She put her hand on his cheek but it was too much. He had to take it away.
“Loring, you and I, we can never be. You know that, right?”
Interestingly enough, it was the first thought Loring had after Michael called him the morning Paul killed himself. Notwithstanding the fact that Loring had ended his relationship with Eliza at the theater the night before, he'd done it on an I'm-at-the-end-of-my-rope whim, preserving a small amount of hope that maybe she would wake up the next day, realize how much he cared about her and come back. But as soon as Michael broke the news, Loring knew he'd lost Eliza for good, that Paul's death would only push her farther away.
Loring noticed that the star of the movie, the girl giving the fork-and-knife lessons, was a now-famous actress who had once sent him an email, via his manager, inviting him on a date. I find you very attractive, the girl had typed. Maybe we could meet for a drink sometime.
He'd never responded, and the girl turned up backstage at his Hollywood Bowl show a few months later. She was flashy and puerile and he'd pawned her off on Tab.
“I have blood on my hands,” Eliza said, examining her palms as if they were covered in the stuff. “I can blame Winkle and Feldman, but it's my fault.”
Loring lifted her chin. The way her eyes smoldered under her tears made his heart ache. “Listen to me: there had to be forces at work inside of Paul that no amount of love and support would have saved. You've been there. You know this.”
“I don't know anything,” she said. “Except that desperation and fear make a person do really stupid things.”
She loosened Loring's tie and used the thicker end to catch her tears. And as she continued to weep on his chest, Loring knew he was never going to be this close to her again. And he knew she knew it, too. That they were going to say goodbye sometime after the sun went down and he was going to walk out the door and catch a cab to 77th and Central Park West and he wasn't going to come back. Not unless she asked him to come back. And she was never going to ask him to come back.
By the end of the movie, the girl and the alien were madly in love. The last scene was a shot of them flying off in the standard, saucer-shaped UFO.
“Where are we going?” the girl asked her buff, alien Prince Charming.
“Home,” he said in a boxy, computerized voice.
“But where's home?”
Then came the most pathetic part of the whole film. The alien showed the girl a pillow he'd swiped from a gift store in the mall. It had a saying crocheted on the top that said: Home Is Where the Heart Is.
Eliza remained riveted, even as the credits rolled.
Finally the music started to fade and the picture cut to black.
For the record, I didn't go to Michael's with the intention of falling into bed with Eliza. I went because one of the most painful needs in life is the need to tell someone how you really feel about them, especially if you're pretty sure you're never going to see them again.
That's the reason I ended up on Michael's doorstep. Because my last words to her had been words I didn't mean, and I couldn't exit her life without telling her the truth.
The truth is I was never, not for one goddamn second, not even when I walked in on her in Loring's arms, sorry that I'd met her.
I'm a better person for knowing her.
I fucking loved her.
No, it's more than that. Not only did I love her, but I'm pretty sure I've never loved anyone but her.
Shit. Maybe I didn't exactly tell her all this crap. It would have been too risky to say it out loud. But I showed her. Believe me, I rocked her world.
Getting out of that bed that night, getting dressed and walking away, was the hardest thing I ever had to do. But you know what did it for me? I thought about something she said once, it was after a gig at Rings of Saturn. She and I, and Michael and Vera, we'd stopped at Katz's for a late dinner, and someone had left a box of crayons on our table. Eliza picked out a shade called Purple Mountain Majesty and started scribbling on her placemat. All the way across it she wrote the word BELIEVE in big block letters, and she colored them in on the sides the way amateur artists do when they're trying to make letters look 3-D, except the L, the I, and the E were about ten times bigger than the B, E, V, and other E.
BELIEVE
She held it up and said, “Get it? Inside every believe, there's a lie.”
I think I told her that was the worst thing I'd ever heard her say, but a few months later I found her sucking Loring's face in my apartment and it made a lot of sense.
