Skeletons (37 page)

“Are you kidding?"

"No." And now, once again, I see that creepy look they all get when they're around humans, the slow burn ready to erupt to violence, the one Bobbie, and all of them, has been holding in check so long with me. "It . . . won't work."

"But Bobbie, there's lots of humans in this area. Not only musicians. All types. You wouldn't believe the stories I'm hearing. There are soldiers, even."

His interest picks up. "How many?"

"Maybe twenty, thirty thousand. Another army, Bobbie boy."

Now I've got him. He's seriously diddling with it. Then he shakes his head quickly. "Never work."

"From what I hear, the humans are desperate. You could hook up with them, drive the federal government off, make Alaska a separate country. Rock and Roll Land."

"No."

"A human-bone alliance, Bobbie." I smile. "Make it . . . temporary, if you like. Just until you get what you want. Then . . ." I look off, shrug.

He's smiling. "You really are a snake, Roger."

"Just keep me around, babe. Let me do what I do.”

“It might work," he says, and he's rubbing his chin. "Sure. Don't forget, alcohol and drugs work on everybody. Speaking of which . . ."

I eye his pocket, where he's taken to keeping his bag.

"Sure, Roger, sure." Grinning, he cuts me a line of coke on his desk, even holds the straw for me.

"So, what do you think about the human-bone hookup?" I say, sitting back.

"I say yes," he says. "Go to it, old boy."

"You bet, old boy," I say, and we both laugh.

So I talk to Dylan, who talks to Billy Joel, who talks to two other guys, who talk to five others guys. And pretty soon I'm ushered into this grand-
poobah
-type setup in the hills, lots of guards, me in a blindfold, then standing in front of a table with some kind of Council of Five behind it.

"Can he be trusted?" some guy on the end, looks like Mitch Miller, says.

"No," says my escort, who looks government to me, later I realize he was Dan Quayle.

"But it is a good idea." This from one of the other deskmen, a woman who I can't immediately place; later I realize it's Quayle's wife.

"Yes . . ." Quayle says.

"Can I say something?" I butt in.

They all look at me, wait.

"You can make an alliance with them—then you can fu 'em!"

They continue to look at me.

"Hey, there're thirty thou of you clowns, right? There's only twenty thou of Bobbie
Zick's
boys! Get in on the concert gig, then wham 'em, get their weapons, their supplies. Then you'll have more stuff to fight the feds with! I mean, Bobbie's planning on doing the same to you. Just leave the music to me!"

They look at each other, and suddenly I see those human smiles I haven't seen in a while, just as creepy as the
skel
version, that boardroom grin.

I leave with contracts for nearly every live musician in the world, and not one of the dumb shits bothered to read the clause that says they're mine even if they get turned.

I mean, no way I'm gonna side with the humans, the buggers haven't got a chance.

What am I, stupid?

Not stupid, exactly, but let's say . . . unlucky. So when I'm out the next night by myself, deep in the woods, looking for Muddy Waters who's said to be living in a tent in the vicinity, the Roger-radar goes off just as a lone
skel
walks out of the dark and puts a Walther blue steel .44 to my head.

"Boo," he says.

"Hey, I'm on your—"

"I know who you are. Shut up."

I feel that cold blue steel at the base of my skull, and I shut up.

"Here's what's going to happen," the
skel
says. I try to get a look at him, but he's not letting me. He twists the barrel mouth into that soft spot in the back of my neck, just under the skull bone. "Just listen."

I nod.

"Fun time is over. You've got nearly every human left in North America in the ten square miles that surround us. And you've got every rebel skeleton in the same area. We want to get rid of both problems at once."

"You're a fed?"

He jams the gun barrel in tighter. I say, "Ugh."

"Just listen. The president wouldn't authorize a nuke like we wanted. So now there's only one way. And your little concert is it.

"We want you to have it, just like you planned. Get everybody stoned, drunk, whatever you want to do. Just make sure everybody comes to that concert. We'll take care of the rest."

He twists the gun even deeper into my neck.

"This is no joke, Garber. Yes, we know your real name. We know lots of things. And make no mistake, the government is coming out on top of this one. Since you like to come out on top, too, do what I say, and we'll make sure you get out of it."

He puts something into my pocket.

"Someone will ask you for this at the appropriate time. When they do, give it to them. Don't turn around, don't open your mouth. Just remember what I told you. We'll be watching. If you screw up, you die. Twice. If you don't screw up, you live, and continue to do music. That's your reward.

"Good-bye."

Finally he hits me with that blue steel .44, sending me to instant black.

When I wake up, he is,
natch
, gone.

I reach into my pocket and take out the Lincoln penny he's given me. Only where Lincoln should be, it's been ground flat and polished, like a little round copper mirror.

I put it back in the pocket.

I find Muddy Waters, then go back to camp, my night's work done, and do a little of this, a little of that, and sleep like a baby, helped along by enough coke to kill a bull elephant, because I'm at the point where I don't want to think about anything anymore.

CONCERT TIME!

Man, you want to talk about a high? We're talking about the biggest damn thing there ever was! The CD, tape, and album sales alone will put me over the top for life! And Bobbie's managed to get the best equipment spirited up from California, the best amps, and speakers, the whole nine enchiladas. It seems the whole bad
dreamworld
has gone away for this one day—hell, it's autumn in Alaska and the day comes up bright and sunny, high in the upper seventies! At dawn they're already filling the bowl, blankets on the ground around the stage, a few folding chairs here and there, but mostly we're talking party. I've never seen so many drugs in my life. I'm introduced to a
skel
named Cha-cha, who's spent all of his time since he's been turned coming up with some of the damnedest designer drugs the earth has ever seen. LSD and speed wrapped together like DNA molecules. Cocaine rushes that last for half days. Something called hobbyhorse, or lip smack, a synthetic heroin that leaves no
afterburn
.
Mescatel
, you unravel that one: wine and drugs at the same time! Yow!

