by BJ Knapp
“Tim,” I hiss at him. “Let it go.” I shoot him a look that says, ‘Can we please not do this in front of everyone just after they got here?’ He glares at me in response. So much for backtracking and getting him back on my side. What the hell is wrong with me tonight? He’s probably trying to be firm with them from the get-go, so our lives won’t be as disrupted, but honestly, I think he is coming off as an inhospitable jerk.
“Brenda? Tim?” Erik says. “We’re going to have a crew meeting. We’d like you to listen in.” Erik lifts the kettle and then sets it down, apparently disappointed that it is empty. He moves over to the sink and surveys the faucet. “No instant boiling water here? Interesting.” Tim rolls his eyes in response, and I know right then that he and Erik will probably not become friends. The rest of the crew files into the kitchen. I note that a package of Oreos from the pantry has made its way onto the kitchen table; the crew members each grab a handful.
“Gee, make yourself at home,” Tim mutters, watching them walk in and start rifling through the cabinets for a glass or a mug. I shoot him a quick death glare. He really needs to chill out. Of course they’re going to make themselves at home. This is their home until the new album is done. Once the crew is done getting a snack and a drink, they sit on every available surface. One of them sits on the stove.
“Hey,” Tim calls out. “We prepare our food there. Will you please get your ass off my stove?” Now he’s just looking for things to be pissed off about. He needs to stop.
“Tim!” I exclaim. He raises his eyebrows at me and challenges me to speak. I shrug in response. The crew member slides off the stove and then looks around for somewhere else to sit. He shrugs and, not looking at Tim, perches himself back onto the stove again.
“Shall we begin then?” Erik asks. “We’ve a lot to get through, and I know you’re all tired from such a long trip.” He points to the whiteboard. “The day’s schedule will be posted here each morning. First, let’s talk about the shower schedule.” Before the meeting started, he wrote a list of names and times on the board. We have a bathroom in the hallway upstairs, as well as the one in our master bedroom. I see that our master bathroom is included as an available shower for the band. I was kind of hoping to keep them out of our bedroom; I can’t imagine Tim will want the band traipsing through our bedroom at all hours. I also notice that my name is listed at ten o’clock on the shower schedule.
“Erik?” I interject sheepishly. “I’m sorry, but a ten o’clock shower time won’t work for me. See, I have to be at work at eight. I need the six o’clock time.”
“Well, that won’t work. Ben is done with sunrise yoga then and needs to shower straight after to cleanse his vocal chords.”
“Look,” Tim interjects, “we agreed to let you stay here on the condition that you wouldn’t disrupt our lives. A ten o’clock shower time is not practical for Brenda.” The rest of the crew shifts uncomfortably. Getting off on the wrong foot has now progressed to the wrong feet.
“Tim, Ben does yoga at sunrise,” Erik says.
“I don’t care,” Tim says, standing taller. “Why not do a sunset yoga session?”
“Erik, it’s okay...” Ben says.
“No, it’s not bloody okay,” Erik says, glowering. “Your work is the most important thing.”
“I can live with yoga at another time. Brenda and Tim need to get to their jobs.”
Erik grumbles in response. I can hear him mutter, “What do I know? I’ve only been the band manager for thirty years.” Keith fidgets with his mug, while Ben smiles at me sympathetically. Erik’s muttering rant continues, something about putting the whole record in jeopardy. Even I think Erik’s putting way too much stock in this yoga at sunrise thing.
He turns to the whiteboard, erases a few names on the shower schedule, and re-writes my name by the 6:00 time slot. He turns to face me as if to say, “Satisfied?” but I can tell by his sneer that he’s not really concerned about my satisfaction. There are still crew members listed as showering in our bedroom, but I think we need to pick our battles. Then he moves on to assign a list of tasks to the half dozen crew members lined up against the counter. They scribble on their note pads. I look around the kitchen and see that the counter is littered with teabag wrappers and spilt milk, and the sugar bowl is tipped over. I stand in front of the mess so Tim won’t see it, figuring there’s no sense in making him even madder. Erik dismisses the staff, and they all move to the back door.
