Spiral

another.”
    ”You.”
    The cagey smile. ”How about a third one?”
    I thought about it. ”Tapped out.”
    Biggs inhaled some smoke and settled deeper into his chair. ”Don’t feel too bad, babe, ain’t many remember the others. There was a brother played with the Allmans— which was a hoot for another reason. And then the bass player for the Doobies—notice any pattern?”
    ”Black musicians in ‘brothers’ bands.”
    ”You got it. Make the groups seem like real ‘family.’ The world of rock just one fine rainbow of a place.”
    ”Which was Eisen’s idea for Spiral, too?”
    ”Bet on it. He sure did.”
    ”Meaning?”
    ”Meaning Mitch, he bankroll our first album—which in those days was a hell of a lot more bread than the four of us could of raised. This was way before Spi’s daddy got himself rich.”
    ”Go ahead.”
    ”Okay, so we cut this album, and it hit.” Biggs came forward in his chair. ”Oh, babe, how it do hit. We climb the charts, all of a sudden everybody be calling Mitch, want us to play their venue.”
    ”Venue as in concert hall?”
    ‘Yeah. Venues, they get measured by the number of seats in the house. At our best, we couldn’t fill no Yankee Stadium. But our first concert gig, we sell out a forty-five-hundred place called ‘Winterland’ by San Francisco, and then Boston Garden and the Cow Palace—also San Fran’— and they like fourteen-, fifteen-thousand seats each.”
    I blocked out the Bay Area references. ”So, success came early.”
    ‘Yeah, babe.” A long thoughtful drag on the cigarette. ”Early, but not often.”
    ”How do you mean?”
    Biggs settled back into the chair again, watching me. ”Probably should’ve told you this up front. I ain’t hired no lawyer for this Very thing.”
    I didn’t reply.
    Biggs said, ”And the way I heard it from Spi, his daddy want us to be straight with you, right?”
    ”I believe that would be appreciated.”
    The raspy laugh. ”Okay, babe. ‘Appreciate’ this, then. Manager, he supposed to get only ten, maybe twenty percent of the gross a band make from every kind of thing it does.”
    ”Meaning albums, concerts—”
    ”Meaning everything that’s entertainment. Well, since Mitch put the band together, he own the name, he own the logo, he practically own us. We have three, four great years, then the bubble go ‘pop’ like a little kid with his chewing gum.”
    I thought back to Eisen’s short course on the history of the music. ”Other groups pushed you off those charts.”
    ”Not just other groups. Hell, babe, we could rock with the best of them. Problem was other sounds, other kinds of shit. The music was evolving, and Spi, he couldn’t evolve with it. He stuck with his sound.”
    ”Which was?”
    ”Raunchy-rock.”
    Eisen’s term, too. ”But even after you stopped making albums or doing concerts, you still got royalties or whatever, didn’t you?”
    The cagey look behind a cloud of smoke. ”Mitch, he tell you that?”
    ”We didn’t spend much time on the money side.”
    ”That don’t surprise me none. Mitch, he spend his own time on the money side, but the man don’t share much of it with the rest of the world.”
    I turned that over. ‘You think he cheated you?”
    ”Oh, he cheat us all right, but he do it by contract, dig? Or by law. Contract say, he own the name and shit. Law say, only the writer of the song get money from ASCAP or BMI when they collect it from the stations.”
    ”So only Spi Held got royalties from radio play of Spiral’s songs?”
    ”And Mitch.”
    ”I don’t follow you. Eisen wrote some of the songs?”
    ”No, babe. Our ‘personal manager’ had us all do wills with him as the winner.”
    ”The winner.”
    ”One of us die, that share go to him.”
    I got it. ”So when Tommy O’Dell died... ?”
    ”…all O’D’s royalties for writing the lyrics go to Mitch.”
    ”With nothing for the other musicians?”
    As Biggs started to speak, the hummingbirds came back to the feeder. This time, the two arrived nearly simultaneously and chittered at each other before a third dive-bombed them, the sound now more of clashing wings before all three zoomed away.
    Biggs said, ”That’s what break up bands, too.”
    I turned back to him. ”Fighting over the goodies.”
    ”Right on. Those birdies, they just learn to share, everybody get plenty to eat, account of Jeanette, she keep that bowl just as full of sugar water as it can be.”
    ”Kind of like a ‘royalty