Forty-One

Having given up on Heavenly Blessings as a private haven, Bobbie headed to another of her favourite quiet spots, Lake Hollywood. Parking on Wonderview, she walked over to the north entrance and started jogging into the late afternoon light. Checking out fares to Mobile had just been a diversion, but examining her apartment lease with a view to breaking it had upped the ante. All those reasons she had given Delray for why she lived here still existed, but she felt herself becoming unmoored a little bit more each day. She smiled wryly at the thought that if she went back to Alabama, at least she wouldn’t have to deal with the state’s number one least wanted peckerwood, now that he’d relocated to Lotusland. Reaching the dam, she paused for water and to admire the vista, another stop on Roc’s obscure tour of Hollywood, this one having to do with Chinatown and Jack as Jake prowling the reservoir. She preferred the image of the lake from Valley Girl, and the first sighting of a young Nic Cage.

By the time she’d completed the circuit, a little over three miles later, Bobbie had worked up an appetite that led her to Miceli’s on Cahuenga. Still hungry after her salad, she decided to stop at the 7-Eleven in Toluca Lake before catching up on some work. A lot of her overachiever clients were at their most needy after work, stuck in traffic on the 101 or the 5, scheming, brooding, and horny behind their tinted windows.

Fuck it, thought Roc as he grabbed the hat and glasses he’d worn to the tribute. Eddie must be off on some top secret Uncle mission, and the fridge was empty. He remembered a 7-Eleven a couple of blocks away and figured he wouldn’t run into anyone except for the usual mini mall zombies. Lately he’d been feeling restless, and with the delays on the Big Sur house, he’d been getting serious cabin fever. A nervous foray to a convenience store wouldn’t solve that, but he did smile at the thought of Uncle freaking when Roc told him, if he did. Okay — a little adjustment of the hat, collar up, shades on and out the door.

The evening was cooler than he’d expected, and Roc found his senses working overtime, as XTC would say. The crunch of his feet on the sidewalk, the smell of the evening jasmine, the hushed tones of a young couple passing by in conversation, the jolt of the neighbour’s dog racing to the end of his leash a few feet from Roc — it was all more real life than he’d experienced in weeks, and it felt strange, dangerous, good.

The 7-Eleven looked more upscale than he recalled, but that wasn’t saying much. It was also considerably brighter, cartoonishly so. There was an instant teller servicing a nervous-looking suit while his wife waited in the idling BMW, and a couple of young white punks were laughing loudly in the phone booth as one of them ripped the directory off the chain and tossed it into the parking lot. Inside he could see a young girl at the cash, alone and reading. The bell on the door announced his entry, but she didn’t look up from the US magazine that entranced her. On his own in a 7-Eleven, Roc found himself looking at items he had no interest in, giant cheese balls in industrial size boxes, rows of cleaning products, wrestling magazines, until he located his brand of shakes in the cooler. He extracted a six-pack and was debating popcorn or mixed nuts when a voice said “Excuse me” as its owner squeezed by in the tight aisle. The breath stopped in his chest as he realized that he was eye-to-eye about fifteen inches from Bobbie Jean Burnette. She was wearing a white tracksuit and Angel perfume, chewing gum, and looking more beautiful than any girl should in the glare of fluorescent light. She flushed a deep red, looking at the mango strawberry shake pack and back at Roc.

“Oh, I’m sorry … I … it’s just that you look like … I mean …”

With shaking hands, Roc bolted down the aisle, dropped his purchase at the cash and burst through the door into the parking lot, hyperventilating. A couple of cops were just getting out of their cruiser and heading in, and he willed himself to walk at a somewhat normal pace as they checked him out. He couldn’t help but brush his hand along Bobbie’s car as he looked inside, for what? Turning abruptly into the wrong street, he ended up walking a very long way, lost, before ending up at Eddie’s place around an hour later. By then he’d written the whole song in his head.

“Eddie, I need you and Stick, right away.” He hung up without waiting for a reply, rushed into the studio and grabbed a blank pad. Roc scribbled for a few minutes then picked up his blonde Telecaster, plugging it in to the Marshall stack against the back wall of the studio.

A few minutes later, Stick walked in. “Hey.” Roc walked over to the drums as the young player sat down and tightened his cymbals.

“Here’s the riff.” He slashed away at a crunchy guitar figure a couple of times. “Straight eight off the top, full thrash then break it down to kick and guitar for the verse. You’ll feel the build over the pre-chorus, then hit it hard for the chorus. After that, just follow me.”

Stick nodded as they heard Eddie on the talkback. “Rolling, Roc.”

Without even a count-in, Roc launched into the giant riff, feet planted directly in front of the bass drum like a street fighter. Stick locked onto him, and the two hammered the opening like a demolition team in synch. Roc pulled away at the last second and swung around to face the microphone in the centre of the room. His eyes were closed, and his voice had a strange, scared tenderness to it.

“Am I fading from the picture

Was I ever really here

Am I falling through the trapdoor

As you watch me disappear …”

He slammed an open chord on the guitar at distortion level leading to the next section.

“From a passing car

Down some dead end street

In a half-remembered song

Sad and incomplete ...”

Hitting the chorus at even greater intensity, Roc spat out the lyric as Stick crashed his ride cymbal and thundered along with Roc’s guitar.

“Maybe it’s always been too late

Maybe I waited for too long

Maybe we’ll never understand

What went wrong

Cause I’m here ... but I’m gone …”

The intensity dropped just enough for the pain of the second verse to show through, then they careened furiously through another chorus. The bridge seemed to elevate, as if there was some hope in the chaos that they’d created.

“Like an echo like a shadow

That the lonely night takes in

Give me a second or a lifetime

Your breath upon my skin ...”

As the final chorus chord rang out, Roc yanked off the Telecaster and leaned it against the amp, creating a roar of feedback. Stick sat, dripping at his kit, hands hanging by his sides, just staring. Roc turned and mouthed the word “Thanks,” and Stick saw the tears running down the singer’s face as he left the studio. There was a long silence once Eddie had switched off the Marshalls, and he looked at his son, still sitting at the drums.

“Holy shit. What was that all about? When did you know.... Okay, this is officially a mess.”