Chapter 17: Tuesday and Friday

Jax had a sold-out show at eight o'clock and nine hundred fans on the sidewalk.

He had no way to get past the crowd to reach the venue.

"I can climb out the back," he said. "The service alley. There's a fence."

"It's twenty-two blocks to the venue," I said. "You'd lose ninety minutes."

"I'm very fit."

"You smoked a cigarette in the gravy."

He looked wounded.

The photographers had split in two outside, one half on the Aldous steps and the other half on the fan club, who had added a second banner overnight.

It said: WE ACCEPT THE OTHER HUSBANDS.

I stood at the dining-room window and thought about distance.

My father lost ten hours a week to the Long Island Expressway.

My parents did not survive the commute.

"Willem," I said. "How fast can you stream a show?"

"From where?"

"From here."

Sterne put down his coffee.

"You can't move a concert into a penthouse."

"It's a roof," I said. "It's flat, it's private, and the elevator goes straight to it."

Three hours later the roof had a stage made of shipping pallets and an amplifier the size of a refrigerator.

Willem had hung two cameras and a mixer from the stairwell wall.

The venue's promoter, who was frantic, had agreed to move the ticket holders to a livestream.

The sidewalk got a speaker with a bass line the neighbors would hear in Queens.

The fans below cheered when the first chord hit.

I sat on an equipment case beside the stage with my laptop on my knees, finishing the Q3 proposal.

Jax played for an hour and a half in a silk bathrobe.

He played the hits, and he played the bit about the raccoon, and the crowd on the sidewalk sang every word.

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