Jake watched the limo disappear and then went back into the house. He made a trip to his wine cellar and, after some internal debate, selected a bottle of 1978 Cabernet Sauvignon from his collection. He wiped the dust off the bottle and then carried it back upstairs to his office. He opened it with a corkscrew he kept in his desk and poured a healthy amount into a wine glass he'd snagged from the kitchen on the way through. He had a sip, smiling at the smoothness of the seventy-five dollar a bottle vintage, lit a cigarette, and then reached in the large envelop and began going through his fan mail.
Contrary to popular belief, most famous musicians did not employ secretaries or assistants to open their fan mail for them. The process of reading what people thought about you — whether it was good or bad — was not really a chore, it was a pleasure. And so it was with relish that Jake dug in and opened the first letter.
It was a brief one, from a male fan in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The letter was signed Tim Cordoza. Tim started off by telling Jake how much he loved the way Jake played and the way he sang. He then asked a few questions about Jake's musical and vocal training. He ended the letter by telling Jake to keep rocking. In all, pretty typical of correspondence. Had Jake been in a different mood, he might have penned a brief reply to Tim Cordoza, just a quick note with enough details in it so Cordoza would know it was not a form letter. Instead, he wanted to get on with some more letter reading so he dropped it in the trash. Sometimes he felt bad about throwing his fans' letters away after reading them, but, in reality, there was nothing else to do with them. If he stored them, he would quickly amass thousands and they would be cluttering up his office.
He pulled another envelope out and opened it up. He began to read. It was pretty much the same theme as the first, although with a lot more misspellings and bad grammar. That too was fairly typical. Though many of Jake's fans were college students and college educated professionals, many were also high school students, high school drop-outs, and blue collar workers. Jake interpreted the writing the best he could, figured out that the overwhelming theme was positive, and dropped the letter and its envelope into the trash.
He continued to read, sipping wine and smoking cigarettes all the while. About six letters in, he came across another that was fairly typical. It was someone named Robert and he had pegged Jake as somewhat of an intelligent person based on the lyrics he composed and the interviews he gave. As such, Robert attempted to impress Jake by using words that were both obscure and complex. Instead of simply saying, "the blending of your lyrics and music is inspiring", he wrote, "the complex and cosmopolitan amalgamation of your artisan musing and your musical ensemble leads one to believe in the orchestration of genetic superiority in certain genres of human aptitude."
"Thanks, Robert," Jake said, filing that one away as praise and then dropping the letter and envelope into the trash.
The eighth letter he opened was one he actually answered. It was from a young fan named Jeff in Indianapolis. Jeff was a freshman college student and he had been an Intemperance fan ever since his first year of high school. He liked the music that Matt composed, but he felt that Jake's composition and lyrical skills were far superior. He expounded for a few paragraphs about how one of the pleasures of his life was buying a new Intemperance album and then listening to each Jake Kingsley penned track over and over until he was able to figure out just what the lyrics meant. He then went on to explain his interpretation of several of Jake's songs. For the most part, he was right on target. He knew that Descent Into Nothing was about being forced to grow up fast. He knew that Point Of Futility was about feeling a relationship slip away. He knew that I Found Myself Again was about life on the road. His question, however, was about one of the unrecorded live tracks found on In Action — This Life We Live. He knew the song was generally about the downside of being a celebrity figure in modern life, but there was one bit of lyrics he didn't quite understand.
"In the first bridge of the song," he wrote, "you speak of 'women you can take but you can't kiss, they're everything you've dreamed, but was the dream like this?' What exactly are you referring to there? I'm usually quite adept at ferreting out the meaning of each of your lines, but this one eludes me."
Jake chuckled and pulled a sheet of paper out of his desk (it had the Intemperance logo on it and was headed with FROM THE DESK OF JAKE KINGSLEY). He started with 'Dear Jeff" and then wrote a few quick paragraphs about how nice it was to hear from someone who actually understood what he wrote about. He then gave him a brief and truthful explanation about what 'women you can take but you can't kiss' actually meant. That, of course, served to illustrate what the second part of the verse he'd asked about meant as well. He closed the letter by thanking Jeff for writing and then signing his name to the paper. He folded it up and put it in a pre-stamped envelope he pulled from another desk drawer. He quickly scrawled Jeff's name and address on the front and then dropped the letter into his outgoing mail tray. He then threw Jeff's letter into the trash and opened up another one.
As he worked his way through first one and then another bottle of wine, he read more then sixty letters in all. Most were positive, but not all. There were, like always, a few from religious fanatics, right wing pro-government fanatics, and women's lib types who assumed that since Jake sang Matt's lyrics that he had penned them as well. He read each of these like he did all his mail but answered none of them. There were also quite a few from women who had strong feelings for him. Some were brief and to the point — "I want to fuck you, Jake. Just give me a time and a place and I'll be there to do it" — and others were more poignant, with the writer going on and on about how his music spoke to them and aroused them and how the mere sight of his picture caused wet panties.
A few of the female letters contained Polaroid pictures of the woman purporting to be the author of the piece. Some of these pictures were everyday shots of a smiling girl, others were a bit on the risqué side, with lingerie or lots of cleavage, others still were out and out pornographic in nature. One shot in this batch was of a cute, college age girl with brunette hair and large breasts. She was lying back on a bed with a dildo inserted inside of her and a wanting expression on her face. On the bottom of the picture she wrote, "I was looking at your picture on an album cover when my girlfriend took this shot."
A few of these pictures he saved in a special part of his lower desk drawer. He was a man, after all.
And then there were the letters that caused uneasiness in him when he read them. These were letters from women who did not just want to fuck Jake, but who proclaimed they were in love with him, that they wanted to be a part of his life, that they were the perfect woman if he would just give them a chance. He always made a point of never answering any of these ones.
When the second bottle of wine was but a memory he was tired and ready for bed. He decided it was time to call it a night and maybe read some more of these tomorrow night when he got back from a date he had planned with Helen. He looked over at his latest cigarette in the ashtray and saw that it was still only about half smoked.
"Maybe just one more," he said, reaching into the bag and pulling one out at random.
He took a quick drag of his smoke and then opened the envelope. He could tell immediately by the tight, spiky handwriting on the letter that this one was from a female. He started to read. As he went through the letter he became more and more uneasy with each sentence that passed.