Fiction: Bigger Than the Both of Us

Part II of "Kill Fee," the story of an over-the-hill rock critic who wants to write true crime books

Lani “Queenie” Wolf, who brought a Janis Joplin-like reputation for boozin’ and ballin’ to mascara metal, climbed onto a stationary bike, in front of a white, erasable board covered in talking points.

“How many phoners today?” she asked as she pedaled. “Just two,” said her publicist, holding a clipboard. “First one is Walter Carmody.”

“Cool,” said Wolf, adjusting her headband. “Rolling Stone.” He’s not with Rolling Stone anymore, the publicist corrected. “He’s doing this for the Illinois Entertainer.”

“This better be a cover story,” Wolf said. “Why are we doing an interview with a fucking rag?” It’s a cover, the publicist assures, but doesn’t answer the question. Ticket sales are s-l-o-w for the upcoming show at the Aragon Ballroom.

Queenie used to sell out arenas and Carmody’s cover stories used to be for Rolling Stone. Now they’re working on a story for a free weekly newspaper. The publicist grabbed the wall phone, dialed it and handed it to Queenie, still pedaling. “Rescue me in 15,” the singer said.

“RING!” Walter looked at the phone, and got his notebook in place. “RING!” He turned up the volume on the new Queenie Wolf record. “RING!” He picked up the phone. “Sorry, hold on a second. Let me turn down the record.” He let it play for about five seconds more.

“Just getting my ass kicked over here! You guys really brought it on this record.” He quickly scoured the back cover of the CD. “Producer Jack Novell” it said. “What was it like to work with Jack Novel (that’s how he mispronounces it)?” Lani looked at her white board. First word is “Postcard.” Next word is “Seattle.”

“We’ve worked with Mr. Novell (she corrects him) on the last two albums and what he’s always been able to do is help us create an audio postcard of where our heads are at musically at the time. We recorded it in Seattle and just marinated in the vibe of that city.” It was 1991, the big bang of grunge, and Queenie Wolf’s style of poofed-up rock could benefit from an affiliation to the city that gave MTV Nirvana and Pearl Jam.

When the magazine printing press spit out copies of the Illinois Entertainer a couple weeks later, Smashing Pumpkins were on the cover, with Queenie teased on a ribbon.

Carmody got the nickname “Dock” in the ‘80s, after he interviewed Frank Sinatra while tripping on LSD. Sinatra’s people got the date mixed up and called on a day that Walt had reserved to watch Koyaanisqatsi. That contentious phone interview was spun into a famous Sinatra cover story in Rolling Stone (“How ’bout I Punch You in the Nose?” May 1983). A bootleg cassette of that hilarious interview, pairing Ol’ Blue Eyes and Ol’ Dilated Pupils, was a favorite of indie rock bands on tour. (Sinatra: “Do you even know who Sammy Cahn is?” Carmody: “Was he in ‘The Godfather?’”) The icon got especially testy when the spaced-out journalist referred to him as “Mr. Sinatra, Sr.” But it’s almost impossible to intimidate someone on LSD. Carmody broke down Sinatra and they ended up having an uncharacteristically telling talk.

So his friends started calling him Dock, after Dock Ellis of the Pittsburgh Pirates, who notoriously pitched a no-hitter on acid in 1970.

When Walt started over in Chicago in the early ‘90s, nobody knew him as Dock Carmody. He left the mystique in San Francisco and became the most lightly-regarded of writers- the past-prime freelancer.

After Sallee drop-kicked him to his new Lakeview neighborhood (at least a mile from the lake), he started hustling every gig he could. He just couldn’t stand being in that soulless apartment alone, except when he was writing- and then it was perfect. “Do you know anything about fly fishing?” one editor asked Walt, when the Brad Pitt movie A River Runs Through It was the hot flick. “My dad used to take me fly fishing every year,” Walt replied. Actually, Walt’s father ran off when he was six, and wouldn’t have taken him fishing anyway. But you say what will get you the job, then learn what you don’t know.

