The sticking points were many. Jake insisted on complete artistic license, complete control of the hiring and direction of backing musicians, and absolutely no veto power of any material by the label on any grounds other than blatant obscenity. Jake would not sign off on any provision that even hinted that he had to perform a certain style of music. Furthermore, Jake refused to sign on for anything more than two option periods, refused to give up the rights to any of his new material for longer than the duration of the contract, and refused to accept less than thirty percent royalties.
"Jake, you're being unreasonable," Pauline told him on many occasions. "Negotiation is a game of give and take. You're not giving anything."
But Jake was stubbornly insistent. "I'm tired of being owned by a label," he told Pauline and every management type or lawyer he met in any negotiation meeting. "What I've given you is the absolute minimum I will accept in order to sign a contract. Take it or leave it."
They all left it. Their arguments were perhaps even valid ones. With a thirty-percent royalty rate, the label paying for all promotion, production, and tour expenses, and with the material being entirely left to the discretion of Jake — who had already disclosed the fact that he had no intention of doing Intemperance-like songs — it was highly possible, even likely, that the label would lose a significant amount of money on the deal. The recent flopping of The Northern Jungle epic, which had cost more than one hundred million to make but had only brought in thirty-eight million in profit, had served as a wake-up call to the entire entertainment industry. Sure, a certain amount of people would buy a Jake Kingsley solo album just because it was Jake Kingsley. But they needed more than just the die-hard fans to purchase the album. Under the terms of the contract Jake was suggesting, the album would have to go well over platinum before the label started seeing profit from it. If the album sucked ass as bad as The Northern Jungle sucked ass, it was entirely conceivable that it wouldn't even go gold and the label would eat all the production, touring, promotion, and distribution costs.
"Have a little faith in me," Jake told the executives and lawyers and accountants at each meeting. "I think I can make some music that people will like."
"That's what Wallace Grigsby III and Greg Oldfellow thought when they decided to make The Northern Jungle," he was told again and again. "I'm sorry, but we can't take that kind of chance with our stockholders' money."
And so that was that. On September 17, the final set of negotiations came to an end. On September 27, the registered letter came in Jake's mail, telling him that his house was done and that he needed to come inspect it so it could close escrow.
"I'm going to New Zealand for a while," Jake told Pauline on the phone less than an hour after receiving the letter.
"For how long?" she asked, after getting explanation for the trip.
"Not long," Jake told her. "I'm just going to inspect the house and get things settled there. When I come back, we'll start thinking about what our next step is."
"Our next step is to be more reasonable in negotiations, Jake," she told him. "That's the only way there is going to be a next step."
"As I said," Jake repeated. "We'll talk more about it when I get back."
The next day, Jake climbed onto a 747 at LAX. For baggage, he checked a single suitcase full of clothes and his old Fender guitar in a battered case. His carry-on contained shaving supplies, his checkbook, his address book, and two bottles of water. He landed at Auckland International on October 30 and was picked up by Zachary Fields, who flew him to Ashburton Aerodrome outside Christchurch in Jake's own Cessna 172.
Jake had not been home or talked to anyone from home since.
After cleaning up the urine from the condom incident (Jake still shuddered every time he thought of that terrifying moment when he'd looked down and saw his penis grotesquely swollen), and washing up thoroughly, Jake went back into the bedroom and put on a pair of sweat pants and a cotton pull-over shirt. Leaving the bedroom like it was for the moment, he walked through the hallway, through the entertainment room (which was cluttered with more wine bottles, empty glasses, overflowing ashtrays, and one condom wrapper), and into the kitchen. The kitchen was actually in pretty good shape. He'd done the dishes and wiped everything down after dinner last night, before he drank too much to not worry about it.
He rinsed out the pot and the filter holder of his automatic coffee maker and then quickly set it up to brew a half a pot of Toraja Arabica — an exclusive coffee variety that was expensive and hard-to-find in the United States, but relatively common (though still expensive) in New Zealand due to its close proximity to Indonesia, where the beans were grown. When the first drips of coffee began to fall into the pot, when the first of the wonderful aroma reached his nose, Jake walked over to the mahogany cabinet over the sink and removed a large water glass. He filled it with water from the tap and drank it down without removing the glass from his lips. The well water that supplied the sink was naturally cold and naturally pure — hands down the best tap water he'd ever had in his life. This was a good thing since he tended to drink a lot of it in the mornings in order to re-hydrate himself.
He filled his glass again and used the water to wash down fifteen hundred milligrams of Tylenol and a multi-vitamin that was heavy on B-12 and C. He drank one more glass for good measure and the trudged into the living room and sat down in his favorite chair to wait for the coffee to finish. While he was waiting, he dozed off again — not an uncommon occurrence during this part of his morning routine.
He awoke forty-five minutes later, feeling a little better. The headache had faded to a dull, almost comforting throb and most of the grogginess was gone. He got up and returned to the kitchen where he poured a large mug of coffee which he carried out the side door, down a small flight of steps, and across a concrete walkway to his patio. The patio was a stamped concrete slab covered by an aluminum overhang. On the deck he had an eight-person hot tub, a wet bar, a propane fired barbeque, and a set of custom made granite patio furniture.
He sat down at the table, facing toward the view of the harbor it enjoyed. A brisk, pleasant breeze was blowing up the hills from the sea, bringing the smell of salt, fish, and seaweed to him. He could see a couple of sailboats, half a dozen fishing boats, and a large container ship with Indonesian markings on it out in the harbor. From all around him came the sounds of birds chirping, trees rustling in the breeze, and squirrels chattering and playing. He sipped his coffee slowly, unthinkingly, just looking out at the boats on the water and the sparse vehicular traffic on the streets of Lyttelton.
After finishing the first cup of coffee, he went back inside long enough to pour another. Then it was right back to his patio, right back to the pleasing sameness of the view and the brisk sea breeze. Finally, with 180 milligrams of caffeine surging through his system, he felt reasonably alert and almost human. He could now officially start his day.
He went back to the kitchen and turned on the thirty-six inch television set that was mounted on the wall above the dishwasher. The TV was tuned to CNN, as was every television in the house, fed by a large satellite receiver dish mounted behind his guest quarters and pointed to the northeast. Operation Desert Shield, the build-up of troops and equipment in Saudi Arabia, had become Operation Desert Storm, the war to liberate Kuwait, thirteen days before. Jake had been enthralled with CNN's coverage of the conflict ever since day one, when he'd stayed up all night long watching the footage of anti-aircraft fire and explosions in Baghdad, of reporters scrambling for cover in Riyadh as SCUD missiles came flying in.