Dashboard Elvis is Dead, page 17
The only one that matters, she said, is PRS.
It stood for Performing Rights Society and had only just been established.
PRS represents its songwriter, composer and music-publisher members’ and collects royalties on their behalf whenever their music is played or performed publicly, she said.
How formal and business-like she sounded. I smirked at the briefest of thoughts: David F. Ross, further screwed by Madonna’s team of aggressive rights managers, as they took an even bigger slice of his da’s legacy.
With a worldwide Apple advertising campaign on the horizon, my song – the one stolen from her dead brother – could accrue multiple thousands of pounds in future plays. She outlined more immediate plans. Following the exposure, the single would be reissued and repackaged. Perhaps as a double pack with the first two singles. An extra remix. A tacky button badge. A video commissioned. Annafuckingbelle, indeed.
But there was something else. Something about her being here now that jarred. I couldn’t put my finger on it. That steel in her gaze. It chilled me more than the sharpening London frost.
After the modest success of our first two singles, Kenny McFadden had persuaded Ronnie Mason to fund a better studio and a proper sound engineer to produce ‘Independent State of Mind’.
The offers’ll be floodin’ in after the States, he’d said. We’ll be beatin’ A&R men off wi’ big bloody sticks.
Kenny acting like a charity-shop Colonel Tom Parker and Ronnie Mason starting to think he’d be the new Don Arden; common sense was in short supply back then. The band was surviving on handouts from Anna, so nobody opposed any suggestion, regardless of how bizarre or ridiculous it seemed. And the constant refrain of ‘Brian would be so proud’ burrowed into my brain to the point where it was all I could hear. We were doing it all for Brian, apparently. Living the future that he’d been so tragically denied; no-one prepared to correct the facts.
I couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t play on stage properly. Started making excuses to miss band commitments and media appointments. Anxiety invaded my every waking thought. A constant panic that somehow, somewhere, Brian Mason had left something behind that would expose my shame. The idea of Brian speaking from beyond the grave was far-fetched. His relationship with his family had been strained, so I felt certain he wouldn’t have confided in them. And as for his other friends, the brain-fried junkie squatters he spiked his veins with, well, they couldn’t have told you if it was Saturday or Saturn. Nonetheless, the prospect of exposure paralysed me, and it was that more than anything else that caused the band’s implosion in 1983.
Now it was resurfacing. Fifteen years of suppressed guilt were about to be uncorked. It was as if Anna could sense it.
She reached into her bag. She brought out a small book. There were colourful flowers on its cover, as painted centuries ago by van Gogh or Gauguin or suchlike. Embossed in the bottom corner, Diary 1981.
My heart rate increased. My breathing accelerated. She handed the book to me. A postcard of San Francisco demarked a specific page. I opened it. I read the entry.
8th October 1981:
He was late. I waited in the café, drawing love hearts on the glass, and then watching them disappear in the dripping condensation. I need to rein in my wild imagination. Lower my expectations. But being in love is a habit that’s hard to break. Jamie probably sees me as an obligation because of the money. I’m thinking of better times, as I sit here, left on my own.
I waited and waited. He didn’t come.
8th October. My birthday. 1981. The night The Clash played Glasgow Apollo, and I ditched her. More followed in the next day’s entry:
We fought. I cried. He shouted, ‘YES, YES, YES, you heard me. We’re fucking done. Leave me on my own.’
I had heard Reef sing these words plenty of times, but only now, faced with the reality of their origin, did I recall screaming them at her. I re-read her diary entries; slack jawed. Bile rising. I hadn’t appropriated Brian’s lyrics; he’d stolen them from Anna’s diary. ‘Independent State Of Mind’ was about me standing her up. Her calmness now made sense of her willingness to condone my cruel antipathy back in the mid-eighties. All part of her masterplan.
Independent State of Mind (Words by Mason. A. – Music by Mason. B.)
With Brian dead, there was no point in exposing me, because that wouldn’t have served the opportunity that the band represented. We got married in San Francisco because she wanted us to. With the band out of the picture, all that remained was any royalties the records might accrue. And although Anna had spent the last decade cultivating a substantial roster of rights, ‘Independent State of Mind’ was suddenly where the real money-making opportunity lay.
She handed me a magazine clipping.
‘A universal song of hope and heartbreak, of what could’ve been and what still might be. How many current songwriters have Hewitt’s ability to coalesce words and music that are simultaneously a cry of pain and a call to arms, depending on the listener’s mood? Weller, Costello? And that’s it. Truly magnificent.’
Had she expected me to have forgotten it, or was this another twisting of the knife, given what we both now knew? Mark Ellen’s glistening review in Smash Hits propelled the record up the charts and into the A-lists of the national radio stations. All based on a lie.
My eyes began to well up. Crying once again like a helpless baby. Weeping for the disastrous mess I’d made of my life. For Brian, and the inescapable feeling that I’d driven him to suicide. Chronic guilt is a horrendous condition. Left untreated, it will eat at your worthless insides like a cancer. Logic and rational thinking play little part in keeping it at bay. As far as I was concerned, I’d as good as held Brian’s head under the water until it killed him.
