With eyes burning from cigarette smoke and ears dulled by noise, I slowly placed my guitar in its case, unplugged my amp, disassembled the floor pedals, and wound up my cords. Sam, muttering at Mick, quickly left the stage with his sax cases. I watched as Mr. Tom stepped from behind the bar to stop Sam before he got to the door. I couldn’t hear what was said, but they exchanged words, and Sam nodded repeatedly before turning and leaving the bar.
Mick, Yogi, and Rob finished squaring away their equipment and trudged upstairs. As always, I did a last check around the stage to make sure everything was unplugged and secured before heading for the door with my guitars. I glanced at Mr. Tom, but he was busy washing glasses and putting away liquor bottles. Pushing through the swinging doors into the lobby, I almost bumped into the short, stocky guy who’d come to our rescue. The tall, skinny kid stood beside him.
I set down my guitars and stuck out a hand. “Hey, thanks. That guy would’ve killed our singer if you hadn’t stepped in.”
The short guy gave my hand a painful squeeze, his biceps bulging against the blue fabric of his T-shirt. No wonder those people had left when he ordered them out. “No problem,” he said with a shy gruffness. He let go of my hand and rubbed the top of his black hair, which was cut almost to the scalp. His unshaven face, close-set eyes, squared-off chin, and fighter’s nose gave him a tough appearance. “We were just doing our job.”
“Your job?”
“Sure. We’re the bouncers here.”
I stared at him, surprised. But of course. Why else would they be hanging around the door? Still, these guys didn’t look like bouncers. At least the skinny kid didn’t. His wispy blond hair barely covered his skull, and reddish acne spotted his vertical, pale face, marring his otherwise delicate features. He wore a flowery Hawaiian shirt that hung untucked over jeans that were three inches too short for him, and the black-canvas tennis shoes that anchored his sticklike legs looked impossibly big, like clown shoes.
“Well, anyway,” I said, “I’m glad you guys were here.”
“That was nothing,” the skinny kid said. “Just wait till the weekend.”
His high, girllike voice startled me, and I tried not to smile. “Someone else told me that. By the way, I’m Daniel.”
The kid stuck out his hand. “Allen. And this here’s Cecil.” He motioned toward his friend.
“Allen?” Cecil snorted. “Just call him Beanie. Everybody else does.”
I looked at our two new allies and grinned. “Look, I’d like to buy you guys a beer, but I guess it’s too late and Tom wouldn’t sell ’em to me anyhow. How about coming up to our room? We’ve got some brew up there, and you can meet the rest of the guys.”
“O-kay!” Beanie said, his voice cracking on the second syllable.
“Sounds good,” Cecil added, “but we’ve gotta clean up the bar first. It’ll probably take us fifteen, twenty minutes.”
“Room 204 on the second floor. Come on up when you’re finished.”
I left the lobby, almost regretting that I had made the invitation. Fatigue was eating away at me, and a quick beer and sleep sounded better than ever. I trudged up the stairs, banging my guitar cases against the wall as I went, hearing angry voices coming from somewhere nearby. It didn’t dawn on me that they were coming from our room until I entered the second-floor hallway. I approached the door and heard Sam’s voice, loud and threatening. I pushed the door open.
Sam and Mick stood facing each other in the narrow space alongside the queen bed. The look on Sam’s face made me stay in the doorway. His eyes, narrow and dark, were focused on Mick’s face. Neither of them seemed to be aware of my presence.
“Another thing,” Sam said, jabbing a thick finger into Mick’s chest, “I’m sick and tired of cleaning up your shit.”
“Bugger off,” Mick retorted. “I told you, I didn’t start that row down there. You deaf, mate?”
“You think you’re so fucking clever, don’t you? And knock off that stupid accent.”
“Hey, I don’t have to take your shit, right.”
I tried to break in. “Look, guys—”
Sam barely glanced at me. “Listen up, Mick. I’m the one who had to take it from Mr. Tom. He was pissed, man. He doesn’t like having to throw out paying customers.”
“You think I care?” Mick turned his back on Sam.
“You’d better, because I’ve had it with your big mouth. You think you’re some fucking prima donna. We could’ve gotten fired tonight. You listenin’ to me?”
Mick spun, and now he stuck a finger in Sam’s chest. “Sod off, mate. I carry this band on my back, and that includes you. What the hell do you do, anyhow?”
