2.2

As Mouse makes himself comfortable amidst the pillows of the Cap'n's chair, I toss him my Cap'n's hat. Then I grab a wad of clothing from one of my piles, satyr-step into my darkened bathroom nook, and pull the dangling cord overhead that illuminates it. There's a toilet occupying the left side of the nook and a shower occupying the right. Between them is a sink, and over the sink is a mirror. The glass is smeared with dust, humidity, and little white flecks of toothpaste and/or spit, but somewhere behind all that is me.

I take a gander at my reflection in the mirror, just to make sure everything is in order. My rakish smile is still handsome and irrepressible. My billy goat chin is badly in need of a shave, and my brown hair is greasy and disheveled, with little tufts sticking out in random directions. I take off my shirt, and what I lack in body hair and muscle tone, I more than make up for with my vibrant good health and more than satisfactory level of hydration. I pull up a pair of comfortable corduroy slacks, throw on a pentacle-emblazoned indigo tee, and buckle my utility belt. Nothing too flashy, this is a work day after all. But I'm comfortable now, and smelling a little less like home fries.

And not a moment too soon. For although it is only 5:55 AM, my new client has heralded his arrival with an impatient knuckle rap upon the glass of my office door. I satyr-hop out of the bathroom to unbolt said door, throwing it open wide to reveal the enigmatic Mr. E himself.

He's a big man, but despite the bulkiness of his belly, he moves with speed and grace. He's wearing a loud vermillion t-shirt, with the sleeves chopped off to accommodate the plumpness of his arms. A mop of slippery black hair bobs on top of his head, above confident eyes that twinkle with a hint of arrogance. His eyelashes are long and his skin hues gold, but it's the prominent incisors exposed by his humorless smirk that finally clue me in to his identity.

“Walter Easter,” I presume. “Of Walter Easter and the Basket Cases.” I am about to add that it is an honor to finally make the acquaintance of the greatest living rock operatist in all the known world, but I stop myself. Walter Easter is not a man known for patience or decorum. The usual theater of customer service won't serve me now.

“Yeah, that's right,” he says, pushing his way into the room and trampling the vibe completely.

“Whoa,” says Mouse.

Two more men follow him into the room – one with peaceful eyes and a brown yogi beard that hangs beyond his navel, the other pale and muscular with close-cropped black hair, a strong jaw, and an open bottle of beer in his free hand – and they're carrying a third between them. The third man is short and slight, his thinning blond hair rising up in a plume mirrored by the over-sized goatee that flares out from his chin. He appears to be frozen in a sitting position. Easter gives one of the chairs in my office a kick, and it slides across the floor, coming to a rest in front of his entourage. They deposit the blond guy in the chair, where he rocks back and forth slightly, bobbing his head to a song that nobody else can hear. His eyes stare straight ahead, seeing nothing, and there's a big dopey smile plastered all across his face. There's a shortage of seatage in the immediate vicinity, so the guy with the yogi beard drags a bean bag chair out of the meditation nook and sits cross-legged in the center of it. The pale dude slumps down on the floor, propping up his head on the bean bag chair just high enough that he can continue to drink his beer without choking on it. Easter claims the empty chair opposite my desk, kicking his feet up on my beloved thirdhand mahogany workspace. He sniffs the air and scowls, perhaps detecting the wisps of wisdom emanating in the room.

“I'm gonna smoke in here,” he says, lighting a cigarette.

I'm not happy about that, but this is Walter Easter for the love of Dobbs. A client like this only comes around once in a blood moon. I place an ashtray on the desk by his boots, and segue from there into a casual lean. With any new client, I have to make an initial calculation: who's in charge here? Weak-willed clients require me to take the lead. But this is Walter Easter, one of the most iconoclastic rock musicians ever to have drawn breath. This is his show, and the show must go on. So I match his energy: arms crossed, eyes indifferent, slouching but alert. I look down, and I realize that I am not wearing shoes. A hint of panic drifts across my otherwise steely calm, and then I remember that I never wear shoes.

“You seeing this guy, fellas?” Easter says, gesturing to me with his lit cigarette. “This one's only a backpack and a stomach parasite away from 'finding himself' in somebody else's lotus.”

“I'll save my frequent flyer miles, guruji. The name's Mujo Morell, and I know exactly where I stand. I'm standin' right here. I call that gnosis. I call him Mouse,” I say.

“Cauldron house,” says Mouse, nervously tugging at his Cap'n's hat.

“Your partner?” asks Easter, cocking an eyebrow.

