Might As Well

by Dean Budnick

  (By him you mean your boss.)

  “Eddie, that’s very reductive of you. Is Bernie Lomax just a boss?”

  (Lomax? Nice pull on the last name.)

  “Weekend at Bernie’s is on The Movie Channel this month. Did I mention that we have free stolen cable in our apartment? But seriously, what part of ‘I’m fired’ do you not understand. Calling out that bush league ref was the highlight of a piss poor day. That and the falafels. So do you know where I can find a pay phone?”

  “What about our other thing?”

  (How about I go make the call, you round up the guys and we’ll do it.)

  (Hey yellow jackets! Yellow jackets, come over here!)

  “Why is everyone so obsessed with the color of our windbreakers?”

  (There’s someone over here who needs your help!)

  (Over here!)

  (Hey Rand, look at that guy. We gotta do something. He’s bleeding all over the fucking place.)

  “Hey, come over here.”

  (Come over here, we want to talk to you.)

  (Fuck off, the two of you!)

  “Shit, that fucking loon’s running away. We gotta go after him.”

  (Hey! Come back! We just want to get you help!)

  (You can do it!)

  (Run, Joe, run!)

  “We’re trying to get him help!”

  (After you did that to him!)

  “No, we didn’t!”

  (No, we didn’t! Come on, man, slow down!)

  (Naarrrghhhh!)

  “We just want to get you to a doctor, you’re bleeding”

  (Naaargghhhhh!)

  “Come on…”

  (Grab him!)

  (Heyyyyy! Aruughhhhhh!)

  “This guy’s a fighter.”

  (Don’t throw him back. He’s a keeper.)

  “He’s slippery though. All that blood and sweat.”

  (Hey, yellow jackets, I saw what happened to that dude.)

  “Yeah?”

  (He was trying to scale that fence to get into the area over there with the tour buses and just when he got to the top, somebody on the other side, some yellow ja-some security guy started shaking it and he fell down, scraped the side of his face alongside the fence and then hit his head. I think he was messed up to begin with.)

  “You don’t say.”

  (Randy, hold him there and I’ll go get a Dead Med.)

  STEVEN

  I think I just had my moment.

  My GRATEFUL DEAD MOMENT.

  It was like some sort of Zen experience or something.

  I wasn’t even thinking or anything, I was just shaking my bones alongside Happiness, sort of feeding off her groove and I looked across the arena and there was this girl, she was maybe a couple of years older than me, dancing in the lower section closer to the stage. I looked over there and this girl was just twirling and dipping her head backwards and I’m sort of dipping my head backwards too. And then I realize, I’m dancing with her. I’m dancing with this girl all the way across the arena. And I can’t really see her face but I know that she’s grooving back. The two of us are dancing with each other from hundreds of feet away.

  That blows me away but I don’t have time to think about it because I’m too busy grooving. But then as I dip my head a bit I can see that Shannon is doing it too. She’s responding to me and the girl across the arena. The three of us are dancing together. That’s way cool. I was part of something way bigger than me. It was totally better than when I was just singing with everyone. The three of us were in our own little Deadhead world dancing together during the “Bertha.”

  And now that the song’s over I can’t even really see that girl anymore. But I’m standing here while the Dead tune their instruments, and I’m raring and ready to start something like that again with some other people.

  “Shannon?”

  I guess I should tap her.

  “Shannon?”

  (Huh? What?)

  “Wasn’t that cool? The three of us were dancing together.”

  (Who?)

  “You know, you, me and that girl over there.”

  (Wait, wait stop, you’re confusing me. I can’t understand you. Everything sounds weird. I can’t even hear the Dead right. Everything was okay at first during ‘Hell In a Bucket’ but towards the end it just sounded like they weren’t playing music at all. They were just making these loud, evil noises. And then during “Bertha,” I mean that was “Bertha,” right?)

  “Yeah.”

  (And it—wait what’s that? Are they playing a song?)

  “Umm…yeah.”

  Although I don’t know what it is. I-oh yeah wait I know this one, I know it, it’s on that live album, what’s that one called? Umm…Dead Set that’s it and the first couple of words are the title…

  “Yeah, yeah, it’s ‘Little Red Rooster.’”

