'You know what happens if you Google "Sgt. Pepper" and "the Jigsaw Man"?' he asked.
I hadn't thought of that, which is weird in itself. It's my generation, I suppose. The generation that grew up without the internet. It still hasn't become the default setting. When a problem arises, one still tries to sort it out by some other means, before finally realising that no matter what the problem is, someone else will have had it and will have written about it online.
Folk growing up now, like Baggins, mostly believe that there's no reason to learn anything at all, ever, because instant knowledge is available at an instant click.
'No,' I said.
'Nothing,' he replied. 'You know, you get a bunch of pages of Sgt. Pepper jigsaw puzzles, or various shit where the two separate items are mentioned on the same page. But not many people know about the Jigsaw Man and his part in the album.'
He stared at me from behind all the facial hair. He was eyeing me up, deciding whether or not to trust me.
'How come you know about it?' he asked at length.
'I'm a Beatles scholar,' I said, deciding for some reason to protect my source, the waitress. 'I know stuff,' I added unnecessarily.
'Oh yeah? What do you know?' he said.
I didn't reply. Two minutes ago I'd been relying on silence, and then I go and boast about knowing stuff.
'What have you got on Sgt. Pepper?' I asked, trying to move the conversation along.
'Scholar, eh?' he said, continuing the thing where we were having two different conversations. 'That mean you've written something, or do you just read?'
'I wrote a couple of online articles last year,' I said.
'Hit me,' he said.
'Wrote one about who was the coolest Beatle,' I said, and as I said it, it sounded incredibly slight and pointless and stupid. Who was the coolest Beatle? Really? That was the best I could do? How about who was the Jigsaw Man?
'Ha!' he barked. 'You wrote that shit?'
I nodded.
'Too embarrassed to put your own name on it, eh? Billy Shears. Ha! Not surprised. I thought maybe it was written by Mrs Harrison.'
'It was me,' I said.
It seemed a long time ago, a different life. It had been a different life, those six months out, the right time to concentrate on trivialities. Now, however, everything seemed more serious. Even conversations with waitresses and guys in record shops were weighted with significance.
'You ever met Paul McCartney?' he asked.
I shook my head.
'Coolest. Guy. Ever,' he said.
I nodded. I had no interest in defending my previous position. Indeed, my only current interest in the Beatles was in getting to the bottom of the Sgt. Pepper mystery, as I'd become convinced that therein lay some sort of answer to the enigma of the Jigsaw Man.
'Wait a minute,' he said, barely missing off the doggone, 'tell me it wasn't you who wrote that dog turd of a thing about Paul being dead and his replacement's place in musical history.'
I didn't answer. After all, I couldn't tell him that I hadn't written it.
'Holy crap, you're a piece of work. You need to meet Mr McCartney some day, learn some humility.'
'Sgt. Pepper?' I asked, persevering beyond his contempt.
He shook his head and looked despondent, as though I'd finally argued him into submission.
'There's an album,' he said. 'It's rare, but then, it's kind of pointless. It's known as Revolver 2, and it's Sgt. Pepper before the Jigsaw Man got involved...'
'Revolver 2? You're making that up.'
'Hey, kid, I work in a bootleg music shop and you write barely readable shit on the internet. You think I care if you believe me or not?'
'All right. Revolver 2. Shouldn't Revolver 2 be outtakes from Revolver?'
'You mean, like Jaws 2 is outtakes from Jaws?'
'Do we have to have a pedantic argument about different standards in nomenclature between the bootleg album and the movie business?'
'Whatever, kid. You want me to tell you about Revolver 2, or you want to get your ass out of my shop?'
'Tell me about Revolver 2,' I said.
He gave me something of a sceptical look, but he was talking.
'To be honest, it's shit. Most of those songs, man, you know... they're just not all that great. You ever think that?'
I looked at him, but didn't answer. It was as if I didn't want to publically denounce Sgt. Pepper. But, of course I'd thought it.
'You strip away all the shenanigans and the sound effects and the whatever and, like, what have you got? Well, kid, you've got Revolver 2, the original unimaginative album. Then the Jigsaw Man came along, whipped them into shape and gave them some direction.'
'You have a copy?'
'Not any more,' he said, shrugging. 'Sold one last week though.'
'Who to?'
'Like I'm going to tell you, Paul Is Dead guy. Who d'you think I am?'
'You know where I can get one?'
'Fuck should I know, bud? Ebay?'
I must have looked crushed, because I could see the immediate softening of his attitude.
'It won't help you, man,' he said.
'What d'you mean?'
'Find the Jigsaw Man, if that's who you're looking for. Revolver 2 is the album before he got there. If you want to find the Jigsaw Man, you need to look at Sgt. Pepper.'
We stared at each other across the counter. He suddenly looked lugubrious behind the beard, and I wondered how many customers he actually had through his door.
'You make a living in this place?' I asked.
He gave a minimal shrug.
'Doesn't matter. Made my money in the dotcom boom fifteen years ago. Now I do this. Watch the Mariners every now and again, got my 'hawks season ticket. You? Make a living in crappy online Beatles shit?'
