Moody Food (18 page)

SO WE WERE going to be rock-and-roll stars.

Colin wined us and dined us underneath a cloudless blue noonday sky on as many macrobiotic munchies as we wanted with all the wheat germ–supplemented fresh fruit smoothies we could drink to wash it all down. Occasionally making his point with the aid of an expensive-looking silver pen and a hardbacked small black notepad, Colin reiterated to us all (Slippery, begging off and sleeping in, excluded) how special he thought the Duckhead Secret Society was, why Electric Records was the right record
company for what we were trying to do with our music, and all the many things he and Electric could do for us and our career.

Career. Yeah. You start out liking what you hear on some records and say to yourself, “That's cool, I'd like to do that, too,” and the next thing you know somebody's encouraging you to have a side order of stewed okra and tomatoes with cilantro and your second Very Berry Cantaloupe Shake on their nickel and talking about recording studios and touring schedules and advance money. Advance money, that's right. “Hello money,” Colin called it. Five thousand dollars, half now, half when our album came out. Actual dollars and cents for what you'd be doing with your friends for free anyway.

Because all at once the counterculture was big business and American record companies were sniffing around under every rock-and-roll rock looking for new product to meet the day-glo demand and make those cash registers go ching-ching. Over the course of the afternoon Colin did his job, won over even doubting Thomas regarding his honest appreciation for his tunes and our sound. But even he thought it was important that Electric's publicity department have a “hook” to hang the band's music on if we wanted to start a “buzz” going in “the industry” and “get people talking.”

Thomas let it be known he wasn't real fond of hooks.

“Country-rock,” he spat, tilting back in his chair, arms locked across his chest. “So what you're saying is that you think we could be your very own back-home Herman's Hermits.”

Colin took a bite of his granola.

“Maybe you'd like us to do a honky-tonk version of ‘Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter,'” Thomas said. “Maybe call it ‘Mrs. Brown I Reckon You've Got a Lovely Daughter, Ma'am.' Get yourself a crossover novelty hit on the pop
and
country charts.”

Colin smiled politely. “It's only a label, Thomas,” he said. “Just a way for people to get a handle on what you're trying to do. You can only accomplish so much by touring. We need to do all we can on the publicity end as well.”

“How much touring?” Christine said.

We were holding hands and playing footsies underneath the table. Although completely straight, we both giggled like brain-bruised stoners every time one of us ordered up something else to eat or drink courtesy of Electric Records. And the sun was shining and somebody wanted to sign us to a record contract.

“To begin with, not much, a couple of months, just long enough to get your name out there and get you used to being on the road. But don't worry. After the album comes out and we start working the media, we'll have you busier than you've ever been.”

Christine let go of my hand and lit a cigarette.

Thomas leaned forward, the front two legs of his chair smacking flat on the cement patio. He peeled off his shades. “You want a label?” he said. “All right. How about Good Music? How about Honest Music? How about Music with Integrity? How about those for labels?”

“Every one of them would be true,” Colin said. “Unfortunately, we're still going to need something to act as a point of departure for people not as musically sophisticated as you. Something to capture their imagination and make them want to try to understand what at first might seem a bit out of the ordinary.”

“Interstellar North American Music,” I piped in, sucking up the last of my shake.

Colin spooned some more granola and considered, repeated the phrase aloud.

“Is that yours, Bill?” he said. “Did you come up with that on your own?”

I shook my head and continued noisily slurping, thumbed at Thomas getting a light from Heather.

“I like it,” Colin said. “Edgy new attitude meets rootsy music to make something exciting but traditional at the same time. I like it.”

I licked my strawberry-coated straw clean.

“Another shake, Bill?” Colin said.

“Don't mind if I do, Colin.”

Thomas looked at Heather.

“Darlin',” he said, “I do believe we've created a monster.”

“I THOUGHT YOU'D like them,” I said.

“I do like them,” Christine said. “It's just that I think you bought them more for you than for me.”

“I bought them for us. So we'd have our own pair when we're on the road.”

“For when we're on the road.”

“Yeah. What if we end up in Bumfuck, Idaho, on a Sunday night and feel like, you know? This way we're prepared.”

We both looked down at the pair of fire-engine red stilettos still wrapped in white tissue paper, the opened shoebox on Christine's lap. Foreplaying around, suave guy that I was, I'd leaned over the edge of my bed and pulled them out from underneath, hoping to surprise Christine with the $49.99 gift. It was the first time in months that we'd had time just to lie in the sack all afternoon and smoke some grass and listen to records and fool around. Only the fooling around part wasn't going so well, even before the red-light stilettos had slowed things down to a complete stop.

