Different Circles

Chapter 13: Occam’s Razor is Dull

Oakland, California

May 21, 1993

Jam-On Productions Studios sat on Martin Luther King Junior Way, just a little north of 18^th Street, in one of the worst neighborhoods in Oakland—a city that was quite notorious for bad neighborhoods. The single-story building was very much like a fortress. It had no windows and the doors were reinforced steel similar to that on a bank vault. The entire property was surrounded by a twelve foot high chain link fence topped with razor wire. Security cameras peered out from every corner of the building.

Inside the building, however, all was clean, sterile, and professional. There were two complete studios that a host of independent rap and hip-hop artists from all over the west coast paid premium dollar to record, mix, and master their music in for distribution.

Gordon Paladay, i.e. Bigg G, had rented three hundred hours of studio time from Jam-On for the price of six hundred dollars an hour. On this day in late May, he was one hundred and ninety-six hours into that allotment and running more or less on schedule.

Jake Kingsley sat on a stool in the isolation room of Studio B, a pair of cans on his ears, his Yamaha acoustic guitar in his hands. He and the Nerdlys had flown up two days before so Jake could record his part of the song Step In, Gordon’s experimental piece he planned as his second release on the new album. Gordon had put the three of them up in a hotel in Jack London Square and had paid all of their travel expenses. Other than that, however, neither Jake nor the Nerdlys were asking for any kind of compensation for their efforts.

“All right, Jake,” said the voice of High-Top, the young engineer who was running the sound board for this session (Jake did not know his real name, and suspected that Gordon didn’t either). “We’re going to do take twelve of Step In, starting with the bridge melody. The band will pick up from the start of the second chorus section and you just fall in with them.”

Jake did not answer verbally, as no one would have heard him. Instead, he raised his left hand up and gave a big thumbs-up.

“All right,” High-Top said. “Let’s do it. Fire when ready, brothers.”

Outside, in the main studio, the drummer and the bass player began to play. The DJ began to twist his turntables back and forth, eliciting the secondary melody. Gordon himself, who was closed into the second isolation room, began to sing out the lyrics of the second chorus. Jake took a moment to orient himself to his place in the tune and then began to play, his left fingers pushing on the fret board, his right hand strumming the strings.

“Can’t you step into his mind, try to see what he been through?” sang Gordon, his voice a rich baritone that sounded vastly different than it did when he was simply rapping.

“Can’t you leave your hate behind, what if that was happening to you?

“Won’t you step into his mind, find a way to see him through?”

“Step into his mind ... yes, step into his mind.”

The bridge of the song started and Jake changed both the tempo and the melody to fit it. He began to strum out the chords while Gordon sang out a rapid-fire series of lyrics that was edging back into the land of straight rap. He sang of brothers in jail and sisters on the welfare, about kids joining gangs and ending up in the morgue, about those who try to save themselves and are called Uncle Tom, about rich motherfuckers who forgot where they come from, about how we should just step into each other’s minds, and try to see things from their different points of view.

Jake enjoyed the song a lot, both the melody and harsh realism of the lyrics. Working with Gordon on the tune had been a lot of fun and had increased his musical respect for the rapper considerably. He played his guitar with all the emotion and feeling that the song deserved, making it all the way through the bridge section and then onto a brief acoustic guitar solo backed by only the DJ. It was just as he began the transition back to the primary melody that High-Top’s voice interrupted.

“All right, homeys,” he said. “Let’s pull it in right here.”

The musicians all stopped, bringing a jangling halt to the music playing in Jake’s headphones.

“What’s the word?” asked Gordon from his booth. “It sounded pretty tight to me.”

“It was,” High-Top said. “That was a great job, Jake. Nerdly and I both think we’ll be able to use the whole take right up to where the solo ended, but as you started the transition back, you edged out of tempo a bit.”

Jake looked at the window into the studio and mouthed “How much?” in exaggerated speech, so they could read his lips.

“Just a little,” High-Top told him. “About as little as a white guy’s dick in the locker room, if you can relate to that shit.”

Jake chuckled and held his thumb and index finger about an inch apart.

“Maybe not even that much,” High-Top told him. “Truth be told, I probably would’ve let it go, but Mr. Nerdly here winced, and G told me that when Mr. Nerdly winces, that means another take is in order.”

Jake nodded and then mimed the act of strumming his guitar.

“That’s right,” High-Top told him. “We’ll do it again. This time picking up from the beginning of the solo. Sound good?”

Jake gave him the thumbs up. A minute later, they did it again.

By some miracle of fate and the Gods of Music (and the fact that the Nerdlys were just advisers in the process and did not actually have veto power), they managed to successfully record all of Jake’s guitar parts in the tune to the satisfaction of High-Top by four o’clock that afternoon without anyone directing any actual violence toward Bill or Sharon. In truth, the Jam-On team seemed somewhat impressed by their anal retentiveness and their ear for music. Particularly as it related to recording acoustic instruments.

“All right then,” Gordon said as Jake emerged from the isolation room, guitar in hand. “Damn good playing in there, Jake.”

“Thanks,” Jake told him. “I’m glad we were able to finish it up today.”

“Will you be able to come back for the overdubs and for any final tweaks before we mix?” Gordon asked.

“You bet your ass,” Jake assured him. “Just tell me when you need me and I’ll fly up.”

“Once we’ve laid down the rest of the tracks for Step we’ll be done with the basics,” Gordon said. “Hopefully that won’t take more than few days or so. After that, I’ll give you a call and we’ll work on polishing Step whenever is convenient for you. I’m thinking we should be able to pound out any additionals from you in one day.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Jake said. “And don’t worry much about my schedule. Celia and I are going to start hitting the rehearsal studio soon to start putting our new material together, but we won’t be as tight as we were for the first albums. Struggle and Down are both still selling pretty well and getting a lot of airplay, so there’s no real rush.”

“I feel you, my man,” Gordon told him. “And I appreciate all you’ve done for me. Step is going to be badass and your guitar playing is what’s gonna put that bad in that ass. Now ... how about we go out and celebrate this collaboration? Drinks are on me.”

“I’d love to, G,” Jake said, “but I really need to get home. There’s a seven o’clock out of Oakland to LAX and I want to be on it.”

“What’s the rush?”

“I talked to Laura on the phone last night,” he said, “and ... well ... she said she had something important she needs to talk to me about. She wouldn’t say what it was, just that she needed to speak to me in person as soon as possible. She sounded a little weird, not herself.”

“No shit?” Gordon asked.

“No shit,” he confirmed. “I found that when someone says something like that to you, you should go find out what’s up as soon as you can.”

Gordon nodded his head. “I can appreciate that shit,” he said. “All right then. We’ll get you to your hotel so you can grab your stuff and then get you off to the airport.”

“Thanks, G,” Jake said.

“What about you two though?” the rapper asked Bill and Sharon. “Do y’all need to go rushing back tonight?”

“Uh ... well ... no, not really,” Nerdly said. “We have no previously arranged commitments until Jake and Celia begin their rehearsal projects.”

“Then how about y’all come out and party with me tonight?” he asked them. “Drinks on me. I know a premium club over on MacArthur Avenue and MLK that we can close down. I’ll send a limo for Neesh and we’ll get hammered in style.”

“MacArthur and MLK,” Nerdly said slowly. “That’s a ... well ... kind of a rough neighborhood, isn’t it?”

“Y’all will undoubtedly be the only whities in the club,” Gordon said. “Is that a problem?”

“Uh ... will we be safe?” Sharon asked.

“Maybe not if you strolled in there on your own,” Gordon said, “but you’ll be with me. I’m known there and I carry some weight. Nobody will bother you. I guarantee it.”

“Well...” Nerdly said, looking at his wife for a moment. She shrugged. “I guess we’ll go then.”

“Beautiful,” Gordon said. “And trust me when I say, the brothers there are going to love you.”

