by Jay Quinn
He was not one to look behind him with longing at any time, never less so than when he was leaving on a trip. Long last looks were for losers and pessimists. Bruno had no doubt he’d soon be back in this drive with a successful week in New York under his belt. He gave no thought to towers that might collapse and fall in on themselves. He wasted no time wondering what horror could suddenly come from a madman’s urge to snuff him out as a by-blow in a larger condemnation of his world. Bruno didn’t move but in one direction, and that direction had no exits for fear or unanswerable questions about the nature of things beyond his control.
Still, something about leaving Rory this time niggled at the back of his mind. It was nothing he could put his finger on. They had not fought. They hadn’t exchanged any cross words. But there was an underlying sense of something not quite right, not quite said, not quite usual in Rory’s goodbye. It was as if Rory was holding something back. There were hints of storm clouds in the atmosphere that Bruno couldn’t see, but made the hair on the back of his neck stand up just the same.
Bruno glanced over his shoulder toward the front of the house, half expecting Rory to be watching him from behind a window or a crack in the door. The house betrayed nothing but its usual grand façade. It was the home of a successful man, and Bruno relished its stolid presence at his back for just that reason. But this morning, it was as if the house had turned its back on him, wearily. It called to mind the same look and feeling his mother used to give him and his brothers when their antics had pushed her beyond all patience and endurance. She’d turned her back on them as if to say she really didn’t care anymore about anything they did. Her turned back seemed to say her disappointment with them was too great to waste time on recrimination, correction, or tears.
There was something of that in Rory this morning. Usually, he followed Bruno to the door and, along with Bridget, gave him the fondest of farewells. They both managed to communicate a goodbye filled with a genuine sense that he would be sorely missed until he reappeared, as if by magic, and they could live in the sunshine once more. Today, he’d left Rory with a cup of coffee out on the pool deck. Bridget couldn’t be bothered to get up from her postbreakfast nap, much less walk him to the door. It didn’t occur to Bruno that something was off-kilter with this until he found himself waiting for the car service on the chilly, sunless side of the house.
Bruno turned once more and glanced up to the second story of the Hardens’ house. There was the window he’d caught Austin watching them through the night before. He hoped the bastard got the message when he’d given him the finger and lead Rory to bed. He made a mental note to say something about it casually to Austin, maybe suggest he get blinds installed. If he couldn’t keep his eyes to himself, the least he could do was put up some shutters or curtains. While Bruno didn’t really give a damn what Austin might see, the thought of him watching Rory from his upstairs perch gave him the creeps. It was a territorial thing as far as Bruno was concerned. Rory wasn’t Austin’s to watch. To Bruno’s way of thinking, Austin needed to mind his own damn business and keep his eyes off Bruno’s property.
Just then he heard the Hardens’ front door open and close abruptly. Bruno spun around, happy for the opportunity to get his irritation off his mind. But it was Meg he found at the front door, busily searching her pocketbook for her keys, her thick lawyer’s briefcase sitting squatly at her feet. She looked all business, dressed in a winter white suit, her legs sheathed in the smooth sheen of stockings, her feet perched becomingly in café au lait colored high heels.
Bruno grinned, admitting to himself that she was a fine-looking woman, but imagining she wielded a set of balls as heavy and clunky as his own. The thought made him mischievous. He gave her an appreciative wolf whistle that startled her attention away from her purse to look his way. “You’re certainly looking professional this morning, Mrs. Harden,” he called out.
Meg spared him a smile when she’d located her keys and stepped down her drive toward him, leaving her briefcase and purse by the driver’s side of her Rover. “Good morning to you, Bru… Will,” she corrected. “You’re not looking too bad yourself.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Bruno said with a slight bow.
Meg arrived within arm’s reach of him on the sidewalk and sighed. “Are you having car trouble? Do you need a ride downtown?”
