by Lewis Shiner
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t thank me yet. The pay is shit for opening acts. Though if you keep playing like you did tonight, you won’t be stuck with opening for long. Come by the office tomorrow and we’ll work out the details.”
“Yes, sir.”
Graham hesitated, like he was going to tell him again to knock off the “sir” business, and then he shook his head and laughed and walked away.
Cole, to his surprise, didn’t feel like yelling for joy or throwing a huge party or calling everyone he knew. Instead he felt an immense calm where he hadn’t realized he’d been afraid, because until that moment he hadn’t been able to put a name to it. When he was 7 and 8 years old in New Jersey, he’d been friends with a boy named Glen, whose father worked the night shift in a steel mill. When he was at Glen’s house in the daytime they had to whisper and walk on tiptoe so as not to wake his father. His father got up at four in the afternoon and watched tv and ate dinner and left for the mill. He had massive, reinforced shoes and he carried a dented black lunch pail with a domed lid that held a thermos. He was friendly to Cole and Glen loved him, but he seemed haunted, a man serving a sentence rather than living a life. Cole came away with the idea that most jobs were like that. A couple of missteps and there he’d be, kids, a mortgage, a meaningless job, no escape. For the first time, standing there backstage at the Fillmore West, Cole was sure that he was not going to end up like Glen’s father. He closed his eyes and listened to himself take a long, deep breath.
*
The first night of their run. A clear, warm October evening after a sunny day. Cole got the band to the ballroom early for a 6:00 sound check. The Airplane had been and gone, and Ballet Afro-Haiti was setting up. They had three hand drummers playing congas and djembes along with two other percussionists on stage. More than a dozen singers and dancers worked a cleared area in front of the stage, picked up by a pair of boom mikes.
When The Quirq got their turn it went quickly, then they were backstage with the Haitians. Cole was intimidated by their blackness, by their brightly-colored African robes and flat, round caps, by the indecipherable patois he overheard, by the overall voodoo menace that surrounded them. Gordo, on the other hand, had worked and played with Haitians in New Orleans and started talking to them. Cole drifted over. It turned out that they were actually named the Danny Duncan Company of Dancers and Musicians and that Ballet Afro-Haiti was the title of this particular show. They were based in San Francisco and included musicians from all over the Caribbean and US. A couple of joints magically appeared and a common bond was forged.
By the time they took the stage for their first set, Madelyn was there. She’d hitched a ride with Gordo’s new girlfriend, an aspiring poet named Irene who wore tight black T-shirts, tight jeans, motorcycle boots, and, according to Gordo, had a tattoo on her ass of a knife piercing a heart. Cole didn’t know what he thought about a woman with a tattoo. He did know that it was none of his business and he was glad that she and Madelyn got along. They waved from the side of the stage and Cole blew Madelyn a kiss.
Eight o’clock on a Thursday, the hall mostly empty. A few hundred people milled around, buying drinks, talking instead of dancing. The band opened with “Good Rockin’ Tonight” by Roy Brown and His Mighty Men, then moved through some of the usual originals. By the time they got to the new stuff they’d worked up for the gig, the room was half full, and “Tighten Up” by Archie Bell and the Drells got them moving. They slowed the rhythm to a cha-cha-cha and swung into a full-blown “Perfidia,” Gordo singing high harmony, and seconds later a clearing materialized with Graham dancing at the center. From there they worked their way into a new song that Cole and Lenny had written together, a spacey, echoing number inspired by their shared love of nasa, Pink Floyd, and Jimi Hendrix. It was called “Mariner” and it had vague lyrics about voyaging into the unknown that could mean whatever anyone wanted them to. The crowd loved it and brought them back to do a medley of “Wang Dang Doodle” and “Laura Lee,” and then Cole went out to watch Ballet Afro-Haiti with Madelyn.
