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Joe
Ace had turned to face Joe full on and over his shoulder, caught a glimpse of Edie who was looking at her hands that were twisting a paper napkin into a knot. God only knew what was going on in her head, and Joe wondered if Nanou and Silvestre were managing to keep up. Gus downed his wine and poured another glass and had he not needed to keep a clear head for a while longer, Joe would’ve grabbed the bottle and drank from that, but Ace also demanded his attention.
‘Dad, what do you mean it’s true? Have these women got something on you?’ His face was pale and his eyes, well they were those of a four-year-old who once asked, ‘Are you really going to be my daddy?’
‘Son, I don’t know…’ Joe saw Ace’s body tense and quickly reworded his answer. ‘I didn’t say that right… what I mean is I never, ever slept with a minor, I just wouldn’t. Young girls are not my thing but–’
‘Dad, just tell us, we need to know the truth no matter how bad it is and buts are scary. But always comes before something you don’t want to hear, like when you’re going to be disappointed or there’s bad news coming or like when Nanou says “I was going to make pancakes, but I have no flour”–’ Ace was in panic mode and just as Joe reached out and laid his hand on his son’s arm to halt and comfort him, he saw Edie’s hand appear on Ace’s shoulder, like she’d read their minds.
‘Son, stop – it’s okay. Just let me explain.’ Joe waited, and when Ace replied with silence, he continued. ‘I’m going to tell you what it was like, back in the day, so you might get a picture of my life then, not the stuff you know about, the stuff that I keep in here,’ he tapped the side of his head, ‘the stuff me and Gus saw, things we know about.’
Removing his arm from Ace’s, Joe grabbed the bottle of wine and poured the remainder in the glass, enough for one large swig which he took before leaning forward, his elbows pressed against the table to keep him upright when he just wanted to sag. Clasping his hands together for strength, while by his side, Ace spun the silver rings on his finger, and the others looked on, and Joe told them his truth.
‘When NorthStar got signed, me and the lads were just daft kids really. Me and Denny were the oldest, just turned twenty-three, Chaz and Steve were twenty-one and to say we threw ourselves into our new life… well put it like this, we sprinted headlong right into it. Our motto was live for the moment, and we did, every second of every hour and considering we thought living in London was wild, going to the States blew our minds. But I’m getting ahead of myself, and I want to tell you about me, how my head worked back then so you can see it through these eyes.
‘I have, what the quacks call an addictive personality and they’re right because once I started I couldn’t stop, drinking at the start, a bit of weed now and then. I had a temper on me too. After a gig up in Leeds me and Denny got into a huge fight, worse than any we’d ever had before about fuck knows… Ah, that was it – who was paying for petrol on the way home. And after we’d smashed up the lounge in the working men’s club where we were playing, we called it a day. Actually, we scarpered.’ He paused for a minute and decided against giving too much detail. ‘I’d been smacked on the head by a pool ball, so once I’d got cleaned up, Chaz took the van and I stayed with a girl I’d hooked up with. Stevie got the train back to Manchester cos he said he was sick of us all, and fuck knows where Denny went, and I didn’t care.’
Joe paused, trying to decide what to do with the imaginary remote control in his head – tempted to go back to that long hot summer where he got his head straight and wrote some of the best music of his life, a place where none of the shit he was about to face existed. Or fast-forward and stick to the facts. He pressed >> x 30 and arrived in 1981, Gus’s office, signing their names on a contract, smiling for the camera and shaking hands with their new hotshot agent.
‘After signing with Gus and the label, appearing on everything and our UK tour selling out, before we could catch our breath, go home and see our families even, we headed to Europe. That’s where we really got a taste for stardom and when the chicks and the drug thing really started. We were four randy lads who were used to getting told to piss off when we tried to pull, and then the next thing we know getting laid was the norm. Everywhere we looked, at parties, clubs, at the hotel there was always a bevy of women vying for our attention and we were more than willing to oblige. There’s a song, by that English band, can’t think of their name, that lists all the women the song is for – and whenever I hear it, it makes me wonder about the women I slept with, whose names I never even knew, let alone remember their faces. I’ve been thinking about stuff like that a lot lately. P’raps it was a portent, or just that hate mail we’ve been getting…’
‘Dad, you’re wandering again.’ Lance, as always, wanted to get back to business, not recognising a moment or that his dad was suffering. Regardless, Joe took the hint.
‘The second we broke the US, it became unreal. I remember flying to New York in a private jet, looking out the window and thinking, This is it. The funny thing is, that would have done me, getting a deal, seeing a bit of the world, making a few quid, getting stoned, pissed, and laid on a regular basis. I had no idea how big we were going to be or the mess we’d make of some of it.’
It was true, if he could go back in time to that day on the plane he’d make the pilot turn back and set a course for London because the next few years were not only a blur, but the beginning of a life that since settling at La Babinais Joe had learned to do without. He could have saved lives just by staying home. But there was no rewind button, just play.
‘With our first US number one under our belt, we settled in LA and I don’t have to tell you about what happened next, you all know the story. Again, like kids in a sweet shop we threw ourselves into the world of Hollywood. There were times I lost a week to pills and booze, if it was Wednesday and you told me it was Sunday I’d have believed you. It didn’t really matter anyway, not when we had no worries, a nice house, fucking ridiculous cars as big as bars, the best of everything. We were the record label’s golden boys and they kept us sweet: what we wanted we got and in return we made them money. Everyone reaped the rewards of NorthStar.’
