Resurrecting Janis
(Originally published in Voluted Tales, October 2013. Because the publication no longer exists, the story has been republished here in its entirety.)
What they don’t know, and what I never confessed into the mike, is that when I stepped off that stage, I didn’t step back into my own skin. When all the men in black wigs and sequined capes were putting away their gear to drive to the office and live out their mundane lives, I walked the streets of San Francisco with feather boas pinned in my hair. Pink sunglasses the size of saucers concealed the fact that my eyes are not quite the right shade of blue.
All right, all right. I’m getting to the part about the body. Gimme a minute, Jezuz, and listen up this time. Last March, when I learned that somebody had raised the real Janis from the dead, I said, “Bullshit. They cremated her and dumped her into the ocean.”
Joey, my lead guitarist, slapped his iPhone down next to my cup of coffee. There was a picture of Janis, high and sweaty at the Monterey Pop Festival. “They lied, Sarah. Read it. Some dickhead kept her body for science. Can you believe that?”
“Whose ashes were poured into the Pacific, then?”
“Who knows? Her family’s pissed about it, too. They didn’t know. It’s all in the article.”
Sure as hell, it was. The headline read, “She’s Alive!”
Yeah, yeah, you cops know all about it, but this is how it went down, and it’s important, so listen. A crazy fan from Des Moines got it into her head that Janis hadn’t overdosed after all. She claimed some demented roadie murdered her, pumping her veins full of heroin after that trip to the Beanery. Some cop from the L.A.P.D. reopened the case. Janis died there in L.A., you know, so they won jurisdiction. Anyway, that’s when the truth came spilling out like a bottle of pills. Back in the ‘60s, see, the government conducted tests on the effects of psychedelic drugs. Well, some suit decided they could study the after-effects just as well by poking around in the brains and organs of people who died of overdose. So for four decades, Janis had been lying on ice in the basement of some bigwig university. We all wanted to know who else they’d hidden down there. Jim, Jimi, Elvis, Michael, and Kurt were at the top of everyone’s lists. The only body they firmly denied having was Kurt Cobain’s, because, technically, he hadn’t died of overdose.
Back to the Des Moines woman, right. Once the media got hold of the truth, this fan from Des Moines demanded an autopsy, and this is when things get weird, man. Her body was shipped across country to L.A., and forensic doctors from all over the world showed up to watch this experimental autopsy. Next thing the press knows, they’re being presented not with a report of their findings, but with Janis herself.
People were excited at first. I can tell you, man, so was I. Watching the evening news, I was entranced by the clips of surveillance recordings that showed my idol sitting behind a table while the cops questioned her. The sound clips weren’t played, but I could see Janis’s mouth moving as she asked for a cigarette. The cop gave her one and lit it for her.
Later, the story of what really happened started leaking out. Off record, the police chief is supposed to have said, “Autopsy? Screw that. Let’s just ask her. We’ll get this over with a hell of a lot sooner. The Lakers are playing.” I ought to know. My cousin works in that department. Apparently, the chief knows some voodoo guru who consults the dead to help the department solve crimes. The witchdoctor was photographed entering the hospital with a chicken in a cage on the very same day that Janis was reported alive.
People started protesting, claiming nobody had the right to violate the dead by raising them. Others shouted Satanic Possession! or Devil Worship! Riots broke out. Policemen broke skulls and flung tear gas.
All this while, Janis was bunkered deep inside a secret compound while the police sorted through her statements. When they came up with nothing, they had another problem on their hands: what were they supposed to do with a woman who’d been dead for more than forty years?
They released her. Into my care.
The day I drove to the police station in my beat up ’89 Benz, I was nervous as hell. Benjamin, my cousin, the one who serves in the L.A.P.D., met me in the lobby. I didn’t give him the chance to hug me. “Why did you volunteer me, Benny?”
“I thought you’d be thrilled.”
“You expect me to take care of a dead woman, and you thought I’d be thrilled?”
“But she’s not dead, and you...well, you’re an expert on her, so I thought...”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Don’t worry about it, Sarah. Just take her home, make her comfortable, treat her natural, you know?”
“Natural? Fuck, Benny, there’s nothing natural about any of this.”
“You agreed to it, so relax, will you?”
“Is she healthy? Don’t she need a doctor?”
“Sarah, she’s fine. The doctors gave her a clean bill of health or they wouldn’t let us release her. Believe me, she’s been under constant surveillance and she’s ready to get out of here. There’s no freedom, she says.” My cousin rolled his eyes, as if the woman should be pleased about living behind locked doors for a couple of months.
“So?” I asked. “Did she tell you anything?”
“Nah. Nothing to corroborate any stories of murder, anyway.” He glanced over my shoulder. “Here she comes.”
“Ah, shit.” I plastered on a smile and turned to face my idol, the Queen of Rock ‘n Roll. Jeez, she was a tiny thing. Six inches shorter than me and fifteen pounds lighter, but maybe that was due to her having been a corpse for twice my lifetime. She was grinning ear to ear, like someone walking out of rehab at last. Surreal. Somebody had given her a pair of jeans, tennis shoes, and an L.A.P.D. t-shirt. Still, she looked downright naked without rows of bangles on her wrists. She might’ve been anyone off the street, but the wavy, wild chestnut hair and acne-scarred cheeks were all Janis. So was that smile, all big cheeks and squinched-up eyes, that I had such a hard time copying.
