Big Man Read online

  Tampa, January 28, 2009

  Don

  It is my birthday again. I’m not one to spend any time looking back, and I’m not going to start now. I’m looking forward to the show on Sunday, and all my hopes and prayers are with my friend. I hope he can do this. I hope he can walk out on the stage and stand up at the front for all his solos like he’s always done.

  Today is another trying day of rehearsal, lasting almost four and a half hours. Again they play the same four songs over and over and over again. At one point in the show (and in all the shows for the last ten years or so), Bruce asks Steve, “What time is it?” and Steve (and most of the crowd) answers, “It’s Boss time!” When they reach that point during the third hour of today’s rehearsal, and that point comes during the fourth song, “Glory Days,” Bruce decides to change the answer to “It’s Super Bowl time!” After making that word change, Bruce feels compelled to start the entire set again from the top. It is exhausting just to watch. But that’s why these guys are who they are. (After making that change the Boss decides to put it back the way it was.) Clarence spends most of the day sitting on a stool on the stage.

  Later that night, Clarence, Victoria, and Lani throw an impromptu birthday party for me. We laugh, tell jokes, and make plans for the future that none of us know if we’ll be able to keep.

  It is a nice night. What Sunday will bring is still very much in doubt. As I said, Clarence has spent all of today seated and has not tested his new knees. I don’t ask him if he thinks he’ll be able to stand on the stage Sunday and play, because I already know the answer.

  Tampa, January 29, 2009

  Clarence

  It is another long and busy day. We drive into town for the first Bruce Springsteen press conference since 1987. It’s hard to say why he waited so long, because he is loose and entertaining and very, very funny.

  When he is asked the secret of the band’s longevity he says, “We stayed alive.”

  Afterward we drive to the stadium for a run-through on the stage inside the arena. This would be tough enough on me if it weren’t raining, but it is.

  “That fucking stage is like glass,” I say to Don after the first of three full performances.

  In fact, when Bruce does his patented knee slide he goes right off the edge of the stage into the cameraman who is shooting from that angle. (An “accident” he would repeat during the actual performance.)

  I try to be a trooper and stand for part of the performance. The pain is intense. I am shuttled back and forth to the stage in a golf cart driven by George Travis, who apparently does everything well. He backs an extended golf cart out of the stadium and through the crowd of extras as if he’s been doing it all his life. (George says, “Once a truck driver…”)

  Earlier in the mobile Temple of Soul, Don asked me about my youngest son, Jarod, who is now eleven years old. Jarod’s mother is White Jackie, whom Don had never met.

  “He’s a great kid,” I told him. “He looks exactly like me. He can pick up an instrument and five minutes later he’s playing it. He flew down from Connecticut on his own and stayed with us last Thanksgiving. I didn’t know he existed until he was three years old.”

  “What?” said Don. He thought by this time he had heard all of my significant stories, but he was wrong.

  “We were playing a gig in Hartford, and these cops show up backstage just before the show to arrest me for unpaid child support,” I said. “So George Travis comes over and asks them to at least wait until after the show but they said no. Then George says, ‘Okay, handcuff him and take him out through the audience of sixty-five thousand people who are out there waiting to see him.’

  “The cops backed off, and I got in touch with Jackie and everything got worked out.

  “To this day I have no idea why she didn’t tell me about him,” I said. “I took the DNA test, but I knew for sure he was my son just by looking at him. He’s a great kid and he’s added so much to my life. They just moved down here.”

  Later Don asks George to confirm the story. I’m standing backstage with Victoria when Don asks George if he remembers the police showing up to arrest me before a show. George paused, absorbing the question. He looks at me, then at Victoria, then back at Don. His face never changes. He continues to look at Don with the slightest twinkle in his eye until it became apparent that he has no intention of answering the question.

  “You’ll have to narrow it down for him,” I laughed. “To which arrest you’re talking about.”

