by TL Travis
Behind the Lights
Book One
TL Travis
Published by Encompass Ink
An Imprint of
Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing
This Book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, duplicated, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
©Text Copyright 2018 TL Travis
Cover By:
Rue Volley
Cover Model: Cody Criswell from Artifas
Smarturl.it/CCriswellYouTube
Smarturl.it/CCriswellFB
Smarturl.it/CCriswellInstagram
For more information on Cody’s band, please visit their social media links below:
Artifas Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/Artifas
Website: http://www.Artifas.com
Photographer – Eric David Battershell
https://www.facebook.com/ericBattershell
https://www.facebook.com/ericbattershellphotography2018
http://www.ericbattershellphotography.com/
https://www.instagram.com/ericbattershellphotography/
Edited for Encompass Ink by:
EAL Editing Services
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and are products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual events, or locales or persons, living or dead are entirely coincidental.
The following songs are written and copyrighted by TL Travis:
©Blood Brothers
©Time to move on
©Black
The Social Sinners Series in order (not to be read as stand-alones):
1 – Behind the Lights
Smarturl.it/SocialSinners1
2 – In the Shadows
Smarturl.it/SocialSinners2
3 – A Heart Divided
Smarturl.it/SocialSinners3
4 – Beyond the Curtain
Smarturl.it/SocialSinners4
5 – After the Final Curtain
Smarturl.it/SocialSinners5
Tunes I cranked out the words to:
Trivium - The heart from your hate
Slipknot – Psychosocial
Five Finger Death Punch – My Nemesis
(My mantra, I’m sure this one will be repeated in each book)
Black Sabbath – Electric Funeral
Artifas – Alive
Metallica – Sanitarium
Marilyn Manson – Kill 4 Me
Fozzy – Judas
Pop Evil – Waking Lions
I Prevail - Lifelines
Red Sun Rising – The Otherside
Zero Theorem - Area
To everyone who has a dream,
Don’t let anyone take it from you.
You and you alone are in control of your destiny.
Believe in yourself.
If you don’t take yourself seriously,
then no one else ever will.
June 9, 2018
The lights dim, and the crowd goes wild. Their screams are like deafening music to my ears, so loud, I can barely hear myself think. Yet at the same time, I can’t wipe the smile it gives me from my face. To think it’s all for us is beyond fucking awesome.
Taking a deep breath, I try and center myself as the announcer takes the stage:
“Good evening ladies and gentlemen!
(He pauses waiting for the screams die down.)
You’ve been waiting a long fucking time for this night, waiting for them to headline their own tour and to kick it off on home turf. So, without further ado, let’s give it up for our local boys – Joey, Stoli, Mickey and Diamond, Social Sinners!”
Stoli strikes the first note, launching into the opening riffs for our Platinum-certified and award winning song, Blood Brothers. Diamond follows suit, tapping the pedal in tune on his bass drum. Lastly, Mickey kicks in, plucking the cords on his bass. Gripping my bullet shaped mic stand, my eyes open as the curtain in front of me disappears and I stare out into the faces of our fans packing the Tacoma Dome for the first sold out show of our eighteen-month tour.
Stale cigarette smoke and the musty odor of an old building full of history hit my senses first but are quickly replaced by the wafting smell of skunk. Ah, home again where partaking is legal. I breathe deeply, inhaling the familiar aroma, letting it fill my lungs before addressing our hometown crowd. The nostalgia isn’t lost on me; looking down I realize I’m wearing the shirt I got from the first concert I ever went to on opening night for my own band’s first headlining tour.
“How’s everybody doing tonight?” I ask the nameless faces staring back at me as they go ape-shit. The band is still playing the song in the background, while I continue teasing the crowd.
“You’re a bunch of crazy fuckers waiting outside in the pouring rain to hear us play.”
Their screams break the decibel levels.
I turn, eyeing my boys poised behind me one by one. “You guys ready to blow the roof off this mother fucker?”
My bandmates answer without words, using their God given talents on their musical instruments to answer for them.
“Well there ya go.” I turn and face the crowd again. “We…are…Social Sinners. And here is… ‘Blood Brothers’!”
We took a vow
We signed a pact
To ride it out
‘til the end
Each one of us
We chose to fight
To fight as one
To fight for what we believe in
We’ll rise and fall, but we’re standing tall
We take no shit, won’t ever quit
We’ll take our last breath
Fighting
Fighting
Fighting
For what’s…right
Chorus:
Blood for blood
Life for life
Our common goal
To fight for what’s right
You’ll never beat
Blood Brothers
Don’t even try
You’ll never win
You can’t defeat
Blood Brothers
Your petty shit
Won’t let you in
You’ll never win
We won’t give in
So wipe away…that fucking grin
Or you will meet the bitter end
You think we’re weak?
