"Sound familiar to you?" I said.
I thought for a moment he was going to hit me again. Instead he looked sheepish and scratched his head.
"I reckon," he said. He looked around. "Ralph, I'm going to leave security to you. Where's my band-we've got rehearsals to do. Think you'd better have a lie-down, Mick, you're looking a bit peaky."
"Nick."
"Sure. Ralph here will get someone to take you back to the hotel."
Ralph took me himself. I couldn't figure the guy-his perpetual bad humor-but he was a straight talker and I valued that.
"We've had a few death threats directed at Otis."
"Anonymous of course."
"Not always. An extreme right wing death squad has sent a threat in. The squad is the usual mix of off-duty policemen, militia, and military who've been hiring themselves out to the shopkeepers to kill the street-kids who are bad for business. Not too happy about us interfering, as they see it, with their internal politics. Half a dozen threats because of the remarks he made about Conchita-Otis has a worrisome attitude to women. Then one really weird one, which may well just be a fan note, arrived as I was leaving the hotel."
"May I see it?"
"Sure," Ralph said, digging in his pocket and handing it over.
The message was printed-very carefully-on hotel stationary, available in the lobby of our hotel. I recognized it immediately. It was a quote from the lyrics of one of Otis's early songs.
I hate song lyrics printed out as if they were holy texts, especially as 99 percent of them don't scan, read tritely-I always cringe when I hear that clunky line from John Lennon's Imagine "And no religion, too." Even my dad, who of course thought Lennon was God used to scream at the record player:
"Either-no religion either."
The worrying thing is that people found this so moving must have really pissed off true poets, who marry rhyme with emotions so beautifully, that people are moved by something so clunky.
Still at least this guy kept the excerpt brief and to the point.
"Fond as equals. Killed by desire."
Well, you had to read it in context. Ripped out of context it wasn't very poetic but it could be a death threat. Maybe.
"What's the next one?"
"You speak Spanish?"
I shook my head.
"Okay then, loosely translates as `You're fucking dead."'
"Not much ambiguity about that."
"Not so much as a hint. Goes on to say how they're gonna cut off his Johnson and stuff it down his throat"
"The cheaper the punk, the gaudier the patter," I said, surprising myself remembering the lines from The Maltese Falcon. Then I realized why-Colombia was being run by gangsters.
"In this country that's the least people do to other people. It actually shows a lack of imagination-most villains do far worse.
Back in my hotel room I lay on the bed and closed my eyes. I thought I'd settle my pounding head by going into the resting pose, relaxing every limb and breathing deeply.
Usually I could do this no problem. I recommend it for those unable to sleep at night. But the fact that the popular name for the position is the corpse posture-well let's just say it had resonances in Colombia that were too close for comfort.
I swung my feet off the bed and walked over to my case. I was feeling
I'd started writing poetry again on the advice of my therapist. There I've said it. Therapist, therapist, therapist. I'd started going just after I'd met up with an old girlfriend of my dad's. It was my therapist who suggested I go back to writing poetry to help express my long dormant feelings.
"Long dormant feelings about what?" I said.
"Your hatred of your father and your desire for your mother."
"Steady on," I said. I mean I knew she was a strict Freudian but my mother had died when I was three, for goodness sake.
My dad died when I was eighteen and in many ways it was a relief, though I suspected I'd lived my life ever since in a kind of symbiotic relationship with him.
And his various addictions. Thank God he was too much of a hippy to try glue-sniffing or my Aerofix kits of balsa-wood planes would never have been completed.
I remember Bridget coming to my flat in Shepherds Bush soon after I'd started the therapy. "What the fuck are these?" she said, looking at the ceiling. She lazily reached out her hand and flicked with her fingernail.
"Careful Bridget," I said, rushing over to cup my hands around the plane-a Messerschmidt if you want to get technical-that was now swinging wildly on the length of string by which it was suspended from the ceiling. A drawing pin held it in place.
