by Lewis Shiner
Grace walked over to him and Cole held his breath. The camera loved her, he saw, and she was not perhaps as perfect in the flesh as she seemed when fully made up and dramatically lit. She was still astonishingly beautiful, and the cynical intelligence in her gray eyes was unmistakable. “That was pretty good, kid,” she said. She glanced at Gordo and Tommy. “Are you guys in a band or something?”
“Yeah, we are,” Cole said. “Only Gordo there doesn’t know it yet.”
“What?” Gordo said. “Band? What?”
Cole said to Grace, “I’ve been in love with you since the first time I heard your voice.”
Grace didn’t even blink. “That’s nice. How old are you, seventeen?”
Cole felt himself flush. “Eighteen.”
“Uh huh.” She started to turn away, then said, “What’s the name of the band?”
“We don’t have one yet.”
“Quirky. You’ll need one to play the Fillmore.” She walked over to Spenser Dryden and kissed him on the mouth, rather showily, Cole thought.
Cole looked at Jorma, who laughed and shook his head. “Shouldn’t have told her you were in love with her. Do you know ‘Good Morning, Blues?’”
*
After working out on ‘Good Morning, Blues’ for twenty minutes, Cole opted not to wear out his welcome. He handed the guitar to Peter and thanked him. Then he thanked Jorma, who shook his hand and said, “Come back sometime when it’s not so crazy. What’s your name?”
“Cole.”
“I’m Jorma. I guess you knew that. Take it easy, Cole.”
Gordo gave the bass to Casady, thanked him nicely, and then he and Casady started to talk. Cole hovered nearby, waiting for his chance.
A voice said, “Nice guitar playing,” and Cole turned to see dark eyes in a round face with heavy black eyebrows, black beard, disheveled black hair.
“Uh, thanks. Jerry Garcia, right?”
“Yeah. What happened to your hand?” He held up his own right hand and Cole saw that most of his middle finger was missing.
“Accident on an oil rig. What happened to yours?”
“My brother cut it off with an axe.” Garcia laughed at the expression on Cole’s face. “It was an accident, I was four, we were chopping wood. Were you already playing when it happened?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow, that must have been a trip. Obviously you got over it. You play really nice now.” Garcia saluted him with his right hand. “Brothers of the mangled finger!” He smiled and walked away.
Cole was still recovering his wits when Gordo found him. “What was that about a band?”
“Uh, yeah, we need to talk.” He beckoned Lenny over. “Did you see that? Jerry Garcia’s got a fucked up middle finger too!”
“Where?” Lenny said.
Garcia had vanished. “Maybe I dreamed it.” Tommy didn’t look like he wanted to stop for a band meeting, so Cole decided to proceed without him. “Step into my office.”
With fresh beers, they found a stone bench in one of the gardens outside. Cole was too hyped to sit. “To cut to the chase, yeah, we’re a band. Lenny here is also on lead guitar—we do double lead stuff like I was doing with Jorma. The guy on drums, that’s our drummer, Tommy. We do a mix of originals and old blues stuff that we’ve hot-rodded into something new. We lost our bass player when we left Texas two months ago.”
“Texas?” Gordo said. “Where in Texas?”
“Austin,” Lenny said.
“No shit,” Gordo said. “I’m from Laredo.”
«¡Órale!» Cole said. «¿Hablas español?»
«¿Es el papa católico?» Gordo said. He gave Cole a high five.
“English, please,” Lenny said.
Gordo, born Steve Gordon, was 19. He’d left Laredo at 15, he told them, the summer after The Beatles were on Ed Sullivan. He wanted to play bass just like Paul. Even then he was big for his age, so he hitched to New Orleans and worked on a shrimper until he had enough money to get a Hofner bass like McCartney’s. Then he worked another year while he learned how to play. After that he made his living in bar bands, cranking out blues and R&B in places where he wasn’t old enough to get in the front door.
Then he heard “Somebody to Love” and it was like The Beatles all over again. Casady’s bass playing, the edgy guitars, the aggressive lyrics, they were part of something new, something that felt like it belonged to him personally. “It was like I’d been wearing hand-me-downs all my life and suddenly I had a brand-new suit, tailor-made for me.”
People thought he was crazy when he tried to put together a psychedelic band in New Orleans. After a year of trying, he sold everything he had except his bass and hitchhiked to the coast. He’d been busted for vagrancy in Flagstaff and they’d shaved his head. He could have gotten off if he’d showed the cash he had hidden in his shoe, only he was afraid the cops would steal it. He’d been in San Francisco less than a week.
Lenny said, “This means you don’t have an amp?”
Gordo shrugged. “I can put some money down on something. Right now I don’t even have a way to bring it home.”
“The thing is,” Cole said, “we need you to audition, and pronto. Como ahorita, en este momento, ¡ándale, muchacho!”
A voice came out of the darkness, speaking Spanish. «Did I hear the voice of mi gente?»
«Órale,» Gordo said.
“I’m getting a beer,” Lenny said, and walked off.
A slight Latin guy in his twenties, short dark hair and a moustache, jeans and a white guayabera, emerged from the shadows and offered his hand. “Carlos,” he said.
