Road Rash

by Mark Huntley Parsons

  “This is Alex.”

  Glenn hung up.

  “Come on, let’s go,” he said.

  “Go where?”

  “To get paid.”

  “Maybe I should bring my cymbal stand?” I was joking.

  “Probably not a bad idea.” I had to look twice to see that he was kidding. I think.

  We went back inside and worked onstage, pulling cables and coiling them up, killing a few minutes before Glenn said, “Follow me.”

  We headed over near the bar, but we went past it and through the door to the back. There was a sign on it that said EMPLOYEES ONLY, but we went through it like we worked there.

  Mr. Happy said “Hey!” in his cheerful way, but Glenn just said “Alex is waiting for us,” and kept on going.

  The FLC was in a hundred-year-old brick building, like most of the places in that part of town, and there were lots of little rooms off the winding, narrow hallway. We poked around until we finally came to a ratty little office, where Alex and Mr. Friendly were talking. They both stopped and looked up when we came in.

  “Who let you back here?” Alex asked.

  “It’s Sunday,” Glenn said, ignoring his question. “We’re down the road in a couple of hours, soon as we’re packed. So we came to settle up.”

  “Yeah, I was gonna talk to you about that.” Uh-oh. “Looks like you boys didn’t fulfill your end of the contract.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He dug through a pile of papers on the messy desk in front of him, then held up a one-page printout. “It’s a copy of your contract.” He handed it to Glenn. “How many pieces does it say the band Bad Habit has?”

  Glenn didn’t even look at it. “Five.”

  “Well, there you go. Now, if you boys’ll excuse me …”

  “Wait a minute. What does that mean?” Glenn said.

  “That means you didn’t live up to your end of the contract, plain and simple.”

  “So you’re saying the one guy who missed one night doesn’t get paid for that night, then? Fine by me.”

  Alex shook his head. “Not quite that simple. You violated the contract, so I don’t have any legal obligation to pay you anything.”

  “You want to stiff us for the whole week because one guy was out sick one time? After we played here five nights?” Glenn was calm on the outside but I could tell he was righteously pissed.

  This was complete bullshit. “Time for the cymbal stand?” I asked under my breath.

  He never looked away from Alex. “Not yet.”

  “Look, guys,” Alex said. “Don’t get too upset. I’ll contact Corey and I’m sure we’ll come to some kind of agreement.”

  “That’s kind of funny, because Corey was here last night and he didn’t have any problem with the fact that there were only four of us. In fact, he said we were great. And I noticed your customers didn’t seem to mind, either. What was your bar take for last night?”

  It was Alex’s turn to ignore the question. “I never said I wasn’t going to pay you. I just said I’ll have to negotiate with the agency first.”

  “Maybe so. But then again, maybe not. It’s impossible for a band to collect once they’re out of state, and there’s no way we can afford to stick around and take you to court and all that. And you know it.”

  Alex didn’t say anything. Finally, he shrugged. “That’s the way you want to see it, fine. I’ll talk to Corey, and he’ll be in touch with you. Now, I’ve got work to do.…”

  When we didn’t move, Mr. Friendly finally spoke. “Boss, you want I should get these guys outta here?”

  “Not so fast,” Glenn said. “There’s a little something he might want to know first.” He sat on the corner of Alex’s desk, right in front of him, and leaned in and talked quietly. “A couple of hours after Friday’s gig, some guys broke into our motor home out back.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “I’ll bet. But the interesting part is, they were your patrons. And they were pretty bold about the whole thing, too. We had to stick a gun in their faces to drive them off, and even then we came this close”—he held up his fingers half an inch apart—“to dropping the hammer on one of them, because he was just too drunk to get it. But they eventually put our stuff down and left. And like I said, we can’t stick around and we didn’t want to make a big stink, so we let it go at that. But I’m thinking maybe we need to do our civic duty and contact the police after all. They might be interested to know your customers go around robbing citizens right outside your club, especially after you’ve been serving them way beyond the point where you should cut them off. Hell, the local paper and TV news might be interested in that, too.”

