Billy Lives

by Gary Brandner

“No, they’re too Establishment for our crowd. We’ll have more freedom to operate at Greenacre.”

  “That’s a cemetery? It sounds like a racetrack.”

  “It’s a cemetery. A small, progressive outfit in the Hollywood Hills between Forest Lawn and Mount Sinai. They’re trying to build up a name, and I think we can get a discount for Billy.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Celebrity funerals are good for business.”

  “I’ll take your word for it. Got anything else?”

  “Billy’s records. We get the word to our DJ’s, the ones we paid to plug the concert, and have them spin Billy Lockett till you can’t stand it.”

  “Way to go.”

  Driscoll hesitated and frowned at his cigar.

  “Anything wrong?”

  “We need something else,” Driscoll said, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “Something to grab people who don’t listen to top-40 stations. We need them too.” A light came into his eyes. “A book. Sure, a book will put it all together. A big splashy book with lots of pictures. You’ve probably got a file of Billy pictures, haven’t you? Good. All we need is a little text to tie the pictures together, we get it into the bookstores a month ahead of the concert, and wham!, we’ve got the kind of advertising money can’t buy.”

  “Couple of questions,” Al said. “One: who’s going to publish this glorified press release? Two: how do we get the important bookstores to handle it? And three: why would anybody want to read it?”

  “The answer to all three questions is Dean Hardeman.”

  Al tried the name out. “Hardeman. Hardeman? You mean the author with the bestsellers a while back?”

  “Right, except it was more than a little while back. It was almost twenty years ago.”

  “So what does he do for us?”

  “He’s the author of our Billy book.”

  Al’s eyes narrowed. “What makes you think a heavyweight like Dean Hardeman would take on a hack job like this?”

  “Simple … for money. I’ve got contacts in the publishing business, and they tell me Hardeman is hurting. He hasn’t had a book that made money since his first three, and he hasn’t written a thing in ten years. His wife left him, and he’s hitting the sauce hard. If I go back to see him with a contract in my pocket, I’ll bet he goes for it.”

  “But even if he does need the money, will he write the kind of shit we want? Can he?”

  “He won’t have to. I’ll do the actual writing myself. All we want from Hardeman is his name and maybe a couple of talk show appearances. Everybody wins. We get a pile of publicity for Billy, Hardeman gets a few thou for doing nothing, and who knows, maybe the book even makes a couple of bucks.”

  Al Fessler chewed silently on his gum for thirty seconds, then his face creased into a wide grin. “Conn, baby, you’re beautiful. I love you.”

  Driscoll waved him off modestly. “Just doing my job.”

  “One more thing I’d like you to think about,” Al said. “A theme. A short, punchy slogan. Something to go on the billboards, posters, and T-shirts. A hook that will grab the public and make the Billy Lockett Memorial Concert the biggest thing to happen in this town since the Beatles played Dodger Stadium.”

  “I was saving this for last,” Driscoll said, “but I think I’ve got it.” He sprang out of the chair and assumed the crucifiction posture again. With his eyes reverently fixed on the overhead lighting fixture he let several dramatic seconds go by before proclaiming in deep tones:

  “Billy Lives!”

  CHAPTER 5

  Two days after Billy Lockett slammed to the earth near San Bernardino, Conn Driscoll was flying overhead in an eastbound DC-10. Driscoll did not look down. His mind was on other things. For the first time since his talk with Al Fessler the day before, Driscoll permitted himself a few private doubts.

  He had put on a convincing show of self-assured optimism for Al, but as a freelance publicity and PR man, that was part of his job. He had deliberately glossed over a number of the problems they faced in promoting the late Billy, including the availability of Dean Hardeman. Driscoll had talked as though it were a mere formality — getting the author to lend his name for a price. Now he wondered if it would be that easy. All he had to go on, really, was trade gossip.

  A call to Hardeman’s New York agent, Ernie Zyler, had confirmed that the author had written nothing for a long time and now lived alone in a house on Long Island. The agent had also said he was no longer representing Hardeman, that Hardeman was on his own to deal with Driscoll. The implication was that Dean Hardeman had lost more than money and his wife in recent years.

