Stein,stoned s-1

by Hal Ackerman

  “Only the stopper can do that. Not the stopee.”

  Stein’s mind whirled. If Goodpasture had stopped the check it would mean that Schwimmer had spoken to him, prevailed his negative view upon him. But on the positive side it would mean that Goodpasture was intact. “I need to know who stopped the payment, Ben, and the exact time.”

  “I can’t access that information.”

  “Golly, Ben I’d hate to tell your manager that you’ve been diverting bank funds to the race track.”

  “I’ve done no such thing!”

  “And I’m sure after the long internal investigation they’ll come to that same conclusion and you’ll get your job back,” Stein said with straight-faced cheer.

  Ben looked to see where the branch manager was. “This machine is very temperamental,” he whispered. “If you ask for the wrong information it gets very protective.” He zapped his mouse around the pad. Screens of numbers appeared. Then there was a loud electronic pop and a blip and all the figures swam away. “You see?”

  “All right. Just…” Stein gestured impatiently, which meant fix this. Get these numbers back.

  Ben shook his head indicating a more serious realm of difficulty. “I need my manager to reboot.”

  Stein realized what a mistake it had been last night brandishing Goodpasture’s check at Alton Schwimmer. Was he ever going to learn anything? He left Ben at the bank, went outside and found a pay phone that worked and called the hotel, where three hours earlier he had delivered his surly passenger. But despite giving the desk clerk and then her supervisor four possible alternate spellings, they could find nobody registered there under the name of Dr. Alton Schwimmer.

  NINE

  In the pictorial dictionary of rock and roll there’s a drawing to illustrate the word ROADIE: open vest, shaggy blond Buffalo Bill hair, droopy moustache, shoulders slumped from hauling amps, personality of an onion soaked in tobacco juice and Drano. The real-life model for that illustration was Stein’s long time pal and co-conspirator, Winston Frenneau. High in the mountains in Katmandu in the early seventies and high in a mescaline haze, Winston had allowed some girl to stick a pair of earring studs into his lobes. It turned out they were loaded with mercury. When he got back to civilization the bottom half of both of his ears had to be amputated below the pinna.

  Stein had hung out with him for the full month that his head was wrapped in bloody bandages. And since the name Winston sounded so much like Vincent, and he had lost both his ears, Stein thought that pluralizing the name Van Gogh and calling him Winston Van Goze was pretty damn witty. Most of life’s ironies are horribly cruel, but on rare occasions sweet fruit grows out of bad soil and Winston’s story was one of them. After the operation on his ears, once the gauze and dressings were removed, those little stubs on the side of his head could differentiate variations of pitch on a guitar string to a hundredth of a VPS. Where he had not given that much of a shit about music before, he turned his gift into an avocation and then a most lucrative way of life. Every serious acoustic player wanted one man to tune his strings and that man was Winston Frenneau.

  McKarus’s Folk Emporium was the last surviving acoustic club from back in the day. The Long Timers called it “McFolks.” Martini bars and chic clothing stores were lately popping up on all sides as another neighborhood gentrified. With rents going into the stratosphere, McKarus’s future was tenuous.

  It was just past noon when Stein got there. The box office hadn’t opened yet. Posters were up advertising the group that was coming in tonight, The Ravens Family Four. These were five generations of Appalachian fiddle players, ranging from Grandpa Cyrus, who was somewhere between ninety-four and the age of rocks, down to three-year-old Baby Raven, who (as the story goes) pulled her daddy’s guitar down off the kitchen table at the age of eleven months and hammer-picked “Shady Grove” in E-flat.

  Stein knocked a few times and hallooed but got no answer. He tried the front door, which to his pleasant surprise was unlocked. It was dark inside. The vestibule contained the box office and a display of tapes and CD’s. Its musty walls were covered with posters for shows, some dating back twenty years. Unoccupied. Stein continued down the narrow corridor that led to the stage. The interior walls were lined with hundreds of guitars, mandolins and banjos; an acoustic cathedral. Once his eyes acclimated to the dark, he saw Winston sitting on the stage, his back to the door, his hair down to his shoulders, stringing Baby Raven’s fiddle.

