Basket Case Page 6

  He's not up for one of my legendary rants. I can't imagine why. "Tell me about Jimmy Stoma," he says.

  So I tell him everything I know.

  "Okay," he says after a moment's thought, "let's say there was no autopsy. What does that really prove? It's the Bahamas, Jack. I'm guessing they know a drowned scuba diver when they see one."

  "But what if—"

  "Anyway, who'd want to kill a has-been rock star?" Juan asks, not cruelly.

  "Maybe nobody," I admit, "but I won't know for sure unless Emma cuts me free for a few days."

  Juan sits forward and rubs his chin. I trust his judgment. He would have made a terrific news reporter if he didn't love baseball so much.

  "I've got something to show you," he says, bouncing to his feet, "but I left it in the car."

  He's out the door and back in two minutes. He hands me a printout of the Jimmy Stoma obituary that will run in tomorrow's New York Times.The header says: James Stomarti, 39, Rambunctious Rock Performer.

  Although the story isn't half as long as mine, I refuse to read it. The Timeshas the most elegant obituary writing in the world, and I'm in no mood to be humbled.

  "Look at the damn story," Juan insists.

  "Later."

  "Yours was better."

  "Yeah, right."

  "Pitiful," Juan says. "You're a child."

  I peek at the first paragraph:

  James Bradley Stomarti, once the hell-raising front man for the 1980s rock group Jimmy and the Slut Puppies, died last week on a laid-back boating excursion in the Bahamas.

  I mutter to Juan, "The lead's not bad."

  "Check out what Pop-Singer Wifey has to say. Check out the premonition," he says, pointing.

  "What premonition?"

  Six paragraphs into the obit, there it is:

  Mr. Stomarti's wife, the singer Cleo Rio, said she had been apprehensive about her husband's plan to explore the sunken plane wreck, even though he was an experienced diver.

  "I had a wicked bad vibe about that dive," Ms. Rio said. "I begged Jimmy not to go. He'd been down sick with food poisoning from some bad fish chowder. He was in so much pain he could hardly put his tank on. God, I wish I could've stopped him."

  I can't believe what I'm reading.

  Juan says, "I'm guessing the lovely Ms. Rio didn't tell you the same story. You wouldn't have passed up a chance to work the phrase 'bad fish chowder' into an obituary."

  "Or even 'wicked bad vibe,'" I say, indignantly waving the pages. "The girl never said anything about this. She said she was lounging around the boat, reading a magazine and working on her tan. Didn't sound the least bit worried about her old man diving a plane wreck."

  "Something's screwy," Juan agrees.

  "Any brilliant ideas?"

  "You've already made up your mind, no?"

  My eyes are drawn again to the Timesobit. I am relieved to see that the reporter had no more luck than I did in locating the Bahamian coroner. Also missing: any mention of Cleo Rio's Shipwrecked Heartproject. Boy, will she be pissed.

  "Jack, what are you going to do?" Juan presses.

  "The story, of course. It's mine and I'm writing it."

  "How? Emma won't back down ... "

  He's right. She won't back down, she'll crumble. That's the plan. Juan looks worried, but I can't say whether it's for me or for her. Maybe both.

  "What're you going to do?" he asks again.

  "Well, tomorrow I plan to call in sick," I say.

  "Ugh-oh."

  "So I can attend a funeral."

  "I fucking knew it."

  "You're smiling again, you dog."

  "Yeah," Juan says. "I guess I am."

  7

  Sure, it would be a kick to write for one of those big serious dailies in Miami, St. Petersburg, or even (in my dreams) Washington or New York. But that's not in the cards. This is my fifth newspaper job and surely the last. I am increasingly unfit for the trade.

  The Union-Registerwas founded in 1931 by MacArthur Polk's father, who upon retirement passed it to his only son, who kept it both solvent and respectable until three years ago, when he unexpectedly sold out to the Maggad-Feist Publishing Group for $47 million in cash, stock and options. It was the foulest day in the newspaper's history.

