How to Kill a Rock Star by Tiffanie Debartolo Page A

been singed, and he held it as if it were a piece of broken glass. “I’ve never shown this to anyone.” I could hear my conscience chiding me to walk away. But Paul’s eyes, at times, had an entirely different personality than the rest of his face. They were needy and they pleaded with me to stay.
    “What is it?” I said.
    “It’s a feather.”
    “I know that . What’s it for?”
    “My grandmother sent it to me a long time ago.” I settled back in and began questioning Paul in the manner I would have used if I’d been interviewing him—prob-ing but compassionate—and he proceeded to recount the facts of his life as if he were releasing toxins that had been in his bloodstream for years.
    “I’m just going to start from the beginning,” he said. “Late morning. December, 1972. Pittsburgh, PA. My mother, who wil herein be referred to as Carol, goes into labor. So she gets dressed and asks her fiancé to drive her to the hospital.”
    “She wasn’t married?”
    Paul shook his head. “She was engaged. To this guy, Robert Davies, who, incidental y, is not the father of the How to Kil _internals.rev 2/22/08 5:00
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    7child she’s about to pop.”
    “Is Mr. Davies privy to this information?”
    “Yeah, he knows. So he brings a radio to the hospital, per Carol’s request, and they keep it on during the delivery. Six hours later I’m born, and the first voice I hear is Doug Blackman singing ‘A Prayer for the Damned.’” I was shaking my head. “You’re tel ing me you remember that?”
    “Like it was yesterday.”
    “Impossible.”
    “Do you talk to al your interviewees this way?”
    “Not the important ones,” I teased. “So, what’s the story with Robert Davies?”
    “Swear to God, I don’t remember ever having a conversation with the guy. He was a man of few words and even fewer emotions. I grew up referring to him as Piece of Wood because he was stiff, void of personality, and spent most of his waking hours working. He spent the rest of his time planting flowers in our front yard. He might have been a walking log, but as a rose pruner he kicked ass.”
    “What did he do? For a living, I mean.”
    “He worked for a company that made and distributed electronics. His job was to make sure the various corporate branches around the country were being run as efficiently as possible. The company transferred him to a new city every few years to rework the offices, and he got to hire and fire as he saw fit. Besides the roses, hiring and firing people were the only things he ever got excited about.”
    “What was your mom like?”
    “Bored,” he said. “But she discovered ways of dealing with our transient existence and her emotional y absent husband. Bowling in the morning and a couple shots of scotch in the afternoon usual y did the trick. I didn’t have the same luxuries, at least not when I was a kid. Al I had How to Kil _internals.rev 2/22/08 5:00 PM Page 73
    was a pile of old records to keep me company.” Sounds familiar, I thought. “Where does Grandma fit in?”
    “Here’s the thing…” Paul leaned in so close I could feel his warm, rum-flavored breath on my face. “I didn’t know she existed until my thirteenth birthday, when I got a letter from her, and in it she said her son had been my father. She apologized for my not having met him, but something bad had grown in his brain and he’d died—her exact words. Later on, I learned he’d had a brain tumor. The feather was inside the envelope, and I’ve kept it with me ever since, a little talisman.”
    “Was her son real y your father?”
    He nodded. “When I showed Carol the letter she shrugged like it was no big deal and said, ‘I don’t know how that crazy woman found you.’”
    Paul told me that after hounding his mother for days on the topic of his father’s identity, Carol final y told him the truth.
    “She said his name was Wil iam, he rode a motorcycle, and never had any money. He died before I was