Anthem

by Deborah Wiles

  The air was spangled a brilliant yellow gold with late-morning sun and dust. They were parked beside a small stand of cottonwood trees and clumps of mesquite.

  “I didn’t see the trees,” Norman marveled. “I could have driven right into them.”

  “But you didn’t,” said a voice.

  Molly yelped and grabbed Norman’s arm.

  “I won’t hurt you,” came the voice. It was a woman sitting at a table under the cottonwoods. A burro was standing next to the table, swishing its tail and looking at them placidly. Flam growled at the burro but stayed behind Norman.

  “You’re almost out of the desert now,” said the woman.

  “Where are we?” Norman asked. Molly could feel his pulse racing.

  “You’re in Daggett,” said the woman. She wore a wide-brimmed hat and a long dress. She held a notebook in her hands and a camera hung from a strap around her neck. “You are one hundred miles from your destination.”

  “How —?”

  “I saw you coming,” said the woman. “I can lead you back to your wagon road when you are ready.”

  Molly gripped Norman harder, to steady herself. It gave Norman strength as well. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Mary Beal,” the woman said. “My friends called me Mamie. I’ve been here a long time. You are just passing through.”

  “Yes,” said Molly, finally speaking.

  “Your conveyance is colorful,” said Mary Beal. She took a page from her notebook. On it she had sketched a ghost flower from the desert and a map. “That’s a Mohavea confertiflora,” she said. “I’m not much of an artist. I usually photograph my plants, but my camera doesn’t seem to be working anymore. If you follow this map, you will find yourself at your destination in time for your appointment.”

  “Appointment?”

  “They are waiting for you,” said Mary Beal. “You impress them with your passion.”

  Molly opened her mouth, then shut it.

  “Your conveyance will get you there with no problems,” said Mary Beal. “It has rested from the heat, in this shade, and it is ready to take you.”

  Molly couldn’t help it. She pictured Glinda, the Good Witch of the East, telling Dorothy that all she had to do was tap her Ruby Slippers together three times and they would take her home. She gave Norman’s arm a slight tug.

  But Norman had nothing to say to that, either. It’s not like Mary Beal is a mechanic down at the garage and has had a look under the hood. Or has she? He dug his fingers into his palms to make sure he was awake. He was.

  Mary Beal reached for the rope tied to her burro and tucked her notebook into the saddle pack it carried. Flam growled once again. “You don’t have to worry about Rocky,” she said to the dog. “He is a gentle soul.”

  Before she could walk away, Norman found his voice. “Do you live around here?” he asked impulsively.

  Mary Beal turned to Norman. “I used to live in a tent house on the Van Dyke ranch. This town was quite a sight when Dix first arrived here. Cattle drives, brothels, shoot-outs, a silver mine, and frontier people who didn’t understand the desert. I came here myself to get over a bout with tuberculosis. When I fell in love with the desert and decided to stay, Dix built me a cottage on his ranch.”

  A train whistled insistently in the distance.

  Norman looked at the vista surrounding them but saw no ranch, no cottage. “Is it nearby?”

  “I don’t live there anymore,” said Mary Beal. “You’ll pass my new place on your way back to the highway. You’ll know it when you see it.”

  She nodded to Molly and Norman, adjusted her hat, and walked away with her burro, her notebook, and her camera. She faded into the waving heat and brilliant sunshine until she seemed to have disappeared.

  “Thank you!” called Norman with some desperation in his voice.

  “Whoa,” whispered Molly. Flam whined at her feet. “Let’s get you some water, boy.”

  They drank their fill, poured water over their heads and shoulders, arms and backs to cool themselves and wash off the dust, and started on their way again, windows down once more, directions in Molly’s hand. As they passed a tall iron entrance gate that spelled out DAGGETT PIONEER CEMETERY, Norman stopped the bus and looked at Molly. She nodded and he turned in.

  It didn’t take them long to find her.

  MARY BEAL

  1878 TO 1964

  BOTANIST OF MOJAVE DESERT

  Wordlessly, they each reached for the other’s hand and took it. They stood together in front of Mary Beal’s grave until they began to boil in the sun. Then they climbed into their conveyance and careened through Southern California, to Hollywood, to their appointment.