All she carried was a black guitar case.
Benjamin spoke the magic words: “Janis, this is my cousin Sarah. Sarah, Janis. You’ll be staying with her till you get back on your feet.”
Janis bobbed her head, beaming. “Right on.” She looked me up and down, those gray-blue eyes locking onto the beads hanging around my neck. I tried to downplay the look-alike thing today, not sure if the real Janis would take offense. “Do I need to sign anything?”
“No, you’re free to go,” said Benny. “Have a nice life.”
Surrounded by a police escort, Janis followed me into the elevator and down to the parking garage.
“There she is!” somebody shouted. Reporters rushed us, shoving cameras and microphones into our faces. “What’s it feel like, Janis? Any plans, Janis? Going back to the stage, Janis?”
The cops hurried us to my car and we dived in. Janis had dropped her guitar case to smash her hands over her ears. Loud sounds offended her for a while, I’m told. A cop tossed the guitar into the backseat, and off we sped up the ramp and into the California sunshine.
In the rearview mirror, a reporter stomped a foot in defeat. A couple more ran for news vans. Whipping out my iPhone, I dialed my cousin. “Benny! Get your boys on those jackasses. If they show up at my house, I’m blaming you.” I hit the “end” button and tossed the phone onto the dash.
Janis stared at it, her mouth open a little. “Heavy.”
“Yeah,” I said, trying to keep my eyes on the road. Several blocks from the station, sirens and lights intercepted the news vans and we were home free. Once we hit I-5, I found my tongue. “So. What’s it feel like? Being alive again?”
She looked over at me like I’d just asked if she wanted to go to church. “What, you don’t know?”
The sarcasm stung. “What did you tell the cops? About the case?”
She shrugged, sorta folding in on herself, you know? Looking small and uncertain. “I told ‘em I can’t remember. I can’t remember a lot of things.”
“You remember the trip to Barney’s Beanery?”
“Look, they asked me all this. Did they tell you to ask me?”
“No! No, never. I was just curious. Benny’s a tight-ass. He won’t tell me squat.”
The suspicion tightening her mouth relaxed. “I remember Ken Pearson being there, and some guy we picked up. Can’t remember his name. They said he came up clean, though. Just a guy in the wrong dive at the wrong time. And before you ask, lady, I don’t remember dying. I passed out long before that. I told them, and I’m telling you, there ain’t no mystery. I shot up, and that’s that.”
Right, I had pissed off Janis Joplin. I changed the subject, fast. “If staying with a stranger is uncomfortable, I can ask Ben to get in touch with your sister. Or something. If you want.”
Janis was quiet a long while. L.A. sped past the windows. “I talked to Laura last week. On the phone. She cried a lot. She wanted to come get me, sure, but...I told her, maybe later. I’m the older sister, you know. But now...she’s the older one. No, man, I don’t wanna go there. Most everybody I know is dead or decrepit, you know? Don’t want to face that, not yet.” She looked lost for a minute, then turned from the window wearing a shaky smile. “Shit, I need a drink.”
“Yeah?”
“Cops wouldn’t let me have a drop. Cigarettes.”
“There’s cigarettes in the glove compartment. I’ll find a liquor store.”
She popped the compartment on the dash, fished out my packet of Virginia Slims, slammed it shut, and noticed the car logo set into the black vinyl. “Is this a Mercedes?” she asked.
“Yeah. An old one.”
Sitting back again, she tucked a foot up on the seat, packed the cigarette against her palm, and said, “That’s funny.”
“Your Porsche is in a museum.”
“Yeah?”
“In New York City.”
She lit the cigarette, tossed down the lighter. “Everyone wants a piece of me. Even you. Sarah, is it?”
Heat bloomed in my face. Here it came. The resentment that I made a living being Janis Joplin instead of Sarah Johnson of Lafayette, Louisiana. I kept my eyes on the white dotted line rushing toward the Benz’s fender while she looked me over real slow. “Not bad. You got prettier skin than me. Can’t fake bad skin.” Like a taunt, she added, “But how’s the voice? You fake that, too?”
“No.” After a while I admitted, “I stick to the recorded versions. I’m not good with impromptu changes. People don’t seem to mind.”
I was grateful when I saw a sign advertising a super-sized liquor store at the next exit. Pulling into the parking spot, I said, “Stay here. Don’t draw a crowd. Please.” I ditched my round glasses and whipped my hair up into a bun. By now, everyone knew Janis was back, and I didn’t want to draw second glances. Couldn’t help the bell-bottoms and ruffle-sleeved shirt, though. Oh, well. This was L.A. Anything goes.
By the time I got back to the car with a bottle in a brown paper bag, Janis had figured out how to turn on the radio and flip through the stations. Buttons, no dials, of course. Godsmack bellowed over the speakers. Janis looked mystified, like an old-time sailor being told the Earth was round. I punched a different button. “That’s the one you want. Oldies.” Sure enough, Creedence Clearwater Revival was singing about a grapevine, and Janis cackled that distinctive wild laughter, pleased to learn that something from her era survived.