  Maggad-Feist is a publicly traded company that owns twenty-seven dailies around the country. The chairman and CEO, young Race Maggad III, believes newspapers can prosper handsomely without practicing distinguished journalism, as distinguished journalism tends to cost money. Race Maggad III believes the easiest way to boost a newspaper's profits is to cut back on the actual gathering of news. For obvious reasons, he was not a beloved figure at any of the twenty-six other papers owned by Maggad-Feist. He would not be beloved at ours, either, although only one reporter would dare stand up and say so to his face—at a shareholders' meeting, no less, with a stringer for the Wall Street Journalin the audience. The remarks were brief but shockingly coarse, causing young polo-playing Race Maggad III to lose his composure in front of five hundred edgy investors. For his effrontery the reporter could not be fired (or so the paper's attorneys advised). He could, however, be removed from the prestigious investigations team and exiled to the obituary beat, with the expectation he would resign in bitter humiliation.

  He did not.

  Consequently, he's now saddled with the task of memorializing the very sonofabitch who brought this plague upon the house. MacArthur Polk is rumored to be dying again.

  I keep a file of obituaries of prominent persons who are still alive. When one of them dies, the "canned" obit is topped with a few new paragraphs and rushed into print. Usually I update a pre-written obituary when the subject is reported as "ailing," the standard newspaper euphemism for "at death's door."

  MacArthur Polk has been ailing since 1983, which is one reason I haven't bothered doing a canned obit. The old bastard isn't really dying; he just enjoys the fuss made over him at hospitals. For about the eleventh time he has been admitted to the ICU at Charity, so Emma is jumpy. Although Polk no longer owns the Union-Register,he is a community icon and, more significantly, a major shareholder of Maggad-Feist. When his obituary finally appears, it will be read intently by persons high up the management ladder, persons who might hold sway over Emma's future. Consequently, she feels she has a stake in the old man's send-off. She wants it to be sparkling and moving and unforgettable. She wants a masterpiece, and she wants me to write it.

  So I've deliberately shown no interest whatsoever. My own stake in MacArthur Polk's death is nada.I could sit down with a stack of clippings and in an hour knock off an obit that was humorous, colorful, poignant—a gem in every way. And it would be filed in the computer until the day the old man finally croaked, when it would be electronically shipped to another reporter for freshening. The story would appear under his or her byline on the front page. At the very end, in parenthesized italics, I might or might not be given credit for "contributing" to the research.

  That's how it goes around here. The moment Page One becomes a possibility, it's not my story anymore. Nonetheless, I always make sure to type out my byline in boldface letters:

  By Jack Tagger Staff Writer

  To delete my name from the top of the story, Emma must first highlight it with the Define key. I like to think it's a chore that afflicts her with a twinge of guilt, but who knows. She has her orders. She's heard about me and Race Maggad III; everyone in the building has.

  The fact that I haven't resigned must chafe Emma, except on those rare days when she needs a first-rate obituary writer, as she does for MacArthur Polk. One measly fact error, one misspelling, one careless turn of a phrase could jeopardize Emma's career, or so she believes. Old Man Polk is like a god, she once said to me. He wasthis newspaper.

  Which he greedily sold to Wall Street heathens, I pointed out, causing Emma to cringe and put a finger to her lips.

  Every morning she asks how the old man's obit is coming along, and every morning I tell her I haven't st
arted writing it yet, which drives her batty. Today I'm still in bed when the phone rings.

  "Jack, it's Emma."

  "Morning, sunshine."

  "Mr. Polk took a turn for the worse," she says.

  "Me, too. What a coincidence."

  "I'm not kidding."

  "Neither am I. Some sorta stomach virus," I say. "I won't be coming in today."

  Long pause—Emma, grappling with mixed feelings. As much as she would revel in a peaceful Jack-free morning, she needs me there. "Did you call a doctor?" she inquires.

  "Soon as I get my head out of the commode. I promise."

  The unsavory image provokes another pause at Emma's end.

  "Talk to you later," I say.

  "Jack, wait."

  Here I moan like a terminal dysentery victim.

  "They put Old Man Polk on a machine over at Charity," says Emma. "They say his heart and lungs are failing."

  "What kind of machine?"

  "I don't know. For heaven's sakes."

  "Emma, how old is he now? Ninety-five, ninety-six?" I picture her seething because she thinks I don't even know the old geezer's age.

  Tersely she says: "Eighty-eight."

  The same as Orville Redenbacher when he died!

  "And how old is the new Mrs. Polk?" I ask. "Thirty-six, if I recall."

  "What are you saying?"

