Little Bit Better Than I Used To Be
Catch up: Chapter 1 (Starry Eyes) || Chapter 2 (Save Our Souls) || Chapter 3 (Dancing On Glass)|| Chapter 4 (Merry-Go-Round)|| Backstage (1) || Backstage (2) || Chapter 5 (Danger)|| Backstage (3) || Chapter 6A (Love Walked In) || Chapter 6B (Without You) || Backstage (4) || Chapter 7 (Stick To Your Guns) || Chapter 8 (Time For Change) || Backstage (5) || Chapter 9 (Take Me To The Top) || Backstage (6) || Chapter 10 (Home Sweet Home) || Backstage (7) || Chapter 11a (Nightrain) || Chapter 11b (Nothing Else Matters) || Chapter 12a (Handle With Care) || Chapter 12b (I’m So Tired of Being Lonely) || Chapter 13a (Angel) || Chapter 13b (She’s My Addiction) || Chapter 13c (Patience) Chapter 14a (Where Do We Go Now?) || Chapter 14b (Where Do We Go Now?) || Chapter 14c (Where Do We Go Now?) || Chapter 15a (Dreams) ||| Also posted at AO3
Chapter 15B: I Sing A Song of Love
Wilmington, North Carolina
Labor Day Weekend, 1988
~~~~~~~~
When I cannot sing my heart
I can only speak my mind
- “Julia”, The Beatles (1968) [click here to listen]
“How was Alec?”
Jamie drew back the covers of Dougal and Gillian’s guest bed, bending to kiss his wife’s bare shoulder. “Good. He’s been producing a record for a local New York band – some punk kids he saw at CBGB. He wanted my advice on something.” He settled against the headboard, rolling his shoulders. “He also said that Faith took some really good photos at the wedding. I asked him to send them to Colum.”
“Hold these for me?” Claire slipped off her rings. Carefully he took them, watching her rub lotion into the palms and backs of her hands.
“I know you don’t like it when I take them off, Jamie, but it’ll just be for a moment. I’ve been feeling so dry since we landed.”
He shrugged. “I don’t mind. And I hope the dryness is something you can get used to. If we’re really serious about the house.”
Dougal, God bless him, had introduced them to Amy – real estate agent extraordinaire, and former patient at The Ridge (“white wine,” she’d explained in the car from the airport. “I thought I had it under control until I crashed my car into the house I was about to show, right in front of the clients, and two empty wine bottles rolled up from under the seat”). Amy was smart, and low key, and had lined up showings for six beautiful homes tucked away in the mountains.
So much to think about.
But they had time, now. All the time in the world.
“I can get used to anything, Jamie. When I want to.” She held out her hand, and softly, gently he slid her engagement and wedding rings back onto her finger. Kissed her knuckles.
She smiled. Reached out to trace her name tattooed over his heart. The only tattoo on his chest – proudly visible to the world on the nights he played without a shirt.
“Would you add our wedding date?”
His heart raced beneath her thumb. “Maybe. But I was thinking that I could save the space for something else.”
She quirked an eyebrow.
He smiled.
“Maybe – the names of our children.”
Her thumbnail grazed his nipple. Eyes searing into his.
And then his mouth was on hers, sharing breath and laughs as they struggled under the thick comforter to find each other.
Sometime later, he slipped from her to turn off the lights in the room. Paused to light the candle on the bedside table. Heart stuttering with love as the shadows played across his wife’s smiling, sleepy face.
“What was the first tattoo you ever got?”
He tangled his legs with hers. “On the top of my left arm. The name of our band. Me, Ian, and Angus all got it at the same time.”
He shifted a bit, and she squinted in the candlelight – but there it was.
“That’s adorable.”
Jamie snorted. “Angus was the one who wanted it. We’d just signed our record deal, after three years of playing shitty club after shitty club, and getting stiffed by promoters who didn’t pay us, and dealing with some real next level bullshit. So we went out to celebrate, and Angus downed half a bottle of tequila, and Ian and I helped him with the other half, and before we knew it we were on a quest to find a tattoo parlor.”