  George finally confirms the story, sort of, but only with a nod and a smile. The man is a genius. If I were given the choice to come back as another entity I would choose to come back as George Travis.

  The halftime production looks fantastic. After the third pass, this one in full wardrobe (I’ll be in a stunning black and silver frock coat), with the moving stage and the fireworks, everyone is exhausted. The guy playing the referee takes an almost comic pratfall on the slippery stage. He isn’t hurt, but it scares me. I don’t want to fall, it would be brutal. We head home with the prospect of two days off. The next test will be the final one on Sunday evening, when I roll out of the golf cart in the darkness of the stadium, climb the stairs to the stage supported by Lani and Jo Lopez, and get transported out onto the field and am left to stand there alone. The challenge will be to once again become larger than life, transcend this constant pain and transform myself into the Big Man. They tell me a billion people will be watching. A handful of those people, the ones who know me best, will be watching with their fingers crossed.

  Tampa, February 1, 2009

  Don

  After two days of rest, during which two of Clarence’s sons, Charles and Jarod, join us, Super Bowl Sunday finally arrives. Many years and different mothers separate Jarod and Charles, but they’re both similar to Clarence in spirit. Jarod now lives here. In fact, yesterday we drove to the lovely house where he lives with his mother in an Ozzie and Harriet neighborhood, and we sat in their small living room and watched him play drums with his eleven-year-old guitar player friend, Kyler. They were great, and it was sweet to see Clarence watch his youngest son take the first steps on the same journey he himself had taken so many years ago.

  “How are you feeling?” I ask Clarence this morning.

  “I’m feeling good,” he says. “Except for the coughing-up-blood thing.”

  “What?” I say.

  “It’s just a bronchitis thing,” he says. “An upper-respiratory deal. It fucking freaks me out, though.”

  “No shit,” I say. “Shouldn’t you talk to a doctor?”

  “I will,” he says. “After the show.”

  “Why wait?”

  “ ’Cause a doctor might tell me that I can’t do it,” he says.

  We get our credentials and leave for the stadium at about one o’clock. We actually have a doctor with us. Dr. Mark Rubenstein flew up from Palm Beach to help the Big Man with his back.

  This is my first time attending a Super Bowl, and there is an electricity in the air. Famous faces are everywhere, and everybody tries to out-cool each other. “I was at Derek Jeter’s poker party” or “Snoop’s shindig” or whatever. Everything is “exclusive.” But on this day there is nothing cooler or more exclusive than rolling into the stadium with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Nobody can get back to the E Street compound of RVs without special credentials.

  Times being what they are, and this event being what it is, security is beyond the beyond, and we are almost prisoners back here in the section of the field behind Raymond James Stadium. However, it suits Bruce and the Big Man perfectly. Everybody knows that they’re right over there, but you just can’t get to them.

  Clarence is at peace in the limo on the way to the gig. He feels as good as he can feel, and if determination was lightning he’d be a thunderstorm.

  “You up for this?” I ask.

  “Watch me,” he says.

  An hour before halftime Bruce comes into Clarence’s trailer just to c
heck on him and to say hello. He comes back fifteen minutes later. Clarence and I are the only ones in the RV.

  “I want to make a little contact with you at the top,” he says. “Let’s stand back to back.”

  Clarence stands and Bruce backs up to him.

  “Now when Max starts and you hear the first piano notes we turn and touch hands,” he says. He then starts to hum the concert intro to “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,” and they each half-turn, face an imaginary audience, touch hands, and separate.

  “Once more,” says Bruce. “Turn a little slower.”

  Again he sings the tune and again they turn. This time Bruce squeezes the Big Man’s hand.

  “Good,” he says. “That’s good. Then I’m going to do something else. I don’t know what yet. Probably put my hand on your shoulder.”

  “Got it,” says Clarence.

  “You all right?” Bruce asks.

  “Feeling strong,” says Clarence.

