Sweeter Life (26 page)

With a blink, the lights in the hall went out, and Izzy caught her breath. She couldn’t see anything but the little red dots of the console, the green glow of the amplifier meters, and then—and this sent a ripple of excitement through the crowd—the bob and weave of flashlights leading the band onstage. People began to cheer and whistle as, one by one, the flashlights made their flickering way off to the side of the stage again. Then, out of the darkness, a voice: “All this way. All this time. And now you’re here. And we’re here. Like it was meant to be. So put your groove in motion. Put your heart in gear and give it up for the man, little doggies. Put your hands together and give a great big T.O. welcome to
The Jimmy Waters Revival!”

A blaze of lights, a blast of sound, a change so sudden and fundamental it’s as though the increments of daybreak have been fused into one brilliant moment. A thousand fists salute, a thousand voices lift in greeting, some people already on their feet and making their way to the front of the stage.

There is colour and noise and action. A great bear of a man in a black leather suit lumbers up and down the stage, whipping the crowd into a higher frenzy whenever he approaches. The drummer on his riser, a man consumed with fever, thrashes out a rhythm with his arms and legs, body and head. Another man, pouchy and grizzled, crouches like a
bandito
behind his barricade of keyboards. And another, surrounded by toys—conga and clacker, whistles and wood blocks, rattles and shakers, gourds and gongs—leaps up and down to the beat like a diver on a high board. A woman, Cyrus’s friend, half-dances and half-glides about the stage in a leotard and skirt too delicate for words.

At first Izzy can’t find Cyrus. It’s all too confusing. But then she spies him between the drummer and percussionist. He’s dressed in white, his hair a golden swirl, his mouth a thin red line. He seems far too serious for a night so bright, as though each note is a matter of grave importance. The drummer twirls his sticks. The singer rants and rages. The percussionist urges the crowd to clap along. But Cyrus is still, contained, rooted to his spot onstage. Izzy loves his little mannerisms: the way he fusses with the knobs of his guitar, the nod of his head before he begins a solo and the way he
rubs his nose when he finishes. Every now and then he bends slightly forward, not in any pattern but with a secret rhythm, and she thinks of a flame atop a slender candle, sensitive to every whisper and breeze.

As one song follows another, she begins to settle back in her seat. She brings the lights up or down on command. She begins to understand which sounds belong to Cyrus. It is all too loud, of course. Any other time she would cover her ears. But this is invigourating, like standing outside in a summer storm and not giving a damn if she gets wet.

And what could compare to the final song of the night, a long bluesy number about Erie, Pennsylvania, and family abuse and a big old radio. Near the end, the singer falls to his knees, his hand stretched out like he’s touching a wall. Right on cue the stage lights wink out, and a single spotlight focuses on Cyrus as he plays a solo so eerie and echoed and high above their heads, like lightning, like northern lights, that it gives Izzy goose-bumps. Then one by one, two by two, and finally hundreds upon hundreds of hands rise from the crowd, each hand grasping a lighter, each lighter sending up a single quivering flame, a sight so beautiful and tender it takes her breath away.

Hank’s experience is different. He has looked forward to this night, and knows the music as well as anyone. But the volume, the press of all these bodies and the significance of what he’s doing are too much, the way the soothing murmur of voices can be raised to a level and intensity that becomes a weapon. The bass notes sound like thunder and pummel, the snare drum a thousand slamming doors, the guitar and keyboard needles and pain. With each song he slumps lower in his chair. He closes his eyes and forgets about the knob that controls Cyrus’s volume. When the last notes have echoed, when the house lights have come up, he remains perfectly still, drawn into himself until the storm has passed.

AFTER CYRUS HAD SIGNED AUTOGRAPHS
and posed for pictures, he found Isabel and Hank near the mixing board. It was clear from the look on Izzy’s face that there was no point in trying to tell her how poorly they had played; she wouldn’t believe him. Instead he let her splutter and exclaim until her fervour abated. Hank didn’t say much at all. Mr. Tough Guy.