“Here.” I handed her the contents of the bag. Southern Comfort. Janis pumped her legs in an excited frenzy when she saw the label. “You’re all right. You know that?”
By the time we got to San Francisco, the sun was going down and Janis was out cold. Half the bottle was gone. Making up for lost time, I guess.
The band and I couldn’t afford a place in Haight-Ashbury, but we lived as close to the neighborhood as we could get, in a run-down Victorian in Lower Haight. As soon as the Benz pulled up at the curb, Joey and the rest hurried down the front steps. Parker, the bass player, was there with his girlfriend. Roach, the drummer, looked stoned. And our keyboard player, Steff, stood alongside the trashcans, craning his neck and looking queasy. Joey opened the passenger-side door and stared. “Is that really her?”
Chestnut hair had fallen over half her face, and she hugged that bottle like it was her baby. I nudged her shoulder. “Um, Janis?”
She groaned but didn’t wake.
“Help me get her inside, guys.”
We had gone to a lot of trouble to fix up the extra bedroom for our guest. As soon as Benny called me with the big proposal, I ditched the pastel-colored seashell bedding that my mother had sent when we moved into the place. Black comforters accented with paisley pillows seemed more appropriate. The rest of the band tracked down lava lamps, beads for the doorways, shag rugs, and posters of the bands Janis knew. Chicago and the Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix and the Doors. I even managed to find copies of advertisements for concerts at the Avalon Ballroom. All to make our guest feel comfortable. Not that it mattered to her that night.
We all stood at the foot of the bed, watching her sleep. Janis Joplin, in our house. Crazy. “What do we do now?” asked Parker.
All I could think to say was “Hell if I know.”
* * *
Bumps and rustles woke me late the next morning. I rolled over, checked the alarm clock. 10:13. The alarm button had never been switched on, ever.
“You sleep like I used to,” said a voice at the foot of the bed. I bolted upright. Janis was pilfering through my closet. “I been up since eight. Fog’s pretty at eight. I never knew that before. I guess I been sleeping long enough. Got a lot of living to catch up on.”
“Do you need something?” I asked, reminding myself to be friendly, even if I was usually a bear before noon.
“I gotta find some clothes, man. These jeans the cops gave me? They’re too tight around the ankle. Remind me of Sandra Dee. No thanks. And the t-shirt sure as hell won’t do. Nice guys and all, but so establishment.” She turned from the closet with a couple of blouses on hangers. “Do you mind?”
I fell back onto my pillow, laughing. “I’m gonna wake up any minute.”
Janis chose the silver bell-sleeved blouse and a pair of black bell-bottoms with fancy silver embroidery. “Too big in the ass. What d’you think?”
“Yeah, I got a big ass,” I said, looking up at the water stain on the ceiling. “Belts are on the back of the closet door.” She found the red-and-silver sequined sash that I wore at most of my performances and cinched it tight. On my vanity mirror hung the boa hair pieces that I’d made. She clipped the purple-red-black one onto the top of her head. Peering at her reflection, she muttered, “Oh, yeah, that’s better.” She looked just like a documentary. “Press is downstairs, by the way. They want to talk to you, too.”
I sprang out of bed, cursing and fishing for clothes. Tugging on the first things I could find, I thundered down the stairs, shouting for the boys. “Joey! Parker! Roach!”
Steff was already at the door, peering through the peephole, coffee mug in hand. He turned toward us, grinning, free hand flapping, “Oh, my God, Sarah, can you believe this? There’s, like, a thousand people out there. Cameras galore. Look your best, honey. Janis,” he added, grabbing her shoulder and looking so serious that I couldn’t help but chuckle. “I worship the ground you walk on. If you need a keyboard player, call me.”
“Right on, man.”
I slapped Steff upside the head. “You’d leave me that easy?”
“No offense, Sar, but she’s Janis.”
Janis flung open the door, and camera flashes went berserk.
All that day, CNN played the footage:
“Janis! Janis, what’s it feel like to be alive again?”
Slow, lazy smile. “It’s better than being dead, man.”
“Do you remember anything from the beyond?”
“No, no, it was all black. Like I was asleep, then I wasn’t.”
“Have you gotten a chance to sing?”
“Not much. The cops, they gimme a guitar, so I could sing if I wanted to.”
“Do you want to?”
“Hell, yes, man. I mean to pick up where I left off. If the world still wants Janis.”
The World Still Wants Janis! read the headlines. The picture accompanying the article showed my idol wearing my boas and standing in front of my house. And where was I? There in the background, a blurry smudge, slowly edged out by cameramen. Did I mind? Not really. Janis was back, and she deserved the attention. While I poured my coffee and nibbled toast, she was sitting at the breakfast table, talking on the phone with one agent or producer or reporter after another. The house was besieged. We didn’t dare take out the trash or go for tacos. Then, about three o’clock that afternoon, a sleek black limo pulled up outside, accompanied by a police escort.
The feds, I thought. They want the body back.
