Our first gig was in some swank nightclub high in the Hollywood Hills. The father had an unclear notion as to where the Howl Brothers’ audience was, although we could have told him they weren’t in this velvet and chrome emporium into which people pranced from the golf courses and tennis courts.
Setting up took twenty minutes. It’s funny to think that in a few years we would be having to fly our equipment to a city two days in advance of a concert, that we would have no less than three road crews in our employ, three complete sets of sound systems. Back then, we just had tiny tube amplifiers, little boxes that hummed discordantly.
The patrons eyed us with suspicion. They winced as we tested our instruments. I played a sweet little major C triad and they winced. Sal patted out an inoffensive paradiddle and they winced. Monty strummed G, the chord of the singing cowboys, and they winced. So Dewey dropped a note in their laps that sounded like an elephant voiding last night’s dinner. Their faces froze in rictuses of terror. Danny grabbed the microphone, pulled it out of its holder and said, “We’re the Howl Brothers.” He gave the count and we launched into “Torque Torque”.
Until then, rock and roll songs had threatened only that the young people would dance a lot. The worst that might happen, according to the tunes, is that the young people might stay up all night. We were different. Our songs threatened mobilization, we were going to climb into powerful machines and actually go out on search-and-destroy missions! No wonder the older people fished the fruit out of their cocktails and hurled it in our direction. Likewise that their children made for the stage like it was Valhalla. Danny was doing his thing, his hands twisted in the air, his head shyly buried into his chest. The kids started doing this too, it became quite the rage, you know, this dance of awkwardness and crippled emotions.
The triumvirate were there, of course. The father was sure we were ruining our chances, he hollered at us to break out the schnoozy tunes. He wrote requests on cocktail napkins and had waitresses ferry them up to the stage, and although he changed his handwriting on every one, I had him spotted. Not many other people were likely to request “Vivian in Velvet.” Maurice Mantle was there, wearing a three-piece pin-stripe that looked like he’d borrowed it from God, who was exactly the same size. Kenny Sexstone grinned like the Vienna Boys Choir had gone co-ed and was gathered under the table, chewing him up from the waist down.
Girls stood slack-jawed, mesmerized by either Monty or Danny. The ones who would worry about wrinkling their clothes tended to favour Monty, who looked like his shit came out pressed and folded. Girls without such concerns gazed upwards at Danny, they twisted their bodies in concert with his, they attempted to commingle on some spiritual plane, they made no secret of the fact that immediately after the show things were going to get down and dirty. Dewey Moore grinned from ear to ear, a hound dog who knew that he could feast forever on little scraps from the dinner table.
Among the young girls danced my mother. She didn’t stand out, particularly, her hair was as blonde as theirs, her skin as perfect. Her clothes were sedate—at least the designers had aimed for sedateness—but my mother could shake the booty. Agh. Her fanny would bob like helium balloons through the clouds. Agh. Agh. Buttons were always working themselves undone, glimpses given of lace brassieres. My mother would kick out, arms aloft, thrust her pelvis, come and get me soldier and slap some jelly on it!
A photograph exists of that night. It’s in a cookie jar which I deep-sixed in the mighty Pacific several years ago. It shows the dancing crowd, my mother among them, my mother frozen in a position that, whew, merely looking at it would turn you into a pillar of salt, at least throw your back out for a week. My brother Daniel is in essentially the same posture. I’m standing behind my keyboard, looking baffled and bewildered, a visitor from the Dogstar Sirius.
And then, right before we were supposed to play “Jaguar June”, Dan announced, “Hey, everybody, we got a special guest artist tonight.” News to me, news to me. I would grow used to this, why, one night (a few years to come) Jimi Hendrix got up on stage with us and, for reasons of his own, immolated by flame not only his own guitar but Monty Mann’s as well. “The composer of ‘Vivian in Velvet’…” (I clearly recall thinking, what a coincidence, someone else has written a song with that same silly name, and then the horrible truth struck home.) “Mr. Hank Howell!”