"Well?" she said.
"What?"
"What the fuck are these?
"Planes."
"I thought mobiles were meant to chime or something."
"These aren't mobiles." I blushed.
"If it's not a mobile what are they doing? Why are they each on a different length of string?"
"Aesthetics," I said vaguely.
Bridget snorted.
"You wouldn't know an aesthetic if it bit you on the bum."
"I made them when I was a kid. They're having a dogfight."
I didn't give her bellow of laughter the dignity of a response. I was rather proud of my dogfight. The Spitfires coming out of the sun-that was a lamp on the mantelpiece-to attack the Messerschmidts with a few other odds and sods that didn't quite fit, like a MG 11. It had taken me ages to do.
Putting them up as a kind of homage to my childhood was my therapist's idea. It's what I would have liked to do when I was a kid but a) I didn't have the patience and b) it wouldn't have lasted five minutes because my dad would have got tangled in it the minute he walked in drunk from the pub.
I could picture him waking up the next morning in a chair he slept in if he passed out before he hit the bedroom, a turban of broken planes round his forehead.
But I digress. The therapy-well, it was just good to talk to somebody who would listen. At least I assume she was listening. She might have been asleep for all I knew-it's happened before. Sure, I could have said the same things to my best friend, except Bridget is my best friend and I can't even get a word in edgeways with her.
The only thing my therapist said to me was, "We all have an inner child, Nick, but for some people it's not quite so inner."
Bridget's laughter went on for quite a long time then. Finally I said: "Well, haven't you got anything of your childhood in your place. I bet you have cuddly toys."
Bridget curled her lip, making her look like Cliff in Espresso Borngo, without the quiff and obviously, the bongos.
I wandered over to the window and when she wasn't looking tucked my teddy more firmly behind the pillow on my rolledup futon.
That was the problem with therapy. I'd read a lot about it before I went into it and I was very sceptical-as far as I was concerned people who went into therapy needed their heads examined.
I was always reminded of that Groucho Marx joke: "You're on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Why don't you hurry up and pull yourself apart."
I knew my therapist wasn't perhaps all she was cracked up to be. If you'll excuse the expression.
Anyway, when I did a little research-I am a journalist after all, even though clearly one who is slow off the mark-I discovered you don't need to be qualified to be a therapist. Anyone can set themselves up as one.
When I asked her about her qualifications she admitted under my experienced questioning that she didn't have any. Well, actually she told me to fuck off but eventually admitted it. She'd been a PE instructor and had hurt her knee, so needed some alternative employment, especially as her husband had just left her.
She had also been a company wife-a lifetime of having to listen to her husband whining at home and other men mouthing off at do's, and she figured she may as well get paid for it.
I think her subtext was that if she could screw up a few men up in the process all the better.
The other giveaway was that
when I started opening my heart to her she gave an impatient sigh and said, "For God's sake don't whine." I'm sure I also heard her say "What a wimp," under her breath.
"But I'm paying you to let me whine," I said. "Nobody will listen to me voluntarily."
I realized later she was cribbing from some book, reading the next chapter and keeping just far enough ahead of me so that she seemed wise. Not that she said much.That was the beauty of being a strict Freudian.They never say anything.
You can't even see them-you lie on the couch and they sit out of sight behind you. I could hear the scratching of her pen so I know she was there-though once I'm sure I heard a little snort, one of those beginnings of a snore-but for all I knew she could have been doing a crossword.
I stopped going to her, took down the dogfight but carried on with the poetry. To be honest, under the impress of the rock tour I was trying to write songs.
I got my folder out of my case.All my papers were scrambled because of the jolt in the car.
I lay on the bed again, sorting them with the help of a drink from the mini-bar. Near the bottom of the pile I came upon a few unfamiliar sheets of paper. I looked at them puzzled then realized they must have been some of Horace's papers that had somehow got mixed up with mine.
