Rock On (20 page)

But six more months passed, and the studio in Lydia’s basement remained silent. Death and grief couldn’t substitute for betrayal and anger. CCA, and the world, had lost her.

Then one night a scruffy day laborer and aspiring singer-songwriter named Willie Todd was playing acoustic guitar for tips in a South Austin bar, and a man wearing a leather necktie approached him.

“Son,” the necktied man said, “my name is Danny Daniels, and I sign new artists for CCA. How would you like to record your songs for us?”

To a guy who grew up in a Fort Worth trailer park with six brothers and sisters, no father, and no money, Daniels looked and sounded like Jesus Christ Himself. I’d been trying to break into the money strata of the Austin music scene for five years, and I was still lugging junkyard scrap by day and playing for tips at night. But with just a few words from Danny Daniels, all of that was over. He took me into a studio and paid for my demo, then flew me to Los Angeles to meet some producers.

It was only then that I found out what I’d have to do before CCA would give Willie Todd his shot. And although it sounded weird, I was willing. I still am. As Daniels explained, this thing should have no down side. After the breakup, I get my old face and voice back, Lydia’s muse gets busy again, and CCA releases great albums from both of us.

So here I am in the Kerrville H.E.B., buying tortillas and rice for Lydia Love, the biggest Texas rock ’n’ roll star since Buddy Holly . . . and for her most recent boyfriend, a dead man named Christopher.

You are Christopher.

But I’m not dead. Dead men don’t buy groceries.

Dead men don’t sleep with Lydia Love.

It’s my seventh week with Lydia, and something I didn’t expect is happening. As I’ve settled back into life with her, I’ve begun to see her as something other than the singer, the sex symbol, the video goddess: I have begun to see her as a dull pain in the ass.

Her rage before my first grocery run hasn’t repeated itself, and I wish that it would. She’s gone zombie on me. Sometimes when she’s lying on the floor with a bowl of bean dip on her stomach, watching the tube through half-closed eyes, I wonder if she was the one who decided to end her previous relationships. I wonder if maybe one or two of the men made the decision themselves.

Why do you think I took that side trip to Nepal?

She has a gym full of exercise equipment, but she hasn’t gone in there since I’ve come back. So I’ve been working out by myself to take the edge off my frustration, and I’m heading there now while she watches a tape of a lousy old movie called
A Star Is Born.
A run on the treadmill sounds appropriate.

Even the sex has started going downhill.

We could look elsewhere. I was starting to, before the plane crash.

No. Forget I said anything. Lydia’s just moody; that’s part of what makes her who she is. It would be stupid of me to mess up a good thing.

Isn’t that what you’re supposed to be doing?

I don’t know. Are we talking about Willie or Christopher? According to CCA, Willie is here to give Lydia someone to break up with, but Christopher ought to be here because he cares about her. So which one am I?

You are Christopher.

All right, then. We can’t just let things go on like this, so let’s try something. Lydia hasn’t picked up a guitar since I came back, and neither have I. Maybe if she and I played together—

She’s too critical of other guitar players. We don’t like being humiliated.

In front of whom?

Ourselves. And the people behind the walls.

But CCA’s already agreed to put out my album. They already know I’m good. What difference will it make if Lydia and I play a few tunes together?

CCA is putting out an album by Willie Todd. You are Christopher.

I don’t care.

So I hop off the treadmill, and as I start to leave the gym, Lydia appears in the doorway. She’s wearing the same gray sweats she wore yesterday and the day before. Her skin is blotchy, and she looks strung-out. It occurs to me that she might be taking drugs.

Of course she is. When things don’t go her way, she takes something. Or breaks something.

“I’m going to kill myself,” Lydia says. Her voice is a monotone.

Oh shit.

Don’t worry. This is old news. She craves drama, and if she doesn’t get it, she invents it. Ignore her.

She’s threatening suicide. I’m not going to ignore that.

I would.

Well, Willie wouldn’t.

Sure he would. CCA wouldn’t pick a new Christopher who didn’t have the same basic character traits as the old Christopher.

Shut up. I’ve got to concentrate on Lydia.

