“But at least that’s remembered,” I said.
Kossoff smiled. “Yeah, there’s that.”
“All it takes,” said Buchanan, “is one person. One person idolizes you, and you’re screwed. Like it or not, from that moment on…you kinda split in two. Some part of you is always aware of the idol-half” he gave his head a little shake. “And it can mess with you.” “Amen,” said Cobain. Morrison tapped my shoulder. “You need to get moving again.” “Where are we going?” “Back to the good Reverend’s shelter.” “Why there?” “Because,” said Entwistle, “the source of the ulceration that brought us here should be there by now.” “You and your bloody loopy syntax,” said Keith Moon. “You always talked just like you played. Too damned busy for its own good.” “Coming from you,” said Entwistle, “I take that as a compliment.” “You would.” Then Moon smiled. “Good to see you again, Ox.” “Likewise.” I looked at the Reverend. “I’m scared.” He said nothing in return, and I knew. Despite what Morrison had said to us, the Reverend was scared, as well.
6
It didn’t help that none of them said a word after that, just sat back there staring out at the night and looking more and more like the ghosts they claimed not to be.
They filed into the shelter silently, each finding a cot or a chair at various spots around the main floor, where they sat, watching all the doors and windows.
The dog—Lump—sat up as soon as we came inside, his ears jerking. Missy sat down to pet him when he started growling, and Beth looked at her daughter, then to me.
“Lump never growls,” she said. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him all of a sudden.” “It’s just a bad night,” I said, as if that could explain everything. “Where’s your son—sorry, I forgot his name.” “Kyle? He’s downstairs taking a shower.” “How’re you doing?” “Hm? Oh, me…I’m okay.” She patted her stomach. “The food really hit the spot.” “Well, if anybody wants seconds…” “You’re very nice.” “I try.”
“Would it be all right if the kids watched Rudolph again? Kyle and Missy really like it, even though the Bumble kinda scares them.” “The Bumble?” “The Abominable Snow Monster. Remember, Yukon Cornelius calls it the ‘Bumble’?” “That’s right. Huh. Thing scared me half to death when I was a kid and saw it for the first time.”
The Reverend called me over to the kitchen area, where he, Jackson, and Grant McCullers were warming up some stew and wrapping other food for the refrigerator. Grant was doing most of the wrapping, and doing it quickly. I only mention this because he’s got a bad hand that looks more like a claw than it does a human hand. It’s been that way for as long as I’ve known him. Arthritis. But he can play a mean harmonica better, serve drinks more smoothly, and wrap food faster and with more dexterity than anyone I’ve ever seen.
“Hey, Sam, I hear you’re something of a music expert,” said Grant.
“Not an expert, but I know trivia. Some trivia.” “Did you ever hear of a band called Parallax?” asked Grant. I looked at Jackson and the Reverend, both of whom were staring at me like the answer to this was something important. “Sure. They only did three albums, but they were pretty good.” Grant finished wrapping a half-pound of hamburger, tossed it onto the pile of to-be-frozen foods. “They were from Ohio, right?” I nodded. “Two of them were from Zanesville, but the guitarist, Byron Knight, he was from here, from Cedar Hill.”
Grant exchanged an I-told-you-so look with Jackson, who nodded his head and gestured for the Reverend and me to follow him into the back. “It was real nice of you to bring over all this food,” I said to Grant. “The new freezer’s a tad smaller than I’d planned, so I had to do something with this chow, y’know?” I grinned at his white lie. “How’s the Hangman coming along?” “I look to re-open in about two weeks.” “You gonna replace the old jukebox?”
He stopped for a moment, thought about something, then shook his head. “You know, I don’t think I will. It works just fine. In fact, I’m getting rid of that new one.”
The reverend came up behind me. “Are you two finished with this architectural discussion? I could use Sam’s help.”
