Nine Hundred Nights

by Nick Apuzzo

  We took a break after an hour and while we were sitting on the curb I saw a leather wristband that Dave was wearing, it had a white enamel Explorer shaped guitar on it and it looked wicked.

  "Hey Dave…that's sweet! Where'd ya find that?" I asked.

  "Nice huh? Was a gift."

  "Dave's got a girlie." I said "Who is she?"

  "Chloe."

  "Chloe huh? Where'd ya meet her?"

  "She works at Smash."

  'Smash' was our nickname for the mega music store 'Sam Ash'.

  "You have a connection at Smash?"

  He didn't take the bait. Dave. Tough nut to crack.

  "So how come we haven't met her?" I persisted.

  He zinged me back good "How come we haven't met this girl you're seeing?"

  "Venice?"

  "Venice yeah."

  "Well it's not like I'm hiding her, she's taking a heavy course load at Rutgers. She doesn't go out much right now."

  He didn't respond but I saw his point.

  "OK…" I said "I'll bring Venice tonight if you bring Chloe. Assuming they're both free."

  "Right on, I'll call before you leave the house and let you know." he said.

  "Now that we have THAT settled, let's move on to the rumor that you have a little birthmark on your penis that looks like our sixteenth president, Rutherford B. Hayes."

  "Hayes was the nineteenth president, and you'll never know."

  We invaded The Rising Sun and Sid was still as irritable as ever. After stowing my guitars in the dressing room I went to the bar to get a club soda and Jimmy was sitting there killing time and as we chatted about nothing in particular; I absent mindedly watched Bobby-the-light-guy uncoiling some electrical cords. He took one of the cords and plugged it into the mixing board and ran the other end across the floor and somewhere behind one of the PA columns; when he emerged from where ever he was, he had a hero sandwich in his hand. Jimmy noticed it too and we watched as he examined it closely; it seemed odd. We became a little more interested and watched him carry it back to the mixing board.

  He handed it to Scott the sound dictator "What do ya think of this?"

  "Ooo I'm starvin'." Scott opened wide and took a monster sized bite thinking it was Bobby's tough luck if he gave him the opening, but made a sour face as he chewed and then finished swallowing "The bread's stale…weird taste. What the hell is this?" Scott asked.

  Bobby said "I don't know, I just found it behind the PA column."

  Jimmy and I burst out laughing and Scott started yelling at Bobby, who did NOT get it. He honestly didn't think there was anything wrong with his using Scott as a test subject for the experiment.

  Jimmy and I took over for Sean assembling all of our stuff so that Sean would be free to go on a food run. We stuffed forty dollars in his shirt pocket, ignoring his protests, and requested a stack of pizza from "Tina and Angelo's", which was only a couple of blocks away on the other side of the Thruway. Sean drove an old Buick Skylark that looked as though it had been used in the war between Rome and Carthage; I can't even tell you the color with any confidence…I'm going to go ahead and guess it was metallic green, but after so much fading it very well could have originally been bright red, who knows? The exhaust system was rusting and falling apart, held up with wire hangers, but the one amazing thing was that whatever was rotted through in the exhaust system made the car sound like a quarter mile muscle car. It made a deep 'thrum thrum thrum' kind of sound, and when he gunned it you'd have sworn Mario Andretti was near. We heard the sound as he bolted from the parking lot, past the front of the club and onward to the pizza place.

  "Someday I'm gonna slide under there and find out what's broken; I would love it if my Camaro sounded like that!" Jimmy said with a smile.

  "Forget it son, you just don't have the rust." I said.

  After we'd completed the setup and everyone had eaten, we still had forty five minutes before we went on; I came out to look for Venice. I looked around the place and didn't see her at any of the tables, so I began to look up and down the bar…nothing. I started at the far end of the bar and scanned more carefully. About a third of the way toward me, sitting in front of three drinks, two of which were untouched, sat Venice. I'd tipped her off that The Rising Sun was more working class than Tracers, which she had been to. She was wearing hip hugger jeans that were practically painted on, and they had studs and embroidery running down the outside seams. She had on a short dungaree jacket that came down to the middle of her rib cage, worn over a red halter. Her hair was combed out and perfect and I'm sure an hourglass would have envied her shape. This girl had moves that I hadn't seen yet. The back of her jacket had RAW DEAL stenciled in red spray paint; it looked too cool.

