mulch pit, chapter 2

I patted Lucy on the back. “Hey, I gotta talk to this one,” I said as she frowned at me.

“Why this one,” Lucy said, emphasis heaving on the this. She’d watched me turn down woman right and left in this place. “Throwin’ that pussy away!” as a friend of mine said to me at my 20^th high school reunion after I’d turned down a parking lot blow job.

It wasn’t the right time to tell Lucy about her. The woman who took out a rusty screwdriver and plunged it into my heart one night. On the phone. I was weeks from somehow finding a way to propose to her, finally taking the step neither one of us had been able to, but wanted to. At least that’s what I thought.

Instead, one night out of the blue she dumped me. And other than two trips to Florida – the first to try and save it, the second to pick up the scraps of a life – I hadn’t seen her since. And she’d made it pretty damn obvious that she didn’t ever want to see me again.

But there she was, standing by my favorite barstool in the world – since the passing of Nick’s on 2400 Tulane Avenue – with that same damn look in her eyes that made me melt way over a decade ago.

“Hi,” she finally said. “Can I sit down?”

I wanted to say “Fuck You!” and turn around. But I knew I wouldn’t do it. She knew I wouldn’t do it.

“Sure.”

As she sat down I noticed how much skinnier she was than the last time I saw her. But hell, I weighed about 60 pounds less than then too. She had taut calf muscles now. Something she never had before. She also had that cucumber smell. She’d left behind a bottle of that soap she used the last time she visited me in North Carolina. I never thought twice about until she was gone for good. Then I used it, very small dabs, every day. Until it was gone. I told myself when I started that I’d be over her when it was done.

That was the first of many things I did that I said to myself when it was over I would be able to move on again.

It all ended with me masturbating naked in front of a mirror with a gun in my mouth. I was even using a cookie monster hand puppet to stroke with. I’d say that was rock bottom.

More so than when I called my mom with four bottles of pills emptied out on my coffee table/foot locker. More than when I was sitting at a truck stop on the side of I-10 wondering if what was west was better than what was east. Way more than when I told my therapist that I hated the fact that all redheads reminded me of her. They still do.

But now, she’s in front of me. Smiling.

“You look good,” I say with no confidence at all.

“Thank you. You too,” she replies. But I know other than the weight, it’s not true. My hair is gone on my head, growing out of every other spot on my body now. I have early signs of diabetes and my muscles have all but disappeared from living a mostly sedentary life now.

I take a swig of my now warm beer. I figured she’d be the one talking, but she’s not. I order two Shiners, handing one to her.

“Thanks,” she says, drawing on it. “You remembered.”

Ha. I remembered. Every damn time I drink one of these things, I remember. I don’t even like the taste of Shiner. It has a soapy aftertaste that always bothered me. Until it was a way to feel connected, no matter how sad that was.

“Yeah. It’s my brand now too,” I said.

I watched her sit there. She was nervous. And I didn’t understand why. I was nervous, but I’d been building up this encounter for years now. More years than we were actually together at this point. Way more.

My calculations told me this would happen in Virginia. Either on the streets outside where she works – which of course I knew, but not because I sought it out, but because a friend of my best friend worked with her – or at some random place in the Washington, D.C. area. Hell, many times while driving by Arlington Cemetery I thought about stopping at her father’s grave. That went all the way back to when I was going to propose. I took a photo of us there, placed it on his grave and asked for his permission. I left the photo and always wondered if anyone took it away. If she did. Hell, I sometimes doubt she ever went back. Career in hand and all. All she ever wanted, I think.

I looked over a Lucy. She was staring at this redhead. I wondered what Lucy thought of her. I wanted to feel what she was probably feeling. Hatred. But I never could, and certainly couldn’t at this moment.

Finally, I leaned closer to her and looked her straight in the eyes.

“Why are you here?” It was the question that had to be asked. And surprisingly, I didn’t have a clue what I wanted her to say.

“It’s about us,” she said before taking a very long and deep breath. She exhaled and just as she was about to speak again, a loud crash sounded out behind us at the front door.

I couldn’t help but wonder what it was, but my eyes were glued to her. But her eyes were not on me anymore. They were petrified. And looking straight at the door.

I turned around, and didn’t want to believe what I saw.

Facing the Clash

It was like stumbling upon something so profoundly great, you’d never get anyone to believe it.

There in front of him was an original recording of The Faces. It was from 1979, a time when supposedly Rod Stewart was off on his own, Ronnie Wood was a Rolling Stone and Ronnie Lane was off living like a gypsy. However, it appears from the label on this particular recording – “Recorded 11071979 to 16071979” that indeed this was something the world needed to hear.

