Spiral (9 page)

”I don’t follow you, Mitch.”

”His tombstone. O’D died of an ‘OD,’ get it?”

Beth’s own grave flashed behind my eyes as I said, O’Dell died from a drug overdose?”

”Yeah. Fucking would have killed the band, too, disco didn’t do them in first.”

”Why is that?”

Eisen sized me up. ”You’re old enough, John, you would have been listening to their music in the early seventies, right?”

”I remember the name, anyway.”

”Okay. Spiral had a couple of hits, mainly songs that Spi and O’D wrote together—Spi on the music, O’D the lyrics, which is funny for a drummer, you think about it.”

”Funny?”

”Drummer, he’s got to keep the beat when they play a song, you don’t usually peg him as a word guy.”

”Got it.”

”Okay. Well, even with those couple of hits, Spiral as a band never had enough name recognition once they fell off CHR.”

”What’s CHR, Mitch?”

‘”Contemporary Hit Radio,’ top-40 tunes, follow?”

”I think so.”

”CHR is different from AOR.”

”Which is?”

”‘Album-Oriented Rock.’ Or ‘Radio,’ doesn’t matter. What matters is, groups like Pink Floyd or even Black Sabbath could make it without top-40 hits, because those bands got played on AOR”

”The album stations.”

”Right, right. A band like Spiral, though—with no superstar, only don’t let Spi know I said that—needs play on the CHR outlets to stay popular. Otherwise, it’s out of hearing, out of mind, follow?”

”And this O’Dell had a knack for writing lyrics that CHR stations liked.”

”Yeah. But once—look, John, how much do you really know about the music?”

”Like you said, I listened to it, but I never studied it”

”Okay ” Eisen settled deeper in his chair, like a kid visiting Dad’s office when the old man was attending a meeting-”The history of rock-’n’-roll, short course. Fast forward through Elvis, the Beach Boys, and the British Invasion. Stop at the late sixties, when you had the whole San
Francisco
scene. Jefferson Airplane with Gracie Slick—God, what a voice she had for the psychedelic sound. Then the second wave of Brits: Elton John, Peter Frampton—talk about a guy should have become a legend, but that’s another story. Weave in Carlos Santana and his salsa-rock, the Allman Brothers and their Southern-rock, the Eagles and their country—”

”How about Spiral, Mitch?”

A pause and another lip purse, the hair plugs marching forward again. ”They had a kind of raunchy-rock sound. O’D was a genius at writing lyrics just this side of what a record company
wouldn’t
put on albums. Nice counterpoint to Fleetwood Mac and their romance-rock, E.L.O. — that’s Electric Light Orchestra—and their symphony-rock, etc., etc.”

”So Spiral found its own niche and filled it.”

”Right, right. But like I said, only CHR play, not the album stations.”

”And then Tommy O’Dell died.”

”Right, though he was getting so drugged out even before he took the big one, I don’t know how much longer he could have produced new lyrics. Didn’t really matter though, because in seventy-six, seventy-seven, along came... disco!”

I had the feeling Eisen had delivered this speech before.

”Which...?”

”... fucking killed the CHR-driven rock groups like Spiral. I mean, all you heard was Donna Summer, Barry White, Evelyn ‘Champagne’ King—funny, a lot of the performers were black, but most of the fans weren’t. Even so,
Saturday Night Fever
with John Travolta gets released, and the ballgame was over for Spiral and twenty other bands like them.”

”What happened then?”

”Late seventies, we got punk-rock as a kind of a ‘death-to-disco’ protest. You had the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, not *o mention—”

”I meant more, what happened to Spiral.”

”Couldn’t get them gigs, man. Or only little store-front clubs. No decent promoter wanted their sound anymore. At most, the middle-road rock fans who couldn’t stand pu^ had migrated to corporate-rock, like Journey, Air Supply. Not too harsh, not too sweet, kind of Baby-Bear music, follow?” The fairy tale. ”Baby-Bear, as in ‘just right.’”