Just before the appearance of the heels, after what'd seemed like hours of me trying to kiss and caress a limp-bodied mannequin
to life, Christine'd softly stroked my damp hair as I lip-walked my way down her belly and said, “I'm having my period. Come here and lie with me for a while.” I'd just smiled my seductive best and decided to concentrate my attention on every other part of her that wasn't off limits. It wasn't difficult. The only good thing about not seeing your girlfriend naked for weeks and weeks was finding out all over again what she looked like. And now we had all the time we needed to do all the rediscovering we wanted.

Because contracts had been signed. A mini-American tour culminating in an L.A. showcase at the Whisky A Go Go was in the planning as we spoke. Studio time was being reserved for us two months in advance so that by the time we got to California after as many months on the road we'd be tighter than an ill-strung banjo and ready to lay down twelve of our best tunes. And Colin had cut us the first half of our advance and told us to go out and spend some money and put our affairs in order before we left Canada. Because our first show was in Flint, Michigan, in five days.

Christine put the lid back on the shoebox and set it down on the floor beside the bed, pulled all the blankets up to her neck. Although it was already the last week of September, the fan was going back and forth full blast and it was still warm enough to not even need a single sheet, let alone the duvet. But she sank down low under the bunch of them anyway.

“Tell me again what Kelorn said when you told her about not being back until December,” she said.

I was naked and lying on top of the covers on principle. If she was going to interrupt our long-postponed lovemaking to gab about my boss, I was going to make damn sure she knew I wasn't in any mood for cuddling. I tried to ignore the itch of the wool blanket on my ass.

“Like I said before, nothing, she's cool about it. She understands what we're trying to do.”

“And you'll have your job when you get back?”

“If I'll want it back, sure. But who knows? By then our album will be ready to come out and Colin says if everything goes as planned we'll be back on the road again by the end of January.”

Christine stood up, stepped into her black panties, tugged on my flung white T-shirt, and got back into bed. She snuggled herself on top of the blankets next to me with her head resting on my chest. I kept my hands at my sides and didn't put my arm around her; licked my lips, cramped from all my fruitless kissing, dry from too much speed.

“Mariposa's in two weeks,” she said.

“Yeah, well, I think we'll manage to get by without seeing Judy Collins live and in the flesh.”

“And the Diggers are helping to put together a new round of protests. I think awareness is high enough now to really make it work this time.”

“Can't you let somebody else save the planet for a change? You're allowed to have a life, too, you know.”

Christine slid off me and onto her side. “Meaning you don't think I have a life now?”

“That's not what I said.”

“Meaning that trying to stop the exploitation of the village isn't as worthy a life goal as riding across America in a cramped hearse?”

“Take it easy, all I said was—”

“Bill, I'm not even sure I
want
to go on tour.”

I sat up, grabbed a pillow, and placed it between my legs.

“What do you mean you're not sure you want to go on tour?” I said. “We've already told Colin we're ready to go. We've already signed the contract. You've already cashed your part of the cheque.”

“I've read the contract over three times,” she said, “and technically, all it says I have to do is be a part of the album we're supposed to make. And I haven't cashed the cheque yet.” She leaned
over and pulled a folded piece of paper from the back pocket of her jeans on the floor.

I registered the unfurled, uncashed cheque. “I don't get it,” I said. “For months we have to play that shit hole the Canada Tavern every night for nobody but Leone and six drunks. And then along comes the kind of deal any young band would die for and you're talking about throwing it all away.”

“Maybe I'm not as excited as you are because being one of Thomas's musical puppets isn't exactly how I see my life unfolding.”

“Is that how you see me? As one of Thomas's puppets?”

She didn't say anything, just folded the cheque in two and put it back in her jeans. I looked out the window at the brick wall across the alley gleaming red in the bright afternoon sun. The same album we'd been listening to all day at Christine's insistence, Dylan's first, played on.

“This is kind of sudden, isn't it?” I said.

“Not really, no. I suppose if I really think about it, it's kind of been in the back of my mind for a while now. I mean, I don't even know what's going on in Yorkville any more, Bill, I don't talk to anyone but you guys. Did you know they're thinking about instituting a 10 p.m curfew?”

In spite of myself, “Jesus Christ,” I said.

“Yeah. Neither did I. I had to read it about it in the
Telegram
. I mean, how pathetic is that?”