They were emerging from their rough patch, Cole thought, with everything intact. They stood with their arms around each other and watched the dance, which was intense and frightening, the drums loping along at a pace that Cole’s heartbeat involuntarily tried to match. According to what he’d learned that afternoon, the dancers’ movements, though stylized, represented surrender to rapacious gods. Madelyn was captivated, and when it was over she looked at him with shining eyes. “That was wonderful!”
“You want to go backstage and meet them? They’re nice.”
“No! Way too scary.”
The Airplane came on and he felt her attention flag. In person they were more chaotic than on record, the tempos faster, Marty and Grace improvising furious vocals as the band attacked the songs.
“I’m going to dance,” she said during the second song. “Join me?”
Cole shook his head. Even if he’d been able to let loose enough to dance like that, he was a performer tonight and not a spectator. That distinction had less force in San Francisco than anywhere, but still meant something to him.
She smiled and said something to Irene, standing a few feet away, and led her into the mass of moving bodies. Cole tried to focus on the Airplane, telling himself it was nothing, despite the chill on his left side where she’d been standing.
*
Gordo wanted to ask one of the conga players from Afro-Haiti to sit in on their second set, and Cole said, “Sure, why not?”
“What’s wrong? We sound great tonight.”
“Nothing,” Cole said. “I’m cool.”
Taking a page from Richie Havens, they opened the second set with “San Francisco Bay Blues.” The audience clapped and cheered and loved everything they did afterward. The band did a few more cover songs than the first set and managed to not repeat anything. Samson, the conga player, paid close attention and laid out during most of the transitions, playing great solos on “Third Stone from the Sun” and “All Your Love.”
Cole kept one eye on Madelyn the whole time. She was either dancing or watching him with a big smile. So what’s wrong, he asked himself, with her liking me more than the Jefferson Airplane?
In the break before the second Afro-Haiti set, she said, “It’s late, we’re going to go on home. You were wonderful.” She kissed him passionately and looked back to wave one more time as she walked away.
Jorma found him as he was fishing a beer out of the mostly melted ice backstage. “I thought you were going to come around and play sometime,” Jorma said.
“I didn’t think you were serious,” Cole said. “I didn’t want to impose.”
“Well, now I’ve invited you again, so clearly I’m serious. Hey, after we do our encore tonight, why don’t you come out and jam with us?”
“Oh, man,” Cole said. “I would love that. But I wouldn’t want to leave Lenny out, our other lead player.”
“Bring him too. And that guy Samson, the conga player. You guys were really good tonight.”
“Thanks,” Cole said, embarrassed into silence.
“Uh oh,” Jorma said. “Here comes Bill. See ya.”
Graham beckoned Cole over. “Did you get hooked up with a manager?”
“We asked around,” Cole said. “This guy Matthew Katz called, but I’m not sure I liked the sound of him.”
“Pronounced ‘Kates,’” Graham said. “He’s bad, bad news. A total rip-off artist. Ask the Airplane about him. I’ve got half a mind to take you on myself.”
“I’d have to talk to the guys, but I can tell you what they’d say. They’d say, ‘Yes. Yes, please, sir.’”
“You talk to them about it, and call me tomorrow. I’ll want to do a written contract and get you guys down to the office to sign it. Are you all over eighteen?” Cole nodded. “Any day jobs or any other reason you can’t go on the road straight away? There’s a big outdoor show November ninth at Long Beach State that we can pr
obably get you on.”
“No, sir. We’re ready.”
“Okay.” He handed Cole an envelope with cash inside. “Take this now, because if you end up with Shady Management, I’ll be taking a cut from that point on.”
“Shady Management?”
“That’s the name of my management company. And my booking agency is the Millard Agency. That okay with you?”
“Yes, sir. That’s fine with us. And we’ll be sure not to sign until after Saturday’s show.”
Graham laughed, and then got serious again. “You guys are just kids, but you act professional. You dress up, you’re here on time, you don’t get so fucked up you can’t play. I like that, and you can go a long way on that. I take a lot of shit for being a tight ass, but I’ll tell you something. These kids want a fucking revolution? It’s not going to happen. You don’t win a war by letting everybody do their own thing.” He poked Cole in the chest. “Call me tomorrow.”
