Glamorama (18 page)

At Conrad’s loft on Bond Street it’s 1:30 which is really the only time to practice since everyone else in the building is at work or at Time Café acting like an idiot without trying over lunch, and from where I slouch in the doorway leading into the loft I can see all the members of the Impersonators lying around in various positions, each next to his own amp: Aztec’s wearing a Hang-10 T-shirt, scratching at a Kenny Scharf tattoo on his bicep, Fender in lap; Conrad, our lead singer, has a kind of damp appeal and dated Jenny McCarthy and has wilted hair the color of lemonade and dresses in rumpled linens; Fergy’s wrapped in an elongated cardigan and playing with a Magic 8 Ball, sunglasses lowered; and Fitzgerald was in a gothic rock band, OD’d, was resuscitated, OD’d again, was resuscitated again, campaigned mindlessly for Clinton, modeled for Versace, dated Jennifer Capriati, and he’s wearing pajamas and sleeping in a giant hot-pink-and-yucca-striped beanbag chair. And they’re all existing in this freezing, screwy-looking loft where DAT tapes and CDs are scattered everywhere, MTV’s on, Presidents of the United States merging into a Mentos commercial merging into an ad for the new Jackie Chan movie, empty Zen Palate take-out boxes are strewn all over the place, white roses dying in an empty Stoli bottle, a giant sad rag-doll photo by Mike Kelly dominates one wall, the collected works of Philip K. Dick fill an entire row in the room’s only bookcase, Lava lamps, cans of Play-Doh.

I take a deep breath, enter the room casually, brush some confetti off my jacket.

Except Fitz, they all look up, and Aztec immediately starts strumming something from
Tommy
on his Fender.

“He seems to be completely unreceptive,” Aztec sings-talks. “The tests I gave him show no sense at all.”

“His eyes react to light—the dials detect it,” Conrad chimes in. “He hears but cannot answer to your call.”

“Shut up,” I yawn, grabbing an ice beer out of the fridge.

“His eyes can see, his ears can hear, his lips speak,” Aztec continues.

“All the time the needles flick and rock,” Conrad admits.

“No machine can give the kind of stimulation,” Fergy points out, “needed to remove his inner block.”

“What is happening in his head?” the three of them sing out.

“Ooh I wish I knew,” Fitzgerald calls from the beanbag chair for one lucid moment. “I wish I kneeeeew.” He immediately rolls over into a fetal position.

“You’re late,” Conrad snaps.

“
I’m
late? It takes you guys an hour just to tune up,” I yawn, flopping onto a pile of Indian pillows. “I’m
not
late,” I yawn again, sipping the ice beer, notice them all glaring at me. “What? I had to cancel a hair appointment at Oribe to make it here.” I toss a copy of
Spin
that’s lying next to an antique hookah pipe at Fitz, who doesn’t even flinch when it hits him.

“‘Magic Touch,’” Aztec shouts out.

I answer without trying. “Plimsouls,
Everywhere at Once
, 3:19, Geffen.”

“‘Walking Down Madison,’” he tosses out.

“Kirsty MacColl,
Electric Landlady
, 6:34, Virgin.”

“‘Real World.’”

“Jesus Jones,
Liquidizer
, 3:03, SBK.”

“‘Jazz Police.’”

“Leonard Cohen,
I’m Your Man
, 3:51, CBS.”

“‘You Get What You Deserve.’”

“Big Star,
Radio City
, 3:05, Stax.” I yawn. “Oh, this is too easy.”

“‘Ode to Boy.’”

“Yaz,
You and Me Both
, 3:35, Sire.”

“‘Top of the Pops.’” Aztec’s losing interest.

“The Smithereens,
Blow Up
, 4:32, Capitol.”

“If only you gave the band that much attention, Victor,” Conrad says in Conrad’s hey-I’m-hostile-here mode.

“Who came in here last week with a list of songs we should cover?” I retort.

“I’m
not
gonna sing an acid-house version of ‘We Built This City,’ Victor,” Conrad fumes.