I knew what was coming, and Mick deserved it. I closed the door behind me, stepped back, and watched. With barely a flick of his wrist, Sam shoved Mick, sending him staggering backward. Mick fell on the bed and stared up at Sam with wide, unfocused eyes. I started to step between them, but Mick sprang up and ploughed into Sam, wrestling him backward. Backpedaling, I managed to stay out of their way. The two of them banged hard into a dresser and knocked over a half-empty beer can, which rolled off the dresser and crashed to the floor in a puddle. Sam, showing more restraint than Mick deserved, pushed him away again. Mick stepped backward onto the beer can, lost his balance, and fell hard on his butt, right into the puddle of beer.
Knowing that Sam’s restraint would only last so long, I finally got between them. “O.K., that’s enough!” I put a hand on Mick’s shoulder to keep him from getting up. He pushed my arm away and tried to stand, but I pushed him back down. From the other side of me, Sam shoved to get at him. “Hold it!” I yelled. They both stopped, noticing me for the first time.
“That’s it! That’s the end of it. Both of you just back off.” I took my hand off of Mick’s shoulder. He struggled up, the rear of his jeans soaked with the beer.
Sam pointed at Mick. “I’m outta this band unless he cleans up his act. Poundin’ nails is better than this bullshit.”
“Who bleedin’ cares,” Mick said.
I stayed between them. “Just shut up, Mick. Sam’s right. We get fired from this gig and we’re dead. You can go home to your father with your tail between your legs. You got it?” My face was suddenly hot with anger. “Don’t fuck this up.”
“Hey,” Mick said, “I was just saying it wasn’t my fault, right?”
I pushed down my anger. “O.K., let’s drop it then. You cool, Sammy?”
“For now.”
I took a breath. “Mick, you better change your pants. I invited a couple of guys up from the bar.” I started to the cooler. “Sam, you look like you need a beer.”
With a shrug, Mick grabbed another pair of pants and stomped off toward the bathroom. I tossed Sam a can out of the ice chest. He caught it with one hand, popped it with the other, and turned his back to stare out the window.
Left alone in the middle of the room, I kicked off my boots and plopped down on the unmade bed. Kitten’s offer to help the band came to mind, but now I wondered if we would even make it through the week. Maybe we were too much like the Who. I recalled that Keith Moon had quit the band after only three days, Roger Daltry had been forced out of the group right after they recorded My Generation, and everybody fought with Townshend all the time. Like them, we could blow apart at any moment. Maybe I had made a mistake forcing the band into this gig so far from home. But my mind went back to what Kitten had asked me earlier in the night—“Do you wanna make it or not?”—and the answer was clear: Playing here was the key to our future. And, at least for me, there was no way back.
I lit a cigarette and gazed around our shabby little room. At least Mick and Sam hadn’t wrecked it or thrown the furniture out the window, like the Who did in Montreal during their Quadrophenia tour. Hell, by now the Who would’ve absolutely trashed this fuckin’ place.
12
TWO ASPIRIN, chased by a gulp of Oly, were sliding down my throat when someone knocked at the door. Coughing, I took another s
ip and glanced over at Sam, hoping he would deal with it. No way. Frozen at the window like a statue, he continued to stare down at the darkened parking lot. He was still dressed in his stage clothes, consisting of a Giants baseball jersey, embroidered jeans, and brown platforms. Mick was still in the bathroom changing his beer-soaked pants, so I pulled myself up from the bed and opened the door, expecting to see Beanie and Cecil. Instead, Rob and Yogi strolled in. I told them what had happened while Sam and Mick maintained their positions.
A few minutes later another knock came at the door. At the same time, the bathroom door swung open and Mick straggled out in a pair of tight royal-blue corduroy flares, shining with newness. The pants made a zip-zipping sound as he walked over to the ice chest to get a beer. Sam glanced at the pants and frowned. I pushed off the queen bed and let Beanie and Cecil in, quickly introducing them to the band. As I sat down on the edge of the bed, Mick stiffly zip-zipped back to the other side of the room and slid onto a wobbly wooden chair propped against the wall near the bathroom door.
“Hey, Mick,” Beanie said, his eyes getting big, “those pants are bodacious. Where’d you get ’em?”
Mick scowled and we all broke out laughing. Beanie looked around the room. “What’d I say?” I waved him off, trying to catch my breath.
Sam passed out a round of beers, and Beanie and Cecil sat down on the floor with their backs against the wall next to the door. Sam straddled the only other chair in the room on the far side of the bed as Rob plopped down on one end of the roll-away at the foot of the bed. Yogi, whose black high-tops were untied, settled down on the other end of the roll-away and ripped open a bag of Fritos. Our room was suddenly crowded.
