Now he was stuck halfway up and not game to turn around, with his employers waiting, probably watching, not that he was prepared to lift his head to check. This really was something he needed to fix. There must be a trick to it: behavioural therapy, shock treatment, a well aimed kick to the head.
Meanwhile he was shaking from a flood of adrenaline and half mad from the insistent voice in his brain urging him to get out of there or die, die, die.
Rielle eyed Jake’s glacially slow progress up the stairs towards them. “Are we going to bother waiting for him? What is he doing?”
She and Rand watched as Jake mopped his brow.
“He didn’t look unfit. Maybe he’s an asthmatic?” said Rand.
“He’s not unfit.”
“He looks like he might expire any second.” Rand leaned forward as though his body posture might support Jake somehow.
“He’s fit as! He was in the gym. I saw him bench press a small elephant.”
“You met him in the gym already?” queried Rand. “Shit, does he know?”
“No, it’s fine. He doesn’t have a clue.”
“He doesn’t have a breath left in his body either. Must be asthma, poor guy.” Rand turned to eyeball her. “Be nice.”
She grinned. “Raised by wolves, remember.”
Rand groaned but not quite as audibly as Jake did when he stepped up beside them and slumped into a seat next to Rielle.
“Are you a smoker, Jake?” she said. “They’ll kill you, you know.”
Jake gave a feeble smile and shook his head. He had his eyes down on his feet, as though looking up was a death defying act. He was finding it hard to draw breath.
He coughed a couple of times and Rielle laughed. “Is that a piece of lung there, Jake?”
He mumbled, “Sorry, I’m scared of heights. I know it’s ridiculous. I know I’m ridiculous. I can’t stop it.”
“Shit man, why did you come up here?” Rand reached across Rielle and clapped Jake on the shoulder.
“‘Cause I’m incredibly stupid,” Jake said in a strangled voice, and then he started to laugh. He was a sweating, shaking mess, but he was laughing. When Rand chuckled too, Jake gave a weak grin.
Rielle looked out at the stage below and folded her arms. “Yeah, goddamn Godzilla.” They had a tour manager who couldn’t walk up a flight of stairs without cracking up. They were fucked.
Jake laughed harder. “I thought coming up here was a good idea. I forgot how bad it can be.”
“I thought you were going to cark it on us,” said Rand.
“Cark it!” Jake made a snorting sound, half gasp for breath, half laugh. Rielle was glad they were so amused. Not.
“Yeah, cark it,” repeated Rand, laughing too. “I thought you might keel over and die. I was getting ready to do mouth to mouth on you.”
That made Jake look up briefly. “I’m really sorry,” he spluttered. “I might have to stay up here now.” He wiped water from his eyes. “Maybe have bedding sent up. I’d be able to see everything from here if I wasn’t too scared to look up or out, anywhere but at my feet.” He groaned, hands on his stomach. “My mum would visit.”
Rand reached around and put a hand on Jake’s back. “We could have catering set up a food station here. Some of the crew could do with the extra exercise.”
Now Rielle saw the humour. “That might give Bodge a heart attack.”
“Bodge is a good man,” Jake choked out between breaths, making her smile, but this time with wonder at the depth of Jake’s vulnerability and his weird ability to laugh in its face.
“Does the crew know about this?” asked Rand.
“Oh, they know.” Jake grimaced. “I worked with Bodge and Glen when I was starting out. I was a sparky, but I used to melt down when I had to climb a scaffold, so yeah, they know. They don’t let me forget it either. We stay up here any longer they might call an ambulance.” His comment triggered a new wave of choking laughter—this time, in all three of them.
Amidst the laughter, Rielle’s curiosity got the better of her. Whatever Jake felt, it was real to him. You only had to see his shaking hands, how his shirt stuck to his skin, to know he was genuinely frightened of a back row, orange coloured plastic stadium seat. “What does it feel like?”
His eyes flickered her way. “Like I’m going to fall and die, but worse—like anyone with me is going to die too. It’s stupid I know, but right now I’m worried all of us are going to fall and die.”
She leaned forward to look at his face. “But you’re laughing?”