“I’m Cole, that’s Gordo, and Lenny, el que no habla español, will be back in a minute.”
“Are you guys in a band?” Carlos asked.
“About to be,” Cole said. “We just have to convince this guy. What about you?”
“Yeah. I play guitar.”
“Me too,” Cole said, and pointed at Gordo. “Bass.”
“‘All we need is a drummer,’” Carlos sang.
“Our drummer’s inside, jamming with Jorma and Jack.”
“There’s a jam?”
“In the basement.”
“Qué padre. Con permiso, I’m going to go check it out.”
«Disfrútelo,» Cole said, and Carlos waved as he walked away.
“I wonder,” Gordo said, “how many people at this thing are musicians.”
“I don’t know,” Cole said, “but before any of the others get to you, can we set up a date for an audition?”
*
Cole didn’t look at his watch until they got home. Two-thirty in the morning. Tommy couldn’t stop talking about this guy Carlos and how he played like nobody he’d ever seen. They’d brought Gordo back to sleep on the couch since by that point he was too wasted to clearly articulate where he’d been crashing.
Cole’s head was buzzing too, from excitement and not from the beer and the occasional hit of dope he’d taken. Despite his best efforts to get into bed quietly, Madelyn turned to face him and said, without opening her eyes, “I hear the elephants have returned to the circus. How was it?”
“Unbelievable. I jammed with Jorma Kaukonen and Jerry Garcia liked my playing and we found our bass player and I met Grace Slick, and by the way the bass player is sleeping on the couch and I think this is it. I think we’re on our way.”
Madelyn opened one eye. “You didn’t shoot speed, did you?”
“One hundred percent natural energy.” She had one arm wrapped around her pillow and the armhole of the sleeveless sweatshirt that she slept in had slipped down to reveal the curve of one breast. Cole’s throat went dry. “I don’t suppose there’s, like, any chance you could call in sick tomorrow? Or go in a couple of hours late…?”
She closed her eye again. “No, honey, I told you, we’ve got that opening Thursday, remember?”
“Yeah, you told me.”
“Stop vibrating and go to sleep. I’m very happy for you. Really.”
&n
bsp; *
In the early afternoon, Cole drove a badly hung-over Gordo by his rented room in the Haight. His bass turned out to be a Guild Starfire like Jack Casady’s, except for the color, which was red.
“What happened to the Hofner?” Cole asked.
“I got rid of that piece of shit years ago. I used Fenders until I found out what Jack played.”
The next stop was Sunset Music, west of the Haight, near the park. Gordo didn’t like any of the rentals and Cole, losing patience, asked the clerk if they had anything used. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “we got this in yesterday…”
He rolled out a Kustom 200-watt head on top of a cabinet with two 15-inch jbls, both pieces upholstered in black Naugahyde, looking brand-new. Gordo said, “Oh, man,” and plugged in.
For 15 minutes Cole watched him work out on the amp. At one point the clerk came to check on them. “Does he always do that?” the clerk asked.
“The dancing?” Cole said. “As long as I’ve known him.”
Gordo paid with a wad of soiled and crumpled bills from his front jeans pocket. “This is my lucky day,” he said.
“Just wait. You haven’t even heard Lenny yet.”
*
They played for two hours, pausing once when the chords for one of Cole’s originals got a little tricky, and a second time so that Gordo could show Lenny his footwork. “It’s just a cumbia step,” Gordo said, “backstep with the left, then with the right. Then sometimes I travel with the molinete, you know, the grapevine. Step in front, open up, step behind, open up.” What the hell, Cole thought, and on the next instrumental break they all three did it together.
“Well,” Cole asked when they finally took a breather. “What do you think?”
“About what?” Gordo said.
“The band, pendejo. Are you in?”
“Of course I’m in,” Gordo said. “Are you chiflado?”
“Aren’t you going to consult the rest of us?” Lenny said.
“Oh,” Cole said. “Uh, Gordo, maybe you could…”
“You dumb shit,” Lenny said. “Yes, I want him.”
“Uh, Tommy?” Cole said.
“Fuck yeah,” Tommy said. “Do I look—” He glanced at Gordo. “—chifla whatever it is?”
“Chiflado,” Gordo said. “What’s the name of this band, anyway?”
“We don’t have one yet,” Cole said.
“Really,” Gordo said.
“Yeah, that’s what Gracie—” He pulled up short.
“What?” Gordo said.
“The Quirq,” Cole said. “Q-U-I-R-Q. Qs at both ends.”
Lenny looked at Tommy and Tommy looked at Gordo.
“Let’s sleep on it,” Gordo said.
*
That Friday afternoon, Cole drove to the Paisley Octopus house. Despite the fact that he had yet to play a gig in San Francisco, the guys looked up to him, and when he proposed that their two bands do a free gig together the next afternoon in the Panhandle, the Octopus providing the extension cords, they went for it.
“I guess this means you found a bass player,” Brad said.
“Yeah, at that Airplane party Monday night. I owe you for that. You guys find a new guitarist yet?”
“Not yet,” Brad said. “And Don’s gone after next week.” Brad was in the same despairing place that Cole had been Monday morning, with less reason for hope.