“Before you all go to bed, I’d just like to say one thing,” Keith says. “Brenda and Tim were nice enough to take us in. Let’s be sure to treat their home with respect, okay?”
Wow, that was pretty cool of him. I look around the room to see who is listening. Erik is lost inside his iPhone; everyone else is fidgeting by the door waiting for their chance to go to bed. I hear a few of them mumble “um-hm.” So, maybe we did get off to a rough start, but I’m thinking now that we’ll be fine.
“And one more thing before you guys go to bed,” Tim says, stepping to the center of the kitchen. The crew turns to face him. Tim retrieves his power screwdriver from the tray at the bottom of the whiteboard. “I use these tools to make a living. They are off limits to all of you. Do not,” he says, gesturing with the screwdriver toward Erik, “help yourself to my tools ever again. Got it?” Erik snorts in response but says nothing. The crew shifts uncomfortably until they make their way out the back door.
The band members gather in the living room to discuss the recording schedule. I stand in the doorway and marvel at the fact that Keith Kutter, Ben Taylor, Jeff Gilchrist, and Gill Simms are all seated around my coffee table, sipping tea from my mugs. When I was seventeen, I never would have imagined it.
Wait—the kitchen! I bolt back in to tidy the mess from the crew’s tea service before Tim can see it, but before I can finish, I hear Tim walking back inside from the garage, mocking Erik’s posh Australian accent.
“Ben does yoga at sunrise. He has to cleanse his vocal cords.” I chuckle under my breath. “Bren, it’s not funny. Who do these guys think they are?”
“They’re paying us to stay here. It’s good money. Just let it go.” I join him by the whiteboard and hug him. “Are you going to be okay?”
“And you’re going to clean up their mess, too?” he asks, eying the mess on the counter. “I’m not okay with that.”
“Just for tonight,” I say. I reach up to smooth the tension on his temple, but he flinches and moves away from me. “Angela the housekeeper will be here tomorrow. Will you please just chill out? You’re making everyone uncomfortable. This could be a lot of fun if you let it.”
“I’m going to bed,” he replies. “Are you coming?”
“In a bit.” My eyes wander to the band sitting in the living room. I can’t believe they are all in my house.
Tim follows my gaze. “Whatever, Bren. I’ll be upstairs.”
After cleaning up, I return to my post in the doorway to the living room. Keith is handing out printouts of the new lyrics he had written. Ben reads a few lines out loud and then says, “I can’t wait to hear what this melody is like. I almost don’t want to read anymore because I don’t want to contaminate my brain.”
I have never heard that expression before, “contaminate my brain.” I think about how I can add that phrase to my day to day life. I imagine refusing to see a movie preview because I don’t want to “contaminate my brain.” Of course, Tim would agree with me and refuse to contaminate his own. I smile. Already life with rock stars has injected our lives with a bit more culture. I watch the band interact for a few more minutes, dying for them to notice me hovering in the doorway and to ask my opinion about the lyrics. From behind me, Toni clears her throat.
“Will you please walk me through the house so I can pick out bedrooms for Keith, Ben, Jeff, and Gill?” I nod and gesture toward the stairs, grudgingly leaving the doorway. When I pass through the kitchen, I see that Tim hasn’t gone up to bed yet, and I smile meekly at him. He puffs his cheeks and
exhales before going back into the garage, where he’s probably locking up his tools.
“This is our bedroom,” I say, pointing to the room on the left at the top of the stairs. We walk down the hall. “There’s the guest bedroom with a queen sized bed, and there’s another one with a double bed. Then my office, which has a daybed in it.” She follows me into the office. “There’s a pull-out bed under here, too.” I lift the bedspread and gesture to the twin bed on wheels tucked under the daybed. “Just roll it out, squeeze the handle, and it pops up.”
“Okay, Ben will take the daybed,” Toni says, thinking aloud. “Keith can take the double. Jeff and Gill will take the other room.”
