Thank You, Goodnight (2 page)

“I’ll just call the idiot. Do you have his number?”

“He didn’t leave it. I probably should’ve asked.”

“Caller ID?”

“Blocked.”

The pints of dark beer pooled with sleep deprivation made for a woozy goulash, and yet there was no time to rest. Even the bare minimum preparation for tomorrow’s deposition entailed a time investment.

“Fuck that guy. I don’t have time for this bullshit.”

Through all the clatter in my head, Sara’s weary goodbye barely registered.

*       *       *

I used to love record stores. Back when it was all undiscovered country, there was always the chance I might stumble upon Van Halen’s
1984
or the Cure’s
Pornography
and for a month or two I’d walk around on fire. These days, record stores were jungles of mockery and bad memories, given who I used to be. And now, fate—because fate is a bully—couldn’t resist depositing a record store directly in my path on my walk back to the hotel. Another time I might not have even taken note, but the return of Warren had me drifting uneasily into the past, bothering me with emotions I’d long thought dead and buried. I went in.

Bristling with disdain, I perused the racks of chartbusters near
the door. This was the safe area, the place where the storefront neon showcased the music that the kids were buying, the prefab radio-ready pop acts fronted by slinky, nearly naked twenty-two-year-olds or boy bands with youths of indeterminate gender. None of these people had ever held an instrument.

Past the bunny slopes and into the belly of the beast I went, submitting to the store’s thumping electronica. I flipped through the
T
discs in Rock/Pop. Nothing. I wended my way over to Alternative, a section which used to house dark, unapproachable artists whose fans had scary tattoos and genital piercings but whose edges had eroded over time such that the moniker had evolved into a catchall of sorts. Basically, if you’re an artist that gives a fuck and you’re not jazz or country, you’re alternative. Again I scrolled through
T
. Again nothing.

I found the cheapies bin way back at the rear of the store, territory unlikely to have been trodden even by the store’s employees. The discount selection was downright offensive. Beck’s
Odelay
? The Foo Fighters’ debut? Billy Joel’s
Turnstiles
? Surely, these albums deserved a more dignified resting place. I wanted to speak to the manager.

And there it was. One copy. Pristine, sullied by neither fingerprint nor weight of an eye. I stared despairingly at it, noting how cheesy and dated the cover art looked.
The Queen Kills the King
. A brief swell of fond memories sparred with the raw indignity of the discount rack. I suffered a flash fantasy about crushing the thing under my heel.

Then I fled. I stormed out and stomped my way up Grafton, feeling myself sliding into that familiar chasm of obsession. This time, it was Warren’s oblique communiqué that took center stage. I wanted to know what his message was all about, but more than that, I wanted to waterboard the motherfucker for forcing himself back into my consciousness.

Streams of Guinness were still sailing through my veins when the hotel elevator door parted and I marched down the hall, past the ornate sconces, past the portraits of humorless men with monocles, every one of them looking a little bit like the Count from
Sesame Street
. I could track down Warren’s number and call him now, but I knew that would just be an even greater time suck. I needed to let this go for the time being, to calm myself, to put first things first. Work tomorrow, waterboard the day after.

And yet, in my sleekly decorated room, all burgundies and beiges, the smell of recently vacuumed carpet in the air, I neglected the manila folders and redwells that Metcalf, my sweaty associate, had dutifully prepared for me. Instead, I googled “Tate Modern.” With the deep, dull haze that comes from thirty-six consecutive sleepless hours, I surfed the museum’s web page, darting in and out of the links to permanent collections and featured exhibits. The hours vanished and brought me no closer to a clue.

If only he hadn’t used that word.

Legacy
.

I wondered how long that CD had been tucked away back there in the darkest corner of the record store. That’s what they do with music nobody cares about anymore. They can’t just throw it away—that would be bad for the environment or something. So it just sits there, fading further into irrelevance with every passing moment. Just like the lead singers of those bands. Guys like me. Guys who once had it all, but now have what everybody else has. Nothing.

The night stretched on. Sleep remained elusive, as though I were still crammed into the middle seat on that 777. It was with almost desperate relief that I finally watched the sun tickle the windows of my room.