The father came prancing on stage with the tenor guitar. Do you know the tenor guitar, the thyroidal ukulele? Nelson Eddy played the tenor guitar! The father began, his right hand slapped the contraption’s belly, his left grabbed ahold of the fretboard and throttled. A D-chord, worse, a D-sixth. A D-sixth sounds like a Sunday School teacher farting and then giggling with embarrassment. The chord was strummed limply. Apparently this was a ballad. All right, all right, thought I, disdainfully playing the whiny notes. Down to a B-minor, yes, yes, E-minor, oh no, don’t tell me, ah!, the A-seventh, the father has plagiarized whatever finned quadruped first emerged from the ooze with a Sears & Roebuck six-string. And then came the lyrics.
You dream, you incredible dream,
I dream of the following scheme,
That one day, we will float down the stream,
You dream, I dream, we dream.
The youngsters sat down. The dance floor was empty, save for my mother, who stood staring up at the stage, expressionless. The father attempted to aim a soulful gaze at her, but he ended up squinting like Popeye. And then Maurice Mantle appeared beside her and—with no exchange of word or gesture—they fell into each other’s arms. Mantle placed one of his elegant hands on the small of my mother’s back, the plateau before the valleying of her buttocks.
You dream, crowed the father, you indelible dream.
(Had the thesaurus out again, have we?)
I dream until I think I might scream.
That one night, we will ride on a moonbeam,
You dream, I dream, we dream.
Danny jumped off the stage and tapped Maurice Mantle on the shoulder. Mantle stepped back gallantly, Danny took his spot, the father broke out into a rancid sweat. I did what I could. I added some ninths, anything to soup up the stodgy stew of his progression, I improvised a little counter-melody, I even added some vocals, harmonizing on the snivelling you dream, I dream, we dream. But, as we like to say here in the War Zone, damage had been done.
I am voyaging down the gold and platinum record hallway. In this hallway are also many Grammy Award plaques, which Danny and I often used as coke mirrors. Many things in the popular music industry can be utilized as coke mirrors, no mere coincidence. At any rate, there used to be more of these gold and platinum records and such, but one night Danny was in an extremely drunken bad mood because he’d caught his wife Lee in bed with another woman. Lee was by far the most beautiful of Dan’s wives. Danny called Lee many filthy names and then, following a logic that eludes me still, he started pitching our gold and platinum records to the fishes. I was worried more about depleting our supply of potential coke mirrors. Those were the days when I did quite a bit of that stuff, although I’ve cut down recently, mostly because no one will sell me any. Let’s face it, I can’t purchase No-Doze. I don’t really see what the problem is, it’s not like I’m going to go out in public and shame myself. I’ll stay home and shame myself.
I must be on my way somewhere, although I seem to have stalled in this hallway. From another room I can hear music, Claire is listening to a Van Morrison record. If she really wants to file an accurate report on our planet she should listen to Perry Como. My best guess is that I was headed for the kitchen. It seems like I haven’t eaten in days, I’ve actually lost a bit of weight. But I’m bogged down in the hallway, which means something unpleasant is about to happen.
Knock-knock.
Front door.
I should hire a butler to drive these people away, but then who would protect me from the butler? I press myself against the wall, hoping to bury myself in a shadow.
“Desmond?” comes a voice. “I know you’re
there.”
It’s one of the Dr. Tockette impersonators.
“Desmond! Let me in.”
“If you’re really Dr. Tockette, use the secret password!”
“Desmond. For your treatment to be successful, it’s imperative that you allow me to enter without this password nonsense.”
“Do you think the president of the United States just allows anyone to come in? No, sir. I’ll bet he has a highly complex system of passwords. And yet no one calls it nonsense or accuses him of mental imbalance.”
“Certainly they do!”
“A bad example.”
“If I say the password, will you let me in?”
“I most certainly won’t if you don’t.”
“This once then, and never again. Garuda.”
“Garuda?”
“Open the door.”
“No. You’ve alarmed me. You conjure in my mind this terrifying image of some mythical beast, half-bird, half-human, and then you ask that I open the door?”
“Play fair, Desmond. I’ll tell your mother on you.”