“Toni, there’s only one bed in the other room. What if Jeff and Gill took the daybed and the pullout...”
“It’s alright.” Toni shifts her eyes back and forth. “I’m sure they share a bed in their flat.” She smiles with a hint of mischief.
“You mean... they’re gay?” I gasp. All those songs about boozing and chasing women, and fifty percent of the band is gay? But then the lead singer from Judas Priest came out, and he had all those songs like “Turbo Lover” that made it sound like he was chasing women. You never do know, do you?
“They’re not out to the media, just among the crew. So, if you wouldn’t mind keeping it to yourself...” She pauses. “Well, I am off to my tent. The housekeeper will be in at five to cook for the day and tidy up,” she reminds me. “I’ll let her in for the mornings.” We say our goodnights.
When I get to our bedroom, Tim is lying down, furiously clicking the TV remote. The channels on the TV flip by in a way that I can’t even tell what’s on. “Can you believe the nerve of that asshole? ‘Ben has to do yoga at sunrise,’” he says, mocking Erik in a high voice.
“I’m sorry.” I sit on the bed beside him. “I know this is going to be very hard for you.”
“Bren, seriously, what have we gotten ourselves into? Never in a million years would I go into someone else’s house and hang up that tacky thing on the kitchen wall.”
“Who knows,” I quip, “maybe we’ll start to like that it’s there. You’re always saying that I forget things too much. Maybe we can keep it there, and you can write stuff down for me so I won’t forget.” He responds with a snort, so I try another tack: “Jeff and Gill are gay,” I blurt out, and giggle. I’ve learned over the years that rapidly changing the subject like that often disarms Tim.
“Gee, Captain Obvious, thanks for letting me know,” he says.
“How did you know?”
“Gaydar.” He points to his temple.
“Whatever.” I roll my eyes. “Good night, Tim.”
I switch off the light, but the room is far from dark. We never close the shades on the windows that face the back of our house, because there is only forest behind us. Nobody will catch us changing from back there, and we like having the natural light wake us up in the morning, in addition to Tim’s two alarm clocks. There’s a glow coming from the back yard. I look at Tim and notice that he hasn’t closed his eyes; he sees it too.
“Now what are they doing?” he sighs.
I get out of bed, go to the window, and see what I know is sure to piss Tim off. How can I possibly explain what I’m seeing? “Bonfire.” I point out the window. “In the lawn.”
“What the hell are they going to do, sacrifice a goat?” Tim gets out of bed and storms to the window.
“I don’t think animal sacrifices were their thing in the ‘80s,” I say with a laugh “That was more of an Ozzy thing.”
“This isn’t funny, Brenda.”
“Oh, come on. It is a little.” I watch the crew laughing and dancing around. “It does look like fun.” I turn from the window to face Tim. “Let’s go out there.”
“I don’t think so,” he grumbles and gets back into bed. “It’s late, and we have work in the morning.”
“Come on, Tim. When will we ever have the chance to dance around a bonfire with Hydra ever again? Don’t you think this is just a little bit cool?”
“If you want to go, don’t let me stop you.”
I pull on a hoodie over my pajamas. “Oh well, when in Rome.” I smile at Tim then pause at the doorway for a moment before leaving, hoping that he’ll get up and join me. His response is to roll over, away from the glow of the fire.
Once outside, I feel the cool dewy grass on my bare feet as I make my way to Tent City. I stand in front of the fire and feel its heat against my face. Keith is there; he nods at me and hands me a cold beer. He clinks his bottle neck against mine, and we both take a deep swallow. Jeff and Gill are spinning each other around on the other side of the fire, laughing.
“Gentlemen,” Erik calls out, standing up and walking to a spot in front of the fire. He raises his beer in a toast: “Let’s make this one the best yet.” All the band members and crew cheer and raise their beers.
Spending time by Hydra’s bonfire is probably the most fun I’ve had in a while. They all obviously know each other well; they’ve been together for decades. I can’t imagine having this kind of bonfire with the people I work with. We’d all stand around awkwardly, and then end up talking about work, and the whole thing would end before nine PM. The band and crew reminisce about past tours and don’t seem to get tired of the stories.
