Horse's Ass
Chapter Twenty Six
Helen sat on the examination table in a paper robe, feet dangling in mid-air as she swung them back and forth with nervous energy. On the plastic visitor’s chair to her side sat Rico, knee jack-hammering up and down as he too sought to channel his anxiety. As his leg bounced, Rico flipped through an out of date news magazine, alternately setting it down only to pick it back up again. They awaited Helen’s most recent test results, and to know whether the medications were working. After ten minutes of waiting, and knowing that with each passing minute they were sixty seconds closer to learning Helen’s fate, the agonizing entered the realm of excruciating. Just when it seemed they couldn’t last another minute before they were sick to their stomachs, the doctor rapped the door with his knuckles and entered. Rico and Helen sat up straight, and hurriedly offered up one more prayer to whoever might be listening.
The doctor shook Rico’s hand as he spoke, “The test results are good, very good. The drugs are holding things at bay.” Helen exhaled loudly as the tension ran from her body. She began to cry softly. “We see no progression on the scans, and your blood counts are normal. You are a rock star!” He looked at the medical records contained in Helen’s file, made a short note, and closed the manila folder. He held the folder to his chest, both arms crossed over it in a bear hug, as if someone might try to pry it from him and change the joyful news contained within.
Helen smiled, shaking at the good news as a tear rolled down her cheek. “I’m cured?”
“I wouldn’t say cured. It’s more like the disease isn’t advancing, and that’s a lot to be thankful for. I’d say your prayers have been answered just in time for Christmas.”
“For how long?” Rico asked.
“No one knows. I have some patients that have gone ten years without getting sicker. We treat it like a chronic condition. They work and get on with their lives.” He patted her knee, “Go on, get out of here, and I’ll see you in six months. Make sure you take the drugs as prescribed.”
“Just the pills? No more injections?”
“Just the pills. I’ll see you in June unless something changes.”
Helen clapped her hands in celebration, her confidence buoyed by the doctor’s reassurance in scheduling her next exam so far out, and her release from the weekly infusions that had consumed so much of her time since her diagnosis. Rico stood and hugged her.
Back in the parking garage and sitting inside Rico’s van, Helen declared that she was absolutely craving Vietnamese food. Rico looked at her pensively, “Craving? That’s a term pregnant women use.”
She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “Well, it is possible lover, but no I’m not pregnant I’m just craving Vietnamese food.” They’d been living together for a couple of months, and now shared her bedroom. Diagnosis aside she looked fantastic, her skin was smooth and flawless, and she was fit. She’d been running and lifting weights, almost daily, and the results showed. The side effects from the drugs hadn’t been as severe as she’d been told to expect, in fact, she tolerated the treatment with almost no negative reactions. With the exception of a persistent itch she’d tried to quell in a bath of colloidal oatmeal, and a little dizziness, so far she’d emerged relatively unscathed.
Rico drove to a popular Vietnamese restaurant, off Lincoln Avenue, on route to Helen’s home where they ordered more food than the waitress recommended. It was later than they realized, almost eight pm, by the time they finished dinner. As Rico settled up on the bill he casually commented he might write a song called, “Cravings,” about how a restaurant is closed when the protagonist finally reaches it, but she can see the diners finishing their meals through the window.
Weeks before Rico had asked Helen what she thought of his music. Helen didn’t answer directly, and told him that she’d need to think about it. She’d done the thinking she needed to do, and with her head tilted a little left of center she answered the question he’d asked her with a question, “Rico you like to write songs about loss, but what have you experienced? You need suffering and sorrow to have something of importance to say. All art, of any meaningful caliber, is grounded in misery and struggle. What well do you have to draw from?”
Rico thought about her question. “My high school girl friend ran off with the guitarist for Skinny Puppy. That hurt.”
“Seriously? That’s the best you got?”
“My dad passed a few years ago, but he was in his late nineties.”
“Okay that’s a start. Bono has certainly worked that vein. How did he die?”
“Quietly in his sleep. He drove a tour bus of Japanese tourists over a cliff in the Grand Canyon.” Rico fiddled with a smiling skull ring he wore on his right hand, an early Christmas present from Helen. His shortage of hardship wasn’t something that he had considered, and it hadn’t occurred to him how little drama and tragedy he’d faced in his life. Other than his father he’d never lost a close friend or faced a serious illness.
“Come on, that isn’t true,” Helen challenged. She held her smart phone out, ready to check the facts of Rico’s story.
“It’s one hundred percent true. Google, ‘Octogenarian narcoleptic sends bus of Japanese tourons into Grand Canyon.’ The police showed us the video from the closed circuit TV. There’s good old pops sleeping like a baby, not a care in the world, as he misses the turn and drives right on over the cliff. Behind him are half a hundred Japanese tourists, snapping their camera’s, clutching their Louis Vuitton bags, and screaming in hysterics as they fall the half mile to the bottom of the canyon.”
