May 14, 1986: Stoma is arrested for indecent exposure during a Charlotte, North Carolina, concert in which he takes an encore wearing nothing but a Day-Glo condom and a rubber Halloween mask in the likeness of the Rev. Pat Robertson.
January 19, 1987: With the Slut Puppies’ fourth album, A Painful Burning Sensation, poised to go triple platinum, Jimmy Stoma announces he is canceling the band’s long-awaited tour. Insiders say the singer is self-conscious about his weight, which has inflated to 247 pounds since he gave up cocaine. Stoma insists he’s simply taking a break from live performing to work on “serious studio projects.”
November 5, 1987: Jimmy Stoma is arrested in Scottsdale, Arizona, after punching a People magazine photographer who had tailed him to the gates of the Gila Springs Ranch, an exclusive spa specializing in holistic crash-dietary programs.
November n, 1987: For the second time in a week, Stoma is busted, this time for shoplifting a bundt cake and two chocolate eclairs from a downtown Phoenix bakery.
February 25, 1989: Stoma and an unidentified woman are injured when his waterbike crashes into the SS Norway in the Port of Miami. The collision causes no damage to the cruise ship, but surgeons say it might be months before Stoma can play the guitar again.
September 25, 1991: Stoma’s first solo album, Stamatose, is panned by both Spin and Rolling Stone. After debuting at number 22 on the Billboard pop charts, it plummets within two weeks to number 97 before—
“Jack?”
This would be my editor, the impossible Emma.
“What’d you do to your hair?” I say.
“Nothing.”
“You most certainly did.”
“Jack, I need a story line for the budget.”
“It looks good shorter,” I say. Emma hates it when I pretend to flirt. “Your hair, I mean.”
Emma reddens but manages a dismissive scowl. “I trimmed the bangs. What’ve you got for me?”
“Nothing yet,” I lie.
Emma is edging closer, trying to sneak a glance at the screen of my desktop. She suspects I am dialing up porn off the Internet, which would be a fireable offense. Emma has never fired anyone but would dearly love to break her cherry on me. She is not the first junior editor to feel that way.
Emma is young and owns a grinding ambition to ascend the newspaper’s management ladder. She hopes for an office with a window, a position of genuine authority and stock options.
Poor kid. I’ve tried to steer her to a profession more geared toward her talents—retail footwear, for example—but she will not listen.
Craning her pale neck, Emma says, “Rabbi Levine died last night at East County.”
“Rabbi Klein died Monday,” I remind her. “Only one dead clergyman per week, Emma. It’s in my contract.”
“Then get me something better, Jack.”
“I’m working on it.”
“Who is James Stomarti?” she asks, peeking at my computer screen. With her intense jade-green eyes, Emma has the bearing of an exotic falcon.
I say, “You don’t know? He was a musician.”
“Local guy?”
“He had a place on Silver Beach,” I say, “and one in the Bahamas.”
“Never heard of him,” Emma says.
“You’re too young.”
Emma looks skeptical, not flattered. “I think more people will care about Rabbi Levine.”
“Then bump him to Metro,” I suggest brightly.
Emma, of course, isn’t keen on that idea. She and the Metropolitan editor don’t get along.
“It’s Sunday,” I remind her. “Nothing else is happening in the free world. Metro can give the rabbi a fine send-off.”
Emma says, “This musician—how old was he?”
“Thirty-nine.”
“Yeah?”
Now I’ve got her chummed up.
Emma says coolly, “So, how’d he die?”
“I don’t know.”
“Probably drugs,” she muses, “or suicide. And you know the rule on suicides, Jack.”
Newspapers customarily do not report a private death as a suicide, on the theory it might plant the idea in the minds of other depressed people, who would immediately rush out and do themselves in. These days no paper can afford to lose subscribers.
There is, however, a long-standing journalistic exception to the no-suicide rule.
“He’s famous, Emma. The rule goes out the window.”
“He’s not famous. I never heard of him.”
Again she is forcing me to insult her. “Ever heard of Sylvia Plath?” I ask.