Fast Lane

by Ashley, Kristen

  She did.

  Flashdance.

  Shirt falling off her shoulder. Jeans. White Nike classics. Cortez. If I remember, with a blue swoop.

  Nikes.

  First time we saw Lyla, she was in Nikes.

  [Smiles]

  They told us they had booze and blow and mushrooms and maybe some acid and a pool.

  And they were party girls.

  Lyla wasn’t, but they were.

  That was serious too.

  Serious as shit.

  Party girls like that and a pool?

  [Smiles]

  We were all in.

  Even Tommy.

  Josh took off somewhere else though. Found some other chick he wanted to party with, and he went with her.

  Josh did that kind of thing a lot.

  And he may say it different, but we wanted him with us, and we made that clear.

  He took off and did his own thing.

  So that’s on him, no matter what that guy says.

  We went with Lyla’s friends. And I was twenty by then. I was in a rock band that no longer had trouble getting gigs. There were entire cities where I had pussy waiting for me when we got back to them.

  But I was on my home turf.

  Indy.

  First time back after Dad died.

  So, I was rattled, you know?

  Preacher, I could tell, had a mind to me.

  Tim ate the ’shrooms, Dave dropped the acid.

  [Shakes head]

  They didn’t have a mind to dick.

  Or at least not anything but their own dicks.

  Lyla sat in a lounge chair she’d pulled away from the pool, up close to the house, and every once in a while, she’d get up to take a walk and clean shit up.

  Clean shit up!

  [Hoots, shakes head, grows serious]

  [Speaking softly] God, Lyla.

  Most of the time though, she laid in that lounge chair against the house, far from the pool, you know, like…glaring at us.

  Preach was an equal opportunity, benevolent almost-rock god.

  I remember seeing him with his jeans bunched up to his knees, sitting on the side of the pool, his feet and calves in the water, her friends barely clothed in the water, wet and hanging off his legs and his every word, and he’d glance over at her.

  When he was in the mood to spread his love, everyone was invited.

  We all were nailing serious tail, but I don’t think anybody but Dave had had a threesome.

  But that was not unusual for Preach.

  Or more, you know?

  That night, I had one girl, he had two, three were in with Tim and Dave, tripping, and Tommy was fucking another one in what we would find out later was one of the girls’ dad’s waterbed.

  And looking back, I knew Preacher was more into her than the two he had.

  I also got why.

  Kind of.

  Now, again, it was the eighties. We’re talkin’ Jane Fonda workout videos and Jamie Lee Curtis in that movie Perfect and one-pieces making a comeback because the legs were cut so far up the hips, a girl had to shave.

  And Lyla was not…

  [Pause]

  That.

  I mean, there was a reason anorexia became prevalent during that decade and didn’t let go. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t good, but it was the way it was.

  But Lyla was not that way.

  Tits and ass.

  A lot.

  Of both.

  And, from what I could tell that night, bad attitude.

  But fuck, the longer the night wore on, Preacher couldn’t keep his eyes off her.

  She’d do a lap to clean up ashtrays or beer bottles or whatever the fuck, and honest to Christ, he didn’t miss a step.

  Not that first step.

  She had what they now politically correctly, but also, it’s gotta be said, just plain correctly call curves.

  Freddie Mercury called them fat-bottomed girls.

  But man, she was pretty.

  Lotsa hair.

  Perfect skin.

  You know, and a way about her.

  It was part that attitude.

  Part the mystery.

  You know, tell a man, “don’t touch, you’ll get burned,” he’ll become obsessed with the fire. It’s just how it is.

  She screamed don’t touch.

  And Preacher, man…

  Preacher could be obsessive.

  In a big way.

  But it was the eyes.

  I gotta believe, and this would prove true, in a way, if it wasn’t Preach, it would be somebody. Another rock star. A photographer. A painter. Someone would fall in the muse of Lyla’s eyes.

  But as you know, it was Preacher.

  Eventually, my girl said she had some coke hidden in her purse.

  We went in, did lines, she went down on me, I went down on her, we smoked a joint to mellow out, and then we banged.

  When we were done, everyone was either passed out or boning. It was late, nearly morning, she said she had to go home, so she took me back to our motel.

  We were staying in motels then. Shitty-ass ones, but we slept in beds.

  Yeah, battle by battle, Tommy was winning the war.

  We could only afford two rooms, though, and Dave, Tim, or Josh had to take turns sleeping on the floor unless one of them passed out in a bed another one was in.

  This was because, most of the time, I shared a room with Preach and Tom always slept in the camper.

  It just was what it was.

  My band (at the time).

  Preacher’s talent.

  Though, a lot of the time, I’d end up in the other room or hanging with Tom in the camper because Preacher had company.

  I thought for sure he was back at the party house tangled in girls.

  I was looking forward to crashing and a shower, or the other way around.

  So, when I opened the door to our room, I was not prepared for what I saw.

  Not even close.

  It didn’t rock my world.

  It changed it.