  Driscoll unbuckled his seat belt and took a look out the window. The San Bernardino mountains were far behind them now, and all he could see below was the fluffy white top of a cloud layer. Along with his small doubts, Driscoll could now also admit to himself that he was just a little nervous about meeting Dean Hardeman. Hero worship. In his first two years of college Driscoll had entertained a fantasy of one day being a novelist himself. His idols at the time were Norman Mailer, Irwin Shaw, and Dean Hardeman. Years later, when he actually tried to write a book, Driscoll found he had neither the necessary discipline nor — he finally came to admit — the talent. The discovery only increased his admiration for the men who wrote books. Even the sudden disappearance of Dean Hardeman from the bestseller lists took on a distorted glamor for the young Conn Driscoll. Like the crackup of Fitzgerald or the destruction of Hemingway.

  Driscoll put aside his admiration for Hardeman the writer. He had business to do with Hardeman the man. He had met enough celebrities to know that they never stood as tall in person as in the imagination.

  To occupy his mind, Driscoll ticked off the projects he had started rolling before leaving Los Angeles. He had the funeral booked for Greenacre on Saturday. The kids would be out of school, so that would give them a good attendance. An artist had been started on the Billy-as-Christ image that would be used on everything from billboards to belt bukles. Billy’s records were getting good air time, at least on the FM hard rockers. Deejays on the big AM stations were tougher to get to, but the kids didn’t listen to them anyway.

  Driscoll had found a publisher in the Valley who was delighted at the prospect of putting out a Dean Hardeman book. His list at the time was mostly cookbooks and astrology guides. Getting the book printed and into the stores by September would call for tight scheduling, but that could be worked out.

  The initial steps had been taken to set up the Billy Lockett Memorial Fund. Driscoll liked the sound of the words though he hadn’t yet decided where the fund was going to go.

  Finally, Driscoll had put out feelers to learn what acts would be available for the September Forum date. They wouldn’t be able to get the real heavyweights, of course — The Stones, Chicago, Elton John — but good second-line talent could sell out the house, combined with the added gimmick of Billy Lives!

  So far, Driscoll thought happily, things were going smooth as cream. Or would be as soon as he had Dean Hardeman’s signature on the contract in his pocket.

  The sky was a dirty gray when the plane landed at Kennedy International Airport. A bone-chilling wind knifed through Driscoll’s sport jacket and slacks. As usual he had forgotten about the climatic differences of the two coasts and had not brought a topcoat. He consoled himself with the thought that at least it wasn’t raining. Or snowing. And he would not be here long.

  He found a taxi in front of the United Airlines terminal and gave the driver Dean Hardeman’s address in Great Neck. Driscoll was glad this trip would not take him into Manhattan. His hatred of New York City was almost pathological.

  The house in Great Neck where Hardeman lived was a white, two-story Cape Cod with a wide lawn on a quiet street. The buds were just beginning to show on a pair of big oak trees out in front.

  Driscoll walked to the front door and rang the bell. He waited, shivering with the cold.

  Dean Hardeman himself opened the door. He was markedly older
and grayer but still recognizable from his book jacket portraits. Driscoll was struck at once by the thought that whatever else he might be, Hardeman was definitely not shorter in person. The author stood an easy six-foot-three or -four with massive shoulders and a broad chest. He was thickening through the middle, but he retained a vigorous, athletic look. The short gray hair was hand-brushed forward. It was around the eyes that his trouble showed. They had a dull, tarnished look. Hardeman needed a shave. He carried a highball glass with a cigarette smoldering between two fingers of the same hand.

  “Come on in and get warm,” Hardeman said when Driscoll had introduced himself. “Do you want a drink?”

  Driscoll did not, particularly, but you do not refuse a drink offered by a boyhood hero. He said, “Sure, whatever you’re having will be fine.”

  Hardeman poured bourbon into a glass, dropped in three ice cubes, and handed the drink to Driscoll.