She smiled. “And you and Ian got them by accident?”
He traced the long, sloping line of her clavicle. “Fuck no. Angus cried like a baby because it hurt so much. And then I wanted to show him how it’s done. And then I bulled Ian into it. It’s still the only tattoo his has. Jenny was so mad. But she’s over it now.”
“Does Angus have any more tattoos?”
“I have no idea. Why don’t you ask one of the groupies?”
She pushed him gently. “Stop. Charlotte and Molly are actually really nice girls. I think they genuinely care about him. From what they told me last week, they had a wonderful time in Aruba.”
“Please tell me they didn’t share any specific details.”
She rolled her eyes. “I know they’re both on the Pill, because they asked me for a prescription when they learned I was a doctor. Kind of awkward when I told them my license had been suspended, but I helped them get what they needed.”
Jamie buried his face in Claire’s shoulder. “That’s good. But I really don’t need that mental image. They’re both a foot taller than him, for God’s sake. How does that even work, in bed? Sounds like a complicated math problem.”
She kissed his forehead. “From what they told me, it’s not an issue.”
He shifted up, mouth finding hers in a kiss.
“Will it ever stop, Claire?” he whispered against her lips, after a long, long while.
He didn’t need to be more specific.
“I don’t know, Jamie.” She kissed him, long and sweet. “I really don’t. But I don’t want to ever find out.”
--
Two A.M. Neither could sleep – too much on their minds.
Sometimes it was like this on the road.
They speculated why. Too much post-show energy. An uncomfortable bed. Because no substances were available.
Or, as Jamie would say – too much life to live, to waste by sleeping.
“Play for me?”
He kissed her forehead and crawled out of bed, toward the guitar case.
She recognized it from their time at The Ridge. A bit of mother-of-pearl inlay on the neck. Sides worn with time and love.
The guitar he had written all those songs on, at The Ridge. The songs he had always played to her first, in the early morning before everyone else woke up. Feeling like the two of them were the only people in the world.
The same songs he now played, night after night, for thousands of people.
Every time still felt like the first time.
She sat up a bit in bed, leaning against the headboard. Watched Jamie sit beside her, candlelight playing over his arms and chest and hips.
“Any requests, Dr. Mrs. Fraser?”
She smiled.
“Surprise me.”
He smiled back. Thinking.
Strummed a few chords. Thinking.
Launched into song.
Half of what I say is meaningless
But I say it just to reach you, Julia
Looked up at his wife.
Her beautiful, beautiful face stricken with pain and grief.
He lay down the guitar. Pulled her to him, skin on skin.
Holding her, smoothing her hair, as she cried.
“Sshh. I’ve got you. I love you. Sshh.”
She took a deep, shuddering breath.
“My mother was named Julia,” she whispered into his neck. So softly that he felt it, more than heard it.
“I’m sorry. I never asked you about it. I didn’t mean – ”
“The White Album was the first record I bought with my own money. I used to listen to this song and think of her.”
He pulled her a bit closer. Wanting her to crawl inside his skin.
“I wonder sometimes what my life would have been like, if she and my dad hadn’t died when I was five.”
“If you would have become an addict, you mean?”
She twined her fingers with his. Thumb tracing his wedding ring. “If I would have married Frank. If I would have become a doctor. If I would have become an addict. If I would have met you.”
“All what ifs. You can’t drive yourself crazy that way, Claire.”
“It hurts, Jamie.” She closed her eyes. He kissed the tears sliding down her cheeks.
“I know, Claire.”
“I really wanted her to be at our wedding.”
“I know.”
“And your Mom, too.”
Ellen Fraser had died when Jamie was eight.
If anyone understood, it was him.
“Yes. I’m sorry. I never want to cause you pain, Claire.”
She took a deep breath. “I know, Jamie. And you couldn’t have known about the song.”
He kissed her cheek. “I can play another one.”
