I nodded. The annals of rock are full of similar lucky accidents.
“Anyway, the Excellent Board Brothers had one tour, then did the two brokes. You know those?”
I certainly did, and from personal experience. “Went broke and broke up.”
“Uh-huh. Les came home and went to work for me. He produces better than he ever played, and he’s been my chief ramrod on the music side for going on fifteen years now. When Charlie Jacobs called me, my idea was to make you Les’s understudy, thinking you could earn while you learn, play some gigs on the side, all the usual shit. That’s still the idea, but your learning curve better be goddam steep, son, because Les had a heart attack last week. He’s gonna be okay—so I’m told—but he’s got to lose a bunch of weight and take a bunch of pills and he’s talking about retiring in a year or so. Which will give me plenty of time to see if you’re gonna work out.”
I felt something close to panic. “Mr. Yates—”
“Hugh.”
“Hugh, I know next to nothing about A&R. The only recording studios I’ve ever been in are the ones where the group I was playing with paid for time by the hour.”
“Mostly with the lead guitarist’s doting parents footing the bill,” he said. “Or the drummer’s wife, waitressing eight hours a day and hustling tips on sore feet.”
Yes, that was pretty much how it went. Until wifey wised up, that was, and put him out of doors.
He leaned forward, hands clasped. “You’ll either learn or you won’t. The Rev says you will. That’s good enough for me. Got to be. I owe him. For now, all you have to do is light up the studios, keep track of AH—you know what that is, don’t you?”
“Artists’ hours.”
“Uh-huh, and lock up at night. I’ve got a guy who can show you the ropes until Les gets back. Mookie McDonald’s his name. If you pay as much attention to what Mookie does wrong as to what he does right, you’ll learn a lot. Don’t let him keep the log, whatever you do. And one more thing. If you smoke some rope, that’s your business as long as you show up for work on time and don’t start a grassfire. But if I hear you’re riding the pink horse again…”
I made myself look him in the eye. “I’m not going back to that.”
“A brave statement, and one I’ve heard many times, in a few cases from people who are now dead. Sometimes, though, it turns out to be true. I hope it will be in your case. But just so we’re clear: you use and you’re gone, favor owed or no favor owed. Are we clear on that?”
We were. Crystal.
Georgia Donlin was just as beautiful in 2008 as in 1992, but she’d put on a few pounds, there were streaks of silver in her dark hair, and she was wearing bifocals. “You don’t happen to know what’s got him all fired up this morning, do you?” she asked me.
“No clue.”
“He started cussing, then he laughed a little, then he started cussing again. Said he fucking knew it, said that son of a bitch, then threw something, it sounded like. All I want to know is if somebody’s gonna get fired. If that’s the case, I’m taking a sick day. I can’t deal with confrontation.”
“Says the woman who threw a pot at the meat delivery man last winter.”
“That was different. That four-oh-four son of a bitch tried to caress my butt.”
“A four-oh-four with good taste,” I remarked, and when she gave me the stinkeye: “Just sayin.”
“Huh. Last few minutes it’s been all quiet in there. I hope he didn’t give himself a heart attack.”
“Maybe it was something he saw on TV. Or read in the paper?”
“TV went off fifteen minutes after I came in, and as for the Camera and the Post, he stopped takin em two months ago. Says he gets everything from the Internet. I tell him, ‘Hugh, all that Internet news is written by boys not old enough to shave and girls hardly out of their training bras. It’s not to be trusted.’ He thinks I’m just a clueless old lady. He doesn’t say it, but I can see it in his eyes. Like I don’t have a daughter who’s taking computer courses at CU. Bree’s the one who told me not to trust that bloggish crap. Go on, now. But if he’s sittin in his chair dead of vapor lock, don’t call me to give him CPR.”
She moved away, tall and regal, the gliding walk no different from that of the young woman who had brought the iced tea into Hugh’s office sixteen years before.
I tapped a knuckle on the door. Hugh wasn’t dead, but he was slumped behind his oversize desk, rubbing his temples like a man with a migraine. His laptop was open in front of him.
“Are you going to fire someone?” I asked.
He looked up. “Huh?”
“Georgia says if you’re going to fire someone, she’s taking a sick day.”
“I’m not going to fire anyone. That’s ridiculous.”
“She says you threw something.”
“Bullshit.” He paused. “I did kick the wastebasket when I saw the shit about the holy rings.”
“Tell me about the holy rings. Then I’ll give the wastebasket another ritual kick and go to work. I’ve got sixteen billion things to do today, including learning two tunes for that Gotta Wanna session. A wastebasket field goal might be just the thing to get me jump-started.”
Hugh went back to rubbing his temples. “I thought this might happen, I knew he had it in him, but I never expected anything quite this… this grand. But you know what they say—go big or go home.”
“No fucking clue what you’re talking about.”
“You will, Jamie, you will.”
I parked my butt on the corner of his desk.
“Every morning I watch the six AM news while I do my crunches and pedal the stationary bike, okay? Mostly because watching the weather chick has its own aerobic benefits. And this morning I saw an ad for something besides magic wrinkle creams and Time-Warner golden oldie collections. I couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t, fucking, believe it. At the same time I could.” He laughed then, not a this-is-funny laugh but an I-can’t-fucking-believe-it laugh. “So I turn off the idiot box and investigate further on the Internet.”
I started around his desk but he held up a hand to stop me. “First I have to ask you if you’ll go on a man-date with me, Jamie. To see someone who has—after a couple of false starts—finally realized his destiny.”
“Sure, I guess so. As long as it isn’t a Justin Bieber concert. I’m a little long in the tooth for the Bieb.”
“Oh, this is much better than the Bieb. Take a look. Just don’t let it burn your eyes.”
I walked around the desk and met my fifth business for the third time. The first thing I noticed was the hokey hypnotist’s stare. His hands were spread to either side of his face, and he was wearing a thick gold band on the third finger of each.
It was a poster on a website headed PASTOR C. DANNY JACOBS HEALING REVIVAL TOUR 2008.