“You think so?” Bill asked.

“I fuckin’ know so,” Gordon said. “All you gotta do is start talking about your theories on space and time and the evolution of the sand flea and all that shit that you normally talk about. They’re gonna eat that shit up, homey.”

“Are you sure?” Nerdly ask.

“I guarantee it,” Gordon assured him.

The United Airlines 737 touched down at LAX at 8:23 that same evening. Jake, sitting in the first-class section, was one of the first to exit the plane. He walked to the baggage carousel and stood near the one assigned to his flight, waiting for his luggage to drop out. Other people from his flight and their loved ones gathered with him. Soon enough, someone recognized him.

“Hey,” a young man in his early twenties spoke up. “Ain’t you Jake Kingsley?”

“That’s me,” Jake confirmed, suppressing a sigh. Ever since that rag, the Watcher, had printed his current look, people were recognizing him more and more. As he had told Laura, the free ride had come to an end. Even though he’d shaved off the mustache and kept the hair cut short, it didn’t matter. The clean-shaven look hadn’t been in place for a week before some paparazzi asshole had snapped a shot of him and put it on a magazine cover.

“Dude,” the dude told him, “it’s like, so cool running into you here in the airport. Were you flying on my flight?”

No, Jake wanted to tell him, I just like to hang out near baggage carousels in the airport for the fuck of it. Instead, he said: “If you just came in from Oakland I was.”

The dude seemed completely awed by this. “That’s just so ... so ... fuckin’ cool,” he said. “I guess you were sitting up in first class?”

“I was,” Jake confirmed.

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I was back in the back, in the middle seat, you know. I can’t afford that first class shit.”

Jake shrugged. “Maybe someday you will,” he said.

“I doubt it,” the dude told him. “My parents paid for this ticket. I’m coming down to check into rehab tomorrow. Meth, you know? I been clean for like three days now.”

“That’s uh ... good to hear,” Jake told him, spotting a guitar case coming down the ramp onto the carousel. It was black and had a green ID tag on it. It was his case. His suitcase was not behind it or in front of it, however. Naturally. “Excuse me, one of my bags is coming by.”

Jake stepped up to the carousel. The dude stepped right up with him. As the guitar case came by, Jake grabbed it and set it next to his feet.

“Dude,” the dude said, “is that like your guitar?”

Jake briefly considered telling him no, that he just liked to carry his shirts and underwear in a guitar shaped suitcase, but instead, he simply affirmed that it was, indeed, his guitar.

“Is it the one you played on your album cover?” the dude wanted to know.

“It is not,” he said. “That one on the album cover does not actually exist. It was airbrushed in by the technical people for the shot.”

“No shit?” the dude asked, seemingly unsure whether to be in awe of this information or disillusioned by it.

“No shit,” Jake told him with a straight face. “In fact, that’s not really even me in the shot.”

“It’s not?”

“Nope, I’m too busy a guy to be posing for album cover photos, you know what I mean? It’s actually a body double with an airbrushed guitar in hands and then they airbrushed in an old photo of my face on him.”

“Wow,” the dude said, marveling at this.

“The stool is real though,” Jake told him. “Though it wasn’t really a brown stool. They had to change the color in the studio.”

“Man,” the dude whispered, shaking his head. “Those dudes can do some serious shit, huh?”

“They can,” Jake agreed, spying his suitcase finally dropping down.

“Hey,” the dude said. “How about you take out that guitar and play a little something for us?”

“I’d love to,” Jake told him, “but I can’t. It’s a contract thing, you know?”

“But I thought you went independent,” the dude said. “That’s what everyone is saying.”

“I did go independent,” he said. “And those are the worst kind of contracts to try to work under.”

“The independent contracts?” the dude asked, confused.

“That’s right,” Jake said. “Very oppressive. Back in the day, I could just pull my six-string out in front of any old baggage carousel in the northern hemisphere and start playing—and often I did—but under this independent contract...” He shook his head sadly. “No airport or other public transport guitar playing in the Pacific or Eastern African time zones is allowed, except on Fridays between six and nine PM Greenwich mean time, unless it’s Ramadan, of course, then I can’t even play during those hours unless I’ve been fasting.”

“That’s fucked up, dude,” the dude said, quite righteously.

Jake shrugged. “It’s the life I choose, my man,” he told him. He then reached out and snagged his suitcase as it came by. “Well, nice talking to you, partner. Good luck in rehab.” He held out his right hand to him.

“Uh ... sure,” the dude said, shaking with him. “Nice talking to you too.”

A moment later, Jake was making his way to the terminal exit, guitar and suitcase in hand, making a mental note to wash his hands at first opportunity. He was rather proud of himself for the impromptu strategy of bullshit he had just employed. Because of it, the dude had forgotten to ask for an autograph. And because no autograph had been signed, no one else had noticed that he was Jake Kingsley. He was escaping relatively unscathed. He would have to expand upon the technique in the future. Besides, it had been kind of fun.

A limousine was waiting for him out in the arrivals section. The driver put his baggage in the trunk and Jake sat down in the back for the thirty minute drive home. He resisted the urge to mix up a tall rum and coke during the trip. Whatever Laura wanted to talk about, it was probably something he wanted to face with complete sobriety.

It was 9:40 PM when Jake opened the front door of his house and carried his baggage inside. The house was quiet and sparkling clean, with most of the lights turned down. Elsa, having heard him enter, came through the kitchen and met him just as he was leaving the foyer. She was wearing her standard uniform of jeans and a button-up shirt, though usually, by this time of night, she would have changed into her night clothes and holed up in her room.

“Hey, Elsa,” Jake greeted. “I see the house is still standing.”

“For now,” she allowed. “How was your flight?”

“Quicker than I could have done it myself, but not nearly as fun,” he told her.

“Did you finish your recording for Mr. G?”

“I finished the basic track I was responsible for. I’ll probably have to fly back up soon to do some overdubs though.”

“I hope Mr. G is appropriately grateful for your assistance,” Elsa said.

“He is,” Jake said. “He was taking Bill and Sharon out to a ghetto bar to celebrate when I left.”

A look of alarm appeared on Elsa’s face. “A ghetto bar in Oakland?” she asked. “They’ll be killed!”

“I don’t think so,” Jake said. “Nerdly’s got quite a bit of street cred, you know.”

“William? Street cred?”

Jake shrugged. “G’s with him anyway. They’ll be safe.”

“I suppose,” she said doubtfully. “Anyway, go ahead and leave that suitcase right there. I’ll get it unpacked for you and wash the clothing.”

“Thanks, Elsa,” he said, setting it down. “How’s Laura been?”

“A little mopey these last two days,” she told him. “She didn’t want anything for dinner tonight and she went upstairs early. She didn’t even have the glass of wine she’s accustomed to.”

“Really?” Jake said slowly, not liking the sound of that a bit. His mind had developed several possibilities for what Laura wanted to talk about, and this news about her abstention from alcohol fed directly into one of the more alarming ones.

“Really,” Elsa said, picking up the suitcase. She looked up her employer. “There is nothing I should not witness in this suitcase, correct?”

“I wouldn’t do that to you, Elsa,” he told her. “I keep my lingerie and my sex toys in the guitar case.”

“Very good,” Elsa said. “I’ve trained you well.”

“You have,” he said. “Well, I’m going to head up. Laura has something she needs to talk to me about.”

Elsa nodded. “I hope it’s good news,” she told him.

“Me too,” he agreed.

He went to the music room to drop off the guitar and then walked up to the master bedroom. Laura was still awake when he entered. She was supine upon the bed, wearing nothing but a long white t-shirt with a cartoon cat playing a saxophone on it. SAX KITTEN was printed in playful script beneath. The hem of the shirt was well up on her upper thighs and he cast an appreciative look at her smooth legs. Her thighs were just a bit apart, letting him catch the barest impression of copper at their junction. The jiggle in her chest told him that she was not wearing a bra.