“By the way, Columbia University will not admit to ever hearing of you, let alone awarding the Doctorate of Psychiatry that you lay claim to.”
“Not that Columbia. Colombia the country. ”
“You studied psychiatry in the country of Colombia?”
“A very reputable school.”
“Dr. Bolivar’s School of Advanced Torture Techniques?”
“Your mother says you have a girl in there.”
“There is a visitor here.”
“Don’t you wish to discuss your sexual hang-ups?”
“Don’t sexual hang-up me, you mountebank.”
“Garuda! Garuda!”
Claire is beside me in the hallway. She says, “Fuck off!”
“Who’s that?”
“It’s the person telling you to fuck off,” answers Claire.
“Young woman, I am Mr. Howl’s personal doctor. I insist that you open the door.”
“Well, I don’t believe you’re his personal doctor, because you know dick on a stick about him.”
“I know everything about him! I have one entire filing cabinet devoted to him.”
“So then,” says Claire, winking at me, “what’s with this sexual hang-ups business?”
“Sexually speaking, Mr. Howl is retarded at about the level of a three-year-old.”
“Yeah, well, that don’t sound like the Desmond I know.”
“Oh,” snorts Dr. Tockette, “I suppose you and he have had intimate relations?”
“Absolutely. He’s great.”
“What, you manually stimulated his little apparati?”
Claire shoots me a look, rolls her eyes towards the door. “Nope. We do it all.”
“All?”
“We fuck, we suck, usual stuff.”
“Desmond? Is this true?”
“Well …” We fuck? We suck?
“He’s modest. Take my word for it. He gave me head for about eight hours straight yesterday.”
“Are we talking about Desmond Howl?”
“Yeppers.”
“Desmond? Is this true?”
“Eight hours seems like an awfully long time,” I say.
“Sure is,” agrees Claire. “Dr. Fockette out there would have creamed his jeans in about three minutes.”
“Young lady, I demand that you open the door. You could be doing severe damage to my patient’s psyche.”
“You could be doing the fucking damage, buster. It’s his house, and he doesn’t want you in it, so fuck off.”
“Desmond, I’m telling your mother.”
“And tell that douche-bag to stay away, too.”
Ooh, what nasty language they have up on Toronto.
“He’s insane, young lady.”
“So the fuck what?” shouts Claire. Suddenly she is crying. She reaches out, touches my fat arm, and then runs away.
I follow the alien, alarmed by her weeping. She should not be crying on my behalf. I am the Whale-man, I live in an ivy-encrusted manse with my tiny bag of shadowy memories. I am not worthy of so many vicious tears.
And here, in the living room, the alien is destroying things. Vases are pitched against walls, the shrivelled husks of flowers rendered to dust. Empty glasses and crumby plates are dashed to the ground. An automatic card shuffler is mangled. Record albums sail through the air. This gives me an idea.
“Wait!” I shout.
The alien does wait, her breathing heavy, her face twisted.
“Watch!”
I disappear into the gold and platinum hallway, select one at random. “Catch a Ride.” A biggy, crates to Crete. The back of the mounting is cheap cardboard (the popular music industry is all gloss), I poke my fingers through and tear out the argental disc. I waddle into the backyard with the thing. This must be satisfying when your innards are on the boil, because Danny did it. I cock my wrist and let fly. Look at it go! The sixties weren’t a waste of time after all, everyone learned how to toss a Frisbee. The thing climbs regally into the sky. The platinum catches the sun and sends it splashing. The record lilts to the right, it loses its loft and slices through the air, there is a very satisfying noise as it is dashed upon the rocks below.
“Say,” I comment, “that is fun.”
The alien is right behind me, a golden platter in her hands. She elects to use the two-handed delivery, which adds distance but takes away from the graceful flight. Each to its own. The record clears the rocks at the bottom of the cliff. It bounces among the foamy waves and disappears.
Claire and I run back into the house, we gather up gold and platinum records.
The alien’s tears turn to laughter. I, on the other hand, am reminded of my brother Daniel, and my eyes begin to sting.
