Nine Volt Heart (39 page)

JASON

I
COULDN’T FACE MY CAVE at
Ian’s, so I went to Glo’s Diner and ordered a plate of eggs amidst Seattle
people in flannels and black jeans kicking off the morning. While I ate, I read
the contents of the envelop Susi shoved into my hands. It wasn’t the
illuminating love poetry Chas found in Beau’s letters to my mother. It didn’t
provide an answer to the existential questions about life in an unpredictable
universe.

However, it did explain why Dominique hated me and despised
Beau, and perhaps why Susi thinks I’m an ill-educated heathen.

My erstwhile fake brother, the stalker, had sent Dominique
pages of screed, beginning just after the nightmarish fortnight during which
her infidelities had been thrust in my face while I was trying to confront how
undisciplined and contrary she proved to be in the studio. The same week that
Beau came back from the doctor with a short-term death sentence. The dates of
the letters were simultaneous with the deeper changes in Dominique that I experienced,
when she became not just difficult but malicious. The things my stalker wrote
to her—tagged with phrases like “As Beau says,” or “Even Ian can see,” or “Toby
has always said”—would have turned a saint against all of us, but especially
against me. The most evil of thoughts were attributed to Beau in those emails.

Dominique has no hope of becoming a candidate for sainthood,
but I would never have said such things to her. No one in the band had ever
voiced such outrageous thoughts. At least, not until my days as a guest in the
Pierce County Jail, and then after
Woman at the Well
.

My stalker brother agrees with me that Susi is a saint and
that where she walks, the avatars rain blessings. He’s been telling her so in
daily emails, repeating words from songs I’d written years before or stealing
bad poetry from untalented songwriters who—

I shouldn’t criticize other songwriters because their taste
doesn’t match my own. However, Susi didn’t know enough about the last thirty
years’ popular music to recognize any of the plagiarisms, and my stalker had
done as he did with Dominique: he pretended to be me. I pulled my cell phone
out a half dozen times while I read, wanting to call Susi to say that I didn’t
write this maudlin tripe. That I’m so sorry she thought I could write such
cruel, demeaning insults as Dominique had received.

Officer Page came into the diner, when the scum had dried on
my second plate of eggs and hash browns that I’d ordered as rent for my table.
He signaled to his partner that he’d catch up and then dropped into a chair at
my table.

“Hello, Officer.”

“Good morning, Mr. Taylor.”

The scene from earlier, and the pile of screed on the table
in front of me, added up to a very poor story.

“I’m embarrassed.”

“It wasn’t your fault the first time, Mr. Taylor, and I sort
of understand what happened tonight. But you can’t let your feelings get you
into trouble.”

“I know. I screwed up.”

“We stretched procedure, letting you stay. That’s why we
came back by a few times.”

“Thanks. I appreciate you caring for her safety.”

“I won’t ask if you made peace, since you wouldn’t be
sitting here if you had. What are you going to do?”

“Beats me. I wrote one song that I thought made her fall in
love with me. I guess I should try writing another.”

“You can’t make a person love you. That’s what my wife says
anyway.”

“Can I use that line in a song? Will your wife sue me?”

He laughed. “Naw, she was lying anyway. She went out of her
way to make me fall in love with her, and she tries it again every year or
two.”

“I wish I had that wife.”

“Mine is taken. You’ll have to get your own.”

~

Karl is always at work by seven-thirty, and so I met him at
the elevator on his way up from the parking garage. We ate breakfast bars while
the coffee brewed. When he offered to pour, I managed to hold my cup out,
hardly shaking, acting like life could go on as it always had.

“I need you—”

“No lover in the world has said that to me as often as you
have, Jason.”

“I’m not in great shape this morning, Karl. We’ll have to
take this slowly. I’m about to see Ephraim and cave on every last thing. Before
that, you need to do the paperwork to donate all the royalties for songs I
share with Dominique.”

“Not the Musicians’ Aid trick again.”

“No, I did a bad thing—it didn’t start as bad, but it had
unforeseen and unpleasant consequences—and I owe restitution.”

