The Best of Lucius Shepard (121 page)

“Stygian,”
she said.

I turned to
her, inquiring.

“That’s the
word you wanted. Stygian.”

“Oh ...
right.”

A silence
marked by the passing of a mail truck, its tire chains grinding the asphalt and
spitting slush; the driver waved.

“I think I
know why Rudy did it,” I said, and told her what I had found in the office
waste basket. “More than anything, he wanted to do creative work. When he
finally did, it gave him nightmares. It messed with his head. He must have
built it into this huge thing and....” I tapped out a cigarette, stuck it in my
mouth. “It doesn’t sound like much of a reason, but I can relate. That’s why it
bites my ass to see guys like Stanky who do something creative every time they
take a piss.
I
want to write those songs.
I
want to have the
acclaim. It gets me thinking, someday I might wind up like Rudy.”

“That’s not
you. You said it yourself—you get pissed off. You find someplace else to put
your energy.” She rumpled my hair. “Buck up, Sparky. You’re going to live a
long time and have lots worse problems.”

It crossed
my mind to suggest that the stars might have played some mysterious part in Rudy’s
death, and to mention the rash of suicides (five, I had learned); but all that
seemed unimportant, dwarfed by the death itself.

At one
juncture during that weekend, Stanky ventured forth from TV-land to offer his
sympathies. He might have been sincere, but I didn’t trust his sincerity—it had
an obsequious quality and I believed he was currying favor, paving the way so
he might hit me up for another advance. Pale and shivering, hunched against the
cold; the greasy collar of his jacket turned up; holding a Camel in two
nicotine-stained fingers; his doughy features cinched in an expression of
exaggerated dolor: I hated him at that moment and told him I was taking some
days off, that he could work on the album or go play with his high school
sycophants. “It’s up to you,” I said. “Just don’t bother me about it.” He made
no reply, but the front door slamming informed me that he had not taken it
well.

On
Wednesday, Patty Prole (nee Patricia Hand), the leader of the Swimming Holes, a
mutual friend of mine and Rudy’s who had come down from Pittsburgh for the
funeral, joined me and Andrea for dinner at McGuigan’s, and, as we strolled
past the park, I recalled that more than a month—thirty-four days, to be
exact—had elapsed since I had last seen the stars. The crowd had dwindled to
about a hundred and fifty (Stanky and Liz among them). They stood in clumps
around the statue, clinging to the hope that Black William would appear; though
judging by their general listlessness, the edge of their anticipation had been
blunted and they were gathered there because they had nothing better to do. The
van belonging to the science people from Pitt remained parked at the southeast
corner of the library, but I had heard they were going to pull up stakes if
nothing happened in the next day or two.

McGuigan’s
was a bubble of heat and light and happy conversation. A Joe Henry song played
in the background; Pitt basketball was on every TV. I had not thought the whole
town would be dressed in mourning, but the jolly, bustling atmosphere came as
something of a shock. They had saved the back booth for us and, after drinking
for a half hour or so, I found myself enjoying the evening. Patty was a slight,
pretty, blue-eyed blonde in her late twenties, dressed in a black leather jacket
and jeans. To accommodate the sober purpose of this trip home, she had removed
her visible piercings. With the majority of her tattoos covered by the jacket,
she looked like an ordinary girl from western Pennsylvania and nothing like the
exotic, pantherine creature she became on stage. When talk turned to Rudy,
Andrea and I embraced the subject, offering humorous anecdotes and fond
reminiscence, but Patty, though she laughed, was subdued. She toyed with her
fork, idly stabbing holes in the label on her beer bottle, and at length
revealed the reason for her moodiness.

“Did Rudy
ever tell you we had a thing?” she asked.

“He alluded
to it,” I said. “But well after the fact. Years.”

“I bet you
guys talked all about it when you’re up at Kempton’s Pond. He said you used to
talk about the local talent when you’re up there sometimes.”

Andrea
elbowed me, not too sharply, in mock reproval.

“As I
remember, the conversation went like this,” I said. “We were talking about
bands, the Swimming Holes came up, and he mentioned he’d had an affair with
you. And I said, ‘Oh, yeah?’ And Rudy said, ‘Yeah.’ Then after a minute he
said, “Patty’s a great girl.’”

“That’s what
he said? We had an affair? That’s the word he used?”

“I believe
so.”

“He didn’t
say he was banging me or like that?”

“No.”

“And that’s
all he said?” Patty stared at me sidelong, as if trying to penetrate layers of
deception.

“That’s all
I remember.”

“I bet you
tried to get more out of him. I know you. You were hungering for details.”

“I can’t
promise I wasn’t,” I said. “I just don’t remember. You know Rudy. He was a
private guy. You could beat on him with a shovel and not get a thing out of
him. I’m surprised he told me that much.”

She held my
gaze a moment longer. “Shit! I can’t tell if you’re lying.”

“He’s not,”
said Andrea.

“You got him
scoped, huh? He’s dead to rights.” Patty grinned and leaned against the wall,
putting one fashionably booted foot up on the bench. “Rudy and me ... It was a
couple weeks right before the band left town. It was probably stupid. Sometimes
I regret it, but sometimes I don’t.”

