Cool Shade Page 16

"It was a long time ago. Don't worry about it. It's your song. That's all you need to know."

  "Thanks, Eddie. Thanks a lot. Nobody ever gave me a song before. I have to go tell Adel."

  He ran to his bike, put up the kickstand, and headed home, humming his song while Eddie sat back down, stunned, his mind tumbling backward, to another time, another life…

  Chapter 30

  Seemed Like the Thing to Do

  Rick was a natural ham. Give him an audience and he couldn't hold himself back, couldn't keep from performing. People were drawn to him. He was funny. He was charming. Guts. Rick had more guts than anybody Eddie had ever seen.

  On the opposite end of the spectrum was Eddie. He tended to sit quietly on the sidelines and observe, contemplating life. And he had a lot to contemplate. Where Rick could simply shrug off the bad things and go on, forgetting them as quickly as they happened, Eddie would fall into a black despair.

  They moderated each other. Together, their highs and lows weren't so extreme, giving themselves the balance neither had alone.

  In middle school, they were both in band. Eddie practiced every night. Rick never brought his trumpet home. By the time they reached high school, Rick had given up music for sports. The school scene, with its cliques and jocks, became a world Eddie merely tolerated, moved through, but was no real part of. His grandfather's health was bad. He was needed more and more on the farm. That was his world. School just wasn't a big deal anymore.

  Eddie became more introspective, going out of his way to avoid Rick and his loud, obnoxious buddies.

  He spent hours pouring out his feelings on paper. If he had a crush on a girl, he wrote about it. If looking at the stars made him feel good, he wrote about it. And then he started putting those words to music, finding notes to complement the lyrics.

  By the time he and Rick reached college, they'd grown apart, the differences that had once been complements were now the very things that made them incompatible.

  Until the contest.

  A music contest, sponsored by a radio station in California. Eddie put together a demo tape and sent it in.

  Two months later, he got a phone call from L.A.

  He was a finalist. And if he wanted to be in the final round, he had to go to L.A. and perform live.

  Eddie hung up the phone that day and leaned against the wall, eyes closed.

  Holy shit.

  What was he going to do? No way could he perform in front of a bunch of people. And then he thought about Rick.

  He found his old friend in his dorm room at the local community college where he'd spent the last year and a half partying, getting laid, and flunking out.

  "Have you ever wanted to go to L.A.?" Eddie asked, trying for casual.

  "L.A.? I don' know. Pretty nice here."

  "Look at yourself."

  Rick had become the classic example of the high-school football jock who'd dive-bombed as soon as he’d graduated from high school. He was no longer a star, no longer the center of attention. He'd been a hero, but now, outside that insulated world, he was nobody, a loser, a man with no talent, no direction. In twenty years he'd be just another alcoholic with a beer gut, sitting in some bar boasting about his role in the big game.

  Nobody seemed to get it. In high school there were no big games, only big losers. All that shit prepared a person for was a headlong crash into oblivion.

  "I'm supposed to be in this contest," Eddie said.

  "Yeah? What kind of contest?"

  "Music. A music contest."

  "Yeah? Cool."

  "You know how I am about getting up in front of people."

  Rick laughed.

  Eddie glared at him. Rick had never understood the paralysis that came over him, the irrational fear.

  "Sorry, man. I know it's a problem for you, but I was thinking about that time you threw up all over my shoes."

  Eddie relaxed. "I'd almost forgotten about that." There had been so many terror-filled moments in his life; it was hard to keep them all straight.

  "I can't go out there. No way in hell can I go out there in front of a bunch of people."

  "Why'd you enter the contest then?"

  "I'd just wanted somebody to listen to my stuff, tell me if it was any good. I didn't really think about making it this far."

  "Bummer."

  "But I've been thinking. I have an idea. You could do it. You could be me."

  "You're crazy, man. I can't even play an instrument."

  "You used to. I'll give you a quick refresher. The stuff is mostly vocals, anyway."

