He
wasn’t sure how he had let her talk him into it. But then he always would do just about
anything for Cathy. She was way prettier
than he deserved and she knew it. She’d
kept herself up, just as a way to maintain her leverage, he thought
sometimes. But no, that was a mean thing
to think. She did always have his best
interests in mind. Maybe he didn’t have
his own in mind. He wasn’t sure what his
best interests were anymore and maybe that is why it had been possible for her
to talk him into it.
It
was a reality show, of course, but not that one with the gay guys. It was the same idea. Anyway, they would redo his studio too and it
really needed it. Winter was a
bitch. It’s not like it snowed or
anything but it got pretty cold in there.
Hard to strum when your fingers are half frozen.
They
arrived at 6 am Monday morning. Why it
had to be so early he wasn’t sure but anyway Keith had taken a week of time off
from JR Trucking. It’s just that he was
hoping to sleep in a little bit. That
was the beauty of vacation wasn’t it, sleeping in? For the first few years after they had had
children, till Tilda was, what, he couldn’t remember anymore, about 5 or so,
they had to wake up at 7 am sharp. You
can’t have babies or toddlers wandering around the house by themselves, they
start fires. He knew that. Their oldest, Nathan, actually had. Started a fire. Because Cathy had gone into the office early
one morning and Keith, although he shouldn’t, went back to sleep. So, 7 am it was - rain, shine, school day,
weekend, vacation, whatever. At least
now the kids could be trusted not to destroy the house if he slept until 8 am
on the weekends or later when he was on vacation. Sometimes he took a personal day even when
the kids were in school and Cath was at work, just so he could sleep in till
noon, wake up, smoke some pot then practice till everyone got home that
evening. He loved that. It reminded him… But what was the point of
thinking about all that now. Here they
were at 6 fucking am. Last night he had
been excited but now… now. What.
There
was a style guy, a decorator guy who was Cathy’s favorite, a manners guy
although that wasn’t what he was called.
He couldn’t remember what it was called.
Not a lot of call for manners during a gig or at his day job at the
trucking company, he thought. “I just
want you to be able to clean up nice, that’s all” Cathy had said on more than
one occasion. It was usually around the
holidays and it was her number one way of backing out of a skirmish that was
close to becoming a fight, usually over his hair. He couldn’t have told her why he wanted to,
no wait, needed to keep his hair long.
He always just used his music as an excuse. “But that isn’t even your real job” she’d
always say, or something like that. It didn’t take many seconds for her to read
his face and realize that that was one comment too many and to back out. He’d taken a job because of Cathy of
course. He had been doing a lot of gigs
when she got pregnant and she wanted him to have a more regular schedule. He’d bristled but he didn’t expect to love
the baby so much even before he was born and really he would have done anything
that was good for that boy. God, he
loved that little guy. Not so little
anymore, Nathan was going to turn ten in a few days. He apparently wanted Daddy to get a makeover
too, according to Cath. It’s not that he
didn’t want to believe her, it’s just that he knew Nathan would say just about
anything after a little gentle prodding from his mom. The job was alright. They guys were alright and the hours were
regular and the pay pretty good. He
could always quit if his music career took off but… well, or he could always
cut back on his overtime a bit if he needed to.
The mortgage was a couple years from being paid off and though they had
talked about selling and getting a bigger place, she let him convince himself
that if they didn’t have a mortgage he could go back to regular hours and then
have more time to promote his weekly gig.
He had never wanted to get a second mortgage or it would be paid by now,
except that his studio was in the detached garage and Cath wanted a real garage
attached to the house which they built right in front of the old one. But she liked it because she could bring
groceries right into the kitchen and it was better than trying to bring in
stuff when it rained. It’s not like she
was so in love with her car she had explained, it’s just that they needed
somewhere to store stuff too… It seemed like a slippery slope to him at the
time but he had agreed. At least, Cathy
wasn’t like some guys’ wives he knew.
She wasn’t shallow or heavily into her appearance, even though she
always took the time to look good. And
even though she was a little wider in the hips than when they met she was still
really attractive. Of course, he would never
say that to her face again. That had
been a miscalculated phrase during one of their ‘hair’ fights that he’d paid mightily
for. For a week.
