I saw the light over the intercom was flashing and I went over and hit the reply button. “Jim here.”
Harry answered. “Tell Kristen that her package is outside the door to your studio.”
“Package?” I asked, turning to Kristen.
Kristen didn’t answer me, but instead opened the door and there was a large box wrapped in red and white wrapping paper.
“Happy Birthday, Jim!” Kristen said, smiling.
“Huh?”
Kristen dragged the box into the room, and told me to remove the wrapping paper. It didn’t take me long to see what it was: a sixteen channel mixer!
“Kris! I only have a four track deck!” I protested.
“For now,” Kristen said with a wicked smile.
On the box, I noted a business card: Kurt Helmut from Lafayette, Indiana.
Kristen helped me set up the mixer. We needed to rearrange things around the room a bit, but it wasn’t difficult. There were plenty of chords and switches that would allow me to patch things a lot easier than my old jerry-rigged setup from before.
Kristen and I christened the new mixer by laying down Kristen’s bass accompaniment to a few tapes I had been making.
After those tracks were laid down, Kristen and I listened to the ones that were mostly complete.
After listening to my tapes, Kristen made a single comment. “You need a drummer, Jim.”
I smiled. I knew that, but my efforts on the drums were almost as bad as my efforts on the guitar.
“Can you play me a song that you played at that lounge?”
“Which one?”
“The one by Harry Nilsson.”
I nodded and moved over to the upright piano. Kristen set up the mixer to record my performance, so I made sure the microphone was live.
Kristen spent a few moments, first fiddling with the mixer and then with the four track. I saw her hit the peak button that froze the VU meters to their peak levels. She asked me for a sound check, and I gave her a five count at various volumes on the mike followed by a few scales on the upright.
When Kristen seemed satisfied with the preamp levels, she turned the tape deck on and nodded to me, her index finger on her lips.
I silently counted my standard fifteen seconds and then played the chords that started the intro of the song.
Kristen had one eye on the meters and her other eye on me as I performed. I saw her nodding, satisfied, as I started the second verse.
After the second verse, I noticed that Kristen was staring at me, waiting for the chorus.
It was only as I sang the words did the meaning of this song become clear to me:
This was Kristen’s not-so-subtle way of emphasizing the discussion that we just had; her way of describing her life.
For a moment, I wished I had Roy with me to do a harmony line on the vocals for the next verse. Of course, I could probably double-track my own voice to accompany myself on a subsequent recording, but something told me that Kristen wanted this song live.
When the chorus came around again, I think I startled myself by actually hitting the same high note that Harry Nilsson did on his version, and hitting it correctly. I saw the VU meters go far to the right and wondered if I saturated the vocal track.
Kristen was now staring only at me.
Unlike Nilsson’s version of the song, I had no orchestra behind me. I let my fingers do the best they could on the piano, but I was now staring at Kristen.
The song was over for about a minute before either Kristen or I stopped staring at each other.
Kristen quickly went over to the open reel, rewound the tape, and popped the reel off. She also popped out the cassette that she had also apparently recorded as well.
“These are mine, Jim.”
Kristen left the studio to put those tapes in some special place. She left the door to the studio open.
Not for the first time, I wondered what it was like to live Kristen’s life: lonely, misunderstood, and now physically bound to me by those damned tickets. I thought of the words to the song Vincent and how they must have touched Kristen’s heart when she first heard that song.
I made up my mind right then and there that nothing would ever make me deny anything for that wonderful creature. If there were any way possible for me to do something for Kristen, I would move heaven and earth to do so.
The pent-up emotions that I felt from the moment I made the realization during the first chorus of Without You finally hit me hard. I spent the next five minutes softly crying, not caring if Kristen walked in on me.
It was a few minutes after I finally stopped crying that I heard the water flowing in the communal shower down the hall.
Kristen was softly singing an old Motown song from the 1960s.
I walked to the shower, listening to Kristen’s wonderful voice. Kristen saw me at the entrance and she smiled at me as she made a slight alteration to the lyrics:
I know it is a crime to silence a voice as wonderful as Kristen’s, but I found myself unable to help myself. I went right over to her and gave her the biggest, sloppiest, and wettest kiss ever. Kristen melted in my arms.
I would definitely have to find a dry pair of clothes later, but that wasn’t really on my mind at the time.
Chapter 41—Wild Weekend III
After Kristen and I finished in the shower, I went upstairs to get dressed. When I came back downstairs, I heard music playing in the billiard room. I went to that room and saw Kristen was sitting on one of the chairs, strumming quietly along to Going to California on the album Led Zeppelin IV.
“I like side one better,” I commented, smiling at Kristen.
“Everybody likes Stairway,” Kristen said, nodding. “I just didn’t feel like strumming my acoustic guitar to Black Dog.”
I figured that Black Dog with an acoustic accompaniment would be something weird and smiled in response.
Since we were waiting for the cheerleaders to return, I parked myself at Kristen’s feet with my eyes half closed, letting the music flow gently through my head. I was thinking about what Kristen told me a little over a half hour earlier. Somehow, despite the fact that Kristen admitted she once wanted to kill me, I felt much closer to her than before.