It was a pretty darn good morning until the Lamborghini.
I came awake slowly, tiptoeing into consciousness as if trying to get on its good side. When I made it all the way, I reached down and turned off my CPAP. I stowed the mask and hit the remote’s memory button for my side of the split-king adjustable bed. As it hoisted me upright, I grabbed my cell, thumbed open email and scanned the subject lines. There were no obituaries, emergency requests for money, or strangers begging me to appear on their podcasts, and nothing in the vein of “You don’t know me, but I think you might be my father.”
All good omens.
There was an email from Jesse. I deleted it unopened. With an act of will, I set down the phone and got to my feet. I flexed my knees, shoulders, elbows, and wrists. None of them screamed above the usual background levels of pain.
So far, so good.
An hour later, I was in my 2009 Mercedes S-class, well known to be the most reliable model year. It purred, the V12 absurdly overpowered for the uses I put it to, namely running errands and occasionally leaving it in long-term parking when Marcy and I found something to drag us out of our sleepy little college town.
Today’s errand was a hardware run for furnace filters. I enjoy errands. San Luis Obispo is close enough to LA that people aren’t impressed by former show biz success. Either that or nobody cares about a washed-up drummer from some band that hasn’t put out a record in over 20 years. Whatever the reason, people treat me as just another aging Boomer, and that’s more than fine by me.
I found the filters without trouble and was standing in line when it came on the store speakers.
The song.
Even if you weren’t born when it came out, you’ve heard it more times than you can count. You probably can’t name the band or list any of their other hits. There were some. We weren’t one-hit wonders. But the song overshadows everything else we did. If, by some miracle, you’ve escaped the original, it’s been covered over 50 times and sampled another 100-plus and counting. The royalties subsidize my comfortable life, and I despise it with every fiber of my being. I’ve made Marcy promise not to let them, but I have no doubt they’ll play it at my funeral. Hell, they’ll probably bury me with an iPod playing it on a loop. I’m not going to quote the lyrics or even the title because I don’t want to plant the earworm in your brain.
You’re welcome.
Hearing the song was usually an augury of shittiness ahead, but I decided to treat it as coincidence. That thin hope evaporated when got back home and found a cherry red Lamborghini in the driveway. I pulled into the garage and sat. I didn’t know who the messenger was this time, but I had no doubt of the message. No matter what I did or said, the message was the knife-wielding killer in my slasher movie of a life. It wouldn’t stay dead.
I could postpone the inevitable awkward conversation only so long. I climbed out, stowed the filters, and went inside. I found Louis in the kitchen with Marcy, chatting like the old friends they were. My heart sank. They’d sent the big gun this time. As bass player, Louis was the other half of the band’s rhythm section, my spiritual brother and closest ally during the dark times. He looked damn good for his age, lean and fit. One of the few signs of the years was his hair, largely gray now and closely cropped instead of the trim afro he sported in the band days. Despite myself, I found I was genuinely happy to see him. We walked into a hug that lasted far longer than any in my more-worried-about-masculinity younger days.
“Jesse must really be desperate,” I said.
“He’s changed, Mike,” he said. “I’ve spent time with him, and we talked honestly about everything. He showed me his seven-year chip. He said he’s been reaching out to make amends, but you won’t take his calls or return his emails.”
“Guilty as charged. What can I say? I have no interest in anything that comes out of his mouth.”
Marcy took that as her cue. “I’ll leave you to catch up,” she said.
I watched her go, wishing there were a way to follow her without being a dick to a man I called my brother.
“If we’re going to do this,” I said, “let’s at least go on the patio.”
***
We sat for a while, nursing Arnold Palmers and looking over the cozy college town beneath us.
“Doing any playing these days?” I asked him.
“Here and there,” he said. “I book some session dates, and I got into producing for a while, but it’s all Pro Tools and Auto-Tune now. I feel more like Victor Frankenstein than Quincy Jones.”
“I hear you.”
“A bunch of us get together Saturdays, jazz and fusion mostly. I have a sweet fretless, and I get to indulge my inner Mingus for a few hours. How about you?”
“I’m a member in good standing of Drummers Anonymous, and it’s been 24 years since I picked up a stick. So you can report back you asked me and nothing’s changed.”
Louis shook his head. “You’re one stubborn bastard,” he said.
“Well, this is certainly an interesting sales pitch.”
“Fuck you, Mike. I’m here as your friend. Yes, I’m carrying a message, but I also care about you, and I’m tired of watching you play the victim. We’re not young, and there aren’t that many years left. We were kids, way over our heads. We fucked up. Some more than others, but we all did. Even you.”