The story that had Walt wearing chest-high waders ran in a Toronto magazine that then assigned him to go on out with the top Canadian rock band, Nautical, making their first U.S. tour. Though the Stonesian rockers played 18,000-seaters in Canada, the U.S. tour consisted of 300-capacity clubs.

When Walt saw the itinerary, his eyes perked up. After Chicago and St. Louis was Kansas City. His 13-year-old son Otis lived in KC with his mom. That’s as far as Walt would go with the band, then he’d hang out with his son as long as he could and fly back to Chicago. Walt was psyched!

The three shows he witnessed were pretty depressing for the Canuck rock stars, who dubbed it the “Chateaus to Shitholes Tour.” They showed up in a half-million-dollar tour bus and played to about 120 people a night- almost all displaced Canadians. But the band could not have been more considerate and courteous to all around. How do you get 30 Canadians out of a swimming pool? Yell “everybody out of the pool!” is the joke Stan the bassist told.

Walt’s sometimes-abrasive personality usually makes him about as popular on a tour bus as chlamydia, but the guys of Nautical laughed at his rants, even the one where he called hockey “soccer on ice.” Walt saw the Pearl Jam of the Great White North bristle only once in three days, when the super-bitchy sound guy in St. Louis treated them like an opening act. When you piss off a group of Canucks, you know it’s on you, and when the band threw off the gloves, Beardo backed down. A soundmen’s only right hook is disrespect. “Let’s have a good show, eh,” the drummer Jackie said, and they did.

Nautical was constantly writing songs on the bus, making the best of a bad situation. This disappointing U.S. tour was a traveling woodshed, which was great for Walt’s story. He rarely saw musicians create from air. One song-in-progress had a hook that resonated with Walt: “No dress rehearsal, this is our life.”

After the Kansas City show, the tour bus dropped Walt off at the Motel 6, waiting until he was checked in before driving away.

The next day, Walt just sat in his motel room waiting for Otis. At about 6 p.m., there was a quiet knock at the door. It was the kid, whose mother was parked outside the motel room. “Mom said we have to keep the door open,” Otis said, when Walt started to close it. When Walt called him by name, the kid said he’s not Otis anymore.

“You were named after Otis Redding,” Walt said.

“I don’t even know who that is,” the kid countered. “I was always getting teased about it, so when we moved to Kansas City I changed it to Robert.”

“Robert Johnson,” weighed Walt. “That’ll work.”

The father asked his son if he’s been playing the guitar Walt gave him for his birthday. Yeah, he said, but he can’t really play it much because the neighbors complained about the noise. “Well, then, here you go,” Walt said, handing him the expensive studio headphones James from Metallica let him “borrow” him after an interview. “Plug these into your amp.” Walt’s ex-wife Candace eventually got out of the car. “Sorry we were late. We went to the wrong Motel 6.” Walt asked, “Did you go to the one in Topeka?”

There was a greasy spoon in walking distance, so Otis and his parents went there for an uneasy dinner. Walt and Candace, who always spoke at each other through clenched teeth and sarcasm, were not ready to make up after the custody thing.

The plates arrived and Otis got an old-fashioned cheeseburger and fries, then the waitress put Candace’s club sandwich in front of her. Walt had ordered an open-faced turkey sandwich, listed as “Sandy’s Treat” on the menu. He looked down at that mess, which, seriously, looked like the cook dropped in on the floor and put it back on a new plate, and called back the waitress. Candace and Otis looked at each other like they were going to burst into laughter, but they were able to suppress. “Excuse me, Ma’am,” Walt said. “I ordered ‘Sandy’s Treat’ and I think you brought me Sandy’s feet.” Oh, God, Candace and Otis just lost it!

He hadn’t heard them laugh like that in years.

Walt and Candace got married just five days after they met. Their first date was at a Bob Marley and the Wailers concert and that night they had sex from the beginning until the end of Babylon By Bus, which is a double album, so Walt had to keep getting up to turn it over. But it was also like playing four quarters of a game, and Walt had never been as athletic as that night.

