Seeking Cram Billickson

By: Peter Cunniffe

“Hatcheting my emotions

She chunks another piece of me

Smiling as she sings sweetly

Her broken, swaying lullaby”

-Cram Billickson,

         Crimson-Hued Love Song #4,                                            

When Terrence left me, he leaked a single, sparse hint, as only he was capable, at once direct and cryptic - a single CD from “his collection” not taken from our Norristown loft.  Crimson-Hued Love Songs by The Sulk.  Everything else that anal-boy, that coward, got just right, down to half of a half-stick of butter and a now-matchless pillowcase.  No letter. Having suffered through a rainy-day (translate: smelly) commuter rail ride from Philly, I pushed my rusted and wheezing Celica from Radnor Station to our small rental only to discover his begging off work that morning - “I’m sick as shit, baby. Can you call out for me?” - was a ruse.  I had phoned home on two occasions and he answered each time with a sleep-groggy voice.  Coward.  Excepting the CD, Terrence grabbed everything he deemed “his” before disappearing entirely from my life.  Not three months after our wedding. 

Without two incomes the apartment ceased to be manageable.  Having swallowed my pride and called my father, I found myself, age 26, slumming on the floor of my old Brookline, Massachusetts bedroom parsing the CD.  My father no doubt rolling his eyes as the first violent chords ripped from the opening song.  His every look these days reeks of I-told-you-so.  My stepmother doesn’t really speak to me, which is cool by both of us.  Having taken the semester off from grad school, I have subjected myself to a waitress gig at the American Café.  Emily Dickinson and all that unrequited love crap will have to wait.  There are bigger fish to fry, motivations to uncover; Cram Billickson holds the key.

During a blink of the late eighties, The Sulk, led by nasal-toned and poison-penned front man Cram Billickson, pissed their mark on the cultural landscape.  Not in a Johnny Rotten look-at-me-being-foul sense, but a Billicksonesque they-should-know-who-we-were sense.  PulseJam editor, Hal Meldon, opined “Billickson’s blunt analysis and phrasing force this generation to admit that if anyone is lying it ain’t the mirror.”  Crammed between - and I do not think Thomas Harris’ stage name is at all a coincidence - the angry young men of the seventies-turned-eighties and the soul-burning Gothic hullabaloo that for once and for all made a mockery of mockery in the early nineties existed a group of artists that history has failed to recognize with a unique name.  Pre-grunge-and-goth artists that could not have been defined such at the time, and deserved better after their time passed; but, alas, post-Nirvana no earlier music would seem important to the blinded powers-that-be, those profit-mongering record executives.  Atop the heap of those title-less troubadours, those slashing and reverberating social seers, stood The Sulk.

“Feel the easy, telling bite

Like the glub, glub, glub of a Pac Man life

Numbly rip the flesh, reminding us, yes

Tomorrow could be better”

This small snippet from the song Tomorrow (Co-Morbid Fantasies) lends powerful insight into the overarching message to be culled from the five-and-one-half year recording span of The Sulk, and - to some even greater extent - Cram Billickson’s post-Sulk recordings.  With Cram, the sparse lyrics, false rhyme (bite and life, for goodness sake!), repetition, harsh chords, ethereal synthesizer, and pain-laced imagery were always - well, almost always - balanced by the hint of times better.   The same lyric also serves as a permanent reminder of Terrence.  He had inquired of me, as a wedding gift, would I get a tattoo?  Something small, tasteful.  But it had to be of my choosing, he insisted.  “Who am I, baby, to tell you what to do with your body?”  I respectfully declined.  Two years later, in advance of a Cram Billickson show at the Orpheum, I got inked.  Tasteful, in three-quarter inch gothic script riding slanted along my collarbone from my bosom toward my left shoulder.  “Feel the easy, telling bite.”  Letters that begged to be devoured, but were only accessible to those willing to let their glance linger. 

I got them for Cram, but not really; I got them to gain Cram’s attention.  And I wore a push-up number with a spaghetti-strapped tee that night.  Arriving early to make sure he would catch them, or - more likely - they would catch him.  In dialogue, I was confident, clues about Terrence would be uncovered.  Cram would understand my intentions pure: help me, Cram, to understand what goes through the mind of a man who hangs on your every word.  But, alas, I made him nervous.  He smiled.  Told me it looked “lovely,” actually, but quickly retreated into the comfort of his second encore.

The show of course had been awesome.  From my stage-front vantage point, I had sensed an intensity in Cram deeper still than that which is evoked by the discs.  I cried, actually cried, during his acoustic interpretation of Melt from the inaugural The Sulk record.

