LEO
“The only thing worse than being a celebrity, as far as I could tell, was being the son of a celebrity. You had celebrity without even wanting it.”
I asked my mum once if she ever loved my dad. She said that love never came into it. Auntie Lucy said that was bollocks. “Your mum was mad for Mike, no doubt about it. Real romantic it was, too.”
I asked her if she thought Mike Monroe had returned my mum’s romantic love, but Auntie Lucy just shrugged. “He wasn’t one for feelings, your dad. More your philosophical type, you know. He was a heavy rocker. Although maybe there was a bit of New Age thrown in.” I didn’t ask her what that meant because she was pretty stoned when she said it. “He loved his music, did your dad. Would have married his guitar if he could.”
Apparently he’d even jammed with Hendrix once. If you were to believe Auntie Lucy, and you occasionally could, he’d smoked a spliff with Jimi the night Jimi died. Basically, the guy was a legend—a god, even. Up there on the rock stars Mount Olympus. A genuine celebrity. And that was the first time it ever struck me…I was the son of a celebrity.
The only thing worse than being a celebrity as far as I could tell, was being the son of a celebrity. You had celebrity without even wanting it. I just didn’t have the heart for it.
From Auntie Lucy’s point of view if you were there the night before Hendrix ODed you were as cool as it got. Sharing a spliff with Jimi on his last night. Well, you don’t get closer to godhead than that, do you?
Holly is always going on about how unresolved issues with parents hold you back. But even if I do have unresolved issues with my dad—and I’m not saying I do—I can hardly resolve them when I haven’t seen him for over twenty years, can I?
I know that my dad played guitar in a heavy metal band that was big in the States for a while—The Evil-Doers. That was in the eighties. After that the trail, such as it is (hearsay and rumor around the White Lion, mostly) went cold. From a purely selfish point of view, I would have preferred if my dad had been a bit cooler in his musical talents, but you can’t have everything.
When I was living in Los Feliz I met someone who claimed that he’d heard my dad play in a club once. “Yeah, The Evil-Doers man, they were dope.” I’d even found an old Evil-Doers record at the flea market on Fairfax. The Evil-Doers Get Revenge.
I beat the girl who was selling it down to $2, but as it turned out I’d never got round to listening to it. I was more interested in the sleeve, because it had a picture of my dad, Mike “Bad Ass” Monroe on it—both eyes intact. He was wearing a studded black jumpsuit and he had his arms slung around the shoulders of the other band members.
I scrutinized the face on the album cover for ages, trying to feel something other than a deep shame that I’d been sired by a man prepared to wear a studded jumpsuit to further his career.
Auntie Lucy always claimed that my dad had sexy eyes. Eyes that laugh at you, my mum calls them. Sitting in Los Feliz, I looked into the eyes of the guy on the album cover for signs of inner humor, but in the end there was only one thing for it. Using a fork from the kitchen, I gouged them out. I wasn’t being weird or anything. He just didn’t look right with eyes.
The album ended up in the bin, all broken up. I think Snore must have sat on it and tried to dispose of the evidence. Not that I cared.
I’d never missed having a dad. He’d walked out on my mum to chase a dream. Loads of deadbeat guys walk out on their wives and kids to chase dreams. It was just that Mike managed to make his dream a reality.
My mum never forgave him for leaving us, and I wasn’t about to forgive him either. It was just that when I saw him by the pool I suddenly realized I had so many questions without answers, so many things I needed to know. Things that only he could tell me.
I figured now was my chance, and so I took it. After Holly had gone off with Jack, I walked up to Mike, tapped him on the shoulder and told him who I was.
“Hi, I’m Leo. Jean’s boy,” I said. I figured calling myself “Jean’s boy” would hurt him more than if I just said “your son.”
Only he didn’t show any signs of hurt. He grinned and said—all casual like—“Yeah, I know who you are, son. I’ve been looking for you all over town.” He smiled with a smile that was just like mine and nodded. “All right, then, mate?” he asked.
The number one thing running through my head was that after all his years in L.A. the guy still talked like an East End geezer. The thing that should have been running though my head was how he knew that I was in L.A. In the first place. Memories of a voice arguing with my mother while I slept in another room replayed in my head. Was it a memory, or was I appropriating my mother’s memories as my own? That’s what kids do, according to Holly; they take on their parents’ memories as if they were their own.
