Cops were hanging around Tompkins Square Park like
always. It occurred to me, in the little corner of my mind that wasn’t
vibrating from the joint I’d shared with Pete, that I’d better hold
off to dump the wallet till I got to a block where they weren’t so
thick. I’d driven all the way down from 158th Street clutching it in
the hand I wasn’t steering with, but I had to get rid of it before I
hit the club.
I had other stuff to worry about too, like my hands. I’d
sort of forgotten there’d be blood. Probably there was blood all over
the steering wheel too, but I’d handle that in the morning. So I had
my hands rammed inside my jacket pockets, one of them still hanging onto
the wallet, my shoulder hitched up to keep the strap of my gig bag from
slipping off.
I rounded the corner of the park and turned onto Avenue
A, which was a carnival like always, except a carnival where everybody
was dressed in black, with clunky boots and lots of hair. I slowed to
check out a chick that I glimpsed through the window of a bar, because
just for a second I thought it was Jen. I’d only seen Jen once since
the day I got fed up and moved out of the place we’d all ended up
sharing--just looked up and there she was, right in front of the
Ukrainian bakery on Avenue B. That was when she told me about the
A&R guy lined up to scout Stone Cool. “I told you Pete was gonna
be a star,” she said.
So I’m staring through the window at this chick, the
chick in the bar, and from somewhere behind her comes a huge hand and
plasters itself on the glass like it’s trying to cover my eyes. A
grinning face looms up and sticks its tongue out at me. Her boyfriend, I
guess. But I wasn’t gonna steal her. She wasn’t who I thought she
was and even if she had been, she wouldn’t come back to me now.
Then I had to stop for a minute and lean against the
wall. My brain was still kind of whirling. Sometimes when you smoke
sitting down you don’t realize you’re about to fly away till you
stand up. Pete smoked as much as I did too, maybe more. He could always
play stoned, though, so he wasn’t worried about the gig, even with the
A&R guy coming.
He always played so sloppy it didn’t matter what kind
of state his head was in. But that’s just my opinion. I guess some
people thought he was good. Jen thought he was good.
The weed had got to him though. I don’t think he
really understood what was up--that is, till he sagged against me and
landed in the doorway. Thought we were huddling in that urine-smelling
alcove to finish off the joint before we turned the corner.
I pulled the knife out of him quick and dropped it down
the sidewalk grate, stuffed him in the trunk and took off for the 158th
Street exit. I’d checked it out a couple days before. It’s like a
grassy park there that drops off into the river. Right on the edge of
Harlem too, so Pete probably wasn’t the first guy to take that long
dive.
I gave the chick one last look and got moving again, and
pretty soon I noticed a trash can coming up at the next corner. I stood
still while a pair of cops clip-clopped past me on their horses, then I
slid next to the trash can and eased the wallet out of my pocket.
It had been an afterthought anyway. I was almost ready
to roll him over the edge when something occurred to me: the longer it
takes them to figure out who he is the less likely they’ll make any
progress figuring out who dumped him--assuming there’s anything left
of him when he bobs back up next spring.
So I went through his pockets till I found his wallet,
and now, when I was sure no other cops were lurking around, I tipped it
into the trash can. I didn’t even check to see if I was throwing away
any money. I almost hoped I was. It wasn’t about money. It was about
art.
And it was about the day I walked into my place, the
place I was paying the rent on, the place I’d invited Pete to crash,
with no clue I’d see Jen’s eyes staring at me over Pete’s naked
shoulder while his hips kept up that steady rhythm. I didn’t think he
had that kind of rhythm in him, to tell you the truth. Pete’s sense of
time always sucked, in spite of all the help I gave him. Yeah, two geeky
guitar nerds huddled in a basement in Nowhere, Pennsylvania.
So the wallet’s gone and on to the Isis then, a
bogus-looking place really. No wider than a store front,
facade a collage of wood, metal, and pottery shards that’s supposed to
look Egyptian, with a crescent moon and beetle made out of gilded wood
scraps tacked up over the door. I don’t know if it’s even there
anymore.
The doorman could have been a stand-in for Arnold
Schwartzenegger--back like he looked then, not like he is now.
Everything changes so much.
I tried to shove past him, muttering “I’m with the
band,” even though I wasn’t--yet. But he didn’t buy it.
“Which band, bud?” he said, edging sideways so he
filled up the whole door. “I know you’re not in Stone Cool ‘cause
I never seen you with ‘em and I been workin’ here since summer. An’
Death Dragon is already playin’.” He rubbed a huge thumb against a
couple of huge fingers like he was fingering an imaginary bill. “Everybody
pays.”
I had to turn away so he wouldn’t see my hands while I
fumbled in my wallet for a five. Then I slid the bill onto the edge of
the table and pulled my hand away quick.
