NEWSLETTER

"Coffee,” Baron said to the girl. And he stood and took the guitar and followed the man in past the frosted door. They came into a large white office. There were blue corduroy love seats on either side of a black Pyrex table, and he sat down facing the man. The man was short and balding, a mustache and a round face and hard small dark eyes. He wore an oversize white t-shirt, crisp blue jeans, and Birkenstock sandals. He held out his hand. “Deke,” he said.

Baron passed the case over.

Deke opened the case, glanced at the guitar, turned it over, and slipped it back into the case.

He took a check out of a yellow envelope already there on the table and handed it to Baron.

“This is for $2,200,” Baron said.

“That’s what it says.”

“On the phone, you said five.”

“A week ago I said five.”

“I haven’t even talked to you and you’re already going back on your word.”

“Look, I don’t doubt this is the guitar, but the shape it’s in…”

“It’s in good shape,” Baron said. “It hasn’t really been played much in the last 20 years.”

“Good shape is a problem.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The worse shape it’s in, the better it views. Tim’s guitar lacks, you know, sympathetic wear and tear, the grease of personality.”

“You offered $5,000, sight unseen. You had this check written out for $2,200, sight unseen.”

“Your uncle’s death, we thought his passing away might have sparked more reinterest—apart from the Dutch reissue.”

There was a silence.

“You do know about the Dutch reissue?”

“No. From what?”

“What do you mean?”

“From what material?”

“Oh they probably just took an old vinyl copy, you know… unless they got ahold of the master tapes. But it would have been nice of them to consult you, for perhaps, some photos, or liner notes. Something for you to do...”

Baron stared at Deke.

Deke’s face had compressed slightly around his eyes. Deke had mistakenly gotten a bit personal, and now he seemed momentarily lost in some soft-footed zone of conversational ambiguity. He sat back and folded his hands, began nodding as if remembering some long-ago grave wrong.

There was a buzzing. He reached over and pressed a button.

“Arnold on four,” Suze said over the speaker.

“Arnold?”

“Vladistock Arnold.”

“Right.”

He looked at Baron. “You’ll excuse me a minute?” He said, standing and slipping on the headset and walking out.

Baron looked around at the walls: Brightly tentacled Fillmore West posters, photos of Jimi Hendrix, Robert Plant, Mick Jagger. The same old faces, doing the same old things. Weren’t there other people, ever, to try out on the walls? It was like the chain restaurants on the strips, these faces so pervasive as to be unnoticeable. Tim had been so obscure. Even as an uncle. He’d only met him twice. He had clear memories of both times because there was a funny kind of presence there. He’d gone to the bus station with his dad, and Tim was standing outside waving and seemed to get in the car before they’d even stopped. He seemed to be full of enthusiasm and cheerful news. Baron had been missing a tooth and Tim had turned with his bright green eyes and curly blond hair and squinting smile and had asked Baron if he’d lost it defending his girl. His dad and Tim had broken out in laughter before Baron could answer. Baron had been a chubby boy and he’d at first been embarrassed, but then he’d realized they were not laughing in the way other kids did, and he’d laughed along because it was nice to hear his father laughing. They’d gone to some bar downtown and Baron had a hamburger and a Coke while Tim tuned up at the other end of the room. Tim had disappeared afterward, the bedroom his father had made up and the table his mother set of no use.

Tim showed up one more time. Two or three years later, unannounced at the front door at 3 PM, a thin, black-haired woman sitting in the old, square car behind him, the engine running. The sparkle in Tim’s eyes seemed to have smeared across his cheekbones, and his blond curls were whitened by the sun and frizzed. His face was leathery and thin, his arms and wrists so thin it seemed to make his hands shake.

Your daddy here?

He’s at work.

How are you, kid?

I’m Baron.

Your daddy left me some money, Baron. Mind if I go take a look?

In college, he’d once found a white-label promotional copy of Tim’s record. $2.99 in the cut-out bin. He’d tried to understand the songs, but the soft confessional intimacy made him uneasy. He liked hard stuff, forthrightness, and never otherwise thought too much about music. He heard music in his car and little elsewhere and he had nothing in common with the tousle-haired, torn-sweatered girls alone on their dorm-room futons, listening to Leonard Cohen.

The paucity of invention some imagined watchfulness over solitude.

This line was from the one review he’d ever read about Tim’s record. In Sounds, from October 1979. His father kept it in a picture book with old photos and other minor artifacts of Tim’s short career. Tim had been his father’s little brother.

Deke came in and sat back down.

There was a long silence.

“Shouldn’t Tim have had the master tapes of his record somewhere?” Baron asked.

“Those licenses to the record company are often for life.”

“For life? His is over.”

“Perpetuity, then.”

Baron leaned forward. “Nobody bought his label. They folded.”

“UAI bought out the catalogue.”

“I’ve seen Tim’s papers. There’s no contract that says that.”

“Well that is an issue for you to take up with UAI. It is hard sometimes for a company to verify the estate.” Deke leaned forward and looked analytically at Baron. “You are the estate?”

“Are masters like that generally valuable?”

“Depends. Why?”

“No reason.”

“Well, perhaps you’ll have the statute of limitations on your side. But you know, they are a very successful company. It will cost you.”

Baron stared at him.


CONTINUED:
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