So. Here they were. Joe – style guy, Ramos – etiquette – that’s
what it was called – guy, and Mick – decorator chap. He was British. And Lila, the producer. Those were all the people he was supposed to
remember. All the other 20 or so crew he
was just supposed to ignore, like they were flies on the wall. The guys were cool. And none of them were gay. He was pretty sure. He had good gaydar. It was from being raised in the San Francisco
Bay Area. Lila was a trip though. Really high strung, heavy smoker, smart and
quick, but man, she looked like she could use some sleep. He wondered why they didn’t make her over.
Almost
as soon as they were introduced the guys disappeared.
“You
guys have seen the show right?” Lila said. “Is there somewhere I can smoke? I
don’t want to smoke near your house.”
Cath led her to the gazebo and Lila explained how the week would
go. The crew were already loading,
dropping cable and stomping over the lawn – shit, he had just reseeded last
weekend. Lila must have noticed the
worry on his face. She snickered just a
bit at him and told him not to worry, they would repair any damage they did,
including lawns.
“Cool. This is cool.
What a great view” Lila exhaled smoke through her nose. “You don’t want to go in there yet, anyway,
for a bit until they get set up. I always
end up getting in their way.”
A
skinny kid, all of twenty, lomped up to the gazebo carrying wireless mike packs
for him and Cathy. Keith couldn’t help
thinking, that’s the age I was when I started playing. It bothered him a lot now to see these young
guys in their 20s - everyone seemed younger than him. It didn’t seem like so long ago when he was
the young one and everyone else was older.
This kid with the mikes, it’s like his voice hadn’t changed yet. He was quiet and respectful putting Cathy’s
on and blushed when she asked if he was the one who would do this everyday. But with Keith he made small talk. Cath and Lila kept talking. Women could find anything in common.
“I
swear if women ran the world there would never be any war. They could all relate to each other on some
level” Keith said, feeling old in front of the sound kid and regretting it even
as it spilled out of his mouth.
“I
know” the kid said, “My mom can talk to anyone. I mean, anyone.” He fiddled with the pack a bit and then said,
“So, you’re a musician?”
“Yeah.”
“What
do you play?”
“Lead”
“Cool. Do you, like, have a lot of guitars?”
“Yeah.
I’ve collected a few” and added inadvertently “over the years”. He wondered if the wince he felt inside
showed on his face. It probably didn’t
because the kid had an expectant look and when Keith asked if he’d like to look
at them he actually jumped up into the air a little bit. Keith hoped, as they walked to his studio,
the kid wouldn’t be disappointed.
When
he showed the kid his guitar collection he kind of got a little well of pride
over him, like he had made them or something.
He played them anyway. When he
pulled out his prize, a guitar that Cath had gotten for him for his 40th
birthday to prove that she really didn’t hate his music or his ambition, Keith
hoped the kid would know who Syd Barrett was.
“No
shit! Aw man” he said. So, that was
good. But then, “That’s the way to go,
huh? Just fuckin’ create the shit out of
something and then go home to the roosters.”
“Well,
he didn’t actually die. But yeah, he was really young when he left Pink Floyd
and sort of disappeared from music” Keith said.
He hadn’t really answered the kid’s question. He always hated it when he did that. But it was probably rhetorical anyway.
“Dude. OK, man.
Well, back to work” and shook Keith’s hand. “Thanks for showing me your collection”.
“You
play?”
“Naw.
Just a fan. I’m a film dude. But I love music” and he lomped out of his studio
off to do more sound guy stuff somewhere inside the house. Keith thought to ask him to his regular gig
later in the week but then his cheeks flushed red. He was too young, probably wouldn’t like the
kind of rock that Keith and his band played anyway. Too many covers, not enough original
stuff. Most of their audience was around
his own age anyway. Fat, middle aged,
balding. Which brought his mind back to his
hair. Shit. They were going to want to cut it, he
knew. It had been so stuck in Cath’s
craw for so many years, he was sure it was the entire reason she wanted this
whole makeover thing in the first place.
Now he was just feeling embarrassed and shitty. A middle aged lo… He couldn’t even make
himself think the word. He decided to
hide out for a while, see if he could practice away the blues. He picked up the Syd Barrett. What the hell. He never really played it. Mostly just left it on display on the wall
for when his friends came over, to admire.