“If I thought I could hold all the love you exude,

If I thought you would bear all these swords which protrude,

I would melt into you and your fiery groove

‘Til forever”  

The boldness of Cram’s style is evident.  Even as written word.  Two ‘if’s to set forth the tone of uncertainty.  Four ‘I’s with only three ‘you’s, screaming imbalance.  Strong verbiage in ‘exude’ and ‘protrude.’  Daring rhyme, like Picasso’s Don Quixote, demonstrating the ability to comfortably move beyond convention.  And the undeniable innuendo emerging - dare I say ‘protruding’ - from the page.

Why couldn’t Terrence have left that disc for me?  It would have made so much sense.   I might be finished my dissertation by now.  Instead, my former love, my self-proclaimed soul mate, my jackass of an ex-husband teased me with what proved arguably the weakest of The Sulk’s offerings.  The album that signaled the demise of the steamily deep quintet.  In weaker moments I ponder whether he abandoned it because it sucked; but no, my Terrence was far too cruel not to offer an explanation, however cryptic.  Musicalia declared in a May 1991 review of the final Squirm disc, “Billickson, who once delivered (barely) approachable yet always worthwhile lyrics, seems to have been placing unrelated thoughts - possibly from random tombstones and old Penthouse Letters - over trite chords sadder than this group’s current state.”

Unsatisfied with the offerings on the farewell CD and against the dictates of my musical taste, I purchased everything Cram Billickson had released.  In parsing his work I had hoped to find Terrence’s hidden farewell.  Instead, I uncovered a poetic genius struggling to make sense of his world, a genius whose message was swallowed by shrill guitar and violent base lines, but, undoubtedly, a genius.  A fine line only could I discern when intuitively comparing the poetry of my famed favorites (Dickinson, Poe, cummings, Shakespeare, Keats, Yeats) with this less-heralded poet of sound.  I discovered quickly a more-than-coincidental similarity between the rhymes of Cram Billickson and the esteemed Bard, William Shakespeare.  Cram Billickson, however, is more than an Elizabethan wanna-be; his measured approach to rhyme and rhythm are worthy of individual accolade, despite the unmistakable influence of the great poet.  When the 154 Shakespearean Sonnets are aligned with Billickson’s 81 original offerings, the primary or secondary topic of the song can be related back directly to one of the Bard’s offerings in no less than 68 of the 81 songs written either for The Sulk or in his solo career.  Several examples would do well to serve the point:

My love is as a fever, longing still

For that which longer nurseth the disease

Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill

Th’ uncertain sickly appetite to please.

William Shakespeare

Sonnet #147, The Riverside Shakespeare

(Houghton Mifflin Company, 1974)

Compare Sonnet #147 to the following lyric from Night Nurse off the Co-Morbid Fantasies release:

My nurse she beckons with a “Please, please, please!”

Tugging at me and my disease

“Forgive me,” she whispers, “for I am ill”

Arching, crying, perfect, still

The sonnet is, by design, structured ABAB.  Billickson, unfettered by Elizabethan standard, employs an AABB pattern in this particular piece.  You will note immediately, however, that all four rhyming words are identical.  Clearly indicative of homage to Shakespeare’s art, Billickson’s catering to a late twentieth century audience required (not too strong a term, I assure you) a much more direct image. Visually stimulating, one can almost see the nurse stiffening, mid-orgasm, as the helpless patient stares up at her.  Further setting the mood of this opening track is the introductory thump-thump of drums-as-heartbeat.  The drum line quickens with the lyric, but drops off completely after “perfect, still.”  Has this act been the death of the patient?  “Death” at least in a Shakespearean sense?  Billickson would have you believe so.  After a skilled caesura, the slow beat returns and wraps itself into a trail of low whispers, consummating the song so to speak.  Were one to study more closely the Shakespeare sonnet, one would find messages very close to those Billickson presents, but lacking the blunt imagery the musician elicits. 

Marry this Shakespearean couplet:

The other two, slight air and purging fire,

Are both with thee, where ever I abide;

The first my thought, the other my desire,

These present-absent with swift motion slide.

William Shakespeare

Sonnet #41, The Riverside Shakespeare

(Houghton Mifflin Company, 1974)

To these lines from Another City, the first single from the Otherselves album.

This hotel-room lotion

Gives comfort to motion

From a Berlin suite, my act of devotion

Does rise, and fall

Interpreting Shakespeare can be - pardon the pun - a sticky business.  In this case, however, the Bard leaves little to the imagination.  Sonnet #41 is a melancholy tribute to masturbation.  If the “swift motion slide” - on the heels of desire and thought - does not sell you, run to your bookseller and read the rest.  I don’t want to rub you the wrong way on this point, so suffice it to say this: the final three words of the sonnet are, “straight, grow, sad.”  Again, modern society requires a more blunt approach, like a rusted shank rammed into a prisoner’ spleen. And Billickson delivers.  Masterfully.  Masturbaterfully.  And he is not satisfied until the rise…and fall.  What better way to deliver swift motion than hotel-room lotion?  Oh, to be the object of such devotion!