'I'm in coffee,' I said.
He nodded.
'Come to the right place, then,' he said.
34
I walked back in the direction of the waterfront, still not entirely sure why I was there. Was I just travelling aimlessly around, or was there some underlying purpose to it all?
Coffee. That made sense. Perhaps I needed to concentrate on that, rather than on Sgt. Pepper. I'd encountered two people who seemed to know more about the album Sgt. Pepper than I did, yet there was no need for those people to have been specific to Seattle. I could have encountered them anywhere on the planet.
What was it that had made Jones drag me here? There was something bigger going on than her just doing it on a whim. This had all started with me thinking myself off a plane, after all. Although that didn't explain why I'd been on the plane in the first place.
My mind rambled on over the events of the past few months, trying to tie everything together. I had to give weight to everything, even the slightest, most insignificant detail. It could all be tied, it might all matter. And perhaps, what really mattered, was the last line from the guy with the beard.
Come to the right place, then.
If there was some greater hand at work, then there had to be significance in my coming to Seattle. I worked in coffee, doing a job that wouldn't have existed thirty years ago, and the only reason that it existed now was because of a company based in Seattle that had started out as one little emporium dealing in coffee beans, and was now a worldwide franchise, opening on average three new stores every single day of the year.
I went into the next Starbucks that I came across to sit and think things through. I ordered a flat white, wondering if they made it the same way we make it at home.
I took up my position a few tables back from the window, but still with a good view out onto the street. For the first time that day I noticed that the weather was much cloudier than it had been. The women were no longer dressed for summer.
This flat white was a little frothier than I make it. Didn't feel like it had so much substance. Maybe that's what people want. No one expects substance any more. Everyone has forgotten what substance is, what it even means.
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I ate the froth using the small wooden stick provided, and knew that at some point I was going to have to get up and buy a product with higher coffee content and something to eat.
A waitress walked by and smiled as I caught her eye.
'Everything all right for you today, sir?' she asked.
'Sure,' I said.
She giggled.
'Cool,' she said. 'You're British. D'you know the Queen?'
I shook my head, and she laughed.
'I'm only kidding. Y'all believe that us Americans think everyone in Britain knows each other.'
I nodded, smiled, and she turned to go.
'You heard of the Jigsaw Man?' I asked.
She stared down at me, then smiled again.
'You mean the guy who does jigsaws?'
'Could be,' I said, then she laughed and I realised that she was just playing along.
'Sorry,' she said. 'Don't know of any Jigsaw Man.'
I shared her smile and she was gone. I think that was best. It was going to freak me out if it turned out that everyone in Seattle had heard of my guy.
Back to coffee. It had to be the reason I was here. Was it worthwhile finding Jones again, as it was her who had brought me to this place? She'd said she'd be at the hotel for a couple of weeks. Assuming she didn't spend her every day in her room, it shouldn't be too hard to find her, wouldn't be too long a wait in the lobby before she came by.
Of course, while I had escaped the temporary mental paralysis which had allowed me to think of nothing but Jones for a few days, it wasn't as though I never wanted to see her again, or that the thought of her didn't still overwhelm me with sorrow, melancholy and gut-wrenching heartache. Nevertheless, it felt a little different. There was, at last, a chink in the obsessive armour, and maybe there was a little light escaping.
I wondered if perhaps she should have said more to me than she had. Perhaps the awkward circumstances had taken her away earlier than intended. Impossible to tell, and the very suggestion implied some sort of grand design. I don't think I was ready to believe in a grand design just yet.
For the moment I had to follow the coffee. Nowhere in Seattle is too far from Starbucks HQ, the imposing red brick building on Utah. But that wasn't it. I needed to be at Pike Place Market, the original home of the company. I'd already walked past it, already passed the relatively new Starbucks store at 1st and Pike, the café on the corner, the gateway to the market.
The market was where I needed to go, but it hadn't been the right time.
Now was the right time.
I dug out the street map of Seattle. It was only going to be a twenty-minute walk, which gave me twenty minutes to work out what I was going to do when I got there. Something made me decide I needed a little longer.
*
I headed down to the waterfront and leant on a railing for a while. Looked at some yachts that were moored and not going anywhere. There was a guy working on one. On another, there was a cat sitting, its face angled slightly towards the sun. Clouds were flitting past. The sun had started to come and go.
There were a few people out, milling around, nowhere more definite to go than I had. A few cafés, most of the outdoor tables occupied, despite it being cooler than the previous day. A nice atmosphere and I felt myself relax, even though I hadn't thought I'd been especially tense since I'd dragged myself out of the Jones head funk.
I was carrying my bag over my shoulder, although all it had in it was a light jacket and a Seattle street map, which I didn't really need. I seemed to instinctively know my way around.
I think she'd been standing next to me for a few seconds before I realised she was there.
'Hey there, Mr Faraway,' she said. 'Thought I'd lost you.'
I turned and looked at her. Jones in a light summer dress, a cardigan thrown over her shoulders as a concession to the day.
'Small world,' she said, now that she had my attention. Another smile, then she looked away and faced the water, the slight breeze coming off the sound and catching her hair.
