The opening number ended amid the requisite cacophony from the instruments, well matched by the din arising from the audience. He allowed the cheering to continue for a few moments and then raised his hands upward, lifting his eyes and looking as ecstatic as he could. "AVE SATANAS!" he cried.
"AVE SATANAS!" the audience responded.
Simon Proctor lowered his gaze and looked out over the throng who sat, cheering loudly, before him. "Whom do you serve?" he asked in a loud voice.
"Satan!" they cried, laughing and clapping.
"Who is the master of the earth?" he asked.
"Satan!" was the rejoinder.
"Who is the master of the delights of the flesh?"
"Satan!"
"Do you dedicate yourselves to his service?"
"Yes!" and "Hail Satan!" they cried.
"Do you swear to plumb the depths of sin?"
"Yes!"
"Do you swear to taste the pleasures of the forbidden fruit?"
"Yes!"
"Yes!"
"Then I welcome you, my children, into the house of Satan!"
The audience went wild, screaming and cheering and throwing things at the stage and at each other. It was to all appearances a successful beginning to a concert packed with devoted fans; but from his vantage point on the stage, Proctor could clearly see the empty seats generously interspersed among the occupied ones around the hall. The front seats, the most expensive seats, were filled. But there was no way of knowing if their occupants had actually purchased front row seats or had merely moved down to fill up the empty spaces.
Proctor tried to look impassive and sinister. Then he raised his hand imperiously to command silence. The cheering settled. He strove to lower his already bass voice and said into the microphone, "We'd like to do a song for you written by an old friend of mine named Donovan. I first heard him sing it as we drifted on a raft upon the moat of his castle in the mountain fastness of Wales."
The audience cheered afresh as the band struck up the tune. The fact that he had never met the old folksinger Donovan Leitch was irrelevant to Simon Proctor. He had paid the necessary fee for the use of the song, and besides, none of these kids had ever heard of Donovan anyway. He came from a past era, when songs had melodies and lyrics had atmosphere.
"Shadow of cloud fall, and with it a chill.
High o'er the heather, hawk hover o'er the hill.
Just begun is my journey, and Danu's my name.
I am the juggler of fortune and fame.
Let me not hear facts, figures and logic,
Fain would I hear lore, legend and magic . . ."
"Fain," Proctor thought to himself. How many songs use words like "fain" nowadays? How many kids know what "fain" means?
"Feathers of raven, slithers of coal,
Armor of silver in the mackerel shoal.
Sun in the west, 'tis ruby blood-red.
Travelers a-weary, so weary, do make their bed.
Let me not hear facts, figures and logic,
Fain would I hear lore, legend and magic . . . ."
The concert dragged on into the night, and by its end Simon Proctor was gelatinous with fatigue, drenched with sweat, bleary-eyed, and sore. I'm too old for this, he thought as he sat down again in the seat before the mirror in his dressing room and massaged the aching muscles in his legs. How the hell does Jagger go on doing it, year after year?
Harry Schroeder leaned his head into the room and asked, "Simon? Can I come in?"
"Since when do you ask," Proctor replied. Then, in a more friendly tone, "Yeah, sure, Harry, come on in." He began for a second time that day to remove the makeup. "Well, give me the bad news."
"What bad news?"
"How much did we lose tonight!"
"Oh. Simon, don't be stupid. We made a nice little profit tonight, just like always."
"How little?"
"Well, we still have to pay the band . . . and the Garden people insisted on extra security at our own expense and—"
"Come on, Harry cut the shit. What do I end up with?"
"Well—and I'm approximating now, you understand—somewhere between two and three grand."
Simon Proctor threw the towel with which he was daubing his face down with disgust. "Damn!"
"Hey, come on, Simon. A lot of people would be ecstatic over that much money for one night's work!"
"Sure, but not if they only work one night every month, not if their asses are in the bank's shotgun sights over a movie that's a flop before it even opens, not if their record sales are off and their concerts play to half-empty halls!" He rose to his feet and began to pace around the room. "I have to do something, Harry, but I don't know what to do!" He turned his eyes desperately to his manager. "What can I do, Harry? Tell me, please, what can I do?! I'm drowning, Harry, I'm drowning!"