That's what got me out of bed that night. All I had to do was remind myself that she was a liar, a cheater, and that she'd single-handedly destroyed all my beliefs with lies, and I was gone. Well, after I stood in the doorway staring at the outline of her body under the sheet, that is. Trying to memorize the image for future use in my dreams. And I did it too. I burned her so deep she's as vivid as a painting on the wall in front of me. I don't even have to close my eyes to see her. I can just blink her into focus.
Before I call it a day, I want to document the memorial service.
I know, I know. Showing up at Rings of Saturn was stupid, if not wholly narcissistic. But let's face it, who wouldn't do the same thing if given the opportunity? Besides, I was careful. I slipped in at the end when the crowd's attention was focused on the stage. And it's not like anyone recognized me. Holy Hell, right now I don't even recognize myself when I see my ridiculous goddamn reflection. Mostly, it's the hair. The hair's really throwing me off. You know what, though? I did notice Caelum looking around a lot. He seemed nervous and I wondered if maybe he felt my presence. I doubt it. He's too grounded for that. He was probably still freaking out over the general absurdity of the situation.
I'll tell you who really pissed me off—Angelo. He didn't look sad at all, and he spent the five minutes I was there flirting with some girl near the bar. I was dead and the only thing that asshole cared about was getting laid.
Burke made up for Angelo. He bawled like a baby the whole time. Queenie, on the other hand, had a scowl on her face, and she kept rocking back and forth on her heels like she was ready to attack someone. I could tell she wanted to kick my ass, and she was probably thinking up a new ice cream to express her rage: Chocolate Hudson Shit for Brains, Brooklyn Bridge Bullshit, something like that.
One of the coolest surprises had to be Doug. Having my hero show up just about killed me all over again.
I didn't see Eliza anywhere.
But the biggest shock of all was the fans. They made an altar outside the club and sat in a circle with candles and flowers, talking and singing and analyzing my songs. Some kid even made a poster that said I'd changed his life.
What do you know? There are still people out there who believe music is more than just something to dance to. I'm glad I got a chance to see that.
Incidentally, I've been keeping up with the news, surfing the net a lot since my death. It's not like I have much else to do, and I'm stuck here until January.
Besides the handful of aforementioned fans, people are pretty much over me. And rightly so. I didn't expect to make the cover of Time or anything. Our goddamn idiot-in-chief is too busy stealing all the thunder anyway, trying to convince the world to let him bomb that evil freak who tried to kill his dad. I'm long gone and long forgotten.
One advantage to cashing in the chips this early: Chances are I'll never be popular enough to be the subject of a Behind the Music.
Holy Hell, I still can't believe I actually went through with it.
Like most of my outlandish ideas, the first time this one crossed my mind—it was that day I sat on the bench in front of Loring's building—back then it seemed so ridiculous, so unbelievable, I assumed I'd never have the guts to make it happen. And even if I did have the guts, it was what I call a “futuristic unthinkable.” Like when you're ten and someone tells you you're going to be thirty one day. Or you hit puberty and you hear a rumor about this thing called a blow job, but you can't believe any
girl is ever going to put your dick in her mouth.
That's the stage I was in on that bench. The “futuristic unthinkable” stage. Nurturing the possibility but still unable to imagine it ever coming to fruition.
Now look at me.
I should go. I'm starting to feel depressed.
Next time, remind me to talk about the body.
There wasn't supposed to be a goddamn body.
Over.
Jesus was waiting with open arms. He was still there, up on the wall, right where I'd left him. But Jesus didn't look so sexy anymore. Jesus looked soggy and worn out. Jesus looked like he'd broken free from his home on the cross, jumped into the East River, swam around in the muck, climbed back up and reinserted the nails, ready to resume hanging in torturous limbo for all of eternity.
I didn't care what Paul said in that song. Jesus was a coward. He'd taken the easy way out. Given up. Surrendered. Wimped out.
Maybe we all had.