  I walked up to her and asked "You here alone?"

  "I'm not alone." she said smiling "But you better have a better opening line than that!"

  "You're sitting on my dinner." I said.

  She laughed and gave me a big kiss.

  "Thirsty?" I asked, gesturing to the three drinks.

  "They just appeared, just like that." she said snapping her fingers.

  "Women, it's all soooooo easy for you all, isn't it?" I asked sarcastically.

  She had an answer ready for me though "They say if a man wants to know what child birth is like, he can shove an umbrella up his ass and open it a few dozen times."

  I was silent for a moment, then said "Enjoy your drinks." and turned to go.

  We both laughed.

  "Did you do the jacket?"

  "Yeah, only took a minute. Remember, I used to be an art major." she said.

  "Well it looks very cool. Did Mag let you in? No problems?" I asked.

  "Yeah I was on his list. Thanks."

  'Mag' was short for Magnussen, the huge, and I do mean HUGE bouncer at The Rising Sun. It was said that Mag beat up a town once. As big as he was, he was the coolest of the cool and every band that played that place loved Mag and considered him Sid's alter ego.

  I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see Dave and a girl I didn't know.

  "Hey Nick, this is Chloe."

  We greeted each other and I introduced Venice. Dave had good taste; Chloe seemed like a friendly and normal girl and was very pretty too. She and Venice hit it off immediately and I was glad that Venice would have company while we were playing. We took them back into the dressing room to meet the guys and the two of them seemed to feel kind of VIP-ish being allowed into the inner sanctum and I guess it didn't matter to them that it was a faded, cramped and ill-ventilated sanctum. It was the first time Ingy had seen Venice since the day we met her at The Dog Show and instead of hello he ordered in a loud voice.

  "Yeah, I'll have twelve chili cheese dogs and a large fries!"

  She laughed. I was expecting something though, and Ingy didn't let me down.

  "Why don't you ask Nick about his 'love experiment' a month ago. What was that guy's name Nick…Randy wasn't it? Does she know about Randy?" he teased.

  She looked him in the eye and said "Nice try. I already know about this…he tells me about it all the time."

  Ingy looked disappointed "Damn, I had a good one ready to go there."

  "You shut him down." I said to Venice.

  "I shut you both down." she said.

  "I like her already." Sean said.

  "Me too." Tommy echoed.

  When we went on, the crowd was a little thin so we put all of our originals in the beginning of the second set, by which time it was nearly packed and everyone had lost their inhibitions. We closed with 'Revelations' from Iron Maiden. We had to come back on once, and since we had already played Quiet Exile, I suggested some of our sound check material and the guys were in a goofy mood and readily agreed. We played the theme from 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show', our filthy version of 'The Brady Bunch', we jammed to the 'Mission Impossible' theme and finished up with Cream's 'Sunshine of Your Love', off of the Disraeli Gears album. We played these and other songs all the time just to tune up, test the soun
d and fool around, but never in front of an audience. Everybody had a good time. I have to say we played the living crap out of 'Sunshine of Your Love' and as I was considering proposing that we add it to our normal play list, it came back to me that our mission at this point was to make our way toward all original material.

  After the show was over I asked Sean to see if Venice and Chloe wanted to come back to the dressing room. A few minutes later they came in together, and were greeted by the sight of Jimmy in his briefs shimmying out of his drumming/bike shorts. They laughed and tip toed around him to sit in the far corner of the room, the only place not occupied at the moment. I kissed Venice and began to change my clothes. I had plenty of time to ask her what she thought of the show.

  We all stripped down, dried off and got into our street clothes. As usual I held my breath as Jimmy and Kenny saturated the air with hairspray, and as usual Tommy complained that his throat was going to seal up with that crap in the air. He had a good point.