Ha-ha-ha
Your outlook’s bleak
Let me introduce you to my men
One, two, three, four, five (I hold my hand up, curling my fingers into a fist one by one)
Chorus:
Blood for blood
Life for life
Our common goal
To fight for what’s right
You’ll never beat
Blood Brothers
Don’t even try
You’ll never win
You can’t defeat
Blood Brothers
We’ll be together… ‘til the very end
The very end
The very end
‘Til the very fucking end
There’s nothing like opening your first headlining tour in the place where you were born and raised. The mosh pit was jam packed with security detail surrounding the fenced in area, checking each and every wristband before letting anyone enter. I remember those days, the freeing feeling of relentlessly pounding away your aggressions – but now in a somewhat controlled environment. There were a couple of times the pits we were in when we
were younger weren’t monitored and shit got out of control. But one thing we insisted on, was protecting our fans so we ensured security was tight in the pit areas at all our concerts. We even went so far as to make it a requirement in the contracts our management signed with each venue.
Washington State, this is where our band, Social Sinners was conceived. The four of us grew up together and formed the band our junior year of high school in Everett. Me – Joseph “Joey” Hayes, I’m the lead vocalist and back up guitarist. My best friend Ricky “Stoli” Branson is our lead guitarist, our bassist is Mick “Mickey” Payne and the master of the skins, is our drummer Ethan “Diamond” Taylor. We’re a tight knit group. We fight like brothers, we love like brothers, we share like brothers. When one of us hurts, we all hurt. Blood Brothers for all intents and purposes is the mantra we live by. You fuck with one of us, well then, you’ve fucked with all of us. Enough said.
Stoli and I have been best friends since kindergarten, hell probably even before that. I can’t remember a day gone by without him in it. Mickey and Diamond, we met our freshman year of high school in band class. The four of us merged into the same social pariah group. Gangly teens who didn’t play sports, were socially inept, could give two shits less about being a part of the cool kids’ groups, skinny as rails and DGAF – didn’t give a fuck. And to top it off, three out of four of us were gay. Basically, we were Social Sinners, hence the band name.
Chapter
One
Summer, 1995
Sitting on the front stoop of our house in Everett, I was listening to my parents fighting, yet once again. This had become a daily occurrence in the Hayes household. With my baseball and glove in hand, I sat there tossing the ball up to myself and catching it while waiting for my dad to play with me like he’d promised me the night before. But I’d finally resigned to the fact that it wasn’t going to happen, at least not for today.
The sounds of slamming doors and my parents screams echoed down the desolate street. I could practically hear it bouncing off the walls of the surrounding houses. My mom yelling that my dad was a worthless piece of shit while he retaliated with mother of the year you’ll never fucking be. At this point, neither of them would win any parent of the year awards. They obviously didn’t care that the front door was wide open for the gawking neighbors to hear their idiotic ramblings. But for me, the worst part was knowing that Ricky and his mom could hear everything through the open windows of their house next door.
We’ve known each other all our lives, Ricky and me that is. Our moms were childhood friends and hung out from time to time, drinking and reminiscing about their high school days and what not. My mom would stumble home drunk and pass out on the couch afterwards, while Ricky’s mom would be the one to feed us and put us to bed. Both my parents drank and argued, relentlessly, but they never physically abused me. I don’t ever remember being spanked even one time. Unfortunately, they did often seem to forget I existed. Sometimes the emotional pain from that seemed harder to get past than the physical might have been. Ricky’s mom never ignored either one of us, even though I wasn’t her blood relative. To me, she acted the way I thought a real mom should act. But what did I know.
After listening to their incessant bickering for far too long, I decided to head next door, but was stopped when my mom barreled through the front door – suitcases in hand, and the screen door slamming shut behind her.
“Where are we going?” I stood, ready to follow her down the steps.
“Joey, you know your momma loves you. Right?” She stopped, patting me on the top of my head.
I nodded but wasn’t sure I really did know that. “Are we going to the store?” I headed toward the car.
“Joey, stop. I need to talk to you.” Something in her voice told me I wasn’t going to like what she had to say. “I don’t belong here. I’ve tried my best, tried to make it work, but your daddy and me are not good for each other. I... I gotta go,” she said, walking around to the back of the car.
“Mommy, wait for me!” I yelled, trailing behind her.
“No Joey, you can’t go with me. Stay here with your daddy. You two take care of each other.” After putting her suitcases in the trunk, she leaned over, kissing my forehead. “You’ll be all right Joey.” The creaking of the car door as she pulled it closed behind her, was a sound that would forever be imbedded in my memory.
I stood in the driveway, crying as I watched my mother drive away. Without me. I thought she’d come back, but she never did.
“Joey?” my dad called out from inside the house.
Hurriedly, I wiped away my tears with the top of my shirt before heading in. “Coming Dad.”
