Cages and Those Who Hold the Keys

5

When I was a kid, I wanted so much to be a rock star. The music, the adulation, the fame and riches, all of it.

But mostly the music.

I tried my hand at half a dozen different instruments; the harmonica, the guitar, bass, drums, the piano, and even—hand to God—the flute (hey, if Ian Anderson could use it to make Jethro Tull one of the greatest groups of all time, why the hell not?). I was a failure at all of them, except for the guitar, and even then I had the sense to realize that if I dedicated myself to the instrument, if I practiced for ten hours a day every day for the rest of my life, I would be an at-best average guitar player…and the world has too many of those already.

So I contented myself with the fantasy of rock stardom, and my love of music. Classical, country, prog, blues, rock, metal—I loved it all. And my admiration for anyone who can pull a tune out of the ether and make it real has never lessened. Even if it’s a crap song, it’s still a song, something that didn’t exist until someone heard it in the back of their head and put it out into the world.

But I never understood why so many rock stars went down in flames. I could never dredge up much sympathy for someone who made millions doing what they loved, creating something that gave so much pleasure to the rest of the world, and then pissed it all away on drug and booze or whatever the poison of choice was at the time. But then, that’s an easy judgment call to make when you’re not the one who has to live with the pressure of always having to be on for the world, of not being able to go anywhere without people following you, wanting your autograph, your picture, a lock of your hair, or whatever else is required so that they can prove to themselves that they once touched greatness…even if that greatness was fleeting, or only in their minds, or even manufactured.

I guess any culture needs its popular icons, something for the rest of its populace to aspire to, knowing they’ll never make it. Hell, there was probably some prima donna cave-wall painter back in the Neolithic days who started to believe it when his fans told him that his shit didn’t stink.

I don’t know how many times during the next hour or so I wanted to turn around and ask Morrison or any of the others why they’d allowed themselves to fall victim to their self-indulgences when they’d died still having so much more to give to the world…then just as quickly realized how goddamned selfish that was. Maybe that Neil Young song hit it on the head about it being better to burn out than fade away.

People like you and me will never know, so how can we be made to understand?

Over the next hour, we picked up Keith Moon and John Entwistle (both from The Who), Gary Thain and David Byron (of Uriah Heep), Tommy Bolin (The James Gang and Deep Purple), Paul Kossoff (Free), the great blues guitarist Roy Buchanan, as well as Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, and Billie Holiday—to whom everyone paid the greatest respect and courtesy.

The Reverend gave them each welcome and coffee, and asked each of them the same questions: How did you get here? Why are you here? Where are we taking you?

“Honey,” said Billie Holiday, laying a thin and elegant hand against the Reverend’s cheek, “what we got to do, we got to do. ‘Taint nobody’s business but ours, and that’s just how it’s gotta be. You got that look in your eyes, you know that?” “What look is that?” “Like you already know whatever it is you’re tryin’ to get one of us to say.” “Can we get out of this fuckin’ cold already?” said Cobain. I put the van in gear and drove back to the shelter. “Sam doesn’t say much,” Morrison announced to the others. “Ah, a quiet one,” said Entwistle, grinning. Keith Moon shook his head. “Bloody birds of a feather.” And began to beat a tattoo against his legs.

Morrison leaned forward, resting his elbows, respectively, on the back of the Reverend’s seat and my own. “I gotta hand it to you two, you’re not freaking out like I expected. I—whoa, pull over.” We did, and Jerry Garcia climbed in. “Come see Uncle John’s band,” I muttered under my breath. “I always hated that fuckin’ song,” said Garcia. “Really?” asked Cobain. “That’s, like, one of my guilty-favorite tunes of all time.” Garcia shrugged. “What’s it hurt to admit it now?” Cobain thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “I see what you mean.”

“Hey, Nevermind was a great record,” said Garcia. “You were a great songwriter, my friend. Sloppy guitarist, but a great songwriter.”

“Thanks,” said Cobain. “I think.”

“You’re welcome,” said Garcia. “Maybe.”

I looked over at the Reverend. “If Ms. Holiday was right, Reverend, if you got some idea what’s going on, I’d sure appreciate being let in on the secret.”

It was Morrison who answered. “Hasn’t it crossed your mind to wonder how it is a van that’s designed to hold only eight people is holding almost twice that many right now?”

I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw an empty van reflected back at me. “I guess it’s because you’re all ghosts, right?”