“Someone is about to sue you?”

“It is not that kind of obligation, Karl. You have all the
papers for Susi’s Troubadours Institute. That’s the entity getting the
royalties. Steven Neville is the financial administrator, so please do all the
work with him.”

“You’ll end up like that guy from Credence, with no right to
play your own songs without paying royalties.”

“John Fogerty. I’m selling the rights to the Lost Sons
catalog to Charles Neville. Can you do that paperwork this morning?”

“I can’t believe the old guy has that kind of money.”

“It costs him one dollar. If he hasn’t got it, please lend
it to him.”

“Damn it, Jason. I can’t let you do this. You’re giving away
both your income and your assets.”

“I can make more money. Yet I have no idea how else to take
care of my obligations. I don’t want anything back from Chas except Beau’s
personal correspondence. Can you work out with Chas to get facsimiles made so I
can have the originals?”

“You finally saw what’s in those letters?”

“Yes, I did. And yes, I should have listened to you. And I
should have listened to Ephraim. Can you come to the meeting with Ephraim? I
need you there, and I don’t want to move the meeting.”

“Will you listen to me about protection from your stalker,
too? Did you see what he posted last night?”

Karl handed me a folder thick with print-outs.

 
LostSon2: My brother should die for what he did to that angel. Humiliation and
pain should be his, as he deals them to others.

“Yikes.”

“There’s more.”

 
LostSon2: The angel of death, having passed over, will leave no evil son alive.
As the Lord visited unto Jesse, so shall the angel of death visit until his son
for the evil he has done.

“Are these on my blog or the fan site? Are they out there still?”

“They were on your site, but the webmaster took them down. I
called Cynthia early this morning, and she’s serving as majordomo now, not
letting anything post that doesn’t look right. I called and asked the fan site
to do the same. They seem willing to work with you.”

“They’re all good guys, so I’m not surprised. I better write
pieces for both sites. Should I placate him? Or what?”

“I have a call into a guy from the Seattle Police to get
advice. I don’t think you should do anything until we hear what the best action
to take might be.”

The receptionist came in just then. “Karl, he’s here.”

“Wouldn’t you know, the one day he’s on time. I’ll be right
there. Jason, can you excuse me for a minute?”

I was too agitated to say yes, but I managed to nod and then
to amuse myself while Karl was gone by reading the Troubadours Institute folder
on his desk. He had researched all the officers of the nonprofit—Angelia,
Steven, Susi. He had unearthed a photo of Susi as the slave Liù. A close-up, so
you could see how breathtakingly beautiful she had been, with a thick,
luxurious mane of honey-blond hair, her grey eyes softer, her gaze more muted
than piercing.

“You knew,” I said when Karl came back.

“Their social security numbers were in the papers you sent
over. I was more than idly curious about where your money was about to
disappear.”

He sat down at his desk, his face in his hands. “Damn, I
fucking hate that. I’m not cut out to be part of the ruling class.”

“Karl, what’s wrong?”

“I had to fire somebody. Wish I could fix it, but I can’t
run a social service agency and a law office at the same time. I just hate
being the bad guy with my own people.”

“Yeah, it bites big time. I fired a drummer last week.”

“The work the guy left is a mess. It’ll take a week to
straighten it out.”

“Do you need Martha back? She has everything so organized at
the studio that I could use a different temp for a while.”

“Yes, indeed I do. Dammit, I hate being the boss. I feel
like closing this whole shop down. Maybe I should give up law and be your
guitar tech. Except my wife already is about to quit me.”

“You were lousy at that job. We had a whole season of
broken-string dramas in every set. You have been much more useful handling my
business. Please be there when I meet Ephraim at ten.”

“Anything else you want me to give away first? Perhaps your
nuts encased in solid brass?”

“No, but can I use your shower and sleep on your sofa until
then?”

“Your girlfriend didn’t let you get any sleep last night?”

“There is no girlfriend. It was a figment of my over-active
imagination. There is no new singer in the band. There is no—”

“What happened?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m an effing asshole.”

“True. Can you cite concrete details?”

