“I wish I knew,” Karney replied, honestly.
From the dark, back the way they’d come—more movement. Clay spotted a white shadow running steadily across the fairway. Essie. Coming for him in that ghostly white fucking nightgown. “Oh, shit on me.”
“Yes!” Karney yelled, spotting her. Clay bolted off again, cutting through the rough, his head start enough to propel him safely over the front fence and through the dense, scratching hedgerow that separated the course from the public sidewalk.
Then he was racing along a residential street, heading downhill again before risking another peek.
Essie wasn’t coming.
He ran straight down the middle of the street, thinking if she could move as fast as Karney she might slip ahead on a parallel street, ambush him from the shadows of one of the houses. Approaching downtown Burbank, though, cars began honking him aside. Sooner or later someone was going to run him down and he’d be no less dead than if Essie got her hands on him.
At the intersection with Glenoaks Boulevard, a Metro bus had screeched to a stop and people were lining up to board. Clay joined them.
Essie was still nowhere to be found.
Pacing, fidgeting, Clay was unable to contain his nerves. The first three people had monthly passes and were quickly on, but the last woman had two small children and couldn’t seem to find dollars crisp enough to feed the machine. Clay withdrew a ten to pay for all of them. The mother, tentative at the sight of him, nodded her thanks. The cash machine beeped angrily. “She’s reading every bill as a one right now,” the driver said.
“Don’t worry, keep it,” Clay said and tried to escape down the aisle.
The machine beeped. The driver sunk deeper into his seat, having to perform this little play with various nitwits and vagrants every day of his life. “She’ll keep cursing till you give exact change. I’ll let the other fares go, but by law I can’t leave this curb till you pay two additional quarters.” He knuckled the glass windshield where a sign was posted, the letters large enough to see from space: CORRECT CHANGE ONLY. DRIVER CARRIES NO CASH. “And don’t ask for change of a dollar ’cause I don’t carry—”
“—any money. I get it.” Clay dug in his pockets, uncertain what had survived his downhill plunge, and found an assortment of dimes and nickels. He stared back down the street.
Now Essie was coming, nightgown billowing as she shouted for the driver to hold the bus. And what would happen next? Would she tear his throat out in front of all these people?
“You alright, Kemo sah-bee?” The driver was watching him closely, sensing an addict in his midst or at least someone psychologically disturbed.
“Doing great,” Clay said. “Just in a real rush.” He managed to drop the coins into the beeping machine without spilling any—which would have sealed his fate for sure. “Can we go now?”
The driver held the wheel and didn’t move, letting Clay know that there was only one person driving the buggy and it wasn’t the idiot with the flushed expression and torn-up shirt. “Take your seat first.”
Clay hurried up the aisle, looking for something—a fire extinguisher, an old man’s cane—that he could wield when the bus became the grisly scene of life-and-death struggle.
Essie was almost to the bus door when the driver closed it up, indifferent to her last-second cry. The vehicle lurched off the curb, and as it gathered speed, Essie punched a window near the rear of the bus. A pair of teenage girls, previously lost in texting, screamed at the sight of the face looming in the window, the raging, carnivorous eyes, hair as wild as the Bride of Frankenstein. Essie was there and then she was gone, and while the girls pointed and drew everyone’s attention, Clay dropped into a seat and was forgotten.
27
I PUT A SPELL ON YOU
It took two buses and a ten-minute walk to reach the Universal City red-line station, but he made it, descending the escalator at a run—more out of time considerations than anything sinister giving chasing. The subway took him under the Hollywood Hills to Hollywood and Vine, where Clay hurried the last two blocks to the Palladium, which was—like so many cathedrals of live music—on Sunset Boulevard.
Since moving to L.A., he had begun to think of the city’s boulevards as sprawling rivers (an ironic notion given how little it rained here); Sunset, Wilshire, Santa Monica all ran to the ocean from deep within the city’s interior, and along the way the landscape changed—buildings and people and storefronts and vibe—like some urban rendition of Twain’s Mississippi.