Schroeder spoke with a forcefulness of which even he thought himself incapable. "Goddamn it, Simon, cut it out! You have a bad day on a talk show and your concert doesn't sell out, and you're ready to lie down and die. What the hell's the matter with you? You act like you got a terminal disease or something. Jesus!"
"All right, Harry, all right. I don't need a fucking lecture, okay?" Proctor sat back down at the dressing table and returned to his task. Schroeder sat down in the same chair he had occupied earlier that day and watched in silence as Simon Proctor removed his makeup. Schroeder remained seated, remained silent, as Proctor showered and dressed. At last he asked, "You staying in town tonight?"
"What the hell for?" Proctor asked. He was buttoning an old, faded work shirt which had obviously been worn and cherished through many years, a shirt which he had tucked into dungarees which could be similarly described. He sat down and slipped his feet into a pair of old, battered boots. "I got a month before the tour promoting the movie. Why the hell should I stay here tonight?"
"It's late, Simon, and you look bushed. Why don't you stay at my place and head up to Bradford tomorrow?"
"Because I hate it here," he snapped. "I have to go home, Harry. I don't think I could sleep anywhere else tonight, not after today. I have to get back to Bradford, back to the mountains. I have to sleep in my own bed, breathe country air." Then, as an afterthought, he added, "Thanks anyway."
Schroeder shrugged. "Sure, okay. Come on, I'll walk you to your car."
The two men trudged quietly from the dressing room to the corridor to the elevator which carried them downward to the subterranean parking lot beneath Madison Square Garden, the lot reserved for VIPs. Simon Proctor climbed into the front seat of his 1972 Toyota (wish I could get one of those new ones with all that computerized stuff in it, he thought glumly) and turned to Schroeder. "Harry, I should apologize for my behavior. I'm in a crappy mood, and I took it out on you. I'm sorry"
Schroeder smiled. "Forget it, Simon. I've taken worse than this from bigger bastards than you."
Proctor laughed and then started his engine. He threw Schroeder a parting wave as he backed out of the parking space and then drove away toward the exit ramp. Schroeder watched him sadly, followed the red taillights until they disappeared around the bend of the ramp. "Poor son of a bitch," he muttered.
You're finished, Simon, he thought. I'll never say it to your face, but it's all over for you. When that show hits the air on Thursday, you'll be a laughingstock. People will go to see the movie out of curiosity, maybe, and then it'll die. It'll close in a week; the video cassettes, if they get released at all, will sit on the shelves of the video rental stores and gather dust, and your records'll end up in the ninety-nine-cent rack at Times Square Stores.
Harry Schroeder shook his head. "Poor son of a bitch," he repeated. He turned and walked slowly back toward the elevator.
A few moments later, Simon Proctor was speeding along the Major Deegan Expressway, heading north toward New Hampshire. The fluorescent street lights whizzed by him, and he wove in and out of traffic in his haste to be quit of the city. He drummed absentmindedly on the steering wheel as he drove.
"Be-bop-a-lula, she's my baby . . . ," he sang quietly.
The green road sign with the white letters which stretched over the Major Deegan Expressway warned him that he had better bear to the left, lest he return to Manhattan via the Bronx.
"Be-bop-a-lula, I don't mean maybe . . ."
An Elmhurst Dairy truck honked its horn angrily as Proctor sped ahead of it and then moved in front of it a bit too quickly so as to be able to move from the service road onto the expressway proper.
"Be-bop-a-lula, she's-a my baby. . . ."
He settled back in his seat as he pushed down on the accelerator and sent the car into a speed well in excess of the speed limit. It didn't matter. Getting close to the Westchester border. New York City highway patrol are on the other side, waiting for drivers coming in from Westchester, who don't drop down from fifty-five miles per hour to fifty.
"Be-bop-a-lula, I don-a mean-a maybe . . ."
Soon the Cross County Mall sped by on his right and he was zipping through Westchester, heading for the turnoff to the New England Thruway.
"Be-bop-a-lula, she-he-he's my baby doll my baby doll my baby doll . . ."
Simon Proctor drove off into the silent, moonlit New England night.
