After You've Gone Page 8

  “You talked to me on the phone this morning. Remember?”

  “Yeah. I asked you to pick up some diapers.”

  “See?” he answered, and laughed.

  “Seriously. So how are you, anyway?”

  “I’m good. I’m busy as all fucking get out, but I’m pretty good. What about you?”

  “Ditto. Busy. Getting used to things. Meeting tons of new people. Regina already seems like a long time ago, doesn’t it?”

  “Oh, shit, yeah. But listen, now that we finally have a chance to talk, I got an idea I want to run by you.”

  “Yeah, sure. What’s on your mind?”

  He tilted his chair back a bit, stretched out his long legs, looked up at the stars. “Well, I don’t know if you remember, but a while ago I was talking about The Green Lanterns maybe doing a record. A 45 or an EP.”

  “I remember. I think it’s a good idea. I’m thinking Speed Queen should get one out there pretty soon, too. So are you guys going to work on a demo tape that you can shop around?”

  “Well, that’s where my idea comes in. See, I started thinking, where will we do the demo tape, what will we put on it? That part is already going to take some time and some money, to do a decent demo. And once we have it done, then where do we take it? We can send it off to BOMP or Beserkley, and we can shop it around to some of the little labels here. And then what happens? Maybe one of them pick it up. And then we have a record that we can sell at our shows and hope the right bigwig somewhere hears it.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s pretty much what you put out a record for. So someone somewhere hears it.”

  “Well, yeah. We could do all that, jump through all those hoops. Or . . . Or we could bypass all the middlemen and just do it all ourselves.”

  I raised an eyebrow, looked hard at him. First beer, eh? “And how would you do that?”

  “Well. What would you think if I — if we, if you wanted to — started up a record label?”

  I had to think for a minute before I answered. “Have you been thinking about this a long time?”

  “Yes and no. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. Or more, I always kind of pictured myself doing it someday. So then it just seemed logical that if it’s something I always wanted to do, and if my band is at the point where we want to make a record . . . ”

  I had to smile. “It’s not enough for you that you play lead guitar, you sing, you write all the songs. Now you want to have complete control over making a record, too.”

  “Sure, there’s some truth in all that. I mean, hey, it’s my band. It’s my work. Why wouldn’t I want to have as much control over it as I possibly could?”

  “Because there’s only so much time in a day. Because you’re already stretched so thin between The Green Lanterns, and your job, and me and Bill, that it’s been how long, how long since we’ve been able to sit and have a beer together? It might be a bit much to take on right now. It might be better to hand over some of the control to someone else so that you don’t drive yourself crazy.”

  “I’m not driving myself crazy.”

  “No, not yet. But what about when you’re trying to run your record label and do your job and play in your band and be a dad?”

  “Look. At first it could be hectic, I’ll give you that. But what I’m hoping is that maybe the label will eventually make some money. Maybe I’ll be able to give up my day job at some point.”

  “Maybe,” I conceded.

  “Remember how nervous you were when we first started talking about moving here?”

  “I’d just had a baby; I wasn’t getting much sleep then.”

  “Neither was I. But I had a gut feeling that coming here would be a smart move. And look how it’s turned out. It’s great, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Absolutely. But talking about starting a record label is different.”

  “How is it different? You know what, I have the same kind of gut feeling about this as I did about moving here. Except stronger. This is something I have seen myself doing for a long time.”

  “Sure, I hear you. But now? Why now?”

  “Why not now? Why wait? It’s not as if I don’t know this business. I’ve made lots of contacts in the time we’ve been here. I feel like this opportunity is calling me now. This is the logical time to do it, instead of getting all caught up in, first, recording a demo, and then spending time and effort shopping it around. And if we get a recording contract, then having to go with the company’s idea of what we should sound like, maybe getting watered down, sold out. If we even get a contract. Maybe it would all come to nothing.”

  I shook my head, sighed. “Mark. It sounds to me like you’ve pretty much made up your mind. I don’t want to discourage you. But I also don’t want to see you crash and burn. I don’t want to see you taking on too much. And what about the money to do all this? Where’s that going to come from?”

  “It’s not like I haven’t thought of that. I already talked to Dave about it and he’s willing to put up some money. And I know it’s a risky thing. But isn’t anything worthwhile risky? Wouldn’t it be worth it to know that we are putting out exactly the record we envision without having to spend all that time convincing someone to record us? And we could help other bands put out records, too. We could start a whole little roster of local bands. It would be so cool. But of course, you know, I can’t do it without knowing you’re behind me.”

  I watched the lights of a plane high above us, took a deep breath and let it out. “Well, I have some reservations. But of course I’m behind you. You’ve never steered me wrong yet, and it sounds like a great idea.”

  He jumped out of his chair and knocked it over, pulled me to my feet and hugged me, spun us around a few turns in celebration.

  “Hey, careful,” I said. “You’re gonna knock over my beer.”

  “Sorry. I’m just kind of excited. Listen, you won’t regret this. I think it’s going to work out really well. I give you my word that I’ll do everything I can to make this work.”

  “I know you will.”

  He poked me in the ribs. “Plus, I promise you Speed Queen will get preferential treatment when it comes to considering a demo.”