Two days later they drove to Las Vegas to get married. On the highway, Walt talked about how he did the music critic thing for the gig and the freebies, but what he really wanted to do was become a true crime author. He’s always been fascinated by the evil mind and thinks he’d be a natural literary detective. “Who would you rather read about, a serial killer or the fucking Doobie Brothers?”

They turned out to have almost nothing in common and the marriage was a farce. But Candace got pregnant, so Walt couldn’t break up until the kid was about 3. With the birth of his son, Walt stopped reading crime stories. He became a compulsive worrier and overplanner. Like, he devised a “zone defense” system of watching Otis when he and Candace took him to gatherings. “This is my area,” Walt said, making an imaginary line in the center of the room, “and that’s your area.” But when the kid went into C’s side, she just stayed in whatever conversation she was in, so Walt had to chase Otis around in that zone as well. This was just one of the many little things that gnawed at Walt daily. He hated the way she would come home from the grocery store and put the perishables in the refrigerator and then leave the bags with the rest of the items on the kitchen floor for Walt to put away.

Candace found Walt boring- his stories were too long and didn’t really go anywhere. All the name-dropping anecdotes she loved early in their relationship now made her want to vomit. Plus, he was completely self-absorbed. Let’s flip the order there. 1. Self-absorbed 2. Boring stories.

Candace loved Walt’s writing at first but stopped reading him not long after they got married. She stopped doing a lot of things when she got to know Walt better.

But what may have seemed like narcissism was really part of Walt’s all-consuming writing process. To put yourself out there as honestly as Walt did required courage based in ego. That was his defense.

Walt took a lot of crazy, abusive shit from Candace, who struggled in her career as a painter, as Walt flourished in his. But the last straw was when she started a big, plate-throwing fight when he was on deadline. The unforgivable sin. You don’t get in a writer’s head when they’re hard at work. The editor complained about the review’s lack of…anything…and Walt stayed at a motel until he found an apartment.

When Otis started getting older, more perceptive, his divorced parents discontinued their tone war in favor of a ritualized détente, putting on a happy face and pushing all the hurtful feelings down. But many times the smiles were real. “He’s bigger than the both of us,” Walt said, hugging Candace the night of Otis’s 6th birthday. It was her idea to do a “Saturday Night Fever”-themed party, with first graders in disco wear. It was adorable and the kids were into it. Walt was the DJ and everybody danced. Only a parent can know such satisfaction.

They both lived in the Bay Area when they got divorced in 1982, but Candace got a great job offer running an art gallery in another state and wanted to move with Otis. Walt blocked her, using terms from the divorce decree.

But when Walt got busted for smoking pot (in the parking lot before a New Kids On the Block show), Candace alerted Child Protective Services. During an unannounced visit to Walt’s apartment, CPS found an all-girl punk band sprawled out in the living room at 8 a.m. (Walt met them at Mabuhay Gardens in S.F. and when he found out they had no money for a hotel, he let them crash with him.) There was a syringe in clear view, as the band members had fixed while the bass player drunkenly made out with Walt in the other room. After that debauched scene, Walt could no longer have unsupervised visits with Otis. Also, Candace was free to move wherever she wanted with the kid.

Walt was thinking about all this on the El train ride back from O’Hare, after the awkward Kansas City visit with Otis. There was a three-second snippet of a smile and a wave from his son that he replayed in his mind.

Walt’s first stop after getting off the train near Lincoln Park, even before he went home, was the used record store where his packages were forwarded while he was out of town. The clerk gave him $60 and returned the vinyl LPs, saying “we’re only buying CDs and cassettes these days.” Walt then went across the street to Weiner Circle, the home of char dogs and black sass. The guy ahead of him took too long to order and the cashier said, “Let’s go, pretty boy. That’s a menu not a muthafuckin’ mirror.” If your fantasy was to be abused by African-American women, the Weiner Circle was your Scores. But Walt went for the hot dogs and cheese fries. The floor show annoyed him.

Selling CDs made all his meals at Weiner Circle and drinks at the Metro free. But the comp things you never sold were concert tickets. That was just sleazy. Walt broke that rule just once, but he sure paid for it. The night British punk icon Jerry Lee Abbott played the Park West, Walt’s envelope at Will Call had an extra ticket. Since the show was sold out, and Walt didn’t have the money for even three beers, it would sure be a waste to not get something out of it.