  "Vocals? Now I know you're nuts."

  "You can sing. I've heard you."

  "I was just shitting around, just singing-with-the-radio kind of stuff. That's different than getting up in front of people and making a total ass out of myself."

  "What else have you got to do? Your grades suck. I heard you were getting kicked out of school for a semester."

  "Somebody screwed up the grades."

  Nothing was ever Rick's fault.

  "This can work. I know it can."

  "Sounds nuts to me."

  "I can't be a star, but you can. Look at the people who make it big. A lot of them don't know shit about music. They get there because of their looks, because of their charm, because they can perform, put on a show. You can do that. I've seen you."

  He was thinking about it. Eddie could tell Rick was thinking about it.

  "How long would this take?” Rick asked “How long would we be gone?"

  "A week, tops. We'll drive out and drive right back. That is, unless we make it big."

  "I'll do it on one condition."

  "Anything."

  Rick gave him a slow smile. "I use my name."

  Rick ended up being better than Eddie could have possibly dreamed. He had a natural quality, and his singing hadn't been homogenized with lessons. And while his voice lacked the pathos of Eddie's, he more than made up for it in range and strength and pure showmanship.

  It didn't take him long to make it look as if he'd been playing guitar for years. Somehow he knew all the jargon, knew the big players, knew who was on his way up, and who was on his way down. Where Eddie had always spoken of ballads and lyrics and verse, Rick talked about riffs, and axes, and cuts.

  By the time they got to California, Rick almost had Eddie thinking he was writing his own music. By the time they reached California, Rick was Rick Beck, musician.

  ~0~

  He won.

  For Eddie, it was weird, watching it all play out from the audience, watching Rick perform his song, hearing him sing the words as if he'd written them, as if they meant something to him. When in reality, he'd told Eddie the song was kind of dumb, kind of sappy.

  While Eddie sat in the dark, people swarmed the stage, congratulating Rick.

  A star.

  A hero.

  And as Eddie watched, he felt a sense of loss, of loneliness, of grief, as if he'd just handed his life to somebody else.

  Chapter 31

  Fake Plastic Trees

  Rick loved it all. The lights. The glamour. The women. Most of all, the women.

  Living in a hotel room. Having contracts that indulged his every whim, no matter how ridiculous. His big thing was demanding that all his M&M's be red, and that the hotel towels have his name on them.

  For Eddie, it was death.

  Of the spirit, of creativity. What was there to write about when all you saw was the inside of a tour bus and hotels with bowls of red M&M's?

  Artificial.

  His life had become artificial. It was no wonder whenever anybody made it they started singing about televisions and hotel rooms. What else was there?

  "I can't take it anymore," he told Rick one night after a sold-out performance. "I need to see the sky. Birds. Nature. My dog. I need to feel dirt under my feet. I need to sweat because of the sun, not spotlights."

  Eddie, who had thrived on the outdoors, who ascribed to a minimalist lifestyle, was smothering
, suffocating. "I can't take it anymore. I want out. I'm losing my mind, losing track of who I am."

  "You just need a break," Rick told him, lying in bed, watching TV, drinking a beer. "You're just tired. Don't give this up. You asked me on board, remember? What happens to me if you quit? I'll still be Rick Beck, but I'll be Rick Beck the loser. Rick Beck without a song to sing. Don't do that to me."

  "I'll still write songs for you. Better songs, if I can get out of this cycle of crap."

  "Take your pills and forget about it."

  "I don't want pills. I don't want an artificial existence."

  But deep down he knew Rick was right. This was the life Eddie had chosen for himself. The life he'd wanted. He just hadn't known about the undertow.

  Chapter 32

  Ghosts

  They'd been playing a hometown benefit concert when it happened, when some madman shot Rick.

  The benefit was low-key, something Eddie had demanded. He'd been sick to death of the star treatment, the limos, the press, the security, the hype. He'd been starved for something normal, or as close to normal as they could get.

  So there had been no publicity, the band's appearance at the outdoor fundraiser kept a secret until the last minute.

