One Last Duet With Davy by Ken Goldman

One Last Duet With Davy

by Ken Goldman

 “I’m an apprentice at death having died only once

                          And what bothers me most is the silence...”

                                                                       The Dead Shed No Tears

                                                              ©1995, RattSnake

                                                              The Barbosa Tapes

                                                               Available on CD and Cassette

                                                               Ramblin’ Records, Inc.

On a warm night in the early spring, David Winston Barbosa, the handsome creative genius behind the rock band RattSnake, polished off the last of his Johnnie Walker Scotch, placed the muzzle of his .45 Colt full into his mouth, and sent a bullet smashing through his frontal lobe.

The slug tore a large hole through the top of the rock star’s head. It carried with it a large portion of Barbosa’s brain that spattered the hazelnut wallpaper inside the executive suite of Manhattan’s Plaza Hotel overlooking Central Park West. Young Barbosa’s gray matter freckled his bed sheets and several keyboard keys, while the blood soaked into six demo tapes that the musician had spread on the floor around him shortly before he took his Cobaine prescription.

Asked why he did it the other RattSnake members could not say. The group’s bassist, Klipper O’Hara, suggested that death was an experience the young lyricist had not tried yet and thought he might like. In the narcissistic parlance of heavy metal, O’Hara did not mean this as a joke.

A police officer at the scene located a large hairy flap of Barbosa’s skull that had become lodged between the strings of his left-handed guitar. He passed the remark to his sergeant that here was living proof how the rock artist was a man whose mind was on his music. Out of earshot from the several reporters who were present both officers shared a hearty laugh.

Surviving Barbosa were four RattSnake members to whom he had stopped talking except in the studio, an ex-wife whose name he had not bothered to mention in his will, and an aged mother whose nursing home bills he had quit paying. Besides his music, he left behind six months’ worth of child support invoices and one extremely pissed off cocaine trafficker who had to do some heavy-duty explaining to the kingpin of an unsympathetic Colombian drug cartel.

In short, David Winston Barbosa, known simply as Davy to his fans, left his life much in the same manner he had lived it - - - in one huge fucking mess.

The media circus began immediately. One week following the shooting the National Enquirer ran an article about how the blood stains that had smeared the wall in Davy’s suite formed a perfect likeness of Jesus on the cross. Some enterprising news journalist somehow obtained the police photographs to corroborate the claim. To anyone who saw them, the stains looked more like bad modern art than the Nazarene. Still, two dozen of the physically challenged from across the country camped out in the lobby of The Plaza. They begged the management to allow them to touch the wall as if it were rock’s answer to the stigmata.

This was only the beginning. Eight days after Barbosa’s burial four men masquerading as cleaning staff somehow gained access to the suite and stripped the wallpaper clean. Within a week the blood-soaked swatches reappeared inside commemorative glass containers sold in Cleveland’s North Coast Harbor outside the main gates of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Inside each container appeared the quotation “The world is but a fleeting show” from RattSnake’s single, Kill Me Before I Love Again . The enterprising vendors scored one hundred dollars a pop.

Two weeks after Barbosa’s funeral someone stole his headstone. Fearing further disturbances to the grave site the ex-Mrs. Barbosa transported the expensive silk-lined black walnut wood casket to an unmarked grave just outside the musician’s home town of Little Neck, New York. The plot was within shouting distance of the garage in which Davy and his partner Klip had created the sound that was to become RattSnake’s trademark. According to his ex-wife’s specific instructions no member of the band was ever to know the location of the new burial plot. It didn’t matter. Someone stole the new headstone too.

The candlelight vigils continued outside the Plaza for weeks. Swarming Fifth Avenue Barbosa’s legions of fans droned every RattSnake lyric that had come from the musician’s pen. Although no one claimed any Davy Barbosa sightings, several women insisted the rock star’s resurrected spirit had appeared while they slept to impregnate them with his love child. In Seattle one young heartsick fan pointed her father’s gun to her head but succeeded only in blowing out her left eye.

The whole thing played like rock and roll theater of the absurd, and it might have made bassist Klipper O’Hara laugh himself sick. But the surviving partner of the band’s creative duo quickly discovered that RattSnake had lost its venom on the night Davy took the Colt’s muzzle between his teeth. Anyone familiar with the band’s work recognized that, of the five guys who comprised the group, only two were indispensable. Klipper O’Hara had been the other one. From the time they were kids Klip had known that his partner’s words embodied the real music behind RattSnake’s chart toppers.

