Fast Lane

by Ashley, Kristen

  After that, I’d goddamn card if I needed to. You know what I’m sayin’?

  “I’ll kiss her when she’s eighteen,” Preach decrees then looks at Tommy. “Which is when we’re comin’ back to Indy. In four months. When Lyla is eighteen.”

  It’s weird, doin’ this.

  [Sits back, sighs]

  It all comes into focus, doin’ this.

  You know, I knew.

  Later, I got it.

  But talkin’ about it like this now?

  Crystal-clear focus.

  After we left Indy, Preach tore the lid off.

  And I’ll tell you what.

  Serious as fuckin’ shit. You lookin’ at my face?

  [Points at face]

  [Off tape]

  Yes, I’m looking.

  So, you see I’m serious as shit when I say I was pissed way the fuck off.

  I did not get it.

  You know?

  Lyla, at the booth at breakfast with us being…Lyla.

  And Christ, from Lafayette to when it all went down, he’s fuckin’ anything that moves. Booze. Pot. Blow.

  Mostly booze.

  And blow.

  Even let loose, back then, Preacher had a rein on it. It was like he knew. She wasn’t there, he let go, it’d get ugly.

  He had iron control, that guy, and he might get loose, he might get laid, he might get happy, but he never let go.

  Now, I know that was when we started building our reputation.

  Good guy, gentlemen rockers who knew how to blow out a set, have a good time and left the women smiling.

  But I still have an issue with it. If he was right here, even now, I’d have no problem getting in Tom’s shit about how he supported it.

  Egged it on.

  Enabled it.

  And okay.

  [Raises hands and presses out repeatedly]

  It’s rock ’n’ roll.

  It’s the life we all wanted.

  Freedom.

  Be who you are, do what you like and make yourself happy.

  I get that.

  But this was after Lyla.

  Preacher didn’t call her that whole time.

  That, I got right in his shit about.

  And okay on that too, because he had a good excuse.

  But it’d take a while for me to get why he looked agonized when he said it.

  “She’s seventeen, brother. Senior year of high school, friends, gettin’ the grades, parties, graduation, she’s set on goin’ to college. She doesn’t need some twenty-three-year-old creep in a rock band two states away callin’ her ass and fuckin’ shit up for her. She’s gotta have her time. She has to live her moments. Not be here with me, when she’s not here with me, not livin’ her moments or mine because she’s two fuckin’ states away.”

  I remember the look on his face. The way he shook his head.

  First time in my life I saw Preacher McCade look lost.

  “I’m givin’ her time,” he finished.

  [Off tape]

  He was working it out.

  [Nods]

  He was working it out.

  Trying to get all the shit out so it’d be gone when he had her.

  [Nods continually]

  I get it now.

  He was working it out.

  Whacked as it is, he was doing all that shit for Lyla.

  We cut the demo a few months after Lyla.

  And I don’t know if Tom sold plasma, or maybe a kidney, wouldn’t put it past him for either, but he also had singles pressed and tapes made.

  Sold them out of the back of the camper.

  Extra cash.

  Like, a lot of it.

  And then, you know, wasn’t a gig we did where people weren’t singing right along with us.

  And by then, we weren’t doing covers.

  It was before cell phones.

  Tommy got us booked at a club in Nashville we could not say no to. Big shit, this club. Scouts were there a lot. The real deal.

  And when he did, he got us booked at a couple more down there.

  We hadn’t hit Tennessee yet.

  Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, sometimes Kentucky. Sometimes Missouri. That was our patch.

  Tom wanted us wider.

  A lot wider.

  And he was all in to stretch that patch.

  So, Preacher didn’t like it, but he couldn’t fight it, we were in Tennessee when Lyla turned eighteen.

  That was when Preach called her.

  No one picked up.

  No answering machine.

  He called again, someone answered, left a message.

  She might have called back.

  But if she did, we were gone, so she couldn’t reach him.

  Tom told him to send her flowers.

  I don’t know if he did or if he didn’t.

  What happened, I reckon he didn’t.

  But he should have.

  [Off tape]

  Isn’t Tennessee where the Roadmasters were born?

  [Nods]

  Yeah.

  Tommy’s idea, no matter what Josh says. Ask Tim. Or Dave.

  But I’m tellin you right here, it wasn’t Preacher’s idea.

  He was not only not behind it, he tried to talk it down.

  Truth be told, he wasn’t comfortable with it, his name out there, up front.

  And I knew why.

  Both reasons.

  I could tell Tommy was geared up for it. I could tell he prepared. Had all his arguments ready.

  And I knew before then he hated the name Zenith.

  Said it was hair band name.

  Said it was corny.

  But, you know, we’d been on the road with that name for a while. Pressed records under that name with Zenith on the sleeve. Tapes.

  Sent our demos to LA and New York with that name.

  Preacher said it was lunacy to change it.

  Tom said if we didn’t change it then, we’d never be able to change it.

  He pulled out Joan Jett and the Blackhearts to get Timmy.