And I've never sampled such grass! I mean, this plant just about got up and walked out of the ground into my arms! It smokes gold!

And talk about ego-boo! Everybody wants a piece of ol'
Rog
, that's me! By egg McMuffin time, seven in the morning, I'm already flying. The
Byrds
are here, ready to open the show at seven-thirty, they've got to play "Eight Miles High" first, I beg them. Agreement all around, they've worked out their differences,
skel
and human alike, with only a few fistfights, just like the old days. The Stones will go on next, the first of two gigs for them, followed by Janis Ian for the nostalgia freaks and Chad and Jeremy (hey, I had to let them on, they begged).
Procol
Harum
and the Doors follow, but Morrison has disappeared. Found in a toilet, weeping, surrounded by empties, but he'll do it, he says.

"Don't care if you expose yourself," I say.

"All right!" he shouts in that basso growl, and then takes the fresh longneck I hand him and wanders off to a corner singing "Riders on the Storm" to himself.

And I know I'm feeling good. I was born for this! No sign of Apache helicopters yet, no mortar rounds into the bowl. For all I know the G-men are rock-and-roll fans, too.

God, I hope so.

Seven o'clock!

Time to rock!

Hours seem to melt by. Jefferson Airplane rolls into a blues set with B. B. and Albert King. The Band has shown up, another half-and-half act producing an at-tempted throttling of one human by one
skel
. But Dylan has agreed to go out with them before he does his own thing, which turns out to be a mini-fest in itself, three hours with Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, a virtual replay of The Last Waltz. Then Eric Clapton climbs on stage, and the rest of them melt away to the background, letting him do his thing out front for nearly an hour.

Everything's fine until three o'clock, when I have three frights at once. First, I think I'm dying from something Cha-cha has injected into me, but that turns out all right; second, I hear the thwack-thwack of a
heli
blade overhead, but that turns out to be just one of Bobbie's men with a video camera, tethered to the bottom of an old
Sikorski
like a marionette. Video rights! All
reet
!
Lonetree
Music Fest: the Movie!

My God, this is the beautiful end of the world! I love it!

And then the third fright, which comes during the most wonderful thing of all

THE BEATLES REUNION!!!

It happens, just like that. There is sharp disagreement until the end, Lennon waffling between Yoko and the lads, even Pete Best showing up to claim
Ringo's
place once and for all. Best we put in Clapton's backup band, he's not happy but he's getting paid. And then, suddenly, Lennon says yes.

I get a brief glimpse of Yoko stalking off, but before long she's back with both of the Lennon kids and every-body's on stage—Linda McCartney, most of Wings including Jimmy McCulloch, the until lately late-lamented guitarist, George Martin on keyboards, even their manager, Brian Epstein, rattling a tambourine. My God, I can't believe it! I drop my clipboard, grab the person nearest me, and begin to weep.

"This can't be real!" I say. "This can't really be happening!"

The person, a
skel
, who I haven't seen before but who is wearing a red neck ribbon with a staff tag on it, supports me and says, "Got a Lincoln penny on you, buddy?"

I look up in horror, it's the voice of the
skel
in the woods with the blue steel .44. He's smiling slightly.

"You wouldn't," I say in horror. "You can't do it now."

"Good a time as any. Got that coin?"

I fumble the penny out of my pocket, press it into his bony hand. Then suddenly I hear the faint whine of jet engines high overhead and grab his hand, holding it tightly.

"Please," I say. "Any other time but now. Those are the Beatles!"

And lo and behold, as I say this, as if by magic invocation, the hangers-on and extras have left the stage to John, Paul, George, and
Ringo
alone, who are beginning to crank into "Let It Be."

The homburg is looking over my shoulder at the stage. There's something back in those deep empty wells of eye sockets, some faintest of glimmers, a memory back when the Bay of Pigs was recent history, when the world was a different, kinder, gentler place, more innocent, when—ah, fu, the man, thank God, is a Beatles fan.

"Shit, you're right," he says.

He fumbles into his jacket pocket, pulls out a slim walkie-talkie, yanks the antenna up.

"Six forty-four sweep. This is Antler. Hold. Repeat, hold."

Above, I hear the jet engines give a sour whine, pull off into the ether.

Homburg looks at me. "Who's on next?"

I retrieve my clipboard. "
Ummm
. . ." Down the list, and it's . . .

Me.

“The"—gulp—"Vomits."

"Great, we'll hit then," Antler says, and relays this information into the walkie-talkie.

"But I'm in the Vomits," I say, in a squeaky, weak voice. I'm also thinking, soft heart that I am, of Brutus Johnson, Jimmy
Klemp
, and Barney Barnes, who I'm about to screw biggest time.

"No problem," says Antler, who's watching the Beatles as if mesmerized. "We'll tell you when, get you out." He gives me the look of a zealot. "Any way you can get me backstage to meet Lennon?"

So the next hour and a half of the world belong to the Beatles. They're lighting matches in the strip mine, gathered up to the rim nearly a hundred thousand strong, man and bonehead. There's almost twice as many as we thought, the word got out, they climbed down out of trees, up out of deep mine shafts, had to be part of the biggest love-in of all. Man and bone, the beginning of a new era, not quite, of course. By the end, while Harrison's guitar cries its way through "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," mixed species are crying, holding hands, kissing each other. Even Antler has a tear in his eye as I lead him backstage to wait for the four lads to come off.