“I’m the most self-righteous fool ever made since God first
breathed life into a lump of clay.”

“Go sleep while I do your paper work.”

JASON

“B
EFORE WE START WITH
business, Dominique, I want to offer you the humblest of apologies.”

“It is about time.”

“First, I didn’t write these.” I laid down the sheaf of
travesties I’d carried away from Susi’s house. “These came from the same
stalker who has been plaguing me. I apologize for them only because some fan’s
misplaced loyalty subjected you to this vileness.”

Ephraim said, “I told you it couldn’t be Jason.”

Dominique didn’t look up. Since I had to get past judging
her on thin evidence, I went on with the main course for breakfast: pure crow.

“What I want to apologize for is my own awfulness to you,
Dominique. We have artistic differences, with dissimilar goals and ambitions. I’m
so careful to never judge any other musicians in public, and yet in private I
castigated your ambition, your work ethic, and your talent in ways I had no
right to. I was wrong to judge you, and worse, to do it in ways that hurt you.
I won’t ask your forgiveness because I don’t deserve it.”

I don’t know that I expected a particular reaction. Perhaps
complete condemnation would have been preferable, for then we could return to
our habitual mean-spirited sparing. She offered no reaction at all. She just
stared at me for a moment and then looked out the window. This promised to be
the warmest, most intimate working relationship I’d have for the coming summer.
I took a breath and finished what I had to do.

“I am agreeing to do what Ephraim asks, to the best of my
abilities,” I said. Karl let out a hissing sigh, which meant he didn’t like
this. “To start, I’ll do the production work Ephraim wants, and I’ll do the
twenty-two cities as part of Stoneway. Ian will work with me, along with the
bass player and drummer who have been rehearsing the new music. If we start
now, and if you have other good musicians selected, we can rehearse enough by
the end of June to give people their money’s worth.”

Dominique still wasn’t speaking, but Ephraim had been
burning holes in me with his eyes this whole time. Ephraim said, “Thanks,
Jason. We’ll start work this afternoon if you’re ready.”

“Yes. I brought along a CD with most of the material, and a
new outline of how the album will work. If you’re ready to discuss it.”

Ephraim nodded. Dominique, for all I could tell, was mad
that I left her with nothing to be mad about.

“My work has gone in such a different direction since
Woman at the Well
that it’s been hard to determine how to
bridge two worlds while giving you honest music that will work for Dominique’s
voice.”

Ephraim read my outline, without reacting.

“I’m proposing a two-CD set that creates a ‘he said, she
said’ story with the music. On one, Dominique does these six new songs. Ian and
I will back her, in the style and musical range suitable to her voice. The
other half of the “she said” CD will be cover songs she’s already recorded.
After listening to the demos that Ephraim gave me last week, I believe that I
can add a guitar line to ensure continuity with the six originals.”

“I only have to do six songs with you?” Dominique said at
last.

“That’s the idea, yes.”

“What are you doing on the other disc?” she asked, wariness
ringing in her voice.

“The same six songs in the way Ian and I play them, in that
style you disparage as cowpunk. The other songs are reworked live music from
when you first started singing with the band. That includes two songs from
Woman at the Well
, played the way I intended them. With
lots of Beau Rufus’s bass line, but without your vocals.”

She sputtered. “Those songs belong to—”

“On both CDs, every song was written within the time for
when you claim to be my co-writer, Dominique. No matter what style we choose to
play the music, you still make money.”

Ephraim shushed her with a gesture. “Let’s hear what you
have.”

I put the first CD in Karl’s player, to play Side 1 Track 1
of the proposed
She Said
side, but without vocals. I
could hear every minute adjustment we had made to get that sound. Play it the
way we like it, then tone down, slow down, re-pace everything so it would sound
like a Clear Channel radio hit. Perfect in its own kind of way, but not a way
that suits my taste. It felt like the work of an idiot savant: careful
re-creation of precise notes and rhythm, played in a world where real feeling
doesn’t exist.

“That’s easy to sing,” Dominique said. She sang a few lines,
having bothered to learn the lyrics and music I’d sent her. “It sounds nice.”

