Drums: a Novel, Page 4

  We ended the jam, and Uwe happily resumed his spot on the keyboards. Seth scanned our new song list taped to his amp, and picked a song for us to try.

  Then for the first time I heard Abbey sing, and as she began, even Zoe looked up from the pages of The History of the Mideast. As Abbey’s voice delivered its first few notes of the evening, everyone, it seemed, shot me proud, welcoming signals. Here is the voice of Bandit, they said. Listen to her, Danny. Now you know the secret behind Bandit is Abbey Butler.

  * * *

  Jay Wong sat behind the cash register of “The Den,” or used albums and paraphernalia department, in Jetstream Records. There were several customers browsing in Jay’s area, flipping through alphabetized rows of thin, cardboard sheaths containing music magically pressed into vinyl. I didn’t have any extra cash for an album, even for one of Jetstream’s famous recycled records, but as I was driving home from class, I had an urge to see Jay.

  “Can I help you, sir?” Jay asked, his voice earnest and professional. Then he let on that he recognized me, raised his eyebrows, and let out a robust laugh. “Hey, Danny-dude, nice of you to stop by. Pretty intense to see old Jay in the work element, huh?”

  “A little,” I said.

  A short, gate-like door swung open. “Come on back,” he said. “Make yourself at home. Maybe you can help me sell some teeny bopper chick a fuckin’ Barry Manilow button?” He shot me a wise smile, the kind in which he strained his cheeks and exposed the silver caps on his eye teeth.

  A young boy appeared before the counter. “How much are those KISS posters, Mister?” he asked.

  “Six bucks,” Jay said.

  “How come so much?” The kid was pudgy and had a squeaky, pre-adolescent voice.

  Jay pointed to the poster of the bass player, dressed in black leather and iron and surrounded by a ring of fire and smoke. Face painted and his tongue flicking like a snake, the heavy-metal rocker looked both like a demon and a clown. “That’s pure art,” Jay said. “It takes money to make a bitchin’ picture like that. So you want it, or what?”

  “I think so,” the boy said.

  “I’d buy it now,” Jay advised. “I’ve been selling a lot of those. The stock’s runnin’ low.”

  The kid greedily bought four absurd-looking posters: one of each member of KISS.

  After the boy left I said, “His mother’s liable to come in here and make you eat those.”

  “I doubt it,” Jay replied. “He could be doing worse stuff than collecting that junk.” Jay paused. “Maybe he’ll end up being cool and playing in a band.”

  “You should have sent him across the street to buy some drums or a guitar.”

  “Whatever, dude,” Jay said. “When I was his age, I owned 113 rock ‘n’ roll posters, and ten of them were autographed.”

  “Oh,” I said. “What’s up for tonight?”

  It was Friday, and I was looking for something to do instead of study. Saturday night we all had plans. Bandit would be doing its debut gig with Abbey back on vocals.

  Jay didn’t answer. He was changing the “Now Playing” album, putting on some reggae. “Dig this,” he said.

  I preferred straightforward rock ‘n’ roll. Punk music was alright. Jazz was great. A little Mozart once in a while was nice, too, even if classical percussion was a bore. But I just couldn’t get into reggae.

  Jay said, “Not much happenin’ downtown. The groups that are booked tonight suck.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Just wait until tomorrow. We’ll spark things up.”

  Jay turned around and adjusted the volume of his reggae music so that it was even louder. It sounded like a mild earthquake was going on in the shop. “I’m going to stay home tonight. There’s some good movies on the tube. Abbey and Zoe are coming over.”

  “Do you and one of the girls have something going on?” I asked, jealous.

  “Nah,” he said, “we’re just good friends.”

  “Yeah, that’s how I thought it was,” trying to sound nonchalant.

  “The girls are a lot of fun, but they’re both on some weird head trips, especially Abbey. Don’t ever get on her bad side.”

  “I don’t plan to.”

  He looked at me squarely. Just because she’s beautiful doesn’t mean she isn’t dangerous. Keep that in mind, dude.”

  A part of me appreciated that Jay was trying to give me some advice; another part of me didn’t plan on paying any attention to it.