Chapter Three
October 30
Jeremy Sloan worshiped Simon Proctor. Perhaps it was for this reason that he had become best friends with Simon's son Lucas; but the affection Jeremy felt for Simon's daughter Rowena would have developed no matter who her father was.
Like so many teenage boys, Jeremy had a tendency to idolize rock stars, even stars on the downward slope of the mountain of success as Simon was. And like many teenage boys, Jeremy also felt a thrill of vicarious and totally innocent wickedness in the companionship of an inveterate rebel like Lucas. Jeremy had never committed a crime more heinous than refusing to go to his uncle's church on Sunday morning; but in Lucas's company, he felt quite the misfit, and he relished the feeling.
Jeremy's thoughts were filled with images of Rowena's face and form as he stood with Lucas and Karyn just off the road on Route 25, watching Lucas attempting to flag down a passing pickup. He had met Lucas and Karyn in Greenwich Village two nights before, as they had arranged over the phone the previous week. The three of them had been in the audience for Simon's concert last night, and had had every expectation of riding back up to Bradford with him the next day. But none of them had thought to let him know that they were in Manhattan, and they were quite annoyed to learn that he had driven home directly after the show.
Thus it was that they stood, uncomfortable and tired at the end of a long day of hitchhiking. Their last ride had dropped them of at the juncture of Route 25 and Interstate 93, leaving them to cover the remaining twenty miles to Bradford with some other friendly motorist. This was no easy task, nor had many drivers who passed by them deigned to stop and pick them up. The frantic warnings issued to the American public by the Traffic Safety Council about the dangers of hitchhiking had been ignored by Lucas, Karyn, and Jeremy, but most of the people who drove past them on the road had apparently taken the caveat to heart. The six-hour drive had thus far taken them close to ten hours, with nearly five hours spent in standing on the roadside with outstretched thumbs.
The drivers who ignored them could hardly he faulted for so doing. The image struck by the three young people was not one to inspire confidence or sympathy. Lucas and Jeremy were both tall, muscular young men clad in denim jackets and denim pants, and both stood arrogantly with one thumb hanging from a belt loop and one knee slightly cocked as they stood in dusty, battered motorcycle boots. Or rather, Lucas stood thus, and Jeremy emulated him. Lucas had brown hair, and Jeremy's hair was a darker shade approaching black, but both had hair which cascaded down their backs in greasy, matted strands. Lucas's finely chiseled features and bright hazel eyes contrasted strongly with the dark, lupine cast of Jeremy's countenance, and anyone seeing them together would be led to assume that Jeremy was the greater danger. This was exactly opposite of truth, of course; but it nonetheless discouraged drivers from stopping and picking them up.
Karyn Johannson was another matter altogether. Had she been hitching on her own, she would have had no difficulty in getting rides. Whether she would have reached her destination in one piece, alive and unraped, is another matter. She was a strikingly attractive young woman, stimulating rather than beautiful, though a pale complexion which spoke more of long nights than of delicacy, and eyes which had seen too much in their nineteen short years, foretold an incipient aging which would in the not too distant future destroy the attractiveness she now possessed. Her red hair was long and layered, embracing her face with stark points and cascading down her back. Her full figure was made fuller by the child who had for four months been growing in her womb, Lucas's child, the tie with which she hoped to bind him. Her light brown eyes seemed forever half-closed. Whether this was intentional or natural, an attempt to project a bedroom sexuality or an attempt to hide their bloodshot cast, no one could tell. It certainly never occurred to Lucas to wonder about it.
"Hey! Fuck you, asshole!" Lucas shouted at the car which had just sped by them. "Son of a bitch!"
Karyn rubbed her eyes and yawned. "Take it easy, babe. We'll get a ride sooner or later. We're almost home anyway."
"Yeah, but we ain't home yet," he grumbled. "Leave it to my fuckin' old man to cut out early. Shit! If we'd'a known, we'd'a been home last night!"
"No use crying over spilt milk," Jeremy said quietly.
"Huh? Whatcha say?" Lucas turned to him.
"Nothing. I mean, it doesn't help any to get all angry and upset. Karyn's right. We'll be home soon, so take it easy."