When Danny was fifteen years old, he fell in love with a girl named Brenda Mackey. This was a bit odd, because Brenda was no beauty. She was a big girl, a bit pot-bellied, large-breasted in a doleful fashion. She had a tattoo on her left forearm, one of those faint blue institutional jobs. It was merely a crudely drawn cross—it might have been of a religious nature, it may have been a dagger. Both arms were covered with scars. Fine, straight scars. Orderly, arithmetical rows of scars. Brenda’s face was pleasant enough, except she had a repertoire of about twenty-two frowns and sneers, from which she made her selection of facial expression.
The thing about Brenda Mackey was, she was the owner of a reputation. Her reputation was like a huge slobbering St. Bernard that followed along behind her, occasionally woofing its cookies. I have no desire to be cruel, especially to someone who owns a reputation (I mean, just look at the monster I have), but the truth of the matter is, Brenda was a slut. She certainly educated Danny in these matters sexual. He would relate this education to me at night as we lay in bed. I was baffled, I was confounded. At the same time, there was something chivalrous about Danny’s behaviour. This became apparent when Brenda’s reputation, that hairy behemoth, was sullied.
The sullying was done by Phil O’Kell, who periodically got released from some institution or another, usually for the day. He never committed a crime that was particularly dastardly—uttering false documents, fraud, petty theft, acts more of muddle than malice. And I will say this, that when Phil O’Kell sullied Brenda Mackey’s reputation—he accused Brenda of the one or two sexual acts that even she might find distasteful—it was because his heart was mangled. Phil was an aggrieved suitor. Squalor doesn’t negate everything. So, Phil O’Kell got released from prison one day, thought he might spend time with Brenda, discovered instead that she was cavorting with my young brother. O’Kell stood on street corners and ragged her.
You’d have thought Danny would be petrified, instead he seemed exhilarated. “O’Kell is horse meat,” he screamed. His energy knew no bounds, he grabbed me by the shoulders and shook hard. “O’Kell is a dead man!” Did I mention that O’Kell was a massive specimen, that he spent his time in prison lifting weights? Danny needed som
e advantage, any edge, and with that in mind he created Stud E. Baker.
Stud E. Baker was a rancid and mealy greaseball. He wore bluejeans coated with crankshaft oil, a torn T-shirt. Stud wore cowboy boots that might have been stolen from the Dalton gang as their dead bodies were lined up to be photographed. Stud E. Baker’s hair was worried into an elaborate do, duck-tailed, a surf running down the middle, but then this intricate creation was destroyed by a rumpled Confederate Army cap. Stud E. Baker smoked continuously, his body was fuelled by high-test Mexican beer. He swallowed amphetamines. Stud had a gimpy leg and a sexual disease he’d caught in a tropical clime. This disease made his crotch endlessly itchy, and Stud E. Baker usually had one hand in his pants, scratching with vigour.
Stud E. Baker hit the streets in an old ragtop, the engine souped up till it howled, it bombinated, it shook public buildings.
The call went forth. Stud wanted to play chicken with Philly O’Kell.
Palomountain had a perfect place for the playing of chicken, just to the south of town, in a small forest, the government had once thought to build an airforce base. They mowed a wide swath, five hundred yards long and a hundred feet across, and then abandoned the idea, I assume because someone realized it was stupid to be taking off and landing airplanes in a forest. At any rate, they’d burned that strip to the nubble, there was little subsequent vegetation.
Danny set the time: midnight. I was recruited as his second. Phil O’Kell was waiting when we arrived. He had three or four thugees with him. They threw beer bottles and belched. Maybe fifty or sixty town kids (Brenda Mackey among them) showed up to watch. Danny—Stud E. Baker—roared up, slammed on the brakes, the two cars sat facing each other at either end of the aborted landing strip.
The thing could not be done without preliminaries. Stud E. Baker opened the car door, grabbed ahold of the roof and pulled himself up. His eyes were red, his ears were steaming, he gave off tequila effluvia. “Take it back!” he screamed.
Whale Music Page 7