“You can always use Sam’s help,” said Grant. “In fact, I wonder if you’d get anything done if you didn’t have Sam’s help.” “And yours, and Ted’s, and God’s. I am useless without any of you.” Grant laughed. “Just wanted to hear you say it.” “It’s unbecoming of you, Grant. Fishing for a compliment.” “Been a bad couple of months. But you don’t want to hear about my dreadful personality problems.” “Your lips to God’s ear.” They looked at one another and smiled. The Reverend took hold of my elbow and we fell into step behind the sheriff. “This guy was in pretty bad shape,” said Jackson, “so Grant and I put him back in your office. Hope you don’t mind too much.” “As long as he hasn’t puked on everything.”
Jackson grinned. “Not that kind of bad shape. The guy was shit-scared half out of his mind. Wanted to be put someplace where no one could see him.” “Did he get here before or after Bill Emerson?” “After.” Jackson grinned. “Can’t say any of us were much help to Bill.” “Still no word about Joe, then?” “Afraid not. I’ve got my deputies out looking for him, as well, now. Don’t worry, We’ll find him.” “God, I hope so.”
We arrived at the door to the Reverend’s office-slash-living quarters. Jackson gripped the doorknob, then looked at us. “I was kinda into Parallax, too, when I was younger. That’s why I about fell over when I saw who this was.” He opened the door and we stepped into the room.
Byron Knight—that’s right, the Byron Knight—was laying on a cot beside the Reverend’s desk. It had been almost 30 years since anyone had seen him. Most people who cared to remember him at all assumed that he was dead, what with his dramatic disappearance back in the early 1980s.
The years had not been good to him. His once muscular frame—featured on the covers of both Rolling Stone and Melody Maker the same month—was now an emaciated ruin. The clothes he wore were torn, patched, and tattered. And the sickly-gray pallor of his skin betrayed an illness I was all-too familiar with: cancer. I’d watched it slowly chew my mother to death after Dad abandoned us when I was twelve.
“The source of the ulceration,” whispered the Reverend.
“The source of the what?” asked Jackson.
The Reverend, ignoring the sheriff’s question, turned to me. “You stay here with him, Sam, all right? Don’t let anyone except me or Ted or Grant through the door, understand?”
“Yes sir.”
“What the hell is going on?” asked Jackson. “I only ask because it seems to me that neither one of you were too surprised to see him here. Me, I see a rock star from 30 years ago who I thought was dead, I get curious.” The Reverend took hold of Jackson’s arm and led him out of the room. “Lock the door behind us, Sam.” “Don’t have to tell me twice.” They left, I locked the door, and I heard a voice from behind me say one word. “…mudman….” Wow. Okay, it wasn’t quite the same as hearing Morrison call himself the Lizard King…but it was close.
The Buckeye State has produced only four rock acts that ever amounted to anything more than passing curiosities; Devo (Akron), The James Gang (Cleveland), Guided By Voices (Dayton), and Parallax (Zanesville/Cedar Hill). Parallax came out of central Ohio in the mid-1970s, just as the progressive rock movement was hitting its zenith. Bands like Yes, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Flash, King Crimson, and a trio of Canadian upstarts calling themselves Rush were engulfing the airwaves with long, complex “concept” pieces like “Close to the Edge”, “Tarkus”, and “2112”. It was not uncommon (thanks to the earlier success of Iron Butterfly’s 17-minute “In a Gadda-Da-Vida”) to turn on your FM radio and hear only three songs played over the course of an hour. 10-minute songs were almost short compared to a half-hour epic like “Karn Evil 9.” It seemed that if you were going to be taken seriously in the prog rock movement (by anyone who wasn’t Lester bangs of Creem magazine), you had to produce a “concept” piece that would initially befuddle listeners while giving the DJs time to take a leisurely piss break. A lot of it was pretentious crap, but some of it was kind of amazing. It didn’t matter if you thought Rush’s “The Fountain of Lamneth” was overblown silliness, because Yes’s “The Revealing Science of God” might blow you away right after.