Chapter 43
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Gabriel
Cleo was back in New York. I was ready now. For her. For us. For everything.
“Dude, are you sure this is a good idea?” Devin asked when we met for lunch in the East Village.
“She wants a divorce. I want a second chance.”
“She doesn’t want a divorce,” Sean scoffed, although he didn’t sound so confident.
He was in a precarious position, straddling the line between trying to protect me while also protecting Cleo. It was the one thing everyone at this table had in common.
Their loyalty was to both of us and since no one wanted to choose sides, they never told me a damn thing about Cleo’s life except to say that she was doing great.
The implication had always been clear. She was doing much better without me. But I needed to see that for myself, so I’d circled today’s date on the calendar in anticipation of her opening night at which point, I was planning to show up and talk to her face-to-face.
This wasn’t the kind of thing we could do over the phone.
But she’d beaten me to the punch and served me with divorce papers.
“Why don’t we just focus on your career for now?” Sean said, his brow furrowed as he read the menu. “Who picked this place? They don’t even serve burgers.”
“It’s vegetarian,” I said. “Try the Dragon Bowl. Brown rice, kale. It’s comfort food.”
We were at Angelica Kitchen. Cool place. It had a hippie soul. Whenever I came in, they gave me a table in the back away from prying eyes.
“I don’t even know what the fuck kale is,” Sean grumbled. “But I can already tell it’s not my definition of comfort food.”
While Sean was obsessing over the menu, Eddie and Devin were trying to talk me out of going tonight.
“She doesn’t even want us there,” Eddie said. “So I don’t think she’ll be too thrilled to see you rock up.”
“She gets nervous when friends and family show up,” Devin explained.
To my knowledge, they hadn’t even stayed in contact with Cleo, but everyone was still so hell-bent on keeping us apart. Fuck that. This had been going on for too long.
Enough was enough.
“I’m her husband. The rules don’t apply to me.”
They all exchanged a look, but I ignored it. This was between me and Cleo, and had nothing to do with any of them.
“Listen…” Eddie said when our food arrived.
“And I’m saying this as a friend. You’re like a brother to me.
But I care about both of you, and you were a fucking mess for a long time.
You were walking around with mud on your boots and that weird fucking getup, and now that we’re going down this road, what the fuck was that thing on your head? ”
“He was in his Bob Dylan Woodstock era. Keeping the mystery alive,” Sean said. “How are those basement tapes coming along?”
“Looked like a turban,” Devin said helpfully.
It was a fringed scarf I bought in the desert. I used to wrap it around my head. Like a turban, I guess. I wore sunglasses all the time too. Like an asshole. Even when I went into a restaurant or a deli or a bar, I kept my sunglasses on.
I didn’t want anyone to recognize me but, ironically, wearing sunglasses in a dark room only drew more attention.
That was a weird time. It was still weird. I was on a hiatus, but my albums had all gone multi-platinum. Blew up the charts, Sean told me. He was still managing a career that had been put on hold, but apparently it was going better now that I wasn’t on the scene.
I didn’t pay much attention to any of that. Whenever I got a royalty check, I deposited it and never looked at my balance.
I was rich but what did that matter to me? Money couldn’t buy any of the important things in life.
“I’m ready to reclaim my life,” I said. “I’m ready to be the man Cleo deserves.”
Everyone gave me a dubious look. It was warranted. Those months after my surgery were mostly a blur so it was hard to say what kind of man Cleo wanted or needed.
But even then, I knew that Cleo was irreplaceable and that the old Gabriel had been lucky as hell to find a love like that.
I remember how she put her life on hold and worked tirelessly, trying to heal me, and how guilty I felt for giving her nothing in return.
I remember how I knew, somewhere deep in my subconscious, that I loved her madly and how much it killed me that I was hurting her.
I remember how she risked her life to rescue me from the roof that day and how she told me I was free to go. And I did. I took that freedom, and I ran.
