How to Kill a Rock Star (41 page)

He was forthright during the meeting, probably because he knew an article on Paul would sel more records.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t particularly enlightening, maintain-ing that Paul was sul en the entire time.

“I could tel something was bothering him,” Feldman admitted.“He just stared out the window, tapping his feet on the floor.

I asked him if he wanted to talk but he said no. That was the extent of our conversation until he told me to pul over.” I attempted to locate the eyewitness. The police report listed him as hailing from Pennsylvania, but al I had in the way of contact information was the phone number he’d given
36the police. The area code was northern New Jersey, but no one answered the number when I cal ed.

I didn’t figure the eyewitness would have anything new or earth shattering to add to the story, but part of me wanted to talk to him anyway. Part of me was jealous that he’d been present for Paul’s last moments and I hadn’t.

One of the most unsettling chores of my research had to be seeking out mawkish quotes from various members of the music community wil ing to laud Paul’s overlooked-in-life genius. Lucy had ordered me to make Paul sound important. This could be achieved, she explained, by getting important people to talk about him.

“A quote from your old buddy Doug would real y make Hudson shine.”

Doug invited me to his Greenwich Vil age studio. He was working on a new record and thought I might enjoy hearing some of the songs, but not even the gospel according to Doug Blackman could elevate me.

During our hour together, I felt obliged to ask how Loring was doing, and Doug managed to sidestep any awkwardness by saying, “He’s been spending a lot of time in Vermont” and left it at that.

Doug spoke eloquently about Paul: “The thing that struck me most about that kid, he had a real pure heart, but his spirit was al moxie. Perfect pitch in a cacophonous world, that’s what he was. And you can quote me on that.” Bruce Springsteen, who’d admittedly never heard of Bananafish but had been blown away by Paul’s performance at Doug’s birthday bash, cal ed Paul “gifted” and “irreplace-able, ya know?”

If my dad had been alive he would’ve dropped dead when I told him I got to talk to Bruce Springsteen.

Thom Yorke said: “It’s always the good ones who get taken away.”

Jack Stone contacted me before I had a chance to contact him. He asked me to lunch, eager to discuss his theory on where it had gone wrong for Paul. He saw Paul’s death as a cautionary tale of music business ethics and viewed Paul not as a coward, not as a quitter, but as a victim.

“Paul Hudson didn’t kil himself, he was murdered,” Jack said, impassioned. “Believe me, this is one of the great tragedies of our industry. The artists who need the most shelter always seem to be the ones who get left out in the rain.” Even Ian Lessing, stil drunk, had kind words to say about Paul, admitting the world had lost “an unbelievably intense motherfucking performer.”

Then there was the hypocrite.

“Paul Hudson was a like a son to me,” Winkle said. “I took him under my wing, made him part of my family. We were very close. And he was a
hell
of a talent.” Clearly, Winkle had no recol ection of ever meeting me, let alone having been introduced to me as Paul’s fiancée.

Meanwhile, Feldman and Michael both confirmed on record that they had witnessed blowouts between Paul and Winkle in the months before Paul died. According to Michael, the last confrontation, which began over Paul’s refusal to partic-ipate in a corporate radio station concert extravaganza, had resulted in Winkle lunging at Paul with a letter opener and swearing that as long as he was breathing, Paul would never work in the music business again.

“You won’t be able to get a job tuning a guitar,” Winkle reportedly told Paul.

After that mêlée, Bananafish essential y fel to pieces.

“Angelo was first to crack,” Michael told me.

Throughout the recording sessions, Angelo had apparently expressed dissatisfaction with the direction of the music. He agreed with Winkle—the new songs were entirely too long and precocious for radio.

36“Fuck radio” was Paul’s reply.

A day later, Angelo left the band over what he dubbed Paul’s “psycho-artist bul shit,” and Paul played drums on the remaining tracks. But once Michael and Burke realized the record was probably never going to be released, and the standoff between Paul and Winkle showed no signs of easing up, they had to start making other plans.

Burke got a job working at a holistic pet store on East Ninth Street, and a smal gourmet market in the Vil age was going to start carrying his ice cream.

Michael resumed his post of employment at Balthazar and was contemplating starting a band of his own.