  From twenty feet away, Stein rumbled in the stylized gravelly voice that they used to use with each other. “Van Goze.”

  Winston didn’t look up from the fret he was filing and answered back, “I can hear you man. You don’t have to yell.” He turned around to face the interruption, affecting an aura of casual annoyance. “Shit, that couldn’t be who I think it is. I heard he was dead.”

  “Reports of his demise have been exaggerated,” Stein said as he climbed up the three steps to the stage. Winston appraised his flaccid body. “Not by much, I can see. What the hell happened to you?”

  “Fame. Fortune. The love and admiration of my fellow man.”

  Winston took the long drag of his Marlboro and blew out a voluminous cloud that made its way across the room in shafts of brilliant stage light to engulf Stein.

  “They let you smoke in here?”

  “They let me do whatever the fuck I please.”

  Winston tightened the string just so, touched it with his index finger and laid his ear across its sound plane.

  “You think you could put the thing down and say hello?”

  Winston adjusted the string, touched it again and held it to his ear. Stein got the message and wheeled around to leave. “Swell. Nice seeing you, too.”

  “Don’t be a putz. Have a carrot juice.” Winston grabbed a half-pint bottle out of the ice chest and lobbed it underhand across the twenty-foot stage. Stein caught it in one hand. “Sounds like a slogan for the Carrot Advisory Board. Don’t Be A Putz. Have a Carrot Juice.”

  Winston nodded without pleasure. “You got that slick ad-man thing going pretty good.”

  “Yeah that’s me. Mister Madison Avenue.” He twisted off the cap and took a swig of the juice. It was surprisingly cold and sweet. “This is great. Did you make it?”

  “Why does everything you say sound like complete bullshit?”

  “How about fuck you. Does that sound sincere?”

  “Not bad.”

  “Says the man who’s making the world safe for the Beverly Hillbillies.”

  “It’s music. What are you doing?”

  “Making a living. Just like you, Vincent.”

  “Not even remotely just like me. And nobody I know calls me Vincent. Or Van Goze.” Winston put the guitar down, closed the ice chest, was about to say what had been on his mind for ten years but figured why bother, then said it anyway. “You sold the bus, Harry.”

  “Only my ex-wife calls me Harry.”

  “How could you sell the fucking bus?”

  “The bus? Are you talking about the 1969 VW-”

  “How many goddamn buses did you have?”

  “Let me understand this. You’re pissed at me for an event that happened how long ago?”

  “There’s no statute of limitations on suicide of the soul.”

  “The bus was my soul?”

  “The fact that you don’t understand is testament to its demise.”

  “I drive my daughter to school. Ok? As if any of this is your business. It embarrassed her. So, I got rid of it.”

  “It was an icon, man. You don’t sell an icon.”

  “It leaked oil and poisoned the rose bushes.”

  “You know who I fucked in that wagon?”

  “Yeah. All my overflow.”

  Winston crunched his empty juice bottle and tossed it into the can, laid his ear across the strings and played another note. “You meant something to people before you died. People bought into your shit. They like to think they can de-pants the president.”

/>   “Then people should.”

  Winston plucked a string. It vibrated full and true and resonated with all the A-strings of the instruments hanging on the walls. The room sang. “You hear that? A over middle C. Four-forty every time. Once you have your note that’s your note.”

  “The fuck are you talking about?”

  “You changed your tuning, man. Now I don’t know who you are.

  “You’re talking about strings, not people.”

  “No difference.”

  “I would have given you the goddamn wagon if I knew you wanted it.”

  Winston still refused to make conciliatory eye contact. “I wouldn’t drive that weak piece of shit. You know that beast Arnold drives in the movies?”

  “The Hum something?”

  “Word is they’re coming out with them for civilians. That’s my ride.”

  “Where do you hear this shit?”

  “I hear things?”

  “Speaking of hearing things.” Stein sensed there weren’t going to be many openings so he jumped in. “I came here for a reason.”