But it wasn’t. “John Moriarty, of Colombia records.” The man standing on the front stoop wore a gray silk suit and held out a hand glinting with a gold ring. “Do you remember me, Miss Joplin?”
“There’s a lot of shit I don’t remember. Don’t take it personal.”
“Not at all, not at all. I was just a kid back then, a technician behind the booth, but not anymore. We would like to treat you to dinner.”
She laughed shrilly. “You boys move fast. I won’t stop you. You know where I wanna go...?” He whisked her off to the limo. In less than thirty seconds they were gone, trailing reporters and news vans for two full blocks, and suddenly the street was empty.
The band and I went out for tacos. No one paid us a second glance.
* * *
Early the next morning, I mean early, like seven o’clock, my door bell rang. Steff was always the early riser, but even he wasn’t up yet. I padded, half-blind, downstairs in my oversized Minnie Mouse pajama shirt and cracked open the door. I expected Janis returning after an all-nighter, but it was some skinny, freckled reporter from the Chronicle. He shoved a voice recorder into my face. “Are you Sarah Johnson?”
“Yeah,” I croaked, squinting against the light that was breaking over the rooftops. Where was the damn fog when you needed it?
“Care to answer a few questions?”
This was more like it. “Sure. Don’t keep me long, kid, I haven’t had my coffee.”
He dived in. “We would like to set the record straight. You impersonate Janis Joplin at local clubs and bars?”
“Yeah. Non-local ones, too. Even performed in Vegas a couple of times.”
“How long have you done that?”
“Five, six years now.”
“Where are you from, originally?”
“Port Arthur, Texas. Where else?” No, that wasn’t right. “I’m just joking, kid. I’m from Lafayette, Louisiana.”
The reporter either didn’t know his history or had no sense of humor. “What did you think when you learned that Janis Joplin had been resurrected?”
“What did I think?” Hell, I couldn’t remember. “I thought, damn, she’s gonna be hungry.”
“And how did you come to host her in your house?”
“My cousin, he works for the L.A.P.D. He was tasked with questioning Janis and seeing to her needs. When it came time for her release, Benjamin called me and asked if I was up to, um, you know, seeing that she had a roof over her head.”
“Is she here now?”
“No. No she’s not.”
“Do you know where she is or when she’ll be back?”
“She didn’t inform me of anything when she left. She has her own life to live.”
The reporter started to lower the recorder, glanced at his notepad, and raised it again for the kicker. “What will you do now that the world no longer needs Janis impersonators?”
“What?” I cried. Not needed? “Fuck!” I said and slammed the door in his face.
The Chronicle didn’t run the interview.
* * *
We cancelled the performances lined up for that weekend, and the next. I guess we were scared of being hounded by an audience demanding the real thing.
CNN and all the major papers, stations, and entertainment shows kept Janis in their spotlights all spring. She was in New York! She was meeting with members of her bands! She was rumored to have movie contracts to play herself! She was photographed drunk or high or both at this club or that! Every headline ended in exclamation marks for some damn reason. Alongside these were rumors that Elvis had been sighted, the real one. Well, that was nothing new. Who gave a shit?
When the boys and I decided to creep back into the bars, people rushed me at first, until they realized that under the bright feathered boas there was only Sarah Johnson. None of the owners agreed to book us.
Bam-bam, the big brute of an Italian who tends bar at Lou’s on Divisadero, sounded happy to tell us why, as if we didn’t know: “I heard she got a concert tour coming.” He gave my Long Island Tea a squirt of Coca-Cola and slid it down the bar. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to drink it or splash it across his face. “I’m gonna be the first in line for tickets,” he added. “She’s s’posed to be on the Tonight Show, too.”
“Oh, yeah? When?”
“Tonight.”
I couldn’t help but watch.
“Turn it off,” Joey growled, dropping onto the saggy, old couch.
“No, man, no,” Roach said. “I wanna see if she’s started falling apart yet.” He meant it in a very literal sense. The dude is macabre, belongs in a Goth thrash band, if you ask me, and he fully expected Janis to start looking like the zombies in the movies.
She looked fabulous. Under the stage lights, she was rosy and full in the face, like she had stepped through a door from 1970 to 2012. Her voice sounded fabulous, too. During the month after leaving our company, she musta been revving it up. “Feelin’ good was good enough for me. Good enough for me and my Bobby McGee,” she sang.
“She’s wearing my belt, damn it. You’d think she’d get one of her own by now and send mine back.”
“Hey,” said Steff in motherly fashion, “maybe she’s wearing it to honor you, Sarah. Did you think of that?”
“Honor me? That’s my fucking belt, man!”
“What are you still doing here anyway, Steff?” demanded Joey. “Got the big call yet?”
Steff stuck his nose into the air. “No. But the night is young. If you people insist on acting like babies, I won’t wait for Janis to call me. I will simply show up at her door and offer my services.”
“Be sure to explain up front that you’re a fag,” I bit, “or she might expect different services.”
“You people are bores and cranks,” he said. “I’m outta here.” He slammed the front door on his way out.
Janis had finished singing and was waving at the audience who had apparently given her a standing ovation. It was all Jay Leno could do to quiet them down. Finally, he took up his post behind his desk, and Janis plopped down in the guest seat. She looked right at home.
