Late, Late at Night by Springfield Rick

Author:Springfield, Rick [Springfield, Rick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Touchstone
Published: 2010-10-12T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

SO LONG, CHICKENS; THANKS FOR THE EGGS

THE BURBS: GLENDALE, CALIFORNIA

1979

My fourth attempt to make a record that the fickle record-buying bastard public will buy is complete. Joe shops it and sets up a meeting with the one record label interested: Mercury. I go away on my final trip as a YMCA counselor, up to the Sacramento River, with a co-ed group of kids. My meeting with the label is on the day before the YMCA trip ends, so I’ll have to come back to LA early. The group of counselors is also co-ed. We’re camping out in the middle of nowhere and the night before I’m supposed to leave—at 4:00 the following morning to make my meeting with Mercury Records—I crawl into the sleeping bag of one of the female mentors and have at it. This late, late at night romp causes me to wake up waaaaaay past my planned departure time and I jump into the tiny motorboat they’ve arranged to take me back to Sacramento, still pulling on my pants and tying my shoes.

We hurry, attempting to make up for lost time, so of course we get lost. Really lost. Really, really lost. At one point, in the still pitch-black early morning, we see a set of red and green lights up ahead. Only at the last possible moment do we realize it’s a fairly good-sized ship. We get out of the way just in time as it barrels past us, almost swamping our little boat. I eventually make it back to LA (by car), but I have missed the meeting with the record label. And they don’t want to reschedule, either. I hear a loud report: I look down at the bullet hole in my foot and my still-smoking penis and realize I’ve done it again. Shit!

My old friend Milt Hammerman of Universal Studios’ contract-player division has his assistant call to tell me the contract-player program is cancelled and I am out of work. Mum calls to say the cancer has now spread to my dad’s lymph system. Diana’s pet rabbit calls to say it’s just dropped dead. I wait for the train to hit me but it doesn’t come. My old friend Mr. Darkness does, though.

Down I go.

“Nice one, dipshit. Home run,” I hear his mean susurration. I cry out of frustration, disappointment, and fear. I stop writing songs. I feel like it’s over. The meeting with Mercury that I’ve just blown was hard for Joe to land, because every record company now believes they have a handle on who I am, or was—an ex-teen-idol wannabe. The “Speak to the Sky” guy who had the cartoon show. I know I’ll go insane and the Darkness will completely take me over if I don’t keep myself busy, so I buy some modeling clay. I start sculpting figures of aliens, spaceships, even a sinking Titanic, and glue them to mirrors. I set up stalls at swap meets and try to convince people, who are really out looking for cheap T-shirts, to buy my crap instead.

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