AT 29 (5 page)

Myra left first. She was younger with many contacts on the outside. They kept in touch from time to time as he toughed it out for another year, not wanting to leave the only company he had ever known. He had a succession of bosses who came and went. Reorganization after reorganization failed to stem the downward financial spiral. People were laid off in huge numbers. Miles knew his days were numbered, too.

It came by voice mail. His latest boss was a marketing vice president who cared little for anyone lower on the totem pole. The curt, “We have to let you go,” intentionally left at night, long after Miles was gone for the day, was humiliating. Thirty-two years coldheartedly came to an end.

Over the next two years he alternated among uninteresting, dead-end jobs. He finally called it quits and retired altogether. A short time later, his wife, Anne, was diagnosed with cancer. She passed away in six months. Of the people who came to the funeral, only Myra was there from his long career. At the gravesite she gave him her card to keep in touch. Childless and long out of contact with his one sibling, Miles hit bottom.

He spent a year working around his house, trying to decide if he should keep it or move on. He missed his wife, and for the first few months, visited her grave every day. He also took trips for a week here and there, looking for some new place that might feel right, where he could re-start. Nothing welcomed his lonely heart and, in the end, he chose to keep his home. He fixed everything that had needed fixing over the years and settled in to wait for the emptiness of life without Anne to gradually fade.

The call from Myra came just as he had reached a decision to go back to work doing something, anything, to spell the boredom. She had landed at a venture capital firm in New York. Her employer had stakes in many small companies. Among them was a tiny recording label in New Jersey that needed a facelift. Her firm wanted to unload it, but there would be no takers until the business was straightened out.

“I thought of you right away,” she told him on the telephone.

“I don't know anything about the music business.” He was already thinking about what he might do.

“Just get the cash flow positive.”

He took the job.

Jimmy's conversation with the doctor was routine, a mild concussion, most likely from Benson's solid punches. His liver PSA showed a moderate elevation that could only be lowered if he stopped drinking. The doctor also noted, but did not mention, that the patient appeared to be depressed. He did, however, prescribe an anti-depressant, which was given twice daily after he was transferred from the ICU to another room.

Four days after Cindy's departure he was released with the admonition to stop drinking and rest quietly for two weeks. Ellis arrived at his room with the cute nurse pushing a wheel chair. Jimmy balked at the chair. The nurse sweetly said it was hospital policy to wheel all patients to the exit. Her pleasant demeanor notwithstanding, it was clear that he had no choice. As they entered the elevator he felt a hand slip inside the collar of his shirt. It came and went quickly and he thought nothing more of it as the floors drifted by.

The mid-town traffic was heavy. Ellis chatted as they cruised slowly from light to light, working their way toward Jimmy's apartment building. He dreaded the emptiness that awaited him. Yet he also welcomed the chance to unravel his thoughts. He had few ideas about the future though he intended to follow the doctor's instructions, not because he feared for his well-being, but because he was ashamed of making a fool of himself. Two weeks wasn't such a long time. Off the booze, plenty of sleep, better food and maybe some self-examination. He never had a plan before.

In the apartment, Ellis announced that it was time to talk. Jimmy braced himself, electing to let his agent say what was needed so he, at least, would be released from pressure.

“I've made a few calls” the agent started, “as I suspected, the word is out about the band breaking up. Benson is definitely gone. He's got Mitch and Ralphie. I released them to find a new agent.”

“Why? I don't mind if you handle him.”

“I don't think he's got what it takes, too hotheaded. Besides, this conversation is about you. VooDoo9 put the word out. Nobody will touch you. I couldn't get a high school gig at the moment.”

“Wonderful.”

Ellis shrugged. “It doesn't matter. You don't have a band anymore and, even if you did, you need to get your act together. The last year has been terrible.”

“Do you think I'm through?”

“As the Jimmy Button who was on the rise, yes.”

“Then what's the point?”