“Janis, Janis,” Jay began. I couldn’t stand looking at him. His lower jaw made me think of a brick hanging on the bottom of his face. I couldn’t stand looking at Janis either, grinning and waiting for the questions to start rolling. “What can I say but welcome back?”
The audience went berserk.
“Feels good, Jay. Feels real good. You know, it was The Dick Cavett show back then.”
“Yeah, how often were you a guest on his show?”
“Oh, lots and lots. He was so straight, man, I had a lot of fun with him. When my agents said ‘Jay Leno,’ I said, ‘Who?’”
The audience thought that was damn funny. So did Jay.
“Now, this song,” he went on, holding a CD copy of Janis’s last album. “‘Me and Bobby McGee.’ It’s off of Pearl, and it went on to become your only hit single, but you never had the chance to perform it live, right? Until tonight.”
Janis offered a sheepish sort of shrug. “Sorry you had to wait so long.” Mingled with a chuckle, she added, “I had a bad case of death.”
Laughter and booing and cheers came from behind the camera.
Jay took the statement seriously. “You’ve stated you don’t want to talk about dying and all that, so let’s talk about what you’re doing now.”
“Right.”
“Have you had chance to meet up with some of the old touring buddies, the old band members?”
The feathers on her head floated lazily as she nodded. Someone ought to tell her she looks like a Hansen muppet. “Yeah, I met up with some of ‘em. Most of ‘em are still around. That made me happy. And you’re right about them being old, Jay. You know I’m supposed to turn seventy next year? Ever seen a seventy-year-old woman look this good?”
In true form. Trying to get the host to blush. Her audience loved it, of course.
“Any plans to get back into the studio?” Jay asked.
“Yeah, I been talking with the guys from Colombia records. They, uh, reminded me that I had a contract with them. I never finished recording my last album, apparently. So, yeah, we been talking.”
“That’s something else. What are the complications of coming back from the dead? I mean, all the legality issues, copyright infringements, estate trouble, and all that?”
“They gave all my stuff away, man. I had a will, you know, just in case, and it’s all gone. All my stuff. Dealt out like cards. Everybody owns a piece of me but me. No, I’m starting over, pretty much. I been trying to get my car back.”
“They won’t let you have your car?”
A picture of the wildly painted Porsche popped up on the screen. Icon of the era, that car with it’s custom paint job.
“No. It’s locked up in that museum. I went there last week. Had to pay to get in the door and see my own car. Sort of a downer.”
“What if I told you we were going to help you get your car back?”
“Really? I’d love you forever, man. Really?” Her whiskey voice cracked.
“Damn it,” I said. Everything was working out for Janis, and I was going to have to find a clerking job to pay the bills.
Jay closed the interview. “What would like to say to your audience, now that you’re back with us?”
Janis didn’t hesitate. “Live life to the fullest. Just be careful how you do it.”
Joey nudged Roach with his toe. “Turn it the fuck off, man.”
Roach looked disappointed that Janis was holding together, but did as he was told.
* * *
This is the part you really want to know about, daddy. What happened last Wednesday? Well, here it comes, so don’t blink or you’ll miss it. Again.
So, after Janis regaled us on Leno, I got a job clerking at Amoeba Music on Haight. Some of the customers recognized me, even without the boas and sunglasses, and the more I had to explain why I needed the job, the more depressed I got. Soon as I got home every evening I’d break open a bottle and drink till I passed out. The boys were worried at first, then they just got disgusted. Parker moved out to live with his girlfriend. Steffano left in a huff, screaming irrationally about how he was going to find a place down on Castro, ‘where he belonged,’ and did that make me happy? No, I said, apologizing, but he didn’t listen.
With only Joey and Roach left to help pay rent, we started looking around for a cheaper place but had little luck. None of us wanted to leave the neighborhood. So we volunteered for overtime and holidays and weekends, got second jobs. We were all grouchy as hell and downright miserable. Guitars and drum sets collected dust.
One morning as he was leaving for one shitty job or another, Joey said to me, “You know, Sarah, we could form another band. We don’t have to do Janis shit or nothing. We got talent, we can try something else.”
“Yeah, I’ll give you the mike. You can sing ‘Smells Like Team Spirit.’”
“No, I don’t mean more impersonation crap. We can do our own thing.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Over the summer we spent the weekends filling the garage with aspiring musicians and singers. Some of ‘em even had promise, but my heart wasn’t in it. Joey finally got frustrated with me and started hanging out with new buddies. Roach tagged along. Me? When I was home alone, which was most nights, I put in the Janis CDs and turned up the volume and held my own private concerts.
The audience loved me.
Whatever the real Janis was doing at the time, I didn’t know. Didn’t want to know. I stopped reading the headlines, stopped watching the news, stopped talking to folks who felt I needed updates. Then October rolled around and the anniversary of her death. “Janis Holds Concert To Celebrate Life!” read the paper in the kiosk. I bought a copy, couldn’t stop myself. Janis told the reporters, “I’m glad to have this second chance. I’m not gonna waste it this time. I gotta new album coming out in the spring. Been looking for a new sound for a new age. You don’t want to miss it. I don’t want to miss it.”
