Wonderkid

by Wesley Stace

  “I don’t think Greg’s in this for the long haul,” said Andy sympathetically. It was as good a way to break the ice as any. He looked like he knew how to break ice. “He’d be at lunch with us if he was.”

  Jack nodded. Sometimes he winced at the thought of Greg. “It’s no bad thing. He’s perhaps been a little out of his depth for a while.”

  “I think . . . he’s blinked,” said Andy, victor in the staring contest that had started the moment they met. “But he’s your guy. He’s you.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Blake, what he always said when it mattered most of all. He knew Andy and Jack were right. As they’d left the office, he’d heard Greg telling Heidi a story Blake had heard many times, and he knew the story ended with Heidi offering to drive Greg out to Malibu to show him where Dylan lived, or a trip to the Farmer’s Market, or up into the hills to meet her “boyfriend,” which would turn out to be a horse, and Greg saying: “Yeah, yeah. Be great to see some of the sights before I head home. I’ll buy you dinner,” knowing that she’d buy him dinner.

  Greg could get almost anything he wanted in America on charm and accent alone. But he couldn’t manage this juggernaut. Andy, on the other hand, was charmless. He could manage the Wonderkids standing on his head—and he’d have to, on occasion, if he wanted to see Blake the right way up.

  Greg’s mum had a timely relapse and he had no choice but to go back to England. It was a blessed release. He’d thought he’d have to stay around longer, but he barely made it the few days to the Simeon’s House taping.

  Jack was sightseeing, video camera at the ready (though now he got to leave it in the town car when he didn’t need it), so Blake and Greg had a few drinks together the last night before he left. Both were aware, yet unable to verbalize, that this was goodbye. Blake felt disloyal to Greg; Greg knew he was being disloyal to Blake.

  “Well, seems like you’ve got it made,” said Greg quietly rolling over, just as he had intended.

  “You mean we’ve got it made.”

  “Well, I think you’ve maybe got it made.”

  “I only hope they haven’t got the wrong end of the . . .”

  “Wrong end of the shtick,” said Greg. They laughed. It was perfect Greg. “Did I ever tell you the official reason why the band Sailor broke up?”

  “Sailor? ‘Glass of Champagne.’ That was one of the first singles I ever bought at Small Al’s. Maybe the first I ever bought with my own money.”

  “They didn’t break up due to ‘musical differences.’”

  “‘To pursue a solo career’?”

  “No, it wasn’t even ‘outside influences’ . . .”

  “Does that always mean drugs?”

  “No, no, I think sometimes it means boilers. Cherchez la femme. Yoko kinda thing. It wasn’t even ‘irreconcilable differences.’”

  “So why did they break up?”

  “It was in the official press release: lack of talent. All bands break up,” said Greg. “The only bands who haven’t broken up should have broken up years ago. But do you know how a band stays together?”

  “Luck? Success?”

  “Money. Split the money equally. It’s the only way.”

  And then Greg embarked upon a very long story, which Blake actually hadn’t heard before, about how one of his heroes had been drinking next to him at a bar in Newcastle, and they’d got to talking, and they’d actually been getting on really well, but Greg had got distracted by a bit of skirt, and headed off into the night, curtailing the conversation with his hero, who had died unexpectedly a few weeks later.

  Greg flew home the next morning.

  Things were different with Andy. He wasn’t yet officially their manager, merely heir apparent to an empty throne.

  Andy didn’t tell stories.

  “Greg was there for us,” said Blake to Andy, during one of their frank early meetings. “Whenever we needed him. In the foxhole. Are you in the foxhole for us, Andy?”

  “I am. I’m totally in the foxhole for you guys. What I’m saying is: let’s not go there . . .” He saw distress in Blake’s eyes. “But if we need to go to the foxhole, I’m there.”

  “Well, sometimes you can’t help the foxhole. You don’t want to be there; it’s not somewhere you need to be.”

  “I’m there,” said Andy, unconvincingly.

