Fast Lane

by Ashley, Kristen

  “I was so s-stupid to think you…just, you know, would want me and that you c-cared.”

  I stopped straining, moving altogether, talking and crying when his big hands framed both sides of my head and he forced it to face him.

  “You know better than that, Lyla,” he bit out.

  I blinked tears out of my eyes.

  “I was giving you space,” he clipped.

  “I didn’t want space,” I shot back. “I told you to call me.”

  “You were seventeen years old.”

  “I know, that’s why you wouldn’t kiss me and…say, one of a myriad reasons why you wouldn’t call me.”

  “Goddamn it.” He looked over my head. “Shit is real and she’s sayin’ words like ‘myriad.’”

  “Preacher,” I snapped.

  He looked down at me.

  “I did not want to be that creep,” he stated.

  That made me mad.

  “You’re not a creep,” I retorted

  “Not a creep, cher, that creep. That creepy twenty-somethin’ guy who preys on a seventeen-year-old.”

  I blinked again for a different reason.

  “Oh,” I mumbled.

  “Yeah, oh,” he bit off. “And I did call.”

  Uh-oh.

  “You did?”

  “On your birthday. After your birthday. At least a dozen times between your birthday and when we got back to Indy. And I’ll just say, your gramps thinks I’m a twenty-somethin’ creep.”

  I rolled my eyes to look over my head.

  “Babe,” he growled.

  I looked back at him.

  “Okay, just to say, we didn’t have a lot of time together so I might have been remiss in sharing my grandfather is a tad overprotective.”

  He just growled with no words at that.

  “And you know, I might have been so excited I met you, I told everybody, and well…he wasn’t a big fan of his granddaughter meeting some guy in a band.”

  “You don’t say,” he drawled sarcastically.

  “I didn’t think he would withhold your messages,” I told him.

  And I didn’t.

  “Well, I’m seein’ we both now realize, he did,” Preacher pointed out.

  Yes, we now realized that.

  But I also realized I had the answer to why Gramps was always racing to be the first to the phone for that stretch of time around my eighteenth birthday.

  He lived with four women. He never raced to the phone.

  I did not share that dawning knowledge with Preacher.

  I just drew in breath and held it.

  I let it go to say, “I didn’t come up here because you’re famous, Preacher.”

  “I’m not famous, Lyla.”

  “I didn’t come up here because you’re semi-famous and about to be super, double, extra famous, Preacher.”

  He grinned at me.

  Damn.

  I looked away.

  “Baby,” he whispered, his hands still on me, but he didn’t force me to look at him again.

  “I heard the album,” I said to the coffee table.

  He rested his forehead against my temple.

  So sweet.

  Preacher.

  God.

  I remember that the most.

  So, so sweet.

  From the very first words he spoke to me.

  “This has been intense, but I’m glad.” I swallowed. “I’m glad we got things straight, but you can, you know, use Jesse’s bed and I’ll hang in the lobby until it’s time to—”

  “Be quiet, Lyla,” he whispered in my ear.

  I shut my eyes tight.

  “I’m gonna kiss you now, baby.”

  I shut my eyes tighter because I’d wanted that, dreamed of it, fantasized about it.

  For what felt like forever.

  But now…

  “I don’t want a mouth on mine that another woman has had tonight, Preacher.”

  “Fuck,” he breathed.

  I hadn’t seen him kiss one of them.

  Or other things.

  But he had.

  Damn.

  I opened my eyes and again saw coffee table.

  “You need to get off me so I can go to the lobby.”

  “I thought you blew me off.”

  I started pushing at his shoulders. “You need to get off now.”

  “You know things about me only Jesse knows.”

  I stopped pushing.

  “No one, but them…cher, no one on this fuckin’ earth but Jesse knows what you know about me.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I am not a guy to cross,” he told me.

  Well, I’d learned that.

  “I was pissed, and I was hurt, and when I’m those, I lash out to hurt back. I did that, Lyla. I hold my hand up. I did that tonight to hurt you because you gutted me, you didn’t mean to, but you did. And now it’s done. And I’ve got my girl, and she’s got her man, and you lost your mom and he’s got your sister. And that is my sole fuckin’ focus. Are you with me?”

  “Preacher—”

  He read my tone and his hands on my head gave a gentle squeeze.

  “Are you with me?”

  I shut my eyes tight again.

  Lyla:

  [Looks out the window]

  I was with him.

  I was always with Preacher.

  Always.

  [Off tape]

  It’s public record your father lost custody of your younger sister Julia and she was returned to your grandparents three months before she graduated from high school, which was one month until her eighteenth birthday, an event which would have allowed her to return home of her own accord.

  Yes.

  It’s known, in the beginning, you were almost rabidly opposed to doing anything that could be construed as taking advantage of Preacher McCade’s wealth.

  [Looks from window]

  This was my sister.

  You must be aware that there are a number of rumors about Tom Mancosa’s interactions with your father.

  Preacher was protective of me.