“Hey, babe,” he greeted, hoping that no matter what she wanted to talk about (even if it was THAT!) he would be able to sink into her flesh at the conclusion of the discussion. After all, it had been nearly three days since he’d been laid.

“Hi, sweetie,” she returned, giving him her smile. “Welcome home.”

She sat up and scooted to the edge of the bed (an action that rucked the hem of her shirt up even higher) and then stood to embrace him. They shared a warm kiss and a long embrace, longer than normal for such a situation. Laura just did not want to let go of him.

“What’s the matter, hon?” Jake asked softly, his hand rubbing her back.

“I ... I got some news the other day,” she said, her face buried in his shoulder.

“Okay...” he said slowly. “Is it good news or ... or bad news?”

She took a deep breath against him. “A little bit of both,” she said. “Depending on how you look at it.”

Jake swallowed slowly, feeling a little burst of adrenaline going through him. You will be calm and cool through this, he told himself, and you will deal with this situation as a rational, sober adult. “Okay,” he said softly. “How about you tell me what this news is?”

“I will in a minute,” she said, her arms still around him, her hands scratching lightly at his back. “How was your flight?”

“The flight was good,” he said, pulling himself back a little, so her face had to come out of his shoulder. “What’s the news, Laura?”

She sighed. “I don’t quite know how to tell you.”

“Just go ahead and say it,” he said. “I kind of have a feeling I already know what you’re about to tell me.”

Her eyes opened a little wider and she stared at his face. “You do?” she asked, surprised. “How did you hear about it?”

“Uh ... well, I’m pretty good at reading between the lines,” he said.

“Reading between the lines?” she asked. “What does that mean?”

“It means that I’m able to take a limited amount of information and draw conclusions that are usually correct from that information. You’ve heard of Occam’s Razor?”

“Occam’s Razor?” she said, her look of confusion growing. “What the hell are you talking about, Jake?”

“Uh ... well ... Occam’s Razor is a principle of logic that states that when faced with...”

“I know what Occam’s Razor is,” Laura said, exasperated now. “And Occam has nothing to do with what I’m talking about.”

“He doesn’t?”

“I don’t see how he possibly could. You could not possibly have enough information to make an Occam’s Razor type of conclusion in this circumstance.”

“I couldn’t?”

“No!” she said. “No one knows about Z and Dexter yet. I only got the phone call two days ago. The cover story about exhaustion is still holding and, other than their manager, I’m the only one who really knows about it. There is no way you could have heard this news hanging out with Gordon in Oakland.”

Jake took another step back from her, releasing the embrace. He looked in her eyes, truly seeing them for the first time since walking in the room. “What are you talking about, Laura?” he asked.

“Z and Dexter had a major blowup after their concert in Harrisburg on Monday night,” she said. “Dexter resigned from the band and is flying home. He says this time it’s truly over and he will never play with Z again.”

Jake chewed his lip a little. “Z, Dexter ... are you talking about ... what are you talking about?”

“The Bobby Z tour!” she said. “Tim Flicks, their manager, called me up two days ago and told me about the breakup. They had to cancel all the dates for the next month because they don’t have a sax player now. But they need to get back on the road as soon as possible or they’re going to lose a lot of money and possibly be in danger of contract breach. They want me to fly out to Pittsburgh tomorrow and start rehearsing up to replace Dexter on the horn and finish out the tour with them.”

Jake was astounded, too surprised that the news he had thought he was going to hear was not what she had shared to even consider the implications of what she had actually laid on him. “That ... that’s your news?” he asked.

“Yes, that’s my news!” she said.

“Jesus Christ,” he said. “That is not what I thought you were going to tell me at all.”

“Obviously,” she said. “What did you think I was going to tell you?”

“Uh ... well ... I kind of thought that maybe you were ... you know ... pregnant.”

“Pregnant?” she barked, letting out a little laugh. “Me? Where did you get that from?”

“Well, you said you had something important to talk to me about, that you couldn’t talk about it on the phone, and then Elsa said you were kind of mopey the last two days and that you didn’t have your glass of wine tonight and ... well ... you know?”

“Wow,” she said, shaking her head. “Talk about jumping to a conclusion. I skip a glass of wine and your mind goes right to the pregnancy thing? I don’t drink that much, do I?”

“No, not at all,” he said, feeling a tremendous amount of relief that she was not pregnant, but also maybe feeling just a hint of disappointment as well? And was that disappointment because she was not with child or was it because of her actual news? “It’s just ... I don’t know. Forget I even went there.”

“Forgetting it,” she said. “Now then ... what do you think about the real reason I wanted to talk to you? About me leaving and going out on the road with Z and his band?”

He looked at her, trying to read what she wanted to hear from him in her eyes. They were sending extremely mixed messages, however, and he was unable to interpret. He took a deep breath and then slowly blew it out. “Is going out on the road something you want to do?”

She nodded slowly. “I used to love playing in front of an audience when I was in the jazz band with Ben,” she said. “That was one of the best times of my life, truth be told. I’d really love to do it again, to play for larger audiences, with true professionals.”

“Then you should do it,” Jake told her.

“But ... what about us?” she asked.

“What about us?”

“I’ll be gone for five or six months,” she said. “I’ll be traveling all over the country, staying in cheap motels, riding on buses...”

“I’m familiar with life on the road, hon,” he reminded her. “It’s really one of those ‘best of times, worst of times’ things. I think you should do it if it is something you want to do. I’m not going to stop loving you because you’re gone for a few months.”

“Are you sure?” she said quietly.

He leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the nose. “I’m sure,” he told her. “And besides, I can fly out to see you every now and again while you’re out there. Remember, I’m rich. I can afford shit like that.”

She nodded slowly. “I ... well ... I have some other concerns as well.”

“Such as?”

A few chews of her lip, a few deep breaths, and then: “I’m not sure I’m good enough to do this,” she said.

“That’s absurd,” he scoffed.

“It’s not!” she insisted. “This is Bobby Z we’re talking about here, one of the best smooth jazz artists in the world! I’m just a teacher who likes to play around with the sax!”

“No,” Jake corrected. “You’re a professional sax player who used to be teacher. And you’re damn good at what you do. You’re a big part of why Celia’s album is selling like wildfire right now. You’re a big part of why South Island Blur is getting airplay right now.”

“They’re just playing that song because they know you and I are getting it on,” she said.

“That may be why they started playing it, but it’s not why the song is moving up the charts. That soprano sax you laid down for the melody is badass, just like everything else you did on Celia’s album. I know that, Celia knows that, and Bobby fucking Z knows that shit too. That’s why he picked you to lay down those overdubs, and that’s why he’s asking you to go out on tour with him.”

“But...”

“No buts,” Jake insisted. “We can talk about what the separation might mean for us if you want—after all, you won’t be around to help us lay down the next two albums if you’re out on tour—but don’t you dare stand there and tell yourself that you’re not good enough to play with Bobby Z. You are good enough. You wouldn’t have been asked otherwise.”

She took another deep breath and then gave him her smile. “Thanks, Jake,” she said. “That means a lot coming from you.”

“Yes,” he told her. “It does.”

That earned him a giggle and an embrace. He lifted her face up and then kissed her; a long, luxuriant kiss that involved tongues.

“Wow,” she breathed when it broke. “What was that for?”

“That was to put you in the mood for letting me up under that nightie of yours,” he said.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said. “How did I do?”

“I’m definitely leaning in that direction,” she said. “But shouldn’t we talk about this road thing a little more first?”

Jake shook his head. He ran his hands down to the bottom of her long t-shirt and then slid them slowly up the back of her thighs until he was touching the bare cheeks of her buttocks. “I haven’t been inside of you in three days now. Let’s talk after.”

“But...”

“No buts,” he said again, pulling her close to him, so his strengthening erection was pushing onto her belly. “After.”