I cannae cope wi’ this, Anna. Ah’m fucken done, I sobbed.
And I meant it. There was little left to live for.
Ah’m so fucken ashamed, I told her. Brian, Inky. You! I wailed. I’ve let everyone down.
Black clouds grouped at the edge of my vision. Invaders waiting for the order to attack. There might’ve been stiff competition, but this felt like the worst moment of my life. My lowest ebb. And then I momentarily lost consciousness because when I came to, I was lying on the bandstand steps and Anna was trying to get me to sip from a water bottle.
Are you okay?
Fuck knows.
I blew out and then regulated my breathing as best I could.
Time to let them go for good, Jamie … the bad times.
Let them go? I said. Are you fucken jokin’? All the shit I’ve done. To my brother? To yours?
I had to, she said.
That’s different. You never…
Never what? she said. Tried to save him? No. You’re right. I didn’t. And I could’ve.
What d’ye mean? I asked her.
I was in the house when it happened. I knew Brian was shooting up in the bathroom. He left the door open. I watched him slip under the water. And I only dialled 999 when he’d stopped breathing.
It was her turn to sob, although she kept it under control.
Ye what? I stammered.
Was this an act? It was hard to tell with her. I didn’t know whether to fear her or pity her.
We’ve all got shit to hide, Jamie, she said. Not just you.
And that was that. A shared past to keep hidden. A future to be protected.
She could easily have kept the news about the advertising campaign to herself. And the subsequent rewards it could bring. I was hardly able to contest anything legally, even if I had known how to. The rest of the band would’ve been similarly ignorant. And, as her evidence had proved, she had a greater claim to being the song’s originator than I did. But, she stressed, that wasn’t her style.
Everyone deserves a second chance, she said. This is ours. All of us.
So, there we were. Crisp snowflakes falling on the Bowie Bandstand. Brief, concise explanations given by Anna of the future percentages to apply to everyone who’d had an involvement after her majority cut. Me, Reef, Bingo, Kenny. There was even a provision for Inky and Suzy, in the event I wouldn’t be that considerate. The only arrangement I questioned was Chic’s. Not because I disagreed; just that it seemed unusual that he’d be getting nothing.
No! Fuck him, she said.
Given Chic’s consumption of Brian’s ashes, Anna wasn’t interested in hearing a plea for him. She was trying to be fair, but even reason had its limits. For my part, I regretted my mistreatment of him on the American tour, but I’d never really acknowledged his role in the stag-night catastrophe. Until now.
Fuck him, I echoed.
We were on the same page at last. Common ground. Anna Mason was practised at this. I had to concede it was impressive. She knew how restrictive music contracts were and how lucrative securing the rights could be. I was invited to trust her. What was left to lose?
Papers passed between us for signature. AFB Management livery branding every page. A sharp touch, I had to give her that. I signed, fingers tinged blue, with a silver pen that looked exactly like the one Brian had once threatened me with. The one with which he had written the song that laid the golden egg. I racked my brain, trying to recall what happened to that pen. Surely to fuck this wasn’t it. What kind of Robert Johnson-type satanic fucking voodoo would that have represented?
She stood, my long-lost wife. My salvation. My higher power. She had in her possession what she’d travelled south for. My soul. She’d be in touch very soon. A bank account, so routinely abused by me over the years, would be bolstered with a modest advance. I was instructed to get cleaned up; my shit sorted out. There was work to do. I was an AFB employee now. I was being given a reprieve. It felt like a stay of execution. It had taken losing everything for me to even consider stopping gambling. Or living. As I said, you can only stop if you do it for yourself. Not for others. Well, let’s see.
The people’s shy, demure princess was dead. A nation of sycophants grieved. I too was numb, and not just from the biting cold. I didn’t know what to think. Or feel. I watched her leave. The implications of a new era dawned. I reflected on what I might have learned from the one that had just drawn to a close.
12
JAMIE HEWITT IS…
…sorry
JAMIE HEWITT IS…
…ashamed
JAMIE HEWITT IS…
…depressed
JAMIE HEWITT IS…
…tired
JAMIE HEWITT IS…
…redundant.
JAMIE HEWITT IS…
…in debt.
JAMIE HEWITT IS…
…lost.
JAMIE HEWITT IS…
…in need of rescue.
JAMIE HEWITT IS…
…leaving London.
JAMIE HEWITT IS…
…dependent on Anna Mason.
JAMIE HEWITT IS…
…heading ‘home’.
JAMIE HEWITT IS…
…benefitting from his silence.
JAMIE HEWITT IS…
…lowering his expectations.
JAMIE HEWITT IS…
…giving in to this temptation.
JAMIE HEWITT IS…
…standing at the crossroads.
JAMIE HEWITT IS…
…making deals with the devil.
JAMIE HEWITT IS…
…thankful for small mercies.
JAMIE HEWITT IS…
…still a cunt.
There’s no truth, only perspective.