Walt saw a young black man outside the venue and recognized him as Tondric, one of the main subjects of his Chicago Reader cover story on ticket scalping. For the article, Tondric showed him how a scalper played “the walk” outside concert and sports arenas.

Walt flashed back to the day the kid bragged to him that he could show up at a Chicago Bulls home game with a nickel in his pocket and go home with $500 at the end of the night. When Walt said he didn’t believe him- how would you get the first ticket?- the kid said watch me, and cocked his ballcap around to its socially-approved position.

There were about 10 people in the ticket line outside Chicago Stadium (actually an arena), with a couple and their friend at the end. Tondric was almost next to the trio when he whirled around. “Excuse me, Mister,” he said to a trailing Walt. “I’ve never been inside to see my hero Michael, but if you take a picture I can show my Momma. It’ll look like I was at the game and that would make her happy.” Tondric handed over the disposable camera, which didn’t have any shots left, so Walt pretended to take a picture of him, with the marquee as a backdrop. “Thank you, sir!” said the kid, suddenly more Irkel than Ice Cube, as Walt walked away, shaking his head.

After a few minutes the couple and their friend approached Tondric with a ticket in hand. “We were going to sell it, but it would be cooler to get a true fan into the game,” the single man said. The three had broad smiles, as Tondric clasped his hands as if in prayer. “You are so kind.” As they walked away, the kid smiled at Walt, who was 20 yards away, trying to interview another scalper. “I’ll be in in soon, gotta find my little brother,” the kid said to the three Samaritans. “You wouldn’t happen to have another one, would you?”

The scalper Walt was talking to yelled out, “Hey, Tondric, we need one over here!” and the kid spun around and brought the ticket. They were dealing with a big man with a wad of cash. Minutes later, beer and bratwurst in hand, that man came down the aisle and sat with the three who gave Tondric their extra ticket. The look they gave each other!

Outside, Tondric was making something very clear to Walt. “I know you heard my name, but if you use it, I’ll find you,” he said, pounding his fist. “That’s a promise.”

“Hey, Chino, remember me?” Walt said, outside the Park West three weeks later, using the alias he gave Tondric in the article. “Mister reporter,” the kid said with a smile.

“Are you buying tickets?” Walt asked, “because I’ve got an extra.” Nah, man, Tondric said. The show felt like a dog. “Are you kidding?” Walt said. “Jerry Lee Abbott is a legend. And he almost never plays clubs anymore.”

“There sure are a lot of people been tryna unload their tickets all day for such a legend,” Tondric said. “Give me $20- it’s a $35 ticket and the show’s sold out,” offered Walt. “I guarantee you’ll make your money back.” Tondric swiveled his head in doubt and gave him a $20. “We’ll see.”

What Walt didn’t know was that Abbott had been on WXRT radio that day, telling fans that he’d only be performing new material that night at the Park West, so please don’t yell out requests. “It startles the cello player.” Once a sardonic rocker, Abbott had started delving into cocktail jazz and classical music- to massive yawns from even diehards.

The show had little demand for Tondric’s supply, but rather than eat Walt’s ticket, Tondric used it to go inside and get his $20 back. Walt was sitting with The Three Critics when the sight of Tondric inside the somewhat posh venue startled them. A black man from the street at a Jerry Lee Abbott show was jarring enough, but then Tondric pointed right at Walt and motioned for him to come over. Ravi and Colton looked at each other like “what the hell?,” as Walt ambled over to Tondric. “Hey, man, that ticket was bullshit,” an agitated Tondric said. “Don’t nobody want to hear new shit from this cat. Give me my money back. You guaranteed, man.” As his friends watched, Walt acted like he and Tondric were buddies. Tondric threatened to beat his ass right there in front of everybody and Walt threw his head back in a big fake laugh. “I already spent half of it,” Walt said under his breath. He slid a 10 in a handshake to Tondric who said “you better have that other 10 next time I see you.”

