Rothko's Rolodex

I had no idea Jane was around, still extant, her biker boots on the ground of the sphere we call the world, axis tilting and moving around the Sun. The Sun is a funny thing for me to mention for a few reasons, the first being that Jane hated sunshine.

We went to Jones Beach once, but at night. We ran in the dark clumpy wet sand. Next thing i know, Jane’s climbing up a lifeguard chair. Her white palazzo pants seemed to glow. I stood there. “Can you get down? Can I help you?” Yes, I was worried. I did not want her falling off that chair. Was I overprotective? Hovering? Absolutely. I’m not ashamed to say it. She told me, loudly, over the waves and a few kids shrieking somewhere, to get the fuck up there already.

I can smell it now. The Atlantic looked like greasy slate. The rhythmic crash of the water, the fuzzy pale lights of ships way far out; at this very moment, I can see and hear everything. I had all my senses, nothing. The two glasses of Beaujolais something didn’t do much.

I drove us there in my Pop’s Lincoln Town Car. He took us to dinner at a rustic French place with cold sausage plopped on the table as we sat down. It was a fun dinner. Pop called Jane a chocolate-mousse type. Jane was eating then. Not long after that, she’d have bitten Pop’s head off. He liked her a lot, I could tell.

Pop said, take my car, drive her home. Because Jane had to be home. Her parents drew that ridiculous line. We rarely slept together like a normal couple, unless we had a gig and Jane lied about her sleeping quarters. Those nights increased the more we gigged. And then, touring. Thank heaven for the Roeblings.

My little roadie, her sloe eyes bleary and smeared with the black Lancome pencil still in my possession; that’s when we slept in my bed all night. The best nights of all. Even when the show was rough, or we got too drunk, or Shauli and I fought. Jane made everything, everything better. Even if her mouth spewed Binaca fumes, the hair around her face a little moist and sticky. Stomach-content smelly. She’d spray the breath freshener on her hair sometimes, metallic mint and rubbing alcohol. By the time she came to bed, her mouthwash took effect.

She was particular about all things. I knew to buy her the right Scope. She pretty much drove the type she wanted, the deepest green, into my brain. You could say Jane was right there, occupying my cerebral cortex or whatnot, along with the Scope. Her Scope supply needed replenishment often. I needed replenishment often. I never cared for Depeche Mode, Vince Clarke in Yazoo was so much better, but their “Just Can’t Get Enough” was me all over. It’s embarrassing, how I matched all the lyrics.

And then, of course, the inevitable fast-forwarding, the yelling of the other Jane, the secondary replacement. Jane the ersatz. The real Jane threatened her. How ridiculous, I thought and said all the time. Jane #1 was probably a husk by then, a sliver of herself, maybe even dead. How can a particle of a person, a possible corpse, make anyone insecure? Let alone mad?

Oh dear God, please make her be alive. Breathing. Healthy even. Or too skinny, not really sick. Or still sick or sicker, an IV in her neck. She’d still be here. No God, please, please keep her here. She can’t be tiny and cold, in the ground. Please, God. Please.

“That bitch, she’s the Sun to you! You’re like a satellite.” I was pathetic, addicted to that cunt of a ghost, unavailable, remote, and did I say pathetic. I agreed.