I read them, then again more closely. One in particular stood out. I didn't understand all the legal jargon but the meaning was clear.
In the event of Otis's death I mean everything-went to Horace, his manager.
I didn't see Horace at the concert in the evening. He wasn't in the green room-actually a trapezoid tent erected backstage beside the bouncy castle. There were sofas and two long tables, one laid with plates of tapas, the other with every sort of booze imaginable.
From the side of the stage I looked out over the stadium. It looked pretty full-a sea of people who celebrated the appearance of their Latin American heroes with a fusillade of firecrackers. When the first ones went off I saw Ralph tense.
I could see that he was kitted out with the latest electronic communications technology-headphones with a tiny microphone jutting out beside his jaw-though I couldn't actually see his face.
But then I was down on hands and knees behind one of the banks of speakers. How was Ito know they were firecrackers? One of the Fertile Lands-the next band up-gave me an odd look.
"Contact lens," I mouthed, feeling on the floor around me, then carefully lifting my index finger towards my eye. Considering I didn't wear contact lenses I thought my mime was pretty good.
Pity that just as my finger reached my eye the second fusillade went off. I jerked and poked myself in the same eye Conchita had poked me in earlier.
Conchita was on stage and her set was going down a treat. But then this was her home crowd. She wore a figure-hugging dress-did she have any other sort?-and danced around the stage non-stop as she sang her greatest Latin American hits, her rhythm section belting out a dense, fast rhythm.
By the time she bounced offstage drenched in sweat, her face shiny, her dress like a second skin, the entire stadium was up and dancing and the atmosphere was electric. She gave me a little wave as she passed by. I mimed applause.
The Fertile Lands shambled on stage. Since the audience were up for dancing and Fertile Lands played some hippy-dippy world music through conches, gourds, some kind of bagpipe, and various other unlikely instruments, I was waiting for the real shooting to start-this was after all the continent where wars broke out over the results of football matches.
But the audience calmed down on hearing the weird combination of Celtic, African, and South American music. They listened to the set with rapt attention.
Watching the band, I was struck by the lead singer, a slender blonde in glasses with her hair tied in a convoluted system of braids.
Benny was the oldest person in the band. I watched him as he shambled off stage at the end and walked straight to the bar. He popped the cap off a bottle of beer and glugged it down in one, his head thrown back, his bony Adam's apple bobbing to keep up with his thirst. He picked up another bottle, flicked the top off with his thumb-I was impressed to see-and looked around the room.
He watched me walk over.
"Hi," I said, "I'm Nick Madrid. I enjoyed your set."
"I'm thrilled for you." He took a swig from the bottle.
"No Dylan quotes today? What's with the Dylan lookalike anyway?"
"Everybody wants to be someone else-what's it to you?"
"I hear you used to play with Otis-must be a surprise being on the same bill as him again after-how many years is it?"
"Ten years-and the only surprise is the bugger's still alive. Thought he would have drunk himself to death by now."
"Thought or hoped?"
He gave me a sidelong look for a long moment.
"You the Scoop?"
"That I am.And you're the guy who thinks he should have a percentage of Otis's takings. Must cause a bit of tension here."
"That's business mate-let my lawyer worry about that stuff. Me, I'm into the eternal whatsit," he looked past me, "with my fellow-musicians here."
I turned as the woman with the braided blonde hair joined us. She lowered her glasses and peered over them at me.
"Beatrice, meet Scoop. Scoop, Beatrice"
"You the person who does the yoga?" Beatrice said.
The percussionist sniggered. Here we go again.
"Why?"
"Have I touched a nerve?" she said, stepping back. "Richard told me about it, that's all. It sounds very interesting. Perhaps you could show me sometime."
How I loved those six words.
Benny gave me a sardonic grin then wandered away with his bottle of beer. Beatrice smiled, waiting for me to speak.