“Have a seat, son.” He gestured to my usual chair at the kitchen table. “We need to talk.” Dad took the seat beside me. “Your mom’s gone so it’s just gonna be you and me kiddo.” He reached over, ruffling my hair.
Sniffling, I asked, “When’s she coming home?”
The mournful look in his eyes told me all I needed to know before his words filled the silence surrounding us. “She isn’t coming back, Joey.”
I took off running out the front door with my father yelling my name behind me. My heart was pounding, and the tears flowing were unstoppable. She wasn’t the best mom by any means, but she was still my mom and I wanted her back. Stopping in Ricky’s front yard, I bent over beneath the big tree we often climbed, to try and catch my breath. Wrapping my arms around myself, I fell to my knees. My lonely cries consumed me. But I wasn’t alone for very long, Ricky and his mom came running out to see what was going on.
At some point, my dad had come out and called Ricky’s mother over to talk to her. Ricky was my best friend and as always, was right by my side trying to console me.
“You want to come play cars with me?” he asked, rubbing my back in what I assumed was a gesture his mother used to calm him down with. One he was clearly hoping to get the same result from me with.
I nodded, and he took me by the hand leading me inside and up to his room. My dad and his mom were still outside talking, but all I wanted was to be with my friend. Ricky knew better than anyone what went on inside my house, and neither he nor his mom questioned it when I randomly appeared on their front doorstep at odd hours of the day or night.
Shortly after we got his race track set up and started playing, his mom came in.
“Do you boys want some lunch?” she asked.
“Yes please,” we answered at the same time, setting the cars down and following her to the kitchen.
His mom made us peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches and poured us each a glass of milk. I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I’d taken the first bite. I was so excited to play catch with my dad that when I went downstairs for breakfast and found them in the kitchen arguing, I didn’t want to interrupt and risk having their screams turn toward me. Since I wasn’t allowed to make my own food yet, I headed outside without eating anything. Because of this, I ended up inhaling the sandwich Mrs. Branson made for me in a few quick bites.
“Joey,” Mrs. Branson said, taking the seat beside me.
My mouth was full, so I nodded.
“You’re gonna stay the night here with Ricky tonight. Okay?” She was always so nice to me, her voice had a calming lilt to it that seemed to soothe me when I needed it most.
I swallowed my bite and took a drink of milk. “Where’s my dad?”
“He went out for a while and asked if you could stay here.” Her calming eyes searched mine, waiting to diffuse whatever potential tantrum she thought I was about to unleash. But the fight in my tired little body was long gone.
“Oh,” I said.
Ricky kept bobbing his head between me and his mom, intently watching our exchange.
“You boys go on up and play,” she told us, taking our empty plates away.
When we got back inside Ricky’s room, he finally asked, “What happened with your mom?”
I sat on his bed, shrugging my shoulders. The words
formed in my mouth at the same time my eyes filled with tears. “She went away.”
He sat beside me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder. “Where did she go?”
I answered as honestly as I could, “I don’t know. But my dad says she’s not coming back.”
“My dad’s not coming back either,” he shared. “My mom said he’s in Heaven with my Grandpa.”
It wasn’t until years later that I’d learned his father died in Iraq during the Persian Gulf War when Ricky was a baby.
Having spent most of my summer next door with Ricky and his mom, I expected my dad to at least take me to school for my first day of kindergarten. But he didn’t, that was the first of many disappointments to come from my father. I went to school with Ricky and his mom and came home after school with them. His mom didn’t work so she assumed the role of not only my babysitter, but my parental figure as well. Not sure if my dad ever actually asked her to take care of me, I think he just assumed she would. At least, I hoped that’s how it went down.
Ricky’s mom and Grandma were great. They always remembered my birthday and included me in their holiday gatherings because my dad was never around for any of it. During the week, I usually slept in my own bed, only going home after eating dinner next door. I’d take a bath and go straight to bed, but every weekend I was at Ricky’s non-stop. Eventually, a bed was even added to his room for me.
Being a kid, I never thought to ask who was paying for my food, clothes, you name it, but now looking back at those times, I can only assume his mom and Grandma had to have been. My dad didn’t make much money, and because of that I got free breakfast and lunches at school which I was glad for because he probably wouldn’t have remembered to feed me. Our refrigerator and pantry were a sad sight for anyone who looked in them.
My artwork and homework even hung on the refrigerator at Ricky’s house, proudly alongside his. If Ricky got a dollar for a good report card, they made sure the same was given to me. I guess this life became the norm for me because after a while, the pain of being ignored by my dad had been tucked away. Never forgotten, but in this case the positive overshadowed the negative. He pretty much ceased to exist after my mom left. In one day he went from a somewhat doting father, to a non-existent sperm donor.