  GOOD VIBRATIONS

  Written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love

  Performed by the Beach Boys

  Recorded at Western Recorders, CBS Columbia Square, Gold Star, and Sunset Sound Recorders, Hollywood, California, 1966

  Drummer: Dennis Wilson (concert)/Hal Blaine (studio)

  The receptionist at Capitol Records did not know they had an appointment.

  “Can I help you?” A cigarette dangled from her very red lips, and every red hair on her head was sprayed in place like it was part of a cranberry helmet. She turned her head, blew smoke toward the gold records hanging on the wall, and put her cigarette into a holder in a bright red ashtray. She raised her eyebrows and gave Molly and Norman an impatient, expectant look.

  Norman once again wore his white oxford shirt and wing tip shoes. Molly was surprised at how different it suddenly made him look — he had changed so much on the road. He was sunburned and he had dressed up for Hollywood.

  They had come to the building shaped like a stack of records with a needle at the top, the building with the name on it that was also on so many of their records, from the Beatles to the Beach Boys, the records sporting that orange-and-yellow swirl on Molly’s 45s, and a name she had never given a second thought to until they stood in the lobby of the building with the gold records decorating the marble walls.

  Norman held the cymbals in their case under his arm. He cleared his throat.

  “Is Hal Blaine here, please?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  Molly, who had just survived sure death in the desert, smirked at the receptionist and hoped she noticed. Eleanor Rigby and her sidekick Florsheim. No, she wouldn’t say that. She waited to see how Norman would respond. She wore Sweet Caroline’s red-and-white-striped shirt and her usual shorts and Keds. She was cold; the air-conditioning was freezing everything in the room.

  “He’s expecting us,” Norman said.

  “Really,” said the receptionist sardonically. She looked Norman up and down like his bad mother. “Who sent you?”

  “Mary Beal,” Molly snapped.

  “Who?”

  Norman shot Molly a look. “Al Jackson, Jr., at Stax Records in Memphis, Tennessee,” he said.

  “Really.”

  “Also Roger Hawkins at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  The receptionist’s dismissiveness began to grate on Norman. He could have died in the desert, too. “Actually,” he said, his voice gathering all the authority his seventeen years could summon, “Jai Johany Johansen of the Allman Brothers Band.”

  He stared as menacingly as he could, directly into the receptionist’s eyes, and hoped she could hear his mental command. Hal Blaine now! And step on it!

  The receptionist plucked her cigarette from its perch on the red ashtray. “Just a minute.” She disappeared.

  “Great,” said Norman, deflated. “They aren’t going to let us back there. Or up there. Or wherever.”

  “Patience,” said Molly, surprising herself. “She’s just one person and not very nice.”

  “Not very groovy,” said Norman. He smiled at his own bad joke, which lessened his anxiety. “I don’t even know who Hal Blaine is,” he said.

  The receptionist appeared with a business card in her hand. “Cal
l this number.”

  Norman took the card from the receptionist’s fingers. She had very long nails. They were also red. “Do you have a phone I can use?”

  “No.”

  At Stan’s Drive-In, they found burgers, bathrooms, and a pay phone.

  Arlyn’s Answering Service, the card said. Norman dialed the number and asked to see Hal Blaine.

  “Mr. Blaine is completely booked through July, but I can schedule you for a date in early August. Which studio?”

  “Which one does he play in?”

  “Capitol, Gold Star, Columbia, Sunset, A&M, Western, RCA — are you a producer?”

  “I just need to give him something,” said Norman. “It’s a piece of his equipment.”

  “He has a valet who does cartage for him,” said Arlyn. “His name is Rick Faucher. I can give you his number.”

  “Cartage?” Valet?

  “He takes Mr. Blaine’s drum kits from studio to studio and sets them up, breaks them down, takes care of them. Are you a musician?”

  Norman finished the call, then put another dime in the pay phone and dialed the number Arlyn had given him.

  “Where are you?” Rick Faucher asked once Norman explained what was going on. “We’ve been looking for those cymbals!”

  “Capitol Records,” lied Norman.

  “Holy —” began Rick and then stopped himself. “Don’t move. I’ll meet you at Capitol in a half hour.”

