You Don't Love Me Yet (19 page)

“Sorry?”

“You heard me, Beatle.” Autumnbreast repeated the word silently, as in a game of charades, pointing from himself to the complainer.

“I think I understand,” said Carl.

“Doctor, heal thyself,” said Autumnbreast.

“Seven minutes,” said the engineer.

“Are we being interviewed?” interrupted Denise, speaking in her confusion for the whole band. “Or just playing the song?”

“Yes.”

“Uh, yes what?”

“This gig’s easy, pumpkin. I tickle you, and you laugh.”

“Excuse me?”

“Be organic,” said Autumnbreast, pained to explain.

“Just speak into your mikes,” explained the engineer. “Try not to pop your plosives or say fuck or shit. I probably ought to get a quick sound check to balance the instruments, Mr. Autumnbreast.” Other figures now joined the engineer behind the glass, fitting themselves along the wall on either side of Jules Harvey: Rhodes Bramlett of Considerable Records, and Mick Felsh in his cowboy shirt. Bramlett and Felsh offered small gesticulations and nods of encouragement to the band once they were spotted, as if to say,
Don’t mind us
.

The complainer raised his hand. “Sir?”

“Yes, Beatle?”

“Our guitarist needs a chair.”

“Chair.”

Bedwin nodded shamefully.

“And,” the complainer went on, “I think I’d prefer to lie on the floor.”

“Are you sick?” asked Denise.

“No, it’s for the song. Can we put the microphone on the floor?”

“You want to sing on the floor?” said Matthew.

“I need to sing on the floor, yes.”

“You won’t be able to play the keyboard,” said Denise.

“You don’t need me on keyboard.”

No one could argue that point.

“I need to be on the floor to get the right emotion. I’ve just had a realization, that I wasn’t giving the band my all. Art requires sacrifice, even of one’s dignity.”

Lucinda loved most of all his careening integrity to his impulses, even if he might seem to be careening away from her. She would have played her bass on the floor if only to be beside him. But even if it was possible, there wasn’t room.

“Six minutes,” said the engineer. “I better get a sound check.”

Everyone waited for Autumnbreast, who said at last, “Mike Beatle on the floor, Morsel.”

“Thank you,” said Carl. “And a chair for Bedwin.”

“And a chair.”

The engineer Autumnbreast had called Morsel tramped from behind her instrument panel, through the rubber-sealed doors, which opened with a sound like a sneeze, and into the sound booth. She rearranged the complainer’s mike stand, loosening the hinge and capsizing the microphone so it hovered a few inches from the carpet. She was pure efficiency, a human clock ticking toward their on-air deadline. The band could only watch, reduced to an autistic helplessness. Fancher Autumnbreast sat cross-legged against the lip of the booth’s window, his back to Harvey, Bramlett, and Felsh, bridging his forehead with his fingers, radiating philosophical detachment from all present events.

“Try this,” said Morsel.

The complainer threaded his sneakered feet through Denise’s kit, laid his right arm under Lucinda’s mike stand, and settled his bulk across the cables that ribboned the carpet. Jules Harvey tapped on the window of the glass booth and mouthed inaudible suggestions. Rhodes Bramlett came through the door with a folding chair, which Matthew passed to Bedwin, who settled on it like a dog for a nap, tucking one foot under his thigh, curling the other into the chair’s struts and himself around his guitar. Bramlett didn’t depart, but instead squatted low against the wall, hiding behind Matthew. He raised a finger to his lips, pleading with the band not to finger him to Autumnbreast, who hadn’t seemed to register the A&R man’s intrusion. Mick Felsh, on the other side, looked perturbed that Bramlett had achieved this coup. He leaned in to whisper to Harvey, who remained serene.

Morsel scurried past Autumnbreast, through the sound-sealed door, and reseated at her control panel. Autumnbreast, like a human buttress, revealed no trace of urgency. His wide hand now fully masked his face, thumb and fingertips over his eyes, Hamlet with a headache.

“Three minutes,” said Morsel on the PA. “Everybody want to give me a little something? First, uh, the person on the floor.”

“I’m the man who wrote ‘Monster Eyes,’” began the complainer from the floor, in falsetto, as if improvising a new song, about himself.

“Okay, that’s fine,” interrupted Morsel. “Lead vocal, I grabbed your levels already. Chair guy, play a chord or two.” The engineer circumnavigated the room, eliciting twangs and mumbles. “Fair enough, sounds good, sounds good…Mr. Autumnbreast, we should probably get you into the booth.”

Autumnbreast turned and looked at her as if startled.