Bruno could tell her offer was extended with a projection of how much time it might cost her. He glanced at his watch quickly and noted she would be at least twenty minutes late if she meant to be at work at eight. “No, thank you,” he said sweetly. “I’m waiting on a town car to take me to the airport. They have exactly two minutes to get here before I call and give their dispatcher an ass chew… umm… a new perspective,” Bruno corrected himself, “on their service.”
“A town car?” Meg said wryly. “Aren’t you grand.”
“Not really,” Bruno replied airily. “It’s an expense account item. It actually costs less than keeping your car parked for a week, when you think about it. And there’s a lot less hassle to it if the fricking car service shows up on time,” he added with an irritable glance down the street.
“Oh my,” Meg said worriedly. “I hope you don’t have an early flight.”
“It’s later,” Bruno said, “But my comfort window is narrowing. How about you? Are you running late this morning?”
Meg raised her eyebrows and nodded without smiling. “I’m afraid I had a bit of personal housekeeping to take care of with my husband this morning. He spent some time on the computer ordering new furniture last night, he informed me this morning. Let’s just say I’d rather have started my day differently. Where are you heading out to?”
“I’ve been called to our office in New York for a week or so’s worth of work,” Bruno said evenly.
“It must be nice,” was Meg’s brisk reply. “I could use a week in a lovely Manhattan hotel far away from Austin and the boys. In fact, it sounds like bliss,” she added with something that sounded like wistfulness.
“It is good to get away,” Bruno said. “I enjoy being my own man from time to time myself.”
Meg nodded but said, “I think when you’re a wife you never really get to be your own person again until you’ve seen your children married and your husband snug in a cemetery somewhere.”
Bruno gave a low whistle and said, “You have had a challenging morning, I take it.”
Meg gave him a falsely bright smile. “It’s all about give and take, I suppose.”
Bruno laughed. “You got that right. You can’t live with them and you can’t kill them.”
Meg laughed in turn and gave him a smile that was less forced. “Does it ever strike you as a bit unfair that we’re out here in suits when they’re inside lounging around in their underwear, scratching and being difficult?”
“Oh, I got the moody, silent treatment this morning,” Bruno said.
“Lucky you,” Meg replied. “At least you were spared being told in so many words that you are an emasculating bitch.”
“Uh,” Bruno said and looked at the bags at his feet. “Harsh.”
“I get enough of that at the office,” Meg said. “I certainly don’t need it at home. Do you work with many women at your level, Will?”
“A fair few,” Bruno said carefully.
“Be extra nice to them when you get to New York,” Meg said. “Take it from me, they’ve earned it.”
Bruno looked up the quiet street at the sound of an approaching vehicle. With a great deal of relief, he saw it was a long, black Lincoln. He waved it down, and looked at Meg with a gentle smile. “I hope your day gets better, Meg.”
“Thanks,” Meg said and turned toward her car, “Have a nice trip.”
“Meg?” Bruno said as the car stopped at the end of his drive.
“Yes?” Meg replied and turned back to face him.
The driver got out of the town car and opened the door to the back seat for Bruno. As he picked up Bruno’s suitcase, Bruno looked at Meg an
d said, “I have one of those desk calendars, a saying a day’ things. A few days ago it said, ‘if you eat a live frog every morning, the rest of your day will be excellent because nothing could be worse.’ ”
Meg looked at him with bewildered consternation clear on her face.
Bruno stepped behind the door to the backseat and rested his arm on the top of the town car. “I’d bet you’ve eaten your frog for today.”
Meg laughed. “Maybe you’re right,” she said.
“Count on it,” Bruno said and gave her a dazzling smile. With that, he got into the town car and the driver closed the door behind him.
Meg turned once more and walked toward her car, deciding on the way that she would have a good day. For the time being, she was done with frogs and annoying husbands both.