“Mmm,” she moaned, grinding herself into him a little, her nipples hardening before his very eyes. “I think that after will work.”

Their lips came together again. They made their way to the bed. She never did take off the SAX KITTEN shirt, but it did not really get in the way.

And when they were done, after their breathing returned to normal and the sweat dried on their skin, they talked about it.

The next afternoon, in the quaint little thirteen thousand square foot mansion that Greg Oldfellow kept so he had a place to stay when he or Celia needed to be in Los Angeles for extended periods of time, another discussion of significance was taking place.

“So ... what do you think?” Celia asked her husband, a small amount of nervousness in her tone as she pondered the ramifications of the discussion. She was wearing a pair of tattered sweatpants and a tank top with no brassiere beneath. Her feet were bare and her hair was not done. She had no intention of changing out of her sleepwear today since she was not going out.

Greg, who was wearing slacks and a dress shirt even though he had no plans to go out either, was looking at a sheaf of papers in front of him. He had just gone through all of them, reading carefully and absorbing every word. “It’s ... well ... an interesting concept,” he told her.

“An interesting concept?” she asked. “That’s what you’re calling it?”

“That’s what it is,” Greg insisted. “Nothing is written in stone, right? There is no reason why there has to be a follow-through with this thing if the timing isn’t at its best.”

“The timing?” she asked, feeling a flush in her face. “You would disregard a gift like this because you don’t think the timing is right? That’s insane, Greg!”

“But...”

“And when would the timing be right?” she demanded. “Even assuming that this gift would be repeated at some point ... something that probably won’t happen, exactly when would be the right time?”

“I ... really don’t know,” Greg said, uncharacteristically at a complete loss of the ability to explain himself.

“You don’t know,” she said softly, her eyes boring into him. “Why don’t you tell me what is really bothering you about this whole thing?”

He did not answer her immediately. Instead, he kept looking at the papers in front of him, his eyes refusing to look up and meet hers.

“Greg?” she said, her voice a little softer now. “Tell me what’s wrong. Tell me why the thought of not going through with this has even entered your mind.”

“I told you,” he said, still not looking at her. “The timing isn’t...”

“There is never going to be a better time,” she interrupted. “My album is selling well right now and I’m just starting the process for putting together the next one. Your golf course project is on track and we’re in the middle of the waiting period for that environmental impact report to be done, so that won’t take time away from you. You haven’t worked as an actor in almost four years now. You need to do this!”

He finally looked up at her, his expression miserable. “I’m scared, C,” he told her. “That’s why I’m hesitant to go through with it.”

She reached across and took his hand in hers. “I understand,” she told him. “Don’t you think I was scared too?”

“Well ... yes, of course,” he said. “But this is different.”

“How is it different?” she asked.

“Well ... you’re a musician and I’m an actor,” he said. “Those are two very different things.”

“True,” she said with a nod, “but they’re both still entertainment. We were both faced with the need to pick up the pieces of our career and put it back together. I did it for mine. Now it’s your turn.”

He sighed, looking down at the paper before him once again. It was a movie script titled So Others May Live. Adapted from a non-fiction book of the same name written by a former US Coast Guard helicopter pilot, it was an upcoming project about a Coast Guard flight crew in Alaska. Johnny Sparks, one of the hottest up and coming directors in Hollywood, had signed onto the project. Vincent Scanlon, one of the most respected producers in the business had signed on to produce it. And Vincent Scanlon, who had worked with Greg Oldfellow on two previous non-atrocious films prior to that atrocity known as the Northern Jungle, had sent Greg a copy of the script and told him the lead role in the project, that of Lieutenant Michael Andrews, pilot and commander of a Sikorsky HH-3F rescue helicopter, was his to refuse. If he wanted the role, he only need give a token audition for it and it was his.

“I’ve read this script twice now,” he told his wife. “It seems to be a good, solid piece of writing. There’s no cheesiness in it, and only a token amount of romance between Andrews and the owner of a bar near their base. Most of the movie is full of flight time and rescue missions. It’s kind of like Top Gun for the Coast Guard.”

“Then what’s the problem?” she asked.

“Well, in the first place, it calls for on-site filming in southern Alaska starting in August and lasting up to three months.”

“What’s wrong with that?” she asked. “God knows you’ve done lots of on-site filming before.”

“True,” he said. “It’s just a long time to be away. I’ve kind of gotten used to us being together these last few years.”

“That’s sweet, Greg,” she said. “But what’s the real reason?”

He sighed. “I’m afraid I’ll ruin the project,” he said.

“Ruin the project? How would you do that? You haven’t lost your ability to act, have you?”

“I can still act,” he said confidently. “I’m not worried about that, I’m worried that people won’t even give the film a chance once they hear I’m the lead in it. I’m afraid they’ll just remember that I was the fucking nomad in The Northern Jungle and they’ll think it’s a comedy or, even worse, they’ll just conclude it’s going to suck ass because I’m in it.”

“Suck ass?” Celia asked, raising her eyebrows a bit.

He blushed. “Sorry, I’ve been hanging out with Jake a little too much, I suppose. You know what I mean though.”

“I know what you mean,” she said. “And I think you’re wrong.”

“How can you possibly know that?” he demanded. “My reputation took a huge hit because I signed on for Northern Jungle and assumed it was going to be magnificent just because it had a huge budget and a famous director was going to be behind the scenes. I read that Northern Jungle script before signing my name, C. I read it and I thought it was going to be the film that got me that academy award! I actually thought that after reading that fucked-up piece of shit for the first time!” He shook his head. “I’m afraid my ability to judge a project based on a script reading might be in question.”

“Perhaps,” Celia said thoughtfully.

“Perhaps?” he repeated. “That’s what you have to say about it? C, my reputation is teetering on the brink already. It can’t take another hit. If this project flounders, either because it’s really not a great script to begin with or because people will automatically hate it before they see it because it’s me in the lead role, I’ll never be cast in another role again—not even those slapstick parody roles they’ve been offering.”

“That is true,” she told him, “but how is that any different than the situation you’re in now?”

“What?”

“If you turn this project down, how likely is it that someone else will offer you something with as much potential?”

“Not very,” he admitted.

“Sometimes you have to take a chance, Greg,” she told him. “That’s what I did by signing on with KVA and Jake. Look at me now. My career is back on track and I’m now respected as a musician and a songwriter. We might have failed, but we didn’t. And if we hadn’t of taken the shot, we never would have known and I’d still be languishing as a has-been.” She cast her look upon him once more. “You don’t want to languish as a has-been, do you?”

“Of course I don’t!”

“Then pull your thumb out of your ass, put on your big-boy panties, and do what the hell needs to be done,” she said.

He looked at her in astonishment for a moment. “Pull my thumb out of my ass?” he asked. “Put on my big-boy panties?”

She giggled. “Sorry,” she said. “I’ve been hanging out with Jake too.”

Meanwhile, in San Juan Capistrano, Matt Tisdale had just returned home after spending the workweek staying in his Los Angeles condo. The recording of his second solo album—tentatively titled Hard Time—was now well underway in the National Records studio in the basement of the big building. He stayed in the condo Monday through Thursday so he could put in twelve-hour days without traveling all the way home each night, and then came home on the weekends.

He parked his Maserati in the garage. He had only gotten his driver’s license back and started driving it again two months before, after the lengthy multiple suspensions of the driving privilege that DMV had saddled him with finally ran its course. It was just incredible how they had overreacted to that one little incident nearly five years ago now. You drive a little bit drunk and run from some cops (and get in a knock-down, drag-out fight with them at the conclusion) and they act like you’re some hardened criminal. It wasn’t even like they were allowed to consider the cocaine and marijuana charges. Those had been dismissed! And then there were those extensions of the eighteen-month suspension just because he got caught driving suspended a few times. Those cops had been out to get him, staking out his property and waiting for him to slip up. He just knew those motherfuckers were still sore at him for getting away during the chase. And they still insisted they’d let him get away in the name of public safety! Assholes.

