I was drenched with sweat now, the alcohol spreading out through my pores. I found a bar that looked like a good place to replenish my liquid content and stepped inside, but the loud Mexican disco music that blared from the jukebox drove me straight back out the door. I tried a few other dives, but the “music” was the same. Finally, I found a quiet bar on a side street. I needed a drink now, and as I sat down at the bar I arranged a stack of one dollar bills in front of me. The bartender understood and when I said “Scotch” he brought it to me wordlessly, taking a single dollar bill as payment.
I was starting to feel nervous: Armando, who I was certain had nothing to do with Fat Dog’s murder, might discover the destruction of his property and finger me to the cops. The fire I started might have spread. I was at a disadvantage not knowing Spanish — I could have checked the newspapers for mention of it. The tire marks I had left at the scene could be traced to my Camaro. My passage through the toll booths might have been noted. Fear breeds fear, and booze quells fear, temporarily.
I drank a toast to fear, draining my glass. The bar Scotch was good, so I set out on a regular procession of toasts: to Herbert Von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic, to Vladimir Horowitz, to Richard Wagner, and to the guy who designed the Hollywood Bowl. Since each of these toasts was a solid two ounces of juice, my fears were soon pretty well under wraps and I started feeling good, humming along with my fantasies again. I wasn’t hungry, but I forced myself to eat a greasy plate of eggs and sausage that the barman’s wife served me with a fetching smile.
After I had had about six drinks, a rational train of thought began to emerge, along with a syllogism: I am in a bad way. I am in a bad way because there are big pieces missing in the puzzle I am trying to solve. There are big pieces in the puzzle I am trying to solve because my mind is closed to new concepts in general, and new concepts in music in specific. Wino Walter Cur-ran, my best friend, had been warning me for years of the danger of o.d.’ing on German Romanticism. Since music frees the mind, new music would free my old mind to fit together the big pieces in the puzzle I was trying to solve.
Brilliant. Booze does it again. It was time to hunt down some new music to play Greek chorus to the new mind of Fritz Brown. Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Haydn, et al. had had their day, and would have it again, in a better time, a time of reminiscence, shared with Jane. Now it was time for Bartok, Stravinsky, Debussy, and Ravel — all those dissonant guys Walter had been fruitlessly urging on me for so long — to come to my aid.
I left a three dollar tip on the bar and walked outside. The afternoon sun hit like a blow from a sledgehammer. I adjusted my cave dweller mentality to fit the needs of a Mexican seaside town, and went searching for music to think by. It seemed like an insurmountable task at first, given the cultural ambience of the city I was digging through, but soon I warmed to the job. The booze seemed to pop out of every cell of my body, yet I stayed pleasantly, floatingly high.
Ciudad Juarez, the main drag of Ensenada, was a miniature version of L.A.’s 2nd and Broadway: giant outlet stores featuring cheap clothing, cheap radios, cheap appliances, and an incredible selection of cheap watches. I tore through the record bins, past piles of Mexi-Rock, Mexi-Disco, Mexi-Folk, Punk Rock in English, and scores of old albums by such washed-up superstars as Perry Como, Tony Bennett and Nat “King” Cole. At my third outlet store, I hit my first jackpot — a battered copy of “The Planets” by Gustav Hoist, Sir Adrian Boult conducting the BBC Philharmonic. It was a collector’s item; it said so right there on the album cover. It set me back thirty-five cents. I inquired with the English-speaking salesgirl about record shops and she gave me detailed instructions to another one four blocks away. She repeated herself several times, no doubt on the valid assumption that drunks are bad listeners.
I really did smell like a still. I would have to clean up when I got back to my room with my booty. I found the record store. It was the most profound advertisement I had ever seen toward advancing the concept of the “ugly American.” Every wall was festooned with bigger-than-life-size posters of current American rock and pop stars. The women looked vapid and challenging at the same time. They seemed to be challenging their male counterparts — equally vapid teenagers with tight pants, blow-dried hair, and pouts that looked like an incipient offer of a head job to an electronic thrill-out featuring seven amplifiers, eight biofeedback machines, thirty-seven dildos, cocaine, quaaludes, angel dust, and that porno guy with the fourteen-inch dick.
A hard rock record was playing at peak decibel. There was a strobe light flashing at two in the afternoon. I was behind the times; I thought strobe lights were out. A pretty, buxom Mexican girl wearing a T-shirt with Mick Jagger sticking his tongue out of it approached me like a long lost music lover. I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I turned around and walked back out the door, not looking back. It was too much, too soon.
I persisted in my quest and was rewarded down the street: “La Mer” and “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun” by Debussy — Szell and the Cleveland. Also the “Petrouchka Suite” by Stravinsky — Ozawa and the Boston Symphony — and the grand prize: a boxed set of the Bartok “String Quartets” by the Guarneri Quartet. These cost me a fast three scoots. The Stravinsky was badly scratched, but the other records were in passable condition.
It was enough to begin my journey, but I wasn’t satisfied. I hit a few more bargain bazaars and came up with “Kostelanetz Plays Gershwin,” a disc of dubious merit. The only thing now missing was a stereo. I walked back to the first jumbo outlet store and for $149.63 bought a Panasonic “Zoom” Stereo System — two dinky three-inch speakers, a turntable with an automatic changer and a cheapshit, built-in amplifier. It hardly compared with my state-of-the-art system back in L.A., but it would be enough to rock my tiny fleabag room.
I hailed a taxi and loaded my merchandise in the back seat. On the way out of town I had the cabbie stop at a liquor store where I loaded up on goodies: three half-gallons of Scotch, two six-packs of ginger ale, three bags of ice and a variety of canned meats and processed cheese food. I was storing up for what might be a long process of evolution.
My musical metamorphosis didn’t happen. I listened and I drank for two solid days, fighting off anger, fear, and paranoia. I couldn’t think of the case. When I tried to, my mind shut off and I reached for a drink or turned up the volume on the stereo in fatuous hope of speeding up my thought processes. The music didn’t help at all. I didn’t like it. It was great music that expressed profound thoughts, but it just plain didn’t send me. I found the moderns and impressionists too abstract and dissonant. There was none of the heroism of Beethoven or the lyrical passion of Brahms. The Bartok “Quartets” made me think of Jane, so I couldn’t listen to them at all.
I was getting a bad play from the manager, too: on the first day of my quest I ventured down the hall a half-dozen times to urinate, getting a contemptuous look each time. Somehow I got the feeling that she knew my history and regarded me as the precursor to bad times. So I didn’t go out of my room again, electing instead to piss in the sink.
After two days I had had enough. I had tried eating the canned meat, but threw up immediately. Twice I had awakened dehydrated to the bone and had begun sobbing. I was afraid of the d.t.’s; they seemed imminent now. The room was stifling hot, even at night. On the third night I decided to go for a walk. I shaved and went down the hall and showered off the booze and sweat stink, this time avoiding the manager. The idea of movement and the performing of old rituals heartened me a little. Back in my room I filled a pint ginger ale bottle with Scotch and put on the last of my clean clothes.