She shook her head. “No. I want you to play it. I need a new memory.”
He smiled. Gently turned her around so that he sat against the headboard with her back pressed against his front. Reached out for the guitar and settled it across Claire’s knees, his hands reaching around her to find the strings.
He strummed a bit. She relaxed a bit.
“You know, John Lennon wrote this song for his mother. She was also named Julia. He lost her when he was a young man – and he mourned her the rest of his life.”
He kissed the shell of her ear. Played another chord.
“It’s OK to mourn, Claire. And to remember.”
Began singing, low and quiet, into her ear.
Half of what I say is meaningless
But I say it just to reach you, Julia
Julia, Julia, ocean child, calls me
So I sing a song of love, Julia…
Safe in his arms.
“Love you,” she whispered, starting to drift away.
He finished the song. Carefully set the guitar on the carpet, and eased her back onto the bed. Holding her so close, so gently. A wonder.
“Dear God, I love you.”
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Patti Smith Group / John Cale / Television - The Palladium, New York City, December 31, 1976
I finally got around to Sonic Life, Thurston Moore's recent memoir, this month! You can read a few of my quick thoughts about it (along with some other nice recommendations) in the latest edition of the Aquarium Drunkard Book Club. As I mention, I was a little surprised at how much I enjoyed Thurston's memories of his teenage years, way before Sonic Youth was even a twinkle in his eye — A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Fan? From the suburbs of Connecticut, Moore made countless trips into NYC to soak in the punk/CBGB/Max's worlds, catching shows by The Ramones, Suicide, the Dead Boys, Sid Vicious ... and Patti Smith, of course.
Thurston paints an evocative portrait of this New Year's Eve blowout, which doubled as Patti's raucous 30th birthday party. He was dangerously high on mescaline.
"We zombied our way down the street to the Palladium and found our seats, and I sat in a state of tenuous control as Television arrived onstage. I figured if I just maintained my cool, the mescaline's threat of wiping out my sanity would begin to subside and all would be okay. 'A song by Dylan' — were the only words I remember Tom Verlaine saying to the audience as the band began to play a plaintive cover of 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door.' By the time John Cale and his group came onstage, I felt as though I were sliding slowly down the side of a porcelain sink, managing only the barest of friction, my reality threatening to fall into a drain hole never to return. I was gripped by the fear of losing myself completely, another entry on the list of acid casualties. I concentrated on specific thoughts, pinpricks of salvation that I'd cling to, slip from, then hold on to again. I feared that if I closed my eyes, I would be forever vanquished."
Happy new year?! All these decades later we can enjoy the Palladium gig via dusty audience tapes — your call if you want to drop a tab of mescaline while you listen. Interesting to hear Television at this point, with Marquee Moon more or less in the can, playing a much larger venue than ever before. They'd just finished several nights in a row at CB's — which is maybe that's why they sound a littttttle bit tired. But there's plenty of sweet stuff, of course, including a truly go-for-broke "Kingdom Come." Billy Ficca, baby! Cale, meanwhile, happily provides a bad trip soundtrack for Thurston's bad trip — a short but powerful set highlighted by a maniacal "Guts" and an even more maniacal "Fear Is A Man's Best Friend." That guy sure could scream.
And what about the belle of the ball — Patti herself? Let's hand it back to Thurston, who had recovered a bit by the start of her set. Here, he describes the all-star finale with Fred "Sonic" Smith joining the melee.
"Fred and Patti had become an item. Now here was Fred onstage, unassuming and spectral, as Patti howled and whirled. With 'My Generation' culminating in obligatory destruction, all players would eventually leave the stage except for the two Smiths. Like Fred, Patti had a Fender Duo-Sonic strapped on, and she leaned her head on her sweetheart's shoulder as both their guitars emitted a whistling-bird noise of feedback through the amps. How this translated to everyone around me, I couldn't say. For me, it was an emblematic vision of all I would ever desire from rock 'n' roll — transcendence, devotion, sonic love."
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