”Exact-a-mundo, John. Even quality bands like—that accent, you’re from Boston?”

”Yes.”

”Okay. Bands from up there—J. Geils and Aerosmith-were monster-big in the early seventies, but even they struggled against the tide. And it was like Spiral forgot how to swim.”

That brought back an image of the Skipper’s pool, and Veronica Held. But I wanted more background from Eisen before asking him about the birthday party. ”You were the band’s manager from the beginning?”

”Yeah. In fact, they wouldn’t have had the little name recognition they did, wasn’t for me.”

”How so?”

”I came up with the name. I mean, can you imagine? A lead singer in seventy with the same first name as Nixon’s veep?”

Spiro Agnew. ”You changed it to ‘Spi’?”

”No. No, he’d already done that himself, running away from home and all. But I’m the one came up with ‘Spiral-Spi tends to remember that different, but the idea was mine. ‘Spi,’ lead singer of’Spiral.’ Get it?”

”Catchy.”

”Subliminal signature.”

”Sorry?”

”It’s like an actor does, make a role his own by some kind of little mannerism or bit of business. I figured to get positive name bounce from the jazz-fusion group Spyro Gyra, then have ‘Spi’ and ‘Spiral’ and even the logo”—he pointed to the tornado symbol on his T-shirt—”reinforce each other subliminally in the fan’s mind, follow me?”

”I think so. Is that why you thought the band could make a comeback?”

”No,” said Eisen. ”No, I was the one thought they couldn’t.”

”How come?”

”Back to that difference between CHR and AOR. It’s the same today, John. The album-oriented stations that never played Spiral’s old stuff wouldn’t play any new music they came up with, and the contemporary-hit stations never heard of them.”

”So why did Spi Held think the comeback would be a success?”

”Boils down to one word. Very.”

”Meaning his daughter.”

”Meaning Lolita with a mike in her hand. You ever see her live?”

I didn’t think Eisen meant ”alive,” but I still shifted a little in my chair. ”No.”

”Wait a sec.” He started shuffling through a stack of unboxed VHS cassettes on the corner of his desk. ”I think I got one of their—yeah, here it is. Watch.”

My day for videos. ”What’s that?”

Eisen was already pedaling his chair over to a VCR under the monitor on a side table. ”Dry run for a music video. Unedited, which is probably how I’d want to see it, I was you.”

Eisen picked up a remote device and pushed some buttons before inserting the tape. ”Okay, John, fasten your seat belt.”

The screen came alive with color, a kaleidoscopic background constantly shifting shape and shade. Then some yelling offstage, and the camera zoomed in on Veronica Held and her cornrowed hair. There was some blurring of the men in the background before the camera operator caught on and evened out the range, Spi Held and his band members becoming clearer.

That’s when Veronica said, ”What is this bullshit? Like, the fucking camera’s supposed to be on me, right?”

Eisen’s breathy, grunted laugh. ”Lovely, isn’t she?”

Not the word I’d have used. Veronica Held was dressed in a spandex outfit again, at least below the waist. Above it, bare midriff, a gold ring through her navel, and a leopard-skin bikini top that did its best to give her thirteen-year-old chest some cleavage.

I shook my head.

”Wait,” said Eisen to me. ”It gets better.”

Veronica stomped over to her father, him letting the big, flashy guitar sag against the strap around his shoulders.

She said, ”The fuck did you get this clown? The cunt doesn’t even know who’s the star?”

Spi Held said, ”Very, honey—”

”Fuck you. She goes, or I’m like gone yesterday.”

The screen went to snow.

Eisen said, ”This next take really captures her.”

When the picture resolved again, there was no doubt who ”the star” was. Veronica Held fondled a bulbous portable mike between her hands, the fingers looking delicate, even fragile against it.

Until she began to sing. Or wail.

As with the party tape, the voice wasn’t a schoolgirl’s. Nor were her hand movements on the mike.