  But he was no bullshitter. Within two weeks, they had an agent and the heaviest lawyer in town. From the get-go, Jack liked being managed by Andy, though he pronounced his name with heavily drawn-out emphasis on the first syllable, as if he was savoring a conjunction rather than about to say “Andy,” which only became clear when he added a helpful little “y” on the end. This was Jack’s little power play. Blake missed Greg, but felt momentum. He’d never experienced momentum before. It was as if Greg’s anecdotes had been slowing everything down.

  A little while after his return home, Greg called me. I assumed he was calling from America until he explained about his mum.

  “Yeah, man, it’s all going great. Come over and have a . . . I’ll get in some Coca-Cola. Now, look, I been talking to Blake, and he wants to get you out there.”

  My heart started to thud like I was hearing it through a stethoscope. “I can’t go. I’m at school. The Terrys. It’s okay doing the gigs and stuff, but . . .”

  “Well, yeah. But here’s the thing: if he adopts you, you can do whatever you like.” I literally put my hands over the two pieces of the phone so that no one could hear or be heard: pure reflex. “Are you there, Sweet?”

  “He wants to adopt me.” I was whispering.

  “Yeah.”

  “Shouldn’t I talk to him about it?”

  “He’s gonna come back here, and you can talk then. It’s all about if you want him to.”

  “Is he old enough to adopt me?”

  “Yeah. Well, I don’t know. Do you wanna be adopted? You’re fifteen now. Seems like you can probably do whatever you like next year, right? But he’s got some advice from one of the lawyers out there, who’s been talking to someone back here, and if you want to do it, then he can, you know, take you out there.”

  “And I can do merch.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about school?”

  “University of life, right? What an opportunity! Wish I’d had it.”

  “What about the Terrys?”

  “They’re cool.” The Terrys weren’t cool. Only Greg could possibly refer to the Terrys as cool.

  “When’s he coming back?”

  “Next week. It’s all happening real fast over there.”

  “Yeah, he sends me postcards.”

  “Oh, nice. New band members. New name.”

  “Yeah. I’ve had a postcard every day.”

  “I know. I bought him the stamps at the desk . . . Well, so you know, then.”

  “But he never mentioned this.”

  “It’s a surprise. And I’m not gonna be around anymore, so, y’know, there’s another.”

  7

  “This next one is the first song on our new album . . .”

  SIMEON (REAL NAME, SIMON FONSECA)—UNKNOWN OUTSIDE America, a legend in his own country—had been a modestly successful folksinger in the early seventies during the bust, rather than the boom. Too square for the hippies, he’d managed to carve a niche for himself on Public Broadcasting, singing cheery, empowering songs for children about friendship, cooperation, generosity, and other similarly uncontroversial behaviors. Favorites included “You Are Your Own Best Friend,” “Today’s a Brand New Day (All Over the World),” and “Giving Is Better Than Getting.” He held a guru-like sway over his constituency. Once you heard his name, and none of the Wonderkids ever had, he was everywhere: in the TV Guide in the motel lobby, on the billboards that faced you down on the highway, in the record stores smiling smugly from the children’s rack, which nuzzled up to the folk section and numbered very few artists.

  Simeon gave up in the mid-nineties. After he had milked the cow dry, he decided th
at much of his money had been made immorally. From then on, he appeared only at events that promoted World Peace, particularly those that publicized, or donated to, his nebulous Empowering the Child campaign. He was against everything: television, the Internet, the future, fast food. Only kids counted, and he didn’t like singing for them anymore.

  But in 1991, Simeon was the shit, le poop, and the band was to be on his show. Soon. But given that only two of them remained, the appearance came with strings.

  One of the strings was Becca, Simeon’s daughter from his second marriage.

  The first meeting took place the day after the WBA summit at a practice space on Gower. Blake and Jack had never been in a rehearsal studio like it: perfectly soundproofed, spick and span with drinks machines, an un-tattooed receptionist who radiated welcome, and a boutique that sold strings, capos, tuners, and everything else they’d forgotten. The abiding memory of its Brixton equivalent, the Dump, was the hellish noise of twelve different bands playing twelve different musics simultaneously. The first time the brothers booked a room at the Dump, a proto-crustie in war-against-the-man uniform walked by, vicious-looking pit bull on a chain lead. He opened the door to one of the spaces, inflicting the mind-blowing racket upon the corridor, at which the dog whimpered in terror, refusing to pass inside. Blake and Jack heard terrified howls as the door closed; they could only imagine what other medieval tortures lay beyond.