“Biloxi,” Ben says and smiles.
“Oh, come on,” Jeff shoots back. “I want to forget that one. That holding cell was disgusting. Talk about a traumatic night.”
“You got arrested in Biloxi?” I ask, leaning in. “What the heck happened?”
“There was a sign on a restaurant. Gill is a sucker for shitty old signs. Our house is completely littered with them. Anyway, there was one for Gill’s Crab Shack. He wanted to hang it over our bed.”
“It would have been funny to hang it there,” Gill protests. I have to agree.
“So, I decide to surprise the love of my life with his sign,” Jeff continues. “I got half of it down, when I hear someone cocking a rifle behind me.”
“Schook-CHOOK!” The entire crew makes the sound effect of the cocking gun, in unison.
I start to crack up. “What did you do?”
“I start running. I’ve got the G in my hands, the wires are tripping me, and I am just running. I don’t even know where, I am so drunk. I end up in a swamp just down the road, and my feet are sticking in the mud. It was there that the cops got me.”
“I couldn’t get the drunk bastard out until the next morning,” Erik says, laughing. “That cost me, keeping it out of the press. They’re not out to the press yet, and we didn’t want to take the chance at the time.”
“What about now?” I ask. “Surely being gay isn’t as much of an issue anymore.”
“We just don’t want to go there yet,” Gill replies. “Maybe after the next tour.”
The stories and the beer flow into the wee hours of the morning. I am a bit drunk from the four or so I drink. The fire reduces itself down to a few glowing embers, and one by one the crew make their way to their tents. The last two people left are me and Keith. We don’t say much: he pokes at the embers with a stick, and I peel a label off of my last beer and toss the scraps of paper into the fire.
“What a night,” I say and stretch my arms over my head. “You have a lot of history with these people.” I gesture to the tents.
“I do,” he says, looking up from the fire. He looks at me, but I don’t think he’s really registering that I am talking to him.
“You seem very pensive.” I gesture to his head. “Are you cooking up new lyrics in there?”
He smiles tentatively and pokes at the embers again.
“I’d love to read some when you’re done.”
He doesn’t look up. Is this how it’s going to be with Keith now? No more laughing with him over dinner, I guess, eh?
I don’t know what to say next, and the silence gets to be too much. My eyelids get heavy. I say goodnight and stumble across the lawn and up the stairs. From my bedroom wind
ow, I can still see Keith staring pensively into the fire. He looks up and spots me standing in the window, then quickly turns his attention back to the fire. Tim is snoring. When I settle into bed, he mumbles but doesn’t wake. Vito curls up behind my knees, and we both slip into sleep. I am thankful that the room isn’t spinning when I lie down. And I hope for a minimal hangover in the morning.
Chapter 13
FOR HALF THE DAY, my head pounds from the hangover. How is it that, in college, I managed to drink entire cases of beer by myself, but last night I had four and am largely incapacitated the next day?
I stumble through my day, trying to finish tasks, but I’m definitely not as productive as I normally am.
“You okay?” Amanda asks when I go into her office to update her on the Factory Tour show promos. “You seem off today.” We are playing up the “Made in Rhode Island” angle on Baxter’s packaging. I had a bright red icon of a Rhode Island Red rooster made by our graphic designer with the words “Made in Rhode Island” forming a circle around it. I am so proud of it: it looks awesome, and it’s going on all the promotional materials as well.
“Just a really bad headache,” I say, holding my hand to my head. “Excedrin won’t even touch it.” The last thing I want to do right now is talk about Baxter. Really, I just feel like ripping my brain out of my head and letting it dry out in the sun.
“The rooster is adorable,” she says. “I love that it’s so recognizable. I think we could get other companies to pick this up, as well. What else do you have for me?”
I rifle through my papers, pretending to look for something. What does she mean, “what else”? This is all I have.
“Nothing else?” She looks disappointed. “What about the revisions on the press releases?” Apparently an impenetrable headache is no excuse.