Then we listened to Side 2 Track 1 of my
He
Said
version. I’d written this song a year ago, so it shouldn’t have any
of the sound we’d been practicing lately. We recorded it only last week,
jamming hard before we restrained ourselves to create the tracks for Dominique
to sing over. The difference to me was like cadaver versus living flesh. You
could hear that living musicians played this music, and they loved it. When the
vocals came in, it was that weird mix of my tenor versus Sonny’s rocky bass
which we’d discovered when kidding around with old Johnny Cash tunes. I always
hear my voice as too sweet and high, because it buzzes that way in my head. On
tape, with Sonny’s voice amping up the vocals, it kicked the song into a separate
galaxy far, far away from Side 1.

“The song means something else this way,” Karl said,
puzzled.

I played half of Side 1 Track 2, and then stopped it to play
Side 2 Track 2, where Toby’s mandolin threatened to peel paint and Ian’s guitar
interrupted to peel your eyeballs. I smiled, thinking of what a damn good time
they had the day we recorded that. As I started to replace Side 1, to play the
next track, Ephraim held up his hand.

“That is sufficient.”

“Are you satisfied, Ephraim? If you don’t send me back to
the beginning, we can be done on June second.”

Ephraim was shaking his head, which had a physical effect on
me. Like being kicked in the gut and having to choke back a need to vomit. “The
delivery clause in your contract mandates ‘technically satisfactory’ and
‘commercially satisfactory.’”

“Don’t look for another way to screw me, Ephraim. This is a
demo. You know the final masters will be as technically satisfactory as
possible without God Himself serving as engineer. You asked me to do
production, so you must want my definition of perfection. You will get it.”

“Your lack of modesty shocks and amazes me, Jason.”

“Don’t hit me on the ‘commercially satisfactory’ clause. I
don’t like mainstream, but I know what it’s supposed to sound like. This is a
faithful creation of what makes up nine out of ten songs on Billboard. Just
because I don’t want to do it doesn’t mean I can’t. If I wanted to play whore
for you, I could give you six more just like these, but—”

“I don’t want more,” Ephraim said. “I don’t even want this
half dozen.”

“But they’re good!” Dominique said.

I was contemplating cold-blooded murder, which Karl must
have seen because he stood and settled his hand heavily on my shoulder.

Ephraim said, “I spent the past week with the marketing
studies the label did against the videos and audience reactions to the last
album. I read every review and comment I could find on the Internet since last
Saturday. I don’t think it would be good for Stoneway to repeat the toned-down
sound I mistakenly introduced in
Woman at the Well
.”

“What do you want, Ephraim?”

“People want to hear your music the way you like to play it.
Albion Records wants the
He Said
half, but not the
She Said
.”

“You bastard!” Dominique hissed. For once, she got it faster
than me.

“Relax, Dominique. If you want to work with Albion Records,
you have already laid down an entire album. I’ll arrange for you to work with
another A&R man and producer, so you won’t have to work with me.”

She used the bad mother word.

Ephraim was still shaking his head. “Let’s separate business
from everything else, Dominique. You can’t ride with Stoneway to get what you
want. It is not good for Albion Records if people become confused about whether
they are buying Jason’s work or your voice.”

She started to speak but Ephraim once more stopped her with
a gesture. He spoke quietly, the way people do to command absolute attention.

“You can call Eric in the A&R group to finish the work
we started this winter. Or you can go party with your new friends at Commodore
Records. Whichever you prefer. Meanwhile, I have business to discuss with
Jason.”

I tried counting how often in the past twenty-four hours
that my sense of reality proved to be one hundred eighty degrees out of plumb.

Dominique stood, smiling in the way that used to scare me.
“Is it true what they say? Your new bitch girlfriend is replacing me?”

“Please don’t call names,” I said, not venturing into the
rest—that Susi isn’t my girlfriend and she isn’t performing with us. I didn’t
have to say anything, because Ephraim (of all people) said:

“As of right now, there are no bitches performing with Jason
Taylor.”