Painted Black

by Greg Kihn

  “A Natty Bo and a Pollock?” Clovis said. “Hmm-hmm, good. Yep, no doubt about it, Charm City has her virtues. Throw in a hot dog at an Orioles game in Memorial Stadium, and I’m in heaven.”

  Erlene said, “You’ll be doing all that by tomorrow, hon. Are you nervous?”

  Cricket nodded. “I hate flying, but it’s worth it to go home. I was just trying to get my husband here to commit to when he’s coming over.”

  Erlene clucked. “You better get him to make a date or you’ll never see him again.”

  Which city Bobby and Cricket would eventually make their primary residence was a constant bone of contention between the two of them lately. Cricket wanted to live in her hometown of Baltimore, and Bobby was very comfortable in London. They split their time. Knowing he’d eventually lose that battle, Bobby procrastinated.

  “Don’t say that,” Bobby said. “Business is booming. I can’t just drop everything and go.”

  Clovis, whose legendary blond hair had been styled and restyled from Elvis to Wayne Cochran to John Lennon, was currently wearing his hair in a modified Brian Jones cut without the mutton-chop sideburns. His slim guitar player’s body sported a few jailhouse tattoos. Clovis had the look of a working musician.

  “Who-wee, Bobby! Once Cricket leaves town, you and me are gonna have some fun! The mice will play while the cat’s away!”

  “Clovis, please!” Bobby snapped. “She’ll get the wrong idea.”

  “I’ve already got the wrong idea,” she said, partially joking.

  Three-year-old Winston ran around their legs. Erlene picked him up and threw him up in the air.

  “Come give Auntie Erlene a nice big hug, hon!”

  Winston laughed. “Awn-tie Erlene!”

  Cricket said, “See? I told you he was developing a British accent. He calls her ‘awn-tie.’ We better get out of town before he turns into Little Lord Fauntleroy.”

  Bobby went into the kitchen and got some unmatching glass champagne flutes.

  They all sat around the living room, and Bobby poured the bubbly. He raised his glass to offer a toast, but before he could, Erlene interrupted him.

  “To the Big B! May Cricket have a safe trip!”

  “To Baltimore!” said Clovis and Cricket. Bobby tapped their glasses.

  They drank together. The champagne was dry and the conversation spicy.

  Bobby said, “Brian Jones came in the shop today. I was just telling Cricket he invited us over for a late dinner.”

  “He invited us, too!” Clovis said. “I’ve been working with the Stones at Olympic. Jonesy left the studio early today and invited me on the way out. Told me to bring Erlene. I wonder what he has in mind?”

  “What’s a late dinner?” Cricket asked.

  Erlene answered. “I think it’s around ten o’clock. Are you going?”

  “Of course not. This is our last night together,” Bobby interjected.

  Cricket crossed her arms. Bobby knew that was a sign.

  “He’s probably going to have drugs and groupies there.”

  “He better not!” Erlene exclaimed. “I’ll rip him a new one!”

  “Actually, he lives with Anita Pallenberg, the German movie star. There won’t be any groupies there. It’s just a dinner party,” Clovis said. “He said John Lennon was coming. I’d love to see John.”

  “How about the drugs?”

  Clovis became defensive.

  “I’ll just smoke a little weed to be sociable.”

  Erlene went on a Brian Jones jag.

  “Isn’t he always getting busted? How do you know the cops won’t raid the place while we’re there?”

  Clovis sighed. “Okay, if you don’t want to go, we won’t go. I’ll make up some excuse.”

  A period of silence followed. Then Clovis flipped to the opposite point of view with a big grin.

  “Wait a minute! Are we crazy? Brian Jones from the Rolling Fucking Stones invites us and John Lennon to his house for dinner and we’re not going? What’s wrong with this picture?” Clovis’s voice was loud and brassy. “We’re goin’. That’s it. You too, Bobby-Boy.”

  “Wait a sec—”

  “No, honey, let him speak,” Cricket said softly. “He’s right, you know.”

  “What are you saying?”

  Cricket put her tiny hand on his shoulder.