  At the practice space on Gower, a house cat purred contentedly by the front desk. The buzz was that Boz Scaggs was in the building. All was heavenly. Becca walked in precisely on time, bass slung over her shoulder, waved hi, smiled a wide smile that deepened the Sigourney Weaver creases around her mouth, and improved on all the parts she’d copped from the first album. Jack had initially been suspicious—“a bassist in exchange for a TV spot?”—but, according to Blake, Jack fell into a reverie almost the moment he saw her: the female, the earth, the seat of rhythm, there was something primal about it. Becca’s appearance seemed to change almost by the hour as she tossed her unruly blonde hair this way and that. She made no reference to her father. If one thinks of the Wonderkids as the Beatles for a second (humor me) Becca was the Quiet one, the Dark Horse, the one who did yoga in the corner—as opposed to the mouthy one (Blake), the one who wore all the rings (Blake), or the one without shoes on the Zebra crossing who might be dead (Blake).

  It was she who had suggested Curtis, who wasn’t her boyfriend, to WBA. Curtis “O” (it was a leftover punk name—he’d once been Kurt Zero) was straight from Central Casting, literally. In other words, WBA, in their attempts to find a band member, put out a call for an actor who could drum: the Monkees Method. And Becca’s friend Curtis “O” could drum. His long, smooth dreads also added a certain something that the band had previously lacked. Again, Jack was the one impressed: Curtis “O” had drummed briefly for a legendary LA punk band. Jack loved a good CV, plus he’d never played with a black bloke before. Blake was against tokenism of all kinds—a legacy of the Student Union Bar—but this was “diversity” and he liked the balance. Now they really were Everyone. And the proof was in the pudding: they sounded good.

  Drinks that night sealed the deal. Blake rechristened Becca “Mum” when he spilled some of his beer and she immediately mopped it up with a wet wipe from her bag: that’s just the way she was. That bag contained almost everything you required of a mother: band aids, safety pins, chewing gum, Advil, herbal remedies, a needle and thread. Whatever you wanted, it was all in there: just in case. She made the band feel like a family, which Blake had never even known he wanted, and everyone called her Mum after that. As for Curtis, Jack couldn’t believe he’d been in the city’s punk scene at all: it must have been quite different from British punk. Curtis was always smiling, always friendly, never spat at you, and greatly admired Sting. Maybe he’d just grown up.

  “I like him,” said Jack back at the Sahara Motor Lodge, “his playing; everything. But Sting? Nasty. And I love her but I wouldn’t want to see her apartment. I bet all the mugs would be in order of size. Anyway, see how it goes on the TV. Nothing permanent yet, is it?” Band dynamics were Jack’s special subject; Blake just liked a nice mix of people who let him do what he wanted.

  In rehearsal, Blake had a knack for getting the most out of people while having as much fun as possible, so no one ever felt overworked. Jack quietly got on with his own thing, tinkering with sounds, twiddling knobs, and daisy-chaining pedals. Blake never second-guessed Jack (“Oh, let him fiddle!”) and Jack never questioned Blake’s lyrics. Curtis was the first drummer they’d ever met who wanted a copy of the words. He liked to sing along. “Do you want a microphone?” Blake asked casually. He did. And they were a band: four singers, one acoustic guitar, one electric guitar, bubbly bass, and the beat of the traps. Making music was easier in America. It was like the whole country was trying to help you.

  At first they were only booked for two days until the taping, but the rehearsal studio was to become their second home, more comfortable than the Sahara Motor Lodge. During breaks, they glimpsed passing stars who nodded with musicianly recognition. One day, Ray Davies turned up. Blake observed in awe, determined not to be a bother. Later that day, he went to the unattended front desk, where Ray had left a handwritten instruction for the receptionist—something about a delivery of tapes, in pencil, with a little frame around the note and some underlinings in red Sharpie. Without thinking, Blake (a thoughtful thief) took the note, photocopied it, put the copy back on the desk and pocketed the original.