“You’re throwing money out the window, dude.” I shrug.

“Covers are nowhere, Victor,” Fergy pipes in. “There’s no money in covers.”

“That’s what Chloe always tells me,” I say. “And if I don’t believe her, how am I gonna believe you?”

“What’s the point, Victor?” someone sighs.

“You, babe”—I’m pointing at Aztec—“have the ability to take a song that people have heard a million times and play it in a way that no one has ever heard it played before.”

“And
you’re
too fucking lazy to write your own material,” Conrad says, pointing back, full of indie-rock venom.

“I personally think a cocktail-mix version of ‘Shiny Happy People’ is hopping—”

“REM is classic rock, Victor,” Conrad says patiently. “We do not
do
classic-rock covers.”

“Oh god, I want to kill myself,” Fergy moans.

“Hey—but the good news, everyone, is that Courtney Love’s over thirty,” I say happily.

“Okay. I feel better.”

“What kind of royalties is Courtney getting from Nirvana sales?” Aztec asks Fergy.

“Was there a prenup?” Fergy wonders.

Shrugs all around.

“So,” Fergy concludes, “since Kurt’s demise maybe nothing.”

“Hey, come on—Kurt Cobain didn’t die,” I say. “His music lives on in all of us.”

“We really need to focus on new material, guys,” Conrad says.

“Well, can we at least write one song without a shitty reggae beat that starts off with the line ‘I was a trippin in da crack house late last night’?” I ask. “Or ‘Dere’s a rat in da kitchen—what I gonna do?’”

Aztec pops open a Zima and restrums his Fender contemplatively.

“When’s the last time you guys made a demo?” I ask, noticing Chloe on the cover of the new
Manhattan File
next to the latest
Wired
and the copy of
YouthQuake
with me on the front, totally defaced with purple ink.

“Last week, Victor,” I hear Conrad say through gritted teeth.

“That’s a million years ago,” I murmur, flipping around for the article about her. It’s all blah blah blah—the last year of doing runway shows, the Lancôme contract, her diet, movie roles, denying the rumors about heroin addiction, Chloe talking about wanting to have kids (“A big playpen, the whole thing,” she’s quoted), a photo of us at the VH1 Fashion and Music Awards, with me staring vacantly into the camera, a photo of Chloe at the Doppelganger party celebrating the Fifty Most Fabulous People in the World, Baxter Priestly trailing behind her—and I’m trying to remember what my relationship with Lauren Hynde was like back at Camden or if there even was one, as if, right now, in the loft on Bond Street, it matters.

“Victor,” Conrad’s saying, hands on hips, “a lot of bands are in the music biz for the totally wrong reasons: to make money, to get laid—”

“Whoa, wait a minute, Conrad.” I hold my hands out, sitting up.
“These
are the
wrong
reasons? Really? Let me just get this straight.”

“All you do here, Victor, is drink beer and reread magazines that you or your girlfriend happen to be in this month,” Conrad says, looming over me.

“And you’re all so lost in the past, man,” I say wearily. “Captain Beef-heart records?
Yogurt?
What the fuck is like going on here, huh?” I exclaim. “And Jesus, Aztec—cut your toenails! Where are your fucking morals? What do you even
do
besides going to fucking poetry readings at Fez? Why don’t you go to a fucking gym or something?”

“I get enough exercise,” Aztec says dubiously.

“Rolling a joint isn’t exercise, guy,” I say. “And shave off that goddamn facial hair. You look like a fucking billy goat.”

“I think it’s time you calm down, Victor,” Aztec says, “and take your place with the glitterati.”

“I’m just offering you an escape from that whole stale hippie vibe.”

Fergy looks over at me and shivers vaguely.

“You’re jeopardizing our friendship, dude,” I say, though it emerges from my mouth without a lot of concern.

“You’re never here long enough, Victor, to jeopardize anything!” Conrad shouts.

“Oh spare me,” I mutter, getting up to leave.