*
Madelyn woke to the sounds of a stoned and drunken band trying to carry their equipment back into the apartment quietly; the alarm clock showed eight minutes before seven am. Early morning was never her finest hour, and her first thought was, where in God’s name had they been all night? She rolled onto her back and listened to the second load come up the stairs, accompanied by thuds and shushing. Then the bedroom door creaked open and Cole stepped into a shaft of sunlight from a gap in the blinds that lit him up from the inside out. He was already radiant from his triumphant night, and as he smiled down on her, Madelyn found her irritation subverted by desire. She sat up and pulled off her long-sleeved T-shirt, the chill air giving her gooseflesh. Cole needed no further incentive. He struggled to get out of his clothes and his boots all at once until Madelyn, laughing, pulled him into bed so she could help.
“You’ll be late to work,” Cole said afterward, as they lay wrapped up in each other under the sheets and blankets.
“Special occasion. Where were you?”
His exhaustion was now complete, and he was barely coherent as he offered fragments of the story, nodding out in between. Bill Graham wanted to manage them. They’d gone to the Airplane house and jammed with the Haitian drummers. There had been booze and dope…
“And groupies?” Madelyn asked.
“I didn’t notice,” Cole said, and if she didn’t quite believe him, she gave him points for the attempt.
She left him there asleep and hurried through a shower and a cold breakfast. The October morning was fresh and clear as she walked to her streetcar stop, the morning fogs gone since September. San Francisco was a never-never land, spring all year round, timeless and all-embracing. That Peter Pan quality appealed to Cole, and he was finally falling for the place, even as her own love for it began to dim. Last weekend her father had told her on the phone that the leaves had all turned and were starting to fall, and she’d found herself nearly in tears for a season she’d never cared about before.
She arrived at the gallery at 9:30, only half an hour late, with plenty of time before they officially opened at ten. No sooner had Madelyn locked the door than Kindred emerged from his office in the back and said, “I need to talk to you.”
“I told you yesterday I might be late this—”
“It’s not about that. Come in and sit down.”
She sat in one of the Eames chairs that faced his desk. He struck one of his dramatic poses, swiveled sideways and staring into the nonexistent distance. Finally he said, “Where do you see yourself in ten years?”
“Realistically, or in my dreams?”
“Best-case real-world scenario.”
“With a PhD in English literature, teaching at a good university.”
“How do your chances look for that at the moment?”
She sighed. “Lousy.”
“Would you be willing to consider the idea of a PhD in Art History from Stanford instead?”
Her mood lurched dizzyingly from apprehensive to wildly hopeful. “I’d certainly be willing to talk about it.”
“In ten years I picture myself with a business partner, somebody who can run this gallery profitably while I do other things. The person I have in mind would be intelligent, charming, organized, and have the credentials to be taken seriously in the international art community. You are three for four.”
She nodded for him to go on.
“From what you’ve told me, you shouldn’t have any problem getting into Stanford or getting financial aid. As it happens, my family has some influence there, should that be necessary. What I’d offer you is a flexible schedule and all the hours you wanted to work while you were getting your PhD, plus a modest stipend so you wouldn’t have to worry about where your next meal was coming from.”
“And in return?”
“You commit to at least five years as my partner at the Kindred/Brooks Galleries once you have your degree.”
“I apologize, but I have to say this. I am married, and in love with my husband, and if there are any strings attached—”
“No strings. There are plenty of beautiful women in this town who are available. What you have to offer is harder to find.”
“I’ll need to think about it.”
“Of course. Take your time.”
“Whatever I decide… thank you. For believing in me.”
“What I’m asking for is a hell of a commitment. Probably fifteen years at the very least. I know you won’t take that lightly. I can promise you you’ll end up making a very good living. What I need to know is that you’ll be happy doing it.”
