Dreams

by Richard A. Lupoff

  I asked if she needed help getting into the house and she said No. Then she added, "You will be rewarded." And that was that.

  Five minutes later I was back with Laura and Gordon. "You know, you took a serious risk," Gordon said.

  "What?"

  Laura said, "This is a dangerous neighborhood. We're on the edge of the Tenderloin. That woman could have been a decoy working with muggers."

  I said, "Oh, I didn't think of that." Nobody said anything for a minute so I said, "You see somebody needs help, you help her. It's not complicated."

  We stopped at the office of Rock! Rock! Rock! to see if there were any messages, then on to the Civic Auditorium. Joe Cocker was performing that night. I run the West Coast office of R!R!R!. Laura is a freelance photog who works for us now and then. Gordon is a software wizard who actually makes a living out of his job.

  Cocker was drunk. He threw up onstage and had to cancel the performance. The management had to refund the money of a couple thousand angry customers.

  Laura and Gordon and I paid a brief call to the backstage scene, snagged a couple of sandwiches and beers off the catering table, and worked the room. The usual groupies were milling around, looking more stoned and confused than ever.

  I spotted Vampirella. She was wearing her customary black satin outfit with opaque shades and blood-red costume jewelry. I tried to make the same approach I did every time I saw her, and she ignored me the way she did every time I tried. If you're wondering why I bothered, I can't give you an answer that makes much sense. She just had her hooks in me. Maybe it was her glossy, sable hair. Maybe it was her amazing complexion. Or her slim, supple figure. I've never gone for the buxom type, but Vampirella—or whatever her real name was—could just crook her finger and I'd come running.

  Next day I opened the R!R!R! office and checked the day's mail, messages on the answering machine, LP's for review, and promotional loot. The rock business is brutally competitive and the artists' promoters and the record companies are constantly vying for air-time and ink for their precious darlings. People like me get invited to parties, offered generous doses of illegal candies, backstage passes of course, trips to out-of-town conferences, and an endless array of coffee mugs, dinner trays, ballpoint pens, cheap wrist watches, tee shirts, giant belt buckles, and miscellaneous tchatchkes.

  I sat down to write as charitable a report as I could of last night's debacle. Laura would be in with some photos. I had no idea what she could have got that we could use, but she's a solid pro and I knew she'd give me something good. I wrote the article and started through the day's loot, looking for something I could either use or hock for a few shekels.

  Mostly it was junk. I mean—Andy Kim? Up With People? What were the A&R geniuses smoking this month? There was a nice tee shirt, though. Black cotton with a nifty logo on the chest in white and the words Lone Star Beer in bright yellow lettering. I checked the label and it was my size. Winner!

  There was no promotional material with it. I couldn't think of anybody who'd put out an album called Lone Star Beer. But what the heck, it was a great shirt and it was a freebie.

  There was a show over in Berkeley that night that I wanted to catch. Merl Saunders was playing at the New Monk, and based on past history Jerry Garcia was likely to drop in and jam. I decided to inaugurate the Lone Star Beer shirt. Of course it was chilly and wet, par for the course this time of year, so I bundled up.

  Merl was great, Nine Finger Jerry showed up and was amazing, and I wound up in the green room with them between sets. There was good wine and whiskey on the table along with guacamole and chips. There were very few groupies, the bruiser at the door had seen to that, but I did spot Vampirella there.

  We made eye contact and for the first time in recorded history she smiled at me. I walked over, half expecting her to cut me dead, but instead she offered me a tortilla chip slathered in green slime. Yow!

  Why the change? I was too happy to worry about that, I was just bathing in the divine presence. Jesus, she even smelled good! She said, "That's a great shirt. You from Texas? What's your name, cowboy?"

  I told her, "Del Marston and I'm from Chicago."

  "Why the shirt?"

  "Just a nice shirt."

  We made small talk, told each other about trying to earn a living in San Francisco, drank some of the management's booze (excellent!) and headed out along with Merl and Jerry for the second set.