  And Tommy was protective of Preacher.

  You’ve never used a last name. You’ve always been known solely as Lyla.

  [Firmly]

  Yes, I have.

  Jesse:

  [Off tape]

  It’s general knowledge that Bobby Sheridan demanded the Roadmasters be dropped from the tour after the incident in the hotel restaurant that next morning in Chicago.

  [Laughs shortly]

  Yeah.

  [Shakes head]

  Yeah. And for once, that wasn’t him being an asshole. That was punk-ass shit we pulled.

  Lame, punk-ass shit.

  Josh’d had a busy night that night, including talking to that reporter and spewing the bullshit lies he spewed.

  But that’s no excuse.

  Tom was getting calls from the label, from Bobby’s manager, from the National Enquirer, [shakes head again] from everybody.

  And bad timing for Josh, Preacher was coming down for breakfast when Tom got in the elevator with him and Preacher’s already not happy with Josh.

  So, he got an earful.

  They show at the breakfast table, Josh is sittin’ there with me and Dave, and to this day, I wonder what screw he had loose that he did what he did and then showed at band breakfast like he hadn’t pulled that shit hours before.

  But whatever screw it was, it was fuckin’ loose.

  And when Preach and Tom got there, they were rarin’ to go.

  When he’s ready to roll, it’s impossible to hold Preacher back, and not because he was such a big guy.

  Only one who could do it was Tommy.

  Unless Tommy was good to let loose.

  And the shit that Josh said and what it might mean to the band?

  Tom was good to let loose.

  Josh had no hope.

  I was just glad Preach left Lyla up in the room.

  It’s rumored that Preache
r gave Hardy a broken nose and jaw. The label then paid for his medical care and for him to quietly go away.

  Listen, I don’t know anything about that.

  Really, [holds up both hands and shrugs] that was done on a level way above me.

  I know they were getting ready to drop “Night Lies” and the album was selling like crazy and Bobby was from the south and he hadn’t totally sold out dates in the Midwest and East and those dates were selling out because we were on the bill.

  So, they’d do anything to keep us out on the road, promoting that album and selling concert tickets without anything weighing it down.

  That’s all I know.

  Honest.

  I’ll tell you this, that was punk-ass shit we pulled, breaking up that restaurant with Preach and Tom delivering a beatdown on Josh.

  But be it there, or admittedly it woulda been better somewhere else…

  He deserved it.

  What he told that reporter ran.

  And it was lies.

  But once it’s out there, it doesn’t matter it’s lies. It doesn’t matter it’s retracted. It doesn’t matter there’s an apology.

  You never live that kind of shit down.

  You probably know dozens of urban legends that have no kernel of truth to them, but you know them, and you see a picture or a movie or a TV show or hear a song from who they were about and it gives you pause.

  Josh delivered a blow to the band and to Lyla that we’d never recover from, and we never did, case in point, Lyla talking to you about this shit, thirty years down the line.

  And me sitting right here, backing her up.

  And the dude had met her once.

  He never fuckin’ knew her.

  And since he was gone that morning, fired from the band, he never did get to know her.

  So, if he had a broken nose and jaw, he deserved it.

  And worse.

  And if it was Preach’s fist that made those breaks.

  Well then…

  Good.

  You know, what’s lost in this is that the guy had talent.

  I lost track of how many bands picked him up after we ousted him.

  And then they dropped him.

  I also know he tried to start his own band, but that disintegrated when all his bandmates took a hike.

  He’s doing session work now.

  And you know what?

  Anyone who gets him is getting one of the best.

  But he did what he did to us and Lyla.

  And now if he’s known at all, he’s known as the keyboardist who got chucked out of every band he joined and then he disappeared.

  That’s not karma.

  Josh, man, he earned that.

  Worked for it, straight up.

  The label did not pull us off the tour, as you know, and things got worse between Bobby, the Mustangs and us from there.

  And it isn’t just here, talking to you about this now, where I look back and know I was glad for it.

  In this life, you’re doin’ it right, you live, you learn.

  Bobby Sheridan was a lot like us. He worked hard, but he hit it young.

  When we were touring with him, we were in our early twenties, he was in his late twenties.

  This dude wasn’t Eric Clapton.

  He’d released three albums.

  In this business, you don’t let your guard down. You take every opportunity offered to you, even if it doesn’t seem like an opportunity.

  You make it one.

  In that mess, I learned some very important things that meant my career lasted longer than a couple of albums.

  From Josh, I learned no man is an island. Especially if that man’s in a band. And if you think about it, every man, and woman, is in a band. They just might not play instruments.

  And you don’t shit where you live.

  Last, and maybe most important, just don’t be a douche.

  From Bobby I learned never, not ever, to believe my own hype.

  Lyla:

  The breakfast.

  [Smiles, shakes head]

  That breakfast.

  I have to say, to this day, I still don’t know if I’m glad Preacher left me upstairs.

  Or if I wish I’d seen that.