There’s no truth, only perspective…
1st October 1983:
Unusually, it’s a smell that awakens me. My eyes open, adjusting to the light and the unfamiliar context, but there’s no noise. Everything is surprisingly quiet in this house of lost children. But that smell. Freshly baked bread. Coffee. Rich maple syrup … it reminds me of a happier time, stealing illicit sips from Larry’s cognac bottle. I stretch, get up and pull back the curtains. The room I’ve woken up in is at the rear of Lakeview, an expansive three-story detached house built on a prominent Ingleside peak. The house sits proudly on the corner of Urbano Drive and Corona Street. Craning my neck, I can just see the street sign and the intersection. From the main window, I see children sitting cross-legged in a tight circle in the garden, around the feet of an older woman, who is reading to them from a book. The woman has her back to me, but it’s Momma Em and these children are hypnotized by her. The smallest one looks up. The one who ran towards me and hugged my leg when I got here last night. She waves and smiles. Proudly showing off that gap in her mouth where her baby teeth used to be. I laugh and wave back to her.
I acclimatize quickly to these comfortable new surroundings. The intoxicating smells of home-cooked food. The joyful prayers of thanksgiving at every mealtime. Upwards of fourteen clustered around the massive, communal mahogany dining table that is the very heart and soul of this place. Em Bradley – known to everyone in the Ingleside area as Momma Em – welcomed me into her home, as she did all her young houseguests, with open arms. There was no awkwardness. No shame or embarrassment. Momma Em is adept at making troubled youngsters feel safe and relaxed as they come to terms with the circumstances that have resulted in residential foster care. Brandy told me this in the car. But Brandy didn’t come in the house when she dropped me off. I realise now that the arrangement must’ve been agreed with the older woman weeks before I’d been informed of it. A bedroom with new clothes sized to fit me betrays the pre-planning. That rankled me for a moment but, hmmm … those smells.
Momma Em is immediately strict. Right away, she insists I contact Delphine and Larry to let them know I’m safe and how to get in touch if there is ever a need to. The first call is daunting. Larry answers. He confirms my suspicions. He has lost his job at the bar. Delphine seems pleased to hear from me but spends more time during the call talking to Momma Em; the content of their discussion Em tells me to pay no mind.
There are nine foster children under Momma Em’s roof as a crisp fall becomes a cold winter. To earn my keep, I work five days a week, Friday and Saturday being days off. My duties include cleaning and washing, and helping to get the younger children ready for bed. I’m also expected to run errands for Momma Em and her husband, Ben. Where Momma Em is a straight-talking disciplinarian, Ben is a laid-back, free-thinking liberal. He and I get along from the beginning. Ben talks to me about sports. About culture. The arts. Politics. He talks about current affairs, and I find myself sitting cross-legged in front of the fire of an evening when the kids are all in bed, absorbing his wisdom. A favorite subject, which he returns to regularly, is his relationship with Harvey Milk and George Moscone, the previous city mayor.
In 1976, Ben worked in the office of Commissioner Art Agnos. Agnos was elected to the California State Assembly, defeating Harvey Milk in the Democratic primary in the Sixteenth District. But Ben remained cordial with Milk, also becoming friendly with the gay-rights activist Cleve Jones. Only two years after first meeting him, Ben was one of the first on the scene to find Harvey Milk face down on the floor of his office in City Hall, shot five times, including twice in the head. Ben left public service shortly after the assassinations of Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. Ben only ever gets exercised at the nation’s servile relationship with the gun lobby.
These capitalist bastards only care about selling weapons, they don’t care about keeping America safe, he’ll say, before throwing his newspaper down and going for a walk to cool off. It happens often.
I love accompanying Ben on one of his decompressions. I diffuse his anger by posing questions that illicit the response: you know this is the only neighborhood in San Francisco having a marine and bay view? Ben’s love for the area of his birth is intoxicating. Unlike me, he has never craved a life on the road. Never considered that the grass might be greener elsewhere. He has a contentment with his environment that I hope to find one day. We stroll down Junipero Serra Boulevard, south of Ocean Avenue, towards the newer Ingleside Terraces: a clean, sunny ramble of large white houses, well-edged lawns and curving streets.
Heading further west, Ben tells wonderful stories about the original Urbano Drive, an oval laid along the lines of the old Ingleside Racetrack, the last venue for racing in San Francisco. My favorites are about Connemara, a legendary greyhound who decided there must be a better world than chasing rabbits in circles. One day at the end of a race he had won, Connemara crossed the finish line and kept going until he reached Laguna Honda, where the University of California-San Francisco is now built. The legend claims Connemara led a pack of wild dogs who terrorized cats, chickens and pigs, and even took out a couple of peacocks in Golden Gate Park. The greyhound, worth several thousand dollars, was never recaptured. Urbano Drive becomes my new running circuit. I always smile at the idea of Connemara breaking free as I round the oval and head back uphill.
On Sunday afternoons, after church, we often walk the five miles uphill to the summit of Mount Davidson. I never tire of Ben recounting the time he was an extra in Dirty Harry, in the night-time sequence where Clint Eastwood’s cop is ordered to put his nose right up against the cement of the Armenian Genocide memorial cross.
Ben gifts me his camera.
Somethin’ that shoots, but never kills, he says.
I put it to very good use on our walks.