The group’s latest CD, RattSnake Bites, immediately sold out following the night Davy filled his skull with lead. But when low ticket sales resulted in the cancellation of several concert dates, no one had to ask why.

Davy had blown himself away and he had taken RattSnake with him. By midsummer the four surviving members decided to cut their losses before any of the band’s royalties went into their lawyers’ pockets. The group’s drummer, Dex, had already signed on with White Bronco; Rossi and Fuzz would never starve as studio musicians, although they admitted their egos might; Klipper was always bitching about wanting to fly solo anyway. There remained nothing to do but declare the band officially dead and provide the fanged serpent with a decent burial.

RattSnake’s farewell concert became a surprise sellout. At midnight on August 21, six thousand two hundred and thirteen fans waved lit matches high above their heads for the final scheduled number during the otherwise disappointing ‘Jesus Hates Us Tour’. Cleveland’s Coliseum shone like a huge swarm of fireflies as the group performed “The Pope Ain’t No Friend of Mine” with Klipper O’Hara snarling Barbosa’s lyrics into the mic.

                           “ ...I can’t say I love you, Mister John Paul.

                           No, I can’t say you mean that much to me.

                          ‘Cause after I been listenin’ to what you have to say,

                          I know you ain’t exactly Lennon/McCartney ...”

The number inspired the usual fist fights among the audience of young headbangers along with several dozen death-defying leaps from the stage into the mosh pit of human arms below. For one last night it was just like old times.

“We love ya, Cleveland! We fuckin’ love ya!” O’Hara howled at RattSnake’s fans. A thick-armed roadie handed the bassist his trademark bottle of vermouth. For the final time as a member of the band the rocker raised his bottle high as if he were toasting the night clouds that hovered above the Coliseum like dark ghosts.

“And here’s to you, Davy Barbosa, wherever the hell you are! Satan, guard your ass!” he shouted, putting away almost half the bottle right where he stood. O’Hara’s commemoration brought the house down as he headed off the stage still swigging what remained inside.

... and then he stopped in his tracks, stopped so suddenly that Rossi bumped right into him. In the glare of the spotlight the decision came to Klip like a revelation from God. Yet, deep within the darker caverns of his mind he had been secretly toying with the idea for weeks. Unknown to the others Klip had brought Davy’s last studio tapes with him. The other self that lurked in the shadowy netherworld of his soul knew he had done this for only one reason.

“Well, why the fuck not?” he asked himself, although in the tumult no one heard him speak. The spotlight followed O’Hara like the tail of a comet as he tramped off the stage, a man with a single purpose.

He heard the echoes of his fans’ shouts for another RattSnake encore as he pushed past the huddle of backstage groupies. Surrounded by three hulking bodyguards whom his manager paid to ask no questions, he bee-lined with them down the dimly lit tunnel to his dressing room and the three gorillas waited there as he slammed the door behind him. Rifling through his carry-on bag, he pulled out a large reel-to-reel tape and shoved it into his pants.

When O’Hara returned to the stage the still-cheering RattSnake fans exploded in a pandemonium that would have muffled the exhaust fan of a turbo jet.

The roadies looked to one another, then to the band who had no choice but to follow O’Hara. Rossi and Fuzz shrugged while Dex, his face half hidden beneath a tangled mass of hair, still managed to catch their manager’s eye in the wings off-stage. But he had no clue either.

Taking another long guzzle of vermouth, Klip O’Hara returned to the mic at center stage. The band took their places behind him. Klipper could be one crazy motherfucker, and there was no telling what wild ride he had planned for RattSnake’s send off. Although the musicians felt complete bewilderment, it would have been decidedly uncool to let it show.

But Klipper knew exactly what was going down. He knew it from the moment he had heard Davy’s blood-spattered tapes. Barbosa had recorded these apart from the other guys, apart even from Klip. He had gone alone to the studio late at night in the weeks just before he had taken himself out of the game. The police presented six reels of audio tape to O’Hara in neat zip-locked plastic baggies because Davy Barbosa’s suicide note had mentioned that he had wanted his long-time partner to have them. There were a good six hours of music on the tapes, admittedly unpolished stuff but definitely usable. Davy had left Klipper a gold mine. O’Hara had not played the reels for anyone else, not even for the other members of RattSnake.

