Wild Cards V (33 page)

Jack recognized Holley from the album portraits. He knew the musician was forty-nine, close enough to Jack's own age. Holley looked older. His face carried too much flesh; his belly wasn't completely camouflaged by the silver-lamé jacket. He no longer wore the familiar old black horn-rims; his eyes were masked by stylish aviator shades that couldn't quite hide the dark bags. But he still played the Fender Telecaster like an angel.

The same couldn't be said for his sidemen. The rhythm guitarist and the bass player both looked about seventeen. Their playing was not inspired. The muddy sound mix didn't help. The drummer flailed at his snares, the volume coming through at about the right level to completely mask Holley's vocal delivery.

In rapid order Buddy Holley segued from Prince into a bad Billy Idol and then a so-so Bon Jovi.

“I don't believe it,” said C.C., drinking a healthy dollop of her Campari and tonic. “All he's doing is covering top-forty shit.”

Cordelia watched silently, her expression of initial enthusiasm visibly fading.

Bagabond shook her head disapprovingly. “We shouldn't have come.”

Maybe
, Jack thought,
he's biding his time.
“Give him a little while.”

As the desultory clapping faded after a game attempt at evoking Ted Nugent, a voice from the back of the lounge yelled, “Come
on
, Buddy—give us some oldies!” A ragged cheer went up. Most of the clapping came from Cordelia's table.

Buddy Holley took his Telecaster by the neck and leaned toward the audience. “Well,” he said, the West Texas twang still pronounced, “I don't usually take requests, but since you've been such a terrific crowd…” He settled back and strummed out a rapid-fire sequence of opening chords that his backup group more-or-less followed.

“Oh, lord,” said C.C. She took another drink as Buddy Holley tore into Tommy Roe's “Hurray for Hazel,” then a quick verse of “Sheila,” finally a lugubrious, almost-bluesy version of Bobby Vinton's “Red Roses for a Blue Lady.” Holley continued in that vein. He played a lot of music made famous by Bobbys and Tommys in the fifties and sixties.

“I want to hear ‘Cindy Lou' or ‘That'll Be the Day' or ‘It's So Easy' or ‘T-town,'” said Cordelia, distractedly swirling her gin and tonic. “Not this shit.”

I'll settle for “Not Fade Away,”
Jack thought. He watched Buddy Holley slog through the dismal pop retrospective and started getting real depressed. It was enough to make him maybe wish that Holley had died at the height of his initial popularity and not survived to fall into this ghastly self-mockery.

Inebriated conversation and drunken laughter escalated at the surrounding tables. It appeared that most in the lounge had completely forgotten that Buddy Holley was performing onstage. When Holley came to the end of his set, he introduced the final number very simply. “This is something new,” he said. The sparse crowd was having none of it; they had turned actively hostile.

“Fuck you!” somebody shouted. “Turn on the jukebox!”

Holley shrugged. Turned. Walked off the stage.

His backup guitarists quietly put their instruments down; the drummer got up and laid his sticks on an amp.

“Why doesn't he do his classics?” said Cordelia. “Hang on,” she said to her companions. Then she got up and collared Buddy Holley as he headed toward the bar. They saw her talking earnestly to the man. She led him back to the table, dragged up a vacant chair, appeared to be making him sit through dint of sheer will. Holley looked bemused at the whole affair. Cordelia made introductions. The musician courteously acknowledged each name and shook hands in turn.

Jack found the man's grip warm and firm, not flabby at all.

Cordelia said, “We're four of your greatest fans.”

“Sort of sorry you're all here,” said Holley. “I feel like I owe everyone an apology. This isn't a good show tonight.” He shrugged. “'Course
most
nights in lounges are like that.” Holley smiled self-deprecatingly.

“Why don't you play your own music?” said Bagabond without preamble.

“Your
old
music,” said Cordelia. “The great stuff.”

Holley looked around the table. “I've got my reasons,” he said. “It ain't a matter of not wanting to. I just can't.”

“Well,” said Cordelia, smiling, “maybe I can help change your mind.” She launched into her spiel about the benefit at the Funhouse, about how Holley could go on early in the following Saturday's performance, that maybe he could do a medley of the music that had propelled him to superstardom in the fifties and early sixties, that perhaps—just maybe—the concert and the telecast could rejuvenate his career. “Just like when the Boss found Gary U.S. Bonds playing in bars like this,” she finished up.

Buddy Holley looked honestly astonished by Cordelia's outpouring of enthusiasm. He put his elbows on the table, closely studying the club soda and lime the waitress had brought him, finally looking up at her with a slight smile. “Listen,” he said. “I thank you. I truly do. Hearing something like this makes my night—hell, the whole year.” He looked away. “But I can't do it.”

“But you
can,
” said Cordelia.

He shook his head.

“Think about it.”

“Won't do no good,” he said. “It won't work.” He patted her hand. “But thanks for the thought.” And with that, he nodded to the rest of them, then got up and trudged through the smoke to the stage for his second set.

“Damn,” said Cordelia.

Jack watched the musician's back as Holley hoisted himself up onto the stage. There was something familiar about how the man carried himself. It was the sense of defeat. Jack thought he'd last seen that slight slumping of shoulders and hanging of head when he'd looked in the mirror.
Just this morning.

He wondered how many years and what disasters had beaten Buddy Holley down.
I wish
—At first the thought didn't complete itself. Then he said to himself,
I wish I could help.

“You want to go or stay?” said C.C. to Cordelia.