Side two was finished and Christine got up to flip over the album. She cued up the second to last song on the side, her favourite, “Song to Woody.”

“But I understand how these things happen,” she said. “You get started on something and you want to see it through and you want to do it right and then one thing leads to another and before you know it those bastards down at city hall have decided they've got the right to decide what time your bedtime is.” She
grabbed her cigarettes and lighter from her bag and climbed back into bed.

“The more I think about it, the more I think that's why I wanted to have everybody down the other night to hear us play. Let's face it, we're not going to get any better than we are right now, we're as tight as we're ever going to be, no amount of touring is going to make that happen. So maybe my organizing the other night was my way of fading things out in style.”

She flicked her ash into an empty Coke bottle.

“But then Colin came along and there was all this excitement and everything got sort of crazy for a while and I guess I kind of got caught up in it, too. But now that the smoke's cleared a bit it's forced me to be honest with myself. Which is good, I guess.”

We were both leaning up against the wall now, each of us staring straight ahead at the wall opposite, blank but for a small black-and-white picture of a fuzzy-cheeked Dylan Christine had pinned up around the time we'd met. I'd wanted her to feel as comfortable crashing over as I could and had told her to consider my place hers. One night after one of her Riverboat gigs she took the picture and a tack out of her bag and stuck the thing up. “Bob Dylan,” she'd said. “Patron Saint of No Bullshit. This'll help keep us honest. Let us pay our respects.” We'd tumbled onto the unmade bed and worshipped in our fashion, just like He would have wanted.

“Don't get me wrong,” she said. “I've had fun. I've had fun playing with you three creeps.” She smiled, put her hand on my bare thigh.

Fun
. There was that word again.

“We're going to make an album of Thomas's songs, Chris. An album. Think about that. Imagine how many people we can reach once we have our own LP. Pretty soon everybody'll be in the studio full-time because everybody will be able to get their message
across in crystal-clear sound in a million bedrooms and living rooms and basements all across the world every time a needle drops onto a record. Colin says we need to tour now to get our name around and build up word of mouth and plug the first record, but maybe in a couple of years—”

“A couple of years! Bill ...”

She took a final drag on her half-smoked cigarette before crushing it out on the inside lip of the bottle. Looked at me through her last exhale of smoke.

“It's funny, you know?” she said. “I always thought it would be me.”

“No, I don't know. What are you talking about?”

“That I'd be the one who knew.”

“For Chrissake, Chris, c'mon, this is important, talk sense. Knew what?”

“Knew, knew. Just ...
knew
.”

I tossed off my pillow, pulled on my underwear, and rifled through the layer of dirty clothes on the floor for a T-shirt. “Remind me never to smoke pot with you when we're talking about our relationship, okay?” I found a reasonably clean dirty shirt and pulled it on over my head.

“I guess maybe I'm even a little jealous,” she said.

I took a deep breath and sat down on the bed beside her, took both her hands in mine.

“Chris, I really don't know what you're talking about, I really don't. And honestly, I don't care. All I know is I want us to do this.”

“I'm not saying you shouldn't go,” she said, squeezing my hands. “I'd never want to stand in the way of someone doing what they feel they have to do. Never.”

“But I want
us
to do it. I can't even imagine doing it without you.”

She placed her hand on the back of my neck, scratched me there gently. “You will,” she said.

“But I don't want to.”

She pulled my head toward hers and kissed me, softly. “You're sweet,” she said. Then she kissed me again, through my underwear rubbed my only-now finally deflated cock.
Now
she wants to screw, I thought. Against the better judgement of the lower half of my body I took back my lips and stopped her roaming hand.

“Two months,” I said. “Let's just give it two months. I mean, two months—that's sixty days! That's nothing! Think of it as a chance to check out how some other communities are dealing with all the stuff that's starting to go down in Yorkville. Think of it as research! And we'll be back in plenty of time for Christmas. And by then, if you decide what we're doing isn't for you, that you've got better things to do with your time, then fine, that's it, we'll both pack it in. I'll tell Thomas myself, I swear. He'll understand. He'll have to. He knows how much you mean to me.”

The record scudded to its end again, but neither of us made a move to change it. Christine took my head in her hands and kissed both my eyelids. “You really are sweet,” she said. She tugged her T-shirt over her head. “Lift up,” she said, taking hold of mine at the bottom. “I want to feel you next to me.”

Then she pushed me back onto the bed and her skin was my skin and we finished what we'd started.