Izzy suggested they stop for drinks at the hotel room she had rented. So they hopped into the Mercedes and headed for the Royal York. On the way, Cyrus heard the latest: Clarence had regained some weight; Ruby was as strong as a horse; Blackie had died; Benny Driscoll had built a mansion north of town; and Janice had spent the summer in Italy with one of her instructors. About herself, Isabel said that life was treating her well—and that much was evident from the Mercedes. When Cyrus asked her if there was a man in her life, she smiled and said, “Several.”

At the hotel they ordered beer and munchies, then kicked off their shoes. Being together had stopped feeling like some crazy dream and begun to seem a natural possibility.

Hank lifted his bottle. “Cheers, kid. You’re a real star.”

Cyrus waved his arm in the air before anyone could drink. “No, forget that,” he said. “I didn’t even play well. It’s you, Hank. It’s your day. I mean, it’s historic.”

Isabel raised her bottle to both toasts, but anyone studying her face would have seen the shadow of restraint, the hint of pain. Neither of them had toasted her. But then they wouldn’t, would they? It was always the same, the two boys seeing each other, understanding each other, and giving no thought to her. It was the way of the world. People focused on the extremes and paid no attention to what really mattered—the good and the decent and the selfless.

The more she drank, the gloomier she felt. Cyrus did all the talking, telling them about the things he’d done, the places he’d been, the lessons he was learning about music and life. She was surprised at how self-obsessed he’d become, how insensitive. Every one of his stories seemed to deflate Hank a little more.

Unable to stand it any longer, she brought her beer bottle down with a
thunk
, and said, “Well, Cy, that’s enough about us, what about you?”

He flinched at the sarcasm and sat up straighter. “I thought you might find it interesting.”

“Baloney. You don’t give a hoot what we’re interested in.”

Cyrus squinted at her. “What’s your problem?”

“My problem,” she said, enunciating perfectly, “is that you’re full of yourself.”

Her face just then—the older-sister look, as if he was completely hopeless, completely useless—added a little heat to his next words. “You can’t
stand to hear how great my life is,” he said, “because it makes yours sound like shit. You’re jealous.”

She looked at Hank, who was fidgeting uncomfortably, and then back to Cyrus. In a cool, measured voice she said, “I don’t envy you at all. Right now I pity you because you don’t have any idea what you’re doing. If you did, you wouldn’t act this way.”

He nodded his head and got to his feet. “Just so you know, I’ll tell you what I’m doing, Iz. I’m walking out that door and going to my hotel. Tomorrow I’ll be back on the road making a name for myself, and before you know it, I’ll be rich and famous and you’ll be a fat middle-aged real estate agent in Wilbury who never did anything. Big deal. And then we’ll see who’s acting right and who’s acting wrong.” He clapped his brother on the shoulder and walked out of the room.

When Hank said, “I wish he could take me with him,” Isabel threw a handful of ice cubes at his head.

CYRUS TOOK A CAB
to the Park Plaza and went straight to Eura’s room. His guitar was there; the pins and ink were on the bed. She had waited for him, even though it was late. She poured him a glass of wine, as she did every night, and they sat quietly awhile.

For two years now he’d been her accomplice, helping tattoo the hard-to-reach areas. In return he was allowed to watch her work. He knew better than to expect a show of skin; she went about her business in a modest way, opening her robe just enough so she could concentrate on the chosen area: a flower here, a bit of vine, a red berry. What brought him back each night was the feeling of intimacy. Not only had she shown him her secret and enlisted his help, she had grown increasingly comfortable in his presence. They often sat for hours, Eura bent over some part of her body, Cyrus absently exploring the fretboard, and chatted amiably about the silliest things, like an old married couple after dinner. Twice since Wilbury he had spent the whole night with her, but both times were innocent, with Eura hugging him from behind and holding his hands in hers.

She dipped a finger into her wine, brought it to her lips and said, “It is too late to work now. Tell me about your night with your brother and sister.
Were they very impressed?”

He didn’t have the courage to mention the argument. He couldn’t bear for her to think poorly of him. Instead he said, “More shocked than anything, I guess.” Then, needing to say something truthful, he began to tell her about Hank—the troubled boy on the marsh, the hardened criminal at Portland Penitentiary, the broken man of Willbourne. And in saying the words out loud for the very first time, Cyrus realized what a sad story it was, how sorry he felt for Hank, for Izzy, for all of them.

