Eventually, Clay got over his blubbering and lumbered back to his feet.
Okay, Boyle told him. You ready now?
Clay stared into the empty space before him. “Ready for what?” he asked.
5
HEARTBREAK HOTEL
Hollywood wasn’t what he expected. Its boulevards were as grimy and hard as inner-city Philadelphia, and instead of Nicholson and DiCaprio traipsing along the Star Walk, there were motley crews of junkies, kooks, and unconvincing transvestites—and someone dressed in a Batman cowl and boxers and only a Batman cowl and boxers—wandering in and out of tattoo parlors and liquor stores and marijuana dispensaries. A far slimier setting than the Tinseltown the world had been sold.
Half a block north of Hollywood Boulevard stood The Knickerbocker, a boxy white mid-rise straight out of a film noir. Crossing the Art Deco lobby with its potted palms and glass chandeliers, Clay imagined himself as a Prohibition-era gangster, Tommy gun secreted in his guitar case, striding past overstuffed chairs where there were literally men in fedoras hiding behind newspapers. He arrived at the front desk and the middle-aged clerk rolled her eyes behind triple-thick glasses. “Savannah!” she called out. “Here’s another Hendrix to win your heart. Paging Savannah!”
A minute passed. Savy didn’t materialize out of the back room, but someone else did. Clay hardly recognized him with his suit and carefully parted hair. But as the suit reached out to soul-shake, the sleeve drew up and there was no mistaking the colorful tattoos beneath. “Spider?”
The drummer grinned sheepishly and explained how his father had managed The Knickerbocker since the 70s, and that, in addition to teaching drum lessons at Dooley’s Den—which wouldn’t have paid the rent in a Skid Row crackhouse—he, Spider, had been groomed to take the old man’s place. “He’s caught himself a dose of cancer,” Spider added. “The survivable kind. Meanwhile my mother’s out of work taking care of him, so I’m sort of holding down the fort with this monkey suit.” He shrugged—just another rebel forced to play square.
“Great place to work though,” Clay assured him. “You can feel the history.”
“Yeah, it’s boring now, but this used to be the Hollywood hotel. Everyone stayed here.”
Clay stared around the lobby, as if Nicholson would spring out from behind one of the potted palms, after all.
“Don’t ask me who though. I grew up less than a mile from here, which means I have zero interest in movies or celebrities or anything to do with either.”
Clay laughed. “Fair enough.”
“In case you haven’t noticed the average age around here, we’re more of a retirement home now. Where Old Hollywood comes to die. I manage a staff of care providers and administrators, even maids—that’s what Savy does. Although she’d probably dead-leg me for telling you that.” They walked a short marble hall to an elevator bank that still had its gilded doors and vintage arrows, swinging back and forth to show what floor the car was on. “She and Fee are here already. I’ll take you up.”
“Up?”
Clay had imagined they would be playing in some out-of-the-way boiler room. Instead, they entered one of the guest elevators and the car shuttered closed and carried them high above the streets. “Working in this place,” Spider went on, “does have one perk.”
The elevator seemed to increase in speed the higher they went. Spider tapped his foot to the chug-chugging of the old machinery, typical drummer, full of pent-up energy, always moving, fidgeting, pacing, bobbing his head, his whole body a wind-up spring that never fully wound down. When the car pulled to a stop—so abruptly they both took a sideways step—the door opened to reveal the 11th Floor. Made it, Ma. Top of the world!
Ahead was a dusty-looking corridor with green carpeting and mahogany doors—once the high-water mark of eloquence, now just old, scratched, and forlorn. “No one lives up here anymore.” Spider gestured down the corridor and curled his fingers to indicate where it turned at a right angle. “You’ll see a black door at the end of the second stretch of hall. I punch the clock in twenty, so I’m going down to finish up.”
Before Clay could think of a proper reply, the elevator had swallowed Spider again and a hush fell over the floor. The barest minimum of light leaked from every third or fourth fixture, giving the place the look and feel of a mummy’s tomb. Clay didn’t doubt there were ghosts, celebrity or otherwise, in residence here. “Maybe I’ll make some new friends tonight,” he told no one in particular. After the week he’d had, Clay didn’t doubt anything.
Two nights had passed before Clay could face Boyle again. In their first exchange, the voice had asked him if he was “ready.” To play, man, Boyle elaborated. Why do… ink I used the guitar… attention? And Clay had stammered, “But—how are you still here?”
I ne… eft, came the reply.
“You never left?”
…reposed for years… silence… want, no, need to… music again.
An awkward silence followed this revelation.Clay clutched the Rick in his arms, but was not in fact ready, preferring to talk more, to warm up to the idea of… what the hell was this even called? Friendly paranormal discourse? Besides, to say there was pressure in playing to a one-man audience, when that one man was your hero, was a little like saying The Beatles had sold a few records and were worshipped by a few Beatlemaniacs. Combine that with the shady notion that this was Clay’s hero disembodied, and his nerves were a live wire, hands shaking and his feet jumping out of time.
For his part, Boyle’s ghost seemed to understand all of this. It will… in time. Check b… later. Only, leaving the Generator in a drunkard’s sway, Clay doubted he’d ever have courage enough to step inside again.
So the sun rose and set while he kept away. And then the cycle repeated. Then—
His curiosity, and a kamikaze desire to fulfill his heart’s intention—to