  It had been great. Almost like the old days. There had been a minimal amount of crowd control. The cops were mostly volunteer, used to directing traffic after high school football games. Because the band's appearance had been a secret, there was no ambulance standing by, no trauma unit on call, no decent hospital for sixty miles.

  Just blood.

  And bone.

  And brains.

  Pieces of Rick.

  The cadence of the crowd changed, went from excitement to terrified, disbelieving screams.

  A hero had fallen.

  A friend.

  Some stood in dazed shock. Others thought it was part of the show.

  Baking under the heat of the stage lights, the blood smelling like hot metal, the amplifiers buzzing, filling his ears with hollowness, Eddie held his friend in his arms.

  There on the stage, with thousands of people watching, the aloneness he'd felt all his life found him.

  Was anybody coming?

  Was anybody going to help?

  Hours, days, years, passed before Eddie heard the sirens, heard them draw closer until the wailing was on top of him, the flashing red light a strobe of continuous panic.

  Paramedics bumped him.

  "Let him go, Eddie."

  Eddie pulled his gaze away from Rick to find Greg Carnes kneeling beside him.

  "Greg?" Was he a paramedic? Last Eddie knew, he'd dropped out of school and was big into drugs and booze.

  Was any of this really happening?

  It was. Eddie could tell because of the scared, horrified look on Greg's face. Just how long had he been at this ambulance shit? His training probably hadn't covered a victim who’d had his brains blown out.

  They tried to tell him he couldn't come along, but Eddie got in the ambulance anyway. He wasn't going to turn his friend over to a bunch of druggies.

  On the way to Omaha Medical Center, Rick's heart stopped twice.

  Greg kept his head, shocking Rick twice, getting his heart going again both times.

  It didn't do any good.

  At 11:46 p.m., three hours after being shot, Rick Beck was pronounced dead.

  The news hit Eddie like a mallet. His knees gave out. He slid down the hospital wall, collapsing to the floor.

  All Eddie'd wanted was to be able to make a living playing music. What had happened? How had everything gone so wrong?

  It was like he'd asked for things, but the person taking the requests hadn't understood his language. Or had just gotten a buzz out of torturing him. He'd wanted to make it in music. It had happened, but in the process it had stolen his soul. He'd wanted out, and now it had stolen his best friend.

  He went home, to the forty acres his grandfather had left him, drove his Chevy into the yard and left it there.

  Home.

  He felt safe there. He'd made enough money to stay forever if he wanted to. He wouldn't have to write another lyric, play another note.

  The press invaded the town, setting up camp in the town square and the park and the 4-H grounds. Eddie couldn't step out of his house without microphones being stuck in his face.

  "What will happen to the band now?"

  "Rick was working on some new stuff. Will you try to record any of it without him?"

  "Was anything finished?"

  Eddie ignored their questions, shoving them out of the way. They were invading his space. He wanted them to leave.

  ~0~

  The funeral was closed casket.

  It seemed like half of North America showed up for it.

  The period that followed the funeral was a blur, one day melding into the other. Eddie had been home a week when Rick's mother came by.

  Eddie sat on the porch, his back against the railing, watching Adel Beck make her way across the yard.

  Eddie was drunk, but not so drunk that she would notice.

  He should have been the one to go see her, but he hadn't been able to make himself leave the farm.

  Truth?

  He couldn't face her.

  How could she stand to look at him? But then Adel didn't know that Rick hadn't written those songs, that he wasn't the mastermind behind the music. Eddie wasn't going to tell her. Not because he didn't want her to know that he should be dead instead of her son, but because he didn't want to tarnish her memories of Rick.

  "They got the person who did it," Adel told him, sitting down next to him on the steps.

  "I heard."

  Heard. Seen. Some psycho who'd carved a girl's initials in his forehead, the girl he’d tried to impress by murdering a public icon.

  "For you, Helen," he'd rasped, his eyes glittering into the camera lens. "I did it for you."

