Andy Abramowitz - Thank You, Goodnight

At the first rest stop outside Philly, I got out to fill the tank while Jumbo bounded into the convenience store in search of whatever it was he considered breakfast. Before I had the chance to drive away and leave him there—had his old man objected, I doubt I would’ve heard him anyway—Alaina called. The sight of her name on the caller ID only added to my mounting collection of anxieties, as I assumed she was calling about the demos.

“Hello?” I said.

There was silence on the other end.

“Hello?” I repeated, louder this time. “Alaina?”

After another moment of dead air, she finally spoke. “That was me being speechless.”

“Ah,” I said.

“I admit, when you wandered into my office the other day with a CD in your hand, I thought early senility. I didn’t want to represent you; I wanted to make sure you got home without getting hit by a car. I would’ve let you down easy, I really would’ve. I would’ve suggested the senior tour, told you to pack your guitar and pointed you in the direction of a nice friendly resort in the Caribbean. Nobody enjoys a washed-up musician like island tourists with faces full of shrimp and pineapple. I was already picturing you in your Tommy Bahamas and khaki shorts, strumming ‘Margaritaville’ in a tiki lounge.”

“Those places aren’t me. The drinks are all watered down.”

“But Teddy, my little macaroon, we don’t need the tropics just yet. These songs knocked me out cold. I don’t know where you found this material. I’ve never considered you particularly poetic or deep or even terribly deft with a melody. But this is some serious booty here. You treat these songs right in the studio and I’ll get people interested in this—and that’s without my having to remove a single article of clothing.”

“I’m glad you like it,” I said.

“What’s the one where you sing ‘hiding in plain sight’ over and over?”

“ ‘Hiding in Plain Sight.’ ”

“Interesting. I’ve been humming that one so much, I thought it was a real song.”

“It’s not.”

“You’ll do a record, we’ll explore some licensing opportunities with the networks, maybe get you on an HBO soundtrack or something. I’m going to make shit happen. In the meantime, a gym membership wouldn’t kill you.”

“You don’t think you’re jumping the gun here?” I asked. “You’ve got a lot of ideas for having heard only a couple of tunes.”

“That’s kind of my job, Fruity Pebble, and I’ve kind of been doing it awhile. I didn’t take time off to ravage the justice system like someone else I know.”

She would send over a contract. She took more points than she used to, she warned me, but she was worth it. Then she’d get on the phone with Sonny to ink him up for producing. In the meantime, I was to go get my little band together.

It couldn’t have been as easy as my agent was making it sound. “Alaina, you really think this has potential?”

“Other than the potential for self-embarrassment? Yes, though it’s almost a medical miracle at your age. Seriously—it’s really strong work, Teddy. I’ll just go ahead and say it because I know it turns you on: I’m a whole mess of proud of you.”

I laughed. “Okay, but just in case, I’ll keep that Caribbean resort idea in mind. I still know all the chords to Buffett. All two of them.”

Jumbo emerged from the mini-mart, a stack of dripping coffees three stories high balanced in one hand, a bag of Funyuns and a Chipwich in the other. “Some kind of world we’re living in when they put the Nicorette gum right next to the Newports,” he complained, placing the coffees on the roof of the car. “That’s just not playing fair.”

“Alaina just called,” I told him.

When I relayed her meows of optimism, Jumbo reacted with a spastic pump of his fist—a newly acquired tic, I’d noticed. “I knew it! I goddamn knew it! I got news for you, Mingus, these demos are going to change the course of music history.” He celebrated with more fist pumps, goofy dancing, and even possibly a jumping jack. By the time he calmed down and distributed the coffees into the various cup holders, he’d accidentally taken a sip from all of them.

Once I pulled us back onto the road, Jumbo shared the good news with his father, and though Elmer uttered not a single word, his many wrinkles, spots, and yellowish discolorations did curve upward in what I presumed was a smile. Then he went back to mute contemplation of the scenery.

“Is he okay back there?” I whispered.

“Of course. He’s psyched.”

He didn’t look psyched. He looked cadaverous.

“He’s one of our biggest fans, always has been. Check this out.” Jumbo twisted his fleshy self around. “Hey, Dad, which one do you have on today?”

I watched in the rearview mirror as the old man unzipped his jacket and revealed an aged rust-red concert T-shirt with the Tremble logo.

“How much does my dad rule?” Jumbo said, grinning beatifically. With that, he flipped down the sun visor and examined his ungovernable locks in the mirror.

(A word or two about Jumbo’s hair. While it generally defied description, it was an unruly mess of curls and frizzes that incorporated the worst elements of nearly every hairstyle of the past quarter century, though it was not technically a hairstyle in and of itself. It was the color of a particularly viscous motor oil or a brown sauce served at a Chinese restaurant, something they put broccoli and water chestnuts in. It looked better uncombed, which was fortunate because he so rarely subjected it to the rectitude of a brush. On the rare instances when he did comb it, he looked like a harmless mental patient out for the day with an uncle. Sometimes his hair wanted to be a perm, other times a mullet, and occasionally it smacked of a bob.)

Equipped now with fuel and sustenance, we could get down to the business of listening to the music. Through the magic of a simple software program that any eight-year-old could master but I’d assumed to be well beyond Jumbo’s technological grasp, he’d recorded guitar parts on top of my demos so that it sounded like we’d played them in the same room. Foaming with excitement, his cheeks and chin already glistening from an inorganic pie whose flavor was cautiously described on the wrapper as “fruit,” he slid the disc into the stereo.

Instantaneously, I suffered the forgotten thrill of hearing the sound of a new Tremble song. I was amazed. It was all still there. In some places, Jumbo’s guitar was restrained and textural, adorning the song with subtle flourishes. In others, the playing was caustic and volatile, chewing up the scenery. But through and through, it was Jumbo’s guitar in all its masterful dramatic voicing. Sure, the words that came out of his mouth filled you with the urge to stuff a pack of gauze into his windpipe, but put a six-string in his hands and he was somehow . . . exquisite. Before I worked with Jumbo, I thought a banjo had no place in rock music. Before I worked with Jumbo, I didn’t think a pink double-neck guitar could be applied with class. Before I worked with Jumbo, I didn’t think you could tastefully use stompbox effects pedals without fetishizing Joy Division. But Jumbo, damn him, understood what worked and he understood how to get there. Filtered through him, the music undeniably sounded better. It was the only reason anybody put up with him. To witness his talents was to wonder why he never latched onto another band after Tremble; to witness his decision making was to understand why he ended up a cellar-dwelling midwife.

“This is good stuff, Jumbo. Very good stuff.”

“See, Mingus? I know what I’m doing. We play this for Mack, there’s no way she can refuse us.”

I muttered to myself, imagining the many ways she was likely to refuse us.