Chapter 52 - Home
The next morning the same valet brought the yellow horse around to the portico where we waited with our bags. He got out, looked at both of us and said, “My father’s a shrink. I can give you his email if you want.”
Tommy said, “What for?”
“You guys got stuff to work out. Maybe he can help.” I motioned to him for more. “You,” he said, looking me up and down, “him,” looking at Tommy, “you come down here in that,” nodding at the bomb, “smelling like GPR, check into the Presidential Suite and the VP Suite, don’t use the connecting door....you got issues. Serious issues. My dad’s really good, expensive, but I think you guys can afford him.”
I said, “How do you know we didn’t use the connecting door?”
“Please. You, super babe, and you,” looking at Tommy, “guy who looks like Steve McQueen, Mustang 390 GT, one of you recently firing a gun....whole staff’s been watching you two.”
Tommy said, “That includes in our rooms, after hours?”
“Night staff has to do something to stay awake.”
Tommy looked at me and said, “Back home you have Gale and Jinny on your ass. On the way down you stirred up the idiots. Here, the hotel staff. Is there anywhere you don’t cause a commotion?”
“You're still mad about losing the match yesterday.”
“You cheated.”
“I do anything your girlfriend up in New York doesn’t do?”
“I thought she was good at it, but you....”
“All’s fair in love and war, hon,” I said.
“How’d you lose the Civil War, knowing tricks like that?”
“You mean the 'Late Unpleasantness’? They didn’t let the women fight. We’d a torn you boys up.”
The valet listened to this, said, “Here’s my dad’s email. You really gotta get past your issues, cause I bet you two could have all kinds of fun together,” and he handed Tommy a card.
On the way back Tommy asked if we were going to stop in and see how the boys were doing, and that he’d paid the twenty-five dollars for the bug juice cider, still wanted to try it. I said, “Now look who’s trying to cause trouble.” We only played two sets of the mind game, which were favorite songs and favorite singers.
Me: “Hey Jude.” Gotta start strong, try to intimidate Tommy a little, challenge him.
Him: “Bridge Over Troubled Waters,” now that’s some harmony singing.
Me: “Summertime” written in Charleston in 1935, best rendition is by The Zombies with Rod Argent playing electric piano.
Him: “When the Levy Breaks,” absolutely the heaviest song in the history of rock n roll.
Me: “All Along the Watchtower,” with that one we get both Jimi Hendrix singing and Bob Dylan writing.
Him: “Golden Lady,” by Stevie Wonder, what a melody.
Me: “Good Vibrations,” by the boys from California.
Him: ‘”Sittin’ On the Dock of the Bay,” wastin’ time.
Me: “Love Reign Over Me,” the greatest pop song ever written by my boy Pete.
Him: “Layla,” dueling guitars and great singing.
I stayed on the interstate most of the way home so as to avoid the place that sells ‘Lord Jesus's Own Peach Cider Heavenly Nectar.’ Tommy said I was afraid of the two remaining boys still in good working order, and I said I was afraid of contracting typhoid from the bug juice he had gotten shafted for by the big mama to the tune of twenty-five dollars. I went on to say that if he had drunk any of that stuff there was no way I would have kissed him down at Jekyll, and he asked what else was holding up the show since he hadn’t drunk the cider, and I said a good thing is worth waiting for, and he said he wasn’t getting any younger, he wasn’t going to look like that guy forever and some other guy named Roger was due home is a couple of weeks, and I said friendship is a great thing, and he said so is sex, and I replied let’s get back to the mind game of favorite singers. And he sighed.
Me: Roy Orbison, now him I’d go to bed with based just on his voice, screw little Plato.
Him: Joni Mitchell, absolutely pure voice, can do without her politics though.
Me: Diana Ross, a black chick that didn’t resort to histrionics to be different, didn’t have to she is so naturally great.
Him: Elton John, so strong and correct, got the pipes.
Me: Willie Nelson, love him singing Christmas carols.
Him: Dusty Springfield, all soul singing, you don’t have to say you love me.
Me: Ok getting down to the greatest singers of all time, here’s my female, Renee Fleming.
Him: John Fogarty, his rendition of "I Heard it Through the Grapevine" was the song that locked me into rock n roll.
Me: The greatest pop singer ever, man or woman, Ray Charles, makes me wanna move to Georgia.
Him: This babe is pure and powerful, though I can do without the flakiness, Stevie Nicks.
Tommy looked at his watch, said, “We’ll be home by noon. What are you doing for lunch? And that game is fun.”
“Wish we could do lunch with wine, but I can’t. I have a commitment. Besides,” I said rubbing it in, “don’t you have to go back to work? Isn’t that why you’re here in America’s most beautiful town?”
“Don’t remind me.”
I said, “They pay you a lot for what you do?” He nodded. “That’s a good reason for getting back to work then, earn that fee.”
“There’s more to life than money.”
“How’s your life now?”
“Ambivalent.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means some of it I like and some of it I don’t particularly care for.”
“Such as?”
‘I like hanging out with you. I even like Gale and Jinny even though they beat up on me. Gale does at any rate.”
“And I like hanging out with you. What don’t you like?”
“I don’t like the two little rats whose names start with P. Even my weak one. If I knew where to get some hemlock I’d slip both the little bastards a mickey.”
Knowing the answer, I asked, “Anything else you don’t like?”
He looked at me and said, “Maybe,” but that was all. He didn’t say he didn’t like working to put me in jail. What he did say was, “Who’s your lunch date with?”
“I didn’t say it was a lunch date, I said I have a commitment. And it’s with someone who’s lonely.”
“Gale? Jinny?”
“I have more than two friends, you know.”
“Made any new friends recently?”
“I didn’t say it was with a friend. Don’t you listen?”
He said, “Relative then? Lonely relative?”
“Maybe. I have a lot of relatives in town. My family goes way back around here.”
He didn’t push it anymore, didn’t have to. I put Renee Fleming’s "Dark Hope" in the CD player, and we listened to it the rest of the way into town. I pulled under the portico of his hotel, killed the 390, and we sat looking at each other until I said, “I enjoyed everything. How ‘bout you?”
He nodded and said, “That boy didn’t enjoy our company too much.”
I said, “He wanted to play; he had to pay.”
He got out and I pulled the lever for the trunk. He came back to the passenger side window and looked in at me, god those eyes of his, I wanted to unfasten my seatbelt and follow him in. We just smiled at each other, doing it with vibes rather than words, until he said, “Say hello to her for me.”
“Who?”
“Gwendolyn.”
“I will.”