The trick was, it was owned by the recording studio’s family. The studio – the famous Vanilla Studio of The Clash’s “Vanilla Tapes” history – was located in Pimlico on Causton Street. Well, it used to exist there.

Somehow, Mick Jones and Ronnie Lane met one night, the owner’s daughter told the story. They were working on what would become “London Calling.” Ronnie, well, he was broke, as usual. “Rough Mix” with Pete  Townsend had flopped and not provided the financial windfall some, but not many, expected it to. Punk rock was in full flare up at that point, so it was lost in the shuffle of circumstances. Which made the chance encounter between Lane and Jones so perfect.

“They were at a market, The Clash, picking up some odds and ends, when Mick spotted Ronnie,” she said. “And he had to go talk to one of his heroes. I mean, Ronnie was in The Small Faces and The Faces!”

She reached into a drawer and pulled out an old photo. It was Mick and Ronnie, enjoying a pint. No other identifications of others in the photo. But it did appear that Ian McLagan was one of them. But it was blurry.

“They got to talking about music, mostly about The Small Faces and Faces, not much about The Clash,” she continued. “I don’t think Ronnie wanted to talk about punk rock. Soon, he lamented the break up of both bands. That’s when Mick pounced.”

“’I know where Rod Stewart is staying right now,” he said. “Apparently, Mr. Stewart had taken some time after his “Blondes Have More Fun” tour and was right up the street.”

After a few more pints, Jones and Lane were knocking on Rod Stewart’s door.

“’Well, ‘ello Ronnie!’ He said when the two showed up,” she said.

Within an hour, a song had been written. A Jones-Lane-Stewart composition. Soon after, rumors started to fly the old fashioned way. By phone call and by an actual telegram.

“Rod and Ronnie writing. Stop. Get your butt over here. Stop. Please Ron. Stop. At Rod’s. Stop.”

“That afternoon, Ronnie Wood showed up. Carrying a handful of pints. By 8 p.m. Joe Strummer, Paul Simonon and Topper Headon were there. So was McLagan and Tymon Dogg. And lastly, Kenney Jones showed up ‘round midnight,” she continued her story.

By the next morning, after a drunken all-night revival of sorts, they all jumped into a limo – “provided by Rod, of course,” she smirked – and went to Vanilla.

“Three days later, they emerged. Hugs were done. Many pats on the backs and promises never kept,” she said. “And my pops, he was left with those tapes. They told him to give it to Ronnie, let him do what he wanted with it.

“But, me dad was a bit of a hard ass. He smiled and agreed while all the superstars were there, but when they were all gone, it was all business.”

“Mr. Lane,” he said. “I’ll give ya the recordings as soon as you pay me for the three days of studio time.”

“Well, Ronnie didn’t have that kind of cash,” she said. “So, and I remember this because I was actually there for this, he just shrugged his shoulders and said ‘Ah, well. Such it is.’ And then he walked out the door.”

“Now, my daddy knew this was a tremendous thing. Here was eight songs put down by The Faces, with some of the songs co-written by members of The Clash. Who were recording what he thought was a “pretty neat record” in his rehearsal studios. So, he put it in a safe, figuring one day at least one of those rich rock-n-rollers would show up to pay for it.”

Obviously, it never happened. This is where I came in. I was in England for a vacation. Me and my girlfriend, we ambled into a non-descript pub one night simply because it was right down the street from the old market we were shopping at. I’d picked up a copy of “Oh, La, La” on vinyl. Pristine condition, too. As I sat on my barstool, that’s when she came up to me.

“You like The Faces, eh?” she said, baring her darken teeth.

“Sure do,” I replied.

“What about The Clash?”

“You’ve pegged me pretty well,” I smiled. “You want a pint.”

“Certainly,” she said, pulling up a stool. “Well, then, I got a story for ya.”

And now I sit here staring at a box of recordings. She played it for me. It sounds legit. Now, all it’s gonna take is some cash.

“How much?” I ask.

“You can have it,” she said pausing. My heart skipped a beat. Was she really going to just hand this over to me? She took a swig of her glass of beer and smiled her blacken-toothed grin. “For 10,000 pounds.”

A week later, after I’d had the recording checked by none other than Mick Jones himself – “My word, you actually found this!” he exclaimed, “I’d thought it was a dream, really.” – I plodded into a bank, used my credit card for the funds and was soon in possession of the coolest recording I think I’d ever come upon.

This morning, I woke up, and it was all a dream. So I put on Ronnie Lane’s “Slim Chance” and wished it was real.