“If you want to be a musician you need to write about what you know, and to become an important artist you need to understand love, loss and death. As a musician you have the chops. I’ve heard you play, and I know what I’m talking about. I’ve been around this industry my whole life. My dad was a very successful agent, and, from a young age, I was schooled to recognize talent. It’s as an artist you struggle, not as a musician. They aren’t the same. You’re destined for more than three chord snappy little pop songs.”
“I like a hooky two minute pop song.”
“Everybody does, and I’m not saying you can’t write those, but to evolve you need to widen your life experiences, let a little hardship into your life. Pen something your idols would be proud of.”
“You try it. Put your heart in your hand, hold it out, and say, ‘Here, take a bite.’” Rico held his cupped hands before him. He didn’t perceive Helen’s comments to be maligned or antagonistic, and he listened closely to what she had to say. Rico didn’t generally cotton to other’s critiques of his music, but Helen’s perspective was important. It was the one person’s opinion that he cared about, and deep down he knew she was right.
“You asked me my opinion on your music. I’m not going to comment on how well you play covers. We both know you can rock the covers. Regarding the music you write, you’re overplaying to compensate for your lack of something to say. It’s the spaces between the notes that are as important as the notes themselves. It’s the contrast; life and death, love and loss, noise and silence. The contrast draws them, makes the audience lean in. The songs you’ve written are good, but they aren’t great. You can write great music.”
“You really think so?”
“I do. I’m not saying it’s easy. It’s an art form that dismisses the uncommitted, the dabbler, and the hobbyist. In the world of rock and roll, you’re much better off pouring your heart on the stage than you are delivering a technically perfect performance.” She squeezed Rico’s forearm, “I’ve heard you come close with your more recent material.”
“I’ll think about what you said.” Rico reflected on the songs he’d started writing since he’d met Helen. They all dealt with the tragedy of dying young. It was the best stuff he’d ever written.
“Anyway, I want to celebrate today’s good news.” Helen looked deep into Rico’s eyes, “Who knows what tomorrow bring
s, and you owe me a Christmas present. Your guitar is in the van, and we’re going to a bar a friend of mine runs. I want to hear you play from the heart. That’ll be my Christmas present.”
“I’m not ready. You said the songs aren’t great.”
“You are ready, and your songs are very good. They are very, very good. Remember how you talked me into driving the motorcycle? Well it’s your turn to let me talk you into something.”
“Where are we going?” Rico rubbed his hands together, nervous as he left his comfort zone. “Are you still pissed about the royalty fees?”
“Rico, I don’t care about royalty fees or performing rights organizations. It’s a freaking job. I care about you.” She reached out and took his hands in hers. “My friend, Slick, a reformed scum bag, runs a creative space called, Kill Your Television. It’s open mic night tonight, and he lets the artists play five song sets. No covers allowed. It will be packed, and we need to get there to sign up before all the early slots fill, and we’re hanging around till three in the morning.”
“I don’t want to play some B-grade amateur’s open mic with a bunch of kids from School of Rock. No thank you.” Rico tried to weasel his way out.
“B-grade? Billy Corgan and Jeff Tweedy were there last week trying out new material. The Jayhawks drove down to get some time in front of a live audience before they announce they put the band back together. There are a couple of young girls, Arden and Emma, who have been working on their first release. Rick Rubin has asked to produce them. You might have heard of him?” She tapped his hand, teasingly. “He flew in for last week’s open mic. A year ago Ray Davies played for an hour. It was the one time I saw Slick make an exception to his five song set.”
“I don’t know.”
“Say yes.” Helen answered in pun. It was a song from one of Rico’s favorite artists, Elliott Smith.
“You told me when we first met that you had no idea who Elliott Smith was. You called him Eric. I want to point out you bamboozled me the first night we met, and I tried to school you on American Idol.”
Helen laughed, “What’s a girl to do? There was no way I was letting you go!” Then more seriously she added, “For the first time I’m starting to understand my path in life. I know this will sound corny, but I think my calling is to have you tell my story.”
“Oh, what the hell, I’ll play.”
Rico pulled a pen from his pocket and began to noodle out a set list. Helen leaned over the table nodding yes, and no, and helping him arrange the order. Then she made him write a second list. If the act before his was raucous and loud, she wanted him to open quietly. If the reverse was true, he was to open with a barn burner. Under no circumstances was he to play two songs in a row in the same key, and tire the audience’s ears. “It’s all about contrast,” she reminded him. He didn’t realize how deep Helen’s musical knowledge was, and had never heard of, Kill Your Television.