Welcome to the NFL
Sometimes lunacy does pay off, because a short time after that regrettable incident in the lot across the street from the Port Authority, Freida and I found ourselves backstage at the landmark Beacon Theater. It had been arranged for the two of us to receive an award for our rescue efforts prior to the televised portion of the latest Rock the Planet benefit show, and thus (and better yet) be bestowed with laminated passes that allowed us to mill about and gawk at the mostly New York-based bands that were performing. My mother had a hand in securing these, a peace-offering of sorts, because she had been hard on me lately. We certainly weren't the only ones to be so honored, and this access apparently was the chosen way to pay off debts, settle scores, and give out chits. But it was all fine because Andy Dorenberg was headlining and I was a great fan.
Being backstage was unsatisfying, however, and I acutely felt my lack of occupation. There was nothing to do except stare at people who did have something to do. Our proximity to the inner workings made us feel even more removed. And despite my wearing myself out with anticipation, Dorenberg did not hang around backstage. He only emerged from the green room on his way to the stage, deeply drawing on his final cigarette, eyes focused above the roiling sea of unrequited desire and ambition of those assembled there around him.
But Jay and the rest of Yellowbird were there, the band gathered round a table littered with water bottles and pizza slices tossed onto paper plates, Jay leaning back in his chair with one leg bent, foot resting on the empty seat next over. Their bassist, Howie, slouched against the wall, drinking coffee, trying to bring himself back to life. People continually joined and departed the conversation, including us. We were more successful in inserting ourselves here. If you were young and female, no further explanation was necessary—the more the merrier the prevailing philosophy. Part of the rider, you might say, so our presence wasn’t questioned.
“You gotta come to Philadelphia, man, you gotta come,” Howie said to me at one point. I think he said it to me. At least he said it in my general direction.
“What’s in Philadelphia?” I asked.
“Absolutely nothing . . . nada . . . the Liberty Bowl’s there, ain’t it?”
“Liberty Bowl?” Jay was incredulous. “It’s the Liberty Bell, you fuckin’ moron. The Liberty Bell.”
Yeah, yeah, cracked, right?”
“You’re cracked, man.”
Howie drained his coffee cup and crushed it in his hand. “Damn straight,” he murmured, again to no one in particular. He raised both arms above his head in a fair imitation of a basketball player making a free throw, and shot his paper cup at the nearby waste can. It missed by about four feet.
I mentioned to Jay that I’d seen him before, and explained that I was my mother’s daughter. Recognition registered in his eyes; he smiled, with a tilt of his eyebrow, looked me over up and down. “Nice clean up,” he said. To me. I was only able to respond with some vague, jerky gesture, hugging my certificate of appreciation tighter.
* * *
While I did not end up traveling with Yellowbird to Philly (although Freida quickly took up Howie on his invitation), I did start going to more and more of the band’s gigs when I could get to them, hanging out backstage and afterward, mostly with Howie. Howie—Bobby Howard—was an exceptional bass player, a better musician than man. The open door to the rock scene he provided because he was not exclusive in any sense, plus the fact that he was deeply unhappy was a combination many women could not resist. He was wrecked a lot of the time, but when he smiled, which he did rarely, it was an artless thing, and, even though deep down you knew better, you felt as though, yes, you would be the one who healed this creature with the broken wing.
I myself fell into this trap, often just sitting with him on the hotel room couch, both of us silent as he smoked and fingered the strings of an imaginary bass. Everyone called him Howie, except Freida, who called him Bobby. “Bobby!” she would say in that deep, husky voice of hers. “Bobby.” That “Bobby” was enough to raise apprehension in the hearts of the stoutest of men.
This went on for a while without purpose. More and more I found myself wandering through this world of strange strictures and borderlines. To the outside world it might have looked like an ‘anything goes’ paradise, but it was the most unmerciful hierarchy I’d ever encountered; every day you were forced to face the harsh reality of your true value. I should have stuck with walking up and down my New York avenue, but I threw caution to the wind one weekend and flew with Yellowbird to Indianapolis, desperation waxing toward recklessness. I didn't want to end up like Dad, or worse, like Uncle Henry—a farmer—sitting day in and day out in that tin shack of his, staring at the cornfields, letting time have its way amid the rustling of the drying stalks.
* * *
That night in Indianapolis . . . I should not have been there. I’m not sure how it even happened: I had too much to drink; by the process of elimination we were the only two left. Later in bed, Howie struggled against me as if he were pulling on a rope to climb back out of the hole he had fallen into, and it was a truly nasty thing, being that rope. When it was over, he pulled me up by my shoulders to a sitting position so our faces were about an inch from each other’s and shouted, “Welcome to the NFL!” He said that; he only spoke in code. Then he let himself slide back down into the twisted sheets and fell asleep. I sat there stunned for several moments, then went into the bathroom, cleaned up and got dressed. I tiptoed out of the darkened room and opened the door to the glaringly bright hotel hallway. The harsh light made me screw up my eyes against it and sent painful waves of nostalgia sweeping over me as I lowered my head and stepped over the threshold into the sunshine-faded childhood memories of my uncle’s farm—the simplicity of running down the hill, or lying flat on the ground, a blade of grass in my teeth—and I felt as if I would never be that unencumbered again, and more than ever before understood its lure. I longed to return there, slip back through time and undo this mistake.