“Well, it is pretty funny.” His eyes shifted towards her again, and he was gripping the edge of the seat, the muscles in his arms rigid. “If I’m coping okay I have both feelings together. I feel like I’m going to die, but I also know how rock dumb that is. Unfortunately knowing it’s dumb doesn’t stop me feeling like I’m knocking on hell’s door.”
If this hot, wet mess was Jake coping, what was he like when he was truly freaked out?
He was a frigging idiot for coming up here, for showing such weakness. Even though there was something oddly poetic, even heroic about it. He was facing up to his greatest fear and losing. Big time. Once Rielle would’ve seen it as admirable, finding inspiration in it for lyrics, maybe a new song, but not now. Now all it made her feel was tired.
Jake was desperately trying to compose himself. He was all right. He wasn’t going to die. He was speaking in full sentences and even if his laughter was verging on hysteria, at least it was laughter. He might’ve been catatonic. It’d happened before. There was worse than this, way worse; it wasn’t a plane or a twenty foot ladder where he was more exposed. Still, he was trying to envisage himself being able to let go of the bottom of the seat and walk back down the stairs when his phone rang.
He glanced at the screen. Glen. “Yeah.”
“Mate, you need a respirator up there?”
“Fuck off.”
Glen laughed. If Jake had been able to look out, he figured he’d see Glen, a miniature action figurine on the stage, shielding his eyes against the January sun.
“You coming down any time soon?”
“No, I thought I might set up shop here for a while, you know, take in the view.”
“Reedy, mate, seriously are you all right?” Glen said, a flicker of real concern in his voice, but then he continued, “The crew want to know who gets your bike if you don’t make it back.”
Jake laughed. “Fuck off the lot of you.” He hung up on a snickering Glen and tilted his chin towards Rand. “I think we’ve established the view from the cheap seats is pretty piss poor.” He was oddly proud he had a cohesive thought about the show in his head.
“Yep,” said Rand. “We have to do something about that. Give the people up here something special.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Jake saw Rielle nodding, but he had the impression from her folded arms she was less than happy with him. Not good.
“How do we get you down?” asked Rand.
He took a big breath and held it in. “One step at a time. I’ll be all right; you go ahead. I’ll see you down there. Hopefully in time for the first gig.”
Rielle leapfrogged over the back of the seat in front of her and called, “Good luck Jake,” as she started out down the stadium staircase at a trot.
Rand shifted closer. “I thought I could do a solo from up here, maybe opening the second half.”
“That would work,” he said. And when Rand stood, Jake stood with him, keeping his eyes on the ground, and pressing down on the fear in the back of his throat.
They made a slow progression down the stairs side by side, Rand talking about the show and peppering him with a series of technical questions. He knew the guy was doing it to distract him and was grateful. By the time they got to the last set of stairs, his breath had settled and he was feeling almost normal again except for being wet through and having a thumping headache.
When he looked out, he saw the crew clustered around the stage edge. As he too
k his last step onto the stadium floor, Glen said into a mic, “One small step for man, one giant leap for Reedy,” and there was hearty applause, accompanied by crew members banging on scaffolding or stamping on staging.
Jake took a bow, gave a triumphant wave and then flipped the bird, making the crew laugh. He was still smiling when he noticed Rielle standing in front of them, legs apart, arms folded over her chest, a frown under her red fringe. She was practically vibrating with impatience.
“Rand,” she snapped, “talk.”
Rand gave Jake a pat on the shoulder and left with his sister. Jake watched them go, knowing he’d screwed up. He’d shown himself to be out of control and incompetent. While the crew were happy to have one over him, and give him curry for it, they knew his other strengths. Rielle and Rand had known him for a few hours, and had absolutely no loyalty to him. They could have him replaced in the strum of a single chord.
“What was that?” said Rielle, when she and Rand were out of Jake’s earshot. Whatever it was, it dressed like weakness and danced like trouble, it was risk and they couldn’t have it on tour.
“Ah Rie, leave him alone. It doesn’t make any difference. It’s not like Jake needs to be up in the Hand or on the trapeze; it’s nothing. It had to be mortifying for him and he took it all with good humour. Don’t look at me like that. What do you want me to do?”