  “You lying son of a bitch, you’re bluffing.”

  “I might be a son of a bitch, but I’m not lying and I’m sure as hell not bluffing—that really happened. I’m only asking for what we earned.”

  Alex thought for a minute. “Okay, I’ll pay you for Tuesday through Friday.” He folded his arms. “And that’s it. Take it or leave it.”

  I’d had enough. As they were yakking away, I reached across the desk, picked up the phone, and dialed 911.

  “Silver Bow County Sheriff’s Office. Is this an emergency?”

  “Not at the moment. I want to know if I can still file a report on a robbery that happened early yesterday morning.”

  “Why, yes you can. What’s your location? We can have a patrol car come by and take a report.”

  I held the phone against my chest and said loudly, interrupting the conversation, “Excuse me! What’s the address here? The police dispatcher wants to know so she can send an officer by to take our report.”

  All of a sudden everyone got quiet.

  Alex looked at me. I just stared back at him, the phone still in my hand. Finally, he spoke. “Okay …”

  27

  “All Apologies”

  We played it cool until we got out of the office, but once we’d escaped with the money, we were slapping hands like a Little League team that’d just won the World Series.

  “Man, that was classic,” Glenn said, and I couldn’t argue with him.

  We went back into the club and started tearing down sound and lights. After a while the other guys began trickling in—Danny, then Amber, then finally Brad and Jamie.

  When Brad showed up, Glenn said, “How’s it going?”

  Actually, I was expecting maybe an apology or something, if not to me, then at least to the band for leaving them high and dry. But all he said was “I’m good.” That was it.

  “Well, I’m not.” Whoa. I was stunned to hear that come from my mouth. “I get why you’re pissed at me, because of that whole stupid song thing … which I’m sorry about, by the way. But there’s no way you should have screwed the whole band and bailed on the gig last night.”

  Brad gave me that same look I’d seen yesterday and started to open his mouth as I braced for him to go off on me. And then …

  “He’s completely right.”

  Jamie had spoken very quietly, but it shut Brad down like a bucket of cold water. I looked at her like, Thanks.

  “Hey, it was only one night,” Brad finally said, “and it’s not like this dive matters to anyone. Apparently, you guys covered okay.”

  “Right,” Glenn said. “No big deal … especially if you don’t care about getting paid.”

  “Huh?”

  “Yeah, huh. We’re in violation of our contract because of you, and our buddy Alex basically said Screw you, I ain’t paying you. You wanna stick around Montana for six months and sue me, go right ahead.” Glenn let that sink in for a moment. “And if not for some quick thinking by our not-so-baby brother here, we’d be walking out empty-handed right now.” He caught Brad’s eye. “So you owe him a few thousand dollars’ worth of thanks.”

  “C’mon, Alex was just yanking your chain—”

  Glenn cut him off. “It’s also not a big deal, if you don’t care about having a band anymore.”


  Brad squinted. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means if you ever pull something like that again, I’m out of here.”

  “Where do you get off with that shit? Lemme tell you something. This band was up and running long before I hired you, and we’ll be playing long after you’re gone. You think we couldn’t do our gigs without you?”

  “Yeah, you probably could,” I piped in. “But good luck doing them without a drummer.” Boy, my mouth was really enjoying running the show today, wasn’t it?

  He glared at me. “Oh, so now you’re leaving, too? After we picked you up off the shit pile?”

  “I don’t want to, but I also don’t want to worry you’re gonna bail every time we have a disagreement.” I just shook my head.

  Danny spoke up. “He’s right, man—that wasn’t cool.”

  Brad looked at all of us. The room was dead quiet. Finally, he nodded. “Okay, you guys are right. I was totally pissed, but still, I shouldn’t have let that push me into doing something stupid.” He let that hang in the air a minute. “So, we good?”

  To be honest, I wasn’t. But I would have been a total jerk to say No, your little half-assed non-apology didn’t really do it for me. So I said yeah, like everyone else, and we all bumped fists and had a group hug.