Several recent events should be related.  First, my revised dissertation (The Poetry of Cram Billickson: Blunt Instruments of Pain and Pleasure) has been rejected by my advisor.  I won’t be returning to school any time soon.  Damned academics! So stiff in their antiquarian garb.  “No place for music in serious literary study!” All that crap.  He wouldn’t recognize genius if it accidentally made its way into the faculty dining hall.  Screw academia I say!  There are other avenues.  My research will not have been for naught. Second, Cram Billickson has been divorced from his venomous wife - opening up a new phase in his art, as well the possibility of my renewed contact with the poet in hopes of reaching personal closure.  I must, of course, forgo the trite, “Remember me with the tattoo?” e-mail; a more scholarly approach will be employed.  Oh, and Terrence called.  He is living in Seattle now.  Trying to feel me out.  It was embarrassing really, how he vacillated between his feelings of loneliness and my many “character blemishes.” I hung up after only a minute, but stored his number in my cell phone.

My laser-like focus and research talents, in addition to moving me closer to the master, have allowed me to exorcize the whimpering ghost of Terrence from my past.   Forever.  How?  I have tackled head-on each song from Terrence’s farewell jab, Crimson-Hued Love Songs. Eight woeful songs burned on the disc, each driven by the same musical angst that defined The Sulk, but with lyric so rudderless that any scholarly reading finds little to savor.  Being that my objective is personal (demonstrate that Terrence erred in leaving behind this particular disc) not critical (analyzing this B-rate effort as a piece of art), I unabashedly wrap myself into the dissection.  Also, as to not sour you to the more impressive expanse of Billickson’s work, I offer only representative lyrics.

torn

Like a renewed virgin

At a Christian Club

She’s drinking seltzer water

To the thump, thump, thump

And the words disappear

A blur of lights and sound

Her universe begins swirling all around

A meaning unclear rattles an untrained ear

Until she meets his eyes

And she is torn

She knows she’s torn

Personally speaking: no possible relevance in this song.  It was well known to Terrence that my virginity was nothing to be treasured; rather a burden to be shed.  In fact, Terrence knows that I gladly offered myself to the brave boy who asked me to the junior prom - whatever his name may have been - only to be done with it.  On the night Terrence and I met at The Khyber Pass, I instigated ravenous sex with him - starting on the taxi ride back to my apartment.  Renewed virginity?  No thanks.  Terrence would have known that.

Poetically speaking, these represent some of the jerkiest lines of Billickson’s career.  The four lines he bothered to work into an ABBA rhyme scheme, seem to be left from the scrap paper of a different song.  His pronouns swirl as blurry as the song’s imagery.  And to what end?  A lame pun associated with the word “torn.”   Billickson is better than this.  The song leaves me feeling more sorry for an artist trying to force his work than a “renewed virgin” trying to have her cake (or whatever) and eat it too. 

Blue Ice

Hear the far away engines

Whirl their song

I whisper to Karen

Baby, what is wrong?

Was it good for you?

Man, the rush is strong!

Like the far away engines

Crying out so long

So long

Okay, here’s the concept: Iowa high school sweethearts decide to finally “go all the way” somewhere secluded in the tall grain of the south forty.  Passing airplane drops blue ice (frozen toilet waste) which decapitates the post-coital lovers.  Sick.  Backroads absurdity, like Thomas Wolfe.  “Look Skyward, Angel,” maybe?  Okay, here’s the result: sucky!  I do, however, pleasantly toy with the concept of young lovers losing their heads as result of their consummate act.  Billickson dallied here also - the last verse recounting the local preacher warning (at the girl’s funeral) that the same was in store for others who decide to practice sexual acts outside the boundaries of marriage.  Really sick! 

Was my lover suffering from LHS, the Lost Head Syndrome?  Was Terrence crying, “So long?”  I doubt it.  He is not wryly clever, not like that.  Although he was, admittedly, taken aback by my willing sexuality.  Maybe he did lose his head when we first became an item.  We were, however, dating for a year, and engaged for another six months before marriage.  He had ample opportunity to recognize any praying mantis tendencies before marriage, even before engagement. So I am certain that is not how he felt. I push onward. 

