“Thanks,” Pam said.
“Do you know Joe Harris? It looked to us like maybe you know him.”
“We’re friends.”
“He’s so talented. Does he—does he—” Her friend elbowed her, and she rephrased her question. “Are you his wife?”
“I don’t think he’s ever had a girlfriend in his life,” Pam said. Seeing their disappointment, she added, “He’s not gay. Just shy.” She smiled at the absurdity of what she’d just said. Girls were shy of Joe, shying away soon after he opened his mouth to speak. Elevation onto the stage of CBGB, with well-rehearsed lyrics to sing at high volume, must have enhanced his sex appeal.
His new number one fan took the smile as reassurance. She giggled, not even trying to hide her relief, while her friend squealed at her, “I told you that wasn’t his baby!”
“I should introduce you,” Pam said. “He’s coming over now.”
The girls drew away to regroup. Joe hugged Pam, spoke with her briefly, and turned to stare at them both. They ran out of the club.
TO DANIEL’S SURPRISE, MAXWELL’S BOOKED JOE. HE WOULD HAVE BEEN LESS SURPRISED if he had seen the single up on the wall at Pier Platters, priced at twelve dollars, classed as a limited-edition rarity because he still hadn’t found a distributor.
Maxwell’s was a club at the far end of Hoboken, a full nautical mile away from the PATH train to Manhattan, specializing in new and obscure acts. Some were obscure without being new—Daniel had seen Sun Ra there not long before his death—but most were both. The club invited Joe to open for a band that was opening for a band that was opening for a band that was opening for the Honeymoon Killers.
Joe asked Pam to sit in on guitar. Drums could stay optional if he made the bass loud enough, but someone had to fill the chinks in his crushing wall of sound, or so he said. The debate went back and forth until her final stern refusal. She wasn’t feeling very rock and roll—she weighed six pounds more than before she got pregnant—but her main reason was Joe’s sound. On the single it was refreshingly open and airy, more like an arbor than a wall. A million indie rock bands (or what seemed like a million to her, meaning several, all from the Pacific Northwest) featured guitars screaming high over bellowing male voices. Only Joe saved that Fender Jaguar role for himself. His vocals soared over the percussive rumbling like Grace Slick’s on “White Rabbit.” If it took some electronics to make it work live, so be it.
That was her view, and Daniel more or less agreed, though he would have liked to see her onstage with Joe. She was female and women were trendy. But he wasn’t about to force it. As she said, guitar didn’t fit with what Joe was doing. The sound of the single seemed to them an accident of fate, but it was an accident they liked. In the silence of his brain, Daniel called it “bliss-core.” He didn’t plan to put that in a press release, though. A new set of accidents could change it at any moment.
THE SOUND CHECK AT MAXWELL’S WENT FINE, WITH THE USUAL EXCEPTIONS FOR strangers being irritated by Joe. He was delighted and excited by everyone and everything. He forgot to plug in his bass and sang half a song a cappella, proving once and for all that he didn’t think the instrumentation much mattered. When Daniel yelled, “Plug in!” he found the end of the cable, shoved it into his bass, and finished the song in a storm of arpeggios. He looked ebullient about being so much louder than before. The soundman said he was meshuga, but he didn’t seem to mean it in a bad way.
The hall wasn’t full for his set, but there were people in attendance. Pam and Daniel could see that many were the proper kind—indie rock fans, as indicated by their pocket tees in dark colors, unbuttoned plaid flannel shirts worn as jackets, and vintage PF Flyers or comparable footwear. Also present were two men of a dubious sort. “Major label scouts,” Pam hissed. They were dressed in sport coats and talked to each other in loud voices throughout Joe’s opening number. She heard one of them call his music “rad,” as if “rad” were current slang.
Carrying Flora, she went to stand in front of them. Every time they moved, she moved. When they eyed the rear of the club, plainly considering sitting down on the big PA speakers stored there, she went to those same speakers to change Flora’s diaper. Seeing the diaper from the inside, the scouts decamped to the bar.
A less streetwise musician might not have chased major label scouts away from Joe. But indie rock had arisen from desperate necessity, to offer artists an alternative to exploitation. The recording industry had once paid musicians flat fees. The contemporary way to stiff them while cultivating an appearance of generosity was to charge publicity against their royalties. Every video, tour bus, and hotel room came straight out of the artist’s pocket. Long before peer-to-peer file sharing and online streaming, a star could have big hits and be broke.
As Joe was starting his last song, Pam saw the cute girl from CBGB. She was alone, rushed and hectic, still wearing her coat. She had arrived when his set was nearly done. Pam could see the disappointment in her face. She strolled over. The girl noticed her with relief. She mimed looking at her watch and turned up her hands helplessly. She knew she was late. When the song was over, and she was done clapping and whooping and yelling “Encore!” and “Hold the key!” she turned to Pam and said, “I had to find someone to cover the shift after mine. That’s why I’m late.”
“What’s your name?”
“Eloise.”
“No way.”
The girl closed her eyes in deep embarrassment and clenched her fists, and Pam realized belatedly that she was shy. Eloise fled toward the stage, where Joe was launching into his encore, “Splash 1” by the 13th Floor Elevators. He saw her and stared at her. He sang the entire song looking into her eyes.
The rock repertoire includes several songs an informed person might call romantic, such as “God Only Knows” by the Beach Boys, but few can compete with “Splash,” the work of a mystic at the height of his powers. Soon after its composition, those powers defeated Roky Erickson, and he turned his genius to the service of the devil and the Martian voice in his head, but in “Splash” he was as yet untainted.
It was too much for Eloise. When Joe had finished emoting, she had to be alone. She ceased from clapping and hid in the bathroom to fix her face. The ladies’ room at Maxwell’s was a single. Because the mirror occupied the same space as the toilet bowl, a person could miss an entire set waiting in line. There she stood at the mirror and found herself wanting. She looked in vain for the neon splashing from her eyes.
Pam gave up looking for her and joined the queue. When Eloise finally came out, wincing at the sight of her, Pam hesitated briefly. She wanted to introduce her to Joe. She thought it might be of significant positive import for Joe’s future. But she had to pee, so she stayed in line. By the time she emerged, Eloise was gone.
IN THE TAXI GOING HOME, SHE SAID TO JOE, “THAT CUTE GIRL INTRODUCED HERSELF TO me. Her name is Eloise. I think she likes you.”
“I’m the original bitch magnet,” Joe said.
“What cute girl?” Daniel asked.
“The Joe Harris fan club. She came in for the last two songs and stared at him in a trance, like she’s from that tract Hippies, Hindus and Rock & Roll. Short brown hair, flowered dress?”
“Earth to Pam,” Daniel said. “‘Cute’ means sexy, not frumpy.”
“Frumpy