5150 ST. MARK’S COURT
RORY TOOK OFF his headphones and looked calmly through the glass into the engineering booth. The assorted musicians inside were laughing and exchanging mysterious handshakes. Dazz Coleman opened the mic to the sound studio and said, “Okay, slick. Good job. I’ll see you in the parking lot.” With that, he turned off the mic and pushed his chair back to stand.
The large black man sitting as inscrutably as a Buddha at his side nodded at Rory. He leaned forward and switched on the mic once more. “You keepin’ it crunk, white boy. Real down home. Ronald Isley need to shut up. Dazz’ll let you know.”
“Thanks,” Rory said into the mic suspended in front of him.
“Don’t be thanking me,” the man replied. “You the one brought it.” With that, he switched off the mic and turned to speak to the group of musicians behind him. Rory noted that Dazz sat back down in deference to the man and swiveled to turn his back to Rory.
There was nothing more for Rory to do. He straightened his shoulders. Now distinctly ignored after having been under such impassive scrutiny for the past hour, he swallowed his dismissal and made his way outside to the parking lot.
Once he made it to his car, he stripped off the shirt he’d bought new at Banana Republic for this audition. He stood in his guinea-T in the bright sunshine and shook for a minute as the pent-up adrenaline from his performance drained from his body. When the shaking stopped, he opened his car door and leaned into the cool, shady interior to extract his cigarettes and lighter from under the sun visor. He tossed his shirt onto the passenger seat, backed out of the car, and stood in the sunshine once more. He welcomed the warmth and glare after the studio’s dim air-conditioned chill. The cigarette pack, so smooth and sure in his hand, promised an immediate reward and relief from all the anxiety that had built up in his subconscious leading to this telling moment. He opened the pack and, extracting a cigarette, promised himself he wasn’t going to start chain-smoking again. He’d managed to quit that once. But for right now, he wanted a cigarette more than he’d ever wanted one in his life.
Once he lit up, Rory shoved the pack and lighter in his back pocket and closed the door of his car. Dazz had told him he’d meet him in the parking lot, and he resigned himself to waiting. For all he knew, Dazz could keep him waiting for five minutes or for an hour. Rory took another hit off his cigarette and walked to the front of his car. He sat on the hood with his feet resting on the front bumper so he could watch the door of the studio and also be in plain sight from the lobby.
Through one cigarette, then another, he analyzed his performance. The points where he felt he was flat stabbed at him. The parts where he felt he’d pulled off a particularly smooth note buttressed his eroding confidence. By the beginning of his third cigarette, he had a hung jury in his own mind. There was nothing left to do but wait for Dazz to tell him what was most important, and that would be the result of the reckoning going on inside the engineering booth.
By the time Dazz opened the door and stepped out to meet him, Rory’s shoulders were turning red and his mouth and throat were parched. Rory didn’t move from the hood of his car. He simply looked up and waited for the verdict.
Dazz laughed. “You look like you lost your mama, sitting out here like that,” he said by way of a greeting.
“Uh-huh,” Rory replied. “I’m just keeping it crunk.”
Dazz gave him a sober look, “You said that right, my nigga. To’ it up.”
Rory rubbed his blond head and looked toward the door to the studio. “I’m way too light to be your nigga. I’m just a white boy trying to make it in a black man’s world.”
Dazz laughed at the reversal of the age-old complaint. The irony of the situation rested well beneath his neatly dreadlocked skull. “You a nigga whether you like it or not,” he said.
Rory snorted and shook his head. “You know I can’t say that word and not get shot, whether I tore it up or not.” Rory slid off the hood of his car and reached in his back pocket for still another cigarette. He put it in his mouth and looked at Dazz as he got it lit, then said, “So, cut the bullshit. What’s the deal?”
Dazz nodded. “It’s like that, huh? Okay, all business, homes. We can use you for two, maybe three cuts. “Footsteps in the Dark,” for sho’. You brought the flavor on that, know what I’m saying?”
Rory grinned. “What else?”