  “They asked me if you were coming over, but I thought you had a jazz band gig.”

  “There’s a gig all right, but I’m not with them anymore. Just quit. I decided one band is enough.”

  I had played with the Cal Poly Jazz Group for three years. The jazz band director was shocked when I told him I was quitting his group to devote all my musical energy to a rock band.

  “A person has to make sacrifices.”

  “Exactly.” I had sort of hoped Jay would think my leaving the jazz band was a big deal, but it didn’t seem to faze him.

  “If Stranglehold wasn’t busy, we could’ve practiced tonight. It’s cool, I guess. Frat stuff.”

  “Who are you talking about?”

  “Uwe, you donkey.”

  “Strangle—?”

  “Nobody’s told you about that?”

  “No,” I said.

  Jay turned down the reggae music so that we could talk without having to scream. “Check this out, man:

  “When Uwe first joined the band, he was living in the dorms, and he hated his roommate. They fought about everything and liked to do things to bug each other. One time Uwe went away for the weekend and his roommate rifled through all of Uwe’s stuff and stole some money. When Uwe got back he, like, went berserk and started choking the guy—till the guy passed out. A bunch of people had to pull Uwe off. He got in big trouble, man. They kicked him out of the dorms—almost out of school.

  “You know that old Ted Nugent song, ‘Stranglehold’?” Jay continued. “One time Seth and I jammed on it in front of him—you know, to burn him a little. It pissed him off royally. He freaked, it was scary.

  “Anyway, we still call him that when he’s not around. That fuckin’ donkey!”

  “I think I get the drift,” I said.

  “I probably shouldn’t have brought it up.”

  “I get the drift,” I repeated. I stroked my neck and smiled.

  Jay didn’t think the gesture was very funny. “Uwe’s not so bad,” he said. He’s loyal to the band, an original member, and most of the time he plays pretty well.” Jay’s voice grew more serious. “Personalities, dude. That’s one of the things that gives Bandit personality.”

  A customer approached the counter with a stack of record albums. Jay typed numbers into the cash register rhythmically, like he was playing bass.

  * * *

  All of us sat bug-eyed and stoned in the living room of 29 Orchid Street, tripping out on the Friday Night Special TV movie, The Wizard of Oz. Even Seth—who was more interested in quietly strumming the Martin acoustic guitar in his lap than watching the land of Oz—now kept his eyes glued on the television with Abbey, Zoe, Jay, and me.

  “The shoes, my pretty!” the Wicked Witch of the West cackled at Dorothy and her dog, Toto, who were desperately trapped in a gray, creepy castle after being captured by the hag’s henchmen, the evil flying monkeys. Again, the witch mocked p0or Dorothy with a shrill, wilting laugh, and taunted the farm girl heroine with long, bony, wavering green fingers. “The shoes, my pretty! The shoes!”

  Unable to make the girl yield, the infuriated witch sentenced Dorothy to die and flipped over the hourglass, giving the girl until the sand ran out. The witch’s pointy chin quivered as she screamed with delight. The sand was falling, falling. Then it was ….

  “I can’t stand it,” said Abbey.

  “Me neither,” said Zoe.

  Slumped over in the corner of the l
iving room, Seth softly strummed his Martin acoustic guitar. The girls were sitting back to back in the middle of the saggy couch. Jay and I sat on each end of the couch. Abbey rested her feet on my lap, and Zoe had her feet on Jay’s. I was in seventh heaven.

  The movie panned to the Lion, Tinman, and Scarecrow, scaling the witch’s mountain as they followed Toto to the rescue.

  “There’s my buddy again,” Jay said. “And I’ll rrufff! And I’ll rrufff!” Jay acted twelve years old each time he saw the Cowardly Lion. “This movie is bitchin’.”

  I reached down and squeezed Abbey’s bare foot, which was wiggling nervously in my lap. “Chop,” I said. “Chop goes the witch’s guillotine on fair Dorothy’s neck.”

  Jay filled the room with boogie man sounds.

  “You guys are so full of it,” Abbey said.

  Seth, who hadn’t said anything for a long time, agreed. “You guys are so full of shit, it’s leaking out your ears.”

