“Jesus,” Tom said. “I didn’t realize it was that bad.”
“Have you seen his new tattoo?” Pauline asked him.
“No,” Tom said. “I didn’t know he had a new tattoo. This is the first time I’ve seen him since he came home, remember?”
“It’s a map of the South Island of New Zealand,” she said. “It’s up on his arm. It’s beautiful art, really. It shows all the rivers, the snow on the mountains, even the islands offshore.”
“Uh ... okay,” Tom said. “I’ll have to take a look at it.”
“He has no memory of getting that tattoo,” she told him.
“Really?”
“Really,” she confirmed. “Apparently he was in a state of blackout in some waterfront bar and started bragging about how much he loved South Island. The locals questioned his devotion to their locale. In order to prove how much he loved the place, he made them wake up the best tat artist in town and put the map on his arm. All of this information came to him secondhand, the next day. He has no recollection of any of it.”
“I see,” Tom said slowly.
“That was his state of mind, his lifestyle when Jill and I found him. We were able to bring him around with a little plain talk.”
“What kind of plain talk?”
“Well, if there is one thing that Jake hates more than anything, it’s being exploited. We pointed out that National Records would like nothing better than for him to have a well-publicized death so they could cash in on it by releasing tribute albums and unpublished material and whatever else they could think of to honor and profit from the great Jake Kingsley.”
“And he didn’t like that thought?”
“He was appalled at the very notion,” she said with a smile. “That was what flipped the switch over in his head. He started to get his shit together right at the very moment. It was very gratifying, really. Not often in life do things actually work out like that.”
“That’s when he agreed to come home?”
“Not right at that second,” she said. “That was the kick in the ass. The deciding factor is when he came up with the idea for KVA Records—the joining of forces between Jake and Celia with funding from me, Jake, Bill, and Celia’s husband. That was what got him home. And that is what we’ve been working on ever since.”
“I see,” Tom said. “That brings me back to my original question. How is Jake now?”
Pauline smiled thoughtfully. “I think he’s ... well ... doing kind of okay currently.”
“Kind of okay? What does that mean?”
“He’s cleaned himself up quite a bit now that he has something to occupy him, a goal to set his sights on. He hasn’t stopped drinking, but he’s slowed it way down ... for the most part anyway.”
“For the most part?” Tom asked. “Can you clarify?”
“Well ... you have to understand that this is information I get from Elsa, his live-in housekeeper, with a little bit of corroboration from Jill, who sees his expense reports. And I don’t get this information directly from Elsa, I kind of have to finagle it out of her in an indirect fashion. She is very loyal to him, you understand, and she would not appreciate it if she realized that the little tidbits she’s shared were being discussed with Jake’s father or with anyone else.”
“I understand,” he assured her. “I’m not planning to confront Jake with anything you tell me. I’m just worried about him. I worry about him much more than I’ve ever worried about you.”
She smiled warmly. “I always was the good child, wasn’t I?”
“Relatively, anyway,” he said.
“I’ll take a relatively. Anyway, he doesn’t drink during the day at all anymore, at least not on Monday through Saturday, when they work on their music. He is, however, in the habit of coming home from a day at the studio and having a beer or two or three, or maybe a bottle of wine, but he stops there and he doesn’t get wasted on worknights. He gets himself to bed by eleven at the latest and gets up promptly at six-thirty so he can go run five miles in Griffith Park and then get to the studio by nine.”
“He does that every day?” Tom asked.
“Pretty much,” she confirmed. “You didn’t see how much he had plumped up over in New Zealand, but it was considerable. He was borderline obese. I almost didn’t recognize him when I first saw him at the airport there. Once he got back in the exercise routine, however, he dropped at least twenty pounds in a matter of a few months. In addition to the running, he’s hitting the weights again too. He’s not quite back down to what he was in his early twenties, of course, but he’s pretty fit again.”
“That’s good to know,” he said. “And he said he stopped smoking too?”
She gave a sideways glance. “He’s stopped smoking a pack a day,” she said. “He hasn’t given them up entirely. The smoking is like the drinking. He does them together. When he comes home and has his beer or his wine, he lights up and smokes a few. When he’s working and sober, he doesn’t.”
“Well ... baby steps, I guess.”
“He’s getting there,” she said. “That brings us to Sundays though.”
“Sundays?”
“Sundays,” she said with a sigh. “The one day of the week they always take off. Jake calls it ‘the day of rest’. He kind of reverts back to the old ways on Sundays. He sleeps in until late morning, gets up, has a little breakfast, and then starts drinking the hard stuff by noon or so. He gets himself good and drunk and then takes a nap after dinner until around nine o’clock or so. He then usually goes out to a club and finds himself ... well ... you know ... a little companionship for the night.”
“Ahh,” Tom said. “I see.”
“Needless to say,” Pauline said, “he ties another one on while he’s doing that. He tends to roll in around one or so, always alone. He never brings women back to his place. He told me once he only picks women who are willing to take him to their place.”
“He told you this?” he said, surprised.
“It was a Sunday when he passed on this little bit of trivia,” she confirmed. “He was drunk at the time.”
“I see,” Tom said, scratching his head. “Do you think his drinking is under control then?”
She shrugged. “Under control is a phrase that can come in and out of application. Right now, yes, I think he’s got things under control. He’s found a rhythm that includes drinking on his terms without giving it up completely and without venturing into self-destruction. What’s going to happen when they’re done with this project and he starts to have more free time on his hands ... I don’t know. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see and take that one as it comes.”
Tom nodded. “What about the drugs?” he asked. “How much of a problem is that?”
“There is some good news there,” Pauline said. “Drugs are not a problem with Jake at all. He smokes some pot now and then, although I don’t think he has had any in at least a month now. And as for the coke, I honestly don’t think he’s had so much as a sniff of it since before he left for New Zealand. Coke is very much a social thing and a road thing for Jake. He’s never really had a problem with it at all, unlike Matt, who snorts the shit up like he needs it to live.”
“That’s a relief,” Tom said. He gave his daughter a meaningful look. “That thing with the groupie and the butt crack. Did that really happen?”
She chuckled. “I’m ... uh ... gonna have to refuse to answer that one on the grounds of attorney-client confidentiality,” she told him.