"Ahhh," Lucas muttered. Another car approached them and Lucas extended his right hand, thumb up. The car drove by without slowing down. "Hey! Fuck you, asshole!" Lucas shouted once again. He glanced over at Jeremy, who was clutching to his chest a small rectangular object wrapped in brown paper. "Whatcha been totin' around, anyway? You pick up some porn down in Manhattan?"
Jeremy laughed uneasily. "No, nothing like that."
"Well, what is it then? You been holdin' it like it was made outta gold or something."
"It's a present."
Lucas smiled maliciously. "For Roweeeeena?" he simpered.
"No," Jeremy grinned. "It's for your dad."
This took Lucas aback. "My dad! No kidding?"
"No kidding."
"What is it?"
It was now Jeremy's turn to adopt an air of superior indifference. "It's for your dad."
"Hey, come on, Sloan, whatcha got?"
Jeremy shrugged. "You'll find out when I give it to your dad."
The sound of an approaching car caused Lucas to forget the response he was formulating, and he turned and squinted down the road. He did not take his eyes from the vehicle in the distance as he said, "Hey, Karyn, com'ere."
She was not distant from him, but she moved closer. "What, babe?"
"Flash this guy some tit.
"What?!"
"Come on, come on, flash your tits at him. Maybe he'll stop."
"Maybe it's a woman," she huffed. "Why don't you flash her your dick?"
Lucas refused to respond as if she were joking. "Damn it, Karyn, I don't wanna spend the whole goddamn day on this fuckin' roadside! Will you give me some help, for Christ's sake?"
She laughed disparagingly. "How? By getting us all chucked in jail? I swear, Lukie, sometimes you are so stupid!"
"Uh—" Jeremy said tentatively as he peered down the road at the approaching automobile, "I don't think we're gonna need any extra help, Lucas."
Lucas followed his gaze and stared at the auto as it chugged with slow deliberation toward them, and he grinned as it began to slow and drift over to the side of the road. "Hey, mint!" he said. "Who is it?" He glanced over at Jeremy. "You recognize 'em?"
"You don't?" Jeremy asked. "It's your granddad and my uncle. Shit, Lucas, who else has a car that old still on the road?"
Lucas's eyes widened as the car came within clear view. Then he spat. "Fuckin' shit!"
"Hey, a ride's a ride," Karyn counseled. Responding without thinking to years of social conditioning, she drew a brush from her tattered leather shoulder bag and swept it through her hair, even though there was neither any need nor any possibility of her making a good impression upon old Floyd Proctor. "It's a damn good thing I didn't do what you wanted me to do."
"Huh? What? Oh—oh, yeah, I guess so," Lucas muttered. He and his grandfather were not the best of friends, and the prospect of being trapped in a car with the old man and the old minister, Jeremy's uncle, had disgruntled him instantly.
The old Dodge slowed to a stop a few yards away from them, and Jeremy walked over to it smiling. He opened the back door and climbed in saying, "Hiya, Uncle Fred, Mr. Proctor. Gee, it's lucky for us that—"
"Where have you been, boy?" his uncle, the Reverend Frederick Wilkes, thundered, glaring at him from beneath enormous brows.
"I went to New York, Uncle Fred. I left you a note. Didn't you read my note?" Jeremy seemed to sink into the seat as he spoke.
"Oh, certainly, of course I got your 'note'!" the old man replied angrily. "And I suppose leaving a few words on a scrap of paper tossed onto the kitchen table is supposed to be sufficient nowadays, taking the place of a conversation?"
Before Jeremy could respond, Karyn slid beside him onto the seat and smiled broadly at the two old men in the front. "Hello, Mr. Proctor, Reverend Wilkes. Thanks so much for stopping for us." Lucas entered the car right after her and sat, silent and morose, neither offering nor receiving any acknowledgment from his grandfather or Jeremy's uncle.
Nor did either of them respond to Karyn 's salutation. His fiery eyes fixed on Jeremy, Reverend Wilkes continued his reprimand. "I remember a time when a young fellow wouldn't think of lighting off for days on end without discussing it with his parents. Now, I know I'm not your father, Jeremy—"
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