In any case, it was nice to be able to drive legally again. He was in a good mood as he exited the car and headed into the house. The recording process was going well and he had some good, solid tunes for Hard Time. Even though he was selling out by letting them engineer and overdub the tunes, he was selling out with style. In only another month or so they would be done with the basic tracks and ready to start polishing.

The servants all had the weekend off and were nowhere to be found when he came inside. Kim was there, however, sitting at the kitchen table and sipping a glass of what appeared to be lemonade. She was wearing a pair of shorts and a loose-fitting t-shirt. Her blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail and she had a thoughtful expression on her face. The smell of garlic and oregano was heavy in the air.

“Hey,” he greeted, walking directly over to the refrigerator and pulling out a bottle of beer. He saw the pitcher of lemonade in there, noting that it was about half gone.

“Hey,” she returned, her voice quiet. “How was the drive?”

“I made it in fifty-one minutes,” he told her proudly. “Average speed, ninety-three miles per hour.”

“You’d better be careful,” she warned. “If the cops pull you over and cite you for excessive speed again, the DMV is going to yank that license right back away from you.”

“Fuck ‘em,” he said. “I gotta be me.”

“I’m just asking that you be a little careful, Mattie,” she said, a distinct tone of bitchiness in her voice.

He looked at her pointedly. “What’s with the nagging housewife routine?” he asked. “It ain’t like I don’t have the ability to get by without a fuckin’ driver’s license.”

“I just think you might want to behave a little more responsibly as you get older,” she said.

“Responsibly?” he scoffed. “What the fuck has crawled up your ass? And why the fuck are you drinking lemonade? I’ve never seen you drink that shit before.”

“There’s something I need to talk to you about,” she said.

“Oh?”

“Yes,” she confirmed. “It’s important. And I thought that maybe drinking before the discussion might be a bad idea.”

“Oh...” he said slowly. “That kind of discussion.”

“Right,” she confirmed.

“So ... I shouldn’t drink this then?” he asked, hefting his still unopened beer bottle.

“You might want to hold off for a few,” she said. “I’m not sure how you’re going to react to this, but you should probably keep a clear head.

A feeling of dread wormed its way into him. It was a feeling that Jake would have been familiar with. Slowly, deliberately, he walked back to the refrigerator and returned the bottle of beer. He pondered the lemonade for a moment and then shook his head. It was better to go without liquid than to drink any of that shit. He closed the door and then walked back to the table and sat down across from her. “You got my attention,” he told her.

“Thank you,” she said. “By the way, there’s a lasagna in the oven. Louisa made it last night before she took off. It’ll be done in about another half an hour or so.”

“Just give it to me straight,” Matt told her, dismissing the lasagna (even though Louisa made about the best fucking lasagna in the free world). “Are you knocked up, or what?”

Kim’s eyes widened almost comically. “Knocked up?” she asked. “Why would you ask that?”

“Is that not what this is about?” he asked, confused.

She barked laughter. “No, that’s not what this is about,” she said. “Whatever gave you the idea that I was pregnant?”

“Well ... you said you had some important shit to talk about, and you’re not drinking, and last month you had that thing where you barfed up all your pills, and ... well ... it seemed like the logical fucking conclusion to make.”

She laughed again and reached out to stroke his arm affectionately. “Oh, Mattie,” she said, shaking her head. “Fucking pregnant. Holy shit. Don’t you know that if that shit actually happened, I would’ve just gone to the abortion clinic and you never would have known about it?”

“I did think that was our unspoken agreement,” he said. “Still, you kind of threw me for a loop with all the bitchiness and drinking lemonade and shit.”

“I’m not pregnant,” she assured him.

“Well, all right then,” he said, nodding, feeling a surge of relief flowing through him. “But ... if that’s not what this is about, what is this about? We’re not really in a relationship, so you can’t be breaking up with me, right?”

“Right,” she said. “It has to do with a certain offer that has been made to me regarding a new project in the works.”

“A new porn project?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “A new porn project.”

“Someone wants you to come out of retirement and slam some schlong on camera again?”

“In a manner of speaking,” she said.

“Is it those assholes that sit on the board with you?” he asked. “You have controlling interest, remember? They can’t compel you to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“It’s not them,” she assured him. “I have every one of those pricks by the balls. They don’t even jack off without an okay from me.”

“Then what’s the issue?” he asked. “You don’t need to go back on camera if you don’t want to, right? Mary Ann Cummings Studios is fucking raking it in since you brought back plot to porn. You can’t sell those videos fast enough.”

“That is true,” she said. “And under ordinary circumstances I wouldn’t even consider going back on camera. I did my time spreading my legs under the lights. But this offer involves getting it on with someone familiar to me and ... well ... not only does it sound kind of fun to do, it’ll be pretty lucrative as far as profit goes.”

“Yeah?” he asked, wondering who she was supposed to fuck and for how much.

“Yeah,” she said. “Do you remember Rodney Carver. You met him at the Adult Film Awards a few years back.”

“Ahh yes, the porn convention,” Matt said fondly. He had good memories of that weekend—memories that involved two grams of cocaine, an eighth of good greenbud, and four women. “I don’t remember him though. Is he one of the actors?”

“He is not,” she said. “He is the CEO of Essex Home Video, the largest distributer of adult films in North America. It is he that most of Mary Ann Cummings videos are sold to for distribution, either directly through me or through a middle man.”

“Okay,” he said. “And he wants to fuck you?”

“I’m sure he does,” she said, “but that’s not part of the deal. He wants me to fuck you.”

Matt raised his eyebrows. “Fuck me? On camera?”

“That’s right,” she said. “But it won’t be just an ordinary fuck scene or a standard fuck flick movie. It’ll be much more interesting than that.”

“Explain,” Matt said.

“He has this idea that we produce a little thirty or forty minute video of the two of us getting it on in your bedroom, a typical fuck session, unchoreographed—or, so it will appear on the surface anyway—shot using only a home video camera. No extra lighting, no director, no other people. The idea is for it look like just a home video that you and I filmed because we’re kinky-ass people who would do something like that.”

He nodded thoughtfully, wondering why they had not actually done something like that yet. “And he thinks people would want to buy that?” he asked. “I don’t get it. I mean, I put on a pretty good performance if I do say so myself...”

“That you do,” she agreed.

“But why would anyone want to pay money just to watch us bump uglies like we normally do?”

“It’s all in the presentation,” she said. “We present it as private tape, never intended for anyone but us to see, that was stolen from your house by ... oh ... say a contractor or a valet driver or something like that. We make a big deal about how we don’t want the video released to the public and then Essex suddenly announces they’ve purchased the video and are going to distribute it. We have a little fake media battle with them, maybe even go so far as to actually file a lawsuit or some shit like that, but then Essex releases the tape for sale anyway, charging twenty dollars a copy, no rentals at all.”

Matt scowled as he thought about this. “And you think this will make money?”

“I think people will snatch that tape up like there’s no tomorrow,” she said. “Especially if we’re able to hype it up sufficiently before it’s even released and we manage to convey the feeling that, once it is released, we might get some judge to halt sales of it at any time.”

“This all sounds kind of sleazy,” he said.

She raised her eyebrows at him. “Sleaziness from the porn industry?” she asked. “Who would’ve thought?”

“Yeah, I guess,” he said. “What would be in it for you? For me?”

“Fifty percent royalties on all copies sold, evenly distributed between you and I. Essex handles all the costs of production and distribution.”

“Fifty percent of wholesale rate or retail rate?” he asked.

“Wholesale,” she said. “That’s nine dollars per tape.”

“Which means I would get two and a quarter per copy,” he said. “How many copies do you think would sell?”

“I don’t think that half a million would be an unreasonable guess,” she said.