I was the last of our party to get off the plane when it arrived back at LaGuardia the next day, the last to get to the van waiting to take us back into the city. When I got there, every seat was taken, the entire band jammed in, plus their manager; the drummer’s sister and her friend; and, last but not certainly least, Freida, who must have met the van at the VIP lounge gate, crushed in next to Howie, his arm around her shoulder, a shaft of sun lighting up her blonde hair and tanned skin—a sturdily built block of summer sizzle that was hard to argue with. The vehicle was overcapacity and there was no room for me. “Can’t take any more,” the driver said. All eyes were on me.
“It’s okay.” I said. “I can take a cab.”
Jay said, “Just cram in,” but the others were silent.
“Really, it’s okay. I can take a cab.” Howie did not speak up for me. I stared at everyone seated inside as if in a daze. “I’ll take a cab,” I repeated, waiting for the spell to break, holding up everyone. “I’ll . . .”
“Take a cab,” Howie said, looking out the window, not at me.
“Stop being an ass,” Freida told me.
“Jesus Christ,” Jay said, hauling himself up out of his seat. He ducked out of the van, straightened up, grabbed my hand and pulled me away, striding down the walkway. “Just fuck off," he barked over his shoulder at the ensuing grumbling. The driver pulled the van door shut and drove off. "Bunch of . . ." he muttered, not for the first time. I was at first flattered by the unexpected support, but quickly guessed his outburst had been a long time coming in response to deeper and more serious issues. We waited in the taxi line for a cab into the city, and though I suppose it should have been a coup of sorts to be standing there with Jay Burton of Yellowbird, I looked with envy at every traveler, no matter how weary or nondescript. No matter how feeble, how homely. Every terminal employee no matter how low on the ladder rung. Every single one of them possessed an agency and dignity I, at this moment, lacked.
We headed to my mother's office, where I was to be deposited, but first stopped at the little deli on the corner and picked up sandwiches and coffee. At the checkout counter, I grabbed a tub of olives. Thankfully Mom was not in, and we brought everything to an empty lounge I knew no one ever used, closed the door, and collapsed on the couch, pushing the papers and books off the coffee table onto the floor, taking the food out of the paper bag, spreading it out like a picnic.
Jay could see I was shaken. “If you met him at a different time and place, you’d like him better.”
‘Like him better?’ I thought incredulously. “He yelled at me,” I told him, cowardly ignoring the larger indiscretion. Why I would confess even this to his bandmate, I’m not sure; it broke all rules of propriety, if one was bent on being fastidious, but that boat had sailed long ago. Maybe for something to say, Jay told me the story of Howie’s former girlfriend, Ivy, a woman almost ten years older. She ran away with another man, leaving a note taped to the dressing room mirror one night an hour before the show. The stunt stung him badly.
“Was he serious about her?”
“I don’t know; he liked to get her drunk . . . she’d dance around. He liked to watch her.”
“Because nothing was required of him?”
“Probably. Just wanted to drink beer and have his . . .”
“Oh, no!”
“What?”
“These olives have pits in them.” I said, holding up the container.
“So?” Jay asked, collapsing back against the couch. His hair was in a tangle, some of it caught inside the collar of his black shirt, some of it outside; his eyelashes dark and bountiful against his pale skin. A lovely, dark haired lost soul-savior-priest, I thought, or more accurately, felt. I was too weary to do anything but sense the power of it. My brain was tired, no longer working in a linear fashion; my pride wounded, my heart sore. If I could think, if I could confess to him, what would I say? How disposable I felt, how lonely . . . give me someone to believe in, I’d urge, someone to make the blood flow again.
Tears started in my eyes, my body began to tremble, as the self-imposed embargo on acknowledging the humiliation of last night finally broke in the presence of this man of the moment, this man above the crowd, sending an overwhelming sadness flooding through me. Olives with pits. People without grace or compassion. It should all be so much better.
Jay leaned forward and cupped my chin in his hand, tilting my face up to look at him. He brushed his thumb across my cheek, wiping away the tears. The gesture was deliverance from a world of letdowns and fiascoes. After the rough and tumble vulgarities of Indy, it felt kind and warm. It was what I wanted.
He collapsed once again, against the back of the sofa, exhausted. He turned his head to look at me. “I ain’t gonna yell at you,” he said softly, eyes half-shut. “I ain’t gonna yell . . ..” I put my head on his shoulder, and after a minute he leaned his head against mine. We stayed in this position, silent, until one of the interns knocked on the door, sticking her head in and saying they needed the room.
Image: Yellowbird. Source: Joseph Cornell, “Untitled (Yellow Bird with Watch Springs),” 1950
Thanks so much for your kind words. It's one of my favorite sentences as well!