This end of Sunset had a decidedly lower profile than the hard-partying Strip with its Whiskys and Roxys to the west. Nevertheless, there were still plenty of bars and clubs and theatres and roving humanity. The Palladium didn’t look like more than a run-down hockey arena from the outside, but it had played host to just about every relevant rock act over the last three decades.
Crossing Argyle Avenue, Clay spotted the name currently on the marquee and stopped cold. farewell ghost, november 1. And below that, the thing that really dizzied his brain: sold out.
Despite everything, the hair lifted on his arms, the way it did on the very rare occasion when something you had dreamed about all your life became a living, full-color reality. He could imagine what Savy was feeling backstage, how hard she’d worked for this, and he was excited for her.
Back in Philadelphia, he and Renee had followed a local band who’d frequented all-ages clubs, a bunch of dropout bruisers who slugged their way through Misfits and Circle Jerks covers. They hadn’t been ones for chatting up the crowd between songs; in fact, the only thing any of them had ever shouted into dead air was, in their best cheesesteak accents, “Rawlity Che!” (reality check). It was obviously some inside joke, but the local punks caught on quick and began chanting it at every show. And that was the chant Clay heard now in his head, the united voices on those humid long-ago nights: Reality check! Reality check!
The reality was his band was on the marquee, but the band was no longer his. The reality was that the only reason the Palladium was sold-out was because his band had sold him out. The reality was that Clay had never even been inside the Palladium, let alone on its stage, and now he was going to have to storm the place and play the show of his life.
Oh, the ideas that sounded good when you were chatting with a ghost on a mountainside.
To this point, Clay hadn’t had the luxury of being nervous, but now the old familiar flutter shot up from the sidewalk to take possession of him. He moved through the parking lot on feet he could not feel, with a stomach that was empty and sick. You would have thought Pink Floyd had reunited, given the roving crowd. How had Priest put this together in a single day?
At the back of the building, the stage door was standing open—a straight shot if not for the three-hundred-pound lineman crowding the doorway and the eight-foot fence separating the public lot from the backstage paddock. Even if I wanted to bribe that man, he’s ten feet away. And climbing the fence is probably a bad way to introduce myself.
Clay hopped up on the concrete base of a light post instead, looking around for a kid with an extra ticket, a scalper with his hat pulled low. There were no shady characters to be seen on the entire block, however, and Clay had a sinking suspicion there weren’t going to be any. The show was sold out because Priest and his minions had distributed the tickets for free. You either had one or you didn’t.
Reality check! “What now?” he asked aloud. Pay someone for their ticket? What if they recognized him and wondered why the lead singer needed to bribe his way in? It’d kind of raise unwanted attention. Then the element of surprise—his only real ally—would be kaput.
“Holy shit, I told you it was him!”
Oh, no.
Clay whirled and found himself face-to-face with Mo Marquez, who had materialized from the side door of a domestic-looking Chrysler minivan. Mo grabbed at Clay’s hand like they were long-lost twins and pumped it and bumped it in their own secret shake. One look in his eyes told you he was on his wa
y to the dark side of the moon. Inside the van was a smiling bleach blonde with a Debbie Harry cut. Even more obviously high.
“Why aren’t you backstage?” Clay asked.
“We were,” Mo said, “but things got tense with everyone so on edge. I said fuck it—she and me are taking the air.”
“I’m Sunny D,” the girl giggled.
“My sister said you weren’t going to be here. You get sick or something?”
“Oh… yeah, man, puke city. I’m better now though. Only thing, I can’t find my pass, so I’m out in the cold.”
“I’ve got the good stuff kids go for,” the girl giggled.
Mo threw his arm around Clay with surprising strength. “Well, damn, they’re like three seconds from going on. Sunny, let me get this fool inside before all hell breaks loose.”
“Hey, you are that guy.” The girl leaned her whole torso out of the van, blinking her eyes rapidly. “I saw you at the Viper Room. Wow, wow, you’re a god.”
“I doubt that,” Clay said.