“I don’t deny that,” I said. “And I’ve done my best to make amends.”
“When you called to do your ninth step, I picked up,” he said, looking me in the eyes. “Why won’t you do the same?”
“Because it’s not about Jesse’s coke habit or his drinking or sex addiction. It’s the lying, gaslighting, emotional abuse, manipulation, and casual cruelty. He’s a malignant narcissist, and there’s no program for that. He may have all of you convinced he’s finally changed, but narcissists manipulate. It’s their signature trait. This is my Garden of Eden. I’ve built it slowly and patiently, year after year. It let me to pick up my 41-year chip last month. Why on earth would I invite the serpent inside?”
“So, you’ve had therapy,” said Louis. “You’ve managed to bundle the past into a neat little package that lets you sleep at night. Good for you. But where you see a garden, I see a cage. It’s a beautiful one, like at the nice, progressive zoos, but it’s a fucking cage, and you’re another exhibit, lying around, waiting on the next feeding.”
“I can see why you never went into sales.”
“Again, fuck you, Mike. I’m talking about the whole you, the big, beautiful animal, playing for the joy of it. When the two of us locked in, something came alive, core and primal and bigger than you. Where’s the room for that in your gilded cage? Tell me you don’t miss it.”
“I also miss Vicodin,” I said. “But I know what’s good for me and what isn’t.”
“That’s crap and you know it. There’s a world of difference between living your art and hiding out in an addiction.” He gave a long sigh of frustration and leaned back in his chair, letting his eyes fall shut. The silence stretched until I felt forced to break it.
“Louis, man,” I said. “It really is good to see you. I’m sorry I haven’t kept up better with our friendship. And I know your words come from a place of love. But I also know what comes next, and I’m so fucking tired of being the asshole always saying no. Why can’t y’all accept I meant what I said back then? I was done. I’m still done. How many ways do I have to say it?”
“He’s dying,” Louis said softly, not opening his eyes. “It’s his pancreas. He has maybe six good months before it’s all downhill. He’ll be lucky to survive the year.”
“It’s another trick,” I said.
“I’ve seen the radiology report.”
“Fuck.”
“The clock’s ticking, Mike. If you wait too long, you’ll be blaming your life on a ghost.”
***
“You know how to reach me,” said Louis at the door of his Lambo. He held out his fist. “Brothers forever.”
I tapped it with mine. “Brothers forever.”
That night after dinner and Netflix, Marcy and I soaked in the hot tub. It was a rare clear night. The stars shone like a stadium full of lighters calling for an encore. I was trying to relax so I could fall asleep later. It wasn’t working. Louis’s bombshell kept detonating in slow motion. Despite myself, I pictured Jesse hollowing out. Whatever there was to say about the man, no one could ever call him a lightweight. He was larger than life onstage and off. More force of nature than mortal. Now mortality was having the last laugh? How banally ironic. How dispiriting.
How fucking sad.
“I can hear the wheels turning,” said Marcy. “You’re considering it, aren’t you?”
“You were eavesdropping?”
“Damn right I was. I wasn’t about to leave you to fill me in.”
“His news knocked me for a loop,” I said, “but it doesn’t change anything.”
She took a moment before speaking. “I love you, Mike. More than I knew I could love another grownup,” she said. “But sometimes you exasperate the hell out of me. Louis was right when he called this your cage. You pace it like a lion behind bars. Furnace filters? You used to sell out stadiums. And look at your hands.”
I glanced down. My hands were twitching like my old, jacked-up drum teacher. Despite myself, I could feel sticks pressed into them like phantom limbs.
“Inviting this man Jesse into our lives is a risk,” she said, “but you’ve been playing it safe too long. You’re my man, and I’ll support you whatever, but for fuck’s sake, pick up the phone and call him.”
I’d given her most of my history with Jesse but not the worst. That was something I couldn’t bear to speak of—even after all these years. If she’d known, I’m not sure it would have changed her viewpoint. Marcy saw friends and family as sacred, and she strongly disapproved when I’d cut members of both from my life. I usually weathered her disapproval stoically, but after Louis’s news, I could feel my resistance crumbling.
God damnit, I was finally going to do it. I was going to pick up the phone and make the call. I’d listen to Jesse’s amends, and when he was done, his pitch. And, like old times, I’d be defenseless in the face of his persuasive powers. Against every voice of caution and good sense within me, I’d say yes, and that would be that. We’d join the ranks of so many of our peers, gray and flabby shadows of the virile demigods we’d been in our prime. For one bloated and shameless, money-grubbing, spotlight-whoring “Special Reunion” tour, we’d do it. We’d get the band back together.