Free Crime Plus Music by Jim Fusilli

’hood. He worked his fingers and thumbs on the strings like he too was in his twenties again, standing before thousands in the Sports Arena, his licks moving through them like current. He was sweating and rasping the songs that used to make the honeys swoon and the men bop their heads. The music like a cocoon around him as he and his band, Rhythm Pulse, did their thing and there was no one who could touch them.
    Head back, the Telecaster a blood-pumping part of his body, was a thing alive that didn’t make music, but rather the music channeled through it from the Source. He was plugged in and the crowd was with him. Looking across the sea of faces he saw his ex-manager Sandy Igar. Smiling. Into it. What the hell . . . ? Head back in the gloom, Gibson’s eyes came open.
    â€œAbout time, ya goddamn lazy bastard.”
    Igar was standing over him in Haggar flared slacks, that porno-actor mustache and those two-tone aviator shades—a look he sported well past its prime.
    â€œDreaming about pussy your sorry self ain’t never gonna get you can do any time. Right now we got to lay down some sound, son.”
    With effort, given his left leg was the one with the strength, he sat up on the couch in his studio. “I’m in purgatory, is that it? I have to earn my way out by completing this soundtrack?” The real Igar was still alive but had been ensconced, some said entombed, in his Bel Air mansion for years. He was said to be suffering from a short list of long-suffering ailments.
    The fit Igar before him had his hands on his hips like an NFL coach judging his new prospect, a sour look on his face. “Look, crip, you gonna sit there and wallow in self-pity or you going to earn?”
    â€œCarrot and stick I see,” Gibson muttered, slipping on his crutch. He must have sued Igar at least three times during his music career. “Or better,” he huffed, getting to his feet. “That stick up your ass.”
    â€œMy job is not to stroke your fragile ego,” Igar began. “That’s what groupies and your hangers-on are for.”
    â€œâ€˜My job is to get the best out of you, and that takes sweat and blood,’” Gibson finished. He knew all the Igarisms. The two settled in, trading insults and verbal jabs back and forth, as Gibson reworked two other tracks. As had happened to him in the past, he was annoyed and envious that Igar knew his shit only too well. He couldn’t sight read like Gibson and at best could keep time banging a cowbell, but the sumabitch knew how to pace, where to emphasize this riff over that one, what to bring up and what to bring down. More in the role of engineer than musician, Gibson worked the mixing board cutting and remixing tracks at Igar’s direction.
    â€œI’m going to grow tulips out of the shit you spread,” Igar said.
    â€œI’m’a put my two lips on ya mama tonight,” Gibson replied, but followed the other man’s cue.
    Finally, as dawn approached, they took stock. “Okay, that’s not too bad,” the Igar simulacrum allowed, sitting on the stool, his ear turned toward the playback monitor speakers.
    A spent Gibson was back sitting on the couch. “It’s great. The best I’ve done in I don’t know how long.” He said in a whispery tone as if his vocal chords were made of some gossamer material.
    Igar turned his head toward him. It was a stuttering, mechanical motion, as if there were gears in his neck and they slipped slightly with the effort. He removed his glasses revealing all-white eyes with red glowing outlines. This did not rattle Gibson.
    â€œAbout my end,” the Igar thing said.
    â€œI got your end, bitch.” Gibson grabbed his crotch, managing a chuckle.
    Igar returned the insult but Gibson’s attention was on a framed original artwork print on a near wall. It was the cover for his Dominoes with Selassie album. The more he stared the more he was drawn