Nine Hundred Nights

by Nick Apuzzo

  "So, does everyone wanna handle the next songs the same way as before or make a change?" I asked.

  In just a minute or two it was clear that everyone was comfortable with the way it unfolded before.

  "Let's meet here tomorrow then and we'll have a short practice of the new stuff then you guys take off and Jimmy, Ingy and I will try to work out some new stuff."

  Everyone agreed and I had one more brain storm.

  "I seek sustenance, I seek little white boxes, I seek to storm the castle!" I said, making an appeal for a road trip to White Castle.

  Ingy in his typical gentle way, hinted at his agreement "TO THE CASTLE!"

  We occupied three adjacent tables inside of the place and each of us ate a ridiculous quantity of the savory little burgers; and as we ate, huge and elaborate pyramids of empty boxes were constructed at each of the three tables. As we were leaving Kenny was possessed by the spirit of Bruce Lee and with one kick, leveled all three pyramids. The 'The Little Dragon' spent the next five minutes on his knees picking up 180 little cardboard boxes.

  Track 17

  Heavenly Bodies

  By October we had another three original songs "Bleed Me", "The Way It Goes" and "Upside Down", bringing our total to seven. We debated whether to put them all in one original set, or to scatter them, and we settled on scattering them throughout the play lists. I was glad we agreed to do that, since we hadn't played the newest three in front of a crowd yet and didn't know what the reception was going to be.

  While there was no business reason for Dave to come to the practices, he usually did to hang out and chat. However I'd noticed that for the last month or so, he hadn't been around much when we didn't have a gig. I dropped by his house one night to ask him where he'd been lately; I suspected it was a girl. I found him in his room playing guitar. I plopped myself down in a chair and listened to him practice 'The Spirit of Radio' by Rush for a few minutes; he eventually finished, placed his guitar back in its stand and sat down on his bed. I decided to ask him straight out.

  "Hey Dave, where you been man?"

  "Hi Nick, what's going on?

  "Same old...haven't seen your ugly mug around unless we have a gig man. I'm guessing you have a girlie your keepin' a secret." I said.

  Dave laughed. Dave didn't say anything.

  "C'mon man, we're friends, if there's a problem tell me about it."

  "Eh. It's not exactly a problem." he said cryptically.

  Here's something to know about Dave, he's one of the most humble, considerate and conscientious guys I'd ever met. So if he was having a hard time telling me something it was painful for me to watch; I had to motivate him get it out.

  "Boobie, c'mon, it's papa-Nick, you can tell me anything."

  He laughed.

  "I'm not leavin' till you disclose mah-brother...c'mon, get it off your chest."

  "Well I wasn't sure how you'd feel about it, so I figured I'd just keep it to myself. I'm playin' with Alex and Fish and those guys."

  "The guys who Jimmy and Ingy used to play with right?"

  "Yeah. We're just jammin' right now but we're tryin' to put together a play list and ya know, maybe eventually play out."

  "Dave." I said "Dave, Dave, Dave." I breathed a sigh "You magnificent bastard you. You thought we'd mind?"

  "Well, I wasn't sure so..."

  "Dave I'm very happy for you bro! I think that's fantastic." I said "We're friends dude, why do you think I wouldn't be happy about you finding guys to play with?"

  He took a second to state the obvious "Competition."

  "By that logic, I can't be friends with anyone else in the tri-state area who's in a band...and need I point out, you're not just anybody." I smiled "Dude, you're crazed, that's all there is. No offense but you have some screwy ideas."

  "Well, you sure no one else'll have a problem with this?"

  "I'm giving you an unconditional guarantee, I'll print you a coupon when I get home."

  He chuckled and seemed relieved "Cool."

  "Do you still wanna roadie? Or ya wanna phase that out?" I asked.

  "No no, I'm your guy, I don't wanna fuck with that."

  "No problem, understood. But when and if the time comes, just tell me, it's not like you'd be deserting us, situations change and no one's gonna think anything bad about you bro. You should know that."

  "OK...OK I got it. Cool."