”Lolita,” said Eisen. ”Crossed with her namesake.”

”Her namesake?”

”Janis, Very’s middle name. After Janis Joplin. You know, Big Brother and the Holding Company, then—”

”I remember Joplin.”

”That Bette Midler in
The Rose,
she did a better-than-okay job, but Very’s the closest I’ve ever seen. The sex-kitten looks of a Spice Girl, but the voice, the voice...”

All I could think was, Thirteen years old.

Veronica Held gyrated through the rest of the tune, the lyric a poorly rhymed stanza of barely disguised sexual desire for a teacher, her hips grinding against the microphone she rubbed along her thighs during the instrumental sections. After a crescendo of wail and music both, the screen went to snow again.

”I didn’t recognize the song, Mitch.”

Eisen gave his breathy grunt as he pressed another button on the remote and swung back around to me. ”I’m not surprised. It was one of the new ones Spi wrote for the comeback.”

”Not very good lyrics.”

”No, but what do you want from an eighth-grader?”

I stared at him. ”You’re not serious.”

”So, okay. She had a tutor the last few months, not a real school and classroom, but—”

”Wait a minute. Veronica wrote those lyrics?”

”Yeah.” Eisen seemed surprised now. ”Like I said before, Spi was the music guy, and O’D wrote the words.”

”And Veronica replaced O’Dell?”

”Hey, they’re not so bad, John, you compare them with the current crop of crap out there. Nothing you’d mistake for Paul Simon or Carole King, maybe, but—”

”I also don’t remember hearing about any ‘tutor.’”

”Hearing about? Shit, man, you already met him.”

”Who?”

”Very’s tutor. Tranh.”

That stopped me a minute.

”Hey, John, you okay?”

”Fine.” I gestured toward the now-dark screen. ”Was Veronica always like that?”

”Like that ‘cock-tease,’ or like that ‘bitchy’?”

”Both.”

Eisen pursed his lips again, the rug doing its little glide on his forehead. ”Depended on the circumstance.”

”Meaning?”

”Meaning—look, I gave you Rock-’n’-Roll 101, let me give you the same about Very. She knew how to use it better than most women I’ve ever met, and believe me, you’re the personal manager of a rock band, you’ve seen them all ages and sizes.”

”Use what?”

”The hint of sex, John. You might say Very was ‘mature beyond her years.’ She knew what worked with her father, and her grandfather, for that matter.”

I felt myself starting to bristle, tried to keep it out of my voice. ”Nicolas Helides?”

”Yeah. Oh, I don’t mean the real thing, like incest or whatever. Shit, man, I protested the war back then like everybody else I know, but with the old man financing the comeback, I finally got to know him a little, and you got to feel sorry for the guy. Was a stand-up hero over there, what I heard.”

”You heard right.”

”Meanwhile, back in the states, his one son—Spi, now—goes druggie on him and runs away from home. His wife’d already turned up her toes giving birth to the other son —David—who turns out to be a fucking zombie. And then he marries a—”

”I’ve met Cassandra Helides.”

”Then enough said about her, except that after the old man stroked out, she got worse. But even Cassie could take a lesson from Very. The little vixen knew just how high turn up the candlepower, get her own way about things.

”Go on.”

”All right.” Eisen settled back into the big chair. ”Very could light the super-bitch candle for Spi, the super-sweet candle for the Colonel, and the super-student candle for Tranh, though I can’t say I ever saw that. She could even get that David to come out of his shell a little, which I did see once or twice.

”How?”

”I was there, John, in the house.”

”I meant, how did Veronica get David ‘out of his shell’?”

”Oh. Well, she’d get him to show her his computer stuff, and play on it.”

”I always thought kids knew more about computers than adults.”

”Most times, I’d agree with you. But David—you know computer nerds, right?”

”A few.”

”Okay, David’s a computer... zombie, like I said before. He stays in his room most of the time, and his father’s house just about all of the time. The poor schmuck’s whole world is that computer setup. Have him show it to you.”