  The young PR man took a slip and nodded appreciatively. It was good rich bourbon. “I don’t know how much Ernie Zyler told you about our proposition …” he began.

  “Ernie told me,” Hardeman said, “that you had a wild scheme for me to do a book about some rock-and-roll idol. Ernie also reminded me that he is no longer my agent, so I would have to make up my own mind about it without any help from him.”

  “Well, uh, roughly, that’s what we have,” Driscoll said. “You’ve probably heard of Billy Lockett.”

  “Rock-and-roll music makes me want to puke.”

  Driscoll forced a chuckle. “I guess a lot of people feel that way. The important thing for our purposes is that there are millions of young people who listen to nothing but pop music.”

  “God help us,” Hardeman murmured into his glass.

  With a weak smile, Driscoll continued. “To these kids rock performers like Billy Lockett are as important as their families. Maybe more.”

  “Incredible.”

  “At the time he died Billy was just this far,” Driscoll measured a space in the air with thumb and forefinger, “from being a real superstar. A book about him right now will sell like …” he searched for a simile.

  “Like hotcakes?” Hardeman offered.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Are you sure these people, these rock-and-roll fans can read?”

  “The text will be only twenty or thirty thousand words. Most of the book will be pictures.”

  “Just a damn minute,” Hardeman interrupted. “What the hell makes you think I would write even one paragraph about some idiot so-called singer for a generation of bubblegum chewers who are still sounding out Dick and Jane? Maybe you heard that I’m not up to my armpits in royalty checks lately, and you think I’ll jump at the chance to write any old piece of shit just to make a couple of bucks. Well, hear this, Mr. Driscoll, I’ve got projects in the hopper right now that I don’t want to talk about, but that keep me plenty busy. If you think I’m going to take time off to fuck around with your Billy Whatsisname, forget it.”

  “No, listen, I realize that,” said Driscoll, talking fast. “I wouldn’t think of asking a writer of your stature to do what is — for lack of a better word — a hack job. I’ll level with you, Mr. Hardeman, we need this book by September to help put over a rock concert in Los Angeles. Al Fessler, that’s Billy’s manager, and I talked it over yesterday. The big question was how to get some publicity on the writing of the book, and how to get the bookstores to give us good display. The answer was to have the name of an important author on the cover. You, for instance.”

  Hardeman started to say something, but Driscoll went on hurriedly. “Now, you won’t actually have to write a word. I’ll do that myself. It won’t amount to much more than a pasteup, anyway.”

  While the author frowned at him, Driscoll tossed the contract casually onto the coffee table, making sure the boldface dollar figures were visible. “I know that doesn’t come anywhere near your usual advance from a publisher, but it’s not bad for letting us use your name and maybe making a couple of personal appearances.”

  “You want to put my name on something written by you?”

  “You’ll have the final okay on the manuscript, and you’re free to make any kind of changes you want to.”

  The author’s gaze drifted to the contract lying on the table between them. Driscoll could almost hear him adding up the figures.

  “Plus a percentage of all subsidiary rights,” Driscoll said softly.

  Hardeman mashed out his cigarette and lit another. “And what was that about personal appearances?”

  “A couple of talk shows maybe. Only the biggies. Johnny or Merv. A press conference or two. Only what will fit into your schedule.”

  “No bookstores?”

  “Not if you don’t want them.”

  “I hate sitting in bookstores.” The author rubbed his jaw. It made a bristly sound. “You leveled with me, kid, so I’ll do the same for you. I do need the money. The thing is, I’m not crazy about putting my name on this picture book. Granted, my name doesn’t ring the bells it used to, but it still means something to some people.”

  “If it didn’t, I wouldn’t be here,” Driscoll said. “And I can understand how you feel.” He let a calculated pause go by, then added, “Of course, it didn’t hurt Norman Mailer any to do the Monroe book.”

  For a moment Dean Hardeman looked intently at the younger man, then he threw back his head in a full-throated laugh. “By God, you’ve got a point there. I guess what’s good enough for Norman is good enough for me. I’ll do it.”