  When it was over Vampie invited me up to her apartment for a nightcap. Believe that? Like a character in some old movie. Of course I said yes, and when we got there she opened a bottle of Chardonnay and put on an LP. I wondered what her choice in music was going to be, hoping it wouldn't be too hard or loud, and she astonished me.

  Haydn!

  ***

  Next time I saw her was at the Sweetwater in Mill Valley. Maria Muldaur was singing. I'd put on a spiffy new shirt and jeans just in case. And, all right, I spotted Vampirella. I didn't think Muldaur was her kind of music, but what the hell boss what the hell, I walked over and said, "Hi, remember me, Del Marston from Chicago?"

  She looked through me.

  "We met at the New Monk? Merl Saunders and Jerry Garcia?"

  She said, "I'm waiting for a friend," and turned away.

  What the heck?

  Muldaur was sweet but I watched Vampirella all night and her friend never showed up. And once the show ended she disappeared before I could offer her a ride home.

  Jeez.

  Incidentally, I don't want you to think that my job is all hanging out at music venues, cadging catered meals in green rooms, drinking wine and smoking dope with hippies. I have to do interviews and write concert and record reviews and keep this little office going. And I don't want you to think that I actually run Rock! Rock! Rock! I'm just the so-called West Coast Editor. All my copy and all of Laura's photos wind up in New York where the bigwigs put the magazine together. And I have to keep them happy to keep the checks flowing westward.

  Next show I wanted to cover was at the Pierce Street Annex back in the city. Really talented folkie named Paul Siebel, straight from Woodstock. It was a warm night for San Francisco, and I'd come home from the Laundromat with some clean duds just in time to get dressed for Siebel's show. I put on my best safari boots, clean jeans, and my Lone Star Beer tee shirt. The shirt was plenty comfortable and I was getting fond of it, although the dye the manufacturer used must have been pretty cheap because the shirt looked a little bit faded after only one washing.

  Well, the price was right, anyhow.

  Siebel was even better in person than he was on his self-titled LP. A modest, sweet-natured guy. I introduced myself and told him I wanted to do a piece on him for R!R!R! and he acted as if I was some kind of celebrity.

  Coming out of the club after Siebel's show, who should I run into on Pierce Street but—right!—Vampirella. I had a little tape recorder in one hand and my notebook in the other and I was headed for my faithful bug. After the brush-off I'd got at the Sweetwater I didn't know what to expect of Vampie but she came running at me and jumped into my arms. Wrapped her legs around my waist, almost knocked the tape recorder out of my hands, planted a hot wet one on my ear and demanded, "Where have you been? Are you mad at me?"

  Once she climbed down from my midsection and I got back the breath she'd knocked out of me, I said, "I thought you were mad at me."

  She said, "After that night we saw Jerry and Merl at the New Monk? How could I be mad at you? But then when I ran into you at the Muldaur show, I thought you must be totally pissed. Did I come on too strong at my place, or what?"

  Now I was totally baffled. I figured all I could do was pretend the Sweetwater thing never happened. I said, "It's pretty late, do you need a ride or what?"

  She said, "I'll tell you what, I'm really famished. You think we could rustle up some food?"

  "Mel's should be open."

  "That would be okay, but—do you know how to cook? Or I could make something if you have the ingredients."
>
  Well, long story short, for once the bug started without a fuss, I found a parking spot half a block from my modest digs, and we wound up having a bedtime snack of bacon and eggs and English muffins. A bachelor like me learns to cook, at least the simple stuff.

  In the morning she woke up first and returned the favor. And before she left she invited me to go to a movie that night. And would you believe, I had a plus-one press invite to exactly that flick. It was The Last Picture Show, and I am nuts for anything that Bogdanovich directs.

  Amazing. This was starting to look like a match made in heaven.

  As planned, I showed up at the theater half an hour before show time. No sign of Vampie, but what the hell, it was early yet and I knew she wanted to see the film. She'd even told me she had a crush on Timothy Bottoms. She wouldn't miss it.

  It was one of those chilly nights, a cold mist in the air and glowing nimbuses around street lamps and storefront neon. I wore a sweatshirt under a quilted jacket and still I was freezing ten minutes after I arrived. There was a coffee shop next door to the theater so I headed in to get a hot cup.