  “I’m saying maybe you should go with Erlene and Clovis. It’s too important to miss. He’s about as big a client as they come.”

  “But …”

  “I know what I said. I’ve changed my mind. Just be home before I leave so I can kiss you good-bye.”

  Erlene said, “We’ll keep an eye on him, hon. He’s safe with us.”

  Cricket said, “I trust him.”

  Clovis said, “I’m bringing my guitar. We’re gonna jam. You wanna know something else? It’s supposed to be a secret, but I heard that Mick and Keith are gonna drop by. Mick and Keith! That’s three fifths of the Stones. If John comes, that’s one quarter of the Beatles. If you miss this, you are out of your fuckin’ mind.”

  Bobby looked at Cricket and squeezed her hand.

  “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

  Cricket tried to act cool.

  “Go, have your fun. Leave before I change my mind.”

  Chapter Two

  Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown

  Brian Jones’s address at 1 Courtfield Road, South Kensington was a beautiful mansion townhouse with twenty-foot ceilings. The stately brick building had a balcony over the grand entrance from which Brian could address the people on the street below like the pontiff on Easter morn.

  Bobby arrived with Clovis and Erlene. Brian welcomed them like old friends. There were several guests already there that Bobby didn’t recognize. Brian introduced Christopher Gibbs, an antique dealer, and Robert Fraser, an art gallery owner. Anita had invited one of her strikingly beautiful model friends. Bobby thought he’d seen her face on billboards around London. Blond, thin, and aloof, she had the same Anita Pallenberg–look that was so popular in London at the time. Anita introduced her as Claudine Jillian.

  Brian acted the ultimate host and flittered about refilling wineglasses and making conversation. Bobby declined all offers of beverages, mindful of Brian’s fondness for dosing people with drugs at his parties. At one point, Bobby snuck back to the kitchen and filled his water glass from the tap thinking at least that would be safe.

  Anita spoke German, French, Italian, and English, often at the same time. Brian filled a big hookah with hash and fired it up until billowing blue smoke filled the room. Bobby wondered what would happen if the cops happened by just now. Brian didn’t seem to care.

  Clovis sat on the floor and rifled through Brian’s impressive record collection of blues records. Bobby sat next to him, intrigued by what they might find. After all, this was the man who created the Rolling Stones. Clovis pulled out the album Bo Diddley’s Sixteen All-Time Greatest Hits and held it up for everyone to see.

  “My favorite album cover of all time!” Clovis gushed. “Just look at this thing!”

  Brian took it from him and examined the front as he had done a hundred times before.

  “It’s just big block letters on a white background. That’s it. No artwork, no nothing.”

  “That’s the joke, Brian,” Clovis said.

  Bobby said, “Marshall Chess didn’t budget much for the cover art on that one, eh? What do you think? Thirty-five cents?”

  Bobby and Clovis broke up laughing. They thought they were hilarious. Brian just stared at them. He had every album Bo had ever made. It was not a collection he took lightly. Brian Jones had actually recorded in the same room that Bo recorded in at 2120 South Michigan Avenue in Chicago. When the band first walked into Chess Records, Brian got the shock of his young life to find his idol, Muddy Waters, wearin
g overalls and painting the studio ceiling. Muddy had actually helped carry their amps that day, his face and hair flecked with white paint.

  Bobby knew Bo’s album covers were always mind-bending. Brian had them all: Bo Diddley Is a Gun Slinger, Have Guitar, Will Travel, Surfin’ With Bo Diddley, and Bo Diddley’s Beach Party.

  “Hey, how come all the people at Bo Diddley’s Beach Party are white?” Clovis joked.

  “Because white kids are the only ones who can afford him,” Bobby replied with a smile.

  Clovis put the record on the record player and with the first song, Bo Diddley leaped from the speakers. The song rocketed past them like a musical missile in the most frantic two minutes and thirty seconds Bobby had heard in a long time. Fueled by the frenzied maracas of Jerome Green, Bo Diddley’s music was jet-propelled. It traveled at supersonic speed. Bobby and Clovis could both appreciate the effect it had on the Stones.