  Then we packed everything up and got the hell out of there.

  Q: WHAT DO YOU CALL A DRUMMER WITH HALF A BRAIN?

  A: GIFTED.

  As we headed east on I-90 on our way toward Yellowstone, I thought about the whole deal with Brad. I don’t really know why I was wasting time worrying about it—he owed me an apology and not the other way around.

  Right?

  But something was nagging at me. It took me a while, but somewhere between Butte and what Kimber would have described as the ironically named town of Manhattan, Montana, I figured out what it was.…

  Apologies aren’t really for when you’re absolutely certain you’re a hundred percent at fault. I mean, by then the whole world knows it anyway, and even a totally self-centered jerk pretty much has to cough it up.

  Right?

  We stopped at a Subway in Belgrade to eat. And when we were about done, just sitting around, it was quieter than normal. Like something was still hanging there, invisible.

  “Uh, I’d like to say something,” I announced. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to say, but I hated the vibe that was in the air and I had to do something.

  “If it’s about what I did, just drop it,” Brad said.

  “No, it’s about what I did.” I took a drink of water. “I just want to apologize for this whole thing. I own a big piece of this because … well, because I wove this whole tangled web in the first place. It would have been a lot better if I’d just played the song for everyone at the same time and been honest about what it was. So if nothing else, I’ve learned I should say what I think.”

  I took a deep breath. “So … here’s what I think.” I looked at Brad. “I think you’re a great singer, just like Jamie and Glenn and Danny are great at what they do.”

  “Hey, hey! I think you’re leaving someone out here,” Amber threw in.

  I laughed. “Sorry. You’re an outstanding outlaw-tambourine-dancer-girl-type creature. Definitely.”

  “That’s better!”

  I turned back to Brad. “But besides being a great singer, you’re also a freakin’ great front man, which is a whole different thing. Well, besides being a great guitarist, part of what Glenn does is write awesome songs. And the only way to make it to the next level is to have some good original material. It doesn’t mean Glenn has to write everything by himself—it can be him, or him and you, or the whole band jamming together.” I paused. “But I think that’s the next step. In case anyone’s interested.” I stopped then, before I wore out my soapbox.

  The table went graveyard for a minute, then Jamie said, “That makes a lot of sense—we should be spending more time working on original material. And besides being a great drummer, Zach’s really good at arranging and tracking music.” She looked at Brad. “Don’t you think?”

  Brad nodded. “Like I said, he’s our baby brother/den mother.”

  I let it go. If it made him feel better to put me in that little box, well, whatever.

  “We weren’t expecting you guys until Tuesday,” the lady said. “But let’s see what we’ve got.” She hit a few keys on her computer, then picked up the phone. “Hey, Scotty,” she said. “The band’s here … yeah, I guess they couldn’t wait. So, are 207, 208, and 209 open …? Well, what do we have …?” She waited a minute. “Hmm. Okay, let’s do that. Can you call Chuck and get right back to me? Thanks, babe.”

  She hung up. “I’m sorry, guys, but we’re full up—we’re smack in the middle of the high season. We’ll definitely have rooms for you tomorrow. Meanwhile, we’ll try to find you something nearby.”

  We were in the club at the Western Star Inn in West Yellowstone. Usually we’d take a day or two to get to the next gig, sightseeing along the way and either staying at cheap motels or crashing in the Bad-Mobile to save money. But we’d all wanted to get here and see the area and it wasn’t that far from Butte, so we’d just driven straight down.

  “Would it be all right if we unloaded our gear in the meantime?” Glenn asked.

  “Sure, go right ahead.”

  So we unloaded our stuff onto the stage. Well, all except the PA and lights—this place had a nice house system and a dozen cans up in the overhead. When we were done, the lady waved us over to her desk.

