*
At a festival in Britain, about a year before I split the band, I slept late and didn’t hear the phone and the tour manager thought I was dead. But I wasn’t, and I was sped to the show, the rest of the band scattered—on their way or already backstage. I could give a shit about seeing any of them until the moment we were ready to run onstage.
Weaving my way through the maze of equipment trucks and trailers, heading for the complex, I saw her. A shock to the system after several years of avoiding any possible chance of meeting—Alison.
She leaned on a truck, her jeans tight, sweatshirt baggy, arms crossed, in sneakers without socks. She was unreadable, the face a sad blank, day old make-up and unwashed hair. Her eyes were on me, steady. God knows how long she’d been waiting, but she was determined.
I slowed my steps, didn’t want to be within miles of her, let alone ten feet.
“We need to talk,” she said.
“No, we don’t.”
Alison kicked herself off the truck and blocked my path. “It’s about Doug.”
He’d been moody lately, even a bit pale. Coming down with something, probably. I thought I was prepared for whatever she had to say—he couldn’t play that night, or he was in the hospital, or he got beat up and rolled in a men’s room playing “I’ll show you mine if…” Our friendship had suffered because of the lie more than the fact he was queer. If I’d known before, maybe it wouldn’t have been as much of a betrayal.
I let my guard down, stepped closer to Alison, the natural smell of her still intoxicating, still hypnotizing.
“Nobody else knows but me,” I said. “I never told a soul about him, like I promised.”
She nodded. “He told me. That’s why it’s you I’m talking to.”
“That’s the only reason? No apologies, no trying to get back into my life?”
Anger, quick, flash, then the calm blank again. “Don’t even. Sure, I’d fuck you if I wanted because it would be nice to know I’ve still got you wrapped around my finger, and to take my mind off Doug.”
“How were you able to make me fall in love with you so much when I’m pretty sure you don’t have a heart?”
She winced, took a step back.
“I’m sorry. That’s not fair,” I said.
One more trick, pouring her attention completely on me, overwhelming. The smell, the lips, the eyes. She put her hand on the back of my neck, gave me goose bumps, and pulled gently. My knees eased down until we were the same height, her mouth to my ear, whispering.
“Are you going to do this sour grapes thing, or will you promise to help Doug? Promise, before I say another word.”
I closed my eyes. Bail, or a cover story, or a plane ticket home, all the possibilities spinning round round, baby, right round, like a record—
“Promise,” I said, nearly choking on it.
“He took a test.” Her voice so low, so strained, and I knew where this was going. “He’s positive.”
“Jesus, Ali, what are you—”
“HIV positive. AIDS, Cal.”
I’d never felt more cold, more angry, more empty. Speechless.
I slipped my arms around her, aware of the mud we were standing in, the echo of the music just as murky, unrecognizable. I hugged her so tight, felt her trying to fight off crying. I’d seen her yell and get hellfire pissed, but never cry. I’d only heard about that one time she broke down when I quit the band. This was the first loss of control I’d witnessed with Alison, an “Oh God” rising out of her, muffled into my shirt. I understood pain like that. I’d built up a little resistance.
After several minutes, feeling the composure return to Alison body, I let go of her, wiped her face with my silk sleeve.
“Are they sure? Have they done a retest?”
She mumbled, “Yeah, same thing.”
“How long ago does he think it happened?”
“Maybe six months, maybe eight. It was on tour, so he can’t tell you who. One wild night, one of many.” She squeezed her eyes, swallowed back something rough, and took a deep breath. “So stupid.”
“We’re all pretty stupid.”
“But this is double stupid. After all the Freddie Mercury stuff, hard enough as that was, how can he do this to me? To us?”
I shrugged. “Not his fault. We’re all wired the way we’re wired.”
“But we don’t have to act on it.”
“Out here, you do.” I spread my arms wide. “We used to think we could only do what was acceptable, what made sense like normal working people. Try this for a few months and see, though. You’ll swallow any pill they hand you, fuck anyone who looks at you like you’re almighty God, forget how to tie your shoes or drive because someone loves you enough to do it for you.”