“One minute, sir,” said Morsel apologetically.

“Sure,” said Autumnbreast, coming out of his trance. “Okeedoke, kittens. This is radio.”

The band waited to understand.

“You won’t see me,” said Autumnbreast, “but I’m with you, all over and through you.”

“Give them the pep talk,” said Morsel on the PA.

“Pep talk.”

“They’re nervous, I believe.”

“Okeedoke. Listen. Million bands have done the
Jaw
. Here’s what I say. Secret to radio is, think of your favorite person. Got a favorite person?”

“Alex Chilton,” said Bedwin.

Autumnbreast winced. “Only think, not say.”

“Sorry.”

“Chilton set fire to my wallet,” mused Autumnbreast. “Paris, 1974. Marianne was there. Trying to impress her.”

“Thirty seconds, sir.”

“You were saying think of our favorite person,” nudged Matthew.

“Sure, dandelion. Favorite person. When you talk, pretend you’re them. Only it can’t be me. Because that’s who I’m pretending to be.”

“The booth, sir.”

Autumnbreast offered them one last expansive gaze, then swept out. Rhodes Bramlett remained wedged to one side of the window. Perhaps Bramlett was beneath consideration, a rat free to scurry where he liked. Silence enveloped the room. Even Morsel’s buzzing dimmed as she bore down on her instrument panel. Jules Harvey stood behind her, head cocked like a terrier. Denise tightened the wing nut on her lone cymbal, her brow furrowed, presenting musicianly integrity in the face of any circumstance. Bedwin appeared to be licking or gnawing his frets. Matthew postured at his mike stand, perhaps attempting to recapture an attitude essential to putting the song across, perhaps even trying out Autumnbreast’s advice. Who was Matthew’s favorite person? Lucinda had never known, a sad thought. The complainer lay with his eyes closed, possibly asleep. His shirt gaped at the buttons, permitting sproutage of unruly hairs. He looked essential, sexual, a fistlike ruddy bulb planted in the garden of the band.

“Three, two, one,” counted Morsel softly.

“Welcome,” came Fancher Autumnbreast’s voice. As he’d promised them, he was invisible, yet everywhere at once. He purred through the room, intoned in their bodies like a bass line. “Back. Me Jaw, You Dreaming. Wide-awake Dreaming. So. Here. Guests. Rare. Debut. Silver Lake. Echo Park. Friends. We’ve Heard. You’ve Heard. You’ll Hear. They’re Playing. For You, Live. They Were Four, Now They’re Five. Changes Already.”

Into the silence that followed came the profound, ear-ringing emptiness of outer space.

“MONSTER EYES,” said Fancher Autumnbreast. “Real Sweetheart People.”

At that moment it was unmistakable. Something had resolved from their miasmic hesitation, the band had been named. Fancher Autumnbreast had only to pronounce the syllables, publish them into the ether. Monster Eyes was the banner under which they flew, had perhaps always been so, without them knowing.

“Talk to Los Angeles, Monster Eyes.”

Nobody spoke.

“When, Bunnyrabbits. Where. Names. Influences. Are You Recording or Touring.”

Starting with Matthew and ending with Carl they each spoke their names, gave faltering hellos and thank yous.

“Met. How.”

“Matthew and I were working at a copy shop together.”

“She and Denise played in a band in school.”

“We always thought Bedwin was so talented.”

“I dialed a number I found stickered on a pay phone—”

“The Song,” interrupted Autumnbreast.

They were stopped again.

“Big Party, Major Scene. Everybody Knows Harvey. Jules Harvey. Slayed the Crowd. People Talking.”

“It’s ironic, actually, because we were originally meant to play silently—”

“Played It Twice. First Time, Ecstasy. Second Time, Fear.”

“Sorry?”

“I Fear You, Monster Eyes.”

“Uh, thanks a lot, that really means a lot to us, coming from you.”

“Who.”

“What?”

“Wrote It. The Anthem. The Howl.”

Simultaneously Bedwin said “Lucinda,” Lucinda said “Carl,” and Denise said “Bedwin.” The complainer, from the floor, said nothing.

“Group Mind. That’s Who.”

Through the glass, Lucinda saw Jules Harvey leaning nearer to Morsel, as though to guide the movements of her hands on the control panel with his eyes. He was in the grip of his fetish, sniffing the engineer’s armpit. Lucinda wanted to shout out a warning, but stifled it helplessly. Mick Felsh, staring avidly through the glass at the band, paid no attention.

