10
Sweet Reunion
As the clapping and cheering and whistling and stomping crescendoed, musicians came from every corner of the room to embrace me, led by Fast Eddie Costigan; I knew she would not be among them. We all swayed together in a gang hug, trying to accomplish the incompatible goals of pounding each other’s shoulder blades and protecting our instruments. “Yes, indeed!” “God damn!” “The Bendin’ End, cousin!” “Now I can die,” “What’ll we name the baby?” and, from Eddie, a simple, “Dat wuz right.” The civilians around us gave us a respectful five seconds, and then just as we were all beginning to reluctantly concede the sheer impossibility of hugging everybody at once, the crowd swarmed us and tried to hug all of us at once. Guitar heads swayed above the scrum like something from Fantasia—a simile enhanced by the cluricaune, who hopped from one to the other like a bearded green beachball, a jumping bean with a pipe, slapping his thighs and laughing like a kookaburra till I thought his nose would burst.
I saw other musicians glance around for the singer and the bass player. Without exception, once they were sure neither was in the circle or its immediate fringes, they stopped looking. Nobody gets dragged into the limelight against their will in Mary’s Place. She didn’t owe us a thing; if anything it was the other way round. Besides, we were busy—trying to shield our axes, and dissuade our friends from lifting us up onto their shoulders, and express our mutual pleasure and gratitude.
“God, I wish somebody’d had a recorder going,” someone said as the crush was finally breaking up (heading mostly toward the bar and poor Tom—who fortunately had sensed the wind and started lining the bar with full glasses and mugs before we even finished playing), and heads nodded eagerly.
“Thank God nobody had a recorder going,” someone else said, and we all nodded just as hard.
Both were correct, and we knew it. A recording of that jam would have been gold…but awareness of being recorded might have prevented it from ever happening the way it had, by making us self-conscious. You play differently when you know it’s being taped. The jam had been the stuff that dreams are made of—and you don’t can that.
Once we had room enough to move, we all put away our axes and shut down the sound system. Nobody was about to follow that act.
Also, by tacit agreement, nobody was about to approach the singer until I had. The other musicians moved toward the bar as a group. As soon as they were gone, I followed microphone cord through the press of bodies until I found her.
△ △ △
I was carrying the receiver-module of her radio rig in my hand. It was her cordless bass that had confused me at first as to how many of her there were. The little receiver had been plugged into the amplifier on my right, so her bass lines had come from that side, whereas her unamplified voice had first come from my left, and Tommy had happened to bring her a mike connected to that amp. She had performed in stereo, with me at her center.
She was sitting way over by the fireplace, with her back to the room, gazing into the flames. Her bass guitar was upright and turned sideways, held between her thighs; her forearms rested on one of its cutaway horns, and its long neck nuzzled hers. Automatically I glanced at its head, to see if it was really the old Fender it had sounded like, but there was no logo or template of any kind. She knew I was coming. I saw her, by the way she held her shoulders, recognize my approaching footsteps. And I knew this was not going to be easy.
I glanced around quickly. No one in the room was gazing in our direction. Statistically unlikely. Nice friends I got.
Targeting computer: track this object. Report—
She was short. I guessed five-six. Built as if to my specifications. About one-eighty or so, and deliciously female-shaped. Sort of a nine-tenths scale model of Mary Callahan-Finn. Wearing it proudly, as if Rubens was looking. Hair longer than ladies her size seem to wear it these days. Dark red, brick red, soft-looking and wavy. The kind of gentle, natural waves that would make a woman with a perm wail and run to get it zapped again. Black off-shoulder blouse, billowy sleeves. Tucked in. Black skirt, not too short, not too tight. Black mesh stockings. Black shoes with silver buckles. Silver necklace. Silver bracelet, just a little loose, on left wrist. The hand she fretted with; short fingernails. I couldn’t see the other wrist. Incredible hand. Long thick powerful fingers. Tips so callused they weren’t grooved from the session, as my own were. Red alert! Ring visible on wedding ring finger. Silver, but maybe she hates gold, she has no gold anywhere else. Wide enough to be a wedding band. Don’t panic. May have expired. No visible scars, tattoos, melanomas, rashes or running sores. One pimple below the right shoulder. Thank God: a flaw. Slouched slightly in her chair. Drained by the jam? Dejected? Drunk? Simply relaxed? Impossible to say.