I took Jesus down and put him in a box. Then I put Jesus on a shelf in the closet. Jesus and I were over. Finished. Kaput. Ex-lovers to the tenth power.
Across the hall, the door to Paul's room was open. I could see the foot of his bed, where his Jive Limo T-shirt lay next to two CDs and a pile of unopened mail.
I walked apprehensively into the room, breaking the vow I'd made to Vera and Michael an hour earlier, when they'd begged me not to move back to the apartment and, losing that battle, made me promise to at least stay out of Paul's room.
“It's too soon,” Vera said.
But I knew that “too soon” was a fallacious phrase, implying that I would, in the fullness of time, segue far enough into stage-five acceptance to walk up the four flights of stairs and across the threshold of the bleeding door with the capacity for happiness.
How long does something like that take?
Another month? Another year? Another lifetime?
Desperately wanting to communicate with someone who no longer exists is essentially a lesson in gravity. No matter how hard you try to overcome it, it will always pull you down.
That's the real reason I agreed to write the article. It gave me the opportunity to inundate myself with all things Paul. It was a way to keep him alive for a while longer.
And it didn't take me long to amass an entire folder of information, including but not limited to a copy of the police report that had been filed the morning Paul dove off the bridge, as well as the statement from Will Lucien—the eyewitness who'd been the only other person besides Feldman to see Paul jump. And, as soon as it became available, a copy of Paul's autopsy report, which arrived from the medical examiner's office in a manila envelope, and remained there because I couldn't bear to acknowledge its existence.
Over the course of a week, I interviewed Paul's friends and associates, and even managed to have a civil discussion with Feldman, which wasn't something I'd wanted to do, but since he'd been the one driving the car it was inevitable. He was forthright during the meeting, probably because he knew an article on Paul would sell more records. Unfortunately, he wasn't particularly enlightening, maintaining that Paul was sullen the entire time.
“I could tell something was bothering him,” Feldman admitted. “He just stared out the window, tapping his feet on the floor. I asked him if he wanted to talk but he said no. That was the extent of our conversation until he told me to pull over.”
I attempted to locate the eyewitness. The police report listed him as hailing from Pennsylvania, but all I had in the way of contact information was the phone number he'd given the police. The area code was northern New Jersey, but no one answered the number when I called.
I didn't figure the eyewitness would have anything new or earth shattering to add to the story, but part of me wanted to talk to him anyway. Part of me was jealous that he'd been present for Paul's last moments and I hadn't.
One of the most unsettling chores of my research had to be seeking out mawkish quotes from various members of the music community willing to laud Paul's overlooked-in-life genius. Lucy had ordered me to make Paul sound important. This could be achieved, she explained, by getting important people to talk about him.
“A quote from your old buddy Doug would really make Hudson shine.”
Doug invited me to his Greenwich Village studio. He was working on a new record and thought I might enjoy hearing some of the songs, but not even the gospel according to Doug Blackman could elevate me.
During our hour together, I felt obliged to ask how Loring was doing, and Doug managed to sidestep any awkwardness by saying, “He's been spending a lot of time in Vermont” and left it at that.
Doug spoke eloquently about Paul: “The thing that struck me most about that kid, he had a real pure heart, but his spirit was all moxie. Perfect pitch in a cacophonous world, that's what he was. And you can quote me on that.”
Bruce Springsteen, who'd admittedly never heard of Bananafish but had been blown away by Paul's performance at Doug's birthday bash, called Paul “gifted” and “irreplaceable, ya know?”
If my dad had been alive he would've dropped dead when I told him I got to talk to Bruce Springsteen.
Thom Yorke said: “It's always the good ones who get taken away.”
Jack Stone contacted me before I had a chance to contact him. He asked me to lunch, eager to discuss his theory on where it had gone wrong for Paul. He saw Paul's death as a cautionary tale of music business ethics and viewed Paul not as a coward, not as a quitter, but as a victim.
