Sweeter Life (25 page)

It stirred something in radio programmers, too. The day the single was released, it started to generate excitement. And with the success of that record, Jim was signed to a major label. They recorded two LPs, both of which cracked the Hot 100. The tours took on a different tone. Nate Wroxeter was on the case these days, and all the papers were in order—the visas, the manifest, the tax forms. Jim bought himself a brand new Winnebago, and a refurbished Greyhound to replace the school bus. They graduated to a better class of hotel, a better sound-and-light system. They were booked into rock clubs and concert halls, with cut flowers and platters of food and buckets of Heineken in the dressing room. And fans. Young men came to study the guitar wizardry, the keyboard magic, the complex rhythms. Some worshipped Eura’s every move. But most came for Jim, believing he had something
important to say and would one day make it clear to them.

Cyrus, who had always wanted to belong to something large and bewildering, arrived at the gig in Toronto long before the scheduled sound check. He loved to sit in a hall and watch the beautiful chaos of the road crew nimbly manoeuvring through the sprawl of drums and speakers and microphone stands. The crash and boom, the heft and groan, the feedback, the laughter—it was the kind of scene you might find at the heart of a busy port, the pandemonium that speaks of a world in transition.

When it was his turn onstage, he fingered his favourite lick:

And as he played, he concentrated on the pure physical path of his music, how the vibration of the strings above his pickups created an electronic pattern that passed through his guitar cord to his amplifier, where various vacuum tubes and diodes and condensers translated that pulse back into sound, but larger and louder and infinitely variable. From there, a microphone in front of his amp picked up those notes and changed them once again into a flow of electrons, which raced down a series of cables and connectors to the back of the huge mixing console out front, where Adrian worked his magic—boosting this frequency, tamping that—so Cyrus’s notes would, in theory, fit perfectly into the acoustic space. Reshaped to this larger purpose, his music moved on to the massive amplifiers beside the mixing console. These, too, boosted the strength of the signal, making it heavy with promise. From there, that pumped-up electronic sculpture travelled, via two thick cords, to the side of the stage and plugged into the tower of speaker bins positioned there, whereupon the notes, Cyrus’s notes, came roaring into the open space like the voice of God and echoed off the back wall to greet him.

He wondered sometimes whether his own life would follow a similar path, whether he would trace a helter-skelter pattern across the globe, honed and sculpted by the rigours of the road yet gaining strength and power. He believed that a larger destiny awaited him than that of a faceless sideman in
the Jimmy Waters Revival. And while the band’s recent success pleased him, it was Jim’s scene, his gig, and they were all in tow to make it real.

When Cyrus put down his guitar and moved off stage, Tom lumbered over and said, “Cuppla wankers out front say they know ye.” He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and added, “The one, a fair old boiler, says she’s yer sis.”

It took a moment for the news to sink in. If Cyrus had been expecting anyone to show up, it was Janice. But preparing himself for the sight and sound experience of Isabel did not prepare him for the shock of seeing Hank fidgeting in his wheelchair. Cyrus had written a few postcards—“Greetings from The Buckeye State!” “Georgia’s Just Peachy!”—but had never made it to Willbourne. He was shocked the difference a few years had made. His brother seemed to inhabit half the space he used to, so gaunt and grey that Cyrus could scarcely believe he was only thirty-three.

“Hank,” he said. “Isabel. Jesus, what a surprise!”

HANK BELIEVED IN THE ROUGH HAND OF JUSTICE
and was glad he’d been caught and punished. And though he couldn’t remember all the crimes he’d been charged with, he could remember some. His punishment, even if you included his brush with death and subsequent paralysis, was the type of accounting that jibed with his personal moral code: you do wrong, you pay. It was a kind of harsh bookkeeping that was easy enough to calculate within the narrow confines of a prison.

From the moment Isabel came to fetch him for his weekend pass, however, he began to suffer unfamiliar pangs. His paralysis had seemed a minor grievance within the context of his prison term, but when they drove away from Willbourne he was shocked to see normal people going about their normal routines. In some part of his brain he’d forgotten how much latitude a person had in life. Men and women jogged along the river. He saw whole families riding bicycles together. And the traffic—he was certain that when they first locked him up the world hadn’t been so chaotic.

