~ Memory And Desire ~

by

Jeannine Van Eperen

One

Drumbeats pounded loudly, rhythmically. Guitars squealed and reverberated as the tumultuous crowd roared like waves hitting a craggy shore, making the whole auditorium quiver with anticipation as feet pounded in time with the thunderous metallic, electric music. The excited crowd was brought to a frenzied fever pitch as drums continuously pounded as if in some ancient pagan ritual.

Reece leaned his head against the wall. Never had the music or the audience seemed so loud. His temples throbbed and he wished he were anywhere but where he was. How could he go on stage? How could he face the crowd that chanted his name over and over again like a religious litany? Who was he that he should be so adored?

He had not performed in almost two years, not since his arrest, trial, and imprisonment. It was ironic, he thought. He killed a man. And now, he stood here to be welcomed with open arms by his public who cared nothing about the past, cared nothing of Solange’s untimely death. It was his fault she was dead. If he had made sure she had locked the door, if he had been a perfect husband, if he had not wished he were single, she would be alive. He was filled with guilt. He was alive, waiting to go on stage to sing and dance, to look happy and to bring happiness to those who thronged to see him while Solange was dead. How could he go on stage to be worshipped like some pagan god? His stomach churned and he was filled with anxiety.

The fans waited for him, chanted his name, "Rico, Rico, Rico!" They screamed for him, worked into a frenzy by the music and the drums. "Rico! Rico West!" The auditorium was filled to capacity and the roar of the crowd crescendoed down upon him like the waves of a crashing angry sea, like the winds of a hurricane on his island home.

He heard the master of ceremonies announce his name. He felt terror more profound than when that group of men had surrounded him in the prison shower. He thought that was one of the worst moments of his life, but he was wrong.

It was now.

Again, he had nowhere to go, no refuge. He took one step and saw the huge auditorium, people leaning over the balconies, and standing in the aisles just to get a glimpse of him. He felt very small, the focal point and reason for all the insanity around him, and froze with stage fright. Paralyzed, he could not move of his own accord.

Someone pushed him onto the stage bringing an even louder roar from the crowd. "Rico, Rico, Rico!" Reece moved woodenly, heavily toward center stage. His heart fiercely pounded in his chest. He was a reluctant sacrificial lamb being led to the slaughter. If only he would die now! He turned to face his public. The roar heightened, almost bursting his ear drums, his eyes glazed over, and water seemed to flow over him; he was drowning, swirling in the whirlpool as he had every night since Solange died.

The nightmare began again; it was never ending. Day as well as night it cursed him. He was spinning in an eddy that kept him swirling, but refused to let him go under. He could taste the salt water, feel his lungs exploding, tightness in his chest, pressure in his ears, knew he was floundering, prolonging his agony. He saw lovely Solange reach out for him, then she descended below the clear, blue water, her large, brown eyes still open, staring at him accusingly. He wanted to drown but couldn’t. He prayed to die but his prayer was denied by an unsympathetic God.

The whirlpool wouldn’t stop and it would not let him go. Solange’s parents stood at the edge of the turbulent pool, smiling, seeing his misfortune, waiting for the sea to claim him, to atone for their beloved daughter’s death.

~ * ~

It was mercifully quiet as Reece regained consciousness in his dressing room. Hope Richards stood near him as did his uncle, David Westphal. He blinked his eyes and looked around him. "What happened?" he asked softly.

Dave smiled. "Can’t you think of anything more original?"

"You passed out, Rico. That crowd was too much for you. I told Daryl you shouldn’t go out to something like that first thing." Hope, the woman who had discovered him singing in a small bar in St. Barthelemy, said.

"Yeah, I shoulda listened to Hope," Daryl said as he stepped nearer to the couch. "Next time’ll be better. This was sort of a Baptism of fire." Daryl shrugged. "I thought you could do it, Rico, or I wouldn’t have tried to make you. I thought you’d be pleased with the crowd, with everyone clamoring for you."

"I can’t do it, Daryl. I really can’t," Reece said. "I hate to let you down."

"It’ll be better next time. We’ll get you back in the theater. You’ll do better in the play. It’s quieter. The rehearsals have gone okay, haven’t they, Rico?"

"I think it would be best just to let Patrick alone for a while. We can discuss his return to the theater later," Dave, his uncle, ever the physician, said as he felt Reece’s pulse. "We’ll talk to Althea about it, Daryl, and see what she thinks."

All the names. His names. Reece, Rico, Patrick. Which was he? Everyone wanted something for him, from him. I sure made a mess of things. A friggin’ mess! But don’t I always?

"I’m sorry, Daryl." Reece put his hands to his temples. His head still hurt. "I don’t think I’ll ever be able to perform."

"Sure you will. Mindy Laser said you’re doing fine, better even than you did before."