  “Oh, thanks!”

  Later, after we were in bed and had turned the lights off, it took me a while, quite a while, to drift off to sleep. What had I done? This could end up being a huge disaster. But the wheels were in motion now. It was already too late to look back.

  Thirteen

  Lita

  Spring 1936

  DARLENE CAME OUT TO SEE THE band when we were booked at The Trianon Ballroom, opening for The Bell Family. She came out to see us a lot, all by herself, and sat right in the front and talked to us all through the set breaks. Well, she talked to some of us. She usually didn’t have much to say to me, except that she’d seen a blouse just like mine on the sale rack at Woolworth’s, or to tell me I should go and get my hair done one of these days, she knew a girl who could do it up really cheap. She flirted a bit with Henry and George, and ribbed Otto. The rest of the time she’d babble away to Bill. But one particular night she actually had something to say to all of us.

  “You need a manager.”

  “Huh,” Henry scoffed. “What do we need a manager for? Just someone to take our money.”

  “Sure, you’d pay a manager. But a manager could line up jobs for you, do some promotion for you. Find you better places to play, get you more money. A manager could do all that and let you guys concentrate on the music. A good manager would be worth it.”

  “So, what — do you know a good manager or something?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it a little while. I think I could do it.”

  “You? What would you know about managing a band?”

  “Well, I’ve run the Belleville with my dad the last few years. I guess if I can run a hotel, I can find you guys a few gigs. For one thing, I have some connections in the hotel business.”

  George wasn’t convinced. “I don’t k
now. A girl. I mean, you’ll pardon me, but will they take you seriously?”

  “Now, hold on, George,” said Bill. “I recall a little skepticism about our girl guitarist, too, at first. And look how that’s turned out.”

  “That’s different,” said Henry. “Lita has talent.”

  “Well, maybe Darlene’s a talented manager. Why don’t we give her a try?”

  The way he smiled at Darlene, I had no doubt that he wanted to give her a try. He acted as if I wasn’t there. To a certain degree I felt that was part of Bill’s schtick, part of the act, to smile at the ladies, to make them feel like they were the ones he was singing to. It was part of Bill’s nature, I knew that, part of why he was a singer. Bill could take up with any old stranger. He could yak away to someone in the street or at a bus stop, in a lineup at the bank, and they’d be like old pals for the ten minutes or whatever. I wasn’t like that at all. I was the opposite. I could hide away in a cave somewhere, just me and the National, and if someone would bring food and new strings once in a while I could stay there forever. But Bill loved to be on stage, loved to be the centre of attention. Since we married he’d toned it down considerably with women. But there he was, getting lost in Darlene’s eyes, and I sat and watched it happen and had no idea what to do or say.

  Something else was going on as well. The owner of the Zenith Café in Saskatoon had made a gaffe a couple of weeks earlier. He’d introduced us as Lita MacInnes and Her Syncopation Five. I don’t know where he got that idea. I hadn’t suggested it, and the others swore up and down that they’d had nothing to do with it. But we got a laugh out of it. Bill laughed at the time, too. Later, though, he accused me of putting the owner up to it. I thought he was joking at first. But he wasn’t.

  The guy had hit a nerve. It took me a while to understand it, but I began to see that Bill had been the centre of attention in the band until I came along. I hated to be the centre of attention, but from early on, it just developed that way. Everywhere we went, people raved about my playing. I was glad they liked it, but I hated performing. Bill was the performer, not me. But I was the girl. Years later, Elsa told me something Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane once said, something to the effect of if you put four rats and a duck on stage, the duck’s going to stand out. It was true. The trouble was, some rats really resented it.

  “Why do we need a manager? What about the regular gig we’ve got at the Saskatchewan?” I asked.

  “Every Saturday night? Big deal,” Bill said. “Tell your friend Jacob Stone that we need to eat every night. Darlene’s right. We need a manager. Don’t you think it’s time we took ourselves a little more seriously?”

  “Jacob Stone is not my friend.”

  But he wasn’t listening anymore.

  Otto suggested we put it to a vote. Oh, hell. Great. How was I supposed to vote, against my husband? Henry and George voted against it, the rest of us were for.

  After a while I understood that it wasn’t just about Darlene. Bill really thought a manager was the answer to the Syncopation Five’s problems. As far as I was concerned, we didn’t have any problems. The way I saw it, we had a great time playing music and more often than not got paid for it. We didn’t make a lot of money, never had any to save, but between the band and day jobs we made out okay. We all had enough to eat, and roofs over our heads, which was more than a lot of other people could say. And we had fun doing it.

  But I’d noticed a change come over Bill during the winter. He’d struck me at first as very carefree, happy go-lucky. After a while, though, I realized that he was actually quite frustrated with what he saw as the Syncopation Five’s stalled career. So, Bill was frustrated by me taking the spotlight, frustrated by the band’s going nowhere, just plain frustrated.

  “This shouldn’t be happening,” he said one night as we drove home after another wedding gig at a church hall.

  “What shouldn’t be happening?” I thought there was something wrong with the Packard again.