All the world was her stage. No looking back. And I was just Sarah Johnson who clerked at Amoeba. So when my phone rang last Wednesday--yeah, Wednesday, October 10th--I was expecting anybody but Janis on the other end. “Hey, Sarah?” she said. “This is Janis.”
“What is this, a joke?”
“No joke, man. I’m in town and wondered if you wanted to have a drink. I got some of your things.” I was shocked when she suggested I meet her at Ben and Jerry’s ice cream parlor on the corner of Haight and Ashbury. An ice cream parlor? Really? I was sure this was a hoax, but hoping to get my belt back, I took a chance.
The dive was chilly inside and smelled like refrigerated candy. A couple of kids in line agonized over which flavor of ice cream to choose. Their mother fussed at them to hurry. Some of the tables were occupied, and my face heated when I didn’t see Janis at any of them. A woman in the corner raised her hand and waved. My jaw hit the floor, man, I tell you. If I had passed her on the street, I wouldn’t have recognized her. She had ditched the bellbottoms and boas and looked...modern...in skinny jeans, a gray sweater dress, and blingy scarf bundled around her neck. She was still casual with her hair and makeup though. Just a pony tail and lip gloss. I looked more like Janis Joplin than Janis did. It was strange, but seeing her like that, she was just a person, no pedestals, no stage lights.
She saw my surprise. “Yeah, I know. Just last week a reporter asked me why I sold out. I told him, ‘Hell, I never bought in.’ The clothes? That was then, this is now. I don’t want to live like it’s still 1970, you know? Oh, hey, your stuff’s in the bag.”
I moved the plastic sack from the chair opposite her and sat down. “Thanks,” I muttered, finding it hard to digest her kindness. “Did you order something?”
“Yeah, a frozen yogurt. That’s some good shit. Ate it already.”
“Yeah, sorry for being late. I didn’t know whether to believe you.”
“I understand, man. No big deal. Look, I’m buying, get whatever you want. And a water for me.”
Water? What the hell? “Right,” I said and went to the counter for a single dip of butter pecan and two waters. Janis took one of the paper cups and dropped a little pill into it. Now, that was more like it.
“Tastes like hell, but they say it’s good for you.”
“What is it?”
“Wheatgrass. You want one?”
I crowed. “You’re kidding!” Everybody in town was popping little health pills, and Janis herself was on board the train.
“I mean to stay healthy this time around, live a long damn time.” She dug inside an oversized floral-printed purse for a pack of cigs and a lighter. I laughed at the irony. “Hey, booze is hard enough. I can quit only one thing at a time.” She clicked the lighter.
“Ma’am?” said the teenager behind the counter. “You can’t smoke that in here.”
Janis grimaced, put the lighter back and tamped out the cigarette on the tabletop. Where else was she to do it with no ashtray on the premises? “That one I keep forgetting. You can’t smoke anywhere these days. Some places, you can’t even smoke outside, did you know? People have gone crazy.” She glanced out the window. Sunset burnt the rooflines of the Victorians a dull orange. “Everything changed. So fast. It changed so fast.”
Was she about to cry?
“You helped it change,” I said, not sure if that would make it better or worse.
“No, the world changes when it wants to.”
“Bullshit. The world doesn’t know what it wants till people like you show it.”
She took a long sip of the green-tinged water.
“Not even a splash of Southern Comfort?” I asked.
“I’ve been sober for over a month, Sarah. Believe that? I saw the pictures. On the news, in the papers. Well, not the papers, but you know what I mean, those little phones. And that’s another thing! People tried to shove all this merchandise into my hands. Phones, laptops, pods—”
“iPods.”
“Right. And I looked at all that shit and said, ‘Whoa, man. I got along fine without it before, I don’t want it now.’ So now I’m being blamed for a drop in some fruit company’s stock, because ‘Janis says America doesn’t need it.’”
“Apple?”
“Yeah, that’s the one. I wasn’t talking revolution, just simplicity. But they heard it wrong. That hasn’t changed. Why don’t people go live their own lives, do what they want to do, instead of looking to people like me for guidance? If you want a pod, get a pod. If you don’t, don’t. Screw off, and don’t blame me.”
“Wait, Janis,” I said, raising a hand amid her wild gestures. “What pictures?”
“Huh?”
“The pictures you saw.”
“Oh.” She sipped and looked like she wished the wheatgrass was something stronger. “Somebody caught me drunk in New Orleans and splashed the pictures everywhere. When I saw them, I went cold, man. Cold down to my bones. ‘You’re doing it all over again,’ I said. ‘You still won’t make thirty.’ So I dumped the booze down the sink and flushed the dope down the toilet, even the grass. Haven’t touched it since. Far out, huh? Janis is sober, folks.” She leaned over the table with a plea in her eye. “Listen, I wanna live to be an old lady. A real old lady, not a seventy-year-old who looks twenty-seven, you know?”
So, Janis had gotten a clue and grown up. Is this the way it would have happened if she hadn’t died? I don’t think so. “I guess that means you won’t be coming back to the house for cocktails?”
Chuckling, she sat back again. “No, but I could use a place to stay. My plane flies out tomorrow, early.”
