Looking Out Plane Windows (For Things That Are Not There)

Chapter 6: "Why Me?" Or "Los Angeles Via Molasses Johnston"

(2011 - Late Spring)

Jerry Kilbourne's call tumbled out of the blue.

This was five months after the Bambaataa House burned halfway to the ground. By that time I had moved out of my apartment on the north side of campus because one day I found a skull mask, a burning candle, and a note saying "We remember," signed The Bambaataa Faithful on my doormat. Apparently, they'd pinned the blame for the house fire on me. Now I was on the west side of Berkeley in a collection of apartments I hoped would spare me further retribution that might distract me from my studies.

I never saw the Bloody Plungers again after that fateful night. The band left the next morning to continue their tour. That's why when I received a call from UNKNOWN CALLER ID, the last person I expected it to be was a man I'd met before with a tragic underbite and crimson cheeks.

"Hello?" I said.

"Xavier - it's Jerry."

"Jerry?" I drew a blank. I'd just been studying 18th century British Common Law; the name Jerry didn't register in a mind still immersed in the intricacies of outdated legal systems in faraway lands.

"Jerry Kilbourne!" came a roar through the phone. "The Bloody Plungers manager guy! The you-nearly-killed-me-in-that-fire-a-while-ago guy. The Oklahoma City guy! That guy!"

"Wha- hi. What's, uh, what's going on?" His familiar growl conjured up an image of chihuahua eyes and flame-licked curls.

"Xavier, I'm going to lay this one on you straight: we're starting up a record label in LA."

"That's great," I said, picking a scab from my elbow. I wasn't sure what else he wanted me to say.

"You don't get it do ya, kid?" I could hear his smile through the phone.

"Get what?" The next stampede of words to hurtle from his mouth still echo across the canyons of my memory.

"We're starting a label. As in you and me, cowboy."

"Hold on. What?" Jerry's words did not strike home. They felt unreal, illusory - wafting in and out like music from a distant attic - and I needed to float up toward them if I had any hope of making sense of them. I kicked out my chair and peered from my dorm window at the stained pavement below, as if merely looking at the earth could somehow ground me. I searched for words to string together into what might pass as an intelligible response, but all that tumbled from my mouth was: "Why me?"

Why me? I cringed as soon as the words left my lips. They felt remote, tinny. Those two little words formed an entire world unto themselves.

"Why you?" Jerry's foghorn voice could have ripped the roof from the apartments. "Why you? Because you've got balls, kid! You've got guts. You can grind. You think on your feet. Certainly saved our asses in that house fire."

The thought of the Bambaataa House suddenly brought to mind my excursion to visit the shack several weeks prior, and the voice that guided me on. The memory threatened to cast a spell over me; I managed a feeble reply to keep the image at bay. "But I thought you guys hated me..." I mumbled, keeping my gaze locked on the pavement below.

"No no! Oh, well, the band do, yeah that's true. They'd probably skin you alive if they saw you, especially Doyle. But not me, no. I know talent when I see it. Talent for the music business, that is. And making things work."

I jumped to my feet and paced my room, awake and alert. "Look, what are you proposing? I'm still a sophomore. What do you expect me to do? Run down to LA to work for some record label that doesn't even exist yet, get paid in Cheetos, and then pay off student loans with cover art?"