'How are you and Piotr getting on?' I asked, managing to invest the question, so I believed, with absolutely no bitterness.
She made a slight noise of exasperation, and then dismissed all thoughts of Piotr with one of her casual waves.
'I'm leaving tomorrow,' she said.
That didn't surprise me in the slightest.
'Relationship run its course?' I asked.
'I'm reading for a part. Theatre. Not really me, haven't done the stage in years, but needs must, etc., etc. Piotr's mad, of course, but I can't sit around here for the rest of my life just so he's got someone to fuck at the end of the day.'
'I thought that was why you came?'
She looked at me, a slight concern in her eyes at the idea that I had just introduced a little candour into the usual sophistry of one of our conversations.
'Yes,' she said, 'well I can only stand it for so long. How about you? Keeping yourself busy? Thought I might see you around the hotel.'
I ignored that line.
'Looking for the Jigsaw Man,' I said.
'You think he might be in Seattle?' she asked.
'There's something,' I said. 'I'm going to Pike Place Market to poke around.'
'The Jigsaw Man works at Pike Place Market?'
'Just following the coffee,' I said.
'Hmm,' she said. 'Might work. He used to sit in our coffee shop the whole time, didn't he?'
I nodded, although she wasn't looking at me.
'Mind if I join you?' she said.
I'd spent two days battling my Jones addiction, battling the anger and the despair, trying to think of other things, and now here she was, in her usual way, walking back into my life for who knew how fleeting a time.
'Course not,' I said.
What else was I going to say?
'Come on, then,' she said. 'I've only got a couple of hours before I need to lie naked once more before my master.'
She delivered the line with true thespian flourish.
'What's the part you're up for?' I asked, as we began to head away from the water.
'Hero in Much Ado...,' she said, words accompanied by a slight shake of the head, as though the part was completely wrong for her.
'Oh, you'll be perfect,' I said.
'You think so?'
'Sure.'
We walked on in silence. Not being anything like the actor that Jones was, she probably recognised that I had no idea who Hero was and what part she played in Much Ado About Nothing.
35
We stood at the entrance beneath the large, neon Public Market sign, side by side, both looking up at it as if expecting to find inspiration there. At least, that's how I felt. As if I was standing in a cathedral, staring at the fabulous stained glass window behind the altar. I think Jones was just vaguely looking up, her hair moving slightly in the wind, because the director in her head had told her that's what she had to do.
I'd intended going into the market to walk around. Stop at every stall, go into every store. It's a large market. Eventually something would come up. Or I'd go up the stairs into one of the buildings and the answer would be waiting for me behind a door. That was the plan. Wander aimlessly through a market until it came to me, as though there was going to be a stall selling fresh, newly caught answers, and the one I was searching for would be right there, on sale for 99c.
I think it was having Jones with me that changed my mind. I'd been comfortable wandering around the last couple of days, and felt that I had been making progress of sorts. On my own, I felt able to drift in and out of cafés, following whatever whim grabbed me next. However, even though I was accompanied by the most whimsical person I would ever know, I didn't feel I could just wander around, waiting to see what happened. I felt as though I needed a more constructive plan.
She stood beside me, a song lightly on her lips. With the noise of the traffic and the sounds of the city, I only occasionally caught the mellow hum. I glanced at her, and then lo
oked around. We were right beside the Starbucks at the Market Place entrance, the café that had been decked out in leather and walnut to give it a feeling of heritage, to make the casual coffee drinker believe that it'd been there since the market first opened in 1907, rather than for less than five years.
Although the café was obviously busy, there was a small, unoccupied table in the window. Two seats, waiting for us.
'Come on,' I said suddenly, 'let's go in here. I'll buy you a coffee.'
She glanced at me, and did not even bother looking at where we were going.
'Sure,' she said.
*
We sat in silence. One caffé Americano, one espresso macchiato. Nothing to eat. I felt a little uncomfortable at the quiet, but for once I wasn't scrambling around for something to talk about.
I'd almost finished my coffee. Jones had barely touched hers.
The day moved around and by us, people came and went, cars passed us by. The noise of the city rose and fell. There was something out there waiting for me, but I couldn't see it. Not yet.
'Is everything all right for you today?'
We looked round at the waitress. Jones smiled. As usual, the question had been addressed to her.
'Of course,' she said.
'Thanks,' I said.
'It's a beautiful day,' said the waitress.
Jones smiled and nodded and then turned away.
'What brings you to Seattle?' asked the waitress. Jones glanced at me, by way of letting me know that she was expecting me to answer, then looked once more out of the window. The waitress automatically switched her attention and her smile from Jones to me.
'We're just taking a look,' I said. 'You worked at Starbucks long?'
'Six months,' she said. 'My name's Carly. I'm Vice-President in Charge of Front Of House Salutation Procedures.'
We stared at each other for a moment. It was impossible to tell whether or not she was joking, then she smiled and shook her head.
'That's not really a job,' she said. 'You're English.'
'Scottish,' I said.
'Cool. My family are from Scotland but we left like ages ago.'
Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite! Page 21