... but that would change tonight. The boys in the band would have their shining moment courtesy of the man not present at tonight’s concert but whose secret studio tapes were. Tonight Klipper O’Hara would accompany the absent David W. Barbosa, who was not live but on Memorex. Their voices would again intertwine in perfect harmony. Together their vocals would shape one upon the other in a single magic voice, a wondrous mosaic of music. This was Klipper O’Hara’s gift to RattSnake’s fans, one last unforgettable pairing of rock’s most revered vocalists, an extemporaneous duet sung by both the living and the dead.

Of course, following a celestial moment like tonight’s Klipper would have the emotional springboard necessary to launch himself into the solo career he longed for. If he required a bargaining chip to persuade any of the major labels to sign him, he also had the secret Barbosa tapes to sweeten the pot.

“Davy Barbosa couldn’t be here with us tonight,” O’Hara wailed into the microphone. The crowd answered with a deafening two minute frenzy at the mention of his partner’s name. Klip raised his arms to quiet them. “No, Davy couldn’t make it ... but his spirit is here and ready to kick ass on this stage with us tonight!”

He held the single tape reel high above his head. “If you look real close you can still see Davy’s blood on this reel! And if you listen real close, my friends, you can hear his blood on these tracks!”

An explosion of cheers filled the stadium. The members of RattSnake standing behind O’Hara looked to one another as if the floor had suddenly vanished beneath their feet leaving them hanging in midair. When O’Hara turned to them to issue a silent command they took their places like blind men, Dex to his drum set, Rossi and Fuzz to their keyboard and guitar. They looked to one another and then to O’Hara still at the mic, having no idea what he expected them to do.

O’Hara held out the tape to Bobby who worked the soundboard.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Klip! What’re you doin’ to me, man? We don’t know the sound levels ... hell, we don’t know jackshit about that tape to pull off this fucking three ring circ--”

“Pipe it through the system, Bobby,” Klip answered without missing a beat. His eyes never left his audience. “Just do it, man.”

Moments later a familiar opening guitar riff bearing the unmistakable Barbosa thumb print came through the stadium’s towering speakers. Six thousand two hundred and thirteen voices fell into stunned silence as everyone waited to hear the words that no living person but the man at the mic had ever heard before.

They waited to hear Davy Barbosa sing to them from the grave ...

                                “My love of life was my delusion,

                                  so don’t go savin’ me against my will.

                                  Death is sometimes the only solution,

                                  Yeah, it’s that knowledge that gives me the courage to kill ...”

The crowd swayed with the words. Dex picked up a light drum riff to supply an improvised back beat while Fuzz and Rossi followed suit. The music had found its way into the soul of everyone present.

                                    “Would so much rather die than to live in vain.

                                     Would so much rather be cried for than cryin’.

                                     So next time you see me standin’ in the rain

                                     Please understand I got my reasons for dyin’ ...”

Klip breathed heavily into the microphone as he joined Davy for the middle eight. His bass guitar had poked its way between the chords of Davy’s lead, and now his voice welded itself to Davy’s in an enchanted reunion of sound.

                                    “A reason for dyin’ is all I need.

                                      A reason for dyin’ is what I believe.

                                      If you tell me different I know you’ll be lyin‘

                                      Always gonna defend my reason for dyin’ ...”

The words echoed those that Barbosa had scrawled in his suicide note, secret and pained words about life that had lost its meaning. Klip had witnessed the man’s pain for years, and tonight his voice wedded itself to that pain. The result was nothing short of magic. O’Hara’s intuition had been correct. Tonight he had added another page to the history book of rock.

Lost in that thought Klip also lost his focus on Davy’s lyrics. Calling himself back into the moment he listened to the words as he prepared to work his way back into them.

He listened to them hard.

Really hard.

Something seemed different.

Something was not right ...

                                   “But now in my grave I see my confusion.

                                    Yeah, the dirt and the mud are all that is mine.

                                    So I made myself a new resolution

                                    Just ‘cause I’m dead don’t mean I must die ..."