Then there was Izzy herself. He was used to the idea of her as an independent woman, a wheeler-dealer, and he’d seen for himself the improvements in her wardrobe, the expensive jewellery. But the car, a royal-blue
Mercedes sedan with cream leather seats—why hadn’t she told him about that? The minute she peeled out of the parking space, he felt queasy. He remembered how much he loved driving the old man’s pickup, the thrill of fishtailing on a gravel road, the sexual tingle as the pedal touched the floor and the needle ticked over to a hundred. And if driving that pickup had been special, a clunky rustbucket stinking of feed and manure, what kind of kick would a machine like this be, with the freedom to cruise the radiant highways of the promised land?

Isabel seemed to be wired on amphetamines. When she wasn’t chattering non-stop, she was singing along with the radio. She talked out loud to the other drivers. “Oh, nice. Hey, maybe signal, fella. Come on, Granny, move it or lose it.” At first he found it funny, all her blather. But after fifty, sixty miles, he began to tire of it. In Portland, and even at Willbourne, he very seldom had a conversation that lasted more than a couple of minutes. Even the few visits he had each year were brief, because whenever he’d had enough he would shoot the guard a certain look and the ordeal would be over. Now he was stuck in the all-too-cozy confines of a luxury sedan with no way out. Worse, he’d forgotten how every moment out here was a potential decision. Stop for coffee? Want a doughnut? What about the scenic route? Mile after mile, his mood grew darker and heavier, until he wished he’d kept his mouth shut about seeing Cyrus play. He had half a mind to beg Isabel to turn the damn car around and take him back to his cell. But that would have been uncool, and the only thing he had left was his cool, an attitude that said, “You can lock me up, you can break my body, but you will never frighten me.” He couldn’t very well show his little sister how much her presence unnerved him.

At a truck stop, Isabel got them burgers with fried onions, and a couple of milkshakes. They ate in the car in sudden and blissful silence. He chewed slowly, the food tasting of memories. When he finished, he crumpled his paper wrappers and said, “The last time I had fried onions on a hamburger was the Wilbury Fair.”

He closed his eyes and remembered the midway, the crown and anchor games, the saltwater taffy and cotton candy and the irresistible sweetness of fried onions. He saw Jenny Duckworth in her white blouse and black slacks,
crossing her eyes at his dumb jokes. They shared a burger and fries, then wandered over to the horse barns where they patted the quivering rumps of Clydesdales. Upstairs, above the stalls, they admired displays of prize-winning pies and crocheted doilies, foolscap sheets covered with the handwriting of schoolchildren. And best of all, no matter how he turned the memory, he found nothing unhappy, nothing dark or disagreeable. Just two kids having fun.

He turned to Izzy and said, “What happened to Jenny Duckworth?”

“I don’t know that anything ever happened to her. She married Bill Wittle, the guy she’d been dating since grade 12. They bought the house next door to her parents. She works as a cashier at A&P, just like her mother. Bill’s a trucker for Jenny’s dad. It’s like a script.”

Hank whistled his amazement. “Bill Wittle. I always kept my distance from that little prick. His whole family was nuts. Poor Jenny.” Then he laughed out loud, one little bark, because it was an image he would never have conjured on his own—Jenny and Bill.

They drove into Toronto on Highway 401, and Hank sat wide-eyed and white-knuckled as they rocketed through the tangle of cloverleafs and overpasses, surrounded by twenty lanes of hurtling metal and menace. They turned south on the Don Valley Parkway, and ten minutes later turned onto a congested street in Greektown. Halfway along the block to his right was a grubby-looking theatre called The Music Hall. The marquee announced that the Jimmy Waters Revival was playing that night at eight.

“Hey,” he said, remembering what the whole day was about. There was a dreamlike quality to those letters up there, that frame of unlit bulbs. It didn’t seem possible that he could be here and seeing this.

Down the street, he saw a few dismal shops and a scattering of Greek restaurants, and he ached with longing for the feel of pavement beneath his feet and the seduction of lights and faces and window displays, all of it, everything, as alluring as a centrefold. He rolled down the window and sucked in the aroma of car exhaust and roasting lamb, then turned to Izzy and said, “You think he’d be here yet? I mean it’s only, what, four?”