“That was pretty much the end of it,” my brother said.

“Bananafish snuck in like a thief in the night, made some real y great music, then got eradicated. And you know what? Ninety-eight percent of America wil never know the difference.” Initial y, I thought investigating and writing about Paul’s death was going to be cathartic, and maybe bring me closer to stage five. But acceptance requires understanding, and nothing I learned about the last months of Paul’s life enabled me to understand, not even in a minuscule way, why he’d done it.

The detail I found most disturbing was that Paul had left a wil behind. In it, he’d put Michael in charge of his estate, which contained the money left over from his advances, as wel as his personal property, and any future royalties his music might yield.

Until the discovery of the wil , I had chosen to believe Paul’s suicide had been a decision based on a whim—he hadn’t real y wanted to die, he’d simply wanted to stop the pain, and then hadn’t al owed the moment to pass.

The wil made Paul’s death look premeditated, as if he’d planned it weeks in advance, as if he’d thought long and hard about his options and stil decided there was nothing— and no one—left to live for.

Late November, I ran into Loring across the street from a tea cafe on Rivington, just a couple blocks from my apartment. I was about to exit the Baishakhi Food Corp. with a bag of groceries when I saw him.

It was a windy day. There were fast food wrappers, cups, and newspaper remnants blowing in circles on the sidewalk like little urban dust devils, and I was waiting in the doorway for things to calm down. Outside, people walked, cars moved.

I saw TVs on in apartment windows, heard sirens screaming nearby, and wondered how it could be that everything in the city had life, even the garbage. Everything except for Paul.

My gaze landed across the street and on Loring. He was about to walk into the cafe, and he was holding hands with a pretty girl dressed in a bright red, knee-length coat who, from afar, reminded me of Hol y Golightly from
Breakfast
at Tiffany’s
.

I hadn’t seen Loring since the day after Paul’s memorial, when I’d gone to his apartment to get my things. I’d told him then that I thought it would be a good idea if we didn’t talk for a while. He had agreed, and hadn’t phoned me since.

I put my eyes to the ground but didn’t even make it out the door before Loring cal ed my name. He held up an index finger, asking me to wait, and then said something to the pretty girl, whose compassionate smile told me she knew my whole sorry story.

36The girl went into the cafe and sat at a table next to the window; Loring waited for a truck to go by and then crossed the street.

“Smal world,” he said with a level of comfort I wasn’t expecting. “You weren’t even going to wave, were you?”

“You looked busy.”

He studied me like a scientist would study a specimen.

“How is everything?”

“Everything’s good,” I lied. “How’s everything with you?”

“Good.”

He sounded like he meant it, and I was unable to hide my smirk. “Wow. So, who is she?”

“A friend,” he mumbled, as if he feared saying any more would hurt me.

“It’s okay, you can tel me.”

He kicked at the ground, but his warm, bashful eyes divulged most of what he wouldn’t say.

“Good for you.” I laughed and elbowed him playful y.

“At least tel me where you met her.”

“Believe it or not, I’ve know her since I was a kid. Her dad’s been Doug’s lawyer for years. I’ve had a crush on her since I was twelve.”

“Are you sleeping with her?”

He rol ed his eyes, and I suddenly remembered how much fun it was to torture Loring with personal questions.

“No kidding,” I said, “it would be the best news I’ve had in months. I’m begging you, tel me you’re madly in love and having the best sex of your life, because knowing you’re happy would mean one less person I have to feel guilty about hurting.”

Loring glanced back at the girl. She looked up almost at the same time, as if she could feel his eyes. She smiled at him in the way you would smile at someone if they’d saved your life.

“Good for you,” I said again, although it hurt a little that time.

With his thumb, Loring drew a cross on my forehead like priests do on Ash Wednesday. “Consider yourself absolved,” he said.

Through the cafe window, I watched the girl take out a little spiral notebook from her purse. “Uh-oh, don’t tel me she’s a writer.”

Loring laughed. “No. She’s an artist, actual y. She makes jewelry.”

I couldn’t have been happier for Loring. Real y. But being witness to the beauty of burgeoning love was making me feel hopelessly, impenetrably alone.

“I have to go.” I shifted my grocery bag to my opposite hip. “Tel your friend I said she’s the luckiest girl in Manhattan, okay?”