  She introduced herself—she was Donna, and she and her husband, Scott, ran the place—then she gave us the semi-good news. “Chuck over at the Lodge has a few rooms left, and we got him to give you the courtesy rate. You’ll like it there—they have a pretty nice club, too. Not as nice as ours, of course, but not bad. He’ll try to steal you from us, but don’t you let him.” She winked. “We serve complimentary breakfast from six to ten, so if you get here by then, we’ll be happy to feed you, then we’ll scare up some rooms for you as soon as they open up.”

  We got directions and headed over to the Lodge. Since we weren’t staying long, I didn’t really unpack. I just dragged in my duffel and took up residence in a chair with my laptop.

  “Hey, we’re gonna go find some food,” Danny said, poking his head into the room. “You coming?”

  “Naw,” I said. “I’ll catch you guys later.”

  As they left, I checked my email. I hadn’t gotten anything since that flaming email from Kimber, which I guess was to be expected. Still, I had something I needed to say.…

  From: Zach Ryan [ZR99@westnet.net]

  Sent: Sunday, July 18 7:32 PM

  To: Kimberly Milhouse [kimmilhouse@cencast.net]

  Cc: Ky [EADG@cencast.net]

  Subject: Sorry

  Dear Kimberly—

  I’m writing to apologize. Not for hitting your buddy Kevin. He deserved that and more. (It’s like I told Alicia: he’s lucky Kyle wasn’t there!)

  No, I’m writing to apologize for lying to you in the first place. What I should have done was either tell you what really happened or just said “I’d rather not go into it right now” and left it at that.

  So, I’m sorry. It was wrong, and I won’t do it again.

  And now for the hard part. I mean, why should you apologize to someone for some minor deal when they’ve done worse and they haven’t really apologized? But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the answer was in the question. So I had to say it, even if it was more than he deserved. And then maybe I could forget about it and get on with my life.

  Yo, Kyle—I’m copying you because I want to apologize to you too, for the same thing. Not that it matters at this point, but no more fiction, man. (Well, the part about Kevin reminding me of Toby wasn’t fiction. And the part about it feeling great to deck him was definitely true. Those facts may be connected …)

  Thanks for listening. I won’t bug you guys anymore.
r />   Zach

  28

  “Lit Up”

  Dear Mom, Dad & Ali …

  Butte was interesting and educational—Glenn and I attended a business meeting just this morning that was a real eye-opener. But now we’re at Yellowstone! Okay, technically we’re about five blocks outside the park boundary, but still, it’s totally cool. Hey, Ali-Boo-Boo … I’ll keep my eye out for Yogi! ☺

  Cheers!

  Zach

  After I finished the postcard, I checked my email again. Nothing. Of course. I put my phone away and realized I was hungry. I couldn’t find the other guys anywhere, so I walked down the street and got a bite at this place called the Grizzly Grubstake. It was a total tourist joint, but I had to admit it was kind of fun. The waiters were dressed like cowboys or gold miners or something, and the waitresses were like saloon girls. All the drinks were in these widemouthed jars, you ate off tin plates, and the piped-in music was pure corn pie—I expected dancing bears to take the stage any minute.

  After I ate, I wandered around a little, looking at the town. And I came to the conclusion that the Grizzly Grubstake actually fit right in here. The entire town was like a set from a western, complete with wooden sidewalks and hitching posts out front of the general store. You half expected the sheriff and his posse to ride up at any moment, and I really did see a couple of guys on horses on one of the side streets.

  When I got back to the hotel, I could hear music coming from the lounge and I remembered seeing something about a Sunday evening show, but I passed on it and went up to my room. And yeah, I checked my email again. Nada.

  I dug out a recent issue of Mix magazine and tried to get through another article on how everything’s over-compressed these days. I finally put it aside and started working on this song I’d been messing with. It was an idea that had come to me as we’d driven through the Mojave Desert between Barstow and Baker on our way out of California, using the barren landscape as a metaphor for a dry spell in someone’s love life. I called it “Pray for Rain.” It had a hypnotic chorus that I almost liked, but I thought the verses were lame so I was trying to rework them.