  Years later, there’s talk of that.

  [Waves arm in front of her to indicate present]

  We’re still talking about it.

  There are a good many takes on that breakfast.

  People who think it’s cool because it’s so rock ’n’ roll.

  People who think Preacher was a tyrant in that band and him, and Tommy, going after Josh proved it.

  Though, the only reason anyone thinks Preacher was a tyrant is because of some of the stuff Josh said.

  It is absolutely true, Preacher was much bigger than Josh, physically.

  It is also absolutely true that someone needed to teach Josh how to keep his mouth shut.

  How that lesson should come about…

  [Shrugs]

  But from what I know of him, Josh didn’t learn it.

  The thing is, people forget, with the careers they had and how long they lasted, that back then, they were very young.

  If memory serves, Preacher was twenty-five. Jess and Tim, just twenty-one. Tom would turn thirty a few months after that event.

  They were really still just boys.

  Okay, [small smile] maybe not Tom.

  But the guys.

  They were.

  And Preacher’s parents were a disaster. Tim’s were not much better. Jesse had lost his dad and his mom had her hands full. Dave’s parents were hippies unaware that the free love era was dead. I never was around them when they weren’t baked.

  Tom was their only moral compass and Tom was a former marine.

  [Laughs softly, shaking head]

  But Preacher, he had uncanny abilities.

  He was into minutia. He could keep track of so many little things, it boggled my mind.

  But he could also see the big picture.

  He had a gift with that too.

  We had just been reunited and Jesse’s girl was there with Jess.

  What Josh told that reporter about Preacher, Jesse and me could have put a number of things that were very important to Preacher in jeopardy.

  My being with him.

  Jesse’s happiness.

  Not to mention Preacher’s.

  Jesse and Preacher’s friendship.

  Was it right for Preacher to teach that as a physical lesson?

  I know my answer.

  He was twenty-five and he didn’t know any better.

  If I had talked about it then, that would have been my answer.

  And it still is.

  [Off tape]

  Do you feel you became the moral compass for the band?

  Oh yes.

  Was that a burden?

  Not once.

  I woke up in bed alone and a little confused where I was.

  I turned my head and saw a tube of toothpaste and a new toothbrush in its wrapper resting in the indent of the pillow where Preacher had slept.

  Next to it was a piece of paper.

  I rolled to my side, got up on an elbow and reached out to nab the paper.

  Down at breakfast with the guys. Don’t come down. I’ll have coffee with them and we’ll get room service when I come back up.

  I don’t want to share you this morning.

  - Preach

  I smiled, thinking I didn’t want to be shared, then I realized I didn’t know how long he’d been gone, which meant he could be back at any second, so I caught up the toothpaste and brush and rolled out of bed.

  When I was done in the bathroom, I did not go to the window to check the view in the daytime.

  I fell back into bed.

  Mostly because it smelled of Preacher.

  To take this in as much as possible, I grabbed his pillow and hugged it to me, burying my face in it.

  We had again slept on top of the covers fully
clothed except we’d taken off our shoes.

  I liked it that we did the same thing this time as the last.

  And it gave me shivers, thinking about what might go on from there.

  I had talked to him about Mom.

  I had talked to him about Dad.

  I had talked to him about Gram, Gramps, Sonia, Julia.

  We’d moved from couch to bed to get more comfortable.

  But, like that first night, that magical night, that night I was enormously glad I was not wrong about, when I gave him my bad stuff and he’d gifted me with trusting me with his own (much, much worse) stuff, we’d tangled up together and took no more room than when we were on the couch.

  And holding his pillow to me, his scent, our second night together behind us, a night which started out rockier than the first, but ended up just as beautiful, I didn’t know.

  I really didn’t.

  I didn’t know what this was.

  I was a pop music girl.

  Yes, I believed the children were our future and the only nasty thing I liked was a nasty groove.

  Janet Jackson. Cyndi Lauper. Madonna. Whitney Houston.

  Okay, so I nearly wore out my Purple Rain album, and there were some major guitar riffs on that.

  And when I went to college, my musical repertoire expanded to include The Cure. The Smiths. Depeche Mode. Kate Bush. Peter Gabriel. U2.

  I’d graduated from Wham!

  I was hip.

  But Preacher’s music?

  I scrunched my nose against the pillow.

  One could say, now that a new day had dawned and things were much different than the day before, I could look back to watching him onstage, singing a number of songs that I knew were about me that weren’t real nice (except “The Back of You,” that one was incredibly sweet, and I knew then, it was a major reason why I was right then lying in that bed in Chicago) that there was definitely something hot about that.

  But mostly it was hot because Preacher was hot.

  I was not a rock girl.

  I’d seen precisely two concerts in my life, outside the one I saw last night.

  Patti Labelle and Sha Na Na.

  So, what was I doing?

  The outer door opened, and I pushed up, keeping hold of the pillow, and looked to the opened double doors to the living room area of the suite only to hear Jesse talking.