Free Sweeter Life by Tim Wynveen Page A

great, Dick. In fact, it’s all gone. I’m done. I’m history.” Then he dropped the microphone to the floor and shuffled through the stage curtains and away.
    Ronnie watched the entire scene with a breathless fascination: to finally see the man, the author of his joy, the genius of his time, and to know he really existed; then to watch helplessly as he self-destructed before the eyes of the world. And that much was clear just watching the show; Jimmy had been virtually quivering onscreen.
    A few days later Ronnie found a brief article in the entertainment section of the newspaper, describing how Jimmy Waters had walked off the set of
American Bandstand
and disappeared without a trace. Two concerts had been cancelled so far, and the rest of the U.S. tour was in jeopardy if he didn’t show up soon.
    That was all the news Ronnie needed to shake off his dark mood. If ever there was a purpose in his life, a meaning to be grasped, this was it. Maybe there was nothing he could do, but he had to try. At the very least he had to one day tell Jimmy Waters to his face what a difference his playing had made in one man’s life.
    Next day Ronnie set off for New York. He thumbed a ride as far as Winnipeg and, with his last few dollars, caught a bus to New York. After one night in his apartment in Brooklyn, he cashed a small bond he’d put aside for emergencies and hit the road again. His first move was to contact Gil Gannon’s booking agent, Nate Wroxeter.
    “That bastard is costing me a fortune!” Nate shouted into the phone.
    “I understand,” Ronnie said. “That was my thinking exactly. If there was anyone who wanted a piece of Jimmy’s hide, it would be you. And that’s why I called. I thought we could assist each other. I plan to spend the next few weeks tracking him down. It would help to know who else is interested should I find him, and just how interested they are.”
    Nate was two-hundred-dollars interested and gave Ronnie all theinformation he had on Jimmy: born in Port Swaggart, Pennsylvania, on the south shore of Lake Erie; last known address, Bleecker Street in New York.
    It was easy enough to check out the address in the Village. Ronnie spoke to the landlord and found that Jimmy hadn’t lived there for a few years and still owed six months rent. He heard, too, about a wife and kid who had grown tired of waiting for him to return and had gone off in search of a new life.
    A week later, with spring just beginning to stir, Ronnie headed for Erie, and then west along the lakeshore, where he discovered that the town of Port Swaggart no longer existed and hadn’t for years, swallowed in America’s post-war sprawl and boom. As he drove along the Industrial Parkway (what used to be Lakeside Drive) he came upon a stretch of shoreline that had once been home to fishing boats and sandy beaches and was now a bleak stretch of toxic industry. About five miles further on, between an oil refinery and an abandoned tire factory, stood a small clapboard motel, all tumbledown and spooky, like something from a horror movie. Ronnie wouldn’t have given it a second glance if not for the sign out front: Waters Inn.
    He pulled into the parking lot, which had become a dumping ground for plastic garbage bags, bald tires, threadbare furniture and grimy household appliances. Careful not to brush against anything, he threaded his way toward the motel office where a wooden slammer, completely off its hinges and missing all but a few tatters of screen, leaned against the wall.
    Ronnie called through the open doorway and got no answer. Inside he found more trash, and human excrement, but he held his nose and pressed farther into the office, past the front desk. There, a creaky stairway led to a second-floor apartment; and in the front bedroom overlooking the bay, or what remained of the bay, Jimmy Waters lay curled asleep on a bare, stained mattress, his eyes clamped shut, his jaws clenched, his face twitching to the manic rhythm of his