Matt Eaton - Blank

“Any problems?” asked Luckman.

Bell shrugged. “I had a nap. Your phone call woke me up.”

Luckman raised an eyebrow.

“What? It was a long flight, I’m entitled.”

Luckman chuckled, throwing him a room key. “It’s fine, mate. Have a shower, freshen up, then we’ll find some dinner.”

Bell looked like he had just won the lottery. “They have running water?”

“Hot and cold.”

Mel and Luckman had reached a stalemate on the subject of food by the time Bell joined them. Luckman warned that they had no way of knowing whether any of the local eateries could be trusted. He thought they’d be better sticking to canned food. Mel was having none of it.

“No-one here looks like they’re starving,” Mel pointed out.

“I could eat the arse out of a low-flying seagull – I’m about ready to try anything,” Bell admitted.

It was a 10-minute walk to the heart of the downtown area. They saw no-one along the way, but the Todd Mall was alive with activity. Cafes were full of people. Music from a nearby pub wafted languidly over them on a cool evening breeze that was like a lover’s caress after the punishing heat of the day. There was chatter, laughter and all the regular noise of human activity in an urban centre.

The burden of their two worlds colliding made Luckman’s head hurt. He collapsed on a bench as he tried to take it all in. This was Alice through the looking glass – none of it was real. Mel sat down beside him, silently patting him on the back in sympathy and solidarity.

Bell, on the other hand, seemed remarkably unaffected. He was more than ready to suspend disbelief.

“Where we gonna eat?” he demanded.

Luckman sighed and rubbed his hand through his hair. “I don’t care mate, I’ll eat anything.”

They opted for Las Mexicanos, a restaurant with its own licensed bar that also issued the vague threat of live music. The place was almost empty. As they entered, Luckman spotted a grey-beard musician who looked a lot like Kenny Rogers setting up in the corner. Bell led them to stools at a high-set bar and snatched a menu like his life depended on it.

“What’s good?” he asked the teenager behind the bar.

“Burritos, nachos. The burgers are all right,” she said without enthusiasm.

They ordered one of each. Once more his credit card was accepted as payment. Mel and Eddie opted for cerveza to wash it down. Luckman demurred. The food arrived quickly and was heartily devoured. Plates empty and conversation dwindling, his companions began daring each other to tackle a jug of Margaritas. Neither needed much convincing.

Luckman found himself preoccupied by the pianist. He was almost certain he recognised the guy but he had to be mistaken. He waved his credit card at the bar child.

“A jug of margaritas, please.” He had no intention of drinking, but figured his companions might as well indulge.

“Your performer – what’s his name?”

“Mike McDonald,” the girl replied. “They tell me he was famous once. Some big band in the ’70s.”

Luckman almost rocked off his stool. “That’d be the Doobie Brothers.”

“Yeah, that’s them.”

A stab of nervous adrenaline locked his legs in place as he realised he was just metres away from one of his childhood idols. The Doobie Brothers had played the soundtrack to his early adolescence. He clearly remembered a week in 1976 glued to the radio as 4IP rolled track by track through Takin’ It To The Streets, the music’s power on him alloyed by the weight of popular acclaim. It was a time in his life that predated the distrust of populism that came later with adolescence and since then the Doobies had somehow maintained mythic status among the disparate eclecticism of his musical tastes. A part of him would forever remain that little boy at the transistor, marvelling at their triumphal fusion of funk and jazz.

He had to say hello. Trying to avoid the indignity of over-eagerness he approached McDonald tentatively in the darkened recess beside the bar’s tiny stage platform.

“Michael?”

“Yeah?”

McDonald was dressed plainly in a white shirt and brown jacket. If the clothes were expensive, they didn’t look it. Up close there was no mistaking the distinctive shock of white hair and neatly trimmed goatee beard – all that remained of the ’70s-era chin forest.

“I just had to come over and say hello.”

“Hello there, how you doing?”

McDonald had his hands full but offered an amiable smile. It was, perhaps, a world weary response tempered by years of seeing grown men and women turn to stammering fools in his presence.

“I’m fine, just fine,” Luckman returned. “I used to love you guys. Still do. But I’ve gotta say, this is the last place I expected to find you. Are the rest of the band here?”

“The Doobies? No man, we don’t hang out together too much these days.”

“Oh. Right. Of course.”

“They do their thing and I do mine, it’s all good.”

Luckman grinned. “I can’t believe this. You know, you started my love affair with jazz.”

“That’s a fine compliment, thank you very much.”

Luckman pointed at the musician’s set-up. “So this is…”

“Bare bones? There are times when I like to go back to basics, y’know?”

“I’m just happy I’m here to see it.”

“Like the song says – ‘the closest thing to heaven is to rock ‘n’ roll’.”

Luckman didn’t know that song – not that it mattered. McDonald put one foot on the stage.

“Buy me a bourbon after my first set,” McDonald offered.

Luckman smiled and nodded. The musician grew so much taller as he stepped onstage. A red spotlight captured him perfectly in cameo as he pushed two buttons on his drum synthesiser and launched pitch-perfect into the Doobie Brothers’ biggest hit.

“ He came from somewhere back in her long ago. Sentimental fool don’t see, trying hard to recreate what had yet to be created…”

Above all other vices, Luckman had grown to abhor ill-discipline. He had been surrounded by it all his life and had collected more than a few vices over the years. But he had learned to temper his foibles – drinking without doubt the worst of them – with an unwavering ability to go cold turkey when necessary. He had been determined to remain sober on this night. In the circumstances, however, it had seemed rude not to share a drink with Michael McDonald. There are times a man needs to buy another man a drink.

When the other two finally dragged him from the restaurant he was surprised to learn it was only a bit after 10 o’clock. It felt much later. They began to stroll in the direction of their motel.

“What was the deal with you and that terrible piano player?” Mel demanded.

Luckman kicked the pavement and stumbled as he turned around to face her in shock and consternation. “What are you talking about? That man is a legend.”

“Don’t know what you were listening to. All I heard was bad ’90s pop filtered through a tone-deaf ponytail wannabe.”

Ponytail?

“That was the best live performance I’ve seen in years,” Luckman countered.

Mel laughed, unable to take him seriously. “You’re off your nut,” she said affectionately.

Luckman turned to Bell for moral support. The pilot simply shrugged.

“Sounded bloody suburban to me mate.”

Luckman’s stomach began tying itself in a knot. He turned away from them and kept walking.

“Stone?”

He heard the tone of concern in her voice and turned briefly, trying to muster a smile.

“Each to their own, eh?” he offered.

She wouldn’t be put off so easily, but he didn’t want to talk about it. Didn’t want to confide or try to explain. He didn’t want to admit to himself that some metaphysical hacker had somehow crawled inside his head, downloaded his childhood and used it against him.