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  “Hello?” It was the receptionist again. “May I help you?”

  “Oh, I’m waiting for you to connect me with Point Blank’s manager.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I can’t do that. You can contact him by e-mail or by traditional mail through this office. The address is—”

  “No, you don’t understand. This is Tom Good. I wrote ‘I’m Losing My Mind,’ ‘Self-Destructive Tendencies,’ and ‘Worse Than Ever.’ ”

  She didn’t say anything for a second. Then she said, “So did you want the address or not?”

  “No,” I said. “I want to speak to—”

  “Sir, I can’t—hold on,” she said, because another line was ringing. Now I was listening to another song, a hip-hop song about sex.

  She was back. “Sir, let me put you through to one of the secretaries.”

  “Good idea, you know, I’m not just some—”

  “Mr. Franks office?” said a different voice.

  “Oh. Hi. This is Tom Good. I wrote Point Blank’s early songs, on the first album, I actually started the band, and I was wondering if I could get a message to them. To the band.”

  “Sure.”

  “Sure? Oh, great, because I was expecting you to put up a fight! The woman who answered first—”

  “What’s the message?”

  “I mean, look, I know it’s part of your job to protect these guys from weirdos and obsessive fans and so on, but isn’t another part of it getting people through when they need to get through?”

  “Absolutely,” she said, “What’s the message?”

  “OK, um. OK, it’s for Adam Blackburn. This is Tom Good. Tell Adam that I would like him to call me.” I gave her my number.

  “I’ll give him the message.”

  “When?”

  “As soon as possible.”

  “Like, today?”

  “As soon as possible. They’re recording right now, so I’m not sure they’re going to be available.”

  “They’re recording? Perfect. If you could try to get that to them right away then, I would really appreciate it.” Of course, I realized that she had no incentive to do this. “They will too,” I added. “The band will. Appreciate it. They will.” I was becoming less convincing with each word I uttered.

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “I know you will. You sound really—”

  I was going to say “reliable,” “sincere,” something to inspire her to rise to that level, but she interrupted me.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve got another call.”

  “Well, thank you for doing this for me. Really. I appreciate it. So much.”

  “Sure thing.”

  She hung up. I hung up. I tried to calculate how long it would take to hear back from them. The trouble was, I had no idea where they would be recording, so I couldn’t figure out the time zone. I pictured Adam waking up to the blinking red light of a hotel phone. I saw him get the message, smile, and call the other guys in the band. I smiled myself.

  seventeen

  As soon as I woke up in the morning, while I was making some of that sweet coffee, I looked in my empty refrigerator. Pathetic! I really did need to get some real food. Come to think of it, I better get some pretty good stuff. Diana might call and want to come over. Or she might just drop by without warning me. What if she brought Jack? I’d need—what?—chips and cookies and healthy stuff like apples and celery.

  I made a long list of groceries. I re-recorded the outgoing message on my answering machine. “You have reached Good. I’ll be right back.”

  Wait! Better put some music in the background. I got a guitar, pushed the button, played a little greeting riff.

  “This is Good. I’ll be right back.”

  Hold on. Did that mean they shouldn’t leave a message? OK, I played the greeting riff again, making sure it was a happy, welcoming one, then I said, “This is Good. Please leave a message.” On second thought, music on an answering machine was cheesy. With no music, I said, “This is Good. I’m out right now. Please leave a message,” which was exactly what I had in the first place.

  I went to the store. I tried not to take too long, although I knew it was really too soon to expect any calls.

  • • •

  Adam had begged me to stay in the band. It was painful remembering it, embarrassing. The poor guy was panic-stricken when I told him I wasn’t going to stay. He kept asking me to get together with him over the next three months, meeting with me at various coffee shops, a club, a park even, to try to get me to change my mind. He said. “Don’t do this. Don’t do this! You’re going to regret it for the rest of your life. And what about us? Don’t you feel any loyalty to us? The band? We were counting on you! You told us this band was forever, and we believed you! What happened? Really. What happened to you, man?”