  He pulled out Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band to try to get Preach and me.

  Dave didn’t care either way just as long as he got to play drums in whatever name the band was called.

  Josh asked why Preacher.

  “One, he’s got a kickass name. Two, he’s the lead singer. Three, he writes all the songs,” Tommy says.

  “I write songs,” Josh says.

  “He writes all the good songs,” Dave mumbles.

  “Fuck you, Dave,” Josh says.

  Now, seriously, again, all comes into focus doing this linear-like, yeah?

  I do not know why we didn’t lose that guy earlier.

  Jesus.

  “It’s Jesse’s band,” Tim says. “And Jesse Simms and the Roadmasters sounds cool too.”

  “Yeah, it does,” Preach says.

  “Cooler than Preacher McCade and the Roadmasters?” Tom asks.

  Really, can you argue that?

  I mean, time has told, but seriously, even then, that sounded cooler than the Zeniths or Jesse Simms.

  Even Preach is stymied with that one ’cause his parents are garbage, but they gave him a kickass, rock ’n roll name.

  At this juncture, knowing it’s gonna go down, Josh asks, “Why the Roadmasters?”

  I mean, as my daughters would say…

  Duh.

  We had fucking groupies.

  Our name packed bars and clubs in seven, eight states.

  All this we earned not with radio play, but on the road.

  Fuck, the guy could argue about anything.

  Preach didn’t find any pussy that night.

  He was in our room when I was in it.

  And I honest to God didn’t have anything on my mind but what a pain in the ass Josh was.

  So, I was bitchin’ about that and Preacher was looking at me like I had a s
crew loose.

  I think I said, “You’re Henley, I’m Frey and he’s fuckin’ Felder, man.”

  He comes up to me and grabs me by both sides of my neck and he bends over, you know, to get eye to eye to me, and what came next, I’ll never forget it.

  He says, “We’re not Henley and Frey. We’re not anything but Simms and McCade. We’re the band, brother.”

  He squeezes me real hard and shakes me and repeats it.

  “We’re the fuckin’ band.”

  [Clears throat]

  You know, I love Tim and I love Dave and I love DuShawn.

  But Preach was right.

  Flat-out right.

  No one can really argue it.

  And I’ll call it before he even jammed with us, when I was standing in that truck bed and he was standing beside it.

  It didn’t matter what it was called, that’s what he was saying to me.

  It was him and me.

  We were the band.

  Preacher called Lyla again the first gig we played in Washington DC.

  DC was a big town, and after that, Tom had us booked at places in NYC.

  I mean, it was happening.

  Tom had a reputation.

  We had a reputation.

  Professional, packed house, rock that house.

  We had girls that followed us gig to gig, if they could.

  Some guys too.

  Tom made a phone call and they’d heard of us, of him, and they found us a slot.

  The buzz, man, damn.

  Getting closer to it.

  Closer and closer.

  Fuck, it was sweet.

  I know Preach wanted to share that with Lyla.

  And now, Tom had some chick in Cleveland who would answer calls at night if she was home but didn’t mind taking messages off an answering machine and giving them to Tommy when he called in, which he did, every night.

  So, we had a kinda secretary.

  [Laughs]

  We were big time.

  [Laughs more]

  [Shakes head]

  [Stops laughing]

  So, [clears throat] Preach had a number to give her to call when he left a message.

  He gave her that number.

  She didn’t call.

  [Off tape]

  It was just Lyla being Lyla that won you all over at one breakfast?

  [Nods]

  Partly.

  But remember, Preach and me shared a room.

  There’d be nights he wasn’t drowned in Jack and buried in pussy.

  We’d talk.

  And he told you what it was about her?

  Yeah.

  He told me.

  [Lengthy pause]

  You’re not going to tell me, are you?

  That’s Lyla’s to share.

  Jesse:

  Lyla was eighteen and five months, all graduated, all legal, all good to go when we got back to Indy.

  Instant our asses were in our room, Preacher goes right to the phone and calls her.

  “Yeah, it’s me,” he says. “I’m in town. Tell her.”

  He then slams down the phone and I was glad Tommy didn’t see that because he was not big on laying out cash to pay for damages and I knew that because Dave could get [does air quotes] clumsy.

  “Her dad?” I asked him.

  “Her fuckin’ grandfather,” he says.

  Then his jeans are gone, on goes the Rangers cap and his ratty-ass cutoff sweats, and it’s time not to talk to Preacher for two hours because he’s about to cause a traffic jam, hanging from some sign by the street, lifting his knees to his chest alternating doing pull ups.

  I didn’t hear it.

  You know.

  The call.

  I was off with a chick who was one of the chicks I thought could be the chick.

  So, I was hanging with her and didn’t get to the guys until breakfast at the diner.

  Preach wasn’t there.

  When he didn’t show, they voted me to go get him, which partly had to do with me and Preach being tight but mostly was about me having the key.

  I hit our room.