“Hmm,” he said, pondering. “A million plus for just boning you like I always do. Not a bad payoff.”

“And that’s just the monetary factor,” Kim said. “The publicity angle is pretty sweet too. Nothing like having a sex tape of you floating around to keep you in the public consciousness, especially since this will all go down right about the time your album will be released.”

“Yeah, I could see how that might pick up a few sales for me,” he said. “It sounds like you’re in favor of this deal?”

“I’m leaning heavily in favor of it,” she said. “It’s something new in the industry, something that might become a trend. It might be fun to get in on the ground floor, to be the first.”

He thought it over for a few more seconds and then nodded. “All right,” he said. “Let’s fuckin’ do it.”

“Are you sure, Mattie?” she asked.

“I’m sure,” he said, already pondering what moves he was going to make. Maybe start off with some doggy style and then work up to a little reverse cowgirl? “When can we start?”

“Uh ... well, we still have to meet with Rod and his people, come to terms with the official agreement, get our lawyers involved, work out all the little details, all that kind of shit.”

“Oh,” he said, disappointed. He had kind of been hoping she had the camera upstairs and was ready to get started right now. “How long will that take?”

“A month or so,” she said. “Once everything is finalized and the paperwork is signed, we’ll submit a minimum of four takes for consideration, each one at least forty minutes in length.”

“Four?” he asked.

“A basic principal of photography is that it takes at least four exposures of any given subject to produce one good shot.”

“Oh,” he said again. This was now starting to sound like turning one of his favorite activities into a chore. Oh well ... a million bones spoke volumes. “Well ... how about we go up and get in some practice then? Start gearing up for the show?”

She nodded. “Let me tell Rod that you’re in and then I’ll meet you upstairs.”

“All right,” he said. “But don’t take too long or I’ll get started without you.”

“You sure I can’t get you a drink?” Obie asked. “A little scotch on the rocks? A glass of wine, maybe?”

“Uh ... I’m sure,” Pauline told him, watching with a little bit of envy as he filled a glass with ice and dumped five fingers of Crown Royal on top of it. It was her bar in her house—Obie no longer bothered staying in a hotel when he was in town—full of booze that she had paid for, yet it was off limits to her now.

“Suit yourself,” he said with a shrug. “What’s the deal with you anyway? I haven’t seen you have a drink all week. You givin’ up the sauce, hon?”

“For a little while,” she said softly.

He looked at her with a scowl. “What brought this on?” he asked. “You having some health problems?”

“In a manner of speaking,” she said. “Look, why don’t you grab a seat, Obie. There’s something I need to tell you.”

He took a long, slow drink of his Crown and then poured a little more on top, refilling it. He then walked slowly over to the couch and sat down next to her. “What is it, hon?” he asked. “Is it your liver?”

She shook her head. “It’s not my liver,” she told him.

“Then why else would you have to give up the hooch?” he asked. “I don’t get it. You don’t drink nearly as much as I do. You’re not thinking you’re an alky or some shit like that, are you?”

“No, I’m not thinking I’m an alky,” she said. “I ... well ... I have a little clump of rapidly replicating cells inside of me—that’s how the doctor I saw termed it.”

“Rapidly replicating cells?” Obie asked. His expression darkened. “Are you talkin’ cancer here, hon?”

She shook her head. “No, not cancer,” she told him. She took a deep breath. “I’m pregnant, Obie.”

His face paled just the slightest bit. His hand gripped his glass a little harder, causing his knuckles to turn white. He blinked slowly, took a moment to compose himself, and then said: “Pregnant? As in, with child?”

“That’s the only kind I know about,” she said.

Another deep breath. “You have something else you need to tell me, darlin’?” he asked. “I know we never spelled out the terms of this little thing we got going, but I always kind of assumed that there was an unspoken agreement about us not doing things with anyone else.”

“I have nothing else to tell you, Obie,” she said. “I haven’t been with anyone else since the first night we hooked up—actually, it was at least six weeks before that since I was in the middle of a dry spell that first time.” She chuckled a little. “Why do you think I let you in so easily?”

“I’ve had a vasectomy, Pauline,” he said. “I can’t get you pregnant.”

“Well,” she said lightly, “unless we’re dealing with a case of immaculate conception here—something I seriously doubt—I’d have to say that something has gone wrong with that vasectomy of yours, because I haven’t been with anyone but you in more than a year now and I am knocked up without a doubt, truly and completely knocked up.”

“You took a test and everything?” he asked.

“I’ve peed on two sticks and had a blood test,” she said. “Everything came back positive. Not only that, but I feel pregnant. My tits hurt all the time. Nearly every morning I wake up nauseous and barfing. Trust me on this, Obie. I’m pregnant.”

“I trust you on that, hon,” he told her.

“Uh huh,” she said. “And what about the other thing?”

He looked her in the eye for a few moments and then nodded. “I don’t get any sense that you’re lying to me about that either,” he said. “One of the great things about our relationship is trust, right?”

“Right,” she said. “We’ve always been very honest with each other.”

“But I need to know,” he said. “I can’t have any discussion about what we do from here until I know for sure that I’m really firing live rounds again. It’s not that I don’t believe you, but ... well ... it’s such a long odds kind of thing. You have to know what this Occam guy your brother is always talking about would have to say about this, right?”

She nodded. “The most likely explanation is usually the correct one,” she said. “And the most likely explanation is that I’m been letting someone else supply the tube steak for me. I get where you’re coming from, Obie. But believe me on this one, Occam is full of shit today.”

“It’s easy enough to check, I suppose,” Obie said. “I’m gonna get on the phone with Doc Renter in Portland. He’s the urologist that did the deed on me. You feel like taking a little trip up north tomorrow?”

“You think he’ll be able to get you in tomorrow?” she asked.

“The asshole better get me in tomorrow,” Obie said. “If I have to go to another doctor to verify that he fucked up my vasectomy, he’s gonna want to cut his own balls off.”

“All right then,” Pauline said. “I’ll call Darlene and tell her to cancel all my appointments for tomorrow.”

“And I’ll call that quack and start making arrangements.”

Obie used the house phone while Pauline used the business line. Pauline’s mission only lasted two minutes. Obie’s took a little longer, but it was still pretty quick.

“The fuckin’ answering service,” Obie said, shaking his head.

“Well ... it is after hours,” Pauline told him.

Obie ignored her as someone started speaking to him on the line. “No!” he interrupted. “I do not want to talk to the urologist on-call. I want Renter on the phone and I want him on the phone now.” He listened for a moment and then shook his head. “Now listen, darlin’. Don’t you go telling me what is and is not possible. I know for damn sure you got Renter’s private number in your file there. I am Oren Blake the Second. Perhaps you have heard of me?” Another pause. “Yes, I’m really him and I’m extremely agitated at the moment. I’m having a potential problem with a surgery Renter did on me and I want to speak to him about it now. Now be a dear and get his ass on the line.” Another pause. “Yes, I’ll wait, but not very long.”

Pauline was smiling despite the situation. “It really is fun watching you assert yourself, Obie,” she said. “I’ve never had the balls to pull the old ‘do you know who I am’ routine.”

“You play the cards you’ve been dealt,” he said. “That’s always been my motto.”

Two minutes ticked by and then Obie—who had no idea he had been listening to a piece of on-hold music that featured Laura Best on the saxophone—suddenly perked up again.

“Renter!” he barked. “Oren Blake the Second here. I need you to check something out for me tomorrow morning.” A pause. “I don’t give a shit if you’re not scheduled in the office tomorrow, I’m going to be there at ten and I expect your ass to be there and ready to go.” Another pause. “I don’t want to deal with the on-call or one of your partners—at least not at this point. I want you! You’re the one who possibly botched my fucking vasectomy!”

