Люциус Шепард: The Best of Lucius Shepard

McGuigan’s was a bubble of heat and light and happy conversation. A Joe Henry song played in the background; Pitt basketball was on every TV. I had not thought the whole town would be dressed in mourning, but the jolly, bustling atmosphere came as something of a shock. They had saved the back booth for us and, after drinking for a half hour or so, I found myself enjoying the evening. Patty was a slight, pretty, blue-eyed blonde in her late twenties, dressed in a black leather jacket and jeans. To accommodate the sober purpose of this trip home, she had removed her visible piercings. With the majority of her tattoos covered by the jacket, she looked like an ordinary girl from western Pennsylvania and nothing like the exotic, pantherine creature she became on stage. When talk turned to Rudy, Andrea and I embraced the subject, offering humorous anecdotes and fond reminiscence, but Patty, though she laughed, was subdued. She toyed with her fork, idly stabbing holes in the label on her beer bottle, and at length revealed the reason for her moodiness.

“Did Rudy ever tell you we had a thing?” she asked.

“He alluded to it,” I said. “But well after the fact. Years.”

“I bet you guys talked all about it when you’re up at Kempton’s Pond. He said you used to talk about the local talent when you’re up there sometimes.”

Andrea elbowed me, not too sharply, in mock reproval.

“As I remember, the conversation went like this,” I said. “We were talking about bands, the Swimming Holes came up, and he mentioned he’d had an affair with you. And I said, ‘Oh, yeah?’ And Rudy said, ‘Yeah.’ Then after a minute he said, “Patty’s a great girl.’”

“That’s what he said? We had an affair? That’s the word he used?”

“I believe so.”

“He didn’t say he was banging me or like that?”

“No.”

“And that’s all he said?” Patty stared at me sidelong, as if trying to penetrate layers of deception.

“That’s all I remember.”

“I bet you tried to get more out of him. I know you. You were hungering for details.”

“I can’t promise I wasn’t,” I said. “I just don’t remember. You know Rudy. He was a private guy. You could beat on him with a shovel and not get a thing out of him. I’m surprised he told me that much.”

She held my gaze a moment longer. “Shit! I can’t tell if you’re lying.”

“He’s not,” said Andrea.

“You got him scoped, huh? He’s dead to rights.” Patty grinned and leaned against the wall, putting one fashionably booted foot up on the bench. “Rudy and me… It was a couple weeks right before the band left town. It was probably stupid. Sometimes I regret it, but sometimes I don’t.”

Andrea asked how it happened, and Patty, who obviously wanted to talk about it, said, “You know. Like always. We started hanging out, talking. Finally I asked him straight out, ‘Where’s this going, Rudy?’ Because we only had a couple of weeks and I wanted to know if it was all in my head. He got this peculiar look on his face and kissed me. Like I said, it didn’t last long, but it was deep, you know. That’s why I’m glad Rudy didn’t tell everyone how it was in the sack. It’s a dumb thing to worry about, but…” Her voice had developed a tremor. “I guess that’s what I’m down to.”

“You loved him,” said Andrea.

“Yeah. I did.” Patty shook off the blues and sat up. “There wasn’t anywhere for it to go. He’d never leave his kids and I was going off to Pittsburgh. I hated his wife for a while. I didn’t feel guilty about it. But now I look at her… She was never part of our scene. With Vernon and Rudy and the bands. She lived off to the side of it all. It wasn’t like that with you, Andrea. You had your law thing going, but when you were around, you were into it. You were one of the girls. But Beth was so totally not into it. She still can’t stand us. And now it feels like I stole something from her. That really sucks.”

Platitudes occurred to me, but I kept quiet. Andrea stirred at my side.

“Sometimes it pays to be stupid,” Patty said gloomily.

I had a moment when the light and happy babble of the bar were thrust aside by the gonging thought that my friend was dead, and I didn’t entirely understand what she meant, but I knew she was right.

Patty snagged a passing waitress. “Can I get a couple of eggs over?” she asked. “I know you’re not serving breakfast, but that’s all I eat is breakfast.” She winked broadly at the waitress. “Most important meal of the day, so I make every meal breakfast.”

The waitress began to explain why eggs were impossible, but Patty cut in, saying, “You don’t want me to starve, do ya? You must have a couple of eggs back there. Some fries and bacon. Toast. We’re huge tippers, I swear.”

Exasperated, the waitress said she’d see if the cook would do it.

“I know you can work him, honey,” Patty said. “Tell him to make the eggs dippy, okay?”

We left McGuigan’s shortly after eight, heading for Corky’s, a working man’s bar where we could do some serious drinking, but as we came abreast of the statue, Patty tapped it and said, “Hey, let’s go talk to Stanky.”

Stanky and Liz were sitting on the base of the statue; Pin and the other boys were crosslegged at their feet, like students attending their master. The crowd had thinned and was down, I’d guess, to about a hundred and twenty; a third of that number were clustered around the science van and the head scientist, who was hunched over a piece of equipment set up on the edge of the library lawn. I lagged behind as we walked over and noticed Liz stiffen at the sight of Patty. The boys gazed adoringly at her. Stanky cast me a spiteful glance.

“I heard your EP, man,” Patty said. “Very cool.”

Stanky muttered, “Yeah, thanks,” and stared at her breasts.

Like me, Patty was a sucker for talent, used to the ways of musicians, and she ignored this ungracious response. She tried to draw him out about the music, but Stanky had a bug up his ass about something and wouldn’t give her much. The statue loomed above, throwing a shadow across us; the horse’s head, with its rolling eyes and mouth jerked open by the reins, had been rendered more faithfully than had Black William’s face… or else he was a man whose inner crudeness had coarsened and simplified his features. In either case, he was one ugly mother, his shoulderlength hair framing a maniacal mask. Seeing him anew, I would not have described his expression as laughing or alarmed, but might have said it possessed a ferocious exultancy.

Patty began talking to the boys about the Swimming Holes’s upcoming tour, and Andrea was speaking with Pin. Stanky oozed over to me, Liz at his shoulder, and said, “We laid down a new song this afternoon.”

“Oh, yeah?” I said.

“It’s decent. ‘Misery Loves Company.’”

In context, it wasn’t clear, until Stanky explained it, that this was a title.

“A guy from DreamWorks called,” he said. “William Wine.”

“Yeah, a few days back. Did Kiwanda tell you about it?”

“No, he called today. Kiwanda was on her break and I talked to him.”

“What’d he say?”

“He said they loved the tape and David Geffen’s going to call.” He squinched up his face, as if summoning a mighty effort. “How come you didn’t tell me about the tape? About him calling before?”

This, I understood, was the thing that had been bothering him. “Because it’s business,” I said. “I’m not going to tell you about every tickle we get. Every phone call.”

He squinted at me meanly. “Why not?”

“Do you realize how much of this just goes away? These people are like flies. They buzz around, but they hardly ever land. Now the guy’s called twice, that makes it a little more interesting. I’ll give it a day or two, and call him back.”