  The movie cut. The television announced that the uninterrupted conclusion of The Wizard of Oz would follow a commercial break.

  “Popcorn?” Zoe asked, going around from person to person. Jay passed out more frosty bottled beers. We’d bought a case of unrefrigerated Brand-X lager on sale. The beer tasted better now that it wasn’t lukewarm.

  The commercials seemed like they would never end. Toothpaste. Motor oil. Soap. Insurance. A rosy-cheeked female athlete praised a new brand of tampons on the screen. Jay chuckled. Abbey took her seat and grabbed my chin. She centered my stare into hers. “Look into my eyes,” she told me. “Have you ever done this? The first person who blinks loses.”

  “What does the winner get?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” she replied. “It’s only a game.”

  Our faces less than a foot apart, Abbey’s mouth and eyes were bigger and even more consuming. I smelled her body more strongly, the rich scent of herbal perfume and traces of clove cigarettes.

  “Keep looking directly into my eyes,” she commanded. “Focus eye to eye.”

  I saw whiteness fragile as fish skin. I saw bands of multi-color, the many fragments of different shades of green, yellow, and brown—glistening like rocks underneath mountain water. I saw dark, living lenses. I knew they were looking back at me, yet my visual penetration stopped abruptly on the lenses’ round, wet slopes. I could not see into her mind. My eyes had gotten very dry. I blinked.

  “I won,” she said.

  She slapped me playfully on the cheek. “Wake up,” she said.

  My cheek stung.

  After The Wizard of Oz, the girls hung around some more and we watched The Tonight Show. As soon as Johnny Carson bid his guests good night, the girls said it was also time for them to go.

  Abbey and Zoe didn’t have a car. Jay had picked them up at their apartment and given them a ride over to his and Seth’s place.

  Abbey went into the kitchen to get her purse, and I followed her. She didn’t notice me behind her until she turned around and started back into the other room. “You scared me,” she said.

  “You want me to give you and Zoe a ride home?” I asked.

  “No, you don’t need to,” she said.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because Jay can drive us,” she replied. “You don’t have to.”

  “It’s easier for me,” I said. “Jay will have to make a special trip. I have to drive myself home anyway.”

  Abbey gave me a resigned look. She started to walk off, but stopped. She put her purse back on the counter.

  “Do you think I look like Judy Garland?” she asked.

  I wanted to say something clever. But Abbey didn’t look at all like Judy Garland to me.

  When I said nothing, she said, “I guess I don’t.”

  I thought for a minute. “I’ll tell you who you look like. You look like Marilyn Monroe.”

  “A blonde?” Abbey said incredulously. “My hair is brown.”

  “I mean you’re pretty like her.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  She picked up her purse and searched inside of it. She pulled out a makeup pencil and drilled it against her face. She did this so quickly I didn’t know what she was doing. When she removed her hand, I saw a perfect mole on her cheek. “Do you like it?” she asked.

  “Sure,” I said. When she did impetuous little things like that it drove me nuts.

  She took out a mirror and inspected her work. “Yes,” she said. “I like it, too.” She looked at herself some more in her compact, using the small mirror to compare one cheek with the other. “I should get Zoe. We have to go.”

  “I had fun tonight,” I said.

  “I always have fun,” she said.

  “Did you like the movie?” I asked.

  “I wish I lived in Oz,” she said, “instead of here. All they do in Oz is sing.”

  “Your mole looks really good,” I said. “I can’t believe how fast you drew it.”

  “Does it still look good?” she said. “That’s nice.”

  I could tell that all she wanted to do was go home. I should have stopped talking, but I didn’t. “Abbey,” I said, “I want to tell you something. I really like you. You’re a really fun girl to be with.”

  “Really?” she said.

  “Really,” I said.

  “A really fun girl to be with?” she said.

  “That’s right,” I said.

  She lit a cigarette and blew the first puff of smoke straight up like a steam kettle. “God,” she exclaimed, “the things young men say when they get horny. Tah-tah, Danny. I’ll see you tomorrow night.” She left with Zoe and Jay.

  I drank a couple more beers with Seth. I felt slightly better, after I had a chance to collect my thoughts.

