The Best of Good

by Sara Lewis

  He shook his head, uncomprehending. “OK,” he said. “Can I have your autograph?” He handed me an open black Sharpie and turned around. He had on a Point Blank T-shirt autographed by all the band members. Except me. He was all prepared. “Right down here under Adam’s would be excellent.”

  I could see that the only way to end this exchange was to write my name on this shirt. The guy leaned over, and the man next to me held the shirt taut for me. I signed beneath the autographs of the current members. You could tell I hadn’t signed as many autographs as they had. I wrote “GOOD,” and you could read it fine.

  “Thanks, dude,” the kid said. He shook my hand. “You’re cool,” and then as if I had strongly objected to this characterization of myself, he added, “No, really.”

  The lights went down then, so I didn’t have to think of how to reply.

  As the band came onstage, I stood up and worked my way past many sets of knees to exit my row. I went up concrete stairs and through a side door labeled EXIT, thinking how much I loved that word and that sign. The music started. Even out in the hall, it was about as loud as a jet taking off.

  In the cement hallway, I saw the familiar boy/girl sign and walked toward it. I opened the door to the men’s room. Fortunately for everybody in there, I found a free stall. I closed the door, locked it, and vomited repeatedly into the bowl, flushing several times. When I was finished, I wiped my face with toilet paper, which shredded in my sweaty hand.

  When I came out, the men’s room was almost as empty as my gut. There were small pieces of toilet paper clinging to my greenish-gray face. My shirt was soaked, as though I’d been caught on a lawn when the sprinklers came on. I turned on the sink and rinsed my face, which I dried with brown paper towels. I leaned on the sink a minute, getting my bearings.

  I can leave anytime, I told myself. I can get out of here in a matter of a few minutes. I filled my cupped hand with cold water and slurped it up. I can just go home, if I want to.

  I found my way back to my seat. I put my earplugs in. You might think this is funny, going to a concert and wearing earplugs. But let me tell you, if I hadn’t been wearing earplugs for the last twenty-five years, I would not be able to hear conversations in crowded restaurants, let alone a dripping faucet in my own kitchen.

  The show was long, three hours, including a little break before the encore. They played my songs during the encore, as I guess they had a thousand times before. Like everyone else in this gigantic room, I had heard those songs in grocery stores, on commercials, in movies, and on the radio. Still, after all that, they made me think of the summer I was trying to act not crazy, a music-induced flashback from my own songs.

  Afterward, I went backstage. I had a pass. I told myself that if anyone questioned me in the slightest, I would go straight home. I did not have to prove anything to anyone. But no one questioned me, I had to wait a long time with a bunch of music journalists, friends of theirs I’d never seen before, and excited fans who had somehow finagled passes.

  Finally, a door opened and a beautiful, young Asian woman walked out. She had on a skimpy black shirt that didn’t reach the top of her skimpy black pants. Her navel was pierced. Angela, I guessed. She looked around the room. Her eyes landed on me. She crooked her finger, telling me to come with her. Everyone looked to see who I was, what made me so special. As if on cue, I began to sweat again. I went through the door with her, down a hall, to a room. There was the band. They’d taken showers. This seemed rude to me, to make all those people wait while they washed and dried their hair, put on different clothes.

  “Good!” Adam called. He ran across the room and hugged me. The rest of the band gathered around, shaking my hand and patting my back. I was hoping I didn’t feel as sweaty to them as I felt to myself.

  “Did you like the show? What’d you think of the new stuff?”

  “It was great,” I said, smiling. “Really excellent.” I have to say, it was nice to have someone care about my opinion for a change; it felt good to get all this attention.

  “I’m glad you liked it. We were so nervous!”

  “This guy puked right before we went on,” said Colby, the bass player, pointing to Adam.

  “You puked? For me?” I said. “That’s very flattering. Thank you.” I chose not to share my own experience.

  “So tell us what you’re doing,” Adam said.

  “Um, I write songs?” I said. I decided not to mention the bartending. “I… I write songs. Every day. And that’s it.”