  “You want something. Let me get over my shock?”

  “Can we stop farting up each other’s assholes for a second?”

  “You looking to score tickets for the Raven Family Five?”

  “To score, yeah.” Stein tried to pluck the string just right. “But not tickets.”

  Winston lit up another smoke. “I wouldn’t know what that means coming from you.”

  “Same as it means coming from anybody.”

  “Nah. Everybody knows a certain ex has got your nuts in a sack.”

  “Not everybody seems quite as delighted about it as you are.”

  “Trust me, they are. Activities deleterious to the well being of the child? How do you let that shit happen to you?” He did a pantomime of a testicle sac being snipped off.

  “Listen to me.”

  “Ears, man.” He shielded his stubs.

  “Sorry.” Stein modulated his tone.

  Winston slapped his attache case down on the stage and unzipped the inner compartment. Seven sandwich baggies were pinned to the inside wall, each housing a distinct variety of bud. “You want to look at some shit? Here is the basic winter catalogue. Humboldt Sense. Maui Wowie. Jack Herer. Some sweet hydro-ponic from that dope fiend capital of the world, Minneapolis.”

  Stein smiled at the buds.

  “Enjoying your vicarious window shopping?”

  “That shit’s fine for the tourists and civilians. If I wanted to buy off the rack I’d go to Macy’s. I’m looking for something special.”

  “Something special, he says.”

  “I hear there’s Goodpasture Orchids around.”

  Winston gushed out a pillar of Marlboro smoke. “Right. Maybe I can get you a date with Cameron Diaz, too.”

  Stein unfurled the plastic placenta in which Goodpasture’s little embryo was ensconced, and with great care, broke off a small tip of the bud. Unmistakable perfume flooded the room and Winston knew instantly what he was looking at.

  “Are you shitting me?”

  Stein enjoyed the change in tone from derision to respect. “Would I bother a busy man like yourself, who doesn’t have time in five years to call his best bud, with anything but the best bud?” He tamped the fine grains into the bowl of Winston’s pipe with meticulous care.

  Winston was like a boy leaning toward the bowl where his mother was mixing chocolate pudding “I’ve never smoked genuine orchid.” Pipe now in hand, Winston closed his eyes, folded down and lit a match one-handed, and took a long, luxurious lungful. “Oh man! This is the shit! I take back nearly half of the bad stuff I ever said about you.” Van Goze offered the pipe to Stein, who held up both hands in the international gesture of no thanks. “Good. More for me.” Winston vacuumed up another bellowsworth. “You know what’s beautiful about this shit? You can think clearly and be fucked up at the same time.”

  “There may be a person or persons advertising to have quantities of this for sale. I’d appreciate a heads up.”

  “Rather than telling them you’re looking.”

  “You got the idea.”

  “You’re working?”

  “Just keep an eye open, will you?”

  They made a feeble attempt at an embrace that neither of them was into. Winston conceded an inch. “Look. I’ve been out in the fucking Ozarks for a month with these crazy crackers. But if you’re really interested in Great Smokies you should reach out to my ex-old lady. She’s working with her new husband, Maw-Reece, in his antique shop.”

  “Right. She’s with the antique dude. I heard that.”

  Van Goze took a long last dredging hit on the pipe and sucked the smoke down to Australia. Stein narrated to an invisible TV camera. “Don’t try this at home, kids. This man is a professional.” Van Goze laughed so hard he coughed up chunks of the Outback.

  “You’re still a putz.”

  Stein was nearly out the door when Winston called after him, “It’s too bad you didn’t turn out like your kid. She’s a trip.”

  Stein’s face reappeared. “What the hell do you know about my kid?”

  “I was at your surprise party, man.”

  “The Best of Times ” antique store was packed to a critical mass with chairs, desks, tables, cabinets, armoires: each of them in turn crammed with hats, bowls, glasses, mirrors, jewelry, scarves, cameos. The air was left from a previous century. Stein called a hello, but his voice was absorbed two inches in front of him by material goods. He slithered through the maze, pinching his love handles on an old metal stove, banging his forehead into the edge of a Monopoly board held together by a petrified rubber band. He followed the sound of a power tool into a back open courtyard. Somebody who looked like a Maurice-short, bald, wiry-was sanding down a cherry wood night table that its former owner had slathered in white enamel.