I was curious why. She was beautiful and talented. I am, if I'm honest, a dork. I have a hard-earned rule of thumb about women, a variation on Groucho's line about a club that will have him as a member: If a woman finds me attractive there must be something wrong with her.
This isn't self-pity or self-deprecation. It's based on experience. I'm totally sexist in that I tend to go for great-looking women. But I'm not a great-looking man. I'm big and in reasonable shape-well, aside from the child-bearing hips-but that's as far as it goes.
So if a good-looking woman seems interested I'm nervous because I know there's going to be something wrong with her. Some little foible like axe-murderer. Manic depression is a popular one. Schizoid, paranoiac, and downright murderous-I've known `em all.
But I want to be clear about this-in bed I've disappointed them equally without fear or favor. Based on what a former girlfriend had told Bridget she had once said I should wear a badge saying, "Not worth the heartache ladies."
The same old girlfriend once told an assembled dinner party: "Poor Nick, he tries so hard."
I used to warn women in advance not to expect too much-anything in could never get the timing right. Too early and they accused me of presumption, got huffy and that was the end of it. Too late and it was, well, too late.
So as I told Beatrice, at her request, about the yoga, I looked for those tell-tale signs-the flecks of foam at the mouth, the unblinking gaze, the laughing at the wrong moment.
Nothing. She took her glasses off and wiped them on a tissue a couple of times but I couldn't read much into that. This made me more nervous because of her inevitable disappointment.
I thought I'd take the opportunity to quiz her about Benny.
"How long has Benny been in your band?"
"Couple of years."
"Has he ever said anything about Otis?"
"You mean the record thing? Nothing-but then he doesn't mix with us very much. He's on salary-fixed-fee. We three others do the writing."
"Not worried he's going to try the same number with you?"
"You don't think his claim is genuine?"
"Dunno. Does he bear grudges?"
"He's quick to take offence. I think it's the drink.We've had to hush up a couple of incidents in bars. Glassed one
bloke, bottled another."
"Why do you keep him in the band? Your music isn't the kind you associate with that kind of behavior"
She flashed me a smile and leaned towards me conspiratorially.
"Johnny, the leader of the group, has kind of taken to hini they're drinking buddies, I think."
"Don't you find it a bit hypocritical being on a tour against drugs on which everybody drinks so much?"
"Absolutely," she said with a grin. "This gig's great exposure for the band, though."
Otis took the stage at this point. There was some hissing, some boos. I glanced over at Ralph who was speaking quickly into his mike. There was a bang, then another and another.
More firecrackers-but perfect camouflage for anyone wanting to shoot Otis and slip away.
Although I had decided Otis was a pig and a major disappointment, I respected his bravery in going on stage knowing his life had been threatened.
As he started with his first song and another flurry of firecrackers ripped the air, I had a startling thought-maybe no one had told him about the death threats.
Otis went down a bomb, so to speak. After the initial hisses he soon won people around. He was on great form, switching between rockers and ballads, up tempo and lazily slow. He did three encores. By the time Conchita joined him, resplendent in a swirling scarlet skirt, to duet on a couple of love songs, he had clearly been forgiven-the audience went nuts, especially when the pair kissed at the end.
I looked at Beatrice.
"A bit of a triumph, I'd say."
She shrugged.
"Are you going back to the hotel?" I said.
"Band is going out for a meal. Sorry. But what about the yoga, tomorrow at Baza?"
"What's Baza?" I said, but with a swift peck on the cheek she was gone.
I shared a taxi back with Richard and a journalist from Rollin Stone named Perry. I arrived in time to see Ralph hustle Otis from the limo into the hotel. There was still no sign of Horace.
Richard looked at me.
"Bar?"
"Pope? Bear?"
When we were settled I said:
"Is Otis a wealthy man?"
"Done pretty well out of the last album and single. But all the money he earns goes to pay off debts he accumulated in the bad days. He makes your financial management positively statesmanlike."
Two to Tango (Nick Madrid) Page 9