“...sure. Why not,” I say. I grab a pen and a tiny notebook from the desk and hand both to Mouse. “Would ya mind takin' down some notes for me?” I ask him.

Mouse replies by hurling the notebook in my direction as he gnaws upon the pen.

“My condolences,” Easter says. “There's nothing worse than having employees.”

“There is one thing worse,” I say. “Havin' an employer.”

Easter snorts, then narrows his eyes at me. “Don't buddy up to me, kid. We are not going to be friends. Shit, now that I've laid eyes on you, I probably won't even hire you.”

“Ya show up this early in the day, ya darn well better hire me,” I counter.

Easter jerks a thumb at the little blond guy on planet somewhere else. “What's that look like to you?”

“A fugue state,” I reply.

“Can you fix it?”

“Maybe. Depends on what's causin' it,” I say. “If his soul's detached, I can probably get it back. If there's a partition in his brain, I can probably crack it open. If it's substances, we'll just wait. He'll probably be back to normal in a day or two, maybe less.”

“If it's 'substances', he's fired,” growls Easter. “What do you think, guys? Was it 'substances'?”

“I don't think so,” says yogi beard.

“Nope,” says the pale fella, drinking his beer.

“You must be Gary Jupiter,” I say to the pale fella. He does not respond. “Which means the dude in the fugue must be David Vrunk. Remind me, what's yer instrument?” I ask, turning to yogi beard, whose stage name, I believe, is Tao Jones.

“I play the Kugelwenstan flugelharp,” says Tao.

“Ah yes. The indispensable cornerstone of any modern rock band,” I reply.

“You a fan?” asks Tao.

“I've been known to appreciate music of quality,” I say. The truth is that I'm dopamine silly for Walter Easter's marvelous mutilations of the contours of rock music, and a big fan of Gary Jupiter's avalanche-inspired drumwork as well. But Jupiter's more than just a human landslide. He's a superhuman supercomputer, part octopus and part abacus. Jupiter can play any piece of sheet music handed him, no matter how frothingly dense with notes it is. According to legend, a colony of ants invaded the Basket Cases' practice space one day, and Gary Jupiter just sightread the ants and played away, confusing their little black bodies for sixteenth notes on his sheet music. By all accounts, his performance was flawless. That musicians of this caliber are currently lounging around my office is too much for my over-stimulated pre-frontal cortex. I'm psychologically crippled. My amygdala is twitching. I keep forgetting to breathe. But I won't let the big man know. I fix my gaze on David Vrunk's bobbing cowlick, and steady my thrumming fingers. “What's he hummin'?” I ask, nodding in Vrunk's direction.

“Hell if I know,” says Easter, shrugging. “I didn't write it, I can tell you that much.” He sounds resentful.

“Hmm,” I murmur. I satyr-creep on over to Vrunk, and crouch next to him, placing my ear near his mouth.

“Di-dee-di-dee-di-Do. Di-dee-di-dee-di-Daw,” he sings, ever so softly.

“Well, as it happens I was somethin' of a performer as a child – a professional entertainer, if ya will – and as such, I was subjected to several years of rigorous music lessons. Perhaps they'll come in handy today,” I explain. I whistle the notes a few times, and then I jot them down in my notebook. Which I happen to be standing on (good thing I'm not wearing shoes). I quickly transcribe Vrunk's vamp, a hypnotic melody juxtaposing a major third against a minor sixth. The first phrase ends with the tonic sliding up a half step. The second phrase ends with the tonic sliding down a whole step. I like it, but it's not a tune I've ever heard before. “Okay, so,” I say, standing up again and resuming my lean against the front of my desk. “Nobody recognizes the jingle. But what do ya know?”

Easter snaps his fingers at his two underlings. “Tell him, boys.”

Tao Jones shrugs. “We have rehearsal Monday thru Friday. Typically, after rehearsal, David and I meditate together with a few of our other bandmates.”

Easter rolls his eyes and ashes his cigarette. To my great relief, he makes use of the ashtray.

“It's non-denominational, of course,” says Tao. “Open to whomever wants to participate. Just a mindfulness thing, nothing fancy. It's how I like to wind down. Anyway, last Wednesday, same as every other day, we do our mindfulness meditation for thirty minutes. Afterwards, I'm driving David back to West Hashton, and he spent the whole ride talking about some new album he pre-ordered and can't wait to listen to.”

“New album?” I ask, ears perked. “Ya know, there's a few new releases this week I've been eager to hear myself.”

“He didn't say which album it was,” Jones confesses. “But yeah, we parted ways at the door of his condo rental. The next morning, he didn't come to practice. Walter, of course, was very upset.”

