again. Unless he'd snuck someone in through his window, which would have been impossible, he was talking to himself.
His solo conversation went on for about five minutes. Then there was a buzzing noise I guessed was someone trying to get into the building. I heard Paul walk to the door, followed soon thereafter by a flirtatious female voice in the living room.
I sat on the bench in front of my window while Paul and the girl whom I assumed was Avril retreated to his room.
Ludlow Street, as much as I could see of it, looked like it was lit from the inside out.
Across the hall, Paul was either fucking the girl or murdering her, I couldn't tell which.
I smelled mothballs.
The afghan was going to have to go.
Michael was seated, all six feet plus four lanky inches of him. His long, taffy legs were hanging over the arm of the couch, and he had a piece of pizza on a plate in his lap.
It was the morning after my arrival in New York. I was expected at work by ten, it wasn't even eight yet, and I'd just returned from a scorching run to Battery Park and back, trying not to get lost and hoping Avril would be gone when I got home.
Running was a hobby I'd picked up after Adam left. I'd read that it was a proven mood enhancer, and I had been trying to get it to enhance my mood ever since.
When I came in, Michael was picking beans off of his pizza, making a little pile of what looked like rabbit poop on the side of his plate. He had an impassive, stoic air about him, and as he put the plate down, stood up, and walked toward me, he moved with languid momentum that, coupled with his height, was more reminiscent of an old history professor than a prospective guitar god. He'd also been cursed with a head of hair that looked like a merkin sitting on top of his skull.
“Welcome to New York,” he said.
Michael's embrace lifted me a foot off the ground. I pretended this was annoying every tim
e he did it, but it secretly made me feel loved. His shirt smelled like parsley and garlic and I was sure he'd worn it to work the day before.
“Sorry I didn't stop by last night,” he said. “It was late when I left work.”
I didn't bother beating around the bush. “You're not really quitting the band, are you?”
Michael went back to picking at his pizza. “Not your problem,” he said, his tone bordering on condescension.
He and Vera were made for each other, I swear. They both thought the person who cared about them the most was the one they should inconvenience the least. They had everything backwards.
“It's not fair for you to have to give up your dream,” I said.
“It's not fair for Vera to have to give up hers either.”
Michael was right. But he looked like our dad, and the resemblance alone gave his dream priority. For nearly twenty years, from the time he was eighteen until the day he died, our dad had worked on the assembly line at GM. His only hobby was playing an old Washburn guitar, and in the summertime, when Michael and I were still kids, he used to spend his Saturdays sitting on a plastic lawn chair in the yard, nursing a beer and singing “Born to Run.”
Michael and I liked to scream the line “tramps like us” at the top of our lungs. At the end of the song we would applaud and beg him to do it again.
“See?” our mom would say to him, no doubt thinking she was making him feel good. “You could've been Bruce Springsteen.”
“Right,” he always replied. “And if my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle.”
To this day I can't listen to “Born to Run” without feeling like I've been shot.
“You can't quit the band,” I said again.
“Then you better start playing the lottery. Or better yet, get us a record deal.”
Michael had been eyeing the door to Paul's room. As if his gaze had willed it to life, it creaked open and Paul emerged looking like a hung-over somnambulist.
“This is disgusting,” Michael told him, referring to the bean and tuna pie.
Paul lifted his head to see past the hair in his eyes. He squinted first at Michael and then at me, as if he didn't know who we were or what we were doing in his apartment.