Chapter Thirteen

I don't know how he arranged it. Laura Napoli said it had nothing to do with her. She'd told him 'no' from the start, and told him 'no' over and over again. She had asked him to leave, politely. She had told him to leave,a less politely. She had gotten the church security guard to escort him out of the building, but Roy Everson was not taking 'no' for an answer. He figured that Mario was an adult, and he could decide for himself. It wasn't that easy, of course. Once he tracked down where Mario was living, in a shabby little halfway house not far from the church, he had started visiting there and had met with the same kind of reception as Laura's. The woman in charge of the house, whose name I forget and who I never met, apparently told him 'no' the same way and repeatedly. Somehow, though, Roy managed to get through to Mario alone.

My opinion is he basically kidnapped the guy in the name of doing a favor. The next time we saw Mario was at the studio Roy had arranged for rehearsal. Mario was cleaned up a bit. His beard had been trimmed and his hair had been washed. He was wearing new clothes, and didn't smell bad. For the first time I could study his face. His eyes were his prominent feature. They seemed much too big for his face, they were set wide apart and were a sort of very pale blue you don't often see on a human, as if they'd been worn down like faded old jeans. His nose seemed to have been broken in more than one place over time. His mouth was as overly small as his eyes were overly large, and the thin lips that covered the big teeth that filled them were so cracked and broken it seemed they could chip off in pieces.

His hair was thick, long and white, like a wizard, while his beard still showed traces of yellow. He was not very tall, five seven perhaps, and slight, maybe a hundred and forty. He had very long fingers, the kind that are made to play music. His fingers and nails were in pretty good shape. You couldn't say that about his brain. You couldn't say much about that. He looked where he was pointed. He walked where he was led. He didn't say anything, ever. I never heard him make a sound with his mouth. The contradiction was striking to me, this wizened old fellow you knew was a shell.

The studio was in need of repair. It was obviously something Roy found on the cheap, a place I'd never even heard of on the far side of town, by the stadium. Joey Anthony had gotten there first and was waiting on the sidewalk in front of the low cement structure. Next door was a check cashing place, which should tell you enough about the location. It was shabby. Some derelicts were passed out on the step in front of the Noodle Hut on the other side of the unlabeled door that turned out to be the studio.

My dad had driven us over. I keep saying 'us' because of course it wasn't just me. Bobby had insisted on joining us. I suppose that it couldn't be helped. He was "one of the family now", as my mom always said about whichever stray was taking up space and eating the food in our house. He was also "with the band", according to him, the band which was him and myself. He was "practically buddies" with Mario Flambeau since they'd "played together" already that day at the church. Those were his words, of course, picked out of the torrent of words which had flowed from his trap ever since he found out the big plan.

"It's going to be great", he assured me. "You and me and Mario and what's his name? That drummer. Bobby and the Bedouins big time! Woo hoo! We'll do some of our songs. He'll like that. I already know which one we'll do first. We'll do 'Stoplight', right? What do you think?"

If he had really been asking me, I would have said hell why not? 'Stoplight' was good enough, and in many ways it was appropriate. It was a typical Bobby song. Driving and repetitive, it had a lot of C chords, a pounding beat that turned out to be right in line with Joey Anthony's tendencies, and lyrics that were nothing but Bobby:

When you wake up you'll be somewhere else
"where am i this time?"
see no footprints
see no tracks
wake up to the facts.

where have i been?
what have i done?
saw it coming,
didn't see it come.

when you wake up you'll be someone else
"who am i this time?"
got no memory
got no face
gone without a trace.

where have i been?
what have i done?
saw it coming,
didn't see it come.

when you wake up it'll be something else
"what is it this time?"
say you're sorry
say you'll pay
wake up someday.

where have i been?
what have i done?
saw it coming,
didn't see it come.

Stoplight!

We did play that song the first day. Some of us even had our hopes up for awhile. Even me, because I hit it off musically with Joey Anthony from the start. He was actually a damn fine drummer and the energy he gave off from his kit was beautiful to me. We had warmed up, getting used to our surroundings, with Roy controlling the sound board after placing Mario on a comfortable chair and balancing a guitar on his lap. Mario stayed put and occasionally fingered a string. Joey Anthony got himself situated and arranged things the way that he liked them. I had brought my own bass and just plugged it in, it was fine. Bobby was strutting around with a mike and a headset, making what he thought were professional noises.

"Can I have some more of myself in the headphones?" he shouted at Roy, who maybe ignored him. Roy wasn't expecting a singer, but my dad had explained about Bobby, and probably asked Roy to humor him, give him a chance. Bobby was Bobby on fire from the start, roaming all over the room, pecking into every little thing, jabbering up a storm. Joey Anthony was laughing at him.

"Guy's got some overcharged batteries", he shouted at me and I nodded and shrugged with a smile. Bobby wasn't paying attention.

"It's like a palace of fine arts", he was saying. "The majesty, your majesty, we are pleased to present. Over here on my right, the infamous Mario Flambeau, what a trip. Are you with us doctor? After all, it's only a dream, am I right? We will sail to the sun and then home again. What do you say, Monsignor?"

"All right everybody", Roy announced from his perch. "Time is money and money is time. Let's see what we got. How do you want to go about this. Pablo?"

He asked me, but it was Bobby who leaped to the front of the room shouting "Stoplight, Stoplight, Stoplight, Stoplight", until I nodded and started off into the bass line. Joey Anthony picked it up right away and I have to say that he had the thing pegged from the start. I hadn't realized before then that the song had actual potential. Maybe that was true of more of Bobby's songs, I was thinking, as Bobby himself joined in on the vocals.

An amazing thing happened just then. Whatever it was I will never know, but something in Mario kicked in and he played. He didn't play what we were playing, it's true. It had nothing to do with the song, but it fit. It was weird. Only his fingers were moving, like a manikin robot, he played and when Roy turned it up it got better. The louder it was, the better it sounded. There was wind in the noise, like a storm.There was thunder and lightning, tornadoes and rain. He was howling. Joey Anthony was banging and I was pouring it out and Bobby was all over the place, dancing and twitching and singing his song. On the soundboard, Roy was just beaming. Even my dad later said it was "vintage".