To the West Coast where the sky kissed the wild Pacific Ocean.
To an adobe house in a small desert town in New Mexico. There were a lot of free thinkers and creatives in that town, which was all well and good, but there were a lot of drugs too. Having no clear sense of purpose and willingly courting a path of self-destruction were a recipe for disaster.
Big surprise that a steady diet of psychedelics hadn’t helped me find myself.
When I returned to New York, broken down and tired of wandering, I was searching for an oasis.
But Cleo was gone. Bali. Paris. London. She was chasing her dreams and making a name for herself in the art world.
Who was I to get in her way? I didn’t want to drag her down so off I went again.
This time to a weathered beach shack in Montauk.
Now, I finally had something to offer her and I refused to believe it was too late.
“So what’s your plan?” Eddie asked.
“I’m going to ask her to spend the rest of the summer with me.”
“I believe in you, dude,” Devin said.
“Does Maya know about this?” Eddie asked.
Sean lifted his head from his Buddha Bowl and narrowed his eyes on me. “Who the fuck is Maya?”
“Just a friend.”
When we left the restaurant, Sean pulled me aside and levelled me with a look.
“I’m only going to say this once. Cleo is like a daughter to me, and you know how I feel about you.
You both mean a lot to me. I know that none of this is your fault.
You didn’t ask for any of this. But it happened.
And you put her through hell. Cleo is not as tough as she pretends to be.
So if you’re not serious about making this work, leave her alone. She’s been through enough.”
He clapped me on the shoulder and pulled me into a guy hug, giving me a few hearty thumps on the back for good measure. It was slightly aggressive but in a caring way as if to say, I’ve got your back.
He treated me like a father would treat a son. A good father. The kind of father I could only imagine.
“Having said that, I hope it all works out,” he said, pulling back and clearing his throat like that display of affection had been too much for him.
“But right now we need to focus on your comeback. I know you don’t want to hear this, but you signed that contract, and now they’re breathing down my neck.
So I need you to get back to work and finish that album.
” With another clap on the shoulder, he turned on his heel and strode away.
My comeback . For me, this wouldn’t be a comeback at all. It would be a brand-new start. No one seemed to understand that though.
Especially not the record label that had given me a grace period, which had apparently expired along with their limited patience.
“When’s the album coming? You’re working on something, right? We need to get you into the studio.”
I’d love to speak with the asshole who signed that contract and ask him what the hell he’d been thinking. Because this asshole owed them three albums.
According to Sean, I left my old label because of some beef with the management and signed with a new label three and a half years ago. The contract specified that I was to release an album within a year of signing.
So far, I’d given them nothing.
They were threatening to release the music I recorded before my surgery. I was forced to listen to it last year and as far as I was concerned, it was total shit. Not something I’d ever release or revisit.
The PR machine was working overtime, hyping up my “comeback.” I got requests from journalists asking for exclusive interviews all the time. Radio stations and TV shows clamoring to get me on as a special guest. I got stacks of fan mail forwarded to my house from the suits’ administrative assistant.
Two years ago, I was named one of People magazine’s “50 Most Beautiful People.” How fucking embarrassing was that?
Why they thought I needed or wanted to see every clipping from newspapers, magazines, and tabloids mentioning me was anyone’s guess.
Then there was the “esteemed journalist” who wanted to do a documentary on me. Footage from my next tour, my “extraordinary” comeback, and my life story. I didn’t even know my story so that was a hell no from me.
Pressure on all sides. I couldn’t walk away even if I wanted to. My lawyer made that very clear. The label was giving me until September first to come up with enough material for a new album. If I didn’t deliver, they were going to sue me for breach of contract.
My gut told me that if I had Cleo in my life again, I’d find the missing piece of my soul, and the words and music would flow.
I stopped across the street from our old apartment building, the building Cleo still lived in (as far as I knew), and stared intently at the fifth floor as if I could see through the bricks and mortar, straight through the walls and the stairwell to apartment 5B. The keeper of so many lost memories.
