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Part 2

13.
He was found by his father.
The M.E. estimated that he had been dead at least a day.
A single bullet wound to the head.
He was found in his music room slumped on the floor. His favorite guitar - the Les Paul - was strapped around his neck. All the equipment was turned off. A bloody smear made its way down a section of the mixer - he had grabbed hold as he fell, as he died,pulling all the switches with him.
The gun was found in his hand.
There was never any serious question about it being anything other than a suicide.

14.
Why did he kill himself? There were a few theories floating around like smoke in the night. He was sick of his obscurity ; he felt that after completing his last opus there was nowhere left to go but down; that he was scared of the impending stardom that his last song would undoubtedly bring him. All these theories pissed me off. They were made by people who knew him even less than I did.
And what was my own theory of this tragedy? How did I make sense of this senseless act? What did I think was going through Robbie's mind when he pulled the trigger?
I couldn't/wouldn't hazard a guess as to why he took his life just as he was giving us his beautiful song.
Maybe that's why I'm writing this. Looking for answers.

15.
Robbie was the only kid I knew growing up who didn't have a full set of parents.
His mother had died during labour, so I learned over the years.
His parents had moved into the neighbourhood just before his birth.
And he and his father would continue to live in the spacious two story house even after the death of Mrs. Morgan.
There were few pictures of her around the house. One or two of them on the mantel and one more on his fathers night table. Robbie once told me that that's all they were to him - just pictures. They could have been anyone to him. His only living link to her - his father - never talked about her. He would change the subject whenever Robbie asked any questions. And soon Robbie learned not to ask.
To Robbie, his Mother was only "a wonderful, beautiful woman."
I didn't see much of Mr. Morgan. I don't think any one did.
I did see him at the funeral, though. He sat stoically at the front, eyes fixed on the coffin. He accepted all condolences graciously and tried his best to ignore the media and all of Robbie's newly acquired fans.
In his eyes I don't think I saw tears (but I cannot judge - my eyes were also dry). I do think that I saw anger at one point. When a reporter thrust a microphone into his face and asked him how he was feeling about this or that, I saw Mr. Morgan turn to the camera and I could almost see the fire behind his eyes. There and gone in a matter of seconds. But those seconds were enough to grace the evening news and the morning papers. Every broadcast that night had that shot of him with both eyes blazing, and every broadcast freezed the frame on that image.
So the television viewer never got to see the next few seconds. The seconds where he turns his head downwards and whispers "Please, just leave us alone."

16.
From what I learned Mr. Morgan had won a fair bit of money in the lottery. Not a huge amount but enough for them to buy a house and have a bit of a safety net (perhaps to pay for college for the expected child).
By all accounts they were a perfect couple. The typical glowing newlyweds - rosy, pregnant wife and handsome, hard-working husband. She was quite small in stature, 'petite' they would have called her. Talking to her, they say, you couldn't help but smile. She just exuded a childlike form of innocence and joy.
He wasn't seen as much. Always working despite their more than healthy bank account. When he was seen and talked to, they say, he seemed like an honest, down to earth, caring husband.
So they say.
But it's sometimes a little too easy to talk kindly of people after a tragedy. Like the killer next door; "he was always such a nice boy. Quiet, kept to himself..." Not that they turned out to be serial killers or anything, but there are many types of tragedies.
And many details get forgotten.
Robbie was born on Christmas Day (but we won't read anything into that) at 12:02 am. She died ten minutes later. She just got one glimpse of her newborn son before she passed away.
I don't want to judge his father, he went through things that I can't even begin to imagine, he had to deal with things that I'll never have to deal with. He tried to be strong I'm sure. He must've been strong. Raising a son from birth with your wife dead from labour - he must've been strong.
But no one can be strong forever. Eventually something gives.
I have no way of knowing what kind of father he was in those years when he was still coping. He must've done all right, Robbie seemed like a good kid. But later he would write a line: "Sometime soon / All our masks will fall." So who knows.
No one knows exactly when Mr. Morgan quit his job. He was always working hard, staying late at the office so no one knows when the late nights working turned into the late nights drinking. Or when the hard days work turned into the hard days gambling.
He fired the nanny when Robbie was eleven years old. He started disappearing for entire nights when Robbie was thirteen and for entire days a year later.
As long as I can remember knowing Robbie his relationship with his Dad was distant at best. And as years went by it grew even more so. He lived in his parents house with his father but for all practical purposes he may as well have been living on his own. He was almost entirely self-reliant as far as food and clothing went. And as for his college fund - he never touched a dime of it. That is assuming that there was a dime left to touch. From what I understand, he graduated from high school and just went to work full time. As I've mentioned, I was fairly distant from him a this point.
His mother had left him before he could know her, his father had left him by never getting to know him, his band had left him because they didn't understand him.
Me? I had just left him.
Although, in hindsight, maybe he had left me.