But he was waving a rubber stamp at me, saying, “Gotta
stamp your hand.” I knew that was part of the drill. You had to get
your hand stamped in case you wanted to go out and come back in again. I
always thought it looked like everybody was walking around with
glow-in-the-dark
one-handed stigmatas, or however you make the plural.
“It’s OK,” I said. “I’m allergic.” I had my
hands jammed in my pockets again.
“Music’s in the back,” he grunted, like it wasn’t
obvious from the waves of sound pulsing behind the black curtain at the
end of the room.
“I know,” I said. I’d been there every week for
the past month, just checking things out and making my plans, ever since
Jen told me about the A&R guy. The first week I showed up in
sunglasses with my hair tucked under a stocking cap. Needn’t have
worried though. The place was so crowded and so dark Pete wouldn’t
have recognized me anyway, and so what if he did. I wasn’t on his
radar screen anymore. That’s when I realized about the songs though.
The Stone Cool songs were my songs.
When I called him that morning to ask if he was still
selling weed, if I could drop by before the gig and score a bag, he didn’t
even realize I’d been standing in that crowd listening hard every week
for the past month to what Stone Cool had done to my songs.
I pushed my way past the bar, past the screen flickering
with some cheesy porn film, past the transvestite gyrating on a little
platform, and through the curtain into the room where the music was. So
dark it was like walking into a cave, a cave with a bright spot at the
end--that was the stage, with Death Dragon churning out waves of
distortion--and weirdly glowing constellations all around on the walls
and ceiling, part of the Egyptian theme.
I pushed my way up to the hallway at the corner of the
stage, shoved the toilet door open, leaned over the little sink, and
while the floor reverberated with Death Dragon’s bass and drums, took
care of my hands. After I got them cleaned off, I leaned my gig bag
against the urinal, took off my jacket, ran the faucet in each pocket
for a second or two, and swabbed the pockets out with toilet paper that
was tinted pink when I flushed it down the toilet.
Right away when I came back out I saw Mona. I knew so
much about her too, just from watching, knew she was pals with the band.
She was going to be my foot in the door, and she didn’t have a clue
who I was.
She was squeezing through the crowd with a couple of
open beer bottles in each hand, a little chick, almost too skinny, with
a pile of black hair on top of her head.
“Get you something?” she mouthed. It was too loud
for talk. I pointed at one of the beers.
She came back with my beer just as the set ended. “Do
you play somewhere?” she said, nodding at my gig bag.
“Just came from a show,” I said and took a closer
look at the face under all that hair. The eyes were big and wide with
lots of smudgy black stuff around them, and the mouth was little and
red. Kind of cute. I’d never seen her this close before.
She batted the eyes at me and shaped the mouth into a
smile so flirty it was almost a parody. “Are you any good?”
“Maybe.”
Her eyes drifted toward the edge of the stage and I
followed them. A guy with good teeth and glossy black curls was giving
her a mock salute. He wore black jeans and a black T-shirt. That was
really the uniform back then.
“You know that guy?” I said, even though I already
knew the answer.
“Mike Talbot? He’s in Stone Cool, but we go way
back,” she said, pausing to sweep the room with her eyes. “Way back.”
A tiny crease had appeared between her eyebrows.
“Looking for somebody?”
“Um?” She was still scanning the room.
I knew who she was looking for and I could have told her
where he was, but that wasn’t part of the plan.
I’ve always been a guy that liked to plan. That’s
how I got out of Nowhere, Pennsylvania. Two hours from New York City but
it might as well have been another universe. Day I graduated high school
I was on the bus, a week later I was gigging every night. Then Pete
showed up, followed me to the city, so worshipful at first, and
tiptoeing around Jen like she was a goddess. I was writing my songs too,
a pile of them, waiting for the right band. . . .
I snapped back to the present when I noticed Mike Talbot
strolling toward us.
“How ya doin’?” Mona said when he got closer, and
she gave him a quick peck on the cheek.
“Great. Pete should be showin’ up any minute, huh?”
“He’ll be here,” Mona said. “This is the big
night. And in case he doesn’t--” She winked at me. “Here’s a
sub.”
Mike Talbot laughed. “Don’t make me nervous.” He
scanned me up and down. “What do you play?”
“Blues, rock. . . . I could probably play your tunes.
I’ve heard you guys a lot and I catch on quick.”
“Been playing a long time?”
“All my life, man.”
“Plenty of bands in the city lookin’ for guys. You’ll
find something.”
“I expect I will,” I said. “I expect I will.”
He drifted back toward the stage and pretty soon a guy
in a suit appeared at Mona’s elbow, about my dad’s age, but shorter
and bulkier than my dad, with pale eyes in a rosy face and pale hair
that flared up from his forehead.
“Hey, Dave,” Mona said, turning to him. “How you
doing?”
“Terrific,” he said. He was scanning the room, a
broad smile on his face, eyes glittering. “Those guys weren’t bad.”
“Wait’ll you hear Stone Cool,” she said.