  (The music doesn’t sound right.)

  “Well I think they use a special guitar for this one.”

  (No, no you don’t understand me.)

  “Wait, Shannon, wait. No, I can understand you. Just give me a chance. Everything’s fine. You were having a good time during ‘Bertha,’ right?”

  (No, that’s what I mean. You don’t understand. I was in agony. I couldn’t hear the music, I was writhing in pain.)

  “No you weren’t, I watched you smile. You were Happiness.”

  (No I wasn’t. Just don’t talk about it. Please, let me get my head together.)

  “Yeah but—”

  (No, please just don’t, don’t do anything. I was in this bad place and for a second you brought me out but now you’re sending me back and I don’t want to go back, so I can’t talk. Please don’t talk to me, please do not talk.)

  She must be having a bad mushroom trip. I can’t believe it, a bad mushroom trip. I’ve never heard of anyone having a bad mushroom trip before.

  Okay, Steve-o, you’ve got to do something, you’ve got to help her through this. She can’t communicate with anyone else, so you have to do it. You have to bring her through. And the Dead can help. Just you and the Dead, you and the Dead. Wait, huh, oh, she’s tapping me.

  “What do you want? I’ll do anything.”

  (Could you move over a seat and then ask Emily to sit over here next to me?)

  ZEB

  Man, I can’t breathe in here.

  (Mooooooo!)

  This is highly unkind. They must have started by now. Fourth time this tour that I’ve missed the opener.

  Come on, come on.

  The Boys are out there, Phil is rumbling and someone is sticking a lighter up my ass.

  “Hey, watch it.”

  (Sorry, man, somebody pushed me.)

  “Alright, brother, it’s alright. But man are we ever gonna get in? This is the schwagiest schwag of all.”

  (Dig on that.)

  “It’s crazy. I was in line before the show started and I’d like to think I can make it in before the show ends.”

  (Dig on that.)

  “Hey, are you feeling okay? You’re not looking so right on, brother.”

  (Man, I can’t take this. I’m claustrophobic or something.)

  (It could be the tour crud. That shit’s going around.)

  (Yeah, I almost had to sit out the show last night. My fever was spiking.)

  (Almost.)

  (Then I full on raged it away. Fire on the mountain!)

  (We can turn earth into heaven if we get high enough!)

  (Wait, do you starve a cold and feed a fever or is it the other way?)

  Help me.

  (I’ve seen Bob Weir feed ‘The Fever.’ It made me uncomfortable.)

  (Landover ’87. I was there.)

  (Doesn’t cure the Tour Ick though.)

  (It left
me feeling kind of icky, though. It felt intrusive.)

  (That’s your problem, not our boy Bobby’s.)

  “Right on!”

  (I’m still feeling dizzy.)

  (Lucky you.)

  “Don’t sweat it, bro. Take it easy, think some kind thoughts. Pretty soon you’ll be in there with Phil and Bobby and Jerry…”

  If the first set isn’t over by then.

  Meanwhile Jerry is probably ripping into another killer “Shakedown” or a kind “Bertha.”

  (GIMME BACK MY TICKET! SOMEONE GRABBED MY TICKET! HEY! HEY! SOMEONE JUST TOOK MY TICKET! THAT WAS MINE! HEY GIVE THAT BACK! WHO TOOK MY TICKET? GIVE IT BACK! SOMEONE FIND THAT PERSON AND STOP THEM!)

  (Calm down man, calm down. What is it?)

  (SOMEONE JUST GRABBED MY TICKET OUT OF MY HAND! I WAS STANDING HERE HOLDING OUT MY TICKET BECAUSE THEY TOLD US TO HAVE OUR TICKETS OUT AND SOMEONE JUST GRABBED IT!)

  (Hey! Who took this guy’s ticket?)

  (WHO TOOK MY TICKET?)

  That’s nuts. It’s like North Carolina last spring. This dude next to me took out his ticket just to look at it and then this other guy comes flying in, grabs it and runs into the crowd. We chased the guy but there was no way, he was gone. Bad craziness. Some guy couldn’t find a miracle ticket so he made his own. A total breach of Deadiquette. And there was nothing to do. We couldn’t catch him, there was no way he was he going to sit in the poor dude’s seat. He just got into the show and the other dude didn’t.