17.
Yes, he had a band for his first electric gig. Nobody I knew or had even heard of.
I walked into the Back Grill that night safely surrounded by three friends of mine whom I'd convinced to come with me (I was paying the five dollar cover charge and buying the first pitcher). We surveyed the mostly empty room and decided on a table more or less front and center.
The small stage was at the back of the club and a worn out bar ran along one of the sides. A neon Black Label sign provided almost the only light in this otherwise dark and smoky dump.
After securing our table I headed over and asked the bartender what they had on tap.
"Beer" was the only reply I got from this bald, bearded man.
"Okay", I tried to remain cool, "I'll have a pitcher."
So with my 3/4 filled pitcher (1/4 of which was suds) and four plastic cups I headed back to the table. I took the opportunity to further check out my surroundings. The stage at back seemed to be set but I saw no sign of Robbie or of any door where he might emerge from. There were about ten tables on the floor, starting about 15 feet away from the stage. Besides ours, four of them were occupied. The only other people in the place were the surly barkeep and two large guys playing pool behind us.
We tried to look casual, like we belonged in this place. We talked loudly (mostly about skiing) and tried to laugh a lot. I'm sure no one noticed, much less cared, that we didn't belong. Still, it's a hard feeling to shake.
A half hour later we were about to get a second pitcher when the heavy metal music that had been playing stopped and Robbie stepped out from behind a curtain I had failed to notice beside the stage. He was followed by two other guys - his band. The one with the hair down to his waist and the Led Zeppelin T-shirt strapped on a bass and stuck a cigarette in his mouth. He wasn't without a cigarette throughout the entire set, although I never once saw him light up a new one. The other guy - a bald guy in a black suit - got behind the drums.
Robbie strapped on his Les Paul and took center stage. After arranging the pedals to his liking he tentatively spoke to us, his audience of 20.
"Uh, hi. I'm Robbie Morgan. That's Steve on bass and Paul on the drums." A pause. "Uh, we don't have a group name yet."
And so they began.
The pool players left after one song. The other tables stopped clapping politely after the third and, despite our forced applause, the owner/barkeeper yanked them after the fifth.
I talked to him a bit after that gig.
"Hey, man." I started. Then I got stuck. I honestly didn't know what to say next. Thankfully Robbie took over.
"Yeah, hey, don't worry about it. We're still experimenting a bit, trying to find our sound." I guess he knew what I was thinking. "I guess this just isn't the type of place that appreciates experimentation."
"Well, you sounded like you knew what you were doing." I was grasping for compliments. "It's just a bit too...I don't know, I guess it's just not my type of music. I'm a bit too mainstream."
"Yeah, that's okay. Thanks for coming out though." We kind of stood there for awhile. Awkward. "The owner stiffed us of course."
"What?" He said it so matter-of-factly that it took me by surprise.
"Yeah, well, at least he didn't steal our equipment, right?" What could I do but agree. "Anyway, I've already got another gig lined up. In a more suitable location. So it's cool, ya know."
"Yeah, if you say so."
I only realized later that he never mentioned where that next gig was.

18.
So I never saw that gig or any of his other ones.
Apparently he was right though about playing in a more suitable location. I mean, he didn't sell the place out or anything (I don't think he ever did), but at least he managed to finish his set. And he found a small group of people who seemed to appreciate what he was trying to do. Unfortunately his band members weren't part of that group. They stayed together for about six months before breaking up. I never did meet them. And they never did decide on a name for themselves. One less thing for Robbie to worry about - now he could just be Robbie Morgan.
So, yeah, he continued to play as a solo act, armed with a drum machine and even more loops and samples and, of course, his Les Paul. And, unbelievably to me, he developed a small but dedicated fan base which would follow him from club to club around the city.
I swear there weren't more than 40 or 50 people in that original group of fans. But funny how after his death that number swelled. There seemed to be hundreds of people now claiming to have know him before he was big, before he was dead.
And I don't believe any of them.
I have a feeling that the people who actually did follow him from club to club - his 'real' fans - knew him well enough (probably better than I did) and respected him enough to remain silent.
Maybe they even saw this coming.


Installment 3



Photo by Avery Crounse
Appears in liner notes of the album "Trouble at the Henhouse" by the Tragically Hip

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