Doxology by Nell Zink

Author:Nell Zink
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-07-04T16:00:00+00:00

XVI.

Having died on 9/11, Joe was well positioned to contribute an anniversary song to the repertoire. The terror hadn’t killed any rock stars. Its victims were personal, institutional, and architectural. Its leading bards played country and western. The cult of Joe Harris emerged contrapuntally, as memories of the day faded and the nation grew tired of courage—exhausted enough to want to hear “Bird in God’s Garden.” The song was a litany of resignation, authored by alleged Muslims, recorded by an alleged suicide—the ideal track to get drunk to when it came time to commemorate the day that fucked the world but good.

Possibly it got played so much because it had never been officially released. Copyright was murky. Professor Harris was indifferent. For practical purposes, anyone who wanted could stream it, post a video, or include it on a CD. By 2011, year of the tin/aluminum anniversary, it was common knowledge among younger music journalists that the tragic genius Joe Harris had been a prescient guy.

Six months in advance, as part of the pre-observance observances, The New Yorker assigned a staff writer to profile him in absentia. His publicist told Daktari, who wrote to Professor Harris, asking for permission to put out a posthumous record. There was no reply. But Daktari was a label exec in the prime of life, not a helpless baby. Unrelentingly he repeated his request via telephone and courier, with enclosures including courtside basketball tickets, dinner invitations, and flowers.

In his desperation, Professor Harris called Daniel. Daniel thought the whole thing through and said, “You’re making it way too obvious that you want nothing to do with any of it, and you know what’s going to happen? They’re going to bootleg it and not cut you in, because they know you can’t be bothered to sue, and that’s the God’s honest truth. I’m not saying you need to put up a fight or even negotiate. You just have to sign their standard contract like a normal person and put it out of your mind.”

He suggested telling Daktari to take them out for drinks at the Campbell Apartment, a high-priced bar in Grand Central Station where he had always wanted to go. There Professor Harris said very little, Daniel valiantly consumed cocktails valued at sixty dollars, and a deal was struck. Such was the genesis of Joe’s final release, a commemorative eight-CD boxed set of demos and outtakes with a booklet of candid color photos, scheduled for release on September 12. It included more than 250 songs and was entitled Behold Joe Harris.

FLORA GOT A LOT OF BOOSTER SHOTS. SHE BOUGHT A CHEAP PORTABLE MOSQUITO NET and a six-week supply of antibiotics to ward off malaria. In June she flew via Paris to Addis.

She was met at the airport by a Dutch woman, Marit, who looked about forty, and her Ethiopian driver Tesfaldet. They never went anywhere without him, and he seemed unable to subsist without them. When they went out to a café two evenings later, he stayed

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