The
camera people came in about an hour later with the obnoxious director.
“Oh,
no. Don’t get up. We’re just shooting B-roll for the show.” The director barked. “That’s great that you’re playing. Just keep
it up”. The name for the show, they
always had some cutie name, was Modern Rocker.
It seemed innocuous enough, though he knew he’d get some ribbing from
his friends and all the pictures of his brief “Flock of Seagulls hair” period
would surface at the next get together.
He couldn’t help it if his hair styled that well. They’d all been jealous then.
But,
suddenly, lit and hovered over by a camera and crew three feet away from him,
he was uncomfortable playing. Back in
the 80s when he’d first started they had shot a video. But that band broke up long before the thing
even got edited. He had an impulse to
tell the obnoxious director this for some reason, but he squashed it. Maybe he was trying to validate his
discomfort. He was a live performer, not
some TV actor. How do you concentrate
with all these people right in your face?
That had been one of the first things Cathy asked him when they met
backstage. “How do you play with all those
people staring at you?” It was his first,
and as it turned out, only tour. He was
28, 29, something like that and had finally – in between bands – gotten a gig
as an additional musician on a ZZ Top tour.
As it happened the opening act’s lead guitar had OD’d that afternoon and
was still in the hospital on the night Cathy came to the show though she
assured him she would have noticed him anyway.
So, she actually got to see him perform, whereas on most nights he just
huffed guitars on and off stage, tuned them and waited to be needed. It’s sort of the way his whole life felt at
this moment. He was needed for a few
moments here and there and then off to the corner again. He thought this just as the obnoxious
director booted him out of his own studio for more B-roll, told him they would
let him know when he was needed again.
He put the Syd Barrett back on the wall.
He
had felt the same way with his children.
They needed Cath and rarely wanted him.
He tried to be nurturing and a good dad but he couldn’t help feeling
unnecessary sometimes. Until they got
older, of course, but even still it was always “Mom, where are my socks” and
“Mom, can I go to Rick’s after school”, never Dad. Cath assured him that he did have an
influence and was important. He wondered
if this was why men disappeared from their families so readily. He couldn’t think of one friend who’d had a
good relationship with his dad. Except
Cathy’s brother Edward, Jr. Ed, Cathy’s
dad, was the coolest old guy Keith knew and when Ed assured him that men are
meant to be the providers and would be called upon when needed and in the
meantime they should just go golfing he’d felt better. Ed had taken Ed, Jr. fishing a lot and this
accounted for their close relationship Keith was sure. He tried to take Nathan and Tilda fishing but
they had both been grossed out. They
took up hiking instead. Keith didn’t
know if it made the kids feel any closer to him. His own father hadn’t been around much and
spent a lot of time bowling and drinking.
But it sure did a lot for him.
Cath told him to be patient, that someday they would remember those
hikes as their fondest memories. Seemed
like someone was always having to reassure him.
The
week clipped along. Twelve hours seemed
like just a few. The crew would arrive
in the morning, set up. Spend about an
hour talking and eating bagels and coffee and then Keith would be whisked off
somewhere. With Joe, there were new
clothes. A whole new wardrobe, in
fact. With Mick, there were new
furnishings for his studio – mostly stuff he didn’t think he’d actually use,
stools, chairs, ottomans, stuff like that.
Did they think he just hung out and read Rolling Stone or what? He didn’t spend much time with Ramos who
seemed to have some other agenda. Ramos
gave him a few pointers one day for a couple hours on how to hold a fork, order
wine, pull a chair out for a lady. Shit
like that would only be useful on Valentine’s Day and anniversaries. How about some pointers on how to tell your
wife that you’d really like to have another baby or that you want to book a
three week tour of California to see if you still have it?
He
liked Joe the best. He seemed the most ‘there’
of the three. And it was Joe that he was
able to talk to. It was the day of the
haircut. Thursday morning. The whole week seemed to go fast but slow
too, like one week was really three and he couldn’t believe that ‘the day’ was
here already. Joe could tell that he was
on the fence when they had shot a conversation about ‘the hair’ the day
before. The conversation had suddenly
gone south when Joe brought it up and all Keith could do was hem and haw and um
and oh. It was pathetic. Lila had called cut, something he hadn’t
heard her say all week.