What do you dream about, Cleo? What keeps you up at night? What are your secret fantasies and your hidden fears and your ugly truths?
It was a secret code that needed to be cracked.
Music wasn’t the only thing I needed to feel whole again.
I needed Cleo, too.
Armed with two cold bottles of water and a ham on rye, just in case, I walked through Tompkins Square Park and found Chuck reciting beat poetry in front of the fountain crowned by the bronze statue of Hebe. The Greek goddess of youth. Cup-bearer to the gods.
Two teenage girls in crop tops with pierced belly buttons stared at me as they sauntered past. One of them spun around, cupped her mouth with her hands, and yelled, “I love you, Gabriel!”
They ran away, giggling.
What a crazy world we lived in. Imagine telling someone you didn’t even know that you loved them.
I sat on a park bench, in the sweltering city heat, and listened to Chuck.
America, when will you be angelic?/When will you take off your clothes?/When will you look at yourself through the grave?
In my former life, Chuck and I bonded over Ginsberg. The poet was dead and gone but his words rang out in Tompkins Square Park. Chuck, in all his majesty, an orator for the ages. His mind was still sharp, the words committed to memory, delivered with passion.
He looked like a revolutionary with a red bandana wrapped around his graying brown hair and army pants cut off at the knees.
When he finished, I gave him a standing ovation. He took a bow then strode over to me.
“Gabriel!” He took a seat next to me and mopped the sweat off his face with the dirty bandana then wrapped it around his head again. “What’s good?”
I handed him a bottle of water and a sandwich. “You’re a good thing.” I offered him a cigarette and we smoked in companionable silence.
The leaves on the trees rustled in the summer’s breeze whispering their secrets—all the passion and grief and lovers’ embraces, riots and muggings and junkies shooting up, and the madness they’d witnessed in this park over the years.
Had Cleo and I run mad in this park, danced in the rain, made snow angels side by side, kissed for an eternity under a full moon, desperately in love?
I wanted it all back. The memories. The lingering kisses. The love .
“I thought you were gonna quit,” Chuck said.
I took a drag and blew the smoke into the hazy sky. “There are worse things than smoking.”
“Don’t I know it.”
I squinted into the distance. A riff played in my head on an endless loop. It was still rough, not much of anything yet, but it could be something with a little work and refinement and the right words to breathe life into it.
“You know,” Chuck mused, “it’s been ten years since I found your notebook right here in this park.” He stroked his beard with dirty fingernails and gave me the side-eye. “Have you figured it out yet?”
I didn’t know if he was talking about my relationship with Cleo or the true meaning of life. Spoiler alert: There was no one true meaning. Everyone was just making it up as they went.
“Did you find a place to live yet?” I deflected, because no, I hadn’t figured it out yet.
“I’m not taking your fucking money,” he said gruffly. “I already told you that. I don’t need no pity donations.”
“It’s not a pity donation. You were my only friend. You helped me through a rough time. I’m just paying it forward.”
He shook his head. “I wasn’t your only friend. You were screwed up in the head, so you believed what you wanted to believe.” He looked me up and down. “You look good. Life treating you better now?”
“Life’s got nothing to do with it. It’s how you treat yourself that matters,” I said. “I’m giving myself grace.”
Chuck nodded. “Sounds like you’ve made good strides.”
I glanced over at him. “I had a good therapist.”
He chuckled. “It’s easy to give advice. It’s a hell of a lot harder to take it.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got some advice for you. Cash that fucking check.”
“You keep your money. I appreciate the gesture, but I don’t wanna be beholden to anyone.”
He was a stubborn bastard, but I had a lot of respect for him, so I didn’t push it.
What is a man without his dignity?
I dug a small notebook and a pen out of my pocket and jotted down a few lines.
I had an album to write. A wife to win back. And six weeks to figure it out.