  “Good,” says Bruce. “Now on ‘Born to Run,’ after the camera does that big sweep across the stage you can sit down for the rest of it.”

  “No,” says Clarence. “I want to stand for the whole song.”

  Bruce looks at him for a long moment.

  “Good,” he says again, then amends it. “Excellent.”

  The halftime show is spectacular. A billion people see Clarence standing on the stage and playing his horn loud and clear and strong. He looks like the Big Man in full sail in his black fedora and amazing silver spangled coat. I am up in the stands across the field, and after “Born to Run” I finally exhale.

  Afterward in the E Street tent, everyone is on a tremendous high. Bruce is hugging anybody who gets close to him and posing for pictures. Jon Landau is running around like a kid. Clarence is the last to arrive, having been shuttled in after the crowd. When he walks into the tent there is a round of spontaneous applause from the other members of the band.

  Bruce opens his arms, crosses to Clarence, and hugs him like a long-lost brother. It is a sweet and touching sight. I am standing next to Clarence and slightly behind him, so I am able to overhear the words that Bruce speaks.

  “Big Man,” he says.

  The Legend of Pozo, 2009

  And so here we are again. Bruce and I together somewhere just being who we are. These stories have been set in odd locations or in cars or saloons, because those are the places where we’ve spent our lives. My friendship with Bruce has defined my life. I can’t imagine what would have happened to me if we had never met. I’d still be making music, but not his music. His music feels like it’s my music. But not having those songs to play wouldn’t be the greatest loss. The greatest loss would have been the friendship we have enjoyed over the decades. Through it all Bruce and I remain a constant. He is my anchor and my friend. He is my brother. —C.C.

  Bruce Springsteen walked into the Pozo Saloon, took his sunglasses off, waited for his eyes to adjust, and decided it was good. He was in the right place. It wasn’t easy to find. It was miles past Santa Margarita and not on any tourist map.

  He hooked his glasses into the collar of his black T-shirt, took a seat at the bar, and ordered a beer. He didn’t see any sign of recognition in the bartender’s eyes. He was just a kid, maybe twenty-five years old. This pleased Bruce. Sometimes nobody knew who he was and he got to float.

  Earlier that day he had lunch in a great place called the Wild Horse Café up near King City, and the same thing had happened. Nobody in the joint had any idea who he was. It made him feel invisible. He’d ordered and enjoyed the Trucker Burger, which was the house specialty. It was delicious.

  While he was there an odd thing happened. The waitress behind the counter where he sat on a stool flirted with him. Not in an overt way, but she was flirting without a doubt. She looked to be about forty but it was hard to tell. She was no beauty but she was well, you know. She was a waitress in a truck stop café. But she liked him and she had no idea who he was. No idea. But she liked him. It was clear that if he wanted to hang around King City till she got off work they could have dinner together and maybe something more. For some reason this pleased him more than all the groupies in the world could have. Well, maybe not all of them, but most of them. This woman’s response to him was a simple, sexual thing at the most basic level. “You look good to me.” Yes. How nice that was every once in a while.

  He left a big tip and got back on the highway. He was heading south. He almost took the exit to Jolon just out of curiosity. He had made this drive before and that sign had always intrigued him. It brought the song “Jole Blon” to his mind, and that was a good memory. He’d recorded it years ago with Gary U.S. Bonds, and it was still one of his favorites.

  But he continued on. He got off the freeway in the town of Templeton and bought a diet soda from a small deli located in a frontier style strip mall. As he was walking back to his car, he saw the actor Josh Brolin walking toward him. He thought to himself that Bruce Springsteen and Josh Brolin were about to meet. But Josh, sensing someone coming out of the deli who might recognize him and give him some kind of shit, lowered his head and walked right past Bruce. Bruce found poetry in this. Some kind of satisfying beauty. Something about being alone and remaining intact and unto yourself, or some shit like that. All he knew for sure was that he got a kick out of it and wondered if someday down the road he’d run into Josh Brolin and tell him that they had passed within a yard of each other one day in Templeton, California.