This, apparently, got Renter’s full and complete attention. There was a longer pause, followed by Obie saying: “I’ll tell you what the problem is. My girlfriend just told me that she’s pregnant. And furthermore, she assures me that mine is the only dick that’s been shooting things up inside her body for more than a year. I have no reason to disbelieve her on either one of these revelations. That only leaves one possibility when you rule out God Himself knocking her up to give us all a new savior: that I’m firing live fucking rounds here despite the fact that you cut those little wires that lead to the detonator! Now, I’m going to be there at ten tomorrow and so are you and we are going to look into this thing. You with me?”

Another pause and then Obie smiled. “Very good, Doc,” he said. “I’ll see you then.” He hung up the phone and then turned to Pauline. “He’s with me.”

They lifted off from Van Nuys airport aboard a private jet at 7:00 AM the next morning. They landed at Portland International Airport at 9:03 AM. A limousine picked them up from there and took them to a medical office building just south of downtown. At 9:40, they were standing before the receptionist’s desk.

“Uh ... yes, Dr. Renter just arrived and is expecting you,” said the slightly frazzled young woman. “He said to send you right back.”

“Thank you, darlin’,” Obie told her. “Would you be so kind as to lead the way?”

Renter’s office was a fairly standard one. He had a desk with his medical degrees on the wall behind him. Two chairs sat in front of the desk. Renter himself was in his early fifties, balding, but in fairly good shape. He wore the obligatory white coat and had a stethoscope around his neck.

What’s with the stethoscope? Pauline wondered as they were directed to sit down in the chairs. Why the hell would a urologist need a stethoscope?

“Doc,” Obie greeted as they took their seats. “This is Pauline Kingsley, the girlfriend of whom I spoke on the phone.”

“It’s uh ... nice to meet you,” Renter said, holding out his hand to her.

“Nice to meet you as well,” she said mechanically as she shook with him. How many dicks has he held in this hand? she could not help but wonder. More than a career prostitute, I’d imagine. She made a mental note to wash her own hand before touching anything else with it.

“Obie,” Renter said, “while I appreciate your desire to see me personally for this matter, I must point out that you could have gotten this test done in Coos Bay. They have a fine medical center and laboratory facility there.”

“I wasn’t in Coos Bay,” he told her. “I was in LA.”

“Well ... you certainly could have gotten this done in Los Angeles.”

“No deal, Doc,” he said. “You’re the one who snipped the wires—allegedly—and you’re the one who is going to check and see if they grew back together or not. It’s called taking responsibility for your actions; and I’m a real big fan of that concept.”

“Well ... yes, we’ll certainly check a sperm sample and see if there is any kind of a sperm count present.” He cast a look at Pauline and then back at Obie. “I just need to point out that a spontaneous reattachment of the vas deferens, while a known complication of the vasectomy, is extremely rare. We’re talking one in thirty-thousand here. I’ve personally done more than ten thousand vasectomies in my career and I’ve never had that happen. And if it does happen, it usually happens in the first sixteen weeks.”

“There’s always got to be a first time,” Pauline said.

“And what if it wasn’t a spontaneous reattachment?” Obie put in. “What if you just fucked up and didn’t do the operation right? Isn’t that a possibility?”

“Absolutely not!” Renter said, clearly offended by the very suggestion. “It is a simple operation that I perform ten or more times per week. Yours was no different than any other.”

“So you say, Doc,” Obie said.

“Look,” Renter said. “I performed that vasectomy on you nearly five years ago. Six weeks post-surgery you submitted a sperm sample to the lab that showed zero sperm. Not a few, not one, but zero. The sample was clear. If I had botched your surgery somehow, there would not have been a zero sample. Does that make sense?”

“Well ... yeah,” Obie had to admit.

“And—excuse me for getting too personal here—but how many women have you slept with without protection since I gave you the all clear to go after you submitted that sample?”

Obie looked up at the ceiling for a moment, pondering that, and then said: “Well ... quite a few, I guess.”

“Quite a few?” Renter said. “How many is that?”

“Fifty or sixty maybe,” he said. “Those are just the ones I did without rubbers, of course. The bunnies out on the road I always used protection with—diseases, you know.”

“Fifty or sixty?” Renter said, astonished. “In five years? Really?”

“I’m slowing down as I get older,” Obie said, shame in his eyes. “Anyway, you were trying to make a point?”

“Oh ... right,” Renter said, still pondering fifty or sixty. “Anyway, my point is, did any of those women turn up pregnant?”

“Not as far as I know,” Obie said.

“Don’t you think that if you were firing live rounds all this time that at least one of them would have?”

“Yeah ... I suppose,” Obie had to admit.

“Look, Doctor,” Pauline said. “I’m pretty good at reading between the lines here. I know what you’re trying to imply. I will agree that the most likely scenario from your point of view, and maybe even Obie’s, is that I was fucking someone else and got myself knocked up. I get that. I’m also here to tell you, however, that I have not been fucking anyone else and this baby growing inside of me was put there by Obie. There is no other explanation. Now, how about we stop talking about this and stop pointing fingers of innuendo here and check this thing out. It’s a relatively simple test, right?”

“Well ... yes,” Renter said. “I’ll send you home with a specimen cup and you’ll just need to submit a sperm sample to our lab. Now, it’s important that you bring the sample back here within...”

“Fuck that shit,” Obie said. “I’m giving you the sample right now and we’re going to run this test while we wait.”

“Uh ... that’s not how we really do things,” Renter said. “I know that the popular media likes to portray such a thing as taking place in a medical office’s bathroom, but in actuality...”

“Well, today life is going to imitate art,” Obie cut in. “Go get me the cup and point me to the bathroom. It won’t take long.”

“But...”

“No buts,” Obie said. “We’re doing this thing. If you got anything like a Penthouse or a Playboy laying around, it’ll make the job easier.”

“We have no such magazines in this office!” Renter assured him.

“Oh ... well, how about a medical book with pictures of naked women in it? Anything like that?”

“Really, Obie, I must insist...”

“You don’t need a magazine,” Pauline said. “I’ll give you a hand.”

Obie smiled and pointed his finger at her in appreciation. “Give me a hand,” he said, chuckling. “That’s good, darlin’.”

“Isn’t it?” Pauline said. She turned to the doctor. “Now then, the cup?”

He gave them the cup and they went into the patient restroom together, scandalizing the staff quite visibly. They made no noise in there but when they emerged ten minutes later, Obie held a specimen cup in his hands. “I’m gonna have to write this one down in my journal,” he said, handing the cup to Renter.

“It’s a first for me as well,” Pauline said.

Flustered, Renter took the cup and a written lab order and disappeared out the office door. Pauline and Obie went back to his office and sat down. Three minutes later, Renter returned.

“How long will this take, Doc?” Obie asked him.

“Not very long,” Renter said. “I had them run it stat and let them know we needed the results as soon as possible.”

“So ... an hour, two hours? What are we talking?”

“Ten or fifteen minutes at the most.”

Obie nodded his head in appreciation. “Now that’s service,” he said.

It actually took twelve. The phone rang and Renter answered it. He listened for a moment, jotted something down on a piece of paper, and then thanked the person on the other end of the line. He hung up the phone and looked at the singer.

“Well?” Obie asked.

“There are viable sperm in the sample,” he said simply.

Obie let out a sharp breath. Pauline looked at him. “I told you so,” she said.

“You did,” he agreed.

“It’s a very low count,” Renter said. “The average ejaculate for someone your age contains around forty to a hundred million sperm per milliliter. Under fifteen million is considered to be a low sperm count that might hamper conception. You’re firing eight million per milliliter, but they’re fully motile, which means they’re moving around just like sperm should.”

“What does that all mean?” Obie asked. “Are you still trying to say that I didn’t knock Pauline up?”

“No, I’m inclined to believe that you did,” Renter said. “It just wasn’t very likely. With a count of eight million, you’re almost considered infertile.”

“It only takes one though, right?” Pauline said.