I’d have to wing the deposition.

Probably would’ve done that anyway.

*       *       *

Some lawyers will say that, unlike being shelved in an office all day, staring at a computer screen and feeling your ass widen, depositions are “where the action is.” This is only true if your idea of action is eight hours of watching ice melt in a water glass. The bank dweeb took an oath to tell the truth, but it was the most dry, monotonous
truth you could imagine. His lawyer, an irritating little goober in his own right, sat next to him and did little more than look smug.

I was also never one for protocol, and what scant decorum I have tends to spoil in the oppressive pit of boredom.

“I’m handing you an exhibit—” I began, passing around a document I’d barely reviewed, when I noticed a short, squiggly hair dangling over the top page. “I’m handing you an exhibit that appears to have a pube on it.”

Gags of horrified laughter filled the room. I blew a short breath at the hair. It sailed off in the direction of the witness, who gasped and shifted out of the way.

“Objection,” said his lawyer.

That kind of thing might get someone else complained about or fired, but people at my shop tended to cut me a little slack, given who I am. Or who I was.

When my work with the witness was done, I handed him off to another lawyer with her own battery of questions. I could now sit back, zone out, mentally leave the building. I could scarf down twenty sugar cookies and fifteen cups of coffee.

I perused the
Irish Times
. There was a story about a member of the British Parliament charged with groping a young woman. A photo depicted him on the courthouse steps hand in hand with a sturdy, matronly lady. “Throughout all of this,” the disgraced politician was quoted as saying, “my wife has been an absolute brick.” What every woman yearns to be called.

The witness droned on about credit default swaps. I read the sticker on my banana.

He sermonized about political risk insurance. I tried to fantasize about the hottest person in the room. It was me. By a mile.

My thoughts kept returning to Warren’s message like a tongue to a mouth ulcer. There was a time when I was accustomed to his good-natured shenanigans. This was, after all, a guy who used to amuse himself by pretending he was his own identical twin. But last I heard, he was
now a teacher, a legitimate member of the community. If inciting me to drop everything and rush to an art exhibit on another continent was his idea of a practical joke after a decade of radio silence, it seemed out of proportion. Was he kidding? Was he drunk? Was he sending a coded message from a hostage situation?

I decided I’d try to call him at the end of the day, even though I suspected he would be disinclined to divulge details. He didn’t seem to want to tell me about the Tate; he just wanted me to go there. And if he found out that I was actually in Dublin, a temptingly short trip from London, he’d be even less forthcoming. What a hilarious little caper he’d constructed.

The fact was, I could go. My firm was hardly holding its breath for the return of its favorite malcontent. Morris & Roberts would be there for me whenever I got back, with its bloated files and its nimrods down the hall, like Don Yoshida and his riveting tales of his dog’s escapades.

Sara too would survive a few extra nights on her own. She’d trudge into the condo, splash some Spanish wine into a glass, and concoct an unnecessarily elaborate dinner. Langostinos in a red sauce, or a chickpea curry with spinach. Afterward, she’d drape herself in a T-shirt three sizes too large and sink into the couch for the guilty displeasure of reality TV—the selection of a wedding dress by someone too ugly to get married, the perusal of a new house by a couple who’d only end up divorcing and fighting over it. She’d eventually lose interest, her eyes would drift down to the book in her lap, and she’d fade into worlds puppeteered by Jhumpa Lahiri or Meg Wolitzer. She’d get through a dozen or so pages before passing out, waking up an hour later, and shuffling into the bedroom. If I were there with her, the scene would unfold almost exactly the same, except my legs might be crisscrossed with hers on the sofa or she’d talk me into a few rounds of Boggle or her sister in Sacramento would call and Sara would wave frantically at me while mouthing
I’m in the shower, I’m in the shower
.

Sara might actually applaud my absconding to London under the
circumstances. For her, any day spent in the company of paintings, etchings, sculptures, or mundanely arranged soup cans was a good one. She bought in to the whole art racket with an uncharacteristic lack of cynicism. At how many galleries and museums had I watched her standing there, nodding in accord with the voice in the headset, her long, wispy limbs ideally suited for poses of artistic engagement?