Baby Names

A purple ring

On a protein thing

Then a second ring

The Night Pawn King

A gulp, a sigh

A try-not-to-cry

No more parties

No more games

Just Pinky’s Pub

And baby names

Confession #1:  I find this song hilariously funny.  Also am I amused by the layout of the chorus as it is displayed in the liner notes (and above) - it looks like a chess pawn, as well as the intrusive penis that started all the trouble in the first place.  Might it be a protein thing with a purple ring?  Gulp!  Big style points for Cram on this touch.  The lyrics here, too, deserve some praise.  Simple words. (You try making a literary penis with polysyllabic flair!)  Not a single verb, but great proper nouns.  In addition to representing pieces of various import in a chess match, the “Night (or Knight) Pawn King” serves to paint the picture of where this couple found their “second” ring (a used wedding band, no?), a place that sees most of its action in the dark hours.  Word-wise, I love that the voice which easily quoted the name of the pub and the pawn shop could do no better than “thing” when describing a home pregnancy test. 

Confession #2:  About six months into our relationship - and fearing that Terrence wanted to leave - I faked pregnancy.  His eyes bugged out like Peter Lorre.  We were eating dinner on South Street to celebrate the six-month mark.  Terrence, to his credit, reacted very well.  He was willing to do the right thing.  We would have ended up like the couple in this song if I hadn’t told him a week later that I got back on the cycle, so to speak.  He was noticeably relieved, but proud of himself for having stood in so well.  As was I.  Could Terrence have left the CD to avenge this incident?  Not a chance - he never for a moment doubted my pronunciation as genuine.  And for the record: it was not until half a year later that Terrence proposed, with no lingering threats hanging over his head. 

Moonlight Stroll

Reading the names, she giggles the way

Barefoot and flirty, an alcohol sway

She is doffing her clothes behind a

mausoleum Cupping her breasts

With a coy “Wanna see ‘em?”

The scent of  the soil

Steeped mortal coil

She sings

Now I

Now I

Now I

Lay me down

 

A nice song here, actually.  Drunken lovers doing the nasty in the cemetery.  I like the flirtatiousness of the female lead.  May these lovers fare better than the ones in the wheat, is what I say.  Couldn’t do worse.  I also like the way the chorus presents a beverage container. Apropos for a song about drunken lovers.  Again no possible link between Terrence and me.  One summer evening, maybe a month into marriage, I tried to incite outdoor sex.  Not in a cemetery, but in a quiet wood at Fairmont Park, before sunset.  Bugs; poison ivy; potential people - he had a string of excuses.  Killjoy was here.  Sexually speaking, Terrence - like the Olympic gymnasts - kept to a set routine to be practiced over and over.  He even inspected the apparatus beforehand to make sure everything was in order. Never got a ten, though, never a ten. 

Girl with the Blue Moon Eyes

Is this life we built so bad?

She runs from the question

When I ask it like that

No it’s just me, she says

It’s just me

But where does that leave me?

And the girl with the blue moon eyes

Though probably not his worst, my least favorite Billickson tune.  Here he goes for sappy drawn out lamentation.  The chorus, while pretending to be upbeat, allows dark synthesizer to drag it deeper into choking pain:

But when she smiles

The world is a brighter place

But when she smiles

The world is a lighter place

Please - the speaker in this song knows not an iota about clinical depression!  She – whoever she is - seeks comfort, needs comfort. He – whoever he is – masterfully employs guilt to his self-serving ends, and her increased suffering.  That is not what I needed!  And Terrence should have known that.  I had explained it to him - all of it.  And there were times when he was so compassionate, really in step with me.  And I felt that if I were to collapse, completely drop, he would be right there to catch me. 

Monotonous

   

The Sulk’s only recorded instrumental.  As if Billickson was running out of words altogether, and he wasn‘t afraid to let on.  A heavy, angry bass.  High, shivery guitar cords moving violently away from the bass line.  Topped by a droning synthesizer that seemed oblivious to all other efforts being applied to the song.  At seven minutes, fourteen - the longest song in the history of the band.  True to its name.

Crimson-Hued Love Song # 4

Hatcheting my emotions

She chunks another piece of me

Smiling as she sings sweetly

Her broken, swaying lullaby

It’s like emo meets Psycho!  Lizzy Borden, actually.  And not the cool emo, but the whinny kind.  This song is more representative of older songs by The Sulk - which is its one plus.  The drums give a slow chop, chop, chop while Cram falsettos the sort of lullaby an axe-murderer might bring to the office. Then the nasal whine pours for all to hear.  Hands-down the best song on the record.  As for Terrence and me, if this was - and I have a tough time thinking it could be - “the message,” I am left horribly unsatisfied.  I was no oblivious, sing-songsy axe-wielder.  When I took a chop, it was sincere and direct, from the front; and, to my thinking, deserved.  Terrence, for his part, took a much more cowardly tack.  His passive-aggressive nature caused me to act out.  If this song was his parting vision, he failed to mention that part of the tale.  Maybe - despite his Cram Billickson hero-worship - he failed to understand the poet at all.  Maybe he simply chose to ignore the three words that are repeated to fade (forty six times by my count) in the History: Live version of the song that Billickson recorded at the Tower Theater in Upper Darby in 1997: “She is justified!”