He smiled. “Take care of yourself, Eliza.”

“Yeah. You, too.”

The prospect of spending the rest of the afternoon alone in the apartment was too much to bear, but Vera was busy studying, and I was trying hard to simulate normalcy in front of Michael so I couldn’t go to him.

I dropped off my groceries, walked to Houston Street, and reluctantly entered Rings of Saturn for the first time in months.

John the Baptist was busy watching a NASCAR race on the new TV that had been instal ed above the bar. He didn’t notice me right away, but when he final y turned around and spotted me, he smiled the gentlest, saddest smile I’d ever seen.

He shut off the TV and went about fixing me a drink, putting seven olives in my glass. As he slid the goblet across the bar, al he could say was, “Man, oh, man…”
37My eyes fil ed with tears.

“You wanna talk about him or not?” John said. “’Cause I can talk about him al day if you so desire.” I shook my head and John seemed to acquiesce, but seconds later he said, “How about I tel you a story about a friend of mine? Skinny guy with a big nose.” I lowered my chin and peered at him.

“Hel uva guy, my friend Saul.” John’s fake eye was askew.

The iris seemed too far to the left. “Saul was here the night before he—wel , he had an accident.”

“John…”

“Pardon me a sec.” He turned his head and adjusted the off-kilter eye. I couldn’t figure out how he knew it was crooked, being that he couldn’t see out of it. “Last time I saw Saul, he’d just come from a doctor’s appointment.” This sparked my curiosity. “Was Saul sick?”

“Nope.”

“Why did he go to the doctor?”

“He
thought
he was sick. Claimed he’d been experiencing some chronic pain in the pancreatic region.” I almost laughed. “And to what did the doctor attribute this pain?”

“Anxiety. Stress. Completely psychosomatic. ’Course I could have saved Saul a couple hundred bucks if he would’ve listened to me—I gave him the same diagnosis a few days before when he came in here with his hand on his hip, moaning like a cow in labor.”

That time I did laugh, albeit with difficulty.

“Know what else?” John said. “I saw a lot of Saul before his accident. He spent a lot of time in the seat right next to the one you’re sitting on, and let me tel you, there was an uncharacteristic aura of calm about him.” John served himself cranberry juice in a glass that matched mine. It looked sil y and out-of-place in his hand. “That is, except when he
talked about the girl.”

I let the tears fal . It was stupid to try and pretend under these circumstances. “What girl?”

“Apparently Saul had developed a bad habit of walking by the building where this one girl lived. Somewhere up in the nosebleed section of town, if you know what I mean. Not a place he felt particularly at home, but he made the sacrifice because he was nuts about her, even though she’d tossed him by the side of the curb like an old piss-stained couch, and was shacking up with some larcenist, as Saul put it.” I sighed. “Please don’t bring Loring into this.”

“Who the hel is Loring?” John was a good actor. Not a great one, but a good one. “Anyway, Saul contemplated trying to get this girl back.”

I felt like I had a ten pound rock in the pit of my stomach. “You’re tel ing me he wanted her back?”

“I just said he was crazy about her.”

“Is that so? Then why, right before his
accident
, did he tel her he wished she were dead?”

“Obviously he was hurt. Maybe he wanted to hurt her back, I don’t know. Last I’d heard, old Saul had decided the girl was better off with the other guy.”

“Jesus, John. Didn’t you tel Saul he was wrong?”

“Yes ma’am, I did. But Saul could be pretty stubborn.

And a funny thing about Saul, he could talk a cock ’n’ bul talk, but he could also walk a scaredy-cat walk.” I took a long, deep breath, and tried to convert my sorrow into something more practical, like anger. It wasn’t working. “Did he seem happy to you? The last time you saw him, I mean.”

“I’m glad you asked that.” John narrowed in on me. “Do you have any idea how many people have sat in the chair you’re in right now, wearing the mask of death?”

“The what?”

37“I can see it, plain as day. They come in here pondering the end, thinking maybe they’re ready for that big old barstool in the sky.” John made a fist and pounded the bar three times like a judge demanding order in the court. “
All
of them have come back for another drink. And I like to think I had a hand in that. I like to think my wisdom helped talk them out of it.”