Макс Коллинз - Spree

He was short but had a bodybuilder’s build, which made sense, because he worked out three times weekly at a health spa, and had lifted weights and such since high school, where he’d been a wrestling champ. His hair was short and blond, a curly skullcap, and he had a wisp of a mustache. On this crisp winter day, he wore chinos and a long blue navy-color coat with a big collar, a military-looking coat which he had, in fact, purchased at an army-navy surplus store. Under the coat he wore a short-sleeved T-shirt, despite the time of year; on it was one of his own drawings, as the T-shirt was quite literally the first merchandising spin-off from Space Pirates’ cultish success: Captain Bob, the klutzy hero of his book, posed with a clunky ray gun in one hand and a bosomy alien broad in the other. He wore no gloves (Jon didn’t — neither did Captain Bob, for that matter).

It was only one floor up, the only apartment up there, and the door was unlocked, which made Jon grimace. His drawing board was set up in the living room, near the stereo and nineteen-inch Sony TV. It was a spacious flat, drywall walls painted a pale green and decorated with huge posters, promo stuff from the record shop, where Toni worked during the week, when they weren’t out on the road with a band, which they hadn’t been for several months now. Gigantic Elvis Costello and Blondie and Devo and Oingo Boingo and Kate Bush faces stared from the walls. Blondie was old history, now, but Toni’s vague resemblance to Debbie Harry kept the defunct group hanging on, at least on the apartment walls.

Toni had been the lead singer of a group called Dagwood, several years ago, a mock-Blondie group formed out of the remnants of Smooch, a mock-Kiss group; like the various imitation Beatles bands — a number of which were still around — such groups could turn a steady buck on the Midwest club circuit. For six months Toni had done nothing in life but imitate Debbie Harry; even now she still admired the singer, and her own style remained heavily influenced thereby.

Jon knew that Toni had the talent to go far. She had looks and brains and drive, too. She was twenty-three, a year younger than Jon, and was in her bedroom packing her suitcase. That was the other thing she needed, to go far: a suitcase.

She was packing stage clothes — sexy lacy gypsy-looking things she ordered from Betsey Johnson’s in New York City. Right now she was in jeans and a Bruce Springsteen sweatshirt, a small woman with zoftig curves and dark spiky Pat Benatar hair.

“I was going to complain about you leaving the door unlocked again,” Jon said, the words sounding empty to him.

“You still think your wicked past may catch up with you someday,” she said, not looking at him.

Jon sat on the bed. “It might. I made enemies.”

She looked up from her packing and gave him a condescending smile. “Don’t go all macho and mysterious on me, or I may just faint. Or puke.”

“What are you mad about?”

“Who said anything about being mad? Look out.” She was moving past him, toward the closet, where she was getting more of her stage clothing, Cyndi Lauper-type apparel, but sexier.

“You seem to be packing.”

“You are one observant little man, aren’t you?”

“Any special reason?”

“I’m leaving. Going.”

“Where?”

“Minneapolis.”

“And do what? Go down on Prince?”

She gave him a cold look. “I got a new gig lined up.”

“What about our new band?”

They’d been rehearsing for about a month with a drummer and a guitar player, both of them college kids from Drake. Toni sang, of course, Jon played keyboards, switching off between an old Vox Continental organ and a Roland synthesizer.

“The new band just isn’t happening, Jon. Those kids aren’t ready to do anything but play weekends. They’re in fucking college, for Godsake!”

“It’s sounding good.”

“Jon, we’re too old to be some top-forty band playing frat parties and bars. I got to get out there and make it, really make it, before my tits start to sag.”

Jon touched her arm. “I’d be glad to lift ’em for you.”

She removed his hand like a bug that had lit. “Don’t start. To you this is just a hobby. To me it’s a career.”

Jon stood, some anger bubbling up through his hurt feelings. “Hobby! I’ve given this thing three years of my life, working in bands with you, driving all over the goddamn country in that lumber wagon of a van, sleeping in roach motels, fencing with moronic club owners. Jesus! What do you want from me?”

She looked at him with something approaching regret. Sighed. Said, “Sit down.”

He frowned at her.

“Sit down,” she said, and she sat on the edge of the bed, pushing the suitcase back out of the way.

He sat, too.

“Jon, this isn’t your dream. Music. It’s always been second place to you. You’ve got your comic book, now. That’s your dream. You’ve realized it.”

“Toni...” He didn’t know what to say, exactly. He supposed she was right, in a way. Music wasn’t the passion of his life: cartooning was. Playing in rock bands was something he’d gotten into in junior high, for the hell of it. He’d only gotten back into music a few years ago, when his efforts to make it in the comics weren’t paying off.

But now he had Space Pirates — a monthly comic book of his own. He wrote it and drew it. Penciled, inked, lettered it. It was a small-press book, for the so-called direct-sales market — which meant his book didn’t get on newsstands, rather went only to the specialty shops catering to the hard-core comic-book fans — and what it was bringing in would, at first anyway, only amount to around eighteen grand a year. Which meant he needed another source of income, and playing in a band with Toni, weekends, could provide that.

“We made a deal, you and I,” Toni said. “We said we’d try to make it together. Really make it. But I don’t think you’re willing, anymore. I think you want to stay in one place and play weekends. You’re holding me back, Jon. You aren’t ready to go back on the road full-time. You can’t , and draw your comic book.”

“Damnit, I tried ,” he said, meaning he’d tried to make it in rock with her. “What about the goddamn record?”

With their previous band, the Nodes — which had gone through several incarnations — they had put together an album of original material, thirteen songs written by Jon and/or Toni. This was about a year ago, before Space Pirates , before the Nodes broke up, when they were playing a circuit throughout the Midwest and South, driving a hundred thousand miles or so a year. Like a lot of bands, they had put the album out themselves, when none of the major record companies responded to their tape; and had sold the album at their various performances. Midnight Records in New York, a record store that specialized in offbeat small-label product, had even distributed it to other specialty record shops, and overseas. It had gotten some airplay, on college stations primarily, across the country.

But nothing substantial had come of it, and the frustration of that had led to the group disbanding. Toni and Jon had been putting the pieces back together, these last six months, during which time Jon had placed Space Pirates with a small publisher and was spending more and more time at his drawing board and less and less at his synthesizer keyboard.

“I financed that fucking album,” Jon said, pointing to himself, as if there were some confusion as to who he was talking about.

“I know you did,” she said.

The money he’d spent came from that last job with Nolan; money didn’t come harder earned than that.