  “Cool,” Adam said. “I bet they’re great!”

  “I don’t know about that,” I said, reaching into the back pocket of my jeans, “but I brought a tape.”

  “All right!” Adam said. “That is so cool. I’ll listen to it as soon as I get back to the hotel. Unbelievable,” He held the tape reverently. “New Good!”

  I said, “Thanks for the ticket, by the way, and, uh, great show guys. My number’s on there. So get in touch, OK?”

  “Really? You mean it? After all these years, you’ll let us call you?” He lowered his voice, and though I listened hard for sarcasm, irony, and sneering, there wasn’t any. “That means a lot,” he said. “It really does. Hey, thanks for coming! It was great to see you. Drive carefully!”

  I left. It was a long way home, but I listened to a Springsteen tape and drank an enormous Coke. I was fine. Perfect.

  • • •

  At home, though, I couldn’t sleep. Maybe it was the Coke. I lay in bed in the dark, listening to Robin’s radio. It wasn’t very loud, but as I said, earplugs have served me well over the years. It was a song from the Wallflowers’ first CD. What was worse, I wondered, being a musician who was known as the son of another, more famous musician, or being known as the Pete Best of Point Blank? I had heard that part of Jakob Dylan’s rider was that no one at any show at any time should mention his father. It must be brutal to have people forever comparing you to someone else. Every interview, every relationship, every interaction of any kind, must have all that nasty stuff lurking at its base at all times. John Lennon’s sons must have the same problem. Horrible, and they were stuck with it their entire lives. Yeah, that would be bad. To my disappointment, however, I found that any way I looked at it, being Point Blanks Pete Best was worse.

  I got up. I went to the fridge to get some water. Then I stood at the far wall of the kitchen so I could hear the song better. I pulled up a chair and leaned my head back against the wall. I heard Robin sigh and roll over. She was awake. I considered tapping on the wall to let her know I was there, just to say hello, a here-we-both-are-in-the-middle-of-the-night sort of thing. But right away, I could see complications that might result. She might think I was trying to tell her to turn the music down. Next time I saw her she would apologize. Or act peeved. I would have to explain what I meant by the knock. Or she might think my knocking meant that I needed to speak to her. She might make herself get up, get dressed, and come over.

  So I didn’t tap. I just sat there with my head against the wall, listening to the songs for a long time. I tried to pick up, from some subtle change in the atmosphere, some minute vibrational shift, when she fell asleep. I started to think about not being onstage, not being able to sleep, and listening to a wall. It all just sort of congealed into a song. I even had the bridge, the chorus, and a melody before I stood up to get a pen and put it in my trusty little notebook. I wrote it all out. It was called “The Things I Don’t Do.” It was kind of a rhyming list about being isolated and disconnected, one of my favorite topics.

  I made up a nice lonely-sounding guitar solo with hardly any effort at all. Songs don’t usually come in a big glob like that. Sometimes it’s serious labor getting the right melody, or the words don’t say quite what they’re supposed to mean. This time it worked, though, maybe because I’d just been to the concert. I planned to play it for Mike in the afternoon until I realized that the subject matter was all wrong. Maybe I could write him his own song. About what? Something. Eventually, it start
ed getting light and then the kids next door got up. Before I knew it, they had all left for school, and Robin had left for work. It was quiet again. I drank a cup of coffee, took a shower, and got dressed. Then I fell asleep facedown on my bed.

  twenty-three

  Diana didn’t call. Was I surprised? No. Certainly not. I’m just saying what wasn’t happening. I didn’t call her either. Not getting or making phone calls was one of the verses of my new song.

  Another thing I could have added was a verse about how I wasn’t going to work. I hadn’t gone to The Club in a few weeks. Every week, I called in for my schedule and then called other bartenders to cover for me. I had only two shifts a week anyway these days. After three weeks, Jeremy, the manager, called me.

  “Good,” he said, “are you OK?”

  “Me? Yeah,” I said. “I’m great.”

  “The reason I’m asking is because we haven’t seen much of you for the last month or so.”