The eyes glittered in my direction. “You play?” he
said. I nodded. “Here.” It was a business card, offered by a smooth
hand with narrow, well-kept nails. I squinted at the writing; it said,
“David Junker, Artists and Repertoire,” and it listed one of the big
record labels.
Bingo. But I kept calm.
“Scouting new bands?”
“Something like that.” He reached for my hand and
gave it a quick twist. “I gotta say hello to a couple more people.”
His eyes glittered at me for a minute and he was gone.
You took the best, you might as well take the rest. That’s
what I figured first. Pete’s got Jen. And he doesn’t even want her.
And what I see in her eyes when she looks at him turns me inside out.
One night when I was still trying to act like a grownup about the
situation, we showed up together for some gig of Pete’s, before the
whole Stone Cool thing started. We spill out of the club afterwards and
she’s standing next to me on Bleecker, her face half dark half bright
in the neon glare of a beer sign.
“Jen--” I can hear my voice twisting. “Please come
back.”
“Pete’s gonna be a star,” she says. That was the
first time she said it, high as a satellite, her eyes glowing like she’s
got two little stars in there.
I walk away and in my mind I see myself teaching that
sonofabitch his first chord.
So let him take my tunes. He’s got everything else.
But then later I changed my mind.
Death Dragon hauled their equipment off the stage, and
Stone Cool, minus one crucial member, got busy setting up --huge
pearlized drum kit flanked by a couple of Marshalls; wires snaking this
way and that on the stage floor; turquoise bass leaning against an amp
on one side; a black Strat leaning against an amp on the other; and an
extra amp. Pete’s amp.
The musicians were standing in a little knot by the
stage, Mike Talbot and a tall skinny platinum-blond guy in black leather
pants and a squat guy that looked like a truck driver.
I checked my watch; it was midnight. Then I felt a
little motion at my elbow.
He was about my height, with a shrewd face and a few
raggedy sprouts of hair poking up over his brow. Behind his ears, longer
strands fell to his shoulders. Right now he looked worried, and as we
talked, his left hand jingled the cluster of keys at his belt.
“Pete’s a little late,” he said to nobody in
particular.
“This is Joe Finn,” Mona said. “He runs this
place.”
“Yeah, how ya doin’,” he said without looking at
me. “I’ve seen you around.”
Next thing I knew, Mike Talbot was back. “Pete didn’t
call with any kind of message, did he?” he said with a frown.
“I didn’t talk to him,” Joe said. He looked at
Mona. “Doll, do me a favor and check over there with Sal--” He
nodded toward the bar. “Ask him if anybody called about Stone Cool.
And bring me a beer when you come back.”
Mike Talbot was chewing on his lip like he was about to
bite it off. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He looked
around wildly. “That guy’s gone. The A&R guy’s gone.”
Joe Finn let a hand rest on Mike’s shoulder and slide
down his arm. “Settle down.” He pointed toward one of the few tables
in the room, pushed off in a corner near the bar. Dave Junker was
nursing a beer and looking distracted.
“He’s gonna leave though,” Mike said. “I worked
for this for five fuckin’ years and that fuckin’ Pete-- Where the
hell is he?”
I could’ve told him, but that wasn’t part of the
plan. A few minutes passed, and then Dave Junker wasn’t sitting at his
table anymore. He was standing between me and Mike Talbot. “Look, man,”
he was saying, “I don’t do these late nights for my health anymore--”
“No,” Mike gasped, almost desperate. “The set
starts in thirty seconds.” He signaled to the guys up by the stage and
yelled, “Let’s hit.”
Dave Junker looked puzzled. “I thought Stone Cool was
a four-piece band--”
“We are.” I felt myself being propelled toward the
stage as fingers dug into my elbow. “It’s all blues,” Mike Talbot
hissed in my ear. “Just try to keep track of the changes. Or turn your
volume down and fake it.”
By the time I got back to my car that night, I was a
bona fide member of Stone Cool, and we had a recording date scheduled in
three days. It’s become kind of the folklore of the band now, the sub
that made good. I never saw anything in the news about Pete’s body
turning up, and since the band really started taking off after that,
nobody even had time to be all that curious about where he disappeared
to.
You can get really depressed if you dwell on how
heartless people are.
Copyright 2007 by
Peggy Ehrhart
Peggy Ehrhart
is a former English professor now writing full time. A member
of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime, she is the author of
a
prize-winning nonfiction book, many articles, and short stories
published
or forthcoming in FMAM, Crime and Suspense, Flashing in the Gutters,
Mysterical-E, Spinetingler, and numerous anthologies. She won
first prize
in the 2005 FMAM Flash Fiction contest, second prize in the 2005 Deadly
Ink
short-story contest, and third prize in the 2006 Deadly Ink short-story
contest. Her blues mystery, SWEET MAN IS GONE, will be out next
year from Five Star.
