There he was.
The ambiance was new, but the impresario without portfolio was not: Michael with his long hair, in his blue jeans and moccasins, sitting with his legs propped up on a chair in his new saloon—all’s right with the world—on a Sunday night, one of his favorite nights, when the music played for the musicians and the straight world slept. My trepidation melted away at the sight of him. In fact, he looked downright homey and folksy compared to anything else in my life.
I hung up my Ralph Lauren fleece-lined jacket inside an unattended coatroom and went to the bar, which, because it was early, was nearly empty. This place didn’t heat up until much later. The first set wouldn’t start until after ten. I looked around. The bar, tables, and chairs were oak with a natural stain—everything was light and serene. Michael had ingenuously designed it so there was a window instead of the traditional back mirror, through which, from your seat at the bar, you could see the entire live act in the auditorium directly behind it. Huge speakers hung on either side of the window. This way, you never had to pay for the music. Other than this sixties touch, I was impressed by how much Michael’s new place was in tune with the times, which had begun to celebrate sophistication.
The bartender was a stranger. I ordered my Dewar’s and was about to put my money up when the man sitting to my right, who was very drunk—head-rolling drunk—said, “It’s on me.”
I turned to be sure I had recognized the voice. Yes, it was 4-H Jimmy, wearing a suit, but deep in his cups. His normally pink face was flushed crimson. I had never seen him like that, either the suit or the advanced degree of drunkenness.
“Guess you heard what happened,” he said.
“I did. I was worried about you.”
“Nah, nah,” he said, waving a hand around, his elbow still attached to the bar. “I’m cool.” He tried to focus on me, but he was too drunk. “OK, Janet. Good to see you,” he said, and turned away.
And then Michael was standing there, as though we might have just seen each other yesterday. “Jimmy’s been through a rough stretch. He’s going to be all right, give it time.”
There was no reference to the past, no airy “Where you been?” Not that I expected any conventional greeting like that from Michael. But it was spooky, his simply picking up as if in mid-sentence, and furthermore without the hours of scrutiny, without the preliminary judgmental distance I had expected. Nor was a single courteous reference made to my now streaked-blond hair or any other aspect of the polished new me. But that would have been out of character. Michael had often leered approvingly if he found me to be looking particularly hot, but he would never allow himself to become sidetracked by the trappings. And now it seemed his feral, moonbeam eyes were gazing into me, and it seemed, if I could trust myself at all, as if he were honestly thrilled I was there—for him thrilled, that is. I mean, he smiled. In spite of the slightly crooked teeth he never liked to reveal, he smiled broadly.
“It’s really amazing you’re here tonight. I got a friend of yours booked to play. Wait till you catch this band, the Backbrains, they call themselves. They probably won’t live long enough to make it, but they’re good,” he said to me.
“A friend of mine? Are you sure?”
“Sure I’m sure. That’s how he got to me, through you.”
“Who is it?”
“You’ll find out.”
“But who would I know with a band that had a name like that? It sounds like heavy metal, the Backbrains,” I said.
“Nope. They got a New Wave beat, but a real rhythm ’n’ blues sound, straight rock ’n’ roll. Go round to the front room when they start. Tell Willie I sent you,” he said.
I was still in love with him. Why did this surprise me—hadn’t I pledged never to forget? But it did surprise me. I was in love with him afresh, and not my worn-out delusion of him, but the corporeal here-and-now Michael. He just got to me. There was no one else who had ever so completely swept the doubts from my mind. I revered his face, his hands, his walk, that small voice, like a shy boy’s, hiding inside, and his sense of the absurd. I believed in him. He was the real thing, an existential being. I imagined that everything he did, no matter how inconsequential seeming, he did deliberately, completely consciously. His very existence was an epic, I told myself. In his absence, the silver notes escaped me; I had become not color blind, but blind to color’s radiance and its intensity. Without him, life lost its savor. A wave of sweet relief poured over me. I had always loved him, I always would, the way some men love the flag or even the truth. The wrenching loneliness I experienced next came from the realization I would never get the chance to speak my feelings out loud. I didn’t dare to entertain the thought that he might feel anything even glancingly similar for me. He was like Jesus, asking not whom he loved, but who loved him. All right then, I loved Michael, loved him well enough for both of us.
