Adios, Nirvana

by Conrad Wesselhoeft

  Phil clears his throat, warbles into gear:

  “Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling.”

  I find it, key of C. Add the mellow seventh and the sadder shift from F to F minor. Phil lifts his voice. He does have a nice one, pure, like that opera singer Plácido Domingo. People slip into the room. Or watch from the doorway—the bed changer, the blood taker, the UPS guy. Phil hits it close enough so that we see visions of misty Ireland. Ruby strews mournful petals along the path.

  When we stitch it up, everybody claps.

  Phil’s just warming up, though. He starts crooning “The Bonnie Banks o’ Loch Lomond.”

  Death hangs over these Irish and Scottish songs. Just swap bagpipes and mountain heather for IV drips and hospital beds, and you have the Delphi.

  Only here the pipes are flushing.

  When we hit the chorus, Phil and I harmonize. He takes the high road. I take the low road.

  Then he breaks into a song called “Whiskey in the Jar.”

  I strum it, fast and tappy.

  Verse after verse. About thieves, sly women, and the “juice of the barley.”

  Phil and I crank the volume on the “Whack fal the daddy-o” chorus.

  “Goddammit!” Phil says, slapping his knee.

  Out in the corridor, Katie says, “That’s the happiest I’ve ever seen him.”

  So now I’m the local troubadour.

  Birdwell has taught us about the troubadours of old Europe who stood in cobbled village squares and sang of valorous kings and frolicking lovers. In those days, Birdwell said, the troubadour was the poet-historian who bound the daisies of the past into one bouquet for the peasants to sniff.

  As Katie and I go from room to room, Ruby hanging from my neck, I begin to see myself as a “binder of daisies.”

  As titles go, I like it.

  Ruby likes it, too. She no longer gasps for air in her gig bag.

  If I sound any better these days, it’s because of Ruby. Not me.

  Chapter 27

  I’m sitting on a stool in a small house on a drippy hill in West Seattle. The owner doesn’t give a damn about the upkeep of his house. Moss grows up one side and ivy down another.

  But he gives a damn about music.

  There’s an upright piano in the living room, guitars and banjos on the wall, flutes, recorders, and hand drums scattered about. Even a triangle and a didjeridoo from Australia.

  The owner of the house is Frank Conway, the unshaven, slouching man who one night got trapped in the vice of Mimi’s tits, wandered home with her, rocked the house, and met me in the shadowy predawn hours of darkest winter.

  “You gotta capture that every time,” Frank says, meaning how I played “Here Comes the S-O-N.” “That was core honesty, Jonathan. Just you and your gut. Wanna ’nother cup of coffee?”

  I’ve already had two cups, but Frank’s a big coffee drinker. Paraphernalia everywhere—mugs and spoons and filters and smells and stains. I’m thinking he needs to learn about taurine, because caffeine just doesn’t do it.

  “Yeah, sure,” I say.

  He limps into the kitchen on a sore heel. Fills our mugs, stirs in the powdered creamer. Limps back. His half-buttoned flannel shirt partially covers a V-neck T-shirt and small silver crucifix.

  Everything about Frank Conway is an unmade bed. Sloppy but comfortable. Unironed but hopeful. He’s a grizzled Springsteen, only without the spring in his step.

  “The goal,” he says, “is to play music only as you would play it. Not as I, or your brother, or Jimi Hendrix, would play it. It’s all about you, Jonathan. Find that sweet spot inside yourself, forget the rest of the world, and you can coast all the way to Mexico.”

  He grabs his guitar. Fingerpicks the intro to “Crossing the River Styx.” Clean and easy. Bends a note here and there. Starts to sing. His voice is strong coffee. Cream but no sugar.

  It sounds a lot better than the original by Pinky Toe, at least to my ear. By pouring caffeine into it and cutting it with melancholy, he gives the song what it needs, heartache and muscle ache. He soaks it with the soreness of life.

  “Listen, Jonathan, the middle part is easy—just strum it, your basic C–F–G–F chord pattern. You can do anything you want with that—play it straight or improvise. But the intro . . . those few, fast notes. Get ’em down, and when you’ve learned ’em, forget ’em. Your motor memory will keep you airborne, and you can fly wherever you want.”