  The second Friday in October we were back at Tracers and we had an opening act, which was rare for us. They were an all girl band, Haley and the Comets. The dressing room was large enough to accommodate both bands but it was understood that when they were changing clothes we'd make ourselves scarce...at least that's what we thought. As it turned out, these girls were hard boiled rocker types in addition to being totally bubble-licious. When we arrived at the club, Ingy and I were of one mind, let's go grab a free beer; but when we entered the dressing room we noticed two significant changes...the beer tub was empty of beer, plenty of ice, just no beer…and there were four women spread out with all of their women-crap in every corner of the room. Oh, and they were drinking the last of the beer. And did I mention that two of them were not completely dressed?

  I turned to Ingy and said "I think we can take 'em."

  "Yeah but let's go over the rules first...like no kicks to the groin."

  "One of you is Haley I'm guessing." I said.

  A dark haired semi-clothed beauty said "Yeah?"

  She had Mediterranean features and a pretty striking face when she looked directly at me. I wondered what her voice sounded like.

  I looked to the others and stated flatly "So you must be the Comets then."

  I thought it was a clever thing to say, but Haley came back with "You must be Raw Fish."

  Touché. I wouldn't underestimate her again.

  Ingy said slowly in lament "The beer...you've swallowed all of the free beer."

  Just as he said it, the door opened wider and a big dude, one of the door staff, came through with a case of Molson Golden on his shoulder. He squeezed through us and set it down next to the tub.

  Hailey, in hip huggers and bra, said in a baby talk lilt "Thank you Jack, you're a life-saver. These guys were just about to start crying because we drank some beer." and as he passed by her to leave the room, she gave him a pat on the ass.

  "We were only gonna cry a little bit." Ingy said.

  In a gesture of amity I said "I can see we're in your way, we'll drop our stuff in the corner and let you guys have the room."

  "Afraid to change in front of a girl?" Haley said, it was becoming clear to me that she was an Alpha female and the natural pack leader "Small...you know..." she trailed off with an impish grin.

  "Mine is so big...it has an elbow." I said, and everyone laughed except Ingy, who'd heard that one before.

  Ingy waited until they finished laughing and said "It's true that he has a big cock, but he HAS done things that are kind of disgusting with it."

  I knew he was onto something, but needed more information to help him along "One person's disgusting is another person's acceptable."

  "I don't care what Indian ritual...excuse me SECRET Indian ritual you're 'required' to perform, everyone finds it sick and you should stop doing whatever they tell you to do! Think for yourself!" he said with a truly believable expression of distaste.

  "That's my personal business." I said "My personal PRIVATE business, so zip it fucktard!" I said with hostility.

  The girls watched and listened in rapt attention.

  Ingy laughed at me and shook his head "He has like one sixteenth Native American blood and so he does this 'religious' thing where he eats his own seed. It's so fucked up."

  "HEY, SHUT THE HELL UP! I SAID IT'S MY BUSINESS!" I yelled.

  "He does have a big dick, know how I know? We caught him doing it once before a show. Yeah…" Ingy said nodding "…he was consuming his own splooge. He can easily reach it cause he's ya know, big. And he's...oh God it was gross."

  "THAT'S IT!" I
said and dove onto Ingy.

  We got about ten seconds of me ringing his neck and Sean came in looking for us. He grabbed me off of Ingy and started crabbing away as usual.

  "I can't leave you two alone for three minutes. Will you GROW UP already!" he said, then turned to the girls "Whatever they said is bullshit. They do this all the time; it's all a stupid prank."

  It was easy to see that the girls didn't believe him.

  "Look I'm telling you." he said with annoyance "OK. What were they fighting about this time?"

  I interjected "Mind your business Sean!"

  "Shut it Nick! What did they say?"

  One of the Comets answered "This one..." pointing at Ingy "...said that that one..." pointing at me "...that you caught him eating his own jizz before a show...that it's some kind of Native American thing."

  I watched Sean's face as he tried...tried SO HARD not to laugh, but in the end he came up short in will-power and doubled over in laughter.

  When he'd caught his breath he said "It's total bullshit. Honest, they make shit up all the time. I swear, they're just morons, both of them."