“Sorry, man. Listen, you guys have done the Fillmore audition thing, right?”
“Yeah, three times. Every time we break in a new guitarist. Graham just says, ‘Come back in a couple of months.’ He’s switched it to Tuesday nights at the new place. Supposedly all you have to do is show up. I would drop by a day or two ahead of time and schmooze Graham a little. Give him a business card, band photo, something like that. Get him interested without pissing him off. That’s the hard part. And right now he’s the only game in town.”
*
Madelyn had not stopped loving San Francisco, and she hadn’t stopped loving Cole, or given up on the idea of going back to school. She was swimming for her life, and the niceties could wait.
She’d answered a want ad from Benjamin Kindred Galleries wearing her blue halter dress from New York. She’d put her hair up, worn more makeup than ever before in her life, and stared at Kindred during the entire interview as if he were the most fascinating man on the planet. If she felt guilty for prostituting herself, she got over it; the pay was good and somebody had to cover the rent on the damp, dingy, dangerous apartment she was living in.
Kindred was 30, dark, tv-handsome, and operating on a trust fund of substantial proportions. He was the embodiment of a kind of privilege that made the typical St. Mark’s boy look like Jo the Crossing Sweeper from Bleak House. Without question he had given Madelyn the job with the expectation that she would be sexually available, despite her wedding ring, and by the time he discovered his mistake, she’d made herself indispensable—sweet-talking his blue-haired lady clients, flattering his artists, getting discounts from his suppliers, scoring press coverage in the Chronicle society pages.
The business catered to extremely wealthy trophy hunters in search of the status conveyed by big-name artists. The majority of the paintings that Kindred sold never saw his gallery walls; instead he negotiated the back-room acquisition of a de Kooning here, a Pollock there. More and more of his clients wanted a Warhol or a Rauschenberg or a Lichtenstein or an Oldenberg without caring which Warhol or which Oldenberg, or even which artist as long as it was someone hip and happening.
The show that had just closed featured a local painter obsessed with German expressionism who placed angular, abstracted, allegorical figures into sexually charged tableaus that threatened imminent mayhem. The artist himself was short, red-bearded, and rather jovial. Madelyn had coached him into a more sullen persona that played better in the press, with the result that he managed to sell a couple of his larger canvasses.
The new show was something else again. The artist was Italian, Michelangelo Pistoletto, and at first Madelyn had dismissed him as another stunt artist, like Warhol. The paintings consisted of oblongs of thin, polished steel mounted on canvas, to which Pistoletto had affixed life-size figures painted on tissue paper, paint-side down. As she studied photographs of the work, she appreciated the cleverness of what Pistoletto had done. The steel “canvas” reflected its surroundings, incorporating them, and the viewer, into the art. Set the piece in an old chair on a dusty street and it was a completely different piece than it was in the pristine setting of the gallery.
Pistoletto himself arrived to supervise the placement of the paintings on the Monday of Cole’s adventure at the Airplane House. Normally Madelyn worked Tuesday through Saturday, but she’d agreed to come in for the occasion. She’d bought a copy of See It and Say It in Italian to refresh her meager skills and, when Kindred led Pistoletto in, she managed to go back and forth for more than a minute of pleasantries before having to admit her limits.
Pistoletto was not what she expected from a major figure of the Arte Povera movement, whose tenets included a rejection of corporate materialism. He still looked like the commercial artist he’d once been; though only 35, his hair was thinning and his body appeared well-fed inside his beautifully cut suit. His eyes, however, had real warmth as well as intelligence, and her attempts at Italian made a good impression. Kindred noticed as well, and when Pistoletto specifically asked that Madelyn be included in their dinner plans, Kindred agreed.
Thus she found herself at Alioto’s, looking out over Fisherman’s Wharf and the rows of fishing boats, drinking an expensive California Chardonnay and discussing art and politics with two powerful, attractive, and exquisitely dressed men. Cole, despite a bit of snippiness, had shown no jealousy when she called to tell him she’d be late. He’d never been short of self-confidence; this felt more like a lack of interest in her life. Trouble lurked over that horizon, waiting for her to have the time to deal with it.
“What does your husband do?” Pi
stoletto asked.
He had apparently noticed the ring. She felt oddly embarrassed to talk about Cole. “He’s… a musician.”
“Ah. A rock musician?”
“Yes, a guitarist. His band was very popular in Texas, so we came out here to…”
“Make it big?”
Madelyn blushed. “Yes.”
“Good, good. Rock music, rebellion, all of this is very good. You heard about the riots in Paris in May?”
“There wasn’t a lot in the news here.”
“Very important, I think. There have always been riots because of hunger or physical oppression, or like you had here because of the assassination of your Reverend King. In France they had riots about philosophy. ‘Ne travaillez jamais,’ the Situationists say, ‘Never work.’ This was painted on the walls of buildings. Not because they were lazy, but because the time is here to talk about the way we live our lives. There is a book you should read, but it’s not in English yet I don’t think. La Société du spectacle by Guy Debord.”
“I read French,” Madelyn said.
“Very impressive.” He looked at Kindred. “You must hang on to this one.”
