Herb spent the better part of the afternoon staring at the blue, patterned wall of his cubicle and tapping a pen on his desk. Nothing added up here. Why would a hot-shot company like FasCorp be held in a trust controlled by a hog-farming couple? Who hired the astounding number of employees they had in such a short period of time? Why did he suddenly give a ****? He’d been bored for what seemed like an eternity in this job. He couldn’t remember the last time he was actually interested in a case. He smiled a little, he was actually happy that Donald Estelle had given him this case. He wasn’t sure why, but he was up for sinking his teeth into it.
He had done some more digging after his chat with Steve. This was Bizarrro world. Doe Run Missouri has population of 387 people. Jeremiah Halton, he discovered, is a ****ing Freemason. His wife has no information on her. They have a son, Abel, who would be 33. No information on him. Good God. It’s like the death star is being controlled by Dorothy’s Auntie Em and Uncle Henry.
Herb’s gaze went from the wall to the clock. “It’s 5:30 on Friday” he thought. “Time for a dri..” He stopped himself. The rage and indignation began welling up inside him. He calmed himself, momentarily and convinced himself that a trip to the rooftop would be good for him. He’d see the waitress and be around people. Maybe he could grab a bite. That would be good. He nudged himself, figuratively, toward the door. In reality, he simply sat motionless in his chair despite this elaborate inner-dialogue. Then he remembered Claire.
Claire would be knocking off right about now. He wondered whether he would “accidentally” run into her on the way out of the building. He began to feel more rage, then sadness, then it became evil. His thoughts took him back to the week they’d spent in the beach cottage on St. Kitts. How did things get so bent in such a short period of time? He thought about the spurts of drunkenness, the affairs, and then finally the
ménage à trois he talked her into that ended it all. Far from shame, however, this trip down memory lane became a highlight reel for the moment. He indulged his depravity for the time being. It began to control him.
By the time Herb did finally lift himself up from his seat, his head was in pure chaos. He could barely manage a rational thought. The struggle to leave finally overcome, he left the building hoping not to see Claire. He drove straight home, his mind still clouded, but sane enough to know what a disaster the Rooftop bar would be.
Herb was glad to see the apartment freshly cleaned when he got home. Becky, the 19 year-old college student who cleaned his apartment had left a note with a smiley face. He began imagining her cleaning his tub on all fours…he suddenly shouted “STOP!” like a dog owner scolding his animal for attempting to chew up a slipper. He walked into the extra bedroom and pressed the answering machine. There was a message from his father; an angry “no” and then a hang up, and three messages from Diane, the Big Zero, about the cruise.
The spare bedroom was filled with unpacked boxes. His stereo and turntable sat on a crate next to a box of his records. One of them was out. Becky must’ve put on a record while she was cleaning. He looked on the turntable and saw what she’d been listening to. Spinning the record back and forth with his finger, Herb read the label:
“Michael Bloomfield with Nick Gravenites and Friends, Live at Bill Graham’s Fillmore West
SIDE 1
1. Blues on a Westside (Gravanites/Bloomfield) 15:12…”
Herb was surprised to see that a 19 year old college girl would be interested in listening to this. He remembered it as one of his favorite albums, but he hadn’t listened to it in ages. He also remembered that he’d written a review on the album while he was working for the school newspaper in college.
He began moving boxes and found one labeled “College.” He opened it up and found, among other things, a stack of newspapers with articles he had a byline in. Herb found the review, put on some headphones, put the needle down on the rotating record, and started reading. It was the work, he thought, of an ambitious, driven and impetuous boy:
“…I was astounded by this masterpiece. The song Blues on a Westside, and Bloomfield’s presence on it, holds me captive from beginning to end. I am frozen by it.
Bloomfield has a HUGE canvas to work with here. Eighty-four perfectly crafted bars of soloing in a concert hall that talks back to each note with a fine resonance. He takes advantage of every inch of the Fillmore with uniquely masterful dynamics. His scaffold, a tightly welded rhythm section and a group of truly superlative musicians, adds so much to the moment, here caught for posterity. Fellow Chicagoan, Nick Gravenites sings peaceful, deep and soulful vocal brush strokes. They are persistently haunted and answered by Bloomfield. All of this is punctuated by the ornate counterpoint solo of Snooky Flowers to finish things off. For his part, Bloomfield’s two leads bring us from melancholy and morose to thoughtful and deep, to childlike beauty, then to a desperate and soulful pleading, and finally to overdriven rage followed by anxious moments where he leaves the key briefly and gives us butterflies. This, my friends, is Michael Bloomfield’s Sistine Chapel.”
“What a pretentious little ****,” Herb remarked out loud with a chuckle. He was lying on the floor now, listening, his episode had passed. As Taj Majal’s “One More Mile” began to play, Herb turned his head to view the spilled contents of his “College” box. There among the scattered contents was his journal. He had written on its cover simply “Drugs.”