  God, I hated that question. Even that long ago I hated it.

  I kept telling him, “You’ll be fine. You don’t need me. Really. You can write your own songs.” Of course, he had never written a single song in his life. He came into the band as a good-looking lead singer. He really had no other marketable talents. I just wanted to get out, and I was willing to say anything to make that happen. I wanted to be away from the interviewers and the fans who thought they knew you from listening to your songs. They thought they could read your whole life story in a lyric sheet. “The songs are fake!” I wanted to say. “I made all that up. The songs are just a brick wall for me to hide behind!”

  Adam finally gave up. Sure, I felt guilty for sending the band out into the world with their limited abilities and no leadership. Of course I did. But what choice did I have? It was too awful having everybody try to see inside me all over again. I mean, it was bad when it was just my parents and a couple of therapists. But it was unbearable when it was a whole audience full of people who didn’t know me at all. It was way too much like when Jack died, when everyone was checking my facial expressions all the time and trying to figure out what I really meant by everything I said. I didn’t mean anything, of course, just like in my songs.

  • • •

  I cleaned my apartment while I waited for the phone to ring. If Diana dropped by unexpectedly, just on the spur of the moment, to, oh, visit for a few minutes, I’d wanted the place to be clean.

  I had to work at The Club that night, and I wasn’t looking forward to it. Probably as soon as I walked out the door, someone would call. Wasn’t that the way it always happened?

  The Club was nearly empty all night. The guy who was playing had had a hit song about twenty years before, but nothing of his had taken off since then. I tried not to look at him too much or listen to the songs he played. It depressed me. Was he a version of me? I tried not to think about it. Out at the front bar, though, you couldn’t do much on a slow night. You could hardly pull out a novel and start reading or launch into a massive bar-scouring session in full view of the performer who had not drawn a crowd. You had to stand there and look interested. It was part of the job. Half of the waitresses were sent home early that night because there wasn’t enough for them to do. The hours stretched out. By the last song, it seemed as though I’d been there a week. I was exhausted, completely wrecked, from standing around and doing nothing.

  When I got home, I was stunned not to find the light on my answering machine blinking. I had not even considered this possibility. I pushed the button anyway, just to make sure. The fake woman’s voice came on: “You. Have. No. Messages.”

  “That’s OK,” I told her. “It’s way too soon anyway.” I mixed up some of that coffee and went into my closet with my guitar.

  • • •

  The next afternoon, I was still waiting. I was playing my guitar, but really I was waiting. I had the phone in the closet with me. Eventually, I told myself, Diana would call. She would say that she had thought it over and that she wanted Jack and me to get to know each other. They would come over, and I would give them cookies and coffee. I wouldn’t give Jack coffee, of course. I would giv
e him orange juice or lemonade or soda. If she let him drink soda. She might not. But anyway, I had all those drinks at my house now. I had cleaned. Again. All my guitars were lined up on their stands, ready to go. Jack would say, “Cool!” when he saw all the guitars. He would eat cookies and ask me if he could play a guitar. I would let him choose the one he liked the best. It was fine with me. I had bought real coffee for Diana, not that artificial, sugary crap that I drank myself. In fact, I had even put that little tin way in the back of the cupboard so that she wouldn’t see it when she came, if she happened to open up the cupboard to get something for herself. She might feel comfortable enough to do that. She really might.

  • • •

  I was trying to work on a song I’d been writing. I was sweating in my closet. My shirt was starting to stick to me. I opened the door and went out, getting a drink of water from the fridge. I stepped outside my door for a minute to stand in the fresh air.