  • • •

  An hour later the papers were signed. Dean Hardeman stood at the front window of the big house watching the taxi carrying young Conn Driscoll drive down the street. When the cab disappeared around the corner at the end of the block, Hardeman turned away from the window. He crossed the room to the bar and poured himself a fresh drink. There was a queer prickly sensation under his arms. He took a deep swallow of bourbon.

  How would it feel, he wondered, to see his name on a book written by somebody else? Hell, he wouldn’t be the first writer to do that. It was not a crime. Not in the legal sense.

  He paced the floor, found himself staring into the cold fireplace without really seeing it. He was thinking about Billy Lockett and Billy’s special world.

  Hardeman walked back across the wide living room to the window. Outside was the quiet suburban street where he had lived for fifteen years. Ten turbulent years with Joyce, and five empty years alone. It was a calm, well-ordered world outside his window. How different it must be from the world of Billy Lockett. What was that strange world like, Hardeman wondered. What were the colors, the smells, the special tastes of Billy Lockett’s world?

  And what about Billy Lockett himself? Hardeman was not quite as ignorant of Billy as he had let on to Conn Driscoll. He had read how the young entertainer had died in a parachuting accident. At the time he had wondered idly why it had happened. Now he began to wonder more actively.

  Hardeman put the drink down and walked to a small, ornate desk at the far end of the room. With a forearm he swept aside the clutter of unpaid bills and unanswered letters. He took up a felt-tip pen and began making notes on a yellow legal pad. Before he thought about what he was doing, Hardeman had filled three pages with questions, ideas, and alternative approaches to the puzzle of Billy Lockett. As he stared down at his hard, square-topped handwriting, a smile grew on his face.

  “By God, I’m writing,” he said aloud. For the first time in years he felt the stirring of the creative juices he had feared were congealed. He was not sure he could trust the sensation.

  Still holding the pen, he stood up and began to pace. He warned himself not to go off the deep end. The money for this Billy Lockett thing was as good as in his pocket, and he didn’t have to do a damn thing for it. He could use the money to pay some bills, then get to work on some serious writing.

  Oh yeah, serious writing, Hardeman mocked himself. Maybe those nonexistant “projects in the hopper” he had invented
for Conn Driscoll. It was time to quit kidding himself. The important thing about this project, the thing to be seized upon, was that here was an idea that intrigued him, that actually made him want to write. Nothing outside a bottle had intrigued Dean Hardeman for a long time. This rock music scene, foreign though it was to him, seemed to crackle with vitality. Maybe he could absorb some of that vitality. He could certainly use it.

  But did a fiction writer have any business taking on something like this? Aside from a few articles early in his career, Hardeman had never attempted a work of nonfiction. But why couldn’t he do it? If he was the writer people used to say he was, he could handle it. This trendy New Journalism was nothing but using the techniques of fiction in factual reporting.

  Hardeman grinned over at the empty chair where Conn Driscoll had sat an hour before. “By God,” he said, “I’m going to write your damned book.”

  He sat down at the desk again and read over his notes. Yes, it was there, all right, the germ of a book. And if he handled it right, it might turn out not half bad.

  Hardeman’s smile faded and he sat back in the chair. He might as well be completely honest with himself, he decided. There was another reason for taking on this job. It would give him a solid, acceptable excuse for going out to Los Angeles. And Joyce was in Los Angeles. If he could sort of look her up while he was out there working, he wouldn’t appear to be running after her trying to get her back. Maybe then the two of them could communicate without all the hostility and strain there had been since the divorce. Possibly they could rediscover some of the old rapport and maybe … well, time enough when he got out there to see what would happen.

  Hardeman took the yellow pad with his notes on it back to the room at the rear of the house that had been his writing room. The heat was shut off and it was cold in the room, but Hardeman didn’t notice. He sat down at the metal typewriter stand and pulled the cover off the machine. He flipped the switch and listened for a moment to the soft electrical hum, then spread out his handwritten notes and rolled a fresh sheet of paper into the typewriter.