“That’s not love.” Alison wrinkled her face. “That’s jealousy. That’s what it is.”
I let out a long sigh, felt my strength go with it. “No, it’s love, kind of. Not the kind we all really want. It’s what we settle for because the other is too hard.”
That didn’t make it better. She said, “You think you’re above it all, you assholes. Doug didn’t deserve this.”
“I know. I swear, if I could’ve stopped it—”
“Please. Enough. You mean well, but don’t.” She turned and started walking, said, “Let’s go see him. The doctor gave him something to build his strength for the show tonight. He wants to talk to you first.”
I followed, now wanting to touch her, wanting her skin on mine, flip-flop from ten minutes earlier. “I’ll bet you had to convince him to tell me. You had to call in favors.”
“Not that many. You’d be surprised. He trusts you. Both of us do.”
We made our way deeper into the maze, the music louder as we approached the main stage complex. Roadies, techs, no one I knew.
“Listen, Ali, I want to tell you something.”
“Don’t.” Almost sounded like a man. “Don’t even.”
“I miss you, though. And you’ve got to know it really was love. I did—do—feel love for you.” I wasn’t sure I meant it. Maybe it was my subconscious mind taking over, doing the hard work for me.
She stopped and I bumped into her, got a full on dose of Vulcan blankness as she told me, “I said don’t. I’m dead inside. I fuck to get off. I love to get what I want. You don’t want to know me anymore, and you sure as shit don’t want to lie to me.”
“It’s not a lie.”
“Yeah, it is. If you don’t know that right now, all this ‘trying to connect with me so you don’t have to face what’s happened to Doug head-on’ business is a front, you will later.”
She pointed towards the complex door.
“You coming, too?” I said.
I expected a snort, an insult. Instead, she gave me a weak smile and said, “Right behind you, Lover Boy.”
*
I heard the bass as soon as I stepped inside the complex hallway. Doug practicing “Loose Lips” from our second album. Not poppy and bright as usual. Not a thundering rhythm either. It sounded mournful, like a walrus. It itched my ears as we got closer to the dressing room. Alison moved ahead of me, leading the way, never glancing back.
Inside, the lights were too bright, the air too cold. Our wardrobe cabinets broke the wide open space into our own little rooms. The buffet items on our contract rider—boiled shrimp from Florida, lots of Gatorade, plenty of roast beef sandwiches and my one before-show energy rush, chocolate peanut clusters—were lined on a table along the back wall, eaten more by the crew and visitors these days than the band. A couple of plates and bottles were in pieces on the floor, I guessed from being rattled off the table by Doug’s bass assault. He sat in a folding chair, legs propped on his practice amp, the speaker facing him and turned near full blast. He wasn’t wearing ear plugs. When he saw me, he de-tuned his E string and let a massive low note ring through the feedback. A weak smile on his face. I wouldn’t have guessed my friend was facing a death sentence.
The note fad
ed and Doug spun the volume knob off. Dark boots, hair right above the shoulders all around, dyed red and teased-out, sprayed so it was floating. He wore a long leather coat over a silk shirt. Both always came off after three songs.
“Hey, man,” was all I came up with.
His eyes flicked to Alison, then me again. “She told you?”
“Yep.” I stayed right inside the door. Years later, I regretted it, thought I should have hugged the guy. Our words were crap. I should’ve shown him something more.
He looked off across the room, said, “I can’t really hear you. And I don’t want to shout, either.”
I waited for Alison. She crossed the space and patted her brother’s shoulder, then busied herself cleaning up the broken glass. She knew she didn’t need to. I grabbed another folding chair and scraped it ten feet until I was near enough to reach out and touch Doug. I didn’t. I sat and leaned my arms on my knees.
“This is the moment you’ve been waiting for since college. Just knew it was going to happen,” he said.
“I never, come on. I told you then to be careful. But you weren’t.”