“Paul Hudson didn't kill himself, he was murdered,” Jack said, impassioned. “Believe me, this is one of the great tragedies of our industry. The artists who need the most shelter always seem to be the ones who get left out in the rain.”
Even Ian Lessing, still drunk, had kind words to say about Paul, admitting the world had lost “an unbelievably intense motherfucking performer.”
Then there was the hypocrite.
“Paul Hudson was a like a son to me,” Winkle said. “I took him under my wing, made him part of my family. We were very close. And he was a hell of a talent.”
Clearly, Winkle had no recollection of ever meeting me, let alone having been introduced to me as Paul's fiancée. Meanwhile, Feldman and Michael both confirmed on record that they had witnessed blowouts between Paul and Winkle in the months before Paul died. According to Michael, the last confrontation, which began over Paul's refusal to participate in a corporate radio station concert extravaganza, had resulted in Winkle lunging at Paul with a letter opener and swearing that as long as he was breathing, Paul would never work in the music business again.
“You won't be able to get a job tuning a guitar,” Winkle reportedly told Paul.
After that mêlée, Bananafish essentially fell to pieces.
“Angelo was first to crack,” Michael told me.
Throughout the recording sessions, Angelo had apparently expressed dissatisfaction with the direction of the music. He agreed with Winkle—the new songs were entirely too long and precocious for radio.
“Fuck radio” was Paul's reply.
A day later, Angelo left the band over what he dubbed Paul's “psycho-artist bullshit,” and Paul played drums on the remaining tracks. But once Michael and Burke realized the record was probably never going to be released, and the standoff between Paul and Winkle showed no signs of easing up, they had to start making other plans.
Burke got a job working at a holistic pet store on East Ninth Street, and a small gourmet market in the Village was going to start carrying his ice cream.
Michael resumed his post of employment at Balthazar and was contemplating starting a band of his own.
“That was pretty much the end of it,” my brother said. “Bananafish snuck in like a thief in the night, made some really great music, then got eradicated. And you know what? Ninety-eight percent of America will never know the difference.”
Initially, I thought investigating and writing about Paul's death was going to be cathartic, and maybe bring me clos
er to stage five. But acceptance requires understanding, and nothing I learned about the last months of Paul's life enabled me to understand, not even in a minuscule way, why he'd done it.
The detail I found most disturbing was that Paul had left a will behind. In it, he'd put Michael in charge of his estate, which contained the money left over from his advances, as well as his personal property, and any future royalties his music might yield.
Until the discovery of the will, I had chosen to believe Paul's suicide had been a decision based on a whim—he hadn't really wanted to die, he'd simply wanted to stop the pain, and then hadn't allowed the moment to pass.
The will made Paul's death look premeditated, as if he'd planned it weeks in advance, as if he'd thought long and hard about his options and still decided there was nothing— and no one—left to live for.
Late November, I ran into Loring across the street from a tea cafe on Rivington, just a couple blocks from my apartment. I was about to exit the Baishakhi Food Corp. with a bag of groceries when I saw him.
It was a windy day. There were fast food wrappers, cups, and newspaper remnants blowing in circles on the sidewalk like little urban dust devils, and I was waiting in the doorway for things to calm down. Outside, people walked, cars moved. I saw TVs on in apartment windows, heard sirens screaming nearby, and wondered how it could be that everything in the city had life, even the garbage. Everything except for Paul.
My gaze landed across the street and on Loring. He was about to walk into the cafe, and he was holding hands with a pretty girl dressed in a bright red, knee-length coat who, from afar, reminded me of Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany's.
I hadn't seen Loring since the day after Paul's memorial, when I'd gone to his apartment to get my things. I'd told him then that I thought it would be a good idea if we didn't talk for a while. He had agreed, and hadn't phoned me since.
I put my eyes to the ground but didn't even make it out the door before Loring called my name. He held up an index finger, asking me to wait, and then said something to the pretty girl, whose compassionate smile told me she knew my whole sorry story.