I studied her so intently, approaching from behind at a slight angle, that as I came up next to her it was like getting to see the dark side of the moon at last. I was so busy absorbing the flood of new data, I damn near missed the chair to the right to hers when I sat.
Smooth, Jake. Can’t find both hands with your ass. Jesus, you’re too old for this kind of adolescent bullshit.
Fine profile. Mouth as wide and sensuous as that of Ms. Loren herself. Splendid forehead. Jewish nose. Not a Streisand, but in the next class down. Large eyes, even seen from the side. Silver earring, at least on the right. A dangling silver circle, within which three curved threads of silver formed an iris or a three-legged swastika, as if someone had spun a peace-sign until the spokes curved and then froze it. In the center of the iris was what looked like an emerald chip. Lickable throat. Likewise collarbone. My peripheral vision told me not to look directly at her breasts. I am unattractive with saliva running down into my beard. At least to strangers. I blinked past them. Belly and hips shaped to make human beings. The thighs lived up to the calf I’d seen as I approached. Her legs were extended, ankles crossed. Nice ankles. A half-full mug of cold Irish coffee sat on the table to her left, beside her open black bass-case and black purse. I realized I had sat at a different table, because it was the chair closest to her. Nothing but empties at my table. I thought of turning my head and trying to catch Tom Hauptman’s eye. But I couldn’t take my gaze from her. Those eyelashes—
The hell I’m too old!
It dawned on me that if she had any peripheral vision at all, she knew I was staring. I drew breath to apologize.
“Fair enough,” she said. “You were in the spotlight.”
I let my breath out. All at once I had a vivid memory of the night I’d met the second great love of my life, Mary Callahan, nude in the rain, on the roof of her father’s bar. The last time I’d been this excited. I had not just tripped over my tongue, that night. I had danced the mazurka on it, and then hopped off onto my dick. Only dumb luck had saved me. Ordinarily I am proud of my glib. Talking ladies into my bed or theirs has not often been a problem. Now suddenly seemed to be a good time to say as few words as humanly possible. I fixed my gaze on an imaginary point halfway between the center of the fireplace and her lips, so I wasn’t exactly looking at her, but would know if she turned to look at me, and said:
“Jake.”
She did not react at all for three long seconds. Then she unclasped her arms, picked up her bass, and set it carefully in its case. The transmitter had already been removed and stowed, so the lid shut. She snapped one catch for safety. She reached into the folds of her left sleeve, high up on the bicep, and came out with a cigarette. An unfiltered Pall Mall. Dismaying. I had been clean for over a year. Sometimes I went as long as ten minutes without wanting a smoke, now. I didn’t know if I could live with a smoker without kicking the gong. She didn’t wait coyly for a light. She reached into the sleeve again, took out a wooden stick match. Strike-anywhere, like the ones that had exploded in Long-Drink McGonnigle’s pocket a hundred years ago. She lit it on the fingertips of her left hand. She lit the cig, flipped the match into the hearth without whipping it out first, and sent smoke after it. Then she fixed her gaze at a
n imaginary point halfway between the fireplace and my nose, and said, deadpan:
“Elwood.”
Groovey. Let’s hop in the Bluesmobile and get that money to the Penguin. It was even funnier because we had met playing a blues. So why wasn’t I breaking up? If you’re not going to laugh, Jake, at least say something witty to show you got the reference. She’ll think you’re a moron. Or one of those guys who’s too hip to laugh; another kind of moron.
Screw it, she knows you got the Blues Brothers reference. And she can hear you laughing, even if nobody else could. The universe won’t burn forever. Cut to the chase!
“Welcome home,” I said.
It was the first words that popped into my head. She took another long slow puff on her cigarette, and just then Tom Hauptman materialized. He had a steaming mug of God’s Blessing for each of us. He set one on each table, starting with hers.