“Well, it only takes one to get through,” Renter said, “but the odds are against any one particular sperm. Once you get much below fifteen million, the odds of any one achieving penetration of an ovum outweigh the number of sperm present. You see, the woman’s body attacks the sperm as they’re making their journey, and not all sperm are capable of penetration of the ovum, and then there’s the whole matter of timing with egg release. They can fight their way forward like hoards of German soldiers trying to attack Stalingrad, but if there’s no egg in position it’s all for nothing.”

“But one did get through, it seems.”

“So it seems,” Renter said.

“How does something like this happen?” Obie asked. “Are we talking spontaneous reattachment here, or medical malpractice?”

“It is almost certainly what we call a recanalization of one of the vas deferens,” Renter said. “The low sperm count suggests that quite strongly.”

“What does that mean?” Pauline asked.

“It’s not a reattachment as you are thinking of it,” he said. “The ends of the vas that I cut and tied off did not grow back together. Instead, what probably happened is that granulation took place from the sperm leaking out of the proximal end of one of the vas—that’s the end that leads from where the spermatozoa are formed. Over time, through a mechanism that is very rare and something that we don’t quite understand, those sperm accumulate and can form a channel of sorts. This channel, if it happens to connect with the distal end of the vas deferens—that’s the end that leads to the prostate and the urinary tract ultimately—viable sperm can work their way through and into the ejaculate.”

“Are you making this shit up as you go along?” Obie asked. “Trying to bullshit me out of suing your ass for malpractice?”

“I’m not making this up as I go along,” Renter assured him. “It’s a well-documented phenomenon that is responsible for most vasectomy failures that take place after one year. It’s also extremely rare. One in a million kind of rare. This is the first one that I have personally ever heard of.”

Pauline and Obie looked at each other for a moment and then back at the doctor.

“All right then,” Obie said. “Now that we know what happened here, how about we fix it?”

“Fix it?” Renter said.

“You can fix it, right?” Obie said. “Put me back on the table with the stirrups, tie my little buddy up out of the way, give me the shot, break out the little scalpel and the cauterizing thing?”

“Well ... yes, I can go back in and separate the vas again,” he said. “But that’s only after we’ve done some more...”

“Fuck that,” Obie said. “No time like the present. Let’s head over to the little room and get this shit done.”

“You mean right now?” Renter asked.

“Right fucking here, right fucking now. Come on, Doc. Let’s do this thing.”

Two hours later, Obie was sitting on the couch in a suite at the Portland Sheraton Grand Hotel, a glass of scotch on the rocks at his side and a bag of ice resting on his crotch.

“Does it hurt?” asked Pauline, who had gotten the barest glimpse of his black and blue scrotum when she’d helped him change into a pair of sweat pants.

“It feels kind of like I got kicked in the balls about an hour ago,” he said. “Oh ... I guess you probably can’t relate to that. Anyway, it’s uncomfortable, but nothing I can’t handle.”

She nodded and then sat down next to him. “This has been a most interesting day,” she said.

“Yep,” he agreed, taking a sip from his scotch.

She let him sit in silence for a few minutes and then said, “So ... do we want to talk about this situation now, or wait until you’re feeling better?”

He looked at her and gave her a weak smile. “I guess now is as good a time as any. I’m sorry I had to get confirmation first, but it’s the way I am. Now I know. You’re carrying a baby that I put in there.”

“I am,” she said. “And before the idea is even brought up, I’ve already decided that I’m going to keep it.”

“You have?”

“I have,” she said. “I’m a firm believer in a woman’s right to choose whether to carry a baby to term or not. I think that abortion is a necessary evil in our society today. I also know it’s not for me. My choice is to keep this baby no matter what else happens between you and I.”

“And you’re sure on that?” he asked.

“I was about ninety-nine percent sure when I first found out,” she said. “I’m coming up on forty now and I’ve never had a child. I have a maternal instinct, Obie. I have a life growing in me and I want to raise it to adulthood. I might not ever get another chance if I terminated this one and I don’t think I’d be able to live with myself. And then, when the doc told us how long the odds were for something like this to happen ... well ... it just seems like something that is meant to be, you know what I mean?”

Obie nodded. “I know what you mean,” he said. “I feel the same way. I’m not a big fan of women having abortions to begin with—I was raised a Christian, remember—but I’m certainly opposed when the baby in question carries my genetic code. I would’ve tried to talk you out of it if you’d gone down that road. And if you’d refused to be talked out of it, that would’ve been the end of us forever. I wouldn’t have been able to look at you after that.”

“I understand,” she said. “But since we’re not going down that road, what road are we going down? I don’t need anything from you if push comes to shove. I’m not going to try to get child support or any of that crap out of you. I have money of my own and I’m perfectly capable of raising a child on my own.”

“I know you are, hon,” he said. “But I’m not the kind of man who is just going to knock you up and never have anything to do with you or the child again. That’s my baby in there and I intend to be a part of its life, whether that includes you in the picture or not. I will insist on having a relationship with the child, just like I do with my other children.”

“Fair enough,” she said. “In the meantime ... we go on like we have been? See where it leads?”

“Works for me,” he said. “My equipment is out of action for about a week though. I hope that isn’t a deal breaker.”

She laughed. “I think I’ll manage,” she said, cuddling into him.

He put his arm around her and then adjusted his ice pack a bit. “When do we start telling people about this?”

“I want to tell Jake and my parents and Celia right away,” she said. “They should know.”

“I suppose.”

“As for the media and the public ... well ... let’s wait until I’m in the second trimester, huh? There’s always the possibility of ... you know ... and there’s no sense creating a sensation until we know it’s for real.”

“Sounds like a plan, darlin’,” he told her, letting his hand rub her shoulder.

At the same moment that Obie and Pauline were producing a revealing sperm sample in the patient bathroom of a Portland medical office building, Jake and Laura were in the first class lounge of United Airlines at LAX. They were sitting at the bar, Jake sipping a bloody Mary, Laura drinking a cup of black coffee. Her alto saxophone case and her suitcase of clothes had already been checked.

“Still no word on Pauline?” Laura asked as Jake hung up the white courtesy phone on the bar.

“No,” he said. “All Darlene knows is that she’s in Portland with Obie. She cancelled all of her appointments for today and gave no explanation for why she was going there or any number she could be reached at.”

“That is very unlike her,” Laura said.

“It is,” he agreed with a shrug. “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation though.”

“I feel bad just leaving without telling her this news,” Laura said. “She is my manager after all. I have to sign a touring contract, remember? I’d really like to have her there to go over it before I sign.”

“I’ll keep trying to get hold of her,” Jake promised. “Just don’t sign anything until you talk to her. You can start rehearsing with them and learning the ropes, but don’t sign anything.”

She nodded slowly. “I’m really nervous about this whole thing, sweetie,” she said.

“You’re gonna kick some ass out there, hon,” he assured her. “You know what you’re doing.”

She nodded a little and then leaned into him. “I’m going to miss you so much,” she said, a tear running down her face.

“I’m gonna miss you too,” he said.

“I’ll call you every night,” she promised.

Jake jerked reflexively as he heard these words. They were the same thing he said to Angie before he had gone out on tour. “Don’t say that,” he told her, perhaps a little more sharply than intended.

“What?” she asked, pulling back and looking at his face.

“Just call me when you can,” he said. “Don’t make it a chore. And I’ll come out and visit you whenever I can. Pauline will give me a copy of your tour schedule once she touches bases with you.”

“Do you promise?” she asked.

“I promise,” he assured her.

Five minutes later, flight 841 to Pittsburgh was called for boarding. As a first class passenger, Laura was in the first group.

“I love you, Jake,” she told him as they embraced in front of the jetway.

“I love you too, Laura,” he said, giving her one last kiss.

Her carry-on bag in hand, she walked down the jetway and disappeared. She did not look back.