  If romance was like music, which somehow I thought it was, then logic told me it was back to the basics. Back to Mr. Luck.

  Yes. I had gotten ahead of myself. Paradiddle. Friggin’ paradiddle, paradiddle.

  Abbey wanted a drummer. I’d show her a drummer. I knew the drill. First, I would have to make the rudiments sound as they are. Then I would move on….

  Chapter4

  The Dameon Inn

  Seated several tables away from mine, Abbey was faced so that I saw her striking profile. The lobe of one of her ears, sensuous as an orchid, peaked out from behind streaming brown hair; a silver loop pierced the small wedge of marvelous flesh; on the silver loop hung a single, weightless tropical feather. The dominant smell of Abbey’s clove cigarette accented the air in the cocktail lounge, and plumes of white smoke added to her profile’s mystique. Zoe sat across from Abbey. Curiously, Abbey was looking past Zoe into empty space. I could hear what they were saying.

  “Look at this silver dollar. It was minted in 1936,” said Zoe Cleopatra Hash, as she peered down at the top of their cocktail table, scrutinizing old coins which lay submerged under clear varnish, on a bottom of quaint red felt. Abbey’s spiritual sister—wearing, as always, a blouse with a sailboat monogrammed on the breast—was hunched over the low table. The tall girl’s back curved like a pretty palm tree; her short blonde hair grazed her cheeks.

  “I adore history—old places, old dates, old things,” Zoe continued. “Do you?”

  Abbey remained withdrawn. “Old what?”

  “History. Do you think about time?”

  “I think about San Francisco. I love mints.”

  “But about time, Abbey?” Zoe persisted. “Isn’t it weird to think about a place in time before you were born? About what people did back then?”

  Abbey straightened herself and put her elbows on the table. “Why must you look into plastic tidepools?” she asked.

  “The date on that silver dollar struck me. That’s all,” Zoe said.

  “You think too much.”

  “I do?”

  “No, I guess not. It’s just that I’ve never liked history,” Abbey told her friend. “Who cares about s
ilver dollars? I’d rather forget everything in the past.”

  “Oh, I see,” Zoe said. “Do you still love him?”

  “I love what he gave me. I can’t help it….”

  Paradiddle. Paradiddle.

  I vowed to let my feeling for Abbey lie submerged with Zoe’s silver dollar, for a while.

  I sipped my gin and tonic. My eyes roamed to a book of matches lying in an ashtray on my table. “The Dameon Inn,” the front flap read. The Inn’s name looked regal on gloss-white cardboard, each thick red letter outlined with a filament of gold paint. Everything about this place—attendants and waiters in their red, gold-trimmed suits, old paintings and white linen in the main dining room, bouquets of fresh-cut flowers in the restrooms—seemed to evoke a grand mood. It was the fanciest place in town. It reminded me of my father.

  We had come here to play our debut featuring the return of Abbey. A fraternity hired us to play their Spring Formal.

  Where I sat in the Stallion Cocktail Lounge, the corner stage was reserved for string quartets and big band jazz. Rock ‘n’ roll music was banished to the convention room downstairs. A lone man in a tuxedo sat at the piano on the stage, playing a classical-sounding tune—large chords boomed, blended, and rippled on the low keys, while a sharp, cutting melody played over the top in high notes. He seemed full of his song; he played it louder and louder. Conversations quieted, and the older set in the lounge listened appreciatively.

  Although the song was rearranged and made to sound classical, it was still one of our songs—a song for youth. The melody was John Lennon’s “Imagine.” Lennon had recently been gunned down. I wondered, was his song also a tune for the dead?

  * * *

  “Hey, bozo,” he said.

  “Hey, donkey,” I said.

  The piano player went back to Beethoven, and Uwe joined me at my table. This place is outstanding. When my folks come to town, I’m going to put them up here.”

  “I think it’s kind of stuffy.”

  “You’re just a lowly ‘band person,’” Uwe mocked. “You’re too scummy to appreciate a classy place like this …. Shit, some of my brothers and I ought to take that guy out to pasture and pound his heiny. That bald little maggot.”