“A lot of times I wasn’t. Pure dumbass stupidity, bro. Invincible. The people who have it don’t come to Savage Night concerts. They’re too busy shooting smack and dancing in discos, right?”
“Then how the hell—”
“No lectures,” he said, then turned to Alison. “Didn’t you tell him ‘no lectures’?”
She shrugged.
“It’s too fucking late to lecture you. Goddamn you, doing this to us.”
“The band?”
“Everyone! Her, me, the band, your folks. I told you…” I wanted to throw things, break stuff. Nothing handy. I mimed choking Doug from where I sat.
Doug said, “Shit, like it was easy. If you hadn’t pushed me into this band, you think I’d be any better off? Probably easier to get caught in Florida than on the stage. People believe what they want to.”
“You didn’t want to be in the band?”
He shot me a pained look, like I was the dumbest man he’d ever seen. “I wanted to be with my friends, man. You’d been starting a company or wanted to go on to a university, I would’ve been right there. We got each other’s back.”
“I know.”
“Many chances to out me, a thousand times over. You never told a soul. Good to your word to the end. But this band bullshit, I don’t know.” Doug shook his head, the hair moving in time. “We haven’t been friends in a long time.”
“Sure we are.”
“Tell yourself that. Keep it up, see where it gets you.”
Alison set the shards on the table and stepped over to us, completed our triangle. “Tell him what the doctor said.”
A nod. “You were going to ask, weren’t you?”
I said, “Not too interested in how many days you got left. I can’t live with a countdown running.”
“Shit, this takes years, man. HIV doesn’t mean AIDS yet. Pretty damn sure, but not immediate. The doctor said I can probably afford the cutting edge stuff, the pills Magic Johnson takes. He’s kept it in check.”
“He’s richer than you.”
“Yeah, I was going to say. So here’s the problem. If I don’t invest this right, and the income stops flowing, and I’ve sold everything I can sell, when that happens, I might as well eat a gun.”
“Don’t say that.”
He thumped the bass strings, the buzz barely audible. Here we were, the bedrock of the band, Doug and Cal, freezing in a dressing room talking about my friend’s terminal disease. Music was the last thing on my mind.
Doug’s eyes, real and pure, surrounded by mascara. I met his stare.
“I need the money. All the bullshit in my life is about to get cut in two. I can’t let this ride stop.”
We both knew what he meant, the end of the metal years closing fast. We knew the industry behind the scenes. The execs were high grunge out of Seattle and Portland, bands like Soundgarden and Mudhoney. It was a return to reality, the dirt of the Earth. Unless we crossed over to the pop world like Van Hagar, Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, we were yesterday’s news.
Bye-bye to the fame, the girls, and especially the money.
“How much you got?” I asked.
“Alison checked it out. Maybe right under a million.”
“Not enough?”
He shrugged. “Gets me through the year, maybe two. Plus bills, living expenses, and I’m going to need a trainer to keep in shape. Need to see the doctor more often. Ali’s going to move in and take care of the day to day.”
“Under a million.” I thumped out a jungle rhythm with my palms on my thighs. “Need a loan?”
He turned up the volume on the bass, followed my beat, played eight bars and stopped. “I need two promises from you.”
“What’s that?”
He held up two fingers. “No, make the promise first and live with it.”
“Can’t help you.” I stood. “I’ve had enough surprises for today, my man. But I’ll hear you out.”
One finger. “You make sure I don’t run out of money. God knows you’re loaded. However you did it, do it for me.”
I nodded. “Ali’s smarter than my accountant, though.”
She didn’t smile or blush or argue. No getting through that wall.
“She damn well is, but you’ve got to teach her this one.”
“I’m on board.”
Doug held up the second finger, but Ali did the talking.
“You tell no one about Doug’s problem.”
And that was one I wasn’t sure I could keep. I stood there a long time, watching Doug’s body language surrender to his fate and Alison’s hysteria building under the pressure cooker.
I said, “We have to tell Sylvia.”
That did it.