  Ten minutes after we'd left the stage 'Perfect Looking Jimmy' said "I'll be at the bar."

  There was a knock at the door and we all simultaneously yelled "GO AWAY!" The door opened and it was Bill Kardos with Valerie DeSanto.

  "Big bad BILL!" I said and shook his hand "and VALERIE!" I said with equal enthusiasm and gave her a big hug…I was genuinely glad to see them.

  Everyone started to talk at once and it was a really happy reunion.

  I took the opportunity "Valerie this is my girl, Venice. Venice this is Valerie, she got tired of rejecting me."

  Was that a risky move? You bet, but I'm all about risk. It worked and Valerie smiled her warm smile and chatted for a few minutes with Venice. I could see they were comfortable with each other, she'd fallen for Bill and I was glad for her and for Bill. Valerie let Venice and I know that she and Bill were engaged. Being the suave and smooth operator I am I questioned the wisdom of getting hitched so young, Valerie didn't take offense in the slightest, she said simply 'When you know, you know.' We wished her and Bill the best.

  I got a lift to the gig with Ingy, but Venice was going to drive me home. When we were done packing up the band, she tossed me her keys and we headed down the New York State Thruway.

  "So, I'm curious. What did you think of the show?"

  "I think you guys could actually become famous if you wanted to."

  "Really." I said, it wasn't a question, it was more like a challenge.

  "Honest." she said "When have you watched the band from the audience, not playing, just watching?"

  "Hmmmm I don't think that's even possible."

  "Exactly. You've never done it. I just did." she said "The sound, the chemistry you guys have with each other. Watching how the people standing around me reacted…you're good enough, you really are."

  "That's…" I started to say but she interrupted me.

  "I'm not done, one more thing. Your original songs."

  "…yeah?"

  "They're fantastic…really they're very good! You don't know how they sound from the crowd…you guys are good enough and I just want you to know that you could do it if it's what you want."

  I thought about it for a minute, then said "You sound excited, you think I should go with the record company."

  "Not at all." she said, surprising me.

  "Hmm you sound pretty enthusiastic about the band."

  "Well I am, I expected you to be good, I didn't know you were THAT good. So yeah, I'm enthusiastic." she said "However, I think you're in the process of deciding. I want you to choose and not regret it, it'll be much more fun being around you if you're not regretting." she said with a chuckle "So I want whatever you want. It's never been about the risk Nick, even though you talk about it, it's about you figuring out what you want to do."

  "Yeah I guess so." I said.

  "Hey, if you wanted to do it, and didn't try, you'd be more regretful than if you tried and failed."

  "True." I said "OK, enough band talk. Can you sleep over? I have bunk beds and feety-jammies for us. We can make a fort and tell secrets."

  "I just happen to have brought an overnight bag with me."

  "Yaaaaayyyyy" I said in a little kids voice "Venice is sleeping over yaaaaayyy."

  She laughed "You're a lot of fun, ya know that?"

  "Oh wait till later…"

  "OK, eyes on the road Skippy; let's get there in one piece."

  We continued to play the clubs; the girlfriends, my Venice, Dave's Chloe and Jimmy's April came to the shows about once a week. Even Tommy's wife Hope started to come every couple of weeks. Ingy and Kenny were still casually dating girls they met in the clubs we played; neither of them was serious about any one girl and so they went through the population like a tornado through a small Midwestern town.

  By January of '84 we'd added another four originals to our set: 'Shotgun Blues', 'Life In Shadows', 'Spite' and our first instrumental 'Vampire's Waltz', bringing our total to eleven originals. With the exception of the instrumental they were all well received. We kept 'Waltz' in the set because we liked playing it, and it wasn't like we didn't receive applause, we just noticed that some people took the opportunity to refill their drink, instead of pressing up against the stage and offering us pitchers and bottles of unidentified alcoholic liquids.