  I went back inside to get an acoustic, the sunburst again. Some people in the neighborhood might not appreciate hearing an electric guitar outside. I took a stool and the guitar out behind the house. There was a patch of crabgrass there in back that gave way to the cracked asphalt in front of the garage. My neighbor Robin had most of the garage for her car, an old station wagon. I parked my bike between her car and her boxes of stuff. I left my car parked on the street. Anyway, I sat there in back on the stool. What? I was thinking. So maybe I hadn’t played anywhere but a closet in a really long time. That didn’t mean I couldn’t do it today. All I had to do was pretend that I was exactly the kind of person who didn’t mind playing my guitar outside. I could work on the chord progression for the song I was writing. Maybe some lyrics would come to me out here.

  I hadn’t looked at my watch. When I heard all the noise of the four kids next door, I realized that being outside wasn’t going to work. They were arguing about who got the biggest and why it was no fair. I pictured brownies. One of them got a little extra and that was what was causing all the trouble.

  I was still tuning the guitar when I heard their door slam. I heard them coming but did not move. Maybe if I didn’t talk to them they’d go away. Elise was on a skateboard, I saw out of the corner of my eye. She was pretty good too. She was flipping it around 180 degrees over and over. Mike was licking an ice-cream cone and looking at me. That was what it was. I could see how ice-cream cones would be hard to make exactly the same. Even if they were equal in size, they might not appear to be equal.

  “Hey, cool, Mr. Good. You got a guitar!” said Mike.

  “Well, duh,” Elise put in. “He had that before.”

  Mike said, “Is it hard to do that? It looks hard. It sounds good, though. Get it? Good, like your name. Do you know how to play any songs, or do you just know how to play like that?”

  “I know a few songs,” I said.

  “Can you play a song?”

  Elise said, “He’s trying to, if you’d just shut up.”

  “I’m telling Mom you said shut up’!”

  “So? You just said it.”

  “What song would you like to hear?” I asked, hoping to keep them from getting violent.

  “Do you know how to play ‘Kryptonite’?”

  “I think so.” I played the intro. Their mouths dropped open. Naturally, they thought I was going to say, “Never heard of it,” and ask if they wanted to hear “If You’re Happy and You Know It.”

  Mike took three steps back in absolute wonder at my genius. “That is so amazing. Elise, go get Mom.”

  “I’m not getting Mom. You get Mom, you big fat baby.”

  “MOM!” Mike bellowed, his face going red with urgency.

  Elise took a swipe at him before she covered both ears with her hands.

  Their mother came surging around the side of the house. “What? What happened? Who’s hurt?”

  “No, I just wanted you to hear something. He can play ‘Kryptonite.’ ”

  She just looked at him. She didn’t see me sitting there, as there was a bush between us, and she didn’t know what he was talking about. “What? My God.” She put her hand to her heart. “I thought you were injured. You scared me half to death, Michael Gunther.”

  “Mr. Good knows how to play ‘Kryptonite’!” Mike said quietly, pointing at me.

  I pulled down the branch of the bush.

  “Oh!” I had startled her. “I didn’t know you were there. I’m sorry. Were they bothering you?”

  “He knows how to play ‘Kryptonite,’ Mom.”

  “Well, he’s very talented, then,” she said and smiled at him. “Wow, you know Mike’s favorite song! That’s great! Wonderful.” She smiled at me too. “But, Mike, next time, just walk over and get me, OK? You scared me.”

  “He played it for me. It was so good. Do you know any other songs, Mr. Good?”

  “A few,” I said.

  “Can you give me guitar lessons?” Mike said.

  “What?” I said. This caught me off guard. “Lessons? Oh, I— no, I don’t give lessons. I don’t do that.”

  “Just one then? One lesson?” Mike held up a small index finger.

  I shook my head. “You’re not—old enough. Your hands are too small to fit around the neck of the guitar, and—” I looked at his mother for help.

  “You’ll have to excuse Mike,” Robin said. “He’s a music fanatic.”

  “Maybe he knows how to play one of your songs, Mom.”

  “Honey, I don’t want to bother him. And I don’t want you to, either. Why don’t you come inside, Mike, and let Mr. Good play his guitar in peace.”