“Go,” said Cordelia. Almost too low to be heard, she continued, “But I think I'll be back.”

“Like MacArthur?” said Bagabond.

“More like Sergeant Preston of the Yukon,” said Cordelia.

Sunday

“So who are you calling a chickie?” said Cordelia, voice colder than the ocean off Jones Beach.

“What I be sayin',” said the Holiday Inn morning clerk, “is that we can't be givin' out guests' room numbers to just any chickie what comes along.” He smiled at her. “Rules.”

“You want to know how early I had to get up to catch a train out here?” Cordelia demanded. “Do you know how long I waited for a cab at the New Brunswick station?”

The clerk's easy smile started to fray at the lips. “Sorry.”

“I'm not a goddamned groupie!” Cordelia slapped an expensively embossed business card down on the counter. “I'm trying to make Holley a star.”

“Already was.” The clerk picked up the card and examined it. Below Cordelia's name it read ‘Associate Producer.' The escalated job title had been in lieu of a raise. “No shit? You work with GF&G, the folks what do the Robert Townsend show an' all that Spike Lee stuff?” He sounded halfway impressed.

“No shit,” said Cordelia. She tried smiling. “Honest.”

“And you're gonna pull Buddy Holley out of this shithole?”

“Gonna try.”

“
O-kay,
” said the clerk, grinning. He glanced at the registration spinner. “Room eighty-four twenty.” He looked at Cordelia significantly.

“So?”

With a tone of voice that suggested “Don't you know
nothin
'?” the clerk said, “The main roads leadin' out of Lubbock. The highway to Nashville.”

“Oh,” said Cordelia.

Buddy Holley had been asleep when Cordelia knocked on the door of room 8420 at 9:25. That had been obvious when he opened the door. His gray-streaked black hair was in disarray. His glasses were slightly askew as he peered out into the hallway.

“It's me, Cordelia Chaisson. Remember? From last night?”

“Um, right.” Holley seemed to gather himself. “Can I help you?”

“I'm here to take you to breakfast. I need to talk with you. It's quite important.”

Buddy Holley shook his head bemusedly. “Are you the irresistible force? Or the immovable object?”

Cordelia shrugged.

“Give me ten,” said Holley. “I'll meet you down in the lobby.”

“Promise?” said Cordelia.

Holley smiled slightly, nodded, and shut the door.

Buddy Holley came to the breakfast table in crisp denim jeans, a flowered western shirt, and a brown corduroy jacket. He looked somewhat the worse for wear, but comfortable.

He seated himself and said, “You gonna evangelize me again?”

“If I can. We can talk about dat after we get some coffee.”

“Tea for me,” he said. “Herbal. I brought my own. The tea selection in the kitchen is pretty shabby.”

The waitress came and took their order.

“Around your neck,” said Holley, pointing with his glance. “That a fetish? I saw it last night, but I was preoccupied.”

Cordelia unhooked the clasp and passed the fetish over. The tiny silver alligator and the fossil tooth were bound to the delicate oval of sandstone with a tough strand of dried gut.

Holley turned the object over and over, examining it closely. “Doesn't look American southwest—Polynesian? Australia, maybe?”

“Pretty good,” said Cordelia. “Aboriginal.”

“What tribe? I know the Aranda pretty well, even the Wikmunkan and the Murngin, but this just ain't familiar.”

“It was made by a young urban aborigine,” said Cordelia. She hesitated a moment. It both excited and hurt her to think of Wyungare. And how, she wondered, was the central Australian revolution, such as it was, going? She'd been too busy with the benefit to watch much news. “He gave it to me as a going-away gift.”

“Let me guess,” said Holley. “The sandstone's from Uluru?” Cordelia nodded. Uluru, true name of what the Europeans called Ayers Rock. “And the reptile's your totem, of course.” He held the object up to the light before passing it back over. “There's considerable power here. Not just a token.”

She refastened the chain. “How do you know?”

He grinned crookedly at her. “Just don't laugh too loud, okay?”

Cordelia felt puzzled. “Okay.”

“Ever since things went to hell—since they fell apart around 1972,” he said hesitantly, “I been lookin' around.” He contemplatively sipped his tea.

“For what?” Cordelia finally said.

“For whatever, for anything that meant something. I was just—searching.”

Cordelia thought for a moment. “Spirituality?”

Holley nodded vehemently. “Absolutely. The limos were gone, the homes, the private jet and the high living, the—” He stopped in midsentence. “All gone. There had to be something else besides hitting the bottle and the bottom.”

“And you've found it?”

“I'm still huntin'.” He met her gaze and smiled. “Lotta years and a lotta miles. You know something? I'm a lot more popular in Africa and the rest of the world than I am here. Back in '75 my agent gave me a last chance and booked me into this crazy pan-African tour. Things fell apart—well,
I
fell part. I really got screwed up after I backed out of a gig in Jo'burg. Somehow I stole a Land Rover and ended up drinkin' two fifths of Jim Beam 'way out in the bush. You know how alcohol poisonin' works? Shoot, I was well on my way.”

Cordelia stared at him, held entranced by the flat, West Texas twang. The man was a storyteller.

“Bushmen found me. Tribesmen from out of the Kalahari. First thing I knew was a!Kung shaman leanin' down over me and lettin' out the most ungodly screams you ever heard. Later I found out he was taking the sickness into himself and then gettin' shed of it into the air.” Holley contemplatively touched the pad of his thumb to his incisors. “That was the beginning.”