We unloaded the car at the curb. I didn’t realize it at the time but this was the end of a long road for Clark and me. We had traveled together for years cutting mostly circular trails through the confines of our home turf. Clark had played Sancho Panza to my Don Quixote, jousting windmills together we took no notice of our folly. More than friends – we were codependent coconspirators, mutual detractors and social vagabonds. The tendrils of our dysfunctions knotted us together in a dozen different ways.
I had known Clark since elementary school. Back then I called him by his first name, Jeff. We were in classes together for years but weren’t very close. We got to know each other as friends through sports starting with junior high football. As three-sport jocks we spent a good deal of time together albeit in group settings. By our sophomore year in high school we were turning away from athletics and focusing our attention on music. We listened to a lot of rock and roll and eventually started picking up instruments at a friend’s house. We formed a trio and jammed day in day out for hours at a time. We soon found that alcohol mixed well with our musical aspirations and in fact made them almost believable. The drugs followed soon after. We spent our remaining high school years listening to music, learning our instruments, playing in jam bands and dreaming of better things to come.
After high school Clark’s father got him a job as a highway toll collector. Clark’s dad was a senior toll collector so it wasn’t hard for him to find Jeff a part-time slot when one opened up. Clark was able to hold down that part-time job, get high and play music, so life was good. Clark’s goal was to make a living as a musician, he was a drummer. He earned enough from his day job to buy some fancy drums, a ten-piece set of chrome-skinned Pearls. Man, that kit was something. Nobody had drums like that in our neck of the woods. And it had to be Pearls because Buddy Rich played Pearls and nobody beat out Buddy in Clark’s eyes. But the Pearls were only part of Clark’s grand design. There was another critical piece, a new set of wheels. Clark believed the car made the man -- you are what you drive. I suppose that’s not unusual, the right car was important to a lot of us back then. But in Clark’s case it was a bit more emphatic. He had often spoken in demeaning terms about his family, characterizing his mother as stupid, his father as lazy and a slob, his brothers as red necks, and his sister a slut. No doubt about it, he resented his family, considering them all to be lowlifes. He was hell bent on creating a classier image for himself. The solution to the image problem was simple enough, he needed a Cadillac. I was never quite sure how he pulled it off, but in no time at all he was driving a late-model Sedan Deville, candy apple red with a white vinyl roof and white leather interior. With our friends driving Pintos, VWs and the like, I felt a little odd tooling around riding shotgun in a Cadillac. But I have to admit that was one sweet ride.
So Clark was set! Red Cadillac and chrome Pearls at the ready, fame and fortune on the horizon. Just one more thing, a show biz name to match this refurbished persona. Clark went to the local print shop and ordered business cards, “Geoffrey Chrome – Percussionist - Music for All Occasions.” Clark, aka Mr. Chrome, was now ready to take to the road in his Deville and land a gig playing in cocktail lounges on the Holiday Inn circuit. From our vantage point, the Holiday Inn circuit was “making it”. We knew a kid from high school who had landed a Holiday Inn gig playing guitar, traveling the circuit, his room and board were covered, and he was making a cool $10k a year. We didn't think much of the music those lounge boys were playing but we had to admit the kid was a success. Sleep all day, play all night, living on the road. We couldn’t envision anything better.
Clark had gotten a few fill-in gigs around town but his big connection hadn’t materialized yet. In the meantime, while he was waiting for his ship to come in Clark agreed to transport me and my gear across several state lines in exchange for gas, meals and as much weed as he could smoke. I had decided to head south and hook-up with another high school music buddy who was forming a band and needed a bass player. We packed up one summer evening headed for Tidewater Virginia. I don’t remember how long it took us on the road or much about the trip itself for that matter. We arrived at Drew Lane early the following afternoon.
Clark and I said our goodbyes the next morning as he needed to get back on the road and return to his job at the toll booth. I gave him a bag for the road and a couple of twenties for gas. He waved, slid in behind the wheel of the Deville. I watched him as he drove off. I would not see Clark again.
RIP Jeff Clark, December 2009.
[Excerpted from “The Parable of The Born Again Band”]
© Craig Roberts 2011
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