  Shit like that happens on tour. Could even be the same guy here, hiding in the crowd and then reaching out to grab someone’s ticket. It’s too packed in here for anyone to tell what’s going on.

  Bad, bad craziness. Like gate crashing or leaping onto the field when you have a seat at a stadium show.

  Okay, when I first started going to shows I thought that was right on. I jumped down at Foxboro and Giants Stadium. I figured I wasn’t hurting anyone. Then I saw a bunch of Heads try to tear the doors off that arena in Pittsburgh. They showed it on the news and the mayor said we couldn’t come back. It made me realize I don’t need to do crap like that. That sort of stuff hurts the scene. And things are tough as it is.

  But stealing someone’s ticket that’s-

  KIND! I’M THERE!

  No shit. I was spacing it, and now I’m there. Front of the pack, about to enter the show. I was drifting and now—

  (Raise your arms please.)

  Yellow jacket time.

  “I will comply but I hope the smell doesn’t offend.”

  I never tire of that.

  Of course, I get that extra special loving treatment.

  (Move along…)

  Kind!

  (Ticket please?)

  “Here you go.”

  Kind!

  I am IN!

  KINDNESS!

  The Rooster!

  Bobby’s sliding into the Rooster!

  TAPER TED

  (Psst, Bobby Weir is no Ry Cooder.)

  “Shhhh…whisper. Here let’s move to the end of the row…Your point?”

  (He’s no Duane Allman either. )

  “Okay, we’ve established that he is a different human being altogether than the two other human beings you just named. One of whom is no longer with us. I take it your point relates to his slide guitar work on ‘Little Red Rooster’?”

  (He’s no Elmore James.)

  “Really? Come on now, Tommy. Let me just say there are plenty of people who say he’s the man, the real animating force behind the band. Aside from his really creative rhythm guitar work, on any given night he’s the one who can pull them out of a ditch—”

  (Now there’s a metaphor.)

  “You should talk to Rez.”

  (That’s a schoolgirl crush.)

  “If it were a ‘Schoolgirl’ crush, she’d be fixated on Pigpen. Alas, he’s not with us either. Although come to think of it, Bobby did bust that one out a few years back, when Carlos Santana sat in with them. Angel’s Camp. August twenty-second, nineteen eighty-seven.”

  (We’ve nearly reached the crossroads of I don’t know and I don’t care but let’s review: Bob Weir is no Muddy Waters.)

  “At least you’re comparing him unfavorably to the all-time greats.

  (Come one, he’s just sort of preening up there, pretending to be a rock and roll star.)

  “Well he kind of is one.”

  (Which reminds me. Kind. I’ve been meaning to ask you this for a while now. Some of these people use kind as an adjective when they overpraise what the band is doing, while other folks describe the same pablum as killer. Now both of these terms are favorable responses, right?)

  “Yes…”

  (Well how can that be? If something that’s commendable is kind then how can it also be killer? Aren’t those words contradictory?)

  “I do not have time to think about that.”

  (Of course you do. What are you doing? You’re sitting back in Tape Town watching some spools tum. And I hate to do this but I’ll let you in on a secret, they don’t need your help. In fact, if you really want my opinion, I think you make them nervous. So what else can we talk about?)

  “We could just sit back and listen to the music play.”

  (Lyric reference?)

  “‘Franklin’s Tower.’ Which reminds me of this Red Rocks show back in ’78. The second set ended with ‘Franklin’s Tower’ > ‘Sugar Magnolia.’ Then they came back for a triple encore: ‘Terrapin Station,’ ‘One More Saturday Night’ and then ‘Werewolves of London’ with Bobby on slide…”

  That one’s in the first batch of Bettys. July 8, 1978. Damnit, I’m going to have to make a decision about that tree, what to do about Norfolk Chuck’s threat. It’s all just so bizarre.

  (Ted? Ted? Is everything okay? As your doctor I hope you won’t mind if I point out that you look particularly detached and somewhat piqued. This is supposed to be recreation, vacation…I’m serious, is everything okay? I can put my naysayer shtick aside for a little while.)