But she’s already disappeared from the doorway. I zoned out, and she’s gone to kill herself.

No, she’s gone to eat or get wasted. Or both.

Fuck off. Just fuck off.

That’s no way to talk to yourself.

I run down the hallway, yelling for her. She’s not in any of the bedrooms, the kitchen, the dining room, the front room, or the garage. Not out on the deck or in the back yard. But she could be hidden among the trees, hanging herself. She could already be dead, and it would be me that killed her. Just because I wanted a break, just because I made a deal with CCA, just because I flew off and died on a mountainside, leaving her alone and unable to write or sing.

And at that thought I know where she is. She’s where her music has lain as if dead all these months. She’s gone to join it.

So I find her down in the studio, sitting cross-legged on the floor. She’s plinking on a Guild acoustic, but the notes are random. She’s staring at the carpet, paying no attention to what she’s playing. I sit down facing her.
She looks like a toad.

No, she’s beautiful. Look at her fingers. They’re slender, but strong. Dangerous. Can’t you see that?

Sure. But seeing it isn’t enough.

She’s still alive. That’s enough for me.

“I don’t think you should kill yourself,” I tell her. The gray egg-crate foam on the walls and ceiling makes my voice sound flat and unconvincing.

“Why not?” she asks without looking at me. Her hair is tied back, but some of it has come loose and is hanging against her cheek, curling up to touch her nose. I’m close enough to smell the sweat on her neck, and I want to kiss it away.

If you touch her now, she’ll go ballistic.

“Why not?” Lydia asks again.

“Because you wouldn’t like being dead,” I say. “It’s boring.”

“So’s being alive.”

She has a point there.

Quiet. “It doesn’t have to be.”

Lydia’s shoulders hunch, as if she’s trying to shrink into herself. “Yes, it does,” she says. “Life and death are really the same thing, except that life is more work.”

She’s still plinking on the Guild, but I notice that the notes aren’t random anymore. They’re starting to punctuate and echo her words. They sound familiar.

It’s the progression for “Love in Flames,” but she’s playing it a lot bluesier than on the album.

It sounds good, though. It gives me an idea.

“I think you should do some gigs,” I say.

Lydia looks up at me now. Her eyes are like stones. “I don’t have anything new.”

And except for the India concert, she’s always refused to perform unless she has new material.

Well, there’s a first time for everything. “So play your old stuff,” I say, “only do something different with it, like you are now. Play it like it was the blues. See if it gets your juices flowing—”

I’m just able to duck out of the way as she swings the Guild at my head. Then she stands up and smashes the guitar against the floor over and over again.

I could have told you that she doesn’t like being given advice.

So why didn’t you?

Because I thought it was good advice.

Thanks, Christopher.

You are Christopher.

Whatever.

When the guitar is little more than splinters and strings, Lydia flings the neck away and glares down at me.

“I’ll call Danny Daniels and have him schedule some dates,” she says. “Small clubs, I think. And then I’m going to bed. See you there.” She goes out, and the studio’s padded steel door swings shut behind her with a solid click.

Now you’ve done it. When this doesn’t work out, it’ll be our fault. She likes it when it’s our fault.

I thought you said it was good advice.

But good advice isn’t enough. Nothing is. Not for Lydia Love.

Apparently not for you either, Christopher.

You are Christopher.

We’re at a blues club on Guadalupe Street in Austin on a Wednesday night, and it’s jam-packed even though there’s been no advertising. Word spreads fast. I’m in the backstage lounge with Lydia, and it’s jam-packed back here too. The cigarette smoke is thick. We’re sitting on the old vinyl couch under the Muddy Waters poster, and I’m trying not to be afraid of being crushed by the mob. CCA has sent a dozen beefy dudes to provide security, and I can tell that they’re itching for someone to try something.

But Lydia, dressed in faded jeans and a black T-shirt, doesn’t seem to be aware that anyone else is in the room. She’s picking away on a pale green Telecaster, eyes focused on the frets. The guitar isn’t plugged in, so in all of this cacophony she can’t possibly hear what she’s playing. But she plays anyway. She hears it in her head.

