Stuart Kaminsky - Show Business is Murder

“I work alone!”

He said with careful patience, “Just sing it with me and listen. I can counterpoint you. We’ll do fantastic. It’s really good, you realize that?”

“I work alone!”

“It’s got elements of jazz and blues intermingled, and with us both-”

God, they never even hear me speak. It’s like having breasts renders me insignificant. “Damn you to hell.”

He shrugged, obviously unimpressed with her hostility. “Okay. Um, do ‘Baby Jones’ instead.”

She thought a minute. It was already a favorite of the “underground entertainers,” so no big deal. And if it would make him disappear faster… grudgingly she started. As promised, he leaped in, his voice alternating between falsetto and baritone, curling around hers. They sounded good. Great, in fact. Several people threw dollar bills and coins into her case. Some stood in rapt attention, wanting the whole song before moving on.

She had to admit when they finished, although her guts revolted, that he was an asset. She scooped up the bills, ignoring the coins, and split the take with him. He squatted and dipped into the coins. “All adds up,” he grinned at her, holding up a fistful of quarters and dimes, roughly half; he didn’t cheat.

Standing again, he towered over her by at least a foot, rail-thin but not wasted. If he had a monkey, it wasn’t hurting his body or mind yet, at least visibly. He was blond, the bleached kind, with dark roots on a short but shaggy head. Doable.

“What’s your name?” he asked, reminding her of her goal for the morning.

“What’s yours,” she countered, angry again. Damn him. Sure, money was good, but the right name would improve her future quicker. He’d slowed down her professional growth.

“Sody,” he said. “Garrett.”

Sody Garrett. Original, but not worth stealing, so he could keep it. With a resigned sigh she started strumming random chords again.

“Hey. I asked you your name.”

“So?” She shrugged, again shifting slightly to face a new direction. A direction in which he wasn’t the center of her line of vision.

“You come here every day?” he asked.

Not any more, she said silently. “Oh, yeah!” she replied, her smile almost too quick to catch. Polite, but not exerting herself. He wouldn’t knife her. She knew what he wanted, and it had nothing to do with harming her. Another talent leech.

Sure enough. “I’ll meet you here tomorrow, but earlier. I play bass guitar. Perfect with your tenor. Acoustics fab down here, the steel strings work perfect without amps. Smart!” She nodded. Duh. Why else would she replace nylon strings with steel. She returned to her immediate task, in her mind running through the names of all the movie stars she could think of. Willing him to disappear.

She started silently reciting a list of her high school classmates’ names. The popular ones.

“Don’t forget,” he added anxiously, interrupting her musings.

She raked one hand through her hair in frustration. “You bet. Tomorrow!” Just leave, you maggot. Briefly she considered the name “maggot.” No. Wrong image.

She considered image. What image did she want to convey? Costuming came after picking a name, but both were totally related to the issue of image. Folk song shtick? She shook her head. Her stuff was more hard-edged but yet had a ballad structure. Deep in rumination she never noticed when Sody left. Besides, folksongs had died out in the seventies and RIP. Pop ballads. She did those sometimes, earned her big bills in the 42nd and Broadway area. All the Midwest tourists loved elevator music. She grimaced. Not ever.

She loved alternative, but couldn’t do it well alone, on one guitar. Maybe with a synthesizer, but she couldn’t play one if she had it, and she didn’t have it. Hip hop wasn’t her, either. Okay. Time to play again, the foot traffic had sped up, tired of her random chords.

“Leave me alone, or take me with you, I’m the woman you wanted all your life. Not a wife. Not a child, not a ruby on a pillow, a womaaaaan…” They loved her songs. Edgy. Janis Joplin-ish… keep that in mind, she admonished herself. She could do worse for style.

Angrily she thought of Sody Garrett. Jesus, what a name. She ran through random names, still singing, but on autopilot. Auto. Ata. Atai. Alai. Alianna. Lianna. Well, think about that one.

She showed up the next day, having totally forgotten Sody Garrett’s existence. She had her new name. Lian Logan. Since it had come to her late in the night, she’d decided to devote one more day at the familiar West 50th Street stop to “live” the name before moving to Grand Central. She wasn’t Irish, but the Irish were famous for singing and writing and entertaining. Better than Listenberger. A Listenberger sounded like a manufacturer of pharmaceuticals. At best.

She considered picking up a slight Irish brogue. Clearing her throat she began, “Aye, ’tis so, me lad.” Ick. She debated different ways to pick up a true Irish voice. Movies-too expensive. And what VCR would she use to play a video, even if she could pop for the three-dollar rental fee? Sometimes she stood and watched entire programs at the Wiz before being chased off. But some of those actors couldn’t handle the brogue either without sounding like fake mish-mash. She put the thought aside for now.

The answer would come to her, like all the other answers. Luck shimmered in the air around her, it always had. She felt it. Ideas and songs-the assurance that all would come to her swam invisibly around her, nudging her in the right directions, bringing her whatever she needed. It was all there.

She started to strum, nudged her open case lid with one slender foot, moving the heavy molded-plastic case into the edges of the path of the crowd, not an obstacle, just a hint. Two crumpled dollar bills there already, her seed money. And then Sody walked up to her, shocking her into remembrance of yesterday’s intrusion. She groaned to herself, wishing she’d gone to Grand Central after all.

On one thigh, he humped his big bass guitar in a black case. Duct tape patched several splits in the cheap cardboard, holding it together. It barely covered his guitar. She grimaced. You had to protect your instrument. His looked like he kicked it around on off days.

He greeted her with excitement. “Fantastic!” he exclaimed, not specifying just what was so fantastic. She lifted the edges of her mouth in a parody of welcome. And began to sing. An old tune, from Abba.

On the second stanza, he joined in, tuning his guitar as he strummed, swiftly catching up. She rolled from one style into another, one tempo into another. She couldn’t faze him. They had to scoop up some of the money now and then and shove it out of sight, her case filled so fast. Never want the crowds to think you didn’t need their dollars. After the third hour, suddenly she stopped, drained and unable to sing another note. He let his cords drift off into the tunnel and gazed fondly down at her. “Thought you’d never wear out. I been playin’ on adrenalin the last hour. But we are so fuckin’ good!”

“My name’s Lian Logan,” she said, trying it on him out loud. Her first foray into the great world of Irish balladeers.

“Yeah? Nice to meet you, Lian,” he said, not looking at her. He was busy pulling out the dollars they’d hidden to dump them into her case. He crouched, then began making two meticulously neat piles. She watched, but he did the chore fair and honest.

He stretched as he stood. “Jeez, never did a three-hour gig straight through. I’m wrecked. How about you?”

She was, too, but ignored the question. “Listen, I play alone.”

“Oh, c’mon! You never made that much money by yourself, don’t tell me that.”