  The curtains are pulled, lights out, but music is happening because Preach is on his bed in the dark with his acoustic guitar, strummin’ nonsense that from his fingers sounds like a symphony.

  “What the fuck, brother?” I ask.

  “I was wrong,” he says, still strumming.

  “About what?” I ask.

  “About Lyla,” he says.

  I mean, man…

  Shit.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “She listens to Janet Jackson.”

  I knew what he was saying.

  It wasn’t that she listened to Janet, which she did.

  It was that he wasn’t gonna talk about it.

  And he didn’t.

  Now, it was one thing, following the lead of a bulldozer like Tommy Mancosa.

  It was something else, when Preacher goes all in.

  You heard it.

  You know it.

  Everyone says it.

  They say for the Roadmasters, it was a rocket rise.

  Now you know that’s bullshit.

  Hours in my garage. Miles on the road. Havin’ beer bottles thrown at us. Fat lips and shiners and asshole bar managers who didn’t wanna pay.

  But after Lyla did what she did, if that could conceivably be our destination, Preacher was not gonna fuck around with making it straight to the top.

  And he didn’t.

  And he dragged us right along with him.

  We eventually get the call from LA, Preacher does not give that first shit they didn’t even pay for our asses to get out there.

  The camper-truck had bit the dust along the way and Tom’d bought us a secondhand RV that was about a half a step up from the camper, but at least it was more room.

  That bastard barely made it across Nebraska.

  But we made it.

  “Do you have work to fill an album?” the dude from the record label asks.

  I mean, we drove across the country, asshole.

  You couldn’t ask that over the phone?

  [Shakes head]

  “Yeah,” Tommy tells him.

  The guy looks at his calendar, pushing pages back and forth, and says, “We have an hour’s studio time the week after next. Can you make it at eight thirty? Play us a few more of your songs?”

  The week after next?

  Tom managed the funds, but sittin’ on our asses in LA, not earning, after we hauled those asses across the country, we probably don’t got enough bread to make it to the end of the week.

  “Send a scout to our gig,” Tom tells him.

  “What gig?” the guy asks.

  “I’ll call you,” Tom says.

  No contacts, nothin’, but a network that would make the World Wide Web look like a joke in the Midwest and East, Tom gets us a gig in a club on the Sunset Strip, playing a set at a slot deep in the night when everyone’s soused or so high, they think they can touch the moon.

  But he tells the label.

  The label sends a scout.

  I don’t know if it was his plan all along or if it was just a stroke of luck.

  They had us in a studio two days later.

  But we signed the afternoon before.

  You know, we were Preacher McCade and the Roadmasters by then, but it didn’t become Preach’s band until we were in that studio.

  He didn’t know dick about producing and engineering.

  But he learned.

  He played.

  He sang.

  And he sat at the board with Hans, the engineer, and Daniel, the producer the label gave us, and they turned out that album.

  He also made certain my ass was sitting right next to him.

  I didn’t know dick about any of that shit either.

  But I learned too.

  Tom found us a squat to crash in. But mostly, if we weren’t in the studio, we were going to shows.

 
Nothing like the LA music scene.

  Not even in New York.

  It was fucking phenomenal.

  And the women there.

  The drugs.

  Along with the music?

  Christ, you could have anything you wanted, anywhere you went, all under sunny skies and around seventy degrees.

  I sat in that booth with Preach and Dan and Hans because that was where Preacher wanted me.

  But I wanted to be out with Dave and Tim in LA.

  Because for the first time ever…

  I was in love.

  [Off tape]

  That album was dark.

  Like I said, caught between the light and the dark.

  [Laughs sharply]

  And yeah. That album was about Preach’s time in Louisiana to how he’d been led astray by Lyla and it was dark. Angry. Bookended by “Give Then Take” and “Night Lies.” Preach’s journey from being seriously fucked over by his parents to being fucked over by a sweet, quiet, seventeen-year-old girl who he spent one night with and didn’t touch except to hold who was more woman than the countless women he’d fucked.

  Yeah, it was dark.

  And Lyla didn’t miss it.

  [Shakes head]

  No, Lyla didn’t miss it.

  No one fuckin’ missed it.

  Now, I know you know this, but it’s important to say it.

  This was after Guns ’n Roses hit.

  But before anything big came out of the Seattle scene.

  Our sound wasn’t an LA sound.

  And it wasn’t Mellencamp.

  We’re from Indiana, and Louisiana, and there’s anger and anguish in this album, yeah?

  Before Nirvana.

  Pearl Jam. Soundgarden. Alice in Chains.

  This was the sweet spot of the death throes of the hair band.

  This was beyond “Welcome to the Jungle.” And it was nothing like “Sweet Child o’ Mine.”

  It wasn’t “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or “Alive” either.

  It stood alone.

  In that world, it was important to stand alone.

  You found that place, you had the talent to back it up, that place was your place.

  Forever.

  We found that place.

  Now, I don’t know how Tom maneuvered that gig so a scout could come out and see us in our element, even if we were new to that particular scene.