  All of this makes sense to me. Like Yoda preaching to Luke. But there’s a big difference between getting the theory down and the practice.

  “Go on,” Frank says, handing me his guitar. “Give it a try.”

  Frank’s guitar is a Gibson Hummingbird acoustic. The caramel sound box has been chafed by years of play, but it’s tonally bright and pure. That’s the thing about guitars: Cheap ones full of laminate may shine on the outside, but they’re dull on the inside. Time does not improve them. But those made of solid wood—spruce or maple or bubinga—are on an endless journey to perfection. They never stop getting better, even after the varnish has worn off. If you treat them well, that is.

  Ruby’s that way. She never stops getting better for me. Even with the extra fist-size hole in her sound box.

  If only Ruby were a girl. She’d be tanned and sexy, shy and enlightened, a poet, an artist, but with some kind of injury, like a limp or an eye patch. Yeah, if Ruby were only a girl—that would solve a lot of my problems.

  I grab a medium pick from the ashtray. Play a few arpeggios. Take a deep breath. Then I try the lick. After a few notes, I blow it. Start over. Blow it again.

  This happens five or six more times.

  “I hate this song!”

  Frank nods. “Kind of like voting for Hitler, isn’t it.”

  “But I like the way you play it.”

  “It’s all about practice, Jonathan.”

  “What about the singing part?” I ask. “I can’t hit those high notes. Not unless I squeeze my ’nads.”

  “Capo on the second fret,” Frank says. “It’s your best key. And practice with a metronome—do you have one?”

  “Yeah, but it’s broken.”

  He opens a drawer and tosses me a hand-size battery-powered metronome.

  “Practice a thousand times, Jonathan. I’m not joking. A thousand times. Learn to play that intro exactly how Pinky Toe plays it. Once you’ve got it uploaded into your DNA, you can play it your own way. Don’t try to break the rules till you’ve first mastered them. Then break ’em all you want.”

  “But how’m I gonna do all that in three weeks?”

  “You’re just gonna do it.”

  Frank reaches for his guitar, messes with some variations. Then he licks the tip of a pencil and jots some stuff into a notebook.

  “Try this,” he says, tearing out the page.

  He’s changed the arrangement. Some of the major chords have become minors or sevenths.

  “Now it’s more October,” he says, “less July.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “Can I use your bathroom?”

  Frank’s bathroom is full of unwashed coffee mugs and copies of the Economist magazine. He keeps a half-size Martin guitar on a stand by the toilet, within easy reach. On the wall is a poster depicting Abraham Lincoln swinging an ax, only the ax isn’t really an ax, it’s a Gibson Robot Flying V guitar. I take all this in while pissing.

  “I didn’t know Lincoln played,” I say when I come back into the living room.

  “Oh, he had the temperament of a great musician,” Frank says. “A true voice, which he didn’t change, though people pressured him to. That’s what you gotta do, Jonathan, believe in your voice. The first time I heard you, man, you were bleeding inside. You’ve got the voice. You just gotta believe in yourself.”

  “Hey, I might get to play a Rickenbacker three-sixty six.”

  “Whoa!” Frank says. “That’s as posh as it gets. George Harrison played a Ric. So did Jones of the Stones. McGuinn of the Byrds. Townshend o
f the Who. The list goes on and on. If any guitar defines sound as we know it, it’s the Ric, especially the three-sixty series. Man, you’ll be driving a Maserati.”

  “I might need racing gloves,” I say.

  Frank says, “How’s your mom, Jonathan?”

  “Oh, dude, she’s crazy.”

  “She really gonna open a wedding chapel in your house?”

  I nod. “That’s the plan, anyway.”

  “And she’s authorized and certified to do weddings and all that?”

  “Yeah, she’s got a divinity diploma.”

  “From where?”

  “The mail.”

  Frank ponders this. “Well,” he says, “all good ideas gotta start on the edge of something.”

  “Like the edge of sanity,” I say.

  Frank darkens. “Hey, man, don’t crap on your mom. Remember, you lost a brother, but she lost a son.”

  Whoa! As far as I’m concerned, the lesson’s over. I start to stand but get only as far as the edge of my stool.