For the first time since they had left Willbourne, Isabel seemed at a loss. She chewed her bottom lip and stared at the traffic streaming by. “I don’t
know,” she said. “I mean, look at all those trucks out front. And that Winnebago. Looks like someone is here.” She got out of the car, set up the wheelchair and helped Hank into it. “Let’s see if we can find him. If he’s not around, we can go for a stroll.”

The front of the theatre was unlocked, and Isabel manoeuvred the wheelchair through one set of doors and was halfway through the second set when one of the members of the road crew walked up to them, a short, squat fellow with stringy hair, a Scottish accent and a face like a brick wall. He softened considerably when Isabel introduced herself.

A CLASH OF ANXIETIES
held the three siblings speechless. Only twice in twelve years had they inhabited the same space, and that had been in Portland, with Ruby and Clarence coaching them along and acting as buffers. Here, in the lobby of the Music Hall, they were on their own.

Isabel had never been behind the scenes of anything more exotic than a high school play. Nor had she ever been to a rock concert. Her tastes ran more in the direction of Johnny Mathis or Gordon Lightfoot. To stand in this dingy lobby, amid the clang and clamour of a show coming together, to see these rude-looking people (like the slab-faced Scot who had fetched Cyrus), the dirty T-shirts, the long greasy hair, the hefting and grunting and swearing, and her brother here, sad sweet Cyrus, a person from another world now, with different clothes and different hair and a different way of standing, was more bewildering than anything she had ever encountered. And as she struggled to take it in, all this newness, she felt put-upon and angry. Why, she wondered, did the simple desire to see Hank or Cyrus involve such a struggle on her part? Why couldn’t they be farmers, say, or accountants or sales clerks? She could have handled a simple visit to Toronto or Montreal, could have handled spouses and children. But no, Hank lived in a prison, and Cyrus lived nowhere, drifting across the face of the planet like a thunderstorm, all flash and crash and chaos.

Hank, too, was thrown into a darker mood. If Isabel’s life filled him with regret at the thought of all he’d missed, all he would never have, to look at Cyrus was agony. His little brother had become everything Hank once dreamed of. He was handsome and confident and living a life of adrenaline and spectacle.
He was making a noise, causing a disturbance, and the world was applauding.

Cyrus was in no better shape. He pumped Hank’s hand vigorously. He pecked Isabel on the cheek. But even these simple physical actions seemed unreal. And he laughed and said, “Wow. I mean, this is weird. Hank? Jesus, you’re out. Izzy?” He looked at his watch. Ninety minutes at least until the full sound check. “I guess we should … I mean, this calls for a celebration, doesn’t it? Izzy? We should go for a drink. I mean, Jesus, give me a minute here, I’m losing it.”

He grabbed his forehead as though it might come flying apart. And when he looked at his brother again—poor Hank, a pale frail shadow of his former self—Cyrus did lose it, his hand sliding over his eyes to hide his tears and then further down to his mouth to hold in any sounds he might make. That’s all Isabel needed to get started. They each turned away, as though it was a crime to feel this way.

HANK AND IZZY GOT THE BEST SEATS
in the house, behind the mixing console in the middle of the theatre. There they met Adrian and Kerry, the funny-looking Welshmen who worked the sound and lights.

“Right,” Kerry said, “another pair of hands never went amiss. Glad to have ya.” He gave Isabel control of stage lights numbered one to four. Whenever he called out a number, she was supposed to bring the fader all the way up or all the way down, depending on its position at the time. “You’ll get the hang of it,” he said with a wink.

Adrian sat Hank to the extreme right of the mixing console, where he would be out of the way—Adrian had to do quite a bit of dancing around during a show—but also where Hank would have access to the fader that controlled Cyrus’s volume in the sound system. A strip of white adhesive tape had been placed beside each fader, with a red marker indicating the neutral position. With each fader on its mark, the sound, at least during the sound check that afternoon, was in perfect balance. For solos, you nudged the fader up so the instrument would ride above the mix. If someone got too loud on stage, the fader would be edged lower to bring their sound back into the mix.

Hank’s palms were sweating. Isabel was equally nervous. Watching
the crowd file in, listening to the hubbub, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this kind of childish anticipation.