“Got something for you.” And without warning, Sunny D grabbed Clay’s hair and pulled his face toward her own. Her bottom lip was pierced with five hoops and they pressed Clay’s lips back against his teeth. After a long and awkward exchange, Clay managed to pry himself free—but not before she’d slipped her spearmint gum into his mouth. “Good luck tonight.”
“Thanks,” Clay said, only mildly staggered.
Mo cracked a grin and brought Clay over to the gate in the high fence, where he showed his laminated pass to a bored-looking guard while Clay, having given Sunny D’s gum a few courtesy chews, stuck the gob on the chain-link and followed him wordlessly inside the paddock. “You’ll need me to take care of you on the road, I can see that,” Mo told him. “Not that I care whose face you suck anymore. Since we’re all going to be rich, I don’t have to beg Savy to marry your ass.”
“She’s worried about you,” Clay said.
“Come on, I don’t have two sisters, do I?” Mo lifted his hands, righteous and rehearsed. “It’s under control. I can think of a hundred people, right off the top of my head, who indulge way more than I do.”
The excuses we tell ourselves, Clay thought. But approaching the stage door, it was unwise to bite the hand that fed. The doorman studied Mo’s pass like it was a third-world passport. Finally, he turned his unfriendly glare on Clay. “Yours?”
“Do you have any idea who this dude is?” Mo asked. “He’s the reason you have a paying job tonight.” When the guard only stared back, he added, incredulous: “Clay Harper? The fucking motherfucking singer!”
“The singer is a chick. The band’s been inside for an hour.”
To Mo’s credit, he wasn’t easily discouraged. “That chick is my sister, bro, and trust me, she don’t want to sing lead. Not that she couldn’t—I mean, I taught her myself when she was four. Me and Kermit the Frog…” He went on about Savy falling in love with the guitar after watching a John Denver Muppet special, and when the doorman told him, in so many words, that he wasn’t impressed, Mo stuck his pass closer to his face: “This says I get to bring a guest. Don’t deny me my inalienable American rights.”
“You already brought a guest,” the doorman shot back. He stuck his clipboard in Mo’s face. “A Miss… Sunny D Purple Stuff—”
“She’s over there.” Mo pointed back at the fence where the bleach blonde was waiting in her fishnet stockings, her mouth already working new spearmint. “Sorry, mamacita, the band list is all screwed up. You’re going to have to watch from the cheap seats!” And Sunny stomped her platform heel into the asphalt.
The doorman shook his head and made Clay sign in as a guest (Clay promptly gave him an “Eddie Wilson” autograph), and with an expression that suggested he hated his job and wished he could relive his gridiron days, busting skulls and concussing with the best of them, he let Clay pass.
Backstage, it was dim. “Edge of Seventeen” was blasting in the arena beyond. The steps to the stage were lit in a fierce purple glow and at the top, Clay caught sight of Savy, her hair pinned up in a series of glowing green barrettes, obsessively working her tuner. He’d made his entrance too early, and if his former bandmates didn’t spot him, Priest surely would. “Is there a little boys’ room?” Clay asked Mo.
“Yeah, and while you’re in there, get rid of that ghetto-ass shirt.” Mo examined the holes, shreds, and grass stains in Clay’s tee, before tearing off his own shirt, which was black and clean. In the purple light, Clay witnessed the myriad of tattoos covering Mo’s shoulders and chest. Crucifixes, Stars of David, Wheels of Dharma—even the Islamic crescent and Hindu lotus flower. With only a few women, nude and smoking, to confuse the tapestry.
“I didn’t know you were so spiritual.”
Mo started to explain his circuitous road to redemption when they heard Spider, conversing with a middle-aged drum tech about how to signal for a towel, water, or a new drum in the event he busted a skin, and Clay ducked into the bathroom, pulling the door open to block Spider as he appeared, then shut as Spider walked past.
It was dark inside, but Clay didn’t bother with the lights. He Brailled his way to the throne and sat hard on the lid. The fear was on him again. That now-familiar reaction to taking the stage—only this time it was caught up in something more primal. Don’t go where you don’t belong. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Don’t do something that would likely get you killed. To go out there, Clay would have to violate his deepest instincts to survive. Where will I be an hour from now? he wondered, and more disconcertingly: What if the audience is full of The Man’s followers? An entire audience of Essies and Karneys and Annie Straffords. What if they swarm the stage and rip me to pieces?