“Just go, Victor,” Conrad sighs. “No one wants you here. Go open your big tacky club.”

I grab my portfolio and bag of CDs and head toward the door.

“You all feel this way?” I’m asking, standing over Fitz, who wipes his nose on the ice-hockey jersey he’s using as a pillow, eyes closed, sleeping serenely, dreaming about cartons of methadone. “I bet Fitz wants me to stay. Don’t you, Fitz?” I ask, leaning down, trying to shake him awake. “Hey Fitz, wake up.”

“Don’t even try, Victor,” Fergy yawns.

“What’s wrong with the Synthman?” I ask. “Besides spending his teen years in Goa.”

“He went on a Jägermeister binge last night,” Conrad sighs. “He’s on ibogaine now.”

“And so?” I ask, still prodding Fitz.

“And for breakfast Ecstasy cut with too much heroin.”

“Too much?”

“Too much heroin.”

“Instead of like …”

“The right amount of heroin, Victor.”

“Christ,” I mutter.

“Oh boy, Victor.” Conrad smirks. “Farm living’s the life for you.”

“I’d rather be a farmer than hang out with people who drink their own blood, you fucking hippie vampires.”

“Fitz is also suffering from binocular dysphoria and carpal tunnel syndrome.”

“Shine on, you crazy diamond.” I rummage in my coat pocket and start handing out free drink tickets. “Well, I guess I’m here to tell you I’m quitting the band and these are only good between 11:46 and 12:01 tonight.”

“So that’s it?” Conrad asks. “You’re just quitting?”

“I give you my blessing to continue,” I say, placing two free-drink tickets on Fitz’s leg.

“Like you even care, Victor,” Conrad says.

“I think this is good news, Conrad,” Fergy says, shaking the Magic 8
Ball. “I think, Far out. In fact Magic 8 Ball says ‘Far Out’ too.” He holds the ball up for us to see.

“It’s just this whole indie-rock scene equals
yuck,”
I say. “Y’know what I’m saying?”

Conrad just stares at Fitz.

“Conrad, hey, maybe we should go bungee jumping with Duane and Kitty this weekend,” Aztec says. “How about it, Conrad? Conrad?” Pause. “Conrad?”

Conrad continues to stare at Fitz, and as I’m leaving he says, “Has anybody realized that our drummer is the most lucid person in this band?”

17

Walking up Lafayette unable to shake off the feeling of being followed and stopping on the corner of East Fourth I catch my reflection superimposed in the glass covering of an Armani Exchange ad and it’s merging with the sepia-toned photo of a male model until both of us are melded together and it’s hard to turn away but except for the sound of my beeper going off the city suddenly goes quiet, the dry air crackling not with static but with something else, something less. Cabs lumber by silently, someone dressed exactly like me crosses the street, three beautiful girls pass by, each maybe sixteen and eyeing me, trailed by a thug with a camcorder, the muted, dissonant strains of Moby float from the open doors of the Crunch gym across the street where on the building above it a giant billboard advertises in huge black block letters the word
TEMPURA.
But someone’s calling “Cut!” and the noise from the construction site of the new Gap behind me and the beeper going off—for some freaky reason it’s the number of Indochine—moves me toward a phone booth where before dialing I imagine a naked Lauren Hynde striding toward me in a suite at the Delano with a deeper sense of purpose than I can muster. Alison picks up.

“I need to make a reservation,” I say, trying to disguise my voice.

“I’ve got something I want to tell you,” she says.

“What?” I gulp. “Y-you used to be a man?”

Alison knocks the phone on a hard surface. “Oh sorry, that’s my call-waiting. I’ve gotta go.”

“That didn’t sound like, uh, call-waiting, baby.”

“It’s a new kind of call-waiting. It simulates the sound of someone who’s dating a useless asshole angrily knocking their phone against a wall.”

“Essential, baby, you’re essential.”

“I want you here at Indochine within two minutes.”

“I’m inundated, baby, totally inundated.”