But to his father’s wondering look, Clay didn’t blink.
It wasn’t that Peter was a shitty father, just that he’d devoted himself thoroughly to his eighty-hour work weeks, determined to give his family more than the blue-collar poverty he’d grown up in. And in that, he’d succeeded tremendously—at the relatively small expense of getting to know his son. Clay’s mother, Tracy, had been the familial link between them. But Tracy was gone now and that left the two of them to figure each other out.
The old man did know a few things—that Clay played guitar, that he had trouble making friends, that he was reluctant about going to college and spending his life in a hermetically sealed office—but he wouldn’t have guessed that Clay’s favorite movie was Eddie and the Cruisers or that he’d spent the bulk of his eighteenth birthday nosing up cocaine with his part-time girlfriend. Or that when Tracy packed Clay off the following July it wasn’t to Europe, but to inner-city rehab. And Peter surely didn’t know that Clay’s one and only ambition in life was to front his own band and live the Rocco Boyle life (even if it meant suffering the Rocco Boyle fate); only his mother had known and she’d taken his secret—like rehab and so many other things—to her grave.
“I haven’t the foggiest,” Peter told the realtor. “Does Rocco pitch for the Angels?”
“No, no,” Vanessa laughed. “He sang and played guitar in a band called Rocket Throne. Go back eight years and they were the biggest rock act in the world. Unfortunately, Boyle had issues with substance abuse. His girlfriend… OD’ed one night in the main house and when Boyle realized what had happened, he… he came back here and… well…”
“Awful,” Peter replied. Though Clay could see his wheels turning, the shrewd investor asserting himself. “There’s room for negotiation then?”
“Just the opposite. You’d be surprised how many freaks want to live where a rock star died. Offers have exceeded four times what it’s going for.”
“Then why’s it on the market at all?”
Vanessa shook her head. “That’s the thing—it’s never been on the market. After Boyle passed, he left it to a member of his touring crew. The man and his family have endured the fans and tour buses and occasional flyover, but they have young daughters and would like to raise them in a less popular place. I’m a friend of the family, and they’ve asked me to show the place and maybe field offers from people who fall in love with the property, not its history.”
“Well, that sounds like us—am I right, Clay? I mean, do you listen to any Rocker Bone?”
“I prefer James Taylor,” Clay said, and tried hard not to laugh.
“We’re not interested in the past,” Peter went on. “That’s why we’re in L.A. The price is scary-high, but if your friends were willing to bargain—how ’bout it, son?”
The excitement in his father’s voice threw Clay, as did the word son. No doubt Peter had the capital—he worked hard and spent little, and his bank account and investments, not to mention Tracy’s life insurance, were certainly heftier than he’d have admitted—but Clay was nevertheless amazed. There was something different about his father these days. Tracy’s death had shaken him, had shaken them both, and maybe the old man was trying to step out of himself a little, give them something. A house on a hill. A view to look out on while they mended their lives.
“Does this mean you’ll be putting an offer in?” Vanessa looked to Clay, correctly identifying him as the emotional linchpin.
Clay glanced up at the Generator’s high loft window and imagined himself on the other side of that pane, smiling down at them. “Yeah,” he said. “This place is ours now.”
In a game of free association, when prompted with the words Rocket Throne and location, most fans would have said Hollywood, the same way you would say New York for The Ramones or Seattle for Nirvana. Though none of its members were actually from Hollywood (who the hell was?), Rocket Throne had been spawned in the prolific currents of the Sunset Strip, like Guns N’ Roses and The Doors and a hundred acts before them. So when tourists went looking for the infamous Boyle House, their time was often wasted wandering the Hollywood Hills. Boyle had taken up residence elsewhere for just this reason. He had wanted to escape the clubs and parties, the groupies and hangers-on, and the drugs, most of all. And for a while, in the foothills of sleepy, suburban Burbank, Boyle had succeeded. The demons had let him be.
In the end, though, Rocco Boyle wrote his own cautionary chapter of rock history, right there in his home studio, and that was why Vanessa the realtor cautioned them about their chances of getting the house. Still, the funny thing about one-in-a-million odds—there was always that “one.” Gamblers