Clay Harper. Drawn and quartered on stage.
His head spun. The scratches on his back prickled. His stomach lurched and he pitched forward in the dark and vomited on the unseen floor.
That is, he would have if anything had come up. His gut wretched painfully, but uselessly. He hadn’t eaten in more than a day, and there wasn’t even bile in his stomach. “Nothing to lose anymore,” he told himself.
But was there any shame in slinking back outside? Escaping into the night? Letting the others go off to their chosen fortune and fame and eventual doom? He could let the Hailmaker win and just go back to living the drab life he’d always known—
No! No. I’d rather be dead. And in that simple thought, Clay found the full measure of his resolve.
Outside, the house music transitioned from “Edge of Seventeen” to Public Enemy’s “She Watch Channel Zero?!” (likely the first time those two songs had ever been heard back to back). The bass shook the walls. Good vibrations.
Finally, the music cut out and a staggering roar rose from the audience. There really were four thousand people in the building. And they sounded ravenous, out of control. A blood-lusting arena awaiting gladiatorial combat. Live from San Quentin. A second wave of screaming followed this, and Clay realized the house lights had probably gone out too. He imagined his band getting into position on stage.
His band. That was right. As rightfully his as any of theirs. They’d made a critical decision without his consent, then tossed him out because an empty suit had told them to. Ego, Clay imagined Boyle telling him. Do it.
Clay used the ruins of his shirt to wipe the sweat and dirt from his face. He tossed it away and threw on Mo’s—which smelled of cigarette smoke and spearmint.
Savy’s guitar blasted to life with “Disaffected,” making the toilet under Clay shiver. And it was now or never. Do it! Boyle yelled at him. Show them!
It was never or now.
He forced himself up the purple steps. Bodies were jamming the stage wings—men with magazine haircuts, trendily dressed women, no one familiar, so he was able to stand anonymously among them, as he had on his own street while the Generator burned. Mo was nowhere to be found; he had gone out to be with his girl or found some dark, discreet corner to trip. And Priest—a squatter, les
s imposing man than he’d conveyed in his limo—was standing in the opposite wing, incessantly checking his phone, entirely disinterested in Ghost’s opening number.
Nevertheless, the power flowing from the stage was as palpable as standing beside a jet engine. And Clay was magnetically drawn to Ghost’s new singer. Killer guitar playing, killer voice, killer presence, killer bod, bright eyes, bright necklace flashing at her throat. Despite her betrayal, he was still so in love with her. Helpless. And on the heels of his fluttering heart came the old, familiar doubt. What if Ghost was better with Savy fronting them? What if the crowd preferred her over him?
In the end, maybe they’d never needed him at all.
Ego! Boyle chorused in his head. A closer relative of confidence than doubt. He couldn’t go out there like some shoe-gazing emo geek and take this show over. Only a truly arrogant fuck would have balls enough to do what he was about to do. Someone born to own a stage. Is that you? Is that you? Does that sound like you?
“Goddamn right,” Clay said, his voice lost in the wall of sound. But at that moment, Priest glanced up from his texting and spotted Clay across the way. He witnessed the conviction in Clay’s face and fumbled his phone onto the stage.
Now or never. Never or now. Show them. Show them!
Along the back wall was a touring crate lined with guitars. All jet-black Gibson SGs, Clay noticed. Savy’s guitar de choix, right down to her three-pickup configuration. She’d gone from having one baby to seven overnight. Clay was pulling one loose when the guitar tech, a long-haired surfer not much older than Clay, confronted him. “Can’t finger the tools, man.”
Given the tech’s expression, he recognized Clay—so Clay didn’t beat around the bush. “That’s my band out there. You can’t expect me to take the stage without something to play.”
“I—can’t let you on stage at all,” the tech stammered. “I was told that… I don’t think… look, I’m not allowed to, okay?”
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