Alison flipped the catering table. Glass and food ricocheted. She stormed over to me. “You don’t care about him at all! Just the band! The fuck you need to tell that bitch for?”
I couldn’t look her in the eye. Doug was slumped in the chair, still life.
“She’s the one that can keep the lid on it. In case it comes up, you can’t just hope it’ll go away. In fact, things are going to get worse.”
“We don’t know that.”
I held my arms wide, the burn rising in my throat. “Then show me a survivor. Can you do that? Maybe you can point to someone who beat it down, bought a few more years, but an out and out winner? Ali, you got a winner you’re not telling me about?”
“I mean…” She moved her head in a way that made me want to hold her and smell her, make her forget this conversation. Her chin high, neck stretched, strain on her face. “We’ll deal with that when the time comes.”
I brushed past Alison and crouched in front of Doug’s chair. “You know she’ll keep it to herself. You know she will.”
He looked at me. “She’ll tell Todd.”
“No. I promise. She won’t.”
Doug sized me up. No one to trust in this business. But then he lifted his eyes, a glance at his younger sister, and nodded. “She can’t tell anyone unless I say.”
“Done.” I stood. “We’ve got a show.”
*
At least, we hoped we had a show. This was a big festival, but with less than an hour until showtime, Doug and I were the only guys there. Our roadies drifted in and out, a few fixing the table Ali had flipped. Not long after that, more food was brought in. I paced. Doug thumped the bass, less practicing than just repeating a note for minutes at a time. I couldn’t help but pay attention, being the other half of the rhythm section. He was doing it to see if he could get to me. He almost did.
A second before I was ready to fling a drumstick at him, Stefan came in, sunglasses in place, dragging a fire engine red Ibanez guitar by one hand.
“Where the hell have you been?”
He shook his head, spotted his trunk and headed over. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in a week. “All I know, that my head won’t tell me
where I was. Maybe it tries to protect me, ja?”
I stepped over and eased his glasses off. “Jesus.”
One eye was puffy and bruised, the black turning purple. Both his corneas were striped with blood vessels. You could almost see them pumping. I could only imagine the pain upstairs.
“You’re going to be fine, right?”
He took his glasses away from me, fit them on, and held his thumb up. “Right on.” Then held one nostril and snorted. “Know what I mean, bro?”
If I’d been under my usual dose of pills, that would’ve been fine. Sober and standing right smack in the middle of reality, though, it was pretty sad.
I turned away. Fifteen minutes past showtime. Ali stood in the corner, arms crossed tightly. She looked cold. Doug hadn’t moved from his chair. I wondered if he could. Behind me, Stefan snorted some more, and I heard him whisper, “Ah, that’s right.”
The tour manager was on the phone with Sylvia. Pissed off. I heard him say, “It’s not fucking funny” and he asked anyone coming through the door if they’d seen Todd. Funny thing was he didn’t bother asking the band. He knew we were the last people who’d know where he was, the son of a bitch.
Forty minutes.
It wasn’t long before someone with a headset and clipboard came in to tell us, “We’ll give you another half-hour, but then we move on. It’s not like you’re Judas Priest or anything.”
Doug shouted to me, “How about the three of us go on and play an instrumental set? Jazz odyssey!”
I glanced over at Stefan again. He looked asleep. Yeah, my friends, my band, falling apart. Whatever love and respect I’d had for Todd was gone, burned away like gasoline. I’d spent too many hours lately thinking of ways to kick his ass.
“So, great, we’re going to get fired. That’s excellent.”
The tour manager shrugged. “As long as I still get paid.”
I walked into the hall and closed the door behind me, leaned on it, exhausted and angry. I didn’t know how I’d get through the set, or if there’d even be a set. Hoped Doug could give it his all, hoped his fingers wouldn’t bleed. Thought of those guys sweating up a storm, Todd’s bare skin soaking in Doug’s sweat when they leaned against each other to share a mike. Stupid stupid stupid. All the things I didn’t know about the disease. I felt dirty just being in the same room, breathing the same air.
The Drummer Page 13