“They’re not the right words ...” Klip said aloud, unaware he had spoken into the mic. He turned to his band members as if they should have known this too. “Hey! They’re not the words on Davy’s tape!”

No one heard him. It was as if O’Hara had said nothing, nothing at all. The musicians had become lost inside Davy’s lyrics, lost in the wild harmonious improvisations his genius had inspired in them.

“Goddamn it! Listen to me!” Klip shouted to anyone who might hear. “Something is wrong! Something is fucking crazy! These words! They’re not the same! They’re not Davy’s words! Just listen to---”

                                              “A reason for livin’ is all that I need.

                                                A reason for livin’s what I need to believe.”

Instead, Klip listened. He listened hard, and his mouth fell open at what he heard. Because what he heard was impossible.

                                             

                                      “Gonna climb out of this grave and take what I can.

                                         Gonna rejoin the livin’, gonna be my own man ...”

He heard himself singing the words along with Davy. Yet his mouth did not move, it did not move at all. Still, his voice came in sweet wails from the gargantuan speakers singing lyrics he had never heard before in his life. The voice integrating itself with Davy’s belonged to him and it filled the stadium, filled it with music and words. A riot of music.

Impossible words ...

Impossible... .

He covered his mouth with his palm, shoved his fist into it, and still the mammoth speakers cried Davy’s lyrics in a shared duet that would not stop, that just went on and on even while he screamed.

“Shut up! Shut up! That’s not Davy’s words ! That’s not me!”

Not until he stopped screaming did O’Hara realize that someone else was sharing his mic.

“Gonna climb out of this grave and take what I can ...”

No, not someone.

Some thing.

It had decayed flesh, clotted strips of it that reeked with a rotted stench. A large flap of torn skin hung from the back part of its head and a fragment of soft and spongy membrane sopping in blood peeked through the open skull. Its tattered rags dripped with pulposus slime that left dark puddles where it stood. As it sang into the microphone it held its left-handed guitar low to allow long bony fingers the freedom to work their magic.

Davy’s magic ...

The words on the tape were not the same, but they were Davy’s words. O’Hara knew that now. Barbosa had tried death like he had tried everything else from drugs to women, and he had found it not to his liking. Death had lost its romantic allure. Death had lost its kick. Now he wanted to try something else.

... Something different ...

Six thousand two hundred and thirteen RattSnake fans listened to the music. They lit their matches and swayed with the sound in the flickering light. Not one of them saw what Klipper O’Hara saw.

... and not one of them heard him scream as the rotted corpse of David Barbosa fell upon him center stage in the naked glare of the spotlight ...

                                                              ***

Inside RattSnake’s limousine the group passed champagne all around. Rossi was the first to speak to O’Hara once the evening’s euphoria had died down.

“Jesus, Klip. For a moment there I thought you was out of your mind playin’ Davy's tapes, man. But I guess you knew what you was about, eh? For those few minutes listenin’ to you, hearin’ you wrappin’ your voice around Davy’s vocals ...”

“ ... it was like you was both one person, man,” Fuzz added. “One fuckin’ incredible person!”

The musician smiled at his fellow band members but said nothing.

“You was off in some other place, that’s for damn certain,” Dex said. “I mean, you ain’t never been a southpaw ‘long as I known you, Klip, and there you was playin’ your axe left handed just like you was Davy yourself.”

The musician’s smile widened, but still he said nothing. Inside his head a single lyric played itself over and over, and he found himself humming the melody as the words rewound themselves like an audio tape that played within his brain.

“Gonna climb out of this grave and take what I can ...”

***

In an unmarked cemetery plot somewhere north of Little Neck, New York, the rotted corpse of David W. Barbosa lay inside its black walnut wood silk-lined casket. Vandals and headstone thieves would be hard-pressed to find the late rocker’s newest grave among the several hundred surrounding plots that looked just like it.

Klipper O’Hara prayed it would not always be so damned cold inside this thing.

This story was previously included in Issue #6. You can get the whole print issue here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/674614280/the-rock-n-roll-horror-zine-6

You can see more of Ken Goldman's work here: https://www.amazon.com/Kenneth-C.-Goldman/e/B004QVWTTE or here: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3054969.Kenneth_C_Goldman