bald on top, gray on the sides, and sporting a gut that hung over his tight-cinched trousers. I stared at him, my little paper bowl of Jell-O drooping in one hand.
“Norm? Norm Irving?”
He grinned widely enough to flash gold teeth at the back of his mouth. I dropped my Jell-O and hugged him. He laughed and hugged me back. We told each other that we looked great. We told each other it had been too long. And of course we talked about the old days. Norm said he’d gotten Hattie Greer pregnant and married her. It only lasted a few years, but after a period of post-divorce acrimony, they had decided to put the past aside and be friends. Their daughter, Denise, was now pushing forty, and owned her own hair salon in Westbrook.
“Free and clear, too, bank all paid off. I got two boys by my second wife, but between you and me, Deenie’s my darlin. Hattie’s got one by her second husband.” He leaned closer, smiling grimly. “In and out of jail. Kid’s not worth the powder to blow him to hell.”
“What about Kenny and Paul?”
Kenny Laughlin, our bass player, had also married his Chrome Roses sweetie, and they were still married. “He owns an insurance agency in Lewiston. Doin good. He’s here tonight. You didn’t see him?”
“No.” Although maybe I had, and just hadn’t recognized him. And maybe he hadn’t recognized me.
“As for Paul Bouchard . . .” Norm shook his head. “He was climbing in Acadia State Park and took a fall. Lived two days, then passed away. 1990, that was. Probably a mercy. Docs said he would have been paralyzed from the neck down, if he’d lived. What they call a quad.”
For a moment I imagined our old drummer pulling through. Lying in bed with a machine to help him breathe and watching Pastor Danny on TV. I shook the thought away. “What about Astrid? Do you know where she is?”
“Downeast somewhere. Castine? Rockland?” He shook his head. “Don’t remember. I know she dropped out of college to get married, and her folks were pissed at her. Probably double pissed when she got divorced. I think she runs a restaurant, one of those lobster shack things, but don’t quote me. You guys had it bad, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” I said. “We sure did.”
He nodded. “Young love. Nothin on earth like it. Not sure I’d want to see her these days, because the old Soda Burger was steppin dynamite back then. Steppin nitro. Wasn’t she?”
“Yes,” I said, thinking of the ruined cabin next to Skytop. And the iron rod. How it glowed red when the lightning struck it. “Yes, she was.”
For a moment we said nothing, then he clapped me on the shoulder. “Anyway, what do you think? Gonna gig with us? You better say yes, because the band’s gonna be fuckin lame if you say no.”
“You’re in the band? The Castle Rock All-Stars? Kenny too?”
“Sure. We don’t play much anymore—not like the old days—but no way we could turn this one down.”
“Did my brother Terry put you up to this?”
“He might’ve thought you’d come up for a tune or two, but no. He just wanted a band from the old days, and me and Kenny are about the only ones from back then who are still alive, still hanging around this shit-all neck of the woods, and still playing. Our rhythm guy’s a carpenter from Lisbon Falls, and last Wednesday he fell off a roof and broke both legs.”
“Ouch,” I said.
“His ouch is my gain,” Norm Irving said. “We were gonna play as a trio, which, as you know, sucks the bird. Three out of four Chrome Roses ain’t bad, considering we played our last gig at the PAL hop up-the-city over thirty-five years ago. So come on. Reunion tour, and all that.”
“Norm, I don’t have a guitar.”
“I got three in the truck,” he said. “You can take your pick. Just remember, we still start with ‘Hang On Sloopy.’”
• • •
We trooped onstage to enthusiastic, alcohol-fueled applause. Kenny Laughlin, as thin as ever but now sporting several less than lovely moles on his face, looked up from adjusting the strap on his Fender P-Bass and dapped me. I wasn’t nervous, as I had been the first time I stood on this stage with a guitar in my hands, but I did feel as if I were having a particularly vivid dream.
Norm adjusted his mike one-handed, just as he always had, and addressed the audience waiting to