Later that night, Willie the ticket taker let me in the makeshift auditorium, pointing to the back rows. The room was pretty empty, though, so I moved up close. Three young guys were sprawled over their guitars, feet wide apart. A drummer was hammering out the four-four beat with the precision of a galley slave driver. The rhythm guitarist pulled his head up long enough to look at the few people scattered in the seats. His eyes were pinned, tiny dots. It was little Eddie, little Eddie Carnivale, or, as he called himself, Eddie Apollo—Evelyn’s beloved son. All grown up now, obviously. He leaned over his Stratocaster, slung just low enough to cover his genitals, and hit a chord. He was hunched over, his head hanging like a gorged spider. But a lot of the time, he played fabulously, pounding out some terrific licks, while the cunning boy up front growled into the microphone. Before they could leave the stage, I was calling to him, “Eddie, little Eddie!”
“Yeah,” he said, already bored by stardom, not even bothering to turn in the direction of my voice.
“Eddie, don’t you remember me? It’s Janet,” I yelled to him.
He spun around and his face broke open with glee. He came bounding down the aisle, stopping a little way in front of me.
“Janet, man, you look gorgeous. What a doll. I never woulda recognized you. Not that you weren’t a piece of work before. I know what’s good, but shit, you are fine now.
“What’s up? You wanna join me and the boys out front? Cocktails on the house.”
“Sure. Michael told me you were good and you are. Really good. I’m proud of you.”
“Michael?” Eddie lost it for a second. He was nodding and scratching his face. He rubbed his now close-cropped hair. Then he remembered. “Big Mike you mean? Oh yeah, nice guy. Knows music. OK, let me round up the rest of those lowlifes back there. See you out front. We got a lot of catching up to do. Not that you or I give a hoot about my folks, those losers—ever hear from my mom?”
“Yeah, sure. I talked to her not too long ago, well, maybe it was a couple of months, but sure, we’re in touch. I really dig Evelyn.”
“She’s a loser. It’s too bad, but she is. I got another loser tagging along with me tonight, my sister, Ava. She’s fucking Cornelius. He’s the lead singer. He’s an asshole, too. A perfect match. But then, Ava would fuck a snake. You remember my sis?”
“Of course I do. She was just a kid then.”
“She’s still just a kid.”
I went out front, where, in the middle of a chattering crowd, 4-H Jimmy was asleep with his head on the bar. Michael beckoned me over to sit with him. Michael seemed changed—less paranoid, or more open, or something.
“Little Eddie, Eddie Carnivale. I never would have guessed,” I said as I sat down.
“What’s he now, seventeen? Anyway, you better watch out for that guy. He’s trouble. He’s a nasty little junkie,” Michael said.
“Michael, you can’t be serious. Little Eddie? C’mon now, he can’t bother me,” I said.
Just then, little Eddie, sporting a porkpie hat, came over to where we were standing. His fellow musicians were straggling in behind him. On the arm of the lead singer clung a moon-faced young girl. It was Ava, who’d grown since I saw her last. She was all legs with a long neck and a body like a grander version of her mother’s. Maybe she would be stunning someday soon. It was the just-hatched look that detracted. Her tangled hair hung loose down her back. She was wearing no makeup.
Eddie pushed her away from the singer, Cornelius. “Go sit down. I’ll be there in a minute. He turned to us. “Don’t pay any attention to her. She’s a bimbo. The band can’t shake her.”
“She looks fine to me,” Michael said, coming to her defense automatically.
“I wouldn’t know, I’m her brother, but Cornelius tells me she gives good head,” Eddie said.
“A very redeeming trait,” Michael said.
Eddie asked me to join him again, but this time I declined. Michael had never seemed as accessible as he did that night. He was practically voluble. I wouldn’t have risked losing his company just then for anything.