Ellis flashed a smile, the bad news smile. “You've still got talent. It's taken a back seat to the booze, but I have faith that you still have it somewhere inside. You need to get it back.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Put the alcohol aside and practice until you're good again.”

“What's Sonny doing?”

“Back at the restaurant.” Sonny, before he heeded Jimmy's call, was a sous chef at one of New York's better restaurants. “He needs money, you don't. He'll come running the minute you're ready. Good friend, good guitar. You should call him.”

“I just want to lay low and do nothing.”

“That's fine, but while you're doing that think things through. I'll run your name by some folks and monitor the circuit. If I hear of something worthwhile I'll call, but I think you'll be calling me first if you can get back to the old Jimmy.” They shook hands. “Need anything?”

“Just a new name and a new start.”

“Lose the scotch and we'll find a way.” His voice held no confidence. “And, do us both a favor. Get some help. You can't do it by yourself.”

Jimmy closed the door and flopped on the couch. He was asleep in seconds.

When he awoke it was dusk. He wanted a drink. He sat up, contemplating. Should he find some scotch or try to hold the line and follow the doctor's orders? He tabled the decision and unbuttoned his shirt to take a shower. A small piece of paper fell to the floor at his feet. He picked it up, remembering the hand that slid under his collar at the hospital. Written on the paper was the name Marsha with a phone number. He smiled, remembering the cute nurse, but thoughts of Cindy came roaring back.

After showering, he called Sonny at the restaurant. He was hungry and decided the best way to close things with his lead guitarist was face-to-face. Sonny came out of the kitchen and joined him at his table. Jimmy's first thought was how out of place his friend looked in food stained whites and a toque that covered his black locks.

“You look better with a guitar around your neck.”

Sonny shrugged. “Options are a bit slim at the moment.”

“You ought to call Benson. If he's getting a band together he'll need you.”

“He'll be lucky if he does weddings for the rest of his life. I'd rather cook.”

“I screwed up. I'm sorry.”

Sonny ignored the mea culpa. “What are you going to do?”

“I'll take some time, try to get healthy, then go from there.”

“What'd you order?”

“The fish.”

“That's a good start.”

“One step at a time.”

“The booze will be harder.”

“Yep.”

“You getting help for that?”

“I can handle it on my own.”

Sonny looked away. “What's Cindy doing?”

“Gone.”

“I figured. Permanent?”

“Looks like it.”

“Big loss.”

Jimmy pondered his band mate across the table. Sonny was not given to emotion, nor did he use many words. Together with Ellis, he was the closest thing to a friend he'd known since college. He was loyal, dependable, hardworking and, despite being one of the best guitarists Jimmy had ever played with, nowhere near the peak of his skills.

“I can't tell you if there's more music for me in the future.”

“Not much over last year, either. I can wait.”

“Are you sure you want to do that?”

Sonny looked down at his hands. “I always liked playing with you. Best time of my life. I'm thinking you get off the sauce and we'll do it again. A few months, next year, whatever.”

“Not too open ended?”

Sonny stood up. “Let me know when you're ready.”

The legend of Jonathan Whitehurst did not find its way into the annals of Australian folklore until fifty years later when a huge man emerged from the bush with a baby in his arms. He walked to a small farm on the outskirts of what would later be called Apollo Bay in the State of Victoria. After a short stay with an astonished, childless farmer and his wife, he left the baby in their care, asking only that they keep the boy with the Whitehurst name. Then he made his way to Melbourne where he met with more curiosity as he walked the streets of the town, bedraggled with a long white beard, but enormous in his bulk and clear eyed from his life among the indigenous blacks.

For many days he watched the trains that plied their way to Melbourne from Sydney and elsewhere, bringing people and goods to staging areas as the great Australian gold rush was beginning. He slept under the stars, as had been his custom for the greater part of his life, and he found occasional work, hauling barrels and crates from the packed cargo holds of ships docked in the town's fledgling harbor. He did the work of two men, uttering few words and indifferent to the stares of those who marveled at his endurance. None knew his story or that his heart was heavy.