  “Howdy,” Stein ventured.

  Maurice turned around and took the sawdust mask off his face. “Help you?”

  “Are you Maurice?”

  Maurice nodded that he was.

  “Winston’s old lady here?” Stein caught himself and apologized. “Sorry, I guess you probably think of her as Maurice’s old lady.”

  “I think of her as Vanessa,” said Maurice. “And if she’s not inside, she’s probably down at the community center changing the world for the better. Do you know where that is?”

  Stein indicated that he didn’t.

  “You’re lucky.”

  Maurice made a little map, directing him to walk a few blocks east then walk a block or two south.

  “I notice you keep using the verb ‘walk’ instead of ‘drive.’ Is that just a figure of speech?”

  “Not if you’re married to Vanessa.”

  The DeLongpre Community Center was a large, rambling one-story house built in the 1920s. A plethora of signs on the bulletin boards would have you think this was international headquarters for the Abolishment of Domestic Violence, Saving the Whales, Saving the Ozone Layer, Free Choice, Free Condoms, Free Spaying and Neutering of Pets and a few other causes whose notices were thumb tacked over by newer ones. The person who met Stein at the door had unruly manes of black hair and beard that left only a small bit of unplanted acreage on his face. He looked like a short, squat version of Allen Ginsberg, and was one of the throng of seven people assembled for this afternoon’s lecture and book signing by the famed anti-automobile activist, Brianna Chisolm.

  Stein understood why Maurice had told him to walk. A hierarchy of purity existed. People greeted each other not with hellos but by inquiring how they got here. A female in dark framed glasses and overalls who had come here on three buses from Pasadena was dissed for being “too internally combustive” by a geek who had pedaled his Schwinn from El Monte. The winners were brothers originally from Siberia who had pogo-sticked from Santa Monica the previous night for the talk on herbal colon cleansing and had just stayed on.

  Winston’s now Maurice’s ex-old lady, Vanessa
, was a striking woman, over six-feet tall with a great shock of wild, electric gray hair. Her eyes were gigantic and a little sad, which made you sad too, because her melancholy was so beyond hiding. When she greeted her old friend Stein her voice still had a bit of the aristocratic British accent she picked up while living in Tanzania. “Look who’s here. The man who misses his own surprise party.”

  “Is that how I’m going to be known in history now? My identifying phrase?”

  “You don’t look nearly as rotten as everyone says,” she smiled.

  “Hillary being everyone?”

  “Have you come to hear Brianna’s lecture?”

  “Maybe not exactly. More to see you.”

  “I know,” she smiled. “Winston called.”

  Word came that Brianna had just called from her car phone to say she was stuck in airport traffic and she’d be late. Stein waited to hear a burst of irony that she was driving here in a stretch limo to give a talk on. But zealots are short on perspective. “You see?” squat Alan Ginsberg said with a ferocious shudder of his raid forest head. “Too damn many cars.”

  She guided him through the assembly room and out the French doors to the community garden. It was beautifully planned and well tended. Healthy vines of winter squash crawled like infantry across the hillocks. There were clusters of late corn, pole beans and delicate tendrils of Chinese snow peas climbing wire trellises.

  “Did Winston tell you why I wanted to see you?”

  “He told me you might be carrying something.”

  “He said I was carrying?”

  “Don’t be coy. I’ve never tasted real Goodpasture.”

  “God, you people are like the Russian mafia. Graft. Bribe.” He nipped off a little taste for her. “Tell me. Don’t you think it’s at all ironic that you sustain a low end community center by selling high end weed?”

  “Life is a carousel old chum.” She took an approving whiff of the bud.

  “Did he tell you what else?

  She started to say something, held back.

  “What?”

  “Are you really back in the world?”

  “You read about that model up in Topanga?”