He turned out the lights and sat on the floor with his guitar. It was becoming a minor-chord kind of night, and every song he played sounded with heartbreak. Every phrase had a face and a history and a sense of loss. Sometimes a note would shimmer, a single note, and try as he might he could find nothing that followed, and it would hang there, growing sadder by the moment, until it fell of its own weight.

Finally Eura said, “This music is too full of tears for so late at night. How am I supposed to sleep?”

In reply he put aside his Les Paul, kicked off his clothes and crawled under the blankets, not with his bottom tucked against her but sliding into her embrace, their lips and bellies and hips aligned. This time she put up no argument but matched him sadness for sadness. When at last they were still, he nuzzled her ear and said, “From now on, no more tears.” And she hugged him with all her might and wondered how anyone could be so young.

Next morning when she awoke, Cyrus was on the floor again, tooling around with his guitar. She smiled uncertainly. “Play a happy song,” she said. And without a second’s hesitation, he launched into “Waitin’ on You.” This time he even scatted along:

Her smile broadened as she propped herself up on one elbow. “What kind of song is this to sing, ‘dweedy-eedy oodle-ee-doo’?”

He thought a moment and, after a few false starts, came up with two lines of his own:

Eura fell back on her pillow, unaware that something significant had sounded in the room. But Cyrus looked at his guitar, at his fingers and then over to the soft snuggled form of his heart’s desire. He wasn’t sure what had happened, either, but he knew something somewhere had shifted, as clear and fundamental as a switch from sleep to wakefulness. He took a deep breath and tried again. Ten minutes later he had it.

WHILE CYRUS AND EURA MADE LOVE
, Ronnie huddled on the floor
of his hotel room and sipped a tin of milk. He had just spoken to Delmore Hinton, an agent in the U.K., who had called to confirm that the band was booked on
Top of the Pops
, with a tour to follow starting in six weeks. Even better, the latest single was number eight on the BBC.

The news didn’t surprise him. It was all a matter of faith, he figured, ever-widening circles of belief. Jim’s solo had created a believer in Ronnie. Ronnie then broadened the circle to include Sonny and Tony and Chuck and Eura. It came to include Adrian and Kerry and the rest of the crew, young Cyrus and Nate Wroxeter. The record company believed. Now, two albums later, the circle continued to expand with each concert, with every record sold, a growing army of believers out there, the faithful. If anything surprised Ronnie these days, it was how easy it had been to set a world in motion. The hard part would be to step back and, in a Seventh Day frame of mind, savour what he’d done. Because if there was a problem, it was this: he had no vocabulary for bliss, no grammar or syntax, and the words he did have were worth nothing at all. One might as well use numbers and equations to describe a sunset.

So what do you do when a dream comes true? Do you laugh? Do you cry? Do you gibber like a monkey? Or do you sit on a scratchy carpet in your boxer shorts, aching with the loneliness of a young god?

He could pick up the phone and order anything he desired—food, drugs, sex—but where was the sense in that? Instead he got to his feet and turned on his cassette player. He owned only the one tape, which held but one song. He stood there with his head bowed, his eyes closed, and listened, scarcely breathing.

F
or most of his life, Clarence had dedicated himself to avoiding change, or at least minimizing it, his life a constant battle with blights and bugs, jet stream and market. He and his father and grandfather had created acres of identical fruit by grafting each tree by hand. He knew exactly when to prune and spray and thin, and he never wavered from his duties.

His efforts to maintain the status quo were grounded in an appreciation of risk, of what was at stake when things went awry. He had crop insurance for freak hailstorms and May frosts. He read every bulletin from the Department of Agriculture. Lately he had taken to buying futures contracts on Chicago Mercantile, which cost him a few pennies here and there per bushel but were a sensible hedge against a blind drop in prices. And although he never in his wildest dreams worried about losing the farm (he’d have to be a complete fool to foul up an enterprise as successful as Orchard Knoll), he worried about falling short of the mark. He was the third Mitchell to work this farm, and all his life he’d admired the efforts of his father and grandfather. He’d inherited good land, good trees, as generous a growing season as he would find in Canada. More than anything, he’d inherited a sense of natural responsibility. This was not just a job. He was the caretaker of a precious resource.