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later, they were tucked into the earth at the bottom of Capitol Records in the control room for Studio B. Rick said, “Don’t mind that receptionist. She’s from the service. Never seen her before. Linda would have told you Hal was here.”

  Now Molly wished she had told the smoky red receptionist that her name was Eleanor Rigby, but probably she wouldn’t have known who that was.

  Norman had completely forgotten about the receptionist. He was inside a subterranean spaceship with seven layers of wall for absolute silence, and floors that floated on cork to eliminate vibration, baffles to absorb sound floating from the ceiling and adjustable to any angle — the musicians at Stax and FAME would have been so jealous! — and Nat King Cole’s Steinway in its own isolation booth.

  The studio was full of musicians. They were deep in discussion. Hal Blaine gestured with a drumstick while he sat at his kit. It was the most impressive set of drums Norman had ever seen.

  “What is it?” he asked Rick.

  “You’ve never seen anything like it because there isn’t anything like it,” answered Rick. “We built it.”

  “It’s a monster kit,” marveled Norman.

  “That’s what we call it!” said Rick. “It’s starts with a blue sparkle Ludwig kit — can you see it?”

  Norman nodded. “It’s a double bass set.”

  “That’s right.” If he’d been a peacock, Rick would have spread his colorful feathered fan. “We added two rolling racks of tom-toms, four on one side, with one rack, and three on a second rack. We can roll them right into the van and to the next gig. They’re completely adjustable and each tom is a different size or sound, so Hal can do those rolling toms you hear in songs like ‘Up Up and Away’ and ‘Good Vibrations,’ most anything by the Monkees or the Association, like ‘I’m a Believer’ and ‘Windy’ —”

  “What?” Molly joined the conversation. “He was the drummer on ‘Windy’? I thought that was Ted, the cute one!”

  “It’s Ted Bluechel in concert,” said Rick. “But it’s Hal on the record. And that’s what you want — you want the best. At concerts, people hear with their eyes. You teenagers will cut your idols some slack in concert, but not when you buy their records.”

  “Quiet, please,” said an engineer in the booth. “Let’s go again.”

  “Watch and learn,” whispered Rick. “They’ll break to listen to their takes, and I’ll introduce you. It’s the least I can do for a fellow who personally drove Hal’s Zildjians across the country.”

  * * *

  “I bought these cymbals when I was a kid!” Hal crowed a short time later. “I’m real attached to their sound, real sentimental about ’em. Thanks for the mission of mercy!”

  They were in the studio and Norman was sitting behind the monster drum set, afraid to touch anything.

  “Go on!” Hal said. “Have a whack at ’em!” He handed Norman a pair of drumsticks.

  Hal was ebullient. “I thought they were lost forever! But now we’re reunited! Rick swore they were in his van, and then they weren’t, and they weren’t anywhere else, either.”

  He’d been on the phone with Rick Hall at FAME, who’d put him on the phone with Roger Hawkins, who’d told him that Jaimoe had taken them by accident the last time he’d visited FAME. “But Roger hadn’t known it until Florsheim brought them to him.”

  “I’m … Norman,” said Norman. He surprised himself.

  Hal barreled ahead. “That still doesn’t explain how he got ’em, but who cares now! They’re back!” He held them up to the light. “You see how I filed these babies? They fit just so on my old cymbals stand — of course, now you can buy stands that tilt, but back then …”

  Molly wanted to interrupt, but there wasn’t an opportunity. And Norman could have listened to Hal all day. Fortunately, Hal didn’t have all day, and neither did they. Rick was trying to dismantle Hal’s kit in order to cart it to the next studio gig. Musicians were putting away their instruments and heading out. One of them was a woman with an electric bass guitar. She nodded at Molly and Molly nodded back, then looked at her wristwatch. It was already three o’clock.

  “You play rock and roll?” Hal asked Norman.

  “Yessir.”

  “Call me Hal.” He picked up his sticks and pulled a seat next to Norman. “Rock and roll is just a backbeat on two and four.” He played the rhythm. “But you need to learn everything. Dance music, Latin music, waltzes, oom-pa-pas, all time signatures. Come on, do it with me.”