Requiem

On my next

trip to

the altar I won’t look quite so sad

Won’t feel quite as bad

I might even have a trace

Of a smile upon my face

Not a bug-eyed look of dread

Cause…

I’ll…

Be…

Dead

These are the lyrics to this song in their entirety. And, comically, Cram made them appear as road kill - complete with tire tracks.  Spoken over ethereal synthesizer and fading drumbeat, all thirty four seconds of it.  It is one hell of a punch line to a sustained joke.  Some would say a forty-four minute sustained joke; I say five-and-one-half years.   No doubt Billickson knew The Sulk was dead before he penned this chuckle.  All of the pained love songs, all of the warped imagery that roamed through his songs, the powerful - oft violent - guitar, carted into memory with the trace of a smile.  The way a highway worker might a well-flattened rodent from the interstate.  I get it, Cram, I get it.  And it was worth the journey!

Yes, I really do get it!  How could I miss it?  “On my next trip to the altar I won’t be quite so sad.”  But that is not Terrence speaking.  You see, when he called me that once he was reaching out, reaching out in his own lame fashion.  He does not desire another trip to the altar.  Terrence loves me.  He does.  You just have to understand him, is all.

Cram called me.  After a series of letters to the label management regarding permissions for my book, as well as multiple requests for an interview, Cram Billickson called me.  “Was I serious?” he wanted to know.  Was I serious?  I’ve spent four plus years waiting tables by night so I could research by day.  I started with the sonnets, did the 147 bit.  He loved it.  And, yes, I could interview him.  If I was willing to travel to Halifax, where he resided these days.

“I love Nova Scotia,”  I lied.  Pulling an image from when I was puny and my parents were married - or more-likely a photograph thereof - I blurted, “The public garden is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen.”

“You do know Halifax, then.  When can you visit?”

I am more comfortable with the concept of timing than that of fate.  Father had come to my room.  He and his wife feared that they were, and here he made those annoying finger quotes, “enabling me.”  I am guessing he consulted Dr. Phil or some such mover-of-the-psyche, as he would not have mustered that term on his own.  She, my silent stepmother, was feeling “cramped” (again the fingers), and I should “relocate” by summer’s end.  I considered letting him know it was probably “menopause,” not “cramps,” and maybe he should “relocate” as well, but I let it pass.  He has been pretty cool in his own judgmental way, so I was quick to agree.  It was time for me to relocate, I concurred.  He smiled at the path of least resistance that fate - or timing - handed him.  First, I added, I was going to take a trip to Halifax.  Maybe a week.  Check out a literary program.  “Halifax?” he challenged weakly.  But when he realized that he was spoiling what otherwise was a pleasant interaction he demurred.

I walk from the Westin Nova Scotia to the Public Garden, where Cram and I had planned to meet.  The Citadel looms over the city as I head away from the river.  Once in the garden, I spot him immediately.  He stands, actually leans, against the rail of a pavilion, old Wayfarers sitting on his tanned cheeks, a gray thatch of beard resting around his too wide lips, salt and pepper hair greased back over his head.  He wears a pair of blue jeans with a form-fitting tweed sports jacket, and looks as handsome as any man I have ever laid eyes on.  He in no way resembles a rock star, which I guess he isn’t any more.  He smiles in my direction, sensing that I am moving toward him. 

“Ginger?”

“Yes.  Hello.  You don’t know what a pleasure it is to meet you after all of these years.”

The comment had turned some curious heads at the garden.  Cram mockingly puts a finger to his lips as if to shush me, then chuckles in the sunlight.  My knees weaken. 

He takes my arm, and we stroll in silence through the late afternoon.  “They’ll think we’ve been chatting it up over the internet for years.”

“Sorry,” I blush.  “I meant it - even if I shouldn’t have said it.”

“Well, thank you.”

“You must be a star here.  It’s no wonder they were gawking.”

“A star?  Nothing of the sort.  Three maybe four people know me by name - friends, all.  Even the bands playing on Argyle Street don’t even know me, and I listen to them try to cover my songs.  One band makes a habit of playing ‘Squirm,’ but they tell the crowd it’s by The Scowl or The Snarl - some such name that I’m pretty sure we never held.  They do it better than we ever did, actually.”

“I think you’re being modest is all.”

“Nothing of the sort.  If they knew me here, I’d probably move on.”

“Why do you say that?”

“It’s what I like these days.  Quiet.”

“Really?”