“Well, that was uncomfortable,” Walt said, returning to the table. “What was that all about?” Colton asked. Walt reached into his pocket and, under the table, showed a small bag of biege heroin that he’d actually bought earlier in the day. That’s why he was broke. “Who wants sma-a-a-ck?” Walt sing-songed, like a mother with brownies.

“What is this, the ’50s?” said Colton. “Get with the times, man. Crack, not smack.”

Though a veteran druggie, Walt had never done heroin. Too many overdose deaths in his field. But when he was enlisted to give a ride to a friend to score some H, Walt asked, “What’s the minimum buy-in?” When the guy told him, Walt gave him a twenty. This would be interesting.

Walt felt a little high just with that packet of powder in his pocket. Shit, man he wanted to hear some jazz, so he borrowed 10 dollars from Coffey and took the train from Park West to the Green Mill Lounge in the Uptown neighborhood.

“Hey, man, buy me a beer and I’ll share some skag,” Walt said to a guy in his 30s he saw at all the shows. “Not for me, man. Those days are long gone,” the guy said, obviously puffing up a past where he might have seen heroin once. “But I’ll buy you a beer.”

There was a woman Walt liked at the club, so he asked her if she wanted to do some heroin. She said no, but gave back a look of respect he hadn’t seen from her before. Next to the n-word and the c-word, “heroin” is the most powerful word in the English language. “It’s “hero” and “in,” two things everyone wants to be.

Finally, Walt ran into the old trumpet player Kid Napoleon, who toured with Sonny Rollins in the ’60s, in the men’s room. “You don’t still do H, do ya, Kid, sir?” Let me see what you got, the old man said, and after Walt showed him, he laughed. “That ain’t enough to make a duck walk funny!” A man at the sink/mirror heard this exchange in the bathroom stall and got the wrong idea.

Later that night, Tondric got arrested on robbery and attempted rape charges. He fit the description (black male, tattooed, which was rare) and was picked out of a lineup by the victim. Tondric said he was at Park West at the time of the incident. Asked if there was someone who could vouch for his whereabouts from 8- 10 p.m. he said there was a writer who sold him a ticket and then saw him inside at around 9. “An old white dude, a reporter,” Tondric said. Then he saw a Chicago Reader on a desk. “He wrote that cover story on ticket scalping.”

Police went to Walt’s apartment at about 1 a.m. and he corroborated Tondric’s alibi. “Could you come down to the station in the morning and make a statement?” No, said Walt, I’ll come down now. The cops gave him a ride downtown.

Walt waited for Tondric to get cut loose, then they walked out of the police station together. “That’s what it’s like to be a black man in Chicago,” Tondric said. “Yeah, well my life isn’t so great either,” said Walt.

Walking to the train station, the middle-aged music critic and the 23-year-old hustler had a long conversation about what it’s like to be each other. But first T wanted to know why Walt chose the name “Chino” for the article. “I ain’t Chinese,” he said. Walt got a smile from Tondric when he said that he took it from the name of a state prison in California.

“There’s a lot of stuff white folks just can’t relate to. Like watching TV shows like ‘The Brady Bunch’ when you’re living in the ghetto. Muthafuckas like to rub our faces in it. It’s just constant, man.”

Walt had to laugh because family sitcoms were also surreal to his own upbringing. “I never really knew my father,” said Walt. “It was just me and my Mom and we never had any money. Always lived in these tiny furnished apartments. ‘The Brady Bunch’ just made me sad.”

The greatest story ever told is the history of African Americans, said Walt, a black history buff. “Just what blacks went through to get where they are today is pretty amazing. You’re a part of that, man.”

Tondric just shook his head. “It must’ve been pretty amazing to be a slave,” he said.

“Oh, you think you have it bad?,” Walt said. “We had only two TV channels when I was growing up!” Tondric just shook his head and said “You a goofy mofo.” And then he thanked Walt for coming down to the station in the middle of the night. “You didn’t have to do that, but I’m glad you did,” Tondric said. “But I still want my ten bucks.”