Morrison laughed, as did everyone else. “Shit, no, Sam! Ghosts are, like, the spirits of real people who’re hanging around because they’ve got unfinished business.” “Like that girl up there,” said Hendrix, pointing to a young woman crossing the street. “Do we need to pick her up?” asked the Reverend. Morrison shook his head. “No. She’s got nothing to do with this.” I stared at her. “Who is she?” “Roberta Martin,” said Garcia, Hendrix, and Buchanan simultaneously.

I put the van in park and turned to face them. “Who?”

“The greatest guitar player who ever lived,” said Morrison.

I shrugged. “I’ve never heard of her.”

“No reason you should have,” said Buchanan in his soft, soft voice. “She was killed by a drunk driver on her way to a gig in Nobelsville, Indiana in 1982.”

“Girl was so good it was scary,” said Hendrix.

Garcia nodded. “You got that right.”

“Never recorded a demo for anyone,” said Buchanan. “She was only 22 when she died.”

“I was only 25,” said Tommy Bolin.

“Yeah,” replied Hendrix, “but it was your own fucking fault. By the way, I want my ring back.”

“This one?” said Bolin, holding up his hand. “My girlfriend gave it to me.”

“That was the same ring I was wearing when I died,” said Hendrix. “How the fuck she wound up with it, I don’t know.”

Bolin removed the ring and tossed it to Hendrix. “It was kina tight, anyway.”

“Says you.” Hendrix slipped it back on his finger, and the two men smiled at each other.

“She’s a ghost,” said Cobain, pointing toward Roberta Martin. “We’re…shit, I guess you’d call us…what?” “Ulcerations of the idealized,” replied Entwistle. “Good going,” said Morrison. “We’re more than a memory but less than something alive.” “I still don’t understand.”

“Who says that we do, hon?” asked Billie Holiday.

In the street, Roberta martin stopped and turned toward the van. Everyone inside became quiet. She smiled at us, lifted her hand, waved, and then disappeared into the sleet.

“Girl had the fire,” said Hendrix, his voice suddenly sad. “She sure did,” replied Buchanan. Cobain nodded. “A fuckin’ shame.” Jerry Garcia leaned forward, passing halfway through Janis Joplin, who shared his seat. “You know anything about physics, Sam?” “A little, I guess.” “So you know how black holes are formed by stars that collapse inward on themselves, right?” “Okay…?” “And how matter can be reformed into anything as it passes through…I mean, at least theoretically?” I shrugged. “I guess, sure.”

“Then think of us as a something that’s come out of a black hole…only in this case, it’s a black hole of idealization, formed by a collapsing psyche.”

I opened my mouth to speak, then shook my head and looked at the Reverend.

“They’re not ghosts,” he said to me. “They’re the idealized versions of themselves. They’re not the people they were, they’re the icons, what they were imagined to be by those fans who idealized and worshipped them.”

I nodded. “The legends, not the human beings?”

“Right.” He looked back at our passengers. “Right?”

“Close enough,” said Morrison. “At some point, every one of us has been idolized by someone. Be idolized by enough people, and that idol-image becomes more real to them than you ever could be. Fuck, man, I had so many people calling me a ‘rock god’ that I started believing it myself.”

“I wouldn’t know, mate,” said Paul Kossoff.

I looked back at the guitarist. “But you were good. Back Street Crawler was a kick-ass album.”

“Thanks, mate. But after I left Free…” He shrugged. “All I was to the world—to whatever part of it still noticed me—was ‘ex-Free guitarist…’ And the only thing Free did that people still remember or care about was ‘All Right Now’.”

“But at least that’s remembered,” I said.

Kossoff smiled. “Yeah, there’s that.”

“All it takes,” said Buchanan, “is one person. One person idolizes you, and you’re screwed. Like it or not, from that moment on…you kinda split in two. Some part of you is always aware of the idol-half” he gave his head a little shake. “And it can mess with you.” “Amen,” said Cobain. Morrison tapped my shoulder. “You need to get moving again.” “Where are we going?” “Back to the good Reverend’s shelter.” “Why there?” “Because,” said Entwistle, “the source of the ulceration that brought us here should be there by now.” “You and your bloody loopy syntax,” said Keith Moon. “You always talked just like you played. Too damned busy for its own good.” “Coming from you,” said Entwistle, “I take that as a compliment.” “You would.” Then Moon smiled. “Good to see you again, Ox.” “Likewise.” I looked at the Reverend. “I’m scared.” He said nothing in return, and I knew. Despite what Morrison had said to us, the Reverend was scared, as well.