A young reporter, fresh from London, chronicled the Whitehurst legend in 1870. The strange continent, so foreign and so far from the land of its rulers, was a source of enormous interest to the people of England. The able writer knew of the odd giant who suddenly appeared on Melbourne's streets. He heard people say that he might be a convict, long lost in the bush and forgotten among the thousands who had been shipped to tame the colony through forced labor. Had he really spent decades living among the Aborigines? The reporter knew this was the kind of story that Londoners, perhaps all of England, would flock to read.

He found Jonathan beneath a tree not far from the train station. It was January and the notorious Australian heat had taken hold with temperatures exceeding one hundred on the Fahrenheit scale. In his woolen knickers and heavy jacket, buttoned over a white shirt and tie, the reporter suffered silently as he engaged the man in conversation.

“You stir this town,” he began, as the big bearded man glanced up at him from his prone position in the shade. “People wonder who you are, where you are from.”

“You have been sent to learn this from me?”

“I am a reporter from London.”

Jonathan paused, then looked away and spoke. “I have brought my son out of the bush.”

The reporter was intuitively skilled. The best stories came not from constant questioning, but from careful listening.

“Tell me about him.”

Throughout that afternoon the life of Jonathan Whitehurst came into focus. The reporter furiously took down every word, keeping the tale in the man's own tongue. The dispatches he sent back to London were a sensation. Few Bushmen ever returned to tell their story. Those outlaws who did were summarily hanged. Jonathan Whitehurst was an exception.

A tally of the voyages of the vessel Odysseus has confirmed that a man named Whitehurst, a convict from London, came to New South Wales thirty four
years past. He is listed as escaped and, by his own account, spent those years living among blacks in the lands bordering the Southern Ocean. At 6 feet and 7 inches, he stood apart from other men when he mysteriously appeared on the streets of Melbourne. He wore odd coverings on his feet and limbs and around his shoulders. Some recognized the skins and furs of the strange creatures that inhabit the lands surrounding the towne. He had a white beard and wild hair that obscured all but his eyes, which sparkled clear and true like those of a man who lived free. He walked among the curious people of the towne saying little, sleeping in the night air, and occasionally taking work unloading vessels at the docks. When I came upon him, resting beneath a gum tree, I spied his age and knew he had a story to tell
.

I was born in the north of England where my family gave me little succor. In my seventeenth year I was making my way to London when a command of foot captured me. Its officer, in need of men, gave me no choice but to join his band. We spent some time in the lands north of York before we found ourselves attached to a regiment and ordered to Ireland in 1816
.

After some years and many a bloody battle, I was returned to London Towne and released empty handed. I joined with others of my kind and fell to begging for gin on Mead Street near Nichol. In the depths of hunger and absent of restraint by the power of drink, I traveled across Rose Bridge to where the gentlemen lived with their families. There, I do not recall what choice I took. I was captured in a drunken state and learnt that I was accused of stealing bread from a wealthy house. I was removed to the hold of a hulk anchored in the Thames where others, including women, shared my fate. In time, I was judged a thief and sentenced to transport and fourteen years servitude in this far off land
.

During the long voyage from England I was taken from the putrid hold to toil on deck. Never were my chains loosed for the sailors feared my size and did not care to test my temper, though I had no interest in tasting the lash. I confess that the workings of the ship came easily to me and I was pleased to pass the time in the tasks I was given. After some months, I was no longer feared and, noting this, shared such kinship with the crew that I joined my voice with theirs in song. In this, I was accepted and soon earned their trust
.

I arrived at this land in the vessel Odysseus, which sailed about the shore until it came upon a protected bay. There, it was proposed to establish a settlement by which freemen would later make their way inland to harvest trees and sow crops. In my trusted state I heard the officers speaking among themselves. Few provisions remained from that which was to be our repast until the land could be tamed. We prisoners would receive little to eat while being worked from light to dark to make the settlement ready for winter. Unwilling to accept my fate, I determined to escape
.