  "I'm saying the old man isn't going to die at Charity with a tube up his cock. He's gonna die at home in the sack, with a grin on his face and a jellybean jar full of Viagras on the nightstand. Trust me."

  Emma's tone turns cold. "You don't sound very sick to me, Jack."

  "Oh, it's quite a nasty bug. I'll spare you the grisly details."

  "You'll be back in the office tomorrow?"

  "Don't count on it," I say. "Gotta run!"

  St. Stephen's is the trendiest church on the beach. I arrive early and sit in a pew near the door. In the front row I spy a snow-white noggin that belongs to either Cleo Rio or Johnny Winter in drag. Propped on a velvet-cloaked table in the center of the stage are a red Stratocaster and a small brass urn.

  I count five TV crews, including one from VH1, hanging around near the confessionals. It's an eclectic, funky flow of mourners—sunburned dock rats and dive captains; pallid, body-pierced clubbers too young to be Slut Puppies fans; chunky, gray-streaked rockers from primeval bands like Styx and Supertramp; anonymous, half-stoned studio musicians with bad tattoo jobs and black jeans; and a sprinkling of pretty, unattached women in dark glasses, who I assume to be admirers and ex-lovers of the late Jimmy Stoma. One person I don't see is Janet Thrush—maybe Cleo told her not to come, or maybe Janet felt she'd be uncomfortable. Another person not in attendance is the tall, shimmery-haired guy from the elevator at Cleo and Jimmy's condo. It makes me curious; if he were a family friend, wouldn't he attend the funeral?

  The church is nearly full when the notables begin arriving—the Van Halen brothers, the wild percussionist Ray Cooper, Joan Jett, Courtney Love, Teena Marie, Ziggy Marley, Michael Penn and an auburn-haired beauty who was either a Bangle or a Go-Go, I'm not sure which. It's a colorful group and the TV guys are hopping around like meth-crazed marmosets.

  The last to enter St. Stephen's are the surviving ex-Slut Puppies: bass players Danny Gitt and Tito Negraponte, followed by Jimmy's keyboardist and diving buddy Jay Burns, who in midlife has come to project an unsettling resemblance to Newt Gingrich with a ponytail. Missing from the gathering is the band's notoriously moody lead guitarist, Peter P. Proust, who three years ago was fatally stabbed in a bizarre confrontation with a sidewalk Santa Claus on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. As for a drummer, the Slut Puppies went through a dozen and, according to the trades, not one departed on amiable terms.

  Jay Burns and the two bass players walk stiffly up the aisle and file into the pew where Cleo Rio waits. Scanning the crowd, it occurs to me that this doesn't look or smell like the funeral of a man who turned his back on the record business. The church is packed with musicians and ripe with reefer.

  As the priest instructs us to rise, two more women slip in the back door. They sit near me—one is black and one is Latin, both in their early twenties. Pals of Cleo, I'm guessing. The black woman notices the notebook in my hand and reacts with a shaded smile. "I'm with the newspaper," I whisper. She nods, and passes the information to her friend, who is mouthing along to the Lord's Prayer. Afterwards, the priest, an earnest Father Riordan, begins reflecting upon the short but full life of James Bradley Stomarti. It is painfully obvious to the whole assembly that Father Riordan never met the deceased, but he's giving it the old college try.

  I lean over to the two women and ask, not too smoothly, "Were you friends, or just fans?"

  "Both," the Latin girl says, flaring an eyebrow.

  "Can I get your names?"

  Maria Bonilla and Ajax, no last name.

  "We're singers," Ajax says.

  "Backup singers," Maria adds. "We worked with Jimmy."

  I'm skeptical, since neither one could have been older than fourteen when his last CD came out.

  "No kidding? On which album?"

  The women glance glumly at each other, Ajax saying: "The one nobody's ever gonna hear."

  At the podium, a former A&R man from MCA is telling a humorous anecdote about Jimmy blasting a mixing board with an Uzi during the recording of A Painful Burning Sensation.Normally I'd be taking down every word, but today the notebook is a prop.

  To the backup singers I say, "Yeah, I heard he was working on some great new stuff."

  "Not from us you didn't," sniffs Maria.

  Again the door opens, and into the church strolls T. O. "Timmy" Buckminster, our so-called music critic. I shrink into the pew and lower my head, hoping not to be seen. Obviously the smarmy little shitweasel is here to cover the funeral—or, more accurately, the widow. He couldn't care less about Jimmy Stoma.