I thought of the bedroom we had spent so much time and money fixing up, the bedroom she had slept in once and never mentioned. “Oh, yeah? To where?”
“Vegas. I’m told a lot of my old fans hang out in Vegas. I’ll give ‘em a thrill, then maybe fly back and go to the beach. All by myself. Yeah, that’d be nice.”
It was dark by the time we got back to my place. I dropped the key, cursed it to the depths of hell, and by the time I opened the front door, I realized it wasn’t the key that pissed me off. It wasn’t fair. Life. But everybody knew that. I just figured mine had been better than most. Until now.
This time, this decade, belonged to me. She had her chance and wasted it. Yet here she was, stealing everything I loved.
“Sarah? You okay?” Janis reached out and touched my shoulder.
I was leaning up against the foyer wall, sobbing. The tears had come out of nowhere. They didn’t feel cathartic though. They only made me angrier. I shouldn’t be crying; I should be singing. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine,” I snapped, straightening up again. “We haven’t touched your room since you left. The sheets are probably stale. I’ll wash--”
“Sarah, it doesn’t matter.” Why did she have to be so damn nice? “You go have a drink. I won’t watch. It’s better if I’m not in the same room, you know?” She hurried off upstairs, having to step over clothes and shoes and trash bags that hadn’t made it out to the curb. I hadn’t cleaned the house in a couple of months. Didn’t give a shit.
I poured myself a shot of tequila. No salt, no lime. Then another, then a third. Yeah, the tears were drying up now.
“Hey, Sarah?” Janis called from the stairwell. “I’m gonna hop into the shower, okay? Then we can order pizza or something. How’s that sound?”
“Great!” I shouted back. The word sounded false in my own ear. Things hadn’t been great in a long time. Don’t think about it, I told myself. She’ll be out of here first thing in the morning. And you? You will check in at Amoeba and stand at the register all day. Don’t think about it! Phone book. Find the phone book and call for pizza. Without thinking, I ordered the usual, what Joey and Roach and I always order. All meat, all veggie, supreme. But the boys wouldn’t be in till later. Did I think two women could eat three large pizzas? No, I wasn’t thinking much at all. They were delivered in thirty minutes, but Janis still hadn’t come down from the bathroom. I smoked a cigarette at the breakfast table, then went upstairs. The bathroom light was off; a cloud of humidity poured out. Climbing to the next floor, I tripped over one of Joey’s electric guitars. Son of a bitch, those things are made of bricks. Cursing him for leaving it on the landing, I decided to carry it to his room and lay it in the middle of the floor. I hoped he’d break his toe on it in the dark.
Janis rustled around in her bedroom. The door was cracked open. “Food’s here,” I said.
“Just getting dressed,” she replied. “I’ll be down in a minute. Come on in if you want.” The only lights in the room came from the lava lamp and the closet. She was tugging on her skinny jeans. “Feeling better?”
I nodded.
“This room is far out.” Glancing at the posters, she said, “I remember that concert.” Ah, the pink Mantra-Rock Dance poster. “Well, some of it anyway.”
Ancient history. That was the problem, wasn’t it? All of this, ancient history. You can’t bring it back, man. It’s dead and gone. Our time. Today is our time. Whatever it is, whatever we make of it. Ours and only ours.
I went all cool and hot inside, I remember that. Then it was like I’d doped up. Numb and clearheaded and walking on clouds all at once. I watched Janis struggle into the sweater dress and realized I still carried Joey’s guitar. While the dress was still over Janis’s head, I gave that guitar a swing.
* * *
I sat over the lump on the floor for a long time, watching for the vaguest sign of breathing. After a while, I noticed the blood spreading through the shag rug. That’s when I got sick. I ran to the bathroom, threw up in the tub that was still wet from her shower. Three shots of tequila down the drain and I felt as sober as a Baptist on Sunday.
Had I really done it?
I crept to the bedroom, peeked inside. That’s when something hit me in the face. Knocked me flat on my ass, man, I tell you. Thinking about it now, it felt like a gust of wind, but inside of me. Scared the shit out of me, but at the same time all the fear drained away, and I knew everything would be okay. I ran back downstairs, grabbed my phone off the kitchen counter. “Joey!” I shouted three or four times before the damn thing recognized my voice and dialed the right number. When he picked up, I said, “You gotta get over here. Bring Roach. I need help.”
When they saw the mess on the bedroom floor, Roach started dancing side to side in a panic, as hyperactive as a man on speed. “Shit, shit, shit,” he muttered, not daring to step farther into the room.
Joey just stood there and stared and asked the obvious, “Jesus, Sarah, what did you do?” His breathing got faster and faster. His eyes looked huge and boy-like in the dim light. He saw his guitar lying at the foot of the bed, picked it up. The neck was cracked. “You killed her with this? With mine? Ah, fuck you, Sarah! Somebody will think I did this!”
“Calm down, Joey,” I said. Where were the tears and sickness now? I had never felt more cool and in control of a situation. “Roach, go downstairs and get the trash bags.” He and I triple-layered the bags, wrapped the body in the ruined rug and folded them up inside. Joey sat on the bed, pale and panting. He couldn’t watch. “Carry it downstairs,” I told Roach. “Careful.” I turned to Joey, made him look at me. “Get in the car. Get it started. Go on.” He drifted downstairs.