  “No way,” Mike said. “He wants me to hear him play. Don’t you, Mr. Good? I want to hear him. Play ‘Babylon,’ Mr. Good. You can play that, can’t you? It’s by David Gray. It’s my mom’s favorite. Listen, Mom. He’s going to play it right now.”

  “How do you know all these songs?” I asked Mike. “You’re only, what, eleven?”

  “I’m seven.” He looked hurt. It was supposed to be a compliment.

  “Oh,” I said. “Sorry. My mistake. So how do you know all these songs?”

  “Me and my mom listen to the radio together at night.”

  I looked at Robin.

  “Insomnia.” She sighed.

  “Both of you? Do kids get insomnia?” I said.

  “Unfortunately,” she said.

  I played a little of “Babylon” for them.

  “That’s really good, Mr. Good,” Mike said in a hoarse whisper, moving closer.

  My phone was ringing! It would be either Diana or Adam. I was ready for both! For either. For anything. I jumped up and took several giant steps to my door. “Excuse me!” I called over my shoulder to the kids and Robin. “Phone call!”

  Inside, I grabbed the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Is this Tom Good?” said a woman’s voice.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “This is Angela. I work for the band Point Blank.”

  “Yes?” I said.

  “Our New York office said you were trying to get in touch with us.”

  “I was trying to reach Adam,” I said.

  “OK, well, that’s why I’m calling you back,” Angela said.

  “He can’t return his own phone calls?”

  “Not at the moment. They’re recording.”

  “Right. And?”

  “And they don’t see or talk to anyone when they’re recording. It’s distracting.”

  “Ah. I see,” I said. Asshole, I thought.

  “So, what was it that you—”

  “Wanted to talk to him about?” I filled in for her. “Just—well, I have some songs I wanted him to listen to.”

  “Sure. Right. I see. I’ll tell Adam for you and call you back.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Whatever.”

  I hung up. To hell with Adam. Fury flared up in me so quickly that I almost threw something. Can’t even make a phone call he’s concentrating so hard. My God. What happens to people when they get famous? It just
confirmed, once again, that I had made the right decision in the first place.

  I went in the kitchen and turned on the radio. “Kryptonite.” Now I would never hear that song again—or “Babylon,” for that matter—without thinking of Robin and Mike sitting up with insomnia, the boy in pajamas with cars or dinosaurs on them, and Robin with—Great! Just great! That was not an image I needed lingering in my head forever.

  The phone rang again. Diana! I jumped for it.

  “Hi. This is Angela again. From Point Blank. I gave Adam the message.”

  I was about to say, “Angela? Could you do me a favor? Please tell Adam to go to hell.”

  But Angela spoke first. She said, “Adam said to tell you that it’s great to hear from you. He’s really happy you got in touch, and he would like to invite you to come to a show they have coming up.”

  “Oh, he would? Where are they playing?”

  “In Los Angeles. On the tenth. Tickets will be waiting for you at Will Call.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said. “Thanks for calling.” I hung up.

  I wasn’t going to go. Why would I? What did I need those guys for? I got out of that years ago. And for good reason.

  I closed my eyes standing right where I was, and I could see myself unlocking the door to a new house. The door was white, and there was a circular window in the top. Behind it was a brand-new place with clean carpets and new furniture. It had different rooms, not just one general, all-purpose, messy area. People were talking there. Music was playing, and—

  I opened my eyes, turned around, and looked at my bed. I started to get sweaty and hot. Was it stuffy in here? I opened a window. That didn’t help. It wasn’t the air; it was the things I was looking at, the stained carpet, the old blinds that I’d never changed, my accumulated crap. It was my own life, making me feel choked and suffocated.

  All right, I’d go to the concert. I didn’t have to enjoy it. I just had to behave as if I were the kind of person who enjoyed this kind of thing. No one had to know.

  eighteen

  For the next few days, I worked on a song about waiting, finished it, and recorded it. I put some synthesizer tracks on it and used a drum machine. I recorded a couple of harmonizing vocal tracks. It had been a long time since I had gotten so elaborate on a song.