“If it had happened on a different week, I would have just fired him. If he were any other of my musicians, I would have just fired him,” says Easter, sucking on his cigarette and staring at the orange tye dye blankets that hang over my windows as though he could see right through them to the sleepy city beyond. “But no. I'm not that lucky. You see, kid, I'm working on... oh, let's just call it my magnum opus. And this magnum opus of mine is slated to debut tomorrow night.”

“Oh, I'm already well aware. In fact, I tried to purchase tickets,” I say. “Concert tickets, it turns out, are a hard thing to acquire when you're perpetually short on legal tender.”

“No kidding,” says Easter, nonplussed.

“And shame on the box office for refusin' to so much as consider a barter arrangement,” I add. “This is the twenty-first century, and I don't care what street I live on, the sooner Merkaban society de-shackles itself from fiat currency the better.”

“Then you won't mind when I don't pay you,” Walter Easter replies. “As I was saying, David Vrunk is my lead guitar player. He and I have been working one on one for weeks, perfecting the performative arc of the ten minute guitar solo that marks the denouement of the show. This is an improvisation that transcends both key and meter. It is the scream of the captive soul, buried in a decaying body.” He takes another drag of his cigarette, and I notice, for the first time, the little threads of grey that weave their way through his hair. “It is a part that Vrunk, and only Vrunk, has been trained to play. There is no understudy. And without Vrunk, there is no climax to my rock opera. Which, again, debuts tomorrow night at 9 PM.”

“So we got ourselves a time crunch,” I say. “What was he like when ya found him?”

“Sitting in a recliner with his headphones on, staring into space and smiling,” says Tao Jones. “Just like he is now.” On cue, Vrunk falls sideways out of his chair. He crumples onto the floor in the fetal position, and Tao and Gary dutifully pick him up, dust him off, and set him back in his seat.

“And what was he listenin' to?” I ask.

“Nothing,” says Tao Jones. “When I checked the headphones, they were silent. Whatever album he'd been playing, it was over.”

“Was there a jewel case? Or vinyl?” I ask. I'm jotting down notes, but also, I'm drawing a little picture of Tao Jones in my notebook because I like his beard. I'm giving him a little crown, too (I hope Walter Easter doesn't mind).

“No, of course not,” says Tao Jones. “Everything's digital these days. I tried checking his computer, but I couldn't access his desktop without his password.”

“I always knew the digital age would screw me,” says Easter. “But I never thought it would screw me quite like this.”

“New album,” I mutter to myself. “New album... Okay, well, first things first. Let's get Mr. Vrunk to a WOMB.”

“I am not paying for that,” says Easter.

“My suggestion's to take it out of his paycheck,” I say. “Puttin' him in a WOMB is the best way to keep him safe and healthy for the duration, and hopefully it'll only be for about twenty-four hours. That won't break the bank.”

“Only about twenty-four hours, huh?” says Easter, skeptical. “You really think you can fix this in a day?”

“We don't have a choice,” I say. “We have to fix it in a day. The show must go on.”

“That it does,” Easter agrees, and inwardly, I smile, because this is the closest he's come to liking me since he walked through the door.

“I know the owner of the most reputable WOMB nursery in town. I'd be happy to negotiate somethin' special for ya, given yer celebrity status and the delicacy of yer situation,” I offer.

“Of course you would,” says Easter with a sneer. “All you frauds and snake oil salesmen are always looking out for each other.”

I stroke my chin and study him carefully. “Mr. Easter, I would love to tell ya that I am no fraud,” I say. “But when a man has been preemptively judged fraudulent, he is left with no choice but to silence himself and undertake valiant action.”

“You say that, and yet you're still talking,” says Easter, teasing the various gold rings adorning his cigarette smoking hand.

“Alright then. I can see you're eager to get a move on, so let's get a move on. You too, Mouse, better come along for the ride,” I say. “The WOMB nursery's in South Hashton. I'll call ahead on the way, and make sure they're ready for us.”

Easter sighs and grinds his butt out in my ashtray. “You heard him.”

Tao Jones and Gary Jupiter nod. Gary chugs the rest of his beer, and throws the bottle at my garbage can. He misses, hitting the wall and sending a rain of broken glass down onto my hardwood floors. I look at the jagged shards upon the floor and, to calm myself, I think of the 11/8 drum solo in “Porkle Travels The World.” I can't hate a man as talented as Gary Jupiter. But I can certainly want him out of my office.

“Gary, you're a horse's ass,” sings Walter Easter. “Shat your shot, and broke some glass. We tried to teach our boy some class, but alas. When he took the test, he couldn't pass.”