Sara was more than an interested spectator in that word; she was something of a covert art hobbyist herself. For years now, she’d been scurrying up to her friend Josie’s studio in Northern Liberties to let the hours float by in the service of her medium of choice: mosaic mirrors. This studio was a place where she and other mosaicists, both professional and aspiring, would—and this is just an outsider’s perspective here—basically break shit up into little pieces and arrange them in weird patterns. Josie’s commune was inhabited by a pack of breezy yet intimidating women who sipped wine, spoke caustically about everything, and set out to push the boundaries of expression. (If they failed at that, they at least succeeded at pushing the boundaries of fashion.) They accepted Sara as one of their own even though she’s not gay, has the gumption to let her hair grow beyond her ears, and has a job that doesn’t begin with the word
freelance
. But they took her in, Sara, their stray cat.

I, by loud contrast, had spent a lifetime nurturing a deep suspicion of art as an enterprise. An odd trait for a musician, I admit. I accompanied Sara to all the latest openings, but once there, I had a tendency to retch over the pontification about an artist’s ability to transform the ordin’ry into the exquisite. Notice the eyelash. There’s something slightly audacious, scandalous perhaps, about the way in which the paint is applied. In that one simple brushstroke, Akerblom subverts everything we know about contemporary portraiture. While Sara pursed her lips at a canvas smothered corner to corner in bronze paint and curiously titled
Three Trees
, I stared mistrustfully at it and thought to myself, I don’t see trees, I don’t feel trees, nothing about this painting is bringing a tree to my senses, much less three of them.

The point was this: I could go to London if I wanted. If I was stupidly obsessed, or let’s say I just wanted to sleep again, I could scoot on over and settle this. And who wouldn’t want to lay eyes on his legacy? Even when you knew your legacy had all the esteem of a cornflake smudge.

“I have nothing further,” I heard the questioner say. He hunched over the table and peered all the way down to where I was sitting—in person, if not in spirit. “Mr. Tremble, do you rest?”

“Hardly.” I snickered.

With a yawn, I stood and embraced the end of what I could’ve sworn was an endless day. But I’d used this period of immobility and repeated caffeination to its fullest meditative potential. All factors pointed in one direction. That direction was east.

CHAPTER 2

A
cluster of young guys behind me at the Heathrow customs line were speaking, through wide Boston accents and with macho rowdiness, about the bachelor party they had flown in for. It suddenly struck me that every bachelor party I’d ever been to had been a disappointment. Warren’s, for example, was both lame and disastrous. Which was precisely what we should’ve expected, seeing as how it had been masterminded by Jumbo Jett, our train wreck of a guitar player who himself was both lame and disastrous. He had a penchant for debauchery that made Keith Moon look like a
Downton Abbey
dandy, yet he was somehow a total drag. We’d been home for a stretch after the second record was completed, holed up with our jitters, awaiting the release of the album and the launch of the tour. A tour we had no business headlining. A tour I’d insisted upon against my better judgment and that of everyone within shouting distance of me. A tour I’d steered us toward pigheadedly out of ego, jealousy, and other unbecoming emotions. Somehow it had fallen to Jumbo to plan Warren’s send-off into monogamy, even though Warren couldn’t stand the sight of the guy. Jumbo may have had a hyperdeveloped instinct for partying, but he had no instinct whatsoever for organization. Hence, his elaborate plan consisted of tooling around our home base of Philadelphia all day and eventually staggering into some gentlemen’s clubs. Not exactly the decadence and excess befitting a bunch of musicians in their twenties.
But with Jumbo at the helm, we could’ve easily ended up in a roadside motel with an emaciated hooker. So it went in the win column.

After navigating the maze of antiseptic airport corridors, collecting my bags at the luggage carousel, and hailing a cab, I was soon checking into the boutique hotel just off the Strand that Kathleen, my secretary, had booked last minute. The cold water I splashed on my face wasn’t so much revitalizing as it was simply cold. Then I headed straight for the Tate Modern, ready as I’d ever be to confront my legacy.