“Look,
I know this is probably the heavy part for you.
It is for women too. But we have
to keep this upbeat” was all she said.
Joe took him aside in the bathroom and assured him he wouldn’t look like
a fool. They were shooting wardrobe
stuff in the bedroom but looking like a fool wasn’t his worry. When they came back, turned on the cameras,
Joe changed the subject and that was that.
Keith
was strumming his nerves away when the sound kid came to get him. They chitchatted about rock a bit as he miked
Keith up and then it was into the SUV and off to the salon. Ramos and Mick were there too along with a
camera guy in the passenger seat. It was
all upbeat and jokes and “Are you nervous?” type questions until they got to
the salon. After his hair was washed and
put in a tight polytail the stylist made some excuse about sharpening scissors
or gel or something and suddenly he and Joe were sitting alone in front of the
mirror.
He
was, for the first time, uncomfortable with Joe. And he all of a sudden realized too that Joe
was gay. But that didn’t bother
Keith. It was the intensity with which Joe
looked at his reflection in the mirror.
He didn’t say anything at first and then he stood up, walked behind him
and picked up Keith’s hair. Keith
flinched, Joe saw it but didn’t say anything.
Joe sensed it wasn’t personal.
“What
does this mean?” Joe asked as he dropped the ponytail Keith so often held his
hair in, especially at work or around the house. He only ever really let it down on stage.
“Well,
it’s my image on stage.” Joe let him go
on. “I don’t know. I’m just so used to it, I guess”.
“Dude,
that’s the answer for the cameras. Come
on. What is it?”
Keith
couldn’t think of any words. It wasn’t
really something that could be put into words anyway. He felt like he was going to cry. Joe sat down and for a moment Keith thought
he was going to hold his hand, but didn’t.
“I
came into this business late you know? I
was twenty before I ever picked up a guitar.
Before that I was… I dunno, just wandering around my life. But I picked this up and just… something
clicked. It’s all I wanted to do from
then on.” Joe measured his face, looked
and waited for an uncomfortable length of time.
Finally,
Keith couldn’t hold it back. It came,
just one tear, but humiliating nonetheless.
But considering the entire length of his adulthood so far this was
pittance to pay, one small tear for twenty plus years of embarrassment and
failure and unfulfilled expectations.
“It’s
the one thing that makes me feel like there might still be a chance that I’m
not… a loser.”
Joe
looked at him for a long moment and then couldn’t help himself, he hugged
Keith. Keith was really glad the cameras
weren’t around but he was glad for the hug too.
When he released him, Joe was crying too. He patted Keith firmly on the back and then sat
back down.
“Well,
you got to stop thinking that any of this has any real meaning. Your wife and your kids are, and always would
have been, the only thing to prove that you aren’t a loser.” Joe went on to say that it was all a fluke
anyway, that hard work meant nothing.
Keith desperately wanted to complain, to tell him how he’d had a string
of bands where one or other of the members would be lazy or an alcoholic or
have girlfriend problems and how everything would just fall apart. How he’d only ever been picked up for that
one tour he met Cath on, even though guys emailed him and came up to him in the
bar all the time telling him how much they admired his playing. Maybe he’d picked a field too packed. Who wants to be anything but the pitcher? Why hadn’t he learned to play bass too. And he wanted to point out how he was really
dedicated and despite all the years of rejection he was still at it, still
hammering away trying to make something of himself. He wanted to tell Joe how he’d had one hit
that actually was played on the radio and had caught on, on country stations
across the U.S. despite the fact that it was a rock ballad. And some people had told him that song had
influenced country in a way no other rock ballad had before. But it all seemed such nonsense now.
Ramos
broke the silence by thrusting a shot glass under Keith’s nose. The familiar and welcome sting of Jack
Daniels reached his nostrils before his eyes even registered the hand and
glass. After he drunk it down another
appeared and another before Keith could get himself to look up. When he did Mick, Joe and Ramos each had a
shot in hand as well and sympathetic expressions. They drank to life sucking and living it to
the fullest anyway. Finally he was
ready.
“Fuck
it. Cut it off!” he said, the Jack starting to take hold. He was thankful the stylist hadn’t had any.
TO BE CONTINUED