  Clovis pointed to the album cover for Have Guitar, Will Travel. It featured Bo on a red-and-white 1957 Vespa Cushman Eagle motor scooter with his unique rectangular Gretsch guitar hanging off his shoulder.

  “Do you know what this means?” he asked.

  “Have guitar, will travel?”

  “Yeah, there was an American TV show, a western, starring Rickard Boone as a gunfighter for hire named Paladin and his card said ‘Have gun, will travel.’ See?”

  Brian examined the cover.

  “Oh, I get it! So it’s a take-off on the TV show? Bloody brilliant!”

  Brian vacillated between being a blues snob and a giggly kid who just loved the music. Clovis pointed out to Brian that it was the vibrato on Bo Diddley’s Fender Super Reverb guitar amp that pushed the music along as much as the maracas. Brian pointed out Bo’s finesse with the flat pick had a lot to do about it, too.

  The three men talked, shouted, and argued about Chicago blues. They stayed in their private world for more than an hour, ignoring the rest of the party until dinner was served.

  “We’re having beef with Yorkshire pudding,” Brian announced. “I hope no one’s a vegetarian.”

  There were a few laughs around the room. It turned out that Claudine actually was a vegetarian, but rarely ate. She decided to skip dinner entirely and disappeared into one of the upstairs rooms. What was she doing up there? Bobby wondered.

  The food smelled wonderful. They all ate the beef without delay. Conversation was temporally replaced by the satisfied sounds of eating.

  During dinner, there came a knock on the door. Brian got up to answer. He returned a minute later with Marianne Faithfull, the beautiful pop singer and Mick Jagger’s girlfriend.

  She was apologizing profusely as she entered the room.

  “Mick says he’s terribly sorry, but he and Keith got a last-minute song idea, and they told me to tell you that they’re busy working on the next big hit.”

  Brian frowned. “They told you to tell me that? Those bastards! It’s not enough that they stole the band away from me, now they have to control the songwriting and publishing, too! Rub it in, boys, rub it in. The next Stones hit? Fuck them.”

  “Well now, perhaps we shouldn’t judge them too harshly. They said they might be along later. You know how they are.”

  Brian snorted. “Yeah, I know how they are. John’s not here, either.”

  His voice took on an ugly edge.

  “Right. So why are you here?”

  Marianne smiled and lit up the room. She waved her hands around like a dancer.

  “Brian, you invited me. I’ve been looking forward to it. Just because those two are rude is no reason for me to miss out on one of your fabulous dinner parties. That is, if I’m still invited.”

  Brian softened a little.

  “That’s nice of you, Marianne. I appreciate it. But Mick and Keith can go fuck themselves as far as I’m concerned.”

  “I know you planned this evening as a way to bring the boys together, and I admire you for it. Mick can be a bit of an asshole at times. The way they treat you is deplorable.”

  Bobby watched as Brian’s mood swung back and forth. The more he got to know Brian Jones, the more he confused he became. Which one was the real Brian? Was it the sullen, depressed Brian brooding over minutia or was it the happy, charming Brian, the one considered the most recognizable of the Rolling Stones and voted sexiest rock star of the year?

  Brian instantly became petulant.

  “I’ve been working with Keith behind Mick’s back, you know.”

  Marianne smiled sweetly.

  “Mick knows Keith has been hanging here. It’s no big secret. He’s all for it.”

  Brian pouted.

  “I was hoping we could jam, maybe kick around some musical ideas. I was a fool. Those two don’t want me in the band anymore. I can feel it.”

  Marianne shook her head. She was like an angel. Brian looked into her eyes.

  “Don’t talk that way, Brian. We all love you. It wouldn’t be the Rolling Stones without you, everybody knows that.”

  Brian’s face twitched.

  “Really? They could go on without me for another fifty years for all we know.”

  Marianne laughed.

  “Fifty years? That’s ridiculous.”

  “Is it? Keith told me they want to go psychedelic on the next album. I heard some of the songs. If the Stones start doing that crap, they won’t last another year. Can you imagine the Rolling Stones going psychedelic? It’s a bloody joke.”