After giving the floor a cursory cleaning with the towel that Janis had tossed on the bed, I followed them. The towel and anything else within reach went into the trash bag with the body. Night darkened the windows, but any number of people might be walking by, driving past, and the bag needed to look like the rest of the trash. Roach dragged it out. I grabbed the others that had been sitting in the foyer for weeks. They fit in the trunk of the Benz better than I expected. Only one woman passed us on the sidewalk. She was walking her Yorkie and never glanced our direction. The dog raised a stink, however, yapping and dancing toward us. Roach got sweaty and nervous for a minute before the woman tugged the leash and they hurried off.
Joey sat in the passenger seat, looking straight ahead. Roach climbed into the back. “Where are we taking it?” he asked.
“Remember that stretch of beach we found last summer?” I said, shifting into drive.
Roach’s laughter sounded shaky. “Where we got high and danced around the fire all night?”
“That’s the one.”
We had trouble finding the place in the dark, had to double back a couple of times, but about two in the morning, we recognized the right curve in the highway. I parked in the trees on the side of the road, and Roach unloaded the bag that mattered, lugged it across the road and down the rocks to the beach. Joey made no move to get out. I climbed back in to coax him.
“They’ll find out,” he said. “You think she came to town without telling anybody?” Panic pitched his voice higher. “Someone will come looking for her, Sarah.”
“And they’ll find her, too, Joey,” I said. “It’s okay.”
“How can that be okay?”
“Because she’s safe. Inside.” I tapped my chest.
“Oh, my God, you’ve lost your mind.”
“No, you’ll see. Get out and help us. You build the best fires.”
The tide was in. There wasn’t much sand between the rocks, but it was enough. We gathered driftwood from the beach and fresh-fall from the trees and started clicking lighters against the wind.
* * *
I sit back in the cold metal chair and light a cigarette. Across the table, a detective growls out a sigh. He smells of cheap cologne and burnt coffee. His twenty-year-old khaki suit might’ve fit well once, but he’s got a donut roll around his middle now. Stale sweat slicks his face; he looks tired, sick of me, and ready to go home and drink a bourbon.
Standing in the far corner near the one-way window, a second detective gazes at me real cool and sweet. He’s fifteen years younger than his partner and hasn’t said a word all evening. Just paced leisurely behind the table, listening to every word I spilled, fetching us water, cigs, coffee.
“So you burned the body,” says the fat cop, scrubbing a hand over his face. “You could’ve said so this morning and saved us a lot of trouble. Why the tall tale?”
Not again. The dude has to be deaf. “Ain’t no tale, man. That’s what happened. My body was supposed to have been cremated forty years ago, so that’s what we did. We scooped up all the ashes and dumped them into the Pacific. It’s all right now. She’s gonna be all right now.”
The fat cop’s furry gray eyebrows jump. “Your body?”
“I told you already, man--”
The younger detective must be tired of us talking in circles. For the first time, he approaches the table. He has nice eyes. Blue, like the ocean from up high. “Help us find your accomplice? Now, we found Joey, but where’s Roach?”
“You won’t find him. I don’t even know what his real name is. He lit out of town a couple of days ago. After Joey...” My throat tightens up, aches like a fist is shoved down it. “Joey didn’t understand. Just like you don’t understand. We found him lying in bed. Two empty needles on the bedside table. He never even got the rubber band off his arm before he passed out. His fingers were blue.” A sob lurches from my throat. “I just walked out and shut the door. I didn’t know what else to do. Did you guys take him out? Roach ran, but I didn’t know what to do.” I sob and repeat it over and over, “I didn’t know what to do!”
The younger detective pats me on the shoulder. “Calm down, Miss Johnson.”
“Fuck this,” the fat cop mutters. His metal chair scrapes the floor as he rises. He lifts me by my elbow. “Sarah Johnson, I arrest you for the murder of Janis Joplin.”
“Arrest--? You still don’t get it, man! She ain’t dead.”
“I’ll take her,” says the younger detective. He has a gentler touch. He escorts me from the interrogation room to a long desk where I wait to have my mug shot and fingerprints taken. “Tell me about the wind that knocked you over,” he asks while we wait.
I find myself smiling at him. He smiles back. “You’re all right, you know that? Best I can figure it, when that voodoo witchdoctor snatches a soul out of the beyond, it doesn’t get to go back. But it still needs a home. So who are you anyway? You don’t act like a detective.”
“I’m Doctor Bryce. We’ll be seeing a lot of each other, if I have anything to say about it.”
“A doctor? Hell. Better than a cop, I guess.”
The officer behind the desk has papers to fill out. “Who do we have here, Doc?”
“This is Sar--” the doctor begins.
But I cut in. “Janis. My name is Janis.” The officer glances between the two of us. “Go on, type that in. J-A-N-I-S. Right on, man. Good boy.”
END
* * * * *
copyright 2013 Court Ellyn
None of the text of “Resurrecting Janis” may be reproduced or copied without the written permission of the author.
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