  Then Haley and all of the Comets looked at Ingy and me, and their contempt was replaced with a measure of respect...or it might have been fear, it was hard to tell the difference; either way it was apparent they didn't take us lightly any more.

  "What's your name?" she asked me.

  "Nick."

  "Why don't you load that beer into the tub?" and before I could tell her to do it herself, she added "Because I can get us as much as we want."

  "In that case, take your bra off and stay a while." I said as I moved over to the box, broke it open and began to load the tub with beer.

  She said "Not likely."

  "I was talking to Ingy." I said.

  The tension was broken and everyone began to jabber with everyone else. Jimmy, Tommy, Kenny and Dave all came in with equipment in hand and Sean had them stack most of it in the hallway.

  The girls went on and we all went outside and watched them. Since it was a little early the place wasn't full, but we made up for it by making a lot of noise for them. They did play some Joan Jett and some Heart of course, but they did a respectable job with Led Zep, AC/DC and Kiss. They're the only New York area bar band I ever heard that did lesser-known Kiss songs, so being a fan I whooped it up for them. It bears mentioning that when they played they didn't 'pose'. They cranked it out with a vengeance and sang each song like they meant every word. That made everyone in our band instant-fans. In the middle of their last number we started to drift back to the dressing room and Ingy, Kenny and I unpacked our guitars and began tuning up. They ended their set, came stampeding back into the dressing room and it instantly became chaos. Sean poked his head in the door and told Kenny and Ingy and I to vacate, but Haley quashed that idea and insisted we stay. All of them had no reservations about changing in front of us and Haley and the one who'd spoken to Sean earlier, 'Kat', even turned their backs, removed their bras and pulled on T-shirts.

  Somehow we managed to get ourselves ready with all of them in the room, the changing clothes, the tuning up, the play lists placed with the new original songs and of course Sean and Dave getting most of the equipment set up and connected. I was pretty sure Haley was giving me the signals and as previously mentioned, she was a stone cold babe. Kat was absolutely onto Ingy, it wasn't a case of reading signals. He had these black leather pants that he spent a small fortune for, and when he was pulling them on, we could see that it required a bit of muscle. Kat gladly helped him pull them on and then ran her hands all over his ass and super-happy-area, commenting on how good 'the leather' felt. Yeah right, she was on him like a pit bull on a postal worker.

  Some of the 'Comets' watched 'Perfect Looking Jimmy' strip down and become 'Jimmy the drummer', without making it too obvious that they were in fact, watching. Jimmy, the consummate professional, had his head in the gig and didn't even notice…which is to say, when he morphed from 'Perfect Looking Jimmy' to 'Jimmy the drummer', the transformation was total.

  Before the girls went on to do their set, Kenny always had a joint going around the room, after they came off the stage and we were getting ready, he was giving 'shotguns' lip to lip, to the 'Comets'. Tommy was the only one who made it politely obvious that he was spoken for, yet he was as friendly as always and right in the thick of it, which is where you could always find Tommy, in the middle of the storm.

  We arranged ourselves and heard the DJ say "Please welcome back to Tracers…and LET THEM HEAR IT…RAW DEAL!"

  Ronnie James Dio and Vinnie Appice had recently left Black Sabbath and formed 'Dio', they had released that band's first album 'Holy Diver' a few months ago and it just plain blew everyone away; it was destined to be a classic. We opened with the title track 'Holy Diver' and the reaction was immediate and loud. As we played that opening song the thought crossed my mind that Tommy's voice lent itself very well to Dio and then I reminded myself that our agenda now was to build a following for our original songs. It was difficult for me to think of us as being in competition with bands like Dio, bands that we idolized, but that's exactly the way we had to start thinking if we were to proceed with Doug Brill and Ophion Records.

  Having said that, DIO RULES! (Sorry, I had to let that out.)

  We played that first set, sandwiching our originals 'Fast n Hard', 'Bleed Me' and 'Upside Down' in between cover material. Again, I was surprised that the reaction was as good as it was. I thought the songs were good, yet was guarded so as to not be disappointed. In the first set, it was clear they were good enough for the Tracers crowd to keep thrusting fists and devil horns at us as we played.