  Why they'd allowed the killer's image into every home in America, Eddie didn't understand. But there he was, explaining his actions as if it all made sense.

  "The words," he'd shouted. "The words told me to do it."

  "What words?" some unseen person asked, baiting him.

  "The words in the song. The music. The words told me to kill him."

  Eddie must have made a sound, some strangled sob, because Adel leaned close and laid her hand on Eddie's, a mother-to-son gesture that tore him up. He didn't deserve her sympathy.

  "Eddie?"

  Her voice pulled his gaze to her.

  She looked tired. Sad. "I have something to tell you." But there was more than weariness in her face. Hope? What was there to hope for?

  "Rick isn't dead."

  She was nuts. Grief had driven her over the edge.

  Eddie shook his head. He couldn't handle this, not now, not on top of losing his best friend.

  "You'd better get home, Mrs. Beck."

  "Eddie, it's true."

  "He was pronounced dead. I was there."

  "Yes, but he came back. From wherever he went, wherever people go when they die. Rick came back."

  "No."

  Every night Eddie dreamed that Rick was still alive. This was just another one of those dreams.

  "I wanted to tell you before, but we weren't sure he would live. It would have been cruel to tell you too soon."

  He shook his head.

  "There's something else I have to tell you."

  "I think you've told me enough already."

  "Rick is severely brain damaged."

  She'd held it all together until that point. But as soon as she spoke the words brain damage she broke down. She sobbed, burying her face in her hands.

  Eddie had known Adel Beck all his life. She'd fed him cookies. She'd bandaged his cuts. She'd driven him to band practice.

  Was it true? Was Rick still alive? Or had she gone completely over the edge?

  "I'm sorry," she said in a choked voice, pulling Kleenex from her pocket, wiping her eyes, blowing her
nose.

  "I don't get it, any of it."

  "It was Dr. Sheridan's idea," she said, her voice quivering but getting stronger. "He knew the media wouldn't leave Rick alone, that they would haunt him for the rest of his life. He would have no peace. He'd been pronounced dead. The press had already been notified. It seemed like a sign."

  Adel had always been big on signs. Eddie recalled that she'd contacted a psychic anytime she had to make a major decision in her life.

  Her voice dropped to a whisper. She looked directly into his eyes. "No one can know, Eddie. Swear you won't mention it to a soul, not even the walls."

  "I swear."

  ~0~

  Eddie didn't see Rick for three months.

  Adel brought him by, introducing him as a nephew who'd come to live with her.

  Eddie wouldn't have recognized him. He wasn't weird looking or anything. They'd done a good job putting his face back together. He just didn't look like Rick anymore. Or act like Rick anymore.

  He kind of talked around his tongue, like someone Rick would have called a retard. His movements were slow, heavy, like somebody trying to function on a planet with too much gravity.

  "His name is Jason."

  The forced perkiness in Adel's voice couldn't be missed. Eddie's eyes met her damp ones. He nodded.

  "Hi, Jason."

  Maybe there was something left of the old Rick, because Jason took to Eddie right away.

  "Do you like to fish?" Eddie asked.

  "Fish?" Jason turned to his mother. "Do I, Adel?" Rick had loved to fish.

  For the briefest of seconds, Adel's face kind of crumpled, then she recovered. "I'm not sure. You'll have to give it a try, won't you?"

  He smiled. And God, that smile was Rick's.

  All the good times they'd had came tumbling back to Eddie, all the jokes, the shared laughs.

  Rick.

  I'm sorry, Eddie wanted to tell him, wanted to beg his forgiveness. Sorry as hell.

  But there was no one to tell, no one he could ask for forgiveness.

  Chapter 33

  Madison

  Jason was Rick Beck.

  Maddie had figured it out on her own. She'd waited for Eddie to tell her, but he hadn't said a word.

  That hurt.

  More than she would have dreamed.

  It was like he was hiding himself from her, hiding who he really was. What did that say about their relationship?