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“Hello,” I Lied
M. E. Kerr
For Bill Morris,
there from the very beginning,
cheerful companion on the road,
with thanks and love
Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
Twenty-seven
Twenty-eight
Twenty-nine
Thirty
Thirty-one
Thirty-two
Thirty-three
Thirty-four
A Personal History by M. E. Kerr
ONE
SOME PEOPLE SAID I’D never see him. Very few had seen him in ten years. That was when he quit playing, writing, performing—quit everything. Retired at thirty-two. Not burned out like some rockers. Just finished.
Ben Nevada was a star like Elvis, John Lennon, Dylan, or Mick Jagger. Even if he wasn’t around anymore, the name would be, the fame would be. He said it himself in “Flame.”
Let the fame go,
Let the game go,
But the flame glows,
And the fire grows,
I’m a fire!
We moved to Roundelay on Memorial Day weekend. You couldn’t even see his house from ours, although we were at the same address.
We had the caretaker’s cottage. It was down by the road near the gate, where the rottweilers lunged against the fence with their teeth bared, five of them, wearing red collars with silver spikes.
He’d never named them. He had a theory that if you named something, you grew fond of it. If you got fond of dogs, next thing you brought them into your house. He didn’t want them in there. He already had three house dogs, all of them chows.
The rottweilers weren’t pets. They were guards. He called them A, B, C, D, and E. He fed them himself. He drove down in his black Range Rover and tossed chunks of beef into their bowls. “Eat up!” he’d snarl at them. That was so they knew he was their master. He didn’t scratch their ears, pet them, or let them walk with him. He just watched them eat.
He knew A was the fat one, and C was the one who waited for the others to eat before he would. He knew their ways. But he saved his affection for the chows.
I’d been told all that by Franklin, the houseman.
“If you see him feeding the dogs, just take off. You probably won’t be up that early, anyway, but if you ever are, get lost!”
Of course, I saw him all the time on tape.
I’ll never forget the first time.
Remember “Night in the Sun”? Remember his entrance?
He came out wearing black leather thigh-high boots, red silk jockey shorts, and a long black leather trenchcoat. He wore a big gold star on a gold chain around his neck. Backing him up was his killer band: Bobby Dale on guitar, the Matero twins on keyboards. I can’t remember who was on bass, but Twist was on drums.
The song lasted five minutes and ended with him down on his knees, leaning backward all the way to the floor on this darkened stage with the overhead spotlight focused on him.
I never saw anything like it.
Even if I hadn’t been a rock fan, I would have remembered that performance. You don’t have to know anything about rock to be moved by it. All you need is eyes and ears and some connection with the human race. If you never had a heart, you grew one, listening to that husky voice wrenching out the words.
You wondered how he could put all that out there, come up with those moves, tap into everything you never knew was buried deep inside you. You wondered if he knew what he was causing you to feel, if he cared or didn’t care, if he was aiming at you or just letting go some wild stuff he couldn’t hold back if he wanted to.
The audience went crazy.
Even on tape you could feel yourself part of it. I almost cried. I did laugh. Hard. It was the first time I ever understood the pull of a Jesus or a Hitler. First time I ever knew what made people scream when a Magic ran out on the basketball court, or a Martina whacked a tennis ball across the net…. It made me appreciate what got into groupies, fans, worshippers, and followers.
So it was Ben Nevada who gave me my first real taste of charisma.
You can imagine how I felt when Mom told me who she was going to work for that summer.
I was seventeen going on eighteen.
After school was over in New York, I’d be living there full-time, too.
I was going to help out, do odd jobs, and five nights a week I’d be a waiter at Sob Story on the Montauk Highway.
Help out, hide out, cool out, come out—all four things at once.
That was the trouble that summer.
About all I was sure of was my name: Lang Penner.
TWO
“WHAT’S YOUR NAME? LANE?”
“No, sir. Lang.”
“Kind of a name is that?” he barked.
He stood on the dunes scowling down at me.
“Lang was my mother’s maiden name,” I said.
“Are you Lucy’s son?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t you know you’re not supposed to be down here?”
“I’m not supposed to be on the beach?”
“This is my beach!”
“I didn’t know that, sir.”
“This is the second time I’ve seen you down here.”
“Yes, sir. When we first moved in, I walked down here with a friend.”
“Walk down there.” He waved his hand at the beach farther down. He had two chows at his feet.
“Well, you’re here now, aren’t you?” he said. “Go fetch my other dog.” He tossed me a red leather lead. “You’ll need this. Plato is stubborn. He knows we’re heading back to the house.”
Some house. It was about 20,000 square feet. That early-summer morning it looked like a whole kingdom sifting into sight through the fog.
I whistled at the dog sitting in the sand, his black tongue out as he panted. Once Alex had owned a chow. I remembered him telling me they were the only dogs who didn’t have pink tongues.
Then I called, “C’mon, boy!”
Nevada snapped, “No! You have to go and get him! Plato doesn’t follow orders. He’s like you.”
“Nobody gave me any orders,” I mumbled.
I was