  Doug Brill came to see us a couple of times and was impressed with the new songs; Sean let us know that he wanted to meet with us in the first week of February. We made an appeal to Sean to confine our bookings to local clubs, since it was the snow season, but he ignored our pleas and booked some dates in clubs requiring a snow plow to reach. We played a gig in South Amboy, it was the biggest birthday party I'd ever seen for the son of some mob guy. We played a gig near Point Pleasant, we got lost in a friggin blizzard about eight times before we found the place. We even played a gig at a big club in Pittsburg; it was cold that day but there was no snow, so it was less of a hassle than the place near Point Pleasant. Sean's mantra was that this was all good exposure for us, all I know is that it was cold as a penguin's penis.

  We wound our way through January with the 'away gigs', and it was becoming harder to maintain peaceful coexistence between our day job responsibilities and our band schedule. Jimmy, Ingy and I had the hardest time of it; Tommy owned his own business so he had more flexibility than us, and the band was Kenny's only commitment so he had no conflict. I think it was causing Jimmy and Ingy to feel some tension about the decision we had yet to make; I know it did for me. As the first week of February approached I commanded myself to relax about the meeting with Doug and keep Venice's advice in mind…make the decision on my own timetable and no one else's.

  Track 19

  The Meeting

  Sean set the meeting for Wednesday evening, the first day in February and it was going to be held in Manhattan at Ophion's headquarters on Broadway. Earlier in the day I brought a new guitar over to Kenny's house; I'd gotten a very sweet deal on a battered Gibson EDS-1275 double-neck guitar in a pawn shop in Passaic, about a mile from the studio. I'd asked Kenny to think about something cool to paint on it since the paint job was decimated; he called me the night before and told me he'd sketched some ideas and I was eager to see what he had come up with. We sat in his room as he showed me four colored pencil sketches of awesome originality and any one of them would have been beyond what I was expecting. His mother called him from upstairs and he trotted up to see what she wanted…it all came apart so fast, I cannot imagine what it could possibly have been. Though I couldn't make out what was being discussed, I clearly heard the tension ratchet up about fifty notches and turn into screaming. Then I heard stuff being thrown, something broke, glass, pottery, I couldn't tell. More yelling. Then the door down to his room opened and from the top of the staircase his final screaming words "…so FUCK YOU!" He slammed the door and came barreling down the stairs, sat back at his slant-topped drawing table and resumed the conversation as if nothing had happened.

  I waited a couple of minutes and when he didn't mention an
ything about what happened I asked.

  "Kenny."

  He kept on talking, calmly describing how he'd apply the paint.

  "Kenny…Kenny!"

  He finally stopped and looked at me.

  "What the hell was all that? Are you OK bro?" I asked.

  He responded but it wasn't really an answer, he just waved his hand at the stairway and mumbled something that I couldn't make out.

  "I'm your buddy so ya know…no judgments between friends and all, but you should really try to keep your temper in check man. Don't let it get away from you like that."

  "Dude…they're in ball-busting mode twenty four-seven." he said calmly "Everything's fine, don't worry about it."

  I let it go. I knew whatever he needed to get himself on an even keel…I wasn't equipped to help him see it. We continued the conversation and settled on an amazing concept he'd created; it was a gargoyle's face and the two necks were its horns. The color scheme at the center was metallic silver-gray gradually transitioning to a deep purple (please excuse the pun). I thought that even if the guitar would have had a perfect factory finish when I bought it, this would just take it to a higher level. It seemed crazy to me that Kenny didn't KNOW that he was going to be a famous artist someday, and that art, not the band, was the vehicle that would carry him into is rightful future. I would bet a million dollars on it if I had it to risk, and I would bet another million that Kenny had no clue.

  Kenny, Ingy and I went to the meeting in my car, and Jimmy drove Tommy and Sean. Finding available parking was a bitch in that section of Broadway so it was fortunate we left half an hour earlier than we really needed to. Ophion occupied the entire twenty first floor of the building and we were all pretty excited and impressed. I had a chance to touch base with Jimmy before the meeting to see if he was feeling stressed about it, his "I'm takin' it at my own pace man, so it's all good." put me at ease.