“I’d even buy this guitar,” Russell says.
“I don’t think I could part with it,” I say and take it from him. I clip the neck on the side of the safe as I’m placing it inside. The hollow ring echoes until I close the door against the sound. I usher Russell out of the room. Any awkwardness disappears once our shoes hit the tall grass outside. He smiles again, the insinuations from earlier now absent. The sudden change is a little unnerving.
“It’s just a real honor meeting you,” Russell says. “Can I give you something?”
“Okay,” I say.
“I’ll be right back.” Russell runs to the hearse. He opens the tailgate and digs through a mess of cardboard boxes stacked where a casket should lie. “Victor, where’s it at?” he calls. The cowboy comes around the car to help.
After a minute of rummaging, Russell returns with an album. The cover is homemade. A black-and-white picture of four men in front of a brick wall. Guitars hang from straps on their shoulders and the drummer sits on a bass drum with THE EXCITABLE BOYS inscribed across it in gothic calligraphy.
“Some name,” I say.
“Zevon, man,” Russell says. “Give it a listen and come to the show if you like.”
“I’ll check it out.”
We both fall silent, listen to the birds warbling in the trees. The cowboy, Victor, is the first to move. He clears his throat and stands from the hood.
“Well, I’ll let you get back to it.” Russell shakes my hand again. “Think about what we talked about. The offer stands if you change your mind.”
Russell climbs in and the hearse’s engine growls to life. The radio blasts a punk track with a screaming, spitfire chorus I can’t decipher as the vehicle turns around in my yard. This music seems to linger long after they’ve disappeared. I look at the record in my hand. Such an effort to avoid attention, then this rock ’n’ roll disciple arrives in a car meant to taxi the dead. I suppose you can’t send creations out into the world and expect to remain anonymous. I curse Angela for igniting the initial spark so many years ago.
Inside, I make a sandwich before going to lie down in the bedroom. I brush crumbs from the sheets and try to figure out the strange meeting that just transpired. Was Russell threatening me with his knowledge? If I don’t sell him what he wants, will he expose me? I consider the angles until Caroline enters the room.
“Where’ve you been?” I ask.
“In the bathroom,” she says. “Who was that jackass?”
“A fan, if you can believe it.”
“A fan. That sounds bad.”
My clothes stick against my skin with sweat. I’m worried the reek will permeate the bedsheets, but I’m too lazy to undress. At the foot of the bed, Caroline begins to peel her clothes off. There’s a profound beauty to her body that anyone would notice, but I’m envious of the glory present in the mundanely normal. When your spine bends, any straight back contains grace. I consider it now, watching her stretch as the T-shirt comes over her head, raises her hair aloft and lets it fall against even shoulders. Their perfect symmetry is only broken by a small raspberry birthmark.
I grow hard watching her, but my mind is racing with other thoughts, wondering why a woman like her could possibly desire a broken man like me. Just like the few other times a woman has touched me, I’m mired in a state of disbelief. Every coupling of my life has been consummated in a fever dream of confusion. An awareness that my brittle body is too malformed for the task. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to just enjoy the act, or will I always be scared, programmed with society’s disgust at the idea I could ever be an adequate lover.
“We shouldn’t do this anymore,” I say. “I’m too old. I’m your teacher.”
“So, teach me,” she says.
The other fear is that I’ll be unable to keep this in perspective. Caroline is interested in the pleasure of the moment. I know I’ll want more. A woman to wake beside each morning. A partner instead of this temporary respite from my loneliness. Caroline climbs under the sheets. I pull her close, spoon my body around her as best I can, but my poor posture keeps our wet skins from sealing together.
“Don’t quite fit, do we?” I say.
“Of course we do.” She begins to work on my belt buckle. “Let me show you.”
* * *
• • •
I wait until Caroline is snoring and try to go about my day, but eventually put the album on my turntable. Guitars drowning in distortion, feedback that threatens to burst the speakers. The drummer beats a jack-off rhythm on the snare and high hat. Not much skill to it. Fast four-chord verses followed by a faster three-chord chorus. The soul is right. Seething anger and all the attitude amputated from radio rock.
Two more songs play before I turn it off. If they have a real flaw, it’s in repetition of subject matter. Lyrics about werewolves, vampires and other B-movie drive-in horrors. I understand the hearse now. Another part of their brand identity, like Russell’s tattoos. Bastard punk children of Alice Cooper and The Misfits, full of Roky Erickson copied madness. Nothing original but dedicated in their ethos. If there is one positive, the kid can write a solid song. One of the best tracks is a piece of Fifties-style prom rock. The song sounds a little like “Earth Angel” if it were written by the monster hiding under your bed.
I’m still trying to process how it feels knowing I’m someone’s idol, wondering why he jumped straight to questions about the old recordings. It reminds me of my father’s sermons. The night after the old man was buried, I set fire to the church. Stood outside in the pale moonlight and watched the flames climb across the rooftop. The living element grew, devouring the holy planks as the past perished, but the flames hadn’t fixed anything. Destruction, I learned, was as impotent as anything else. That feeling has stayed for years.
Maybe I should go and watch these kids, see if listening to their music makes me feel anything. I’m afraid that whatever organ allowed my investment years ago has fallen as ill as the rest of me. I’m afraid that these new songs may simply rot on the vine before I complete them.
Caroline would ask what I was going to do about that fear. I do the same thing she does to silence whatever hounds her and swallow another pill.
THE CHOICE
Day One of the Contamination
Caroline is gone for two days, then arrives late one night in a stupor. I watch out the window through parted blinds, wondering just how bad it will be this time. Her borrowed truck nearly clips a chestnut tree on the edge of my field, but she maneuvers around it, grinding the gears while throwing the truck into park. When she doesn’t emerge, I shrug into a robe and go outside to check on her.