“You still sound like a geezer, then,” I told him.
He laughed at that, and put his arms around me and gave me a hug. “God, it’s good to see you, son. Blimey, I’ve longed for this day.”
I could hear his voice catching in his throat, which was a bit pathetic. The cynic in me found all Mike’s emotion a bit of a stretch to accept—here was a guy who’d walked out on me, never made any effort to contact me. I had an urge to stick my finger down my throat.
“Let’s go get a drink. My bird’s up at the bar there. I’ll introduce you; she’s about your age,” he said, rubbing his eyes on the sleeve of his leather jacket.
We pushed our way through the crowd, past the guys throwing one another into the pool. The first question on my list was to find out if he’d ever slept with Auntie Lucy.
“She’s not your real auntie, you know,” he told me—it was a classic Monroe answer. Never answer the question you’ve been asked. Now I know who I get it from.
“Yeah? You’re kidding? I would never have guessed that,” I said, as sarcastically as I could. I was finding I also had an urge to push Mike into the pool with all the other penguin wankers.
“The answer’s no, anyway. I never had a thing with her.”
I knew he was lying. “Yes, you did,” I said. “You’re lying.”
He hung his head like an errant schoolboy. “Yeah, fair cop. I might have done, but it was a long time ago.”
“A long time ago.” I repeated the words. A long time ago sounded like the start of a fairy tale. Only it wasn’t a fairy tale, it was my childhood. He’d walked out on my mum and me and broken her heart, and I’d never really realized that before.
My mum had a broken heart.
“You totally fucked up my mum,” I told him, and even though it had just occurred to me that my mum was fucked up, and the reason she was fucked up was standing before me now, I could tell that he’d always known. I could see guilt in the eyes that tried to avoid my gaze when I looked into them for my answers.
“She’s a bit of a slapper, is Auntie Lucy,” I said then, and he laughed, and I decided I couldn’t be shagged to ask him anything else. He was right. It was a long time ago.
Mike’s girlfriend sidled up and he introduced us, only I could tell that he couldn’t remember her name at first. He introduced me as his son, Leo. I shook her hand. She told me her name was Jilly and Mike looked a bit embarrassed, but not as embarrassed as he should.
“So—drink, then?” he asked, and I said yeah and we went to the bar and talked about stuff while we tried to get the attention of a waiter.
Holly was on the other side of the room, talking to the guy that Nancy had pointed out as Ted. A guy behind the bar asked for our orders. Mike asked me what I wanted and I said a Jameson’s—mostly because I could see they had it in stock. Mike seemed really chuffed by my choice and wrapped me in a big bear hug. I didn’t like what I saw as Mike spun me around in his arms. “Jameson’s! You’re my son all right!” he was saying. “That’s my boy.”
Ted or whoever was holding Holly’s arms.
“How is Jean anyway?” Mike asked me. “Still got her market stall, then?”
“Yeah, fine. Jean’s good,” I told him, but I was only half concentrating.
“Careful there,” Mike said, pulling me closer to the bar.
There was a middle-aged drunk woman swaying all over the place. She seemed to be trying to focus on something, but that was when I saw Holly kissing Ted. Drunk Lady wasn’t looking too chuffed.
“You bore!” Drunk Lady growled.
A few people turned to look at her.
“I think this might be a scene,” Jilly said, in a voice that suggested it was what she’d been waiting for all night. Might even have been why she came.
Our drinks were placed before us, but Mike and Jilly were watching Drunk Lady, who was still shouting, “You bore,” only louder now. Also she had started to move forward and was waving her fist, remonstrating at someone in front of her.
“This is definitely a scene,” Jilly squeaked excitedly.
I worked out then that Drunk Lady wasn’t actually saying, “You bore!” What she was really saying was, “You whore!” Which made a lot more sense given that she didn’t look like the life of the party herself.
More importantly, I realized who the “whore” was.
It was Holly.
And her accuser was Holly’s mum.
Jilly was right. It was going to be a scene.
Mike must have come to the same conclusion as me, because as Holly’s mum propelled herself forward—fists in the air—I threw my whiskey in her face and Mike stuck his leg out. Between us we made the bitch fall with an enormous thud. It was all very satisfying.