Andrea asked
how it happened, and Patty, who obviously wanted to talk about it, said, “You
know. Like always. We started hanging out, talking. Finally I asked him straight
out, ‘Where’s this going, Rudy?’ Because we only had a couple of weeks and I
wanted to know if it was all in my head. He got this peculiar look on his face
and kissed me. Like I said, it didn’t last long, but it was deep, you know.
That’s why I’m glad Rudy didn’t tell everyone how it was in the sack. It’s a
dumb thing to worry about, but....” Her voice had developed a tremor. “I guess
that’s what I’m down to.”

“You loved
him,” said Andrea.

“Yeah. I
did.” Patty shook off the blues and sat up. “There wasn’t anywhere for it to
go. He’d never leave his kids and I was going off to Pittsburgh. I hated his
wife for a while. I didn’t feel guilty about it. But now I look at her.... She
was never part of our scene. With Vernon and Rudy and the bands. She lived off
to the side of it all. It wasn’t like that with you, Andrea. You had your law
thing going, but when you were around, you were into it. You were one of the
girls. But Beth was so totally not into it. She still can’t stand us. And now
it feels like I stole something from her. That really sucks.”

Platitudes
occurred to me, but I kept quiet. Andrea stirred at my side.

“Sometimes
it pays to be stupid,” Patty said gloomily.

I had a
moment when the light and happy babble of the bar were thrust aside by the
gonging thought that my friend was dead, and I didn’t entirely understand what
she meant, but I knew she was right.

Patty
snagged a passing waitress. “Can I get a couple of eggs over?” she asked. “I
know you’re not serving breakfast, but that’s all I eat is breakfast.” She
winked broadly at the waitress. “Most important meal of the day, so I make
every meal breakfast.”

The waitress
began to explain why eggs were impossible, but Patty cut in, saying, “You don’t
want me to starve, do ya? You must have a couple of eggs back there. Some fries
and bacon. Toast. We’re huge tippers, I swear.”

Exasperated,
the waitress said she’d see if the cook would do it.

“I know you
can work him, honey,” Patty said. “Tell him to make the eggs dippy, okay?”

We left
McGuigan’s shortly after eight, heading for Corky’s, a working man’s bar where
we could do some serious drinking, but as we came abreast of the statue, Patty
tapped it and said, “Hey, let’s go talk to Stanky.”

Stanky and
Liz were sitting on the base of the statue; Pin and the other boys were
cross-legged at their feet, like students attending their master. The crowd had
thinned and was down, I’d guess, to about a hundred and twenty; a third of that
number were clustered around the science van and the head scientist, who was
hunched over a piece of equipment set up on the edge of the library lawn. I
lagged behind as we walked over and noticed Liz stiffen at the sight of Patty.
The boys gazed adoringly at her. Stanky cast me a spiteful glance.

“I heard
your EP, man,” Patty said. “Very cool.”

Stanky
muttered, “Yeah, thanks,” and stared at her breasts.

Like me,
Patty was a sucker for talent, used to the ways of musicians, and she ignored
this ungracious response. She tried to draw him out about the music, but Stanky
had a bug up his ass about something and wouldn’t give her much. The statue
loomed above, throwing a shadow across us; the horse’s head, with its rolling
eyes and mouth jerked open by the reins, had been rendered more faithfully than
had Black William’s face ... or else he was a man whose inner crudeness had
coarsened and simplified his features. In either case, he was one ugly mother,
his shoulder-length hair framing a maniacal mask. Seeing him anew, I would not
have described his expression as laughing or alarmed, but might have said it
possessed a ferocious exultancy.

Patty began
talking to the boys about the Swimming Holes’s upcoming tour, and Andrea was
speaking with Pin. Stanky oozed over to me, Liz at his shoulder, and said, “We
laid down a new song this afternoon.”

“Oh, yeah?”
I said.

“It’s
decent. ‘Misery Loves Company.’”

In context,
it wasn’t clear, until Stanky explained it, that this was a title.

“A guy from DreamWorks
called,” he said. “William Wine.”

“Yeah, a few
days back. Did Kiwanda tell you about it?”

“No, he
called today. Kiwanda was on her break and I talked to him.”

“What’d he
say?”

“He said
they loved the tape and David Geffen’s going to call.” He squinched up his
face, as if summoning a mighty effort. “How come you didn’t tell me about the
tape? About him calling before?”

This, I
understood, was the thing that had been bothering him. “Because it’s business,”
I said. “I’m not going to tell you about every tickle we get. Every phone
call.”

He squinted
at me meanly. “Why not?”

“Do you
realize how much of this just goes away? These people are like flies. They buzz
around, but they hardly ever land. Now the guy’s called twice, that makes it a
little more interesting. I’ll give it a day or two, and call him back.”

Ordinarily,
Stanky would have retreated from confrontation, but with Liz bearing witness (I
inferred by her determined look that she was his partner in this, that she had
egged him on), his macho was at stake. “I ought to know everything that’s going
on,” he said.

“Nothing’s
going on. When something happens, I’ll tell you.”

“It’s my
career,” he said in a tone that conveyed petulance, defiance, and the notion
that he had been wronged. “I want to be in on it, you know.”

“Your
career.” I felt suddenly liberated from all restraint. “Your career consists of
my efforts on your behalf and three hours on-stage in Nowhere, Pennsylvania.
I’ve fed you, I’ve given you shelter, money, a band. And now you want me to
cater to your stupid whims? To run downstairs and give you an update on every
little piece of Stanky gossip because it’ll gratify your ego? So you can tell
your minions here how great you are? Fuck you! You don’t like how I’m handling
things, clear the hell out of my house!”