  What I want to say is, He was my TWIN brother! but Frank reads my mind.

  “Jonathan, don’t play that card. You’re both holding the ace high.”

  “Ace of what?” I say. “Tragedy?”

  “Exactly,” he says, “the ace of tragedy. Maybe this wedding chapel idea isn’t so crazy after all. Maybe it’s on your mother’s evolutionary road, just like poetry and music are on yours.”

  “Hey,” I say, “between you and me, Mimi hasn’t evolved all that much.”

  “You sure about that?”

  I shrug, because I’m not sure—I’m not sure about anything.

  “Jonathan, you ever try writing songs?”

  “No.”

  “You being a poet and guitar player, it seems kind of a natural thing. Think on it.”

  “Yeah, I will.”

  “Keep in touch, Jonathan.”

  I fold the piece of paper with Frank’s new arrangement and slip it into my shirt pocket.

  “Thanks, man. Adios.”

  “Go with god, Jonathan.”

  Chapter 28

  I’m walking down the main hall at Taft, on my way to the Kenny G, when Mrs. Scranton rushes up.

  “Oh, Jonathan, Dr. Jacobson wants you to have these.”

  She thrusts a manila envelope into my hands. I start to ask what’s inside but stop myself. Anything from Gupti’s gotta mean more work.

  “Thanks,” I say, and jam the envelope into my backpack.

  Kyle grabs me by the arm and drags me down the hall.

  “C’mon, dude,” he says. “The crew is waiting.”

  The crew, as it turns out, is Javon on lights and Jordan on forklift. Nick has been appointed “guitar technician.” And Kyle has brought in Ryan Lee, a soccer friend, for “security.” This is necessary because of the extreme museum-worthiness of the Ric.

  Kyle climbs on stage and bellows his plan: “Dudes, today we’re gonna rehearse bringing the Velcro Kong out on stage, front and center, and lifting Jonathan into the paw.”

  He snaps his finger at Javon up in the control booth.

  Javon hits some buttons and levers, and a giant hook starts rolling across the ceiling. It takes a couple of mouse-in-maze turns and stops above the Velcro Kong. Then the hook descends. Javon starts messing with the controls, trying to catch the hook on a metal loop on Kong’s back. But he keeps missing. It’s kind of like playing one of those fishing games at the arcade, only on a giant scale.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Kyle shouts to Javon. “You gotta get it right, dude. We can’t be taking an hour to get Kong out here.”

  This time, Javon scores. He jerks the Velcro Kong from the ancient shadows and pulls him out to center stage.

  “Forklift!” Kyle shouts.

  Jordan drives onto stage at the controls of a Clark forklift with balloon tires.

  “Okay, dude,” Kyle says to me. “You’re on.”

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Get up there,” he says.

  Jordan noses up in the forklift, plants the pallet at my feet.

  “What about the Ric?” I ask.

  “I’m not gonna risk using the Ric in rehearsals, man. We brought it out today to get used to it. You know, air it out and sort of get over that star thing it has.”

  Kyle turns to Nick and Ryan, who stand like sentinels on both sides of the Ric.

  “Dudes, show us Ricky.”

  Nick snaps open the silver case. Lifts the cherry prince out of his velvet bed. Ryan bows before it.

  “Just pretend you’ve got the Ric strapped on,” Kyle says.

  I step on the pallet, and Jordan starts cranking. He jacks me about as high as the third shelf at Costco. Of course, the stage, too, is pretty high. The combination of heights sucks the air out of me.

  “Whoa!” I say. “What’s the word for fear of heights?”

  “Halitosis,” Ryan says.

  “Shouldn’t I at least have a safety line?” I ask.

  “Dude, this is theater vérité,” Kyle says. “But that reminds me, we’ll need a safety line for the Ric.”

  “The Ric!”

  “Don’t be a pussy, man. Now jump into Kong’s paw.”

  Stepping from the fork into Kong’s hand means letting go of my hold and straddling nothing but air. The only way to do this is quickly, with a little jump and without thinking about it.

  God knows how I’ll manage it with the Ric strapped on.

  I leap into Kong’s hand, and as I do, my weight throws him. He begins to lean like a tree. A panicky cackle rises from the stage. Kyle, Nick, and Ryan rush to Kong’s knees to shore him up.