She went for her purse, which hung from her chair.
“Your money’s no good here,” I said quickly. “Ever.”
Too fast. Back off. Easy does it.
She looked up at Tom. He smiled. “Even if it wasn’t his bar,” he agreed. “Even if you never sing another note here. That was special.”
She gave up and let the purse fall. “Thanks,” she said to the fireplace. Tom nodded and dematerialized.
“I already said you’re welcome,” I said.
No response. We stared at the flames together for maybe ten seconds. Maybe twenty.
She whirled to face me. “What the hell do you want?”
I turned to answer her, hoping that an answer would come to me by the time I finished, and was sideswiped by my first sight of her eyes.
Take a small contact lens. Fill it from an eyedropper with limeade, almost to the top, so surface tension at the edges makes the surface concave. Freeze it. Then let it stand at room temperature, just until it slides free of its own accord when you tip the lens, glistening with moisture. You have duplicated one of her oversized irises. Meg Foster eyes, but pale green rather than pale blue ice. You had the persistent idea that those irises were whirling, just too fast to see. They were that hypnotic.
The next sensation I became aware of, a localized warmth, seemed natural and appropriate. For the first three-tenths of a second. Then it exceeded acceptable parameters—went right off the scale at shocking speed, like an F-111. Alarm bells began ringing urgently.
I had spilled hot coffee on my dick. Along with enough alcohol to keep the burn working as long as possible. And enough whipped cream to make the result look as stupid as possible.
△ △ △
I attempted a telepathic hookup with Mickey Finn, over I had no idea how much distance in both space and time. God damn it, Finn, I thundered at him, how come rain won’t fall on me but hot coffee can?
Thank God, I found the wit and strength to laugh at myself. Yeah, bummer: my miracle turned out to be substandard. Made in Taiwan, with a counterfeit Sony imprint.
Come on, Jake—you’re like Johnny Carson: best when you’re going into the toilet.
“Well,” I managed to say, “sex is out of the question, for at least the next hour and ten minutes.” I set the mug down and placed a napkin over my crotch, resisting the impulse to rub. Then I took some ice cubes from one of the empty glasses nearby, dropped them down the front of my pants, and made a hissing steam sound.
She didn’t want to grin, but she did anyway, and glanced at her watch.
“Never mind that bullshit,” she said then, the grin fading. “My name is Zoey, now answer my question—I’m old, Jake, I haven’t got time to fuck around—you want me to join a group? You want me to see your etchings? You want a home-cooked meal? You want the chords to ‘Wild Thing’? You want to get married? What? Just spell it out, okay? I’m willing to negotiate: just tell me what’s on the table. What do you want from me?”
Decision time.
There is a James Taylor song I would quote, if it were not defended by vicious lawyers, called “If I Keep My Heart Out Of Sight.” The singer feels that if he slips and shows his hand, it’s a cinch he’ll scare her off. But for the life of him, he can’t think of anything to say except “I love you.” For the first time I really understood that antinomy.
A relationship, if it’s an important one, should begin with truth, right? A relationship is a person’s home-study project in getting telepathic. You can’t found that on a lie, can you? You have to go with the truth, or it’s all stumbling in the dark in a room full of banana peels. Nobody can pilot through a hostile universe without honest data, can they? The honest answer to Zoey’s question was: everything, and pretty bad.
I nodded to myself, and lied through my teeth. “I honestly don’t know, Zoey.”
She considered it. “Will you stop when I tell you to?”
The honest answer was, I don’t know, but I doubt it. “Yes. My steering is spotty, but I got good brakes.”
Zoey nodded, and turned her gaze back to the fireplace. I watched her smoke for a while, fighting the desire to bum a puff. After a measureless time she said, “How long for you?”
I picked up my mug, carefully, and sipped Irish coffee. “A couple of years ago, I had a couple of real good half-hours. Before that, I guess something like eighteen years. Not counting recreational fucking and some good friendships.” I took a big gulp of my drink. “You?”
“Five years ago,” she said. “But the marriage just ended two months ago. I don’t give up easy.”