  “No, don’t worry, you’ve got to be you. As for me, I have a lot on my mind tonight. More than I had planned on for the evening. Let’s just say it’s gonna be a long, long, crazy, crazy night.”

  (More Dead lyrics? You said I gotta be me so even you have to admit those lines are a bit redundant.)

  “As I’ve heard you mutter on more than one occasion, they can’t all be gems.”

  BAGEL BOB

  (Who was that kid speaking with you?)

  “Kevin.”

  (Who’s Kevin?)

  “An admirer of Bob.”

  (An admirer of Bob?)

  “Apparently Bob is something of a cult classic. Who knew?”

  (Well said. And speaking of cult classics, what do you think of the moon dance?)

  “Bob has seen it before.”

  (I know you have. With me. Summer of ’88 at Alpine. That was the last time we caught it on tour. But I’ve never seen it like this. The last time we saw it they did it in some field up the road from the show. I’ve never seen them do it in a parking lot. I think they’re in full-on recruiting mode.)

  “Bob would advise an alternate method to secure novitiates. He does not believe that this new course of action is advisable. It will only antagonize the security forces.”

  (Well I was talking to Yoshni, one of Jevushuans. He promised it would be brief.)

  “Bob hopes this is true. And Bob wonders as Kevin wonders, why is it that the Jevushuans accompany the Dead to their concert engagements?”

  (Why are they here?)

  “Yes.”

  (Why are you here?)

  “It is an ill omen to invoke questions of ontology in a New Jersey parking lot.”

  (But, that can’t—ahhh, you’re jesting right? You almost had me there.)

>   “Bob almost had himself. But what Bob wishes to know is, do the Jevushuans incorporate the Grateful Dead into their religious tenets? And if so, then why do they not attend any of the band’s performances?”

  (Yoshni! Hey Yoshni! Can you come over here for a minute? We have a question for you. Yoshni, this is Bagel Bob. Bagel Bob meet Yoshni.)

  (Greetings, Bagel Bob.)

  “Salutations, Yoshni.”

  (How can I assist you?)

  “Bob wishes to know, why is it that the Jevushuans accompany the Grateful Dead to their performance venues if they do not attend any of their performances? Is this an element of your religious dogma?”

  (That is a provocative question, Bob, and one which I will answer. However, first I must tell you, we Jevushuans do not consider ourselves a religious group. To become a Jevushuan is to join a tribe and not a sect. We commune together in fellowship and family but we have no synagogues, no temples, no arks. To a Jevushuan the entire world is a place where we can offer our ritual thanks to the creator.)

  “So you sermonize of God.”

  (Only to you. Jevushuans do not believe in a God per se, more of a spirit. It is something that Jevushuans come to understand through fasting, meditation and intellectual exchange. I say God because that conjures an image in your mind. What we believe in is inexpressible. It transcends words. Each Jevushuan has his or her own word for this entity, a privatized conception of this spirit.)

  (I call mine Billy.)

  (But to you who are not a Jevushuan I—Sorry, I must return to my people. Momentarily I will play a role in the ritual. Blessings to you both, Bagel Bob and Michael.)

  “But wait, Yoshni Jevushuan, given all that just espoused, then you why are you here?”

  (What?)

  “Second base. Why are you here?”

  (Why are you here?)

  “Bob is now willing to modify his earlier assertion and definitively stipulate that it is a breach of decorum to answer a question with a question.”

  (He’s gone, Bob, he can’t hear you. But I’ll answer. Why do they follow the Dead? You know the answer. In a word, recruitment. These guys are the bottom feeders of the tour. No, that’s not true, the hardcore narcotics distributors are the bottom feeders but these guys get the residue, the mildew. When people are toured-out, dosed-out or just plain wacked-out they find the Jevushuans. Or the Jevushuans find them. And they do some good stuff. They feed people, give them shelter. Most folks just hang out for a few days, get some free food and then jump back onto tour full force. But there’s certainly some weirdness and it’s not always the good kind of weirdness. I’ve heard—Oh shit, don’t tum around. Okay turn around but brace yourself, brace yourself.)