“Sure.  I’m a bit old for the rock’n’roll scene.  Besides the millions,” he states, exaggerating the word millions to the point where I cannot tell if he means he has made nothing close to that amount or he has made so much more than that it was comical, “the whole life never did too much for me anyhow.”

After a strolling moment he adds, “I’d assume give it all back you know.  Trade the fame and fortune for a brick twin on Acacia Avenue.”

Uncertain how to respond, I walk silently along.

“I apologize,” Cram offers.  “You’ve come all this way, and all I can do is gripe.  What do you think about this year’s garden?”

“It is lovely.  We don’t have public gardens this nice in the states.”

“You’ve got one in your backyard - in Boston, right?”

“Not like this.  That one is all statues and sidewalks.  It’s like they are opposed to having to garden in the garden.” 

“We’ll you’ve got the swan boats.  They’re a hoot-and-a-half.”

I release a soft chuckle.

“What?”

“I just got the image of you and your band mates, between gigs, running down to the swan boats for a quick loop.”

“No.  At least, not that I remember.  Some of it remains fuzzy.  No, I have been there with my children.  And my ex.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to bring that up.  I’m so sorry.”

He is laughing.  “You didn’t.  I did.”

“Do you ever see them?  Your children, I mean.”

“Not  much, actually.  I found it is much better for all if I just stay out of it.  It is easier from here.”

“It must be sad.”

“Certainly is.  But it’s not like I am not to blame.”

We share an awkward silence.

“I would like children some day,” I change course.

“Tell me then, if a woman as beautiful as you wants children why hasn’t she? 

“Still waiting for some things to work out.  Hopefully.”

“That’s it?”

“For now.”

“All right, then.  What brings a beautiful Yank up to Canada to meet with a washed-up Brit?  That whole literary-slash-music angle cannot be genuine, can it?”

“Why do you say it like that?  You seem so cynical.”

“And you’ve heard the music?” he jokes.

I laugh at this.  “It often held out some hope.  It wasn’t all quite so negative.” 

We are like lovers, laughing easily together ten minutes after having met.  Though not what I intended, I find myself considering the possibilities.  I am tempted to kick my foot up behind me and hit him playfully in the ass.  That is how it feels to be with Cram Billickson. 

“Rubbish, the lot of it,” he replies seriously.  “It is my hope that I can help you see that.  If anything in the interview stands out, I hope it is that.  What I wrote back then - actually, everything I’ve ever written - is bullocks.”

“I don’t buy that.  You are a genius, and I plan to prove that to you.”   

“Good luck with that then,” he laughs.  “Should we get some food?  Maybe a drink?”

“Sure.”

“Good.  There is a beer garden.  It looks a nice afternoon for it.”

“Great.”

Our arms are still linked, as we head toward the citadel.

“Have you been to our historic site yet?”

“I’m afraid I’m not one much for artifacts military.”

“Good for you.  Now we have some common ground established before you attempt to prove my genius and I shoot you down at every turn,” he mocks, pointing his fingers like a gun as a child might.

He is smiling, as if he hadn’t a care in the world, leaving me perplexed.  If his life’s work was rubbish, if he would gladly give it back - how could he be so carefree?

“Smoke?”

“Huh?  Oh, no.  No thank you.”

“Mind if I do?”

“Oh, not at all.  Thanks for asking.”

“Bad habit, I know.  Required for rock stars, British ones at least.  I never read that part of the contract, but it must have been there because we all do it.”

“Why rubbish?” I inquire.

“It was all rubbish, what they wanted me to write.  Sure, I could put the words together - give me a couple of pints and I’ll become a braggart on that front - but they told me what I had to say.”

I am gladdened to hear he fancies himself as having some talent.  “Well, maybe the serious stuff should wait until you’ve had a couple of pints, then.  The more you drink, the better my chances of parlaying this into a piece of serious literary criticism.” 

“Agreed.  We’ll wait on that.  Here’s the Belgium Bar, now.  While we wait for my alcohol-induced ego to kick in, maybe you can tell me about yourself?”
“Sure.”

“Why?  Why Cram Billickson?  I could name a hundred names better to play this game with.  Why mine?”

Well,” I hesitate, “I might need a couple of drinks for that one, myself.”

Cram’s laughter begins before I finish the thought.

“Intrigue is a great trait to discover in a near-stranger.”  His eyebrows arch above the Wayfarers.

We munch cheese and fruit in the cooling evening air.  Cram quaffs pints of beer, something vilely British called “Ramrod.”  I sip Chardonnay. 

“I’ve never been happier in my life,” he confesses.  “The hell that was The Sulk is behind me.  The rest of my quiet life is ahead.  I’ve taken up art.  Charcoal sketching to be precise.”

“Why hellish?”

