his breath and, snaking the room key on its plastic paddle out of his jacket pocket, he ceremoniously opened the door and gestured regally inside.
There were two queen size beds, both made up. A suitcase lay, open, across one of them. Frank flipped on the overhead light, then shuddered and flipped it back off. âA little moody lighting,â he said, sitting down on the empty bed and switching the bedside lamp on low. Still in the doorway, I glanced around the room. The heavy curtains were drawn, letting in only the narrowest crack of light. Two dubious oil paintings of ships and lighthouses hung over the beds. A TV set stared out at us with its glass eye. There was music paper stacked neatly on top of the bureau beside the big black briefcase, a portable reel-to- reel tape recorder, and a pile of shrink-wrapped albums. A little leather shaving kit stood unzipped on the corner washstand, bulging with what I presumed was shampoo, razors, and whatnot. (I would soon have a more accurate idea of the nature of the paraphernalia in there.) On top of the neatly-folded things in the suitcase was a most unusual cap, a Martian extrapolation of yarmulke, porkpie hat, and jesterâs motley, with a star and a crescent moon suspended on top from a long fuzzy shank. The green-feathered monstrosity from our first meeting flashed ludicrously across my mind, and I found myself picturing Frankâs nice Italian Aunt Mary , who must have gone in for surreal headgear during innocent little Frankieâs most impressionable years, thereby turning him into a millinery pervert forever, before he even had a chance to know what was going on...
I turned my eyes around to Frank, still sitting on the bed, his shoes off but his socks on, calmly peeling off his orange âJolly Gentsâ T-shirt, I wondered if he ever got tired out from his grueling schedule. Maybe he wanted to take a nap.
âShut the door,â he instructed me in a quiet voice.
I came in, closing the door behind me.
âYou wanna come over here?â he asked nonchalantly, leaning back against the headboard. He was now attired in just his skintight Leviâs and, evidently, no underwear.
I looked at him, almost too overcome to do it but still compelled to. I had never felt so vulnerable, embarrassed, and confused before. The ironic, detached, yet somehow lubricious timbre of his voice, the way he looked up at me, seeming to understand everything and to be thoroughly amused about it, made me quiver all over. How could he know my feelings so much better than I did myself? I wished I knew what he was feeling, so I could figure out how to respond.
But as I stood there struggling with myself, I knew I had to own up to the real source of my discomfort. For me, Frank Zappa had gone from being a voice on the record player, a face on an album cover, an inspiring influence â to a very real, entirely corporeal 30-year-old guy who seemed to be about to casually seduce me in this crushingly ordinary motel room in Berkeley. I couldnât just put the disc into its jacket and stick it safely back on the shelf; I was being directly confronted by my hero, much larger than life and exuding a matter-of-fact sexuality that I found strangely embarrassing. Moreover, I could sense that it was this conflict of mine that was causing his own flame to flare up. If Iâd simply been madly in love with him, he would probably have been bored to death. He needed to draw out and then conquer something in me; he must have relished the clash, or he wouldnât have created it in the first place.
I slowly walked over to the bed. I looked down at him, the crumpled pillows stuck behind his head, one arm tucked back under the pillows, all six feet of him radiating an attitude of sensual arrogance undercut by a marked awareness. He looked back at me coolly and levelly, both daring me and shrugging it off. Was he a human male, or an idée fixe ? I wanted to know him more than
There were two queen size beds, both made up. A suitcase lay, open, across one of them. Frank flipped on the overhead light, then shuddered and flipped it back off. âA little moody lighting,â he said, sitting down on the empty bed and switching the bedside lamp on low. Still in the doorway, I glanced around the room. The heavy curtains were drawn, letting in only the narrowest crack of light. Two dubious oil paintings of ships and lighthouses hung over the beds. A TV set stared out at us with its glass eye. There was music paper stacked neatly on top of the bureau beside the big black briefcase, a portable reel-to- reel tape recorder, and a pile of shrink-wrapped albums. A little leather shaving kit stood unzipped on the corner washstand, bulging with what I presumed was shampoo, razors, and whatnot. (I would soon have a more accurate idea of the nature of the paraphernalia in there.) On top of the neatly-folded things in the suitcase was a most unusual cap, a Martian extrapolation of yarmulke, porkpie hat, and jesterâs motley, with a star and a crescent moon suspended on top from a long fuzzy shank. The green-feathered monstrosity from our first meeting flashed ludicrously across my mind, and I found myself picturing Frankâs nice Italian Aunt Mary , who must have gone in for surreal headgear during innocent little Frankieâs most impressionable years, thereby turning him into a millinery pervert forever, before he even had a chance to know what was going on...
I turned my eyes around to Frank, still sitting on the bed, his shoes off but his socks on, calmly peeling off his orange âJolly Gentsâ T-shirt, I wondered if he ever got tired out from his grueling schedule. Maybe he wanted to take a nap.
âShut the door,â he instructed me in a quiet voice.
I came in, closing the door behind me.
âYou wanna come over here?â he asked nonchalantly, leaning back against the headboard. He was now attired in just his skintight Leviâs and, evidently, no underwear.
I looked at him, almost too overcome to do it but still compelled to. I had never felt so vulnerable, embarrassed, and confused before. The ironic, detached, yet somehow lubricious timbre of his voice, the way he looked up at me, seeming to understand everything and to be thoroughly amused about it, made me quiver all over. How could he know my feelings so much better than I did myself? I wished I knew what he was feeling, so I could figure out how to respond.
But as I stood there struggling with myself, I knew I had to own up to the real source of my discomfort. For me, Frank Zappa had gone from being a voice on the record player, a face on an album cover, an inspiring influence â to a very real, entirely corporeal 30-year-old guy who seemed to be about to casually seduce me in this crushingly ordinary motel room in Berkeley. I couldnât just put the disc into its jacket and stick it safely back on the shelf; I was being directly confronted by my hero, much larger than life and exuding a matter-of-fact sexuality that I found strangely embarrassing. Moreover, I could sense that it was this conflict of mine that was causing his own flame to flare up. If Iâd simply been madly in love with him, he would probably have been bored to death. He needed to draw out and then conquer something in me; he must have relished the clash, or he wouldnât have created it in the first place.
I slowly walked over to the bed. I looked down at him, the crumpled pillows stuck behind his head, one arm tucked back under the pillows, all six feet of him radiating an attitude of sensual arrogance undercut by a marked awareness. He looked back at me coolly and levelly, both daring me and shrugging it off. Was he a human male, or an idée fixe ? I wanted to know him more than
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