  She was sitting in a booth with one of the Kerr twins. Oh, jeez.

  You don't know the Kerr twins. Frankie and Jimmy. Frank Arthur Kerr and James Otho Kerr. I don't know what their parents were thinking of. Look at the initials. Their names turn into Faker and Joker. They both work for Scorpion Blues, my mag's meanest competitor. Every time I try for a plum interview I have to worry about getting to the artist before Faker or Joker. Every time B!B!B! loses an important ad, you can guess who got it. Scorpion Blues. Right.

  And there was Vampie drinking latté and playing footsie with Frankie. Or maybe Jimmy. I stood there, probably looking like a pimply high school nerd who just got dumped in favor of Superjock and knows he's about to become the laughingstock of the junior class.

  Vampie displayed a butter-wouldn't-melt-in-her-mouth grin and waved to me and said, "Oh, hi there. Del, isn't it? Del Martin?"

  "Marston," I stammered, as if she didn't know.

  "You here for The Last Picture Show?" Jimmy asked. Or maybe Frankie.

  I ignored him. I said, "I thought we were going together, Vampirella. We just talked about it this morning, don't you remember?"

  "I'm sorry, Don," the sentence slithered from between her luscious lips like an aerial snake. "I don't know what you're talking about. Maybe you're thinking of somebody else."

  Jimmy-Frankie slid his arm around her shoulders and said, "That rag of yours still going, Dan? I don't hear much about it these days."

  I couldn't take any more. I went home and turned on Blue Oyster Cult loud and opened a bottle of cheap wine and got stinko. I played "Don't Fear the Reaper" a dozen times and sang along with Roeser and fantasized about Patti Smith.

  Next day I enjoyed a hangover that would surely land me in The Guinness Book of World Records if I could figure out how to describe it to them. I excavated my favorite shirt out of the hamper and pulled it on. Either the shirt was getting ripe or I was, but I was in no shape to do anything about that. I peered into the mirror and when I saw what was squinting back at me I scrounged up a Commander Cody baseball cap that I'd got as a reward for a nice little article when the Commander was just getting started. Money would have been nicer.

  I managed to crawl down to the office and write a couple of record reviews. I ripped into the material and the performances and the production and the cover art, and for all I know I destroyed a dozen promising careers and sent as many sensitive artistic souls back to grad school for MBAs.

  Sorry about that.

  I drank a pot of coffee wishing I was a private eye who kept a bottle of bourbon in his desk drawer to spike the java with, but I wasn't and I didn't and by mid-afternoon I was feeling at least slightly human.

  There was a free show in Golden Gate Park and the sun was shining. I left the bug in the driveway and struggled over to the park on foot. I heard the band tuning up from three blocks away. By the time I got there Hot Tuna was launched into one of their patented all-day versions of "Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning."

  A haze of blue-gray stonedness was floating over the crowd. I struggled to a place near the stage and plopped my tuchuss onto the grass and tried to get my head into the music. It was then that I heard the unmistakable sound of a female palm colliding with a male physiognomy and caught the wind-up of an angry exclamation that ended with, ". . . and your pitiful little weenie, too, you creep!"

  That caught my attention.

  I turned in time to see Frankie-Jimmy Kerr slinking away through the mob of stoned Tuna-lovers. And there was Vampirella decked out in black satin with opaque shades and her hair looking as if the sun had no other job than to make it look gorgeous.

  "Del!" Vampie squealed. "Del, oh my gosh, I'm so happy to see you. You won't believe what that son of a something wanted me to do. Oh, Del, please, will you stay with me in case he comes back, or sends that louse of a brother of his."

  We stayed together and Hot Tuna went on and on, the sky grew dark, the crowd thinned, the stars came out, the gray mist embraced us and we embraced each other and I had an inkling for the first time in my life of what love poetry is all about.

  ***

  And sometimes the world, as they say, is too much with us. I mean, the next day I scrubbed myself down, shampooed a couple of times, scraped the bristles off my face, threw everything except the sweat suit on my back into a couple of pillow cases and headed down to the local Laundromat. I sat there reading a copy of The Dharma Bums while my clothes and the soap suds went 'round and 'round and 'round behind the little glass window.