“It wasn’t me is why!  Wasn’t even allowed to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“At first it was, I guess.  We were punks is all.  But punk was dead, so who cared.  Some label somebody somewhere saw the potential to exploit us, so he did.  We, happy to get recorded yet alone make a buck, played along to the hilt.  Co-Morbid Fantasies was born.  And it was successful.  On all levels.  I did feel good about that.”

“And?”

“And I didn’t want to be pigeon-holed.  Maybe I wanted to be more punk than before.  So I cockily insisted that our next record would be completely made up of love songs.  The guy form the label grinned.  ‘Sure, sure,’ he said, ’Just show me what you’ve got.’  I put my heart into it, you know.  It was work that I was - or at least should have been - proud of.   He wrote on the originals - and I’ll never forget it - “Shite, but we can work with it.”  They sliced out the beauty and replaced it with imagery more morbid than the first.  Dust-Covered Altars to You was spawned.  And I had died.  And since I had died, it became all the more easy to play the music.  I was a joke to myself.”

“Requiem,” I interrupt, “was the punch line.  I got it.”

Cram nods in agreement.  “The ‘altar’ was the stage.  And the label bastards knew it, too.  They were pretty sure before Crimson-Hued Love Songs that we had run our course, but they were willing to give it one more try.  Better bet than the crap they would peddle as an alternative.”

I smirk, unleashing my dimple, as Cram orders more drinks and another cheese board.

“What?”

“What if we are both right?”

“How’s that?”

“It was rubbish and you are a genius.  Why can’t we both be right?”

“I’m willing to explore it,” he nods thoughtfully.

“It’s all the more impressive,” I add.  “I mean, it is like you were writing great poetry while forced to write in a convention unsuited to your style.  And you did swimmingly.”  I am becoming animated.  “Take the chorus to Another City,”  I half-shout.  (Not a very good wine drinker.)  “When I compare those words to Sonnet 41 by…“

Cram interrupts in a whisper,  “Do you plan to quote the song?” 

“I think I will,” I grin.  “You’re the one who keeps refilling the wine goblet.”

“Well, I have a better idea.”

“What?”

“Don’t.”

I snicker and slap the table as the waiter delivers the second cheese plate. 

“Why not?”

“For one thing - I know it.  I wrote it for goodness say.  For another - it is bullocks.  This is what they did with my songs, turned them into pathetic imagery intended to move records to pathological malcontents.”

“But Shakespeare, himself, took the very same topic…”

“No, no, no,” Cram retorts.  “I won’t get sucked in.  I’m going to change the topic.”

The lights twinkle slightly, and noise  - no fun - hits me from all sides.

“Tell me, Ginger, why Cram Billickson?”

“Why not?”

“Oh, no, no.  I know there is more going on than that.”

“Okay, okay,” I laugh.  We are both happy.  “First, in the name of full disclosure, I have to show you something.”

“What?”
I fumble to unbutton the third button of my blouse.

“Wow!” he chortles.  “You take full-disclosure to extreme levels.”

I bare it for him - again.

Cram sits dumbly for a moment.  “Well,” he mumbles cocking his head to one side, “I’ve a disclosure to make as well.”  He fumbles in his sport coat pocket a pulls out a thin pair of reading glasses.  Replacing his sunglasses, he confesses, “I’m old as the dickens.  Can’t see my nose without them.”

We both laugh until Cram has deciphered the words on my chest.

He doesn’t seem startled this time, just confused.  “Why on earth would anyone…”  He doesn’t even finish.

“You’ll be happy to know it wasn’t idolatry of any sort.”

“Well, then…” he wheezes and shakes with laughter.  “Yes, that does make me feel better.”

I proceed to tell Cram about Terrence: our brief marriage; his cryptic clue; how I absolutely hated The Sulk (Cram wipes his brow in mock relief); how I need to understand; how Cram presents the best hope of figuring it out; how I got myself tattooed just to get his attention.  “Don’t you remember?” I asked, “I showed you at the Orpheum.”  There was much, he replies, that he does not remember of the road.  He opines it is better that way.  

And the two of us are laughing again, the way lovers do. 

“I know the answer,” Cram declares.  “I’ll put it to rest right now, so we can both get on with our lives.  Here goes: he left the disc because it was shite!  Pure and simple.  And you know me to be a genius, so I don’t want an argument from you.  Not a peep.”

Tears are streaming down our faces, neither of us sure whom the joke is really on.  His hand rests atop mine.  Our laughter sputters to slow sighs.

“What kind of man would leave such a lovely creature?” he wants to know.  He shakes his head as if confounded. 

“Well, he’s not the easiest person to understand,” I respond, pushing my hair behind my ears.  Cram Billickson has succeeded in making me feel lovely.

“Probably from listening to shite for music in his formative years,” Cram offers.  “It’s been known to happen.”