  “Right, well, I’ve had some things that, you know, came up. So, yeah, you’re right. I haven’t been in. That’s why you… haven’t seen me.”

  “So, Good?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you want me to take you off the schedule?”

  “You mean, like, not work at The Club anymore? Like, you’re firing me?”

  “We could just say you’re, um, taking time off or you’re on a leave of absence or something.”

  “Uh… sure, OK, if that’s what… yeah, sure,” I said.

  “I think it would be for the best, don’t you?” Jeremy said. “Now, if you want to come back, just say so and it’s done. OK? Everybody would be happy to have you. You’d have to, you know, show up a couple of times a week when your name was on the schedule. But really, you’d be welcome anytime. You’ve been practically a permanent fixture here for—how long? It’s just that I want a little more staff stability. Are you OK with that?”

  “Absolutely. I’m—yeah, I’m OK with that,” I said.

  “Fine,” he said. “Be well, Good.”

  After I hung up, I had this shaky, dislocated feeling. Maybe prisoners who have done a lot of years locked up feel this way when they’re finally released, I thought. I was happy to be free of that place, I supposed, as I had been there far too long. But now what? There was nowhere I was supposed to be for anything, nothing I was expected to do. I was just kind of rattling around loose. I called the store about my furniture. It wasn’t the first time. A recording asked me what I wanted and instructed me to choose from a list of options. Then it asked me to enter my order number. Finally, it told me that my stuff would be delivered in one to three weeks. Well, great.

  I went outside to throw away the trash. I got my mail and I picked up a gum wrapper I saw near the sidewalk. I watched as a young couple got out of a car across the street in front of the house that was for sale. Then a woman got out of the car, a real estate agent. They all went inside. I went back inside my apartment to get a guitar. I was out in the front yard strumming away when Robin and her kids got home. I was actually out there on a stool, playing my new song, as if this were the most natural thing in the world for me to sit around, playing songs in public for all the world to hear.

  “Hi,” she said, curious about seeing me there in the middle of the yard with my guitar. What are you doing there? her face was asking. She had her head tipped to one side, and she kept looking at me.

  Just then, I realized what I was doing. I was waiting for them. I was sitting here outside, strumming my guitar, watching for their car, waiting for them to get home. I was practicing, not just guitar, but kids too. I needed kid practice way more than I needed guitar practice. I would hang around these kids for a while, get to know their likes and dislikes. Then when Diana did call again, I’d be ready; I’d have experience with kids. Kids can tell right away if you’re clueless about what they eat and drink and like to do. I knew that much. And here I had a whole set of kids right next door to get started on until I could spend time with my real one.

  “Hi, guys,” I said. I smiled at them.

  Robin looked a little confused, as if I might have mistaken her for someone else.

  I felt my face go red as if they had caught me stealing.

  “Hi,” she said. “You look… Are you OK? Did something happen?”

  “I got fired.” I had to explain my aberrant behavior somehow, but as soon as I said it, I regretted it. Poor Mike. His face went pale, as if he might pass out or throw up, as if all the air had been sucked out of the atmosphere and he was left with nothing to inhale.

  “Uh-oh!” Mike said.

  “Oh, no!” Robin said with concern. “I’m so sorry. Is there anything we can—”

  “No!” I shook my head. “It’s not bad. Really! I’m glad. Relieved. It’s a little change for me, that’s all. You know, I didn’t realize how much I didn’t want to work there until I found out I didn’t have to anymore!”

  “Oh. OK,” she said uncertainly. “Do you want me to find out if they need anybody down at—”

  “No, thanks. But thanks. Really, I’m fine. I am.”

  Mike was biting his lip. Apparently, they’d had a previous experience with unemployment. How was I supposed to know that? Now I would have to prove somehow that I was OK. “Hey!” I said suddenly. “Are you guys free tonight? You want to go out to dinner?”

  What was I doing? Didn’t I have to wait around for Diana not to call? Didn’t I have to eat my little frozen dinner?

