So this album Gage had in hand actually hit all of the above points: it had one disc of an album out of print coupled with its follow-up — a genuine never-released gem. Naturally it was a find. But what is even more important was that this was by Dennis Wilson.
Dennis Wilson is a man I hold very close to my heart. To most people he is still a tragic joke, a colorful loser, a complete disaster. How could I not love him? Dennis was famous for being not only the only Beach Boy who actually surfed but for being so incredibly derelict for the last ten years of his short life that he actually drowned in a boat slip in Marina del Rey in like six feet of water. He was also the “good-looking” Beach Boy. He was also the Beach Boy who hung around Charles Manson because of all the easy drugs and easy pussy. (As if being a rich, handsome rock star didn’t give him enough easy drugs and easy pussy and he needed Charles Manson’s, or maybe there was something particularly potent in unbathed, helter-skelter cult pussy.) But what is hardly known about Wilson is that he recorded these two excellent if maudlin solo albums in the bad years before he drowned. This bootleg had both records in one double gatefold album. The second one is truly a “lost” record, nearly done but never released, and actually wonderful. Wilson was just too out of it to bother putting it out. Admittedly there are a lot of plink-plink sob-type piano songs sung in this almost embarrassingly sad, rusty voice. These real dirgy, messed-up vocals, unashamedly full of self-pity and raw emotion. I found it operatic, a complete expression of a tortured, not-too-bright, not-too-gifted, weary guy. But here is the thing, say what you will about skill, technique, control, brilliance: this stuff is truly moving. To me anyway. I don’t know why, but I listen to that album and I start bawling, I really do.
So, anyway, Gage sat on my bed, listening to this priceless artifact. I had it cranked way up. He started to roll his eyes, smirking and laughing a bit.
“It’s so swoon-on schmaltzy, isn’t it?” he said, giggling and then kind of moaning. After a few seconds I realized he was trying to make a parodic facsimile of Dennis Wilson’s vocal track. Then he stopped. “Just pathetic, this drunken guy crying about all his suffering, all his cliché regrets.” I flicked the needle handle up, interrupting the song, and snatched the album cover out of his hand.
“Time to eat,” I said. We stumbled toward the dining room — TV room — kitchen area. As I said, the usual things were not in effect. For Gage’s sake we had the TV off. The table was set with a little more formality than normal. My mother even broke out a bottle of some wine that came in a 750-milliliter bottle instead of the 1.5-liter power jug of oenological glory that she usually poured. She filled our wineglasses. I realized then that Gage was fully an adult and actually not that much younger than my mother. For a millisecond I entertained the horrible thought that they were attracted to each other and they would end up together, but that thought was discarded when she proceeded to ask Gage a series of interrogative-type, as opposed to conversational-type, questions.
Gage couldn’t really give any answers, or any normal ones. He was eating heartily, though, and talking through his food, so that in fairly regular, small intervals partially masticated bits would fly from his mouth. Amazing. It wasn’t as if Gage was saying anything scintillating or really of any consequence at all — surely we could all bear to wait the three seconds it would take until he swallowed his food and chased the swallow with a large gulp of the gold-hued wine from the 750-milliliter bottle. Which, by the way, we finished in no time.
I didn’t like the scotch-and-butter smell of the wine. Or the glistening raw yolk yellow of it, but I did like the buzz.
“Why did you leave Los Angeles?” I heard her say as we began bottle two.
“My recording career didn’t really take off,” Gage said.
“Did you make a living at it?”
The wine was making me more generous. You know what, it made me less bored. I actually listened to this conversation. I listened to it raptly. It compelled me.
“I did some gigging, but mostly I bartended and wrote some rock criticism, which I rarely got paid for.”
“I’d like to read it,” I said. I really meant it, too.
“Do you like music as much as your son?” Gage finished his food and pushed his plate back toward the center of the table. After he asked his question, I saw him eyeing the remaining food on my mother’s plate. He wanted more, but instead he refilled his empty glass, killing the second bottle.
“I do like music, of course. I mean I used to, quite a bit. I don’t listen to much anymore,” she said. She got up and started clearing the dishes. She returned to the table with another bottle of the same wine. She smiled slightly and went back to the kitchen. We could hear her washing dishes. Gage opened the bottle.
“So what happened to your dad?” he said to me in a semi-whisper.
“Dead,” I said, not whispering at all. He nodded like he expected the story.
“Eight years ago he was driving home one night. It was during a snowstorm — do you remember the year we had that freak blizzard? The roads weren’t cleared, so conditions were pretty bad. He drove off the road and crashed in a field. He saw some lights, which I guess he thought were a nearby house, but the lights were on the other side of the field. He got about halfway there and passed out in the snow. He died of hypothermia.”
“No shit.”
“He was totally drunk. He was also a drug dealer. Neither of which I know, of course. All I know is that he was a contractor who died in a car wreck.”
“Really.”
“He even did time for drug dealing. As I said, I don’t know any of this.”
“Actually, I think I heard something about that.”
“Of course. It just required the most nominal investigating to verify what happened.”
“She seems pretty sad about it still.”
“Just look at the newspaper report. Five minutes on Lexis-Nexis. But I never talk to her about it. It is clear she doesn’t want to discuss it, so it’s not like I have to pretend not to know. It never comes up. It’s easy. It’s amazing how easy it is to live with not talking about the Big Things. Particularly of the past.”
“She must miss him, she seems—”
“She’s always been like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like when I was a kid, I always had this idea that one day she might go out for a bottle of milk and never come back. She would disappear forever.”
Gage looked up. She had appeared again.
“What music were you listening to right before dinner?” she said.
“What did you think of it?” I asked. Gage shook his head.
“I liked it,” she said. She pushed back her hair and readied her little pipe as she spoke. “That voice sounded so familiar. Who was it?”
“Dennis Wilson. He was the drummer for the Beach Boys,” I said.