Ace interrupted; his mind was obviously ticking faster than Joe’s. ‘Dad, we know all this. You weren’t a saint, and I don’t care about you taking drugs and your rock-and-roll lifestyle… I want to know where these women come into the story, the ones who have stuff on NorthStar.’
He didn’t mean it, but Ace’s words were like rips in Joe’s heart. The thought of his baby, the band he’d started in his dad’s garage, a name that was adored by millions, on the cover of triple platinum albums and emblazoned on T-shirts across the globe being tarnished, was sacrilege. But Ace was right, his kids knew all this, but what they didn’t know about made him squirm.
‘Sorry son… I’ll try to stay in a straight line, no wandering off the path. The werewolf might get me, and if it’s not him, someone’s going to, that’s for sure.’ A glare from Lance, a deep breath, then a leap back in time–
‘There were certain clubs on Sunset Strip where it was cool to hang out, places to be seen. The Rainbow Bar and Grill, Whisky a Go Go, and the English Disco run by a guy called Rodney Bingenheimer. The place was a magnet for young women desperate to hook up with someone famous, or a guy who knew a guy in the business who might get them a gig, a bit part on a show. Or some of them just came to party and have fun and escape from whatever and whoever they were running away from.’
It was the tut from Lance that caused Joe to slam his palm on the table, the tension finally getting to him. The action startled everyone. The words that fell from his lips were not intended to soothe, rather hit home, bring a bit of realism to their door and he wanted to knock on Lance’s the loudest.
‘Don’t ever do that again, okay…? Learn to think before you open your mouth, son, because sometimes it’s too fast and too smart-ass and one of these days it’s going to get you in the shit. Have some respect if nothing else.’ Joe knew Lance hated to be called out, even more so around a table full of people and the anger in his son’s eyes was no surprise.
Lance came out kicking, attack always his form of defence. ‘What? So, I’m wrong, when you’re the one defending a bunch of women who wanted to get laid so they could get on in life?’
Christ, his son was shallow, and arrogant and blinkered and… which was why Joe couldn’t stop himself. ‘Fuck it. D’you know where I met your mum? Well, I’ll tell you shall I? Yeah, the official story is that it was at a fancy house in Bel Air, some billionaire tit throwing a party for his fucking cats, might have been a monkey, who gives a shit. Your mum was there, trying to keep in with the in-crowd but I’d actually bumped into her once before, at the Rainbow Bar where she was wrapped around the shoulders of the guy who cast her in her first TV role. So maybe next time you speak to mother dearest you should ask her about how a nobody like her got invited to that party and a bit-part in a crap, afternoon show…’
‘Joe, Lance, that’s enough.’ It was Gus. ‘Leave it.’ He gave a slow warning shake of the head, his eyes telling Joe to quit, a look he knew well and always took heed of, unlike some because Lance was raging now. He stood and as he did his chair flipped onto the floor. Silvestre leant over and stood it back up.
‘How fucking dare you speak about my mom like that in front of–’ For once he managed to bite his tongue. ‘Take that back, Dad, take it back right now.’
‘I can’t, son, because today is for the truth and if you don’t want to hear it then leave the room. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings but you’re a grown man, you live in the real world not a set made of cardboard so deal with it. Your mother is a good woman, she’s a star, she did great, but we all have a past and as I said, if you ask her, maybe she’ll tell you all about what happened back then. It’s her story, her song, her life, and I just gave you the intro. The rest is up to Darlene. Like being here is your choice. Stay or go but I ain’t taking it back.’
Ace spoke next, his voice weary with a hint of melancholy. ‘Dude, sit down, listen to Dad… he’s right because I know that when he’s talking about those girls, he’s also talking about my mum too. The difference is everyone knows her story, she’s not bothered by it and why should she be? She was a runaway, left her small hometown in Nebraska to get away from her mum’s boyfriend. She wanted a new life, did things she wished she didn’t to survive and earn a dollar and yeah, she was wild, but that’s the end of it. I have no desire to know what she got up to because it’s in the past. And whatever it was, she was still a person inside, a scared little kid who ran away at sixteen, feeling safer on the road than in her own bed, someone who never did anyone any harm, even when people weren’t kind or understanding towards her. She’s my mum who loved me and that’s all I care about, and your mum is the same.’
There were times when Joe thought it was impossible to love Ace more than he did, but this was one of those times, and there had been many over the years when his son’s words made him want to weep and let all the love inside his body flow and wrap around this wonderful kid, a beautiful man, his boy always.
Joe couldn’t speak so Gus did it for him. ‘Sit down, Lance and listen to what your dad has to say. Ace is right, and remember, everyone in this room is a friend and what is said here today will go no further.’ He looked around the table and as everyone nodded, Lance lowered himself into his seat, his narrowed eyes flicking towards Edie while his lips remained silent, as did whatever thoughts lingered on them.
Frown lines creased Gus’s forehead, the skin beneath the grooves pale. ‘Joe, you were telling us about the clubs.’