  Brian sat back down at the table and began to eat his steak, chewing it slowly and deliberately. His sullen mood hovered over the room like a dark cloud. No one spoke for a few moments until Marianne suddenly turned to Bobby, Clovis, and Erlene. Erlene quickly introduced herself. The tension broke. Erlene waved at her.

  “Why don’t you sit over here with us, hon? We don’t bite.”

  Marianne joined them. Normal conversation resumed around the table. Brian ate in brooding silence.

  Anita offered a toast. Her German accent colored the words that were already slightly slurred from the wine.

  “To Brian Jones and the Stones!”

  As they raised their glasses, Bobby hoisted his untouched wineglass. Anita stood like an apparition. The light behind her made her dress look translucent. Her thin fashion model body was perfectly silhouetted. She wore no underwear of any kind. Brian looked up from his plate and snorted.

  “Sit down, bitch! How dare you say that?”

  Anita reacted as if she’d been slapped.

  “I’ll say whatever I want!”

  “This is my house!”

  “Fuck your house!”

  Brian raised his hand and rose out of his chair in a threatening manner as if he were about hit Anita. Anita slowly sat down. She took a big swallow of wine and looked around for her cigarettes. She found one, lit it with great finality, and blew the smoke in Brian’s face.

  Brian sounded like he was on the verge of tears. His voice trembled slightly as he spoke.

  “It’s not enough that Mick and Keith stood me up for dinner … they’ve taken everything from me. The band is my life, and now they’ve taken that away from me. … The Rolling Stones have always been my band. I started it. I can’t go on like this anymore.”

  Bobby, Clovis, and Erlene had been watching the drama unfold with Marianne from their side of the big table. Erlene leaned over to Marianne and whispered in her Baltimore accent.

  “Pretty lively dinner conversation, hon, but my steak is tougher ’n shoe leather.”

  Marianne giggled.

  “All English steaks are tough to chew and even harder to swallow. Only the French can cook steak properly.”

  “I can bar-be-cue the hell out of a T-bone,” Erlene opined.

  “The English like to boil their meat until it’s tasteless, just like they leach the color out of life.” />
  “Hey!” Brian shouted. “Shut up!”

  Erlene and Marianne looked up, surprised. Clovis looked at Bobby and shook his head.

  “Let it go. It’s the wine talkin’,” he said in a stage whisper.

  Erlene acted as though she was about to say something but suddenly changed her mind.

  “How about a song?” Clovis said. He pushed away from the table and picked up his acoustic guitar.

  Brian’s eyes shifted. The thunder seemed to flow out of him not in one great bone-jarring clap, but slowly like a steam valve opened all the way to relieve pressure.

  Clovis played “Mystery Train” by Elvis from the King’s Sun Studio sessions. It was hard to resist. Clovis fingerpicked with the precision of Scotty Moore, Elvis’s original guitar player. Brian began slapping the table in time with the beat. The mood in the room had changed entirely by the second verse. Brian sang along with Clovis. The negative energy seemed to flow out of him.

  Instead of the traditional guitar solo, Brian picked up the recorder he bought at Bobby’s shop and blew a baroque melody that somehow, miraculously fit with the song. It was magical.

  They played several more tunes, Clovis showing his monumental range by playing Memphis rockabilly riffs, then shifting to a classical version of “Greensleeves,” followed by a Howlin’ Wolf blues song. Brian demonstrated the breadth of his musical talent by playing a variety of unusual instruments. He played recorder on “Mystery Train,” Appalachian dulcimer on “Greensleeves,” and blues harp on Howlin’ Wolf’s “Smokestack Lightnin’.” Brian relaxed visibly as the session continued. Clovis had his number.

  Just as the plates were being cleared from the table, the doorbell rang again.

  “Maybe it’s Mick and Keith,” Marianne said.

  Brian, suddenly energized, went to answer it personally, a tactic Bobby thought was dangerous considering all the crazy people and police around the area.

  There were two freaky-looking people with long hair standing in the doorway. One of them spoke in an American accent.

  “Hey Brian, it’s me, Skully.”

  “Who?”

  “Skully! I’m Jimi’s roadie. I’ve met you a bunch of times at gigs.”