“Get me the names of alternative tour managers,” she said, before stalking back towards the stage, leaving Rand standing flat footed.
6. Hand of God
“Please tell me the audience member is a plant? Someone we pre-select?” Jake said, squinting at Jonas in the sun. There was only one good answer to that question and he’d give up Mum’s home-cooked meals to get it.
He stood with Jonas and Bodge in front of the telescopic tower equipment, nicknamed the Hand of God. It would hoist Rielle over the heads of the punters in the mosh-pit and the floor area of the stadium.
Jonas had explained that for one song, Rielle would ride in the cage with a member of the audience. So maybe he needed to forgo Mum’s laundry service as well free feeds to get what he needed—anything but random selection.
“We’ve tried picking at random, and we’ve tried pre-selecting in the past. Random is a bad scene,” said Jonas.
Ah good, at least there were clean socks in his future.
“Pre-selection is okay, takes some work to find the right person, but there’s still a risk the person we pick does something unexpected. This time, I’d like to keep it in-house. I think we use one of the road crew.”
Not just clean socks. But gravy and baked potatoes too.
“We can do that. Saves the vetting process, and because we can rehearse them, there’s no risk of a slip up.”
“My thoughts precisely,” said Jonas. “We need two guys and we rotate them each night in each city. As far as the audience is concerned, it’s some lucky guy we pull randomly from the crowd who gets his thrills riding in the Hand of God with a rock goddess.”
Jake nodded. This was washable, digestible and a whole lot of fun. The telescopic tower which could move up and down and travel sideways was an amazing addition to the staging, but the idea of some loose cannon punter up there had worried him. Now that he knew he could control the outcome he was happy with it.
“I need two guys who look the part, plus an understudy,” said Jonas.
Jake laughed. That’s where the idea got wobbly. “Exactly what part do you want them to look? I can offer you desperado, bogan and dropkick, but I’m assuming you’re going after something more in keeping with the fan base?”
Jonas laughed too, and looked over his sunglasses. “What about you Jake? You’d be perfect! We want to give the fan girls something to look at too.”
“Not on your life!” Jake spluttered, his knee caps tightening at the mention of it. But Jonas was serious. Apparently he was the only one who hadn’t witnessed his cheap seats meltdown yesterday. Recovering he said, “I’ve got enough to do on the ground.”
Eventually they chose Teflon, and one of the staging roadies, Bunk, with Lizard conscripted as understudy.
“You want us to do what?” said Teflon, scratching his head, when Jake explained it to the three of them. They were standing in the wings with the telescopic tower waiting for Jonas and Rielle.
“Shit yeah,” said Bunk, “but why can’t I do it every night?”
“Because we want it to seem real for the paying punters. If someone sees more than one show, and we know punters will do that, we can’t have the same bloke chosen randomly.”
“Oh,” said Bunk, curling his lip with annoyance.
But Teflon had a big cartoon character grin on his face. He turned to Lizard and said, “Understudy my jocks, Liz,” which Jake took to mean that as far as Teflon was concerned, the closest Lizard would get to the Hand of God was Teflon’s laundry bag.
When Rielle joined them, she had a big juicy smile for the boys, but stared through Jake’s welcome nod. Always good when your employer cuts you dead. Teflon could scarcely contain his excitement. He’d ditched his bandana, combed his tangled blond hair and tucked in his t-shirt in preparation for his role as the lucky randomly-picked audience member. Jake struggled to keep a straight face; he’d never seen Tef take anything so seriously.
When Tef went up the short ladder into the cage, he held out his hand to help Rielle up. She ignored him, leaving him with an outstretched hand and a self-conscious expression, and completed the climb herself. Jake watched with Jonas, Bunk, Lizard and Bodge from the stage floor, where the sight line didn’t trigger his vertigo more than a touch. He’d bet his lunch on the fact this was going to be awkward if not excruciatingly embarrassing for Tef.