A spot between my eyes gets hot, as if a laser-beam gunsight has focused on me, and I look across the room and see Danny Daniels in the doorway. He’s giving me a glare like the Wicked Witch gave Dorothy. When he jerks his head backward, I know it’s a signal to me to get over there.

He’s got our career in his pocket. Better see what he wants.

Why? You scared of him?

Up yours.

That’s no way to talk to yourself.

I lean close to Lydia and yell that I’m going to the john. She nods but doesn’t look up. Her music matters to her again, so screw CCA and their shrinks.

I squeeze through the throng to Daniels, and he yanks me toward the fire exit. My new black-and-white cowboy hat gets knocked askew.

Out in the alley behind the club, I pull away and straighten my hat. “You grab some guys like that,” I say, “and you’d get your ass kicked.”

Daniels’ face is pale in the white glow of the mercury lamp on the back wall. “You haven’t been doing your job,” he says.

I take a deep breath of the humid night air. “How do you figure?”

As if we didn’t know.

I’ll handle this. “I’m supposed to be Lydia Love’s boyfriend, right? Well, that’s what I’m doing.”

Daniels tugs at his leather necktie. “You’re supposed to behave as Christopher would behave so that she’ll go berserk and kick you out. But you’re obviously ignoring the Christopher chip’s instructions.”

I can’t help chuckling. “The chip hasn’t been handing out many instructions lately. It’s been making comments, but not giving orders. So I must be behaving as Christopher would. After all, I’m him, right?”

Daniels shakes his balding head. “Not according to CCA’s psychs. Christopher wouldn’t reason with Lydia when she goes wacko. He gave up on reasoning with her a long time ago.”

Never really tried.

Guess you should have.

Guess so.

“If the chip’s lying down on the job,” I say, “that’s not my fault. I’m holding up my end of the contract.”

Daniels grins.

Watch out when the son of a bitch does that.

“Our contract,” Daniels says, “is with Willie Todd. But if you were Willie, you’d be behaving more like Christopher even without the chip. That’s why we picked Willie in the first place. You, however, seem to be a third party with whom CCA has no arrangement whatsoever.” He sighs. “And if Willie has disappeared, there’s no point in releasing his album.”

This is bullshit.

“This is bullshit.”

Daniels shrugs. “Maybe so, Willie-Chris, Chris-Willie, or whoever you are. But it’s legal bullshit, the most potent kind.”

My back teeth are aching. “So if I have to be Willie for you to honor his contract,” I say, “how can I be Christopher?”

You can beat his ugly face into sausage, that’s how.

“Chris and Willie are interchangeable,” Daniels says. “Both are working-class dullards who think they deserve better because they know a few chords. Any superficial differences can be wiped out by the chip. So I say again: Listen to the chip as if it were your conscience.”

If I listened to the chip, Danny, you’d have blood running out your nose.

If he was lucky.

“I know you’re getting attached to Lydia,” Daniels continues, his tone now one of false sympathy, “but sooner or later she’ll dump you. That’s just what she does. It wasn’t until Christopher’s death that we realized she trashes her boyfriends for inspiration, but then it became obvious. So we brought Christopher back to life so she could get on with it. The only variable is how long it takes, and that’s up to you. If you drag things out until CCA loses patience, Willie’s songs will never be heard. And he won’t get his own face back, either, because we won’t throw good money after bad. He might not even be able to regain his legal identity. He’ll have lost his very existence.”

There are worse things.

“Willie’s existence wasn’t much to begin with,” I say.

Daniels puts a hand on my shoulder, and I resist the urge to break his fingers. “Something is always better than nothing, Christopher. And if you go on the way you’ve been going, nothing is what you’ll be.”

Big deal.

“So what do you want me to do?” I ask.

“Only what the chip and I tell you,” Daniels says. “If you don’t like my conscience metaphor, then think of CCA, me, and the chip as the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Mess with any one of us, and you get slapped down with heavenly wrath. Mess with all of us, and you go straight to hell.” He gestures at the club’s back wall. “See, this kind of crap can’t continue. Neither Lydia nor CCA makes real money from a gig like this. So your current directive from the Son of God is as follows: Go and spend thee the night in a motel. You still have that cash card?”