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I used to get calls at three in the morning all the time. Made 'em, too. Didn't think anything of it—3 a.m. was like fucking happy hour. Done with work, call up your friends, figure out what the fuck is going on. Or something like that. Rock 'n roll. Life on the road.
One time I remember I called my buddy Gerry in Seattle. From Amsterdam. I didn't know what the fuck time it was in Seattle. Or Amsterdam. All I knew was he had no fucking excuse for being asleep.
Somebody in Amsterdam must've know how to hack the phones. It's not like we had credit cards or any shit like that.
These days, three in the morning is my quiet time. When things get rolling in the studio. I try to get in there most nights by nine. Maybe ten. Which means eleven. And really, I'm just hanging out until midnight. Looking at what I did the night before. Different angles.
Then something starts to happen. When the rest of the world has gone to sleep.
Which is why I looked at my phone funny when it rang last night.
3:23 a.m.
I picked it up, checked the CallerID. Lisa. Shit. I'd better answer.
We went through the usual dance. Yeah I was awake. Yeah I was in my studio. Yeah I was working. No I didn't mind.
And I didn't mind, really, although the game she was playing pissed the fuck out of me, because I knew, ultimately, she was calling about Sam.
So eventually she gets around to it. She needs me to take Samantha on Thursday night and Friday during the day.
She always calls her "Samantha" when she wants me to do something, as if I need to be reminded what her full name is, as if I'm some stranger who might think she's talking about a boy if she calls her "Sam."
The fucking little insults.
I told her it would have to be Thursday night through Saturday morning—my show was opening Friday night in Chicago. I told her I'd be happy to take Sam with me. It'd be great. Sam would have a blast at the opening.
Lisa had to think about that one.
You really have a show? she said.
Yeah, I said. A real gallery. I sent you a postcard.
I'm sorry, she said, I've been—
It's okay, I said. I know you've got shit going down at the center.
And then I explained to her how it was all legit. How the people who came to see Arbeit Macht Frei in 1983, they've got money now, and they wanna buy the bass player's art. How the gallery was putting me up in a nice hotel. How I'd get 'em to spring for an adjoining room for Sam, no problem. How I'd really, really love to have Sam with me at the reception.
And how I'd keep her away from the crack and the heroin and the whores.
I got a little laugh out of Lisa with that one.
A rueful little fuck of a laugh.
