Checker and the Derailleurs. Lionel Shriver

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      “Amusing, but finally bogus. I didn’t go along with the brouhaha over the album when it first came out.”

      “Come on!” said the man. “It came out in ’68! You were listening to Iron Butterfly when you were one?”

      Eaton couldn’t wait to turn thirty and do the same thing to kids sitting next to him. In the meantime, he listened to the radio with a pencil, and haunted the aisles of Tower Records like a law student in the stacks, studying jackets like torts, reading the fine print—dates, producers. He put together histories of who left what band and started this one, reading Rolling Stone cover to cover, determined never to be caught out by aging rock has-beens in Manhattan again.

      Eaton yearned for a club where patrons knocked him on the shoulder and cleared room for him at the bar, where the waitresses knew him by name and remembered his liquor brands. Eaton liked to be recognized, and Astoria should have been the place for that; a small-towny Greek neighborhood in Queens with friendly shopkeepers and good-old-boy bars, Astoria would transplant easily to the middle of Iowa. Eaton’s failure to carve a niche even here was one more of those disconcerting challenges to his stature, for if he went to the same bar several nights running, Eaton would sure enough get recognized, but no one seemed very happy to see him.

      Besides, everyone said Plato’s was “good,” though the word had put Eaton off distinctly. They said it the way you’d say a “good woman,” meaning ugly. Plato’s was a “good club” the way you’d say Jerusalem was good, somewhere in the Bible.

      The following Friday night Eaton kept putting on his coat and taking it off again. He’d flounce in a chair, tap his fingers, turn up the radio—Journey. Awful. Off. Tap, tap, tap. Finally, he grabbed the cashmere once and for all and rushed out the door.

      Gliding in with his crew, Eaton glanced hastily around the club; when he failed to find what he was looking for, his stomach sank, just as it had when Charlotte showed up at his gigs without Stephanie. The place suddenly felt flat. This time, Eaton wondered why he’d concerned himself with Plato’s at all—low-lit and woody, with no track lighting or rippling bulbs around the bar, the club made no effort at any kind of effect. Furthermore, at almost midnight, there was no music. Maybe The Derailleurs were on a break, but if so they couldn’t have bubbled anybody’s hormones—the immediate feeling of the crowd was subdued, even depressed. No one was talking very loud, and everyone seemed sober.

      “This place is sure different from last time,” said Brinkley.

      “This isn’t a club, it’s a morgue!” said Gilbert.

      They sat in the corner, refreshingly disgusted.

      “I thought there was supposed to be live music here,” Eaton charged the waitress.

      She sighed. “Well, it’s happened again. You know. Check. Maybe next week. Maybe even tomorrow.”

      “You lost me.”

      She looked at Eaton more closely. “Oh, you’re new here, aren’t you?”

      “I have to be a member?”

      “No, it’s just regulars are used to this. Checker—disappears.” Raising her eyes enigmatically, she swished her tray to the next table.

      That explained it, for the rest of The Derailleurs were all propped at the front table. Breathing in her cloying wake reminded Eaton of passing cosmetics counters, with their nauseating reek of mixed perfumes.

      Standing abruptly in the middle of Brinkley and Gilbert’s riveting debate over tequila-salt-lemon vs. tequila-lemon-salt, Eaton swirled his black cashmere greatcoat around his shoulders and strode to the lead guitar.

      “Not playing tonight?” Eaton inquired.

      “Our head man just won an all-expenses-paid trip to Florida,” said the blond longhair dourly.

      “That’s surprising, for a band with your reputation—”

      “What have you heard about The Derailleurs?” asked the straight kid, whose ears stuck out from his head.

      “We don’t need to hear about The Derailleurs, Howard,” said the longhair. “We are The Derailleurs. We know all about us already.”

      “I was wondering,” said Eaton, “since your delinquent member—”

      “Nobody said he a delinquent,” said the big black bassist.

      “Your man in Florida, then.”

      “Our man,” said the bassist firmly, “period.”

      Eaton took a breath and smiled. “Of course. It’s just, I’ve kicked around the drums myself. I’m only so good, but if you stuck to covers I could keep a steady three-four. I wouldn’t presume to equal your own stunning percussionist. But for the hell of it, maybe I could fill in?” Eaton looked gamely around the table.

      “As the manager—” Howard began.

      “Howard listens,” said the guitarist.

      “Would he like to listen tonight?” asked Eaton solicitously.

      “No.”

      They turned toward the end of the table. The Middle Eastern saxophonist had folded his arms. “We half our drummer.”

      “On the contrary,” said Eaton, “it seems that you don’t.”

      “You say you not so good. Why we play with you, not-so-good?”

      “Excuse me, but can he understand me? I see we have some second-language problems here.”

      “Rrreal fine, slime mold,” said the saxophonist for himself.

      “Aw, can it, Hijack,” said the bassist. “Check on vacation, pull this night out somehow. Let’s play.” Rolling to a stand, he led the rest of the band to the dais.

      Eaton took his seat on the throne and pulled his own drumsticks out of his greatcoat. He tested the tom and it went thwap! What? The heads were completely loosened—and no wonder. Calf skins! There wasn’t a rock drummer in this country who used calf skins. With annoyance, Eaton went through the tedious process of racheting the lugs tight and testing around the rim to get them even. Somehow they—resisted. The heads weren’t interested in attaining the tautness Eaton required.

      Eaton tried the tuning with a snappy run around the pieces. God, what a pile of tin cans. The hardware rattled. There was a buzz in the bass. And the whole set was ancient, big band or before, though Eaton did admire the Zildjian-K’s—you hardly ever saw those nowadays, hand-hammered Armenian cymbals, exquisitely thin. Even the ride rang with a long resonant shimmer at the touch of his stick, though to Eaton’s taste they were a little oversensitive; they—winced. He eyed the set; it seemed to eye him back. But Eaton knew how to discipline inanimate objects. Whenever his possessions broke, which was often, he imagined he was getting the last laugh.

      “Boys and girls, you may have heard we’ve been caught out Checkless,” the lanky guitarist began. “However, with a volunteer from our studio audience, we’ll proceed. In consideration of our guest, only familiar favorites, please.”

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