Dazz looked over his shoulder toward the street. “All studio, no dates. Pay you scale. No promises for anything but a liner note credit.”
Rory took another drag off his cigarette and flicked an ash into the wind. “That’s typical. I got no problem with it.” He waited for Dazz to acknowledge his presence once more. “Why no dates?”
Dazz looked at him and shook his head. “You know why, baby.”
Rory nodded. “Too light, too bright.”
“Look, Rory, you gots to understand. These guys are straight up ghetto. That’s their positioning. It’s all about marketing. You living in the black man’s world, right?”
Rory shrugged. “I thought they were more than that. I thought it was all about breaking into LOVE 94 and shit.”
“LOVE 94 come way after being on 99 JAMZ, then Hot 105, player,” Dazz said. “The marketing ain’t up to me. It is what it is, baby. Take it or leave it.”
Rory took another hit off his cigarette and, reaching past Dazz, flicked the butt out into the parking lot. “I’m hungry, Dazz. You know that. I just want to get back into the studio. Fuck live dates, then. At this point in my life, I don’t need the travel. You tell them I’ll bring the flavor. Just let me know when to be back here.”
Dazz nodded and gave him a hug that threatened to lift his feet off the pavement. “You’ll be back here next week. Maybe three day’s work at most. From what you did today, I can get you in here in the daytime to lay down your tracks. We’re burning the music right now.”
Rory stepped away from his old friend’s embrace and walked to his car door. “Thanks for the shot, Dazz. I’m happy it worked out.”
Dazz stepped away from the front of Rory’s car back toward the studio door. “I’ll call you tomorrow, maybe the day after. You got any questions before then, text me.”
Rory nodded and opened his car door. “Take me to the next phase,” he sang.
Dazz laughed and went back into the studio.
Rory got into his car and cranked it up. It was, he thought, not an unqualified success, but he’d settle for the studio gig and a chance to hear himself on the CD. He was not a little bit disappointed about being cut out of any live performances, but he’d settle. He threw the car in reverse and smoothly cut his back end into the parking lot. Settling was something he was used to. He thought about the condoms in Bruno’s dop kit. At least he had succeeded at something himself today. He still had his voice, and that was all his. He put the car into drive and headed out toward home.
The recording studio was in the warehouse district of Sunrise between 44th and Commercial Boulevard. The neighborhood where he and Bruno had bought their first house in South Florida, after moving from their East Fort Lauderdale condo, lay between where he was and where they called home these days. He decided to swing by the old neighbor
hood and visit memory lane.
Within five minutes, he found himself on the familiar street. Raw and new when they’d bought their first house there, the area had matured and mellowed into the kind of lower middle-class haven it had promised to become all those years ago. To Rory’s eyes now, all the houses seemed small. It was like going back to the school where you attended first grade. The place that harbored such big dreams, and so many new experiences, appeared little and worn when you returned to it years later. Everything on the old street seemed narrow and closer together. Even the eternally blue winter sky arching overhead seemed to have a lower threshold to heaven. It was the same, but everything had changed. Rory knew he’d grown along with the trees that had been mere striplings when they’d moved in and now reached high. In a very real way, Rory longed for the way it had been back then. Even if it had been constricted and small, he’d been so happy then.
So he eased on the brake as he passed their old house. He could smell the air and feel the same late afternoon sun on his shoulders that he had when he used to pull in that drive, walk up that walk, and let himself into that small house.
With a stab as sure as a knife’s thrust, what he did miss came to him with a poignancy undimmed by all the years left behind. He missed who he was back then. He missed the Bruno who was Bruno back then. Those days when he’d lived in that house were so full of love and open-ended promise. His expectations were unlimited and there was solid proof they were being fulfilled. Bruno was back, and only his, and that seemed like everything he wanted. Back then Rory’s life had a second act that was just beginning. Sadly, he took his foot off the brake and glided on down the street. Somehow, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the second act was coming to a close.