  I had an answering machine. I could save my frozen dinner for tomorrow night.

  “Well…” Robin said. “Kids, go inside and get some cookies.”

  “We don’t have any cookies,” Mike said.

  “We do! I got some more. Go,” she said.

  The kids went in slowly, looking suspiciously over their shoulders at me and their mother.

  “What?” I said to Robin as her gaze bore down on me. “What?”

  “Are you sure? There are so many of us. Five. And some of us are noisy and hard to please.”

  I nodded. “We won’t all fit in one car, you mean? So I’ll drive myself. We’ll get pizza someplace and after we’ll go to an arcade.” I was making this up as I went along, improvising.

  She was shaking her head, looking at the door the kids had just gone through.

  “No?”

  “It’s just—I mean—” Now she was biting her lip.

  “Or something else,” I said. “Mexican food and a movie?” How would I know what kids liked?

  “Pizza is fine. Perfect, but—”

  “My treat!”

  She looked up. She opened her mouth but hesitated. Then she whispered, “Their dad was supposed to have them tonight, but he just cancelled. This would be a nice distraction for them, if you mean it.”

  “Of course I mean it!” What did she think, that I was some kind of a flake or something? Come to think of it, she might. “I mean it!” I repeated.

  “I’m… well, I’m going to say yes! Yes! Thank you. We’d love to go with you.”

  “It will be my pleasure.” And after I said it, I did this little bow. Honestly, sometimes I wonder what I’m going to do next.

  • • •

  There was a certain pizza place they liked in Mission Beach, which was good because I knew nothing about pizza places. And this new knowledge would come in handy very soon, I felt sure.

  As we were eating, the kids gazed out the window at the roller coaster at Belmont Park, which was a block away. “You guys like roller coasters?” I said, making conversation. I saw Robin stiffen. What?

  “Yeah!” Mike yelled.

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Robin said sharply.

  “Do you?” Mike wanted to know.

  “No,” I said.

  Mike looked crushed. What?

  “Do you want to go on the roller coaster?” I asked him. Robin snapped her head toward me. “I mean, after we finish eating.”

  I was doing something wrong. Robin was shaking her h
ead. Maybe she hated roller coasters, like I did.

  “They’re all too small, except Elise.”

  “Oh. Yeah,” I said. “Got it,” Height restrictions. This was just the kind of thing you didn’t think about when you didn’t have kids.

  “I’m bigger now, Mom, You said,” Mike insisted, “Remember? My bathing suit didn’t fit?”

  I said, “Maybe there’s something else they can—”

  “And it’s really expensive,” Robin interrupted, putting up her hand.

  “I have plenty of money,” I said and smiled. She didn’t look happy. “We’ll find something they can do over there. Let’s go!”

  Robin pressed her lips together. What? What had I done? Was I setting a bad example in some way? I was just trying to do what other people do. It was harder than it looked, believe me.

  I paid the check.

  At Belmont Park, there was a ride where you sat strapped into chairs. An elevator-type thing zoomed you up really fast and then dropped you down just as fast almost to ground level again. Everybody was tall enough for this, except for Ray, who didn’t want to go anyway. Robin and I watched as the kids strapped themselves in. Then we watched them take off toward the sky at an alarmingly fast rate. I closed my eyes. It gave me a stomachache to watch them. When I opened my eyes, they were down again. They screamed as the thing started to rise. Robin was laughing, watching them.

  “Oh, God,” I said.

  “What?” said Robin.

  “I can’t—I could never do that!”

  “Go on that ride? Oh, it’s not so bad, it’s just—”

  “I couldn’t go on the ride either. No, I meant watch them go on that ride.”

  She laughed; I wasn’t joking.

  The kids did everything they were tall enough to do. Three times. Ray didn’t seem to mind missing some of the rides. When he complained, Robin asked if he wanted a gum ball.

  Ray was as excited to get to put a quarter in the gum ball machine as the others were to go on the rides. He took the task of putting the quarter in the slot very seriously. It required tremendous concentration, and by the time he was finished, the others were finished with their ride.