  Rick quit dismantling the equipment. “Hal …”

  “Five minutes,” said Hal. He looked at his watch. “We’ve got time.” He handed Norman a second pair of sticks. Norman handed the first pair to Rick.

  For the next five minutes, Norman copied Hal as best he could and Hal kept a one-sided dialogue running. “Listen to all music, get training, know how to read music. Practice. Develop a good ear. Replicate what you hear. The Big Banders and orchestra guys — even the jazzers — laughed at us, this crew of session musicians, these kids off the street wearing our Levis and addicted to coffee and Coca-Colas, when we started doing rock and roll instead of easy listening. It was beneath them. They said we were wrecking the music business —”

  “That’s why they call them the Wrecking Crew,” Rick interjected.

  “Right,” said Hal. “And that’s a badge of honor!” He took Norman’s sticks and handed them to Rick. “Good work.” Norman had no idea what he’d played, if anything.

  Hal tapped his hi-hat with both of his sticks in one hand. “Look at this. I invented a tambourine that attaches to my hi-hat on the drum. I’ve got a cowbell holder on top of my hi-hat so I can play eighth notes on the hi-hat and do the Latin tic-tic-tic in between the eighth notes. Like this.” He demonstrated. “Do you read music?”

  “Yessir!”

  “Good. Are you in a high school band?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Yeah is fine,” said Hal. “I was in drum and bugle corps.” He handed his sticks to Rick. “And after the army, I went to music school in Chicago. These guys who don’t bother to learn how to read music will never be session musicians —”

  “Unless they’re Glen Campbell,” Rick interrupted. He put the sticks away. He took the cymbals off their stands. He packed them into cases next to the recovered Zildjians.

  “Glen Campbell!” Molly interjected. “‘Wichita Lineman’!”

  “That’s right,” said Hal. “I played on that tune. Glen’s part of the Wrecking Crew, but he’s famous now, so we don’t see
him so much. Talk about an ear. That man’s got one. But he’s an exception to the rule. Learn how to read music.”

  Norman started to tell Hal that Roger Hawkins didn’t read music, but he thought better of it.

  Rick began to move the first rack of toms. “You’re all set up at Sunset Sound with the second kit,” he said. “You start at four.”

  “On my way,” said Hal. Rick headed in one direction with the drums. Hal motioned to Norman to follow him in another. “Being a studio musician, that’s the highest echelon, in my opinion. You don’t have to do the road, you can go home at night, and you can do everything! Television, movies, jingles, soundtracks, commercials, records, I’ve done them all. You’re not the star when you’re a studio man. You’re the accompanist. You make them sound good.”

  Molly couldn’t stand it any longer. “Who did you make sound good?”

  Hal smiled as the elevator doors opened and the three of them walked past the red receptionist who glowered at them. “The Beach Boys, the Grass Roots, Frank Sinatra, Simon and Garfunkel, Elvis Presley —”

  “Really?” Norman and Molly laughed.

  “Really.” Hal looked puzzled. “He’s great, you know.”

  “I know!” Norman said. “We met him in Memphis!”

  “Right,” said Hal. He shook his head.

  “The Association!” said Molly.

  “Yep, the Association. They’ve got a pretty good drummer, actually, Ted something; I just saw him, he’s in town.”

  “He is?” Molly’s heart began to race.

  “He’s going to the hoot at the Troubadour tonight. I told him I might stop in. They’ve been on tour and they haven’t been to the Troubadour since they made it big. Or maybe they’re just satisfying their obligation — Doug Weston makes all the bands that get their start there come back.”

  “Tonight?” Molly felt swimmy-headed. The Association. At the Troubadour. Tonight. What’s the Troubadour? Who cares? “What time?”

  “Mol —” Norman began, but she cut him off.

  “What time?!”

  They stepped outside and into the afternoon sun. The Hollywood sign shimmered in the heat, high on Mount Lee, as if it was waving to them. “I don’t know,” Hal answered. “Eight o’clock? They’ve got a show every night. Neil Young’s been there this week, Poco is there tomorrow — look.” A poster was stuck on the telephone pole by the bus. “Every Monday night is hoot night. Is that your bus? Wow.”