There is a recuperating moment of silence.

“You amuse me,” I offer.

“And you are a muse to me,” I hear Cram reply.

The reading glasses are sliding down his nose as he signs the check.  By the umbrella’s string-lights I study the age lines around his eyes.  He is probably closer to my father’s age than mine. 

“Where are you staying?”

“The Westin.”

He nods his head, as he hands the slip to our waiter.

“The walk’ll feel good.”

“Yes.”

Were I to interlock Cram’s fingers with mine, he would accept them.  I am fluttery like a school girl.  I consider how the kinks work out over time; like Elizabethan comedy.  My ears ring slightly from drunkenness.  Otherwise, the silence feels good.

As we near the hotel, I start, “The reason I showed you my…”

“Shhhhhhh!” he interrupts, winking at me.

I have removed my blouse, and Cram, reading glasses long since tucked away, runs his fingers along the lettering on my collarbone, as if he was blind and I was Braille.  Here fate, or timing, intervenes anew.  Several revelers bang their way down the hall outside the door.  One drunkenly attempting to squeal the lyrics of a pathetic rock ballad, “For those about to rock - we salute you!”  He makes a horrendous, screechy noise that snaps us out of our moment.  Cram springs up like a jack-in-the-box.

“I’ve got to go, Ginger.”

“Cram?”

“Sorry.  God, I’m sorry.  Something about hotel rooms.  Not a safe environment.  Leftover from my road days.”

“But Cram, I…I am not…”

“No, Ginger, no.  You are not anything except wonderful.  I, on the other hand, am a ball of anxiety.  I don’t want to botch this.”

I did not know what ‘this’ meant, but it felt good.

“Listen,” he sputtered.  “Tomorrow.  Noon.  I’ll pick you up downstairs.  I’ll drive us out to Peggy’s Cove.  You’ll love it there.  Best fish chowder in the free world as well.  After lunch, we can head back to my house.  It isn’t far from the cove.  I’ll cook us a nice supper, and we won’t have to worry about the likes of that.” He is pointing at the door.   “Is that all right?“

“Sure, Cram.  Absolutely.  I am so very sorry I dragged you up here.  I should have realized…”

“No!  You didn’t drag me anywhere.  It’s just that I have to… Tomorrow, noon?

“Yes,” I try to laugh as I kiss him once for the road.  He is a wreck.  “Are you safe to drive?”

“I’ll be fine.  I promise.  Noon, then?”

And he is gone. 

I am in another city.  Thinking of my close encounter with the great Cram Billickson.  Feeling dreamy.

The way you can sometimes be jerked out of a peaceful sleep reminds me of the music of The Sulk.  I am uncertain of my surroundings and gasping for breath.  It is as if I’ve been confronted with the base element of all reality.  As if my subconscious has finally considered me worthy.

“Shit, oh shit.”

My hands are shaking as I fumble for the telephone.  The clock reads 3:36 AM and I am trying to dial the number.

“Hello?…Hello?”

“Terrence?  It‘s Ginger.”

According to the cover of PulseJam magazine, Cram Billickson is “The Comeback Kid, delivering music on his own terms and striking a chord with today’s serious listener.”  Tickets had arrived in the mail - backstage passes actually - about a month before the show.  Terrence was amused by the whole thing; he would attend the concert, but he was humoring me.  The Sulk was a lifetime ago, he opined.  My eagerness amused Terrence more than the passes.  It would be the first time that we’ve gone out alone since William was born.  His best friend, Kip, is babysitting.  (Terrence thinks it hilariously funny that I am cool with Kip watching our child.)  I had related the entire Nova Scotia experience to Terrence.  He found the telling awesome.  (And he loves the body art.)  Then we just let it go, started to grow together.  We have been happier than I ever imagined possible.  When the passes arrived, Terrence asked - half-joking - if I had slept with Cram.  I assured him I had not, though I never told him just how close I came.

Cram embraced me like a true friend.  And Terrence, too.  Called him a “lucky man,” all the while looking him square in the eye; no shame.  He looked healthier, even happier than he had been when I last saw him.  The show was excellent.  He played nothing, absolutely nothing from the pre-divorce days.  A night of well-crafted, beautiful, and well-received songs.  Acoustic.  Mostly love songs.  For me.  After the show, we didn’t linger, Terrence and me.  Cram smiled sincerely when I told him we had to go home to our son.   It was a quiet ride home, but dancing in and out of my mind was some of the most beautiful poetry I have ever heard.

My muse lives half a world away

I dream on her near every day

The songs I sing, the dues I pay

Inspired by her,

By her

By her

By her

Elsewhere

-Cram Billickson,

   Elsewhere, Rebirth (Evangeline Music, 2003)