  When the machine stopped I transferred everything to a dryer and sat down again with my book only to feel a cool and gentle kiss on my freshly shaven cheek.

  And there stood Laura Tomkins, ace girl shutter-bug. "You're looking chipper as hell, boss, how's about buying a lady a cold refreshing brew?"

  And off we went to a nearby watering hole. There was a juke box in the corner and somebody had fed it with a bunch of coins and Grace Slick's voice was wailing. There was a TV set over the bar with the picture turned on and the sound turned off. In a totally bizarre way "Somebody to Love" made a perfect soundtrack for Karl Malden and Michael Douglas screeching up and down the streets of San Francisco in their mile-long Ford sedan.

  And when Laura and I got back to the Laundromat some skunk had opened the dryer and made off with my personal wardrobe. I collared the dragon who made change and sold overpriced packages of soap powder to customers and demanded to know who had my belongings. She said it wasn't her job to play policeman and couldn't I read, didn't I see all the signs that said, Keep an eye on your belongings, Management is not responsible for lost or stolen property.

  Jeez.

  Laura tried to cheer me up, invited me to join her and Gordon for a pizza and a movie, but I was in no mood. I just went home and sulked for the next several hours. When the walls started to close in on me and the only choice on TV was Lawrence Welk or Art Linkletter, I grabbed my Commander Cody baseball cap—at least I'd left that at home—and headed for North Beach. There's always some kind of distraction in North Beach.

  The flashing lights and pathetic barkers and moronic thrill-seekers didn't do it for me. Not tonight. They just depressed me. I walked down to City Lights and looked at the books in the window and decided maybe I'd find something to read. I wandered around picking books up and putting them down. I finally settled on A Coney Island of the Mind. I stood in line to pay for the Ferlinghetti until I got to the cashier's counter.

  All right, guess who was working the register.

  I don't have to tell you. Oh, boy, did she look good to me!

  "Vampirella!"

  "Yes, sir. You want that book? A great book, great book, excellent choice." She told me the price. It was right there on the cover but she told me anyhow.

  "Vampirella, it's me, Del."

  She told me the price again and held out her hand.

 
I slapped the book into her hand and walked out.

  All right, all right, why didn't I just write her off as a flake and go look for another lady fair? Right. Try telling that to somebody who's so crazy in love he can't figure out which way is up.

  ***

  For the next couple of weeks I managed to avoid Vampirella. I started getting up early, showering and shaving regularly, working long hours, even freelancing to supplement the meager salary that the East Coast mobsters who owned Rock! Rock! Rock! paid me whenever I called up and whined that I was starving.

  I got an invitation to a literary conference in Southern California. A library association had decided that the popular music press was worthy of a panel discussion and offered me a cheap ticket on a PSA jet, a rental AMC Gremlin, and a room at the Motel Five-and-a-Half directly under the LAX flight-path.

  Strangely enough, by the time my jet touched down I had a hearty appetite so I headed out in my Gremlin, looking for a place to eat. I must have taken a wrong turn on the Hades Freeway because I wound up in an ugly town in the Valley. While I tried to find my way back to LA I spotted an eating establishment with the unlikely name of Uncle Hoggly-Woggly's Tyler Texas Home Style Barbecue. There was a big sign over the door, a painting of a bright pink pig in a chef's hat holding up a plate of barbecue and saying, "Bet You Can't Top This!" surrounded by the name of the establishment in glowing incandescent letters. People were lined up to get into the joint and the ones going in looked happy and the ones coming out looked happier so I figured this was a find.

  It was. If I ever get to Texas—God forbid!—I will head straight to Tyler, wherever that may be, and wallow in barbecue until I can't stand it any more.

  For now, though, I just feasted on ribs in sauce so hot it hurt but so delicious I couldn't stop eating, and potato salad, and coffee. That was all that Uncle Hoggly-Woggly sold and it was paradise enow as far as I was concerned.