Reece sighed and closed his eyes. It was useless to talk to Daryl. He knew his agent had lost money because of him, and he was sorry, but he doubted he’d be able to face an audience. Tonight proved it. He certainly made an ass of himself tonight. In a way it had been worse than facing the jury at his trial. Then he had Vince Vitale, his attorney, by his side as well as his Uncle Bert. Vince and Bert had told him he’d be acquitted but they were wrong. The jury didn’t seem to care that Solange had been raped and slashed with a knife. They thought he’d taken justice into his own hands. Maybe he had. He couldn’t remember. He did kill the man. It may have been an accident, may have been justifiable, but it was manslaughter. Actually, he didn’t give the jury a chance to convict. He stopped the trial, took a deal to save Solange from the prosecutor’s verbal assault. Solange had trusted him to take care of her and he had not. And he could not remember the shooting. He just couldn’t! He knew he had the gun in his hand. He did it. He must have. Reece decided he might be even nuttier than Althea, his shrink, thought he was.

The newspapers all wrote he was not to blame for the man’s death. No one but the jury blamed him. He could tell from the way they looked at him. So he took the deal and served his time.

But he was guilty of something. He was guilty because he was responsible for what happened to sweet, innocent Solange. He’d brought her to New York. He forced a lifestyle on her that she abhorred, and he had not been a good husband. For that reason, he believed, he had deserved prison, if for no other reason. He shuddered as he lay there, remembering the hollow sound and the urine smell.

"Let’s get you home." David broke into Reece’s thoughts. "We can talk to Althea about your going back on stage again. She hated not being here tonight, but this conference was set up a year ago and she couldn’t miss it. Maybe she’ll be able to help you to get over your stage fright."

"It’s more than stage fright."

"Next time you’ll be all right," Daryl said confidently.

"How can you know that, Daryl?" Hope glared at Daryl. She walked over and patted Reece’s shoulder, trying to give comfort. "We’ll talk to Mother and see what she thinks."

"What the hell does Roxy have to do with this?" Daryl asked. "Everyone says Rico is singing better than ever, Hope. The recording sessions have gone just great. I’ve heard what Rico and the guys have done. He has more depth. Everybody says so, and the songs he wrote this year are great! ‘Foxy Lady’ will win a Grammy."

"A Grammy!" Hope brightened, and moved away from Reece, now smiling at Daryl.

"All Rico needs is a little more exposure before we release the album. A concert or two and get back in Lover’s Leap with Mindy Laser before she leaves the show and he’ll have it made."

"What you say might be true," Hope said as she assessed her reflection in the dressing room mirror and brushed her honey blonde hair back with her hands.

"Might be true! It is true. Rico’s in great voice. He looks better’n ever."

Reece tried not to listen as Hope and Daryl argued, as they used to do, discussing him as if he wasn’t there. He was spinning; he was drowning.

"I’ve got to get Reece home," David said brusquely, now using the name Reece preferred.

Dave threw out an inner tube and, like the coward Reece thought he must be, he automatically grabbed at it gratefully, getting up and leaving as his uncle helped him to his feet.

~ * ~

As they left the aborted concert, Carolyn Lindsay and Mitzi Kerns tried to keep their footing and stay together as the angry crowd jostled them. All around them grumbling voices berated the musical star who had let them down. Mitzi groused, too.

"Well, are you satisfied? You saw Rico West. You saw him fall flat on his handsome face."

"Poor guy," Carolyn murmured. Somehow she had always felt drawn to the singer, always felt he sang directly to her. Perhaps, that was how all his female fans felt, why he’d become popular so fast. "How embarrassed he’ll be when he wakes up."

Mitzi giggled. "Do you suppose it was worth fifty bucks to see an idol fall?"

"They’d better give our money back," a nearby man said, and others in the mob of people took up the chant, each one complaining they had been cheated.

Almost everyone had stayed through the show. Lesser known opening acts had drawn whistles and applause, and Rico West’s band performed magnificently as if trying to make up for the loss of the lead singer-guitarist. Still, everyone had waited in vain for the return of Rico West. When the show ended with no rock superstar, all felt duped.

"Do you think it worth it to have driven all the way up here for nothing?" Mitzi asked.

"It wasn’t for nothing. The show was great even minus Rico West." Carolyn said nothing about her feelings of sympathy for the rock star. They had sat way back, but she had focused her binoculars on Rico West’s face and she’d seen the terror etched on his handsome countenance for that moment before he passed out.

"Don’t be such a Pollyanna," Mitzi said testily. "And don’t ask me to go with you to see him again. I always heard that he had such stage presence. Stage presence, ha!"

Carolyn shook her head. It was obvious Mitzi and most of the others in the audience felt no sympathy for the man. She did. She knew how hard it was to face an audience. True, she just performed in little theatre and in college productions, but she well knew it took more than a little guts to stand up before people and sing or dance or play an instrument. But there was no way she knew what Rico West’s feelings were, what he feared, and saw once more in her mind the look of terror on his face. Poor guy, she thought again.

Suddenly, both young women were jostled and separated.

Carolyn felt a moment of fear herself as she was swept along by the masses without her friend. In a way, she felt cheated, too, but she empathized with the man. From what she read of Rico West and the circumstances, he had not, in her opinion, deserved prison. But she had not been in the courtroom, so she admitted to herself, she could not know all the facts.

As she drifted along in the parking area with the crowd, she wondered about the evening’s events. Evidently the large, loud, rather unruly crowd somehow traumatized West. In her freshman year of high school, she’d been terrified when she stepped on stage in her first play. No one had expected her to be perfect, but everyone in tonight’s audience did expect a stunning performance. Most felt Rico West had let them down, but Carolyn knew, he had let down himself, and that was the worst of it.