  “This band has been together since I was seventeen. We shouldn’t still be playing weddings and parties and two-bit hotels is what I mean. We’re good. We should play real gigs, and get paid every time.” His jaw was set and the muscles in his cheek rippled. I stifled the urge to laugh and point out that there was little work for all kinds of people, let alone jazz musicians, in Regina.

  “It’ll come. Be patient. And anyway, I started with you guys when I was seventeen.”

  “That’s different. You’ve only been with us a little while. But this band is my baby. This is it. And I feel like after five years we’re hardly any further ahead than when we started.”

  “Things are hard for everyone right now. And I don’t think we’re doing so bad. We’ve got a house.”

  “That my mom paid for. When will I start to make some money of my own? The harder I try, the less it happens. It’s like grabbing for water. Everything slips through my fingers.”

  “You’ll make money, don’t worry. You’re a young guy. Anyway, is that all you’re in this for?”

  “No. But I wonder how much longer we’ll have to pay dues, how much longer we’ll be a bunch of nobodies. Bing got his break when he was twenty-three. That means I got a year.”

  I hated to hear him talk that way. “We’re not nobodies. We work hard and we’re getting better all the time. We’ve got one regular gig.” I looked at him to make sure he had his eyes on the road and wouldn’t be able to see me cringe in the dark before I added, “And now that we’ve got our manager, maybe we’ll get more.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  I thought our differences in opinion about the band’s fortunes were because Bill was older and had played in front of audiences much longer than I had. After all, I’d had nothing but my guitar and my chambermaid job before the band. Now I was a working musician, married to the man I loved. We had our own house that no landlord could kick us out of. We’d never have to skip out in the middle of the night. I didn’t fixate on success the way he did because I already felt successful. But it was more than that. Bill came from a comfortable middle-class home. His mum always asked him when he would get a real job, made little remarks that let him know how she felt about what he was doing with his life. The fact that he even played music annoyed her, never mind that he dreamed of making a living at it. The way she saw it, a respectable man might play music as a hobby, though that might even be a problem depending on how much he did it. That he now had a wife and would presumably soon have a family to support only strengthened her argument.

  Her attitude reminded me of the story of Bix Beiderbecke’s disapproving family. That young genius coronet player, whom many compared to Louis Armstrong, sent copies of his early records to his folks back in Iowa only to discover them later in a closet, unopened, unplayed. I think that his family’s callousness played a part in his death from drink in 1931. He was only twenty-eight. I didn’t want to see the same thing happen to Bill. I urged him to ignore his mother, and he said he did, but her words had to have an affect on him. How could they not? To people like Bill’s mum, the world was black and white: either you were a success or you were a failure. And he would not fail. So he was driven, under a lot of pressure to succeed.

  I think marriage caused a shift in his attitude, too. Before we were married the band meant something different than it did to him afterward. Before, it was something he did because he enjoyed it, a means of artistic expression. Afterward it became this thing, this career that didn’t move along the way he wanted it to. Of course, he knew that the economy, particularly bad in Saskatchewan, was partly to blame. And we were young and working our way up. Although he already did everything he could, he was always trying to find ways to do more. And he was enormously frustrated.

  At the time, I couldn’t really understand all that. I only saw Bill’s frustration about all the things he didn’t have. Compared to so many others, we were doing well. I saw men who stood in line outside the unemployment office and I didn’t feel so sorry for my hus
band. Spoiled rich kid, I sometimes thought, doesn’t know when he’s got it good. Later I realized I was as bad as Bill’s mum, in my way, passing judgment on him.

  Darlene got on the job straight away and lined up gigs at hotel lounges in Regina, Saskatoon, and Moose Jaw, as well as at the beach resorts at Waskesiu and Little Manitou Lakes. Big deal, I thought. That took no particular managerial skill. Lots of these venues we’d played before. But now we were working five nights a week, which was new. And Darlene came out to see the band every night.

  I knew it was coming, saw it coming, but had no idea what to do about it. By the time Darlene had been managing us for about three months, no one could deny it made a difference. She did all the non-musical things that Bill mostly used to do, and did them better. Now we had lots of work and didn’t have to spend any time with self-promotion. We were certainly in a position to be grateful to her, no question. And so the day finally came when she asked us during a rehearsal if she could join us onstage for a number. Well, Bill, actually. She asked Bill.

  “What did you have in mind?” he asked.

  “I thought I could join you for ‘What’ll I Do?’ You know, a duet. I think it’d be cute.”

  I looked over at Henry. He could be counted on to go a long way to avoid things that were cute. He made a face like Harpo Marx, and I had to smile.

  “Well,” Bill turned to me for assistance. He was red-faced, grinning. He had the hots for Darlene. Of course, that much had been obvious to me for a long time. Right then I wanted to slap him. Darlene, too, while I was at it. I knew he was waiting for me to take action, to lay down the law. For me to say, “Bill MacInnes, don’t you dare sing a duet with that brazen hussy! You come home this instant!” But I did nothing of the sort. I smiled sweetly and turned away to work on a tricky little riff I’d picked up from the latest Hot Club of France record. I refused to come to his aid.

  “Well, I guess that’d be all right,” he finally said. “Right, fellas?”