  After what I saw, it’d never be the same.

  I’d never be the same.

  And Preacher would never be the same.

  Not again.

  He had Lyla with him.

  They were both on his bed, legs twined, and she was tall too, model tall. So, between the two of them, they had a lot of leg to twine.

  Lyla’s head was on his chest, her arm around him so tight, it disappeared around his back because he was lying on it.

  No shoes for either of them, but each fully clothed.

  Preacher had both his arms around her.

  She was asleep.

  He wasn’t.

  No lights, just the dawn coming in through the door I’d opened.

  He looked at me when I was in the opened door, didn’t say a word, just shook his head.

  He didn’t need to do that. I was already backing out.

  I closed the door, hit the motel’s diner, ordered coffee and waited for the others to join me.

  We did that by then, after every gig, no matter what we got up to.

  We had breakfast together in a diner close to or in our motel, if it had one.

  Just us six.

  Tommy’s orders. He’d suss out the diner we’d meet at about ten seconds after we checked in to whatever motel we were gonna stay at.

  Even Josh didn’t miss breakfast.

  Band bonding.

  Chicks came and went.

  The band remained.

  We’d do that for decades.

  Except sometimes, one chick, who sadly came and went, would join us.

  And only the first time she did would anyone have a problem with it.

  I sat in that diner, though, gotta tell you, shaken.

  It wasn’t Lyla.

  It wasn’t Preacher.

  It was maybe partly that I’d never seen that, the way my parents were.

  I’d never seen anything that pure.

 
That right.

  It was definitely that I saw Preacher holding a woman like he was holding Lyla.

  I saw the look on his face before he looked to me.

  Christ.

  [Pause to swallow]

  That look on his face.

  I was glad he had that, feeling some relief, and not a little fuckin’ joy, a whole lot.

  And it was that I wanted it for myself.

  Just that.

  What I saw Preacher had with Lyla

  A woman asleep, cradled in my arms, trusting me in her vulnerability, tied up in me.

  Holding me tight.

  That started my quest.

  I’d look for just that for years.

  Goddamned years.

  I thought I had it a couple of times.

  I didn’t.

  Until I found Natalie.

  Jesse:

  That morning, Tim, Tommy and Dave showed first at the diner.

  Preacher showed with Lyla.

  We can just say, this was not a popular decision.

  Tommy was the most pissed.

  But Tim was too.

  It was a shock, nothin’ pissed off Dave.

  But he was too.

  I was, as you probably can guess, not.

  You know what? Even if she had a bad attitude the night before, you just could not stay pissed at Lyla.

  You just couldn’t.

  It was impossible.

  Preach saw it, that was one of the reasons, I figure, he couldn’t keep his eyes off her.

  I didn’t.

  Not until that morning.

  She was fragile.

  China.

  [Off tape]

  Is that how she got her nickname?

  Yeah.

  It wasn’t her deep-set eyes?

  No.

  [Firm]

  No, it was not.

  Josh didn’t show until later, after it all went down.

  ’Cause, see, Lyla was also not stupid.

  Preach had kicked back, put his arm around her, lying it across the top of the back of the booth behind her, and was staring down the guys, but Lyla felt it.

  So, she said something like, “I’m gonna find a payphone and call my friend to come and get me.”

  Then he definitely said, “No, you are not.”

  And then, you know, they haven’t known each other a day, they start bickering like they’ve been married for thirty years.

  Quiet-like.

  Lyla wasn’t a shrew. She didn’t raise her voice. She kept real calm almost all the time.

  It was a gift.

  And a curse.

  And I’ll say, the way she talked back to him, I know I fell deeper, and I also know she was dragging the other guys in.

  Then she says, “You know, Preacher, it isn’t all about what you want or what I want. Your friends want it to be just the guys.”

  Well…

  That was it.

  [Hoots, shakes head, smiling]

  Yeah, that was it.

  Telling Preacher it wasn’t all about him?

  [Hoots again]

  Dave’s all “I think I love you and I’m buying you coffee.”

  Lyla says, “I don’t drink coffee.”

  I think Dave’s eyes bugged out of his head and that was the first, but not the last time he made it his mission to introduce Lyla to something that probably wasn’t good for her.

  [Sobers]

  We were all under her spell.

  All that hair.

  Those eyes.

  Her quiet way.

  Preach all sat back, relaxed, his arm around her in that big booth.

  Yeah.

  Bewitched.

  She had coffee with us and thus began how it would be.

  Lyla, eventually, was with the band a lot, as you know.

  She sat at Preacher’s side, or whoever Preacher allowed her to prop up when they needed it.

  But mostly, she sat at Preacher’s side because he never let on once he needed someone to prop him up.

  I’d know a lot later he’d been listing for a really long time, in search of Lyla, the only woman on the planet who had the strength to stand at his side and prop him up.

  She did not interfere with the band.

  She never said dick.

  She had no opinion…ever.

  The band was the band.

  She was Lyla.