“Ah.” Ancient wisdom: rebound relationships can’t work. No significant exceptions in recorded history. And if it is possible, it’ll take at least a year for the epoxy to set, first. I sipped more coffee.
“Why did you say, ‘Welcome home’?”
I shook my head. The truthful answer was, because I suddenly knew we have loved before, more than once, in previous lifetimes. Because this is a reunion. “Ask me in a year.”
She accepted that. She leaned forward and tapped ashes into the fireplace. She took a long gulp from her own mug.
“Who told you about this place?” I asked. Thinking, which of my best friends am I going to have to steal you from?
She shook her head. “I broke down right outside on 25A. While I was trying to figure out the problem, I heard the music. I could hear you didn’t have a bass.”
Mary’s Place is not visible from 25A. Tall hedges and a winding driveway. No sign. Set well back from the road. No sidewalk along that stretch, so little or no pedestrian passby. There’s maybe fifty feet of highway where she could possibly have stopped and heard the music. If there was little traffic and the wind was right. I made a firm mental note. As of tonight, the Lucky Duck’s money was no good in here either.
Then I remembered what Ernie had told me about the consequences of being a bystander to his paranormal ability. His luck, he had said, could turn your life upside down and shake out all your emotional pockets…but usually left you with nothing in your hand when the smoke cleared. If you won a million on the lottery, within an hour you had stepped in some kind of shit that cost a million dollars to get clear of.
Okay. Fair enough. How many people get to hold a million bucks for an hour? Come to think, that might be the ideal duration.
Then it came to me. The Duck had been long gone when Zoey’s ride quit.
“So you came into Mary’s Place,” I said. “The talking dog and the cluricaune didn’t put you off?”
She shrugged. “I’m pretty easygoing. That guy biting people on the neck startled me a little. That nobody seems to mind, I mean.”
“Oh, Pyotr’s not your conventional vampire,” I said. “He doesn’t drink blood, not a drop. He just filters excessive alcohol out of it with those teeth…along with fatigue poisons. He’s sort of a walking hangover cure.”
“I see.”
“And you can’t figure out what’s wrong with your car, right? Everything checks out, but it just won’t run.”
She looked at me suspiciously. “Was that you? Some ki
nd of ray or mojo or something?”
“No. I thought for a minute it might have been a friend of mine. But I don’t think so.” I mean, there were coincidences in my life before I met the Lucky Duck, right? Wouldn’t the highway outside be beyond his zone of effectiveness, even if he’d been here? Or had he and Margie gotten no farther than the parking lot? It seemed to me Margie drove a van. “Anyway, we have a master mechanic in the house.”
“Two,” she said, a little stiffly.
I pantomimed embarrassment. Silly me. Thank God Merry Moore didn’t hear.
“But thanks. If I can’t get it started when I try again, I’ll ask his advice.”
“Okay. But his name is Dorothy.”
Her turn for Silly me.
There was a long pause, while we both tried to decide what would be a good direction to take the conversation next. I finished my coffee.
“Well,” she said at last, “what shall we do for the next—” She checked her watch again. “—hour and seven and a half minutes?”
I broke up. First laugh to her. Isn’t it good…knowing she would? Thank you, Mr. Lennon. She laughed along with me. A very good laugh. As expressive, in its way, as her blues scatting had been. You always hear that laughter is supposed to be an “interrupted defense mechanism.” Isn’t that just a euphemism for, a surrender mechanism?
Suddenly, shockingly, I realized she had seguéd from laughing to crying.
I knew from the way she held her shoulders that it would be a mistake to touch her now, or say something sympathetic. I sat there holding my empty mug and waited for the boil to drain. After a while I noticed my hands hurt.
“Forget it, Jake,” she said finally.
“Sure,” I said. “No problem. About an hour and a half after they lay me in the ground.”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I really am. It just wouldn’t work. The timing sucks.”
Oh, how I wanted to make some pun—are you sure it isn’t bad plugs?—but I knew levity would not lighten the air just now. “Timing isn’t everything. Luck can cover a lot.”
The Callahan Touch Page 17