  On the set of Simeon’s House, the great man himself approached, ignored the rest of the band, and kissed his daughter on the lips.

  “Hi, honey. Glad your new band could be on the show. Write, huh?”

  She introduced him as her father but called him Simeon. He immediately proved himself to be the dick you suspected him of being: one side of his collar was up and Blake, concerned that no one would spot it before cameras rolled, told him. “Oh yeah? Thanks,” said Simeon, in the least possibly grateful way: whereupon he pointedly didn’t adjust the collar and walked away. Becca shook her head in embarrassment, excusing her father with a “pressures of show business” shrug, and Blake laughed in polite astonishment.

  “Get her!” said Jack, in his camp pantomime dame voice.

  “He’ll have sorted it by the time the red light goes on,” said Blake. And he had.

  “Big chip; no salsa,” Becca whispered in Blake’s ear as they watched from behind a camera. “He’s my father, but only technically.”

  The Wonderkids were to play “Rock Around the Bed,” minus the verse with the “offensive” lyric (“She pushed me back on the kitchen table / And I nearly fainted / As we got acquainted”): two verses, chorus, and a bridge were quite enough. They rehearsed the song five times for camera after which they were escorted to wardrobe for styling and make up.

  “Just a little to take off the glare,” said Jack in his best Ringo. It was from A Hard Day’s Night.

  “I love your accent,” said the stylist. “You sound just like a Beatle.”

  Jack looked the most dashing with his hair slicked back. The record company provided the clothes. One trip down Melrose was all it took: lightweight suits in primary colors—red for Blake, blue for Jack, yellow for Mum and white for Curtis. There’s a photo of the four of them, waving like a flag, unaware that it is their last moment of obscurity.

  If Simeon was Andrew Gold, Randy VanWarmer, Stephen Bishop, and all the other modestly bearded lonely boys of the seventies, the Wonderkids were the Sex Pistols. And he’d let them into his house, invited the vampires in. I have the clip on my laptop. Simeon’s intro is like Ed Sullivan’s for the Beatles: “They’re over from England, with a song that I know you’re going to take to your hearts, housemates, called ‘Rock Around the Bed.’” Simeon had sounded the death-knell of his own career; it was the first time he’d ever uttered the word “Rock” on the show, and he had no clue how much trouble the band was going to cause him or hi
s family. They were quite unlike anything that had ever appeared on Simeon’s House: the previous musical guest, in a merino ski sweater, had crooned “Bingo Was His Name-O” to the strains of his classical guitar, foot perched on a knee-high stool.

  Blake performed like never before, pogoing like a jack-in-the-box, smiling like a loon. Even Jack looked a little taken aback by his antics. In the control room, the producers reached for their pink pills; it was the first time they’d had drums and bass, and they’d got cold feet at the last minute, knowing their hands were tied—Becca was after all his daughter. Blake had a video sent back to England (though I couldn’t even get it in the Terrys’ VCR—it was the wrong everything: format, region, standard, shape) with another postcard of the Hollywood sign: “We’re going on tour and you’re coming!”

  Simeon’s House aired the following Saturday at 9 a.m. Switchboards jammed, and the single, rush-released to radio, started its ascent up some very specific chart. A tour was planned immediately. The album was pushed forward and released within a month, songs edited to their perfect Platonic lengths, new title—Everyone Music—emblazoned on the revamped cover; a video for “Rock Around the Bed” was in production on a triangular soundstage off Mulholland. For this masterpiece, the band mimed on a set that almost precisely captured the eerie Little House on the Prairie vibe of Simeon’s House, a performance interspersed with footage of the Wonderfamily having a pillow fight around a massive feather bed. By the end of the shoot, there were feathers everywhere: in Blake’s mouth, Jack’s guitar, Curtis’s bass drum, and Becca’s hair. MTV took note. WBA, however, had a strict path for the Wonderkids from which they would not deviate. Andy agreed, which was his job: “Guys, we have a path. If we follow that path, we will be rewarded. If we get waylaid, we’ll get in trouble.”