Jonas fiddled with his sunglasses, eyeing the cage. “The audience doesn’t see this part where they climb in, it’s in the wings. They become aware of the cage as it extends from the stage. Rielle, it’s all yours,” he called, and then he lay down on the stage floor with his hands behind his head, looking like he was going to have a snooze.
Rielle stood in the cage with Teflon. It had a fixed, narrow bench seat running through the middle of the space and waist-high tempered glass sides. She wore tiny shorts, a singlet with rips and pins in it, and high heeled boots. Today she had green stripes in her hair. Punk by design and punk by nature, and from the way she’d brushed him, not happy to see him still on deck after the incident in the cheap seats. He shook it off. If the Mainlines wanted him off the show, they only had to ask. Until they did, he had a job to do.
“Sit up behind me and put your legs on the outside of mine,” she instructed Teflon.
He sat, his long legs either side of Rielle’s. “Sit close,” she said, and Teflon scooted closer, but not close enough. She frowned. “Like crowd me, dude.” Teflon cocked his head, and jammed his body up against Rielle’s back. He had a goofy expression on his face that made Jake clamp down on his back teeth not to laugh. Lizard and Bunk didn’t feel the same compulsion, both of them yucking it up. He silenced them with a noisy throat clear.
“I want your arms around me and your hands on my knees. That’s while the extension is happening and the cage is moving. When we get to the top, we stand. Then I want your hands all over me,” said Rielle.
Teflon’s eyes popped—his grin was rubber lipped. He shot a triumphant look at Bunk and Liz and chanted, “Yes, Miss, right away, Miss.”
“Show me how it’s done, you wanker,” called Bunk, slapping down a challenge.
A throat clear wasn’t going to do it. “Stow it, Bunk.”
Rielle stood, and a heartbeat behind her Teflon stood as well. He towered over her, his arms suddenly looking octopus tentacle long. He wrapped Rielle in an awkward bear hug and she slapped his hands away.
“I’m singing, you loser. If you do that you’ll cut my air off.”
Jake winced. Bodge beside him did too. The two other jokers were dead of night quiet.
“Sorry.” Tef dropped his arms as though Rielle ha
d scalded him.
“Try again,” she said.
He reached around Rielle and grabbed her hips, yanking her back against him.
“No!”
“This is why we don’t want a real audience member, they tend to go a little mad,” said Jonas, clearly not snoozing.
Lizard had a coughing fit that might’ve started out as laughter, but got choked off when Jake glared at him.
“Turn around,” Rielle barked. When Teflon looked at her and didn’t move she pushed him so that he was facing the other way. She stood up close behind him, and pressed her face into his back. She brought her hands around his waist, and then wandered them across, and over his chest, and then down his legs. She skirted across his hips and ever so close to his groin, and he flinched in surprise.
“Christ, it’s Christmas, Tef,” called Bodge, finally losing his cool. He shot Jake a contrite look, but his body was shaking with silent mirth. Any minute now, Jake was going to lose it too. Bunk had his mouth open; Lizard was flushed an odd shade of pink.
Rielle released Teflon so quickly he lost his balance and had to grab the railing, which made Lizard call, “Man overboard!”
“Now you,” said Rielle, turning her back to Teflon.
“God help us,” said Jake, as Tef glued himself to Rielle’s back and groped her breasts. His urge to look away was strong, but not as strong as the one to keep gawking.
“Argh!” she yelled, and grabbing Tef’s hands, showed him precisely how she wanted him to touch her.
Teflon wore an expression of baffled wonder, and when Rielle brought his hands back to her breasts and held them there, he was red faced, all his earlier bravado concertinaed into rock solid embarrassment.
Beside him, Bodge sighed. “Why am I so fucking old and fat.”
“Never mind, Bodge.” Bunk patted Bodge on the back. “I’ll think of you when it’s my turn to do her.”
“Hey,” Jake snapped. “A bit of respect.”
“You do it now,” Rielle said to Teflon. She made him do the whole hands everywhere routine four times before she was satisfied he had it down. “Now we kiss.” Teflon whooped loudly enough for two of the catering staff to pop their heads out of the backstage area for a gander.
Getting Real Page 4