  Back in the car Bruce looked at the old text message and programmed the exit into the navigation system of the rented Mercedes he was driving. When the woman’s voice told him to take the next exit he did. He drove through the tiny town of Santa Margarita and continued on toward Pozo.

  This time of year everything was brown. There was a unique quality to Southern California in the summer, when it was dry and beautiful and vulnerable. The entire place felt fragile to Bruce, and he could relate. Time moved for him at the same speed that it moved for others, and the end of the highway was now closer than the beginning. This place, here and now, was a metaphor for life its ownself, as Dan Jenkins might say.

  Bruce was a few beers deep when Clarence walked in. Almost immediately everything changed. There were four women in the room. Two in their forties sitting together and two others sitting with guys. When Clarence walked in they all stopped what they were doing or saying and looked at him. Bruce laughed out loud. Clarence, recognizing the laugh, turned and crossed to the bar. He took the stool next to Bruce, sat down, and smiled. Bruce was having none of this polite shit so he stood and embraced the now seated Big Man.

  “Brother” was all he said.

  Clarence didn’t have to say anything.

  Clarence had begun his day in La Jolla. He was staying in a beachfront hotel, and he was feeling good about almost everything. Of course nobody ever felt good about everything, but he was close. He had been to the Pozo Saloon years earlier with this girl from Texas who wanted to be a veterinarian and have a chicken-fried steak, and he remembered the place fondly, so when it became clear that he and Bruce would be crossing paths somewhere in central California, he had suggested meeting there.

  Clarence had spent the previous week attempting to sell ideas for TV shows to people in Hollywood who wanted to say that they knew him and could hit him up for tickets when the band came to LA. He had not been successful, but he had found the process to be interesting. But now he and Bruce were sitting here on another of these little islands they had found during their lifetimes. Both of them had the same reaction to these places, these seams in the world where they could actually behave like everyone else. The reaction was relief.

  They moved to a table. The eyes of all the women (and one of the men) followed Clarence as he walked.

  “Where are you headed?” asked Clarence.

  “The LA house for a night, then back to Jersey,” said Bruce. “You?”

  “My wife’s family in San Francisco,” said Clarence.

  “Good f
or you,” said Bruce. “I really mean that, C. Good for you.”

  “Thank you, Bruce,” said Clarence.

  They sat for a while and enjoyed their surroundings.

  “Something’s been bothering me,” said Bruce after a while. “I wanna clear the air, so to speak.”

  “All right,” said Clarence. “Commence clearing.”

  Bruce used his right thumbnail to remove the label from his beer bottle. Then he looked at Clarence for a moment then back at the bottle.

  “One night before a show, I can’t remember where we were,” he began.

  “Philly,” said Clarence.

  Bruce looked up. “Ahhh,” he said. “I’m not alone here.”

  “As long as I’m breathing you’re never going to be alone.” Clarence smiled.

  “We argued about something that night,” said Bruce. “I don’t even remember what it was, but I said some things that I didn’t mean.”

  “Forget it,” said Clarence. “I did.”

  “Yeah, but the thing is—”

  “Bruce,” Clarence interrupted. “I love you.”

  Then Clarence smiled and Bruce nodded and that was the end of that.

  Cows could be seen walking around through the back windows of the place. Three of the women kept stealing glances at Clarence. The fourth one was standing by their table.

  “You’re that saxophone player, aren’t you?” she said.

  “Guilty,” said Clarence.

  “I love you guys,” she said.

  “What’s your favorite song?” asked Clarence.

  “The dancing one, I guess,” she said. “The one with Courteney Cox in it from a long time ago. Before Friends, even.”

  “Yeah, that was fun,” said Clarence.

  Bruce sipped his beer.

  “Would you do me a favor?” she asked Bruce.