No, was what she was thinking. Not completely happy, because this is not what I had planned.
She reminded herself that neither had she planned to be married at 19, or living in San Francisco, or out of college after a single year.
“My head is spinning,” she said.
Kindred nodded. “Maybe you could make us some coffee while it’s settling down.”
*
By the time Madelyn got home, Cole had already left for his gig. She would have to tell him eventually, like she would have to tell her father. At the moment what she wanted was a girlfriend to talk it out with face to face, and the closest she had to that was her fellow band widow, Irene.
Irene took her down to the Mission District in her battered black Falcon, to a crowded, noisy, cafeteria-style taco joint. Irene was 21 and happy to buy beers for both of them with Madelyn’s money. Once they got a table, Madelyn laid out Kindred’s offer.
“This isn’t about whether going back to college is what you should be doing, right?” Irene said. “Because we can, like, take it as understood that the university, especially that university, is the last bastion of the bourgeoisie. Ivy-covered ivory towers and all that shit, and speaking purely for myself, it’s the last fucking place a poet should be, but we’re not talking about me, right? We’re talking about you, and what you want, in which case, hell yes you should do it. It’s like if all you want is to be a millionaire in Gstaad, and what you are is flat broke in Des Moines, and then somebody offers you the chance to be a millionaire in Zurich instead, and you want to fucking quibble about it?”
“Well, when you put it that way… but why is it okay for me and not for you?”
“Because you’re a change-from-within kind of a person, and I’m a tear-down-the-fucking-walls kind of a person. If I do it it’s hypocrisy. Since you actually believe in all that shit, you might even do some good.”
“You wouldn’t want your poems to be taught in a university someday?”
“I want the academy to be too fucking terrified of my poems to admit they exist. I want the US government to make my poems illegal. I want people to throw rocks through the windows of bookstores that carry my poems. The point of this exercise is the end of the world as we know it.”
“Do you really think it’s going to come to that?”
“It already has. Did you see what went down in Chicago?”
Later that night, her mind cartwheeling from three beers,
Madelyn tried to decide whether Irene had, intentionally or not, been putting her down as part of the perceived establishment. Was it wrong to want anything less than the complete destruction of western civilization? Did it all have to go, John Donne along with Tricky Dick, Mrs. Dalloway with Richard Daley?
She woke up, in any case, with the knowledge that she would tell Kindred yes. She couldn’t do it until she told Cole, and Cole was dead to the world in the bed next to her. Saturday was her late day at the gallery, ten until seven, so Cole was gone again by the time she got home. It was Sunday afternoon before they were both awake at the same time in the same place, and over scrambled eggs and bacon that she’d cooked, he told her that they’d signed a management contract with Graham and that they would be going on the road, starting with a show in Long Beach in two weeks.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, when she didn’t say anything.
Tommy was ten feet away, sprawled on the couch watching football. Lenny was at the other end of the dining room table with the Sunday comics, coffee, cigarette, and guitar. She thought Cole might have discussed it with her before he signed on to a whole new career path, even as she was walking around, bursting to agree to Kindred’s proposal before he changed his mind, and holding back for Cole’s sake. She was unwilling to throw that particular gauntlet with Lenny and Tommy practically in their laps, so she swallowed her disappointment and said, “I guess I hadn’t thought it through, about your being on the road. It’s going to be lonely here without you.”
“Aw,” Cole said, and came around the table to pull her head into his chest. “You’ll be fine, I know you will.”
Irene, Madelyn thought, would be so ashamed of me. She was ashamed of herself.
Later, she coaxed him out for a walk and told him about Kindred’s offer.
“That’s fantastic,” Cole said. “That’s exactly what you wanted.”
“Not exactly.” They were walking north on Laguna Street, vaguely in the direction of Jefferson Square Park. Houses and businesses were shuttered because of urban renewal. Knots of sullen young black men languished on the corners, which didn’t help Madelyn’s feelings of alienation. “What I wanted to study was literature.”
