Spree (6 page)

“The new band just isn’t happening, Jon. Those kids aren’t ready to do anything but play weekends. They’re in fucking college, for Godsake!”

“It’s sounding good.”

“Jon, we’re too old to be some top-forty band playing frat parties and bars. I got to get out there and make it, really
make
it, before my tits start to sag.”

Jon touched her arm. “I’d be glad to lift ’em for you.”

She removed his hand like a bug that had lit. “Don’t start. To you this is just a hobby. To me it’s a career.”

Jon stood, some anger bubbling up through his hurt feelings. “Hobby! I’ve given this thing three years of my life, working in bands with you, driving all over the goddamn country in that lumber wagon of a van, sleeping in roach motels, fencing with moronic club owners. Jesus! What do you want from me?”

She looked at him with something approaching regret. Sighed. Said, “Sit down.”

He frowned at her.

“Sit down,” she said, and she sat on the edge of the bed, pushing the suitcase back out of the way.

He sat, too.

“Jon, this isn’t your dream. Music. It’s always been second place to you. You’ve got your comic book, now. That’s
your
dream. You’ve realized it.”

“Toni . . .” He didn’t know what to say, exactly. He supposed she was right, in a way. Music wasn’t the passion of his life: cartooning was. Playing in rock bands was something he’d gotten into in junior high, for the hell of it. He’d only gotten back into music a few years ago, when his efforts to make it in the comics weren’t paying off.

But now he had
Space Pirates
—a monthly comic book of his own. He wrote it and drew it. Penciled, inked, lettered it. It was a small-press book, for the so-called direct-sales market—which meant his book didn’t get on newsstands, rather went only to the specialty shops catering to the hard-core comic-book fans—and what it was bringing in would, at first anyway, only amount to around eighteen grand a year. Which meant he needed another source of income, and playing in a band with Toni, weekends, could provide that.

“We made a deal, you and I,” Toni said. “We said we’d try to make it together. Really make it. But I don’t think you’re willing, anymore. I think you want to stay in one place and play weekends. You’re holding me back, Jon. You aren’t ready to go back on the road full-time. You
can’t
, and draw your comic book.”

“Damnit, I
tried
,” he said, meaning he’d tried to make it in rock with her. “What about the goddamn record?”

With their previous band, the Nodes—which had gone through several incarnations—they had put together an album of original material, thirteen songs written by Jon and/or Toni. This was about a year ago, before
Space Pirates
, before the Nodes broke up, when they were playing a circuit throughout the Midwest and South, driving a hundred thousand miles or so a year. Like a lot of bands, they had put the album out themselves, when none of the major record companies responded to their tape; and had sold the album at their various performances. Midnight Records in New York, a record store that specialized in offbeat small-label product, had even distributed it to other specialty record shops, and overseas. It had gotten some airplay, on college stations primarily, across the country.

But nothing substantial had come of it, and the frustration of that had led to the group disbanding. Toni and Jon had been putting the pieces back together, these last six months, during which time Jon had placed
Space Pirates
with a small publisher and was spending more and more time at his drawing board and less and less at his synthesizer keyboard.

“I
financed
that fucking album,” Jon said, pointing to himself, as if there were some confusion as to who he was talking about.

“I know you did,” she said.

The money he’d spent came from that last job with Nolan; money didn’t come harder earned than that.

“You got some major exposure because of me, Toni. You got some very nice reviews—that guy in
The Village Voice
said you were ‘distinctive and powerful.
’
”

She smiled at that; a sad smile. “The exact words of the review,” she said. “You remembered.”

“Yeah. I remember what he said about my songwriting, too, but let’s not get into that.”

Below them the record store’s stereo was booming; they were open Sundays. Springsteen.

“Springsteen,” Jon said.

“Springsteen,” Toni smiled.

“I hate Springsteen,” Jon said.

“What?”

“I never told you before. Kept it to myself.”

“You don’t like the
Boss
?”

“Never have. New Jersey and cars and off-pitch singing. Who needs it? I know it’s like hating motherhood and apple pie, but there it is.”

“Goddamn,” she said. “Even your musical taste is bad.”

“Sorry you feel that way,” he said. “You’re my favorite female singer.”

“Shut up, Jon,” she said. Sad.

The floor beneath their feet pulsed with Springsteen.

“Tell me about the gig,” he said.

She shrugged. “You weren’t so far wrong. It does have to do with Prince.”

“You’re shitting me.”

Another shrug. “It’s his management company. They heard our record. They like my singing. They came looking for me, tracked me down.”

“
I
didn’t see any short black guys in purple capes hanging around.”

“Jon, short jokes don’t become you.”

“Hey, Prince is all right with me. I like anybody I can look down to. So. It’s the big time.”

