For All Nails #164: Under Heartbeat City's Golden Sun
by Johnny Pez
"Jackie, what took you so long?" said Rick O'Casey as his fiancée entered the hotel room.
"Just a holiday," Elliot Weston muttered in a sarcastic aside to his bandmate Robin Davidson.
Fortunately, Rick didn't hear, his attention focused on Jackie Rojas as she swept into the room and fastened herself to his side. "The drive up from Michigan City took longer than I thought," she said nonchalantly.
"You drove here from the Big Windy?" said Rick in astonishment, though Elliot didn't know why Rick was so surprised. Mexicans drove everywhere, and even though Jackie had lived in the CNA for years, she was still a Mexican through and through. Not, Elliot reminded himself, that there was anything wrong with that.
Evidently dismissing his wonderment, Rick went on. "Ah well, what matters is that you're finally here!" Rick took her into his arms and planted a great big kiss on her mouth, which Jackie returned with her usual lack of enthusiasm.
It just went to show, Elliot thought to himself, that you should never put too much stock in national stereotypes. Jackie was just about as far from being everyone's idea of the typical chica caliente as you could get. She dressed as drably as a New England preacher, in shapeless black skirts and pullovers, and her emotional range ran the gamut from neutral to nonexistent. Ever since he had taken up with her, everyone in North America had wondered what Rick saw in her. Elliot, who had known Rick since they were lads together in Kent, was just as mystified as everyone else.
"You're just in time," Rick said to Jackie after unfastening his lips from hers, "we were just about to head down to the theater for the sound check." Elliot sighed to himself as he followed the couple out of the room. Jackie hadn't been the only one enjoying her holiday in Michigan City. Her absence from the tour had been sweet, sweet relief to Elliot.
The band were accompanied on their livery ride down to the theater by a local journalist whose name Elliot never learned. As usual, he directed all his questions at Rick and Jackie.
- Q: So what do you two think of Heartbeat City?
- R: Pulsin' town, man, really pulsin' town.
- J: It is bleak and windswept. I find it strangely compelling.
- Q: Jackie, I've heard they're putting on an exhibition of your paintings at the Gallivan Museum in New York.
- J: Yes.
- Q: Uh, so, uh, that's pretty exciting, don't you think?
- J: No.
- Q: Uh. Uh, Rick, when do you think the group will be releasing their next phonosuite?
- R: Well, we've been working on some really sharp new songs, I think our listeners are really gonna be hit for six when they hear 'em.
- Q: We've been hearing rumors lately that you and Jackie have been collaborating on some of the new songs. Is that true?
- J: We have created a series of atonal compositions.
- R: Yeah, really sharp, you know?
Elliot shook his head. Well, at least she was honest enough not to call them "songs". Whether Jackie's ... compositions ... would be appearing on the next Lokes phonosuite was currently a matter of deep contention within the group. The vote was currently four to one against. By a strange coincidence, the vote on giving Jackie a vote was also currently four to one against.
The vote on making the Lokes a quartet was currently deadlocked at two all, but Elliot had hopes that Gregory Finch was starting to come around.
The livery deposited them by the stage door of the theater, where the group's manager, Buck McGrath, was chewing on one of his Cuban cigars. "Glad to see you finally decided to stop over," he growled. "You're supposed to go on in two hours, and that means that you've barely got time for a sound check before Vitavision goes on." Vitavision was a local group from Flange who had been opening for the Lokes during their swing through Manitoba.
The microphones were lined up on the stage, and one by one Elliot and the other members recited scraps of poetry, sang bits of their songs, and otherwise tested out their voices while the sound techs fiddled with their equipment. Then the five of them lined up together. After a brief consultation, they decided to sing one of their early hits, "Moving in Bi-aural".
With Benjy Anders and Robin singing backrhythm, Elliot joined Rick and Gregory to produce the group's trademark three-part harmony.
- In her dress of blue and coral
- Every time I see her there
- When she's moving in bi-aural
- Then to me she's twice as fair
Just like always, when he started singing, Elliot forgot about the stress of being on the road, forgot about the arguments, even managed to forget about Jackie sitting there in the wings.
- I won't rest upon my laurel
- Till I finally make her mine
- When she's with me in bi-aural
- I'll be feeling twice as fine
Now there was only him, his bandmates, and the music -- the way it always had been. The way it should be.
- Heaven help me if we quarrel
- And she leaves this lonely lad
- If we break up in bi-aural
- It will make me twice as sad
If only, he thought, if only the music could go on forever.
- Now it's time to point my moral
- Because then it's plain to see
- When we're moving in bi-aural
- Then she's twice as dear to me
Elliot Weston lost himself in the familiar song. He closed his eyes and he slipped away.
Forward to FAN #165: And the Walls Came Down.
Forward to 10 August 1975: Flyers and Fulcrums.
Return to For All Nails.