THE NATURAL STRANGER :: BOOK 2, "MAD DOG in a SILVER FOG" :: CHAPTER 2, EPISODE 1

With Northern California fog lightened to Southland smog, seven years back... consciousness half-returned from San Leon but not yet fit, altogether, to get out of bed... I received a visit from Wally Martyn bearing, as he interpreted it, good news. "Cynthia and I are taking over management of someone out of your good old days, now." Taking over, like as in a custody case? "Brendan Kyle... the Rambles? Talks about you some. He's straightened out, I think, we'll chance sending him on tour with Purdon Leaviss."

"That'll either cure him or kill him," I'd mumbled, glancing round for medicine.

Leaviss was one of Wally's money acts... a good old boy, payer of hard dues in roadhouses, county fairs, not to mention quite a few hard county lockups. Rock and roll stank so vehemently by '74 that there was a thriving market for so-called country music "outlaws", old and new... Purdon had had three straight top ten albums, six singles and four of those covered for the pop charts. (Billows, in the Zone, used to knock me out by playing Purdon on his eight track, he was a fan.) "He'd like to see you."

"Leaviss?"

"Brendan," said Wally with the mild distaste the Martyns reserved for their clients in sanitoria, to whom they exhibit the patience of a pair of icebergs. So a few months later, after I'm ambulatory again, Wally invited me up to one of Purdon's exhibitions before a DJ convention, this sort of musical State Fair lacking only ribbons for prize hogs. Brendan held the band together despite being as drunk as Leaviss, the DJs mooned over the authenticity and shit and it wasn't 'til the set was done, the people mingling and scuffling, that I felt a tug along my arm.

"Sleazeballs," he'd grimaced. "Purdon has faults but his checks clear. Made more then, but this is sticking to my fingers. You? Married yet? Indicted?"

Brendan made a little pistol with his stuck-money fingers. I haven't any idea what possessed him to ask the latter; I think he associated me with Jeff, that houseguest of the government.

"Jeff's in recovery," I'd lied and Brendan raised his bottle in salute. California white wine... he even offered me a pull as we watched money wash up on the beach.

"Wally says you were married."

"Separated. Six days of Heaven, six weeks of Hell, looks like six years of lawyerin' yet to come. Chassa took the kids, but they were hers from her second husband anyway. Strange, that part of it, while it lasted. Expensive..."

"Wally thinks the world of your work with Purdon Leaviss."

"Purdon's an old shit kicker in the right place at the right time. Every so often America goes cow crazy. Slaps on its raccoon hat, straps on guns the way I've seen Purdon walk round butt-ass naked but for Pancho Villa cartridge belts and maybe one sock; drunk, writing ballads to choke the Carpenters, both them fuckers! Don't ever, ever accept an invite to his place up Lake Isabella, Evie, looks like fucking Army Surplus. When the government starts taking guns away, Purdon'll be prepared."

"Sounds like a regular Boy Scout. Well," I'd added, "they booed Dylan at Newport."

"Everyone there stoned. 'Cept me... haven't shot up eighteen months now. Some fuckin' record! If we never get famous for anything else, this g-g-generation will at least get written up in the medical journals."

"Long after the professors have dissertated all over James Taylor?" I suggest.

"Think that I got dissertated once," Brendan agreed, "Took too much damn Ph.D." He'd tipped the bottle up, saluting the California tide. "Should've gone over that cliff," he reflected. "Both of us. Save the world a whole mess of trouble."