She smiled, nervously. “I don’t know about that. They’re putting me with a band. We’ll be doing some traveling. It’s kind of like playing the minors when they’re grooming you for the majors. Maybe something will come of it.”

He patted her knee. “I’m sure something will. Why were you mad at me, when I came in? Why didn’t you tell me, instead of just starting to pack?”

“You know how I’ve felt about the new band . . .”

“Sure. I’ve heard the ‘you’re holding me back, Jon’ speech a few hundred times. But I still don’t understand why you were
mad
at me. I’m the one who should be pissed; I’m the one getting walked out on.”

“But you’re the one who caused it! Jon, you betrayed me.”

“Betrayed . . .”

She shook her head; the spiky dark hair shimmered. “Ah, hell, that’s too strong a word, but we were supposed to be in this
together
. It’s your fault we got stalled in Des Moines. It’s your fault a comic book seduced you away from me and music, and your fault that I have to take off without you. Shit, if I thought you wanted it, I would’ve fought to take you with me . . .”

“They didn’t want me, did they?”

She swallowed. “Jon, I figured you wouldn’t want to come along, anyway. You couldn’t do it without giving up your comic book, and . . .”

“You’re right. I like doing what I’m doing. Besides, I know it’s you they want. Just you. And I don’t blame ’em. I read the reviews of the album. As a performer/songwriter, I make a great cartoonist.”

“I . . .  I handled this all wrong.”

“There’s no easy way. This place won’t seem the same without you.”

“Jon, uh—you forget. This is my apartment.”

“Yeah?”

“And I rented it from Rick, downstairs, right?” Rick was who Toni worked for in the record store, the manager, the owner of the building.

“Right.”

“And you remember when you and Rick got in that argument?”

“You mean, when we got drunk that time and I told him he liked funk because of ‘liberal guilt’ and he belted me and I belted him back and chipped his tooth? Yeah. I remember that.”

“Good. Then you’ll understand when I tell you that when I told Rick I was leaving, he refused to turn the lease over to you.”

“What?”

“He really hates you.”

“You could’ve sublet to me!”

“I didn’t think of that.”

“Great. How long do I have to get out?”

“Monday.”

“What Monday?”

She winced. “Tomorrow.”

“You mean, you’re
evicting
me? You’re fucking
evicting
me?”

“Well . . . Rick is.”

“Jesus! When . . . how . . .”

“Prince’s people called me Friday. I talked to Rick yesterday afternoon.”

He stood; started to pace, the Boss pulsing beneath his feet; he wished he were walking on Rick’s face—he wished he were walking on Springsteen’s face, for that matter.

“I leave for two days,” he said, ranting, raving, “and come back, and my life’s shot to shit!”

Toni seemed genuinely concerned, now. “Jon—you can find someplace to crash. You’ll put things back together soon enough.”

“Christ, I got a deadline to meet with my comic book! I just lost two days in Cedar Rapids being civil to rude little fan boys who would’ve much rather met the guy who draws the X-Men! I have
work
to do, and you’re telling me I don’t have anyplace to
sleep
tonight.”

“Tonight you do. He wants you out tomorrow noon.”

“Oh, wonderful. Wonderful. It’s nice to have a little
lee-way
.”

“You’ll put it back together. Jon, it’s not like we . . . well, we’re just friends. We’re not lovers.”

“I guess we aren’t,” he said. He sat down again. “But I’m awful used to you.”

“Maybe that isn’t such a good thing. This’ll be good for you.”

“What’ll I do? Where will I crash? Where the hell’s my short-term future, anyway? Never mind the long term.”

She shrugged. “Why don’t you go visit your pal Nolan. In the Quad Cities. Stay with him awhile. It might be relaxing.”

It might at that, Jon thought.

“In the meantime,” she said, wickedly, pulling off her Springsteen sweatshirt, exposing the full firm breasts he would soon be missing very much, “why don’t you fuck me good-bye?”

“What are friends for?” Jon shrugged, pulling off his
Space Pirates
shirt, quite sure that of the ways he was getting screwed this afternoon, this would be the most pleasant.

5

FAMILY MEANT
everything to Coleman Comfort. Family and money. Not that you could separate the two: Cole’s loyalty to his kin was measured by money, by how good a provider he could be. As a wise man once said, there was no better yardstick of love than money.

Not that he bore the burden on his shoulders alone. He had taught his sons that you had to work in order to find your way in this world. The oldest, Clarence, had gone into construction and was making a fine living for himself and his wife and four kids, till the accident with the crane. Since Clarence’s death, Cole had seen to it that his daughter-in-law got a check every month, or he had till she remarried, to some jerk who owned a motel. He wasn’t bitter about that or anything: he didn’t expect a fine young woman like Wanda to stay single. It was just that the family responsibility had shifted to the jerk.