  Between sets we partied with Haley and the Comets in the dressing room, but then it spilled out into the bar area. We'd lay face up on the bar and the bartenders would mix drinks directly in our mouths. It was as close to chaos as the bartenders and bouncers would allow. When the Comets started to instigate some semi-nudity, the club manager came over and told us to get started on our second set.

  We opened with a new original 'The Way It Goes', worked 'Sister Diesel' and 'Rampage Sonata' in between covers and as we'd done before, saved 'Quiet Exile' as our closer. This time people were singing along with Quiet Exile and it was a great feeling. The song has a strong guitar lick in the beginning, middle and end of the song, and the lick has measures of silence that happen on the downbeat; a bunch of people in the crowd knew the song and yelled 'YEAH!' exactly in those measures of silence. It sounded absolutely awesome. I turned to Jimmy, looking to share the moment, but his head was down while he twirled his sticks and played. I looked at Kenny, who was lighting a cigarette and playing at the same time. I looked to Tommy…he was slapping some hands that were being thrust at him. Finally, I looked all the way across the stage and saw Ingy looking at me; he had a kind of victorious smile on his face. I took off and ran at him, sliding into the area just in front of his feet, like a base runner sliding into second and then letting the momentum carry me back to a standing position. When the guitar break came I entertained the idea of jumping down into the crowd, but truly, they were really lathered up and the chances of being able to make it back up onto the stage after the lead seemed remote, so I planted a foot on the monitor, right up against the edge of the stage and sprayed that sound out there. We finished to huge applause and retired to the 'pit of insanity' that the dressing room had been all night.

  I had to make a decision about Haley…so sexual, so fine, so very uninhibited, I'm sure sex with her would have drained a bit of my life force. However, there was Venice. Sweet Venice. Haley wasn't your average encounter, it was like I was being tested…but in the end, no one could come close to Venice. It wasn't a surprise to me, if it weren't so I'd have vaccinated Haley already…ON the premises. I had to let her know in a way that wouldn't make Haley feel badly, after all, she and the Comets had been very cool to us. After toweling off, I grabbed a beer and stepped into the little kitchen, the same kitchen that I'd visited with th
e busty temptress the last time we played here, and relaxed against a metal table top. Haley came in, looking like a cat on the prowl.

  "Hey…what's goin' on?" I asked.

  "Runnin' away from me?"

  "Ya know, something happened to me the other day, it's kind of a first for me."

  "What's that?" she asked.

  It took a few seconds for me to spit it out "I fell in love."

  She looked at me, not sure if I was joking.

  "Here I am, and you KNOW you're a fine lookin' woman, and here I am, struggling with something I haven't had to struggle with before." I said "But when I get to the bottom of it, as much as I'm attracted to you…your personality too…I fell in love with her and I think it's gonna' stick."

  She didn't say a word, suddenly she lost her swagger, and she floated over to me, got on her tip toes and kissed me gently on the cheek.

  She walked over to the kitchen door and looked back at me with a sweet smile and said "I don't suppose there are any more like you at home." then turned and left.

  Track 18

  Game On

  The following day, Saturday, Sean had us booked again at The Rising Sun; I guess Sid had cooled off or heard of the crowds we were drawing, probably the latter, and wanted us to appear. After the gig at Tracers the night before, I'd mentioned to everyone that I was going to hang out at Ingy's house and play a little 'showdown' in the street; when you have only two people and a street hockey goal and some sticks, one person gets in the goal and tries to prevent the other from scoring…that's 'showdown'. Ingy and I were playing for about fifteen minutes when the rest of the band started to show up; within half an hour everyone was there. Even Dave showed up. We moved the net out into the street and played three on three with Dave in the net as permanent goalie, then Ingy's brother Colm came home and we played four on four; we had to chalk the second goal onto the street since we lacked a second net. There was a lot of high-sticking going on and if there'd been a referee everybody, including the goalies, would have spent the entire game in the penalty box…which would have probably been Ingy's front lawn. But of course, no refs, no penalties, big bruises.