  Sometimes that came as Lyla and Preacher.

  Sometimes that came as Lyla the muse of Preacher McCade and the Roadmasters.

  Sometimes it came as Lyla being what Lyla was to each of us.

  But mostly, it was Lyla, and Lyla didn’t so much as bang a fuckin’ tambourine for the Roadmasters.

  Preach might try to drag her in.

  Tommy did too.

  And I’ll admit, there were times I did too.

  She wouldn’t budge.

  The band was the band.

  And Lyla was Lyla.

  And that morning, sippin’ her coffee to be nice to Dave who ordered it for her, it began.

  She sat next to Preacher, silent, terminally pretty, totally clueless to the fact that every dude in the diner was checking her out, those dudes unable to do shit because she was tucked to Preacher’s side, and he was brutally handsome.

  After a while, she turned to him and whispered in his ear, so they slid out of the booth and we all watched them go to a payphone.

  She made a call with Preacher standing at her side like she couldn’t dial without his presence, and while she did, that was when Josh showed.

  I don’t remember if she ate breakfast with us, I do remember the coffee.

  I also remember Josh was the only one who voiced bein’ pissed she was with us, this after we all got over the fact she was with us.

  So, when they got back to the booth, Josh shot off his mouth.

  Preach was screwin’ himself up, ready to rumble, but Lyla got in there first and said, “I just called my friend to come get me.”

  “Good,” Josh says. “Maybe you can wait outside for her.”

  That was Josh. Wouldn’t leave it alone.

  Lyla had tried.

  “And maybe we can leave your ass here when we go to Lafayette,” Preach shoots back.

  “You are fuckin’ kiddin’ me,” Josh says.

  “Just shut up, would you?” Tim says to Josh.

  “No bitches, it’s the rule,” Josh says to all of us.

  Preach starts screwin’ up again, because in general he did not like women to be called bitches, and Josh knew that.

  Referring like that to Lyla?

  Shit.

  Tommy gets into it then.

  “If you know what’s good for you, just shut the fuck up, Josh,” he says.

  “I see how it is,” Josh says.

  “You’ve got no fuckin’ clue,” Tom says. “But you better get one, and fast.”

  Well, Lyla, she does not like this shit.

  Not at all.

  Not about her, but just sayin’.

  Not at all.

  Conflict was absolutely not her scene.

  She forces down a few more sips of her coffee and then says good-bye to everyone and she and Preach slide out.

  He stands with her outside and he’s got her hair held at the back of her head all bunched up in his big fist and it’s not a secret.

  Everyone knows.

  All of us, at some point, ’cept Josh and Tom, crushed on her.

  That’s when mine began.

  I wanted to be the man standing with her outside that diner while she waited for her ride, resting my forearm on her shoulder, my fingers in her hair.

  But, you know, Preacher was gentle with women. Saw it with my mom and sisters. Saw it with him and all his chicks.

  The only time I ever knew him to use his powers for what could be considered nefarious reasons was when he told a girl who wanted him to go down on me.

  But that was Preach.

  His brother was in need, anyone he car
ed about was in need, he went all out and dealt with the moral consequences later.

  Case in point, dealing with Nick.

  But I’ll tell you, I never saw him like that with a girl.

  There was usually a lot more PDA for one.

  Boiling it down, she was China to him before she was China to the rest of the band, that’s all I’m sayin’.

  Her ride comes and Christ.

  I mean, Christ.

  Watchin’ those two say good-bye.

  Christ.

  We didn’t know.

  He didn’t know.

  She didn’t know.

  But it was like we all knew, you know?

  Christ.

  He didn’t kiss her.

  But he did stand outside that diner a long time after she got in her friend’s car and took off.

  And yeah, that’s where “The Back of You” came from.

  Yeah.

  “Give Then Take” and “The Back of You” were the songs we cut for our first demo.

  Balls to the wall rock and a rock ballad that’d make Hitler weep.

  The first two hits we had.

  Big hits.

  And…

  Yeah.

  He finally comes back in, his breakfast is cold, but that isn’t why he pushes it away.

  Dave pounces ’cause that’s Dave.

  “You didn’t even fuckin’ kiss her, dude. What’s up with that?”

  “She’s seventeen.”

  That got all our attention.

  Especially Tommy’s.

  “Say what?” Tommy asks.

  “Not yours,” Preach told him. “She was the older sister of the one Jesse banged.”

  He looked at the rest of us.

  “But yeah, all of yours.”

  “There is no way the woman I had last night was seventeen,” I said.

  Because…

  Fuck.

  I mean, you gotta know, I was all about the rubbers. What happened to Penny.

  Fuck yeah.

  But I was all about them being fuckin’ legal too.

  And Tommy absolutely was.

  No way he was gonna bust his balls for that band and have any of us go down for something that stupid.

  Stupid and illegal.

  “Wrong,” Preacher says to me.

  [Shakes head]

  First and last, sister.

  That girl was the first and she was the damned last.