  Buckminster boldly advances to the front of the church and squeezes into the second row, behind Cleo Rio and the former Slut Puppies. Danny Gitt rises and threads his way to the podium, where he makes a weak joke about why the band needed two bass players instead of one—something about alternating time-shares at a rehab clinic. The line draws a polite chuckle. Danny Gitt goes on to tell a few stories about Jimmy Stoma's wacky sense of humor, his unsung generosity, his passion for performing live onstage. I jot down a couple of quotes in order to maintain credibility with Ajax and Maria, who shoot me a look every so often. I'm waiting for a lull so I can quiz them about Jimmy's last project—undoubtedly the secret, unfinished album his sister mentioned ...

  A murmur rolls like a soft breaker through the crowd, and I look up to see Cleo Rio, dagger-straight in front of the altar. She's wearing a diaphanous, ankle-length black dress and a Madonna-style headset microphone. The bald, bomber-jacketed goon I saw at the apartment hops the rail and hands her an acoustic guitar. Cleo waits while the TV crews jostle into place.

  "Lord Jesus," Ajax says to Maria.

  And Jimmy's widow begins to strum and sing:

  Who do you have at the end of the day,

  Who do you touch in the deep of the night?

  Me, you've got me.

  Who do you reach for when the clouds go gray,

  Who do you hold when no end's in sight?

  Me, you need me.

  Cleo's voice is weak and watery, but she affects a hard raspy edge on the last beat of each line. As best as I can tell, she's playing only three chords—an A minor, a barred F and a G—and struggling mightily. On the refrain the chords are identical but the sequence is reversed, Cleo now half-snarling:

  Me, me, what about me?

  You got yours but what about me?

  Look in the mirror, what do I see?

  Pretty little number, used to be me.

  I hear Maria saying: "You believe this unholy shit?"

  It is astoundingly tacky—Jimmy Stoma's widow has turned his funeral into a promotional gig. The guys from her record label must be tur
ning cartwheels.

  "Bitch," Ajax mutters.

  "Whore," Maria says.

  Cleo's style is grating—thank God she's only got the one hit. When she finally warbles the last note of "Me," a jittery silence grips the church. Eventually Tito Negraponte starts to clap, followed tentatively by the other ex-Slut Puppies. Pretty soon the place fills with applause that I interpret as unanimous relief that Cleo's solo is over.

  Except she's still holding the guitar.

  She clears her throat and sips from a glass of water ferried to her honey-skinned hand by the neckless bouncer. She says, "Here's a number—"

  "Lord help us," groans Ajax, under her breath.

  "Here's a number," Cleo says, "that me and Jimmy wrote just a few months ago. It's the title cut on my new CD and, well, I'm just bummed because it turned out so awesome and he's not around to hear me do it."

  "Lucky him," says Maria to her friend. "Let's roll."

  Ajax shakes her head. "Hang on a minute, girl."

  I consider bolting for some fresh air myself, but I'm perversely curious about "Shipwrecked Heart." The widow Stomarti commences to sing:

  You took me like a storm, tossed me out of reach,

  Left me like the tide, lost and broken on a beach.

  Shipwrecked heart, my shipwrecked heart ...

  The tune is pretty and pleasing to the ear, and I could probably learn to like it once I heard the whole song, but apparently that won't happen today. Cleo Rio is singing the same verse over and over, meaning she's either forgotten the rest of the lyrics or the lyrics don't exist—that is, the song isn't finished.

  Ajax pokes me in the ribs. "You gettin' all this down? Ain't it unfuckinbelievable?"

  "Maybe she's just nervous," I say.

  "Ha!"

  Afterwards, waiting to pay condolences to Jimmy's widow, I'm standing in the line between Ziggy Marley and the guitarist Mike Campbell, one of the original Heartbreakers. I believe Ziggy has taken notice of the notebook sticking out of my back pocket—in any event, nobody's chatting much.

  Shaking the pudgy hand of Jay Burns, I introduce myself and say I'd like to get together for a profile of Jimmy that I'm writing. He grunts agreeably, which is a surprise. Then I notice he's completely ripped, eyelids at half-staff and a tendril of drool hanging from his lower lip. Tomorrow he won't remember agreeing to an interview; he'll be lucky to remember his name.