  Now I’m huddled in the cupped hand of the Velcro Kong. Clouds of butterflies swarm through my gut tubes. A few flutter up to my throat. If I feel this way now, how’m I gonna feel on Friday, June 1, when I stand here facing twelve hundred people?

  “Hey, Jonathan,” Kyle says. “We got balance issues down here. One of Kong’s feet is shorter than the other.”

  I peer down. “How did that happen?”

  Fact is, by jerking Kong from his petrified place in the shadows, Javon has ripped off the sole of one foot, including Kong’s gorilla toes.

  The crew inspects the damaged foot. In the end, Kyle says, “Just don’t lean too far to the side, dude. Stay centered. Everything’ll be cool.”

  Jordan lowers me to the stage, and we go through the setup three more times. Kyle and Javon work out the lighting. Now it’s all science. We can hook and roll Kong from behind the curtain and get me into the hand in just under ninety seconds, with Javon capturing me in a circle of blinding silver light.

  Just as long as I stay in the center of Kong’s cupped hand, I’m fine.

  “Great rehearsal, dudes,” Kyle says. “Nick, look at getting a wireless mike for Jonathan. Ryan, work on getting a safety line set up for the Ric. I’ll get the jazz band to play ‘Pick Up the Pieces’ while we set up.”

  Everybody’s looking at me, as if I might have something to say.

  And I do.

  “There’s one thing we didn’t rehearse,” I say.

  “What’s that, dude?”

  “The song.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Kyle says. “I knew we forgot something. Well, just practice on your own.”

  He looks pleased. His part of the show is coming together.

  Mine is crashing and burning.

  Chapter 29

  A dozen oxygen bottles stand by the door in David Cosgrove’s room. “My empties,” he calls them.

  His teeth—whoa! He truly, desperately needs to brush them. One of the uppers has come loose, flaps like a pet door.

  From a distance, his complexion is tanned. Close up, it’s blotchy and veiny. A road map with lots of purple and red highways.

  Caregivers come and go. Bring pills. Crackers. Pineapple juice. Roll David on his side, change his sheets. One caregiver is Nigerian. Two are Ethiopian. A doctor—who is not African but of the short, stocky, pink-white Nor
th American variety—enters the room.

  “Are you in pain, David?”

  “No.”

  “Is there anything you need?”

  “I could use a blowjob.”

  We laugh. Three guys. Three generations. One timeless thought.

  The doctor leaves. Time to board the USS Gabriel Trask.

  “Where were we, sailor?”

  “Down below,” I say. “Trying to keep the ship from sinking.”

  “Oh, yes,” he says. “We were trying to stay afloat long enough to reach Kerama Retto. We kept those submersible pumps humming.”

  He fumbles with his breathing tube. I set down my writing pad and go to his bedside. Untangle the tube.

  “Thank you, Jonathan. I’m embarrassed to say I’ve already forgotten—”

  “Manning the submersible pumps,” I say.

  “Oh, yes. Down below, there was no difference between day and night. But I know from the official report that it was evening, nearly dark.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Something like nineteen hundred hours.”

  David nods. “We’d entered a channel between two small islands. Were in about ten fathoms of water, within sight of the harbor at Kerama Retto. By now, we’d won the battle to save the ship; at least, we thought so. What we didn’t know was that an enemy sub was stalking us. Just when we thought we were okay, that our war was over, that’s when it happened.”

  “That’s when it always happens,” I say.

  “Yes, Jonathan. It would seem so.”

  “Wasn’t it, like, a perfect hit?”

  “Textbook,” David says. “The torpedo slammed into us amidships and detonated our ammo magazines. Everything blew.”

  “Whoa!” I say. “Give me some details.”

  David rallies his memory. “Most of all, I remember the horrific shudder. A convulsion of everything around and within.”

  “Hey,” I say, “this may sound weird, but I know how you felt.”

  “Yes, Jonathan. And I know how you felt.”

  I sense he does. Unlike everybody else who says he knows—David does know how I felt, or at least comes close. “A convulsion of everything around and within.” That basically sums up my past year. David’s and my lives are a gazillion miles apart.