Inside the booth, Rhodes Bramlett, still in his feral huddle, produced a pocket tape recorder. He held it half concealed in his cupped hands, tiny red indicator blinking under his chin. He was ready to stealthily record the song, perhaps for a bootleg release, or else to copyright the lyrics and chord changes, a legal obligation he’d brandish over the band until it ended in court. Again Lucinda throttled a cry.

“Unfetter Your Charisma,” said Autumnbreast. “Los Angeles Is Suffering to Hear You, Monster Eyes.”

“Sorry?” said Matthew.

“Sing Your Song.”

“First I want to explain something,” said the complainer. “Before we sing. If that’s okay.”

“Newest Member,” said Autumnbreast. “Lucky Man.”

“I do feel lucky, yes, thank you,” said the complainer.

“On the Studio Floor. Like a Drowned Eagle.”

“That’s what I wanted to explain. It came to me today that ‘Monster Eyes’ is really a song about death. The singer of the song is sort of a zombie, issuing a warning to the living.”

“Zombie.”

“Monster Eyes is really the force that degrades every living thing,” said the complainer. “When you look at the world or another person through monster eyes you’re sensing the putrefaction in beautiful things, the spoiled vegetables and tumors and decaying teeth, the funky odors that cling even to babies and beautiful women—”

The band was frozen. Lucinda spoke as if in a nightmare, to intervene. “I think what Carl means is that when you don’t love someone…you’re prone to…there’s a certain kind…”

“Some Things Don’t.”

“Sorry?” said Lucinda, into the aching loud silence.

Autumnbreast hadn’t finished his thought. He continued: “Need. Saying.”

“I’m not entirely sure we ought to play this song anymore,” said the complainer. “Maybe since we’ve come all this way, just one last time. But we should sing it honestly, like zombies, since it’s a zombie song.”

Autumnbreast’s Oz-like voice emitted the sole syllable with which he’d earlier indicted the complainer in person: “Goof.”

“That’s why I’m lying on the floor, so I can give it a more sepulchral voice-from-the-grave kind of sound.”

Denise had been silent since speaking her name. Now she raised her sticks and ticked off the song’s beat, voting for a musical escape from their interview. It was what Autumnbreast had requested, after all: their song. Bedwin fell in, lightly riffing the chord. It wasn’t the intro they’d rehearsed, but the song’s form was recognizable, though threadbare. Rhodes Bramlett grinned and aimed his tiny recorder. On the other side of the glass, Morsel stretched her open palms toward the ceiling in sinuous alternation, opening her armpits for Jules Harvey’s nosing study, her eyelids shut and lips pouted as she basked in the attention. Farther back, Mick Felsh had retreated into the shadows, where he consulted with another figure. Was it Autumnbreast, returned to admire their song? Felsh’s hands were clasped at his chest. He appeared to be apologizing to or pleading with this new form in the darkness.

Lucinda curled two fingers down to flesh the ghostlike song with her bass line. The complainer began to bark out the song’s first lyrics, Matthew’s opening lines, only in a garbled and deranged form. “Better conceal yourself from the light, oooh, my little pumpkin…there are things that come out at night, and they come out galumphing…um, I’m the one who’ll always cut you down to size…ah, excavating your flaws with my monstrous eyes, wow…” The microphone Morsel had set on the floor was well placed, capturing the complainer’s every hissed sibilant.

“Wait, wait—” Denise quit the beat, so the music unspooled, Bedwin’s chords reduced to choppy nonsense. “Carl, what are you doing?”

“Well—”

“That’s Matthew’s part. And you’re singing it wrong.”

“I’m improvising.” Flat on the floor as if gazing at clouds, the complainer remained blithe. It was as though they were trying to wake a dreamer, demanding he rise and walk. Or maybe the rest of them, destroying their chances on live radio, late for the party that was meant to be their lives, gone to school without pants, were the dreamers.

“You can’t do that now,” said Denise.

“It’s my song,” he said. “Matthew can sing it with me.”

“It’s not your song. You didn’t even write those lyrics, Lucinda did.”

The shadowy form on the far side of the glass made itself apparent. Dr. Marian. All in black up to her turtleneck collar, she seemed a floating array of white hands and face and skunk’s hair-streak, a dervish of authority. Mick Felsh had been banished from the control room. Now she confronted Jules Harvey. Startled from his pheremonal intoxication, he didn’t stand a chance. The bright disks of his glasses lenses bobbed as he nodded in reply to Dr. Marian’s rebuke. Dr. Marian pointed to the door, making his sole option apparent. Morsel returned to fiddling dials, looking somewhat chagrined, her paleness flawed with color high in her cheeks and at her throat.