I watched Beanie struggle with the tab of his beer can. He finally tugged it off, and foam boiled out and ran down the sides. He took a long swig. “Man, this is righteous brew. We haven’t had any for a coupla days.”
“But you guys work in the bar,” Sam said, breaking his silence. “You must get all the beer you want.”
“Nah. Tom’ll only give us two a night if we can pay for ’em. We’re supposed to be sober in case a riot breaks out or something.” Beanie giggled out a burst of squeaks.
I pushed back a smile. “We must be on Tom’s shit list after what happened to the window last night. And after the hassle in the bar tonight.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Cecil broke in, his deep voice and serious demeanor demanding our attention. “Tom likes you guys. He’s just giving you a hard time. He actually wanted me to throw those assholes out tonight.” He shifted his legs and studied his worn work boots, seemingly uncomfortable that the conversation had found its way to him. “We talked to him while we were cleaning up tonight. He thinks you’ll bring in a good weekend crowd once the word gets around town. Most of the bands we get in here are pretty bad—just loud and obnoxious.”
“But we’d heard this place gets some name acts,” I said, “like Hendrix and Heart.”
“Yeah.” Cecil almost smiled. “We heard that rumor too. Anyhow, Tom thinks you guys are a good change, but don’t expect to hear that from him.”
“See!” Mick said.
Sam threw him a dirty look. “He didn’t seem too happy when I talked to him after the last set.”
Beanie giggled again. “You think tonight was bad? Wait till you see Saturday night.”
“What about Saturday night?” I asked, leaning forward on the bed. “That’s the second time you’ve mentioned it.”
Beanie glanced at Cecil, who shifted position, dislodging white flakes of paint from the wall behind his head. A few landed on his dark hair, like flecks of dandruff. He tried to swat them away, but they were stuck.
“What about Saturday night?” I asked again.
“Haven’t you heard?” Beanie was giving me a crazy kind of smile. “Saturday night is Hell’s Angels night.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, really. There’ll be fifty Harleys parked out front. Man, you won’t believe it. The place’ll be fulla motorcycle dudes and their mamas.” He jumped up and started shadowboxing. “We try to stay outta the way, but, man alive, we usually have to break up a coupla fights, at least.”
Cecil reached up and tugged at the tail of Beanie’s Hawaiian shirt. “Sit down, buddy.”
“You get fights in the bar?” Rob turned a tight face toward the two bouncers. “What happens to the bands?” Everybody now leaned forward. This time Beanie remained silent.
Cecil looked around the room and started to speak, then paused as if trying to think of a good way to deliver really bad news. My mind raced. I’d read Hunter Thompson’s book on the Angels and remembered the stories of crazy brawls and wanton mischief. Hell, they’d even beat Thompson to a pulp just for being around ’em. Then there was the Stones at Altamont, where the Angels beat a guy to death on camera just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A shudder passed through me.
“Look,” Cecil said, “don’t worry about it, but to tell you the truth—and we’ve only been working here a couple of months—almost every band has had problems on Saturday night.”
“Problems?” Beanie interrupted, unable to contain himself. “That’s one way to put it. Man, they chucked bottles at the last band.”
“But,” Cecil added quickly, “they don’t throw them at every band, only the ones they think are shit—”
“They threw bottles?” Rob’s face had tightened into a wedge of disbelief.
Cecil shrugged his thick shoulders. “Yeah, but they weren’t trying to hit ‘em. They were just havin’ fun.”
“Jeez, it was freaky!” Beanie said. “The singer was dancing around the stage, dodging Olys right and left.”
I heard Mick muffle a groan and mutter, “Oh, bloody hell.” He crossed the room—zip, zip, zip—to get another beer.
“Hey, Mick,” Sam said, “you probably shouldn’t wear those pants Saturday night.”
“Don’t be a prat,” Mick replied, but his voice lacked its usual bravado.
“Look,” Cecil said, moving his legs to let Mick by, “you guys shouldn’t worry about it. Me and Beanie’ll take care of things if they get outta hand. That’s what we get paid for.” He smiled for the first time.
I tried to return his smile, but, knowing the effect this information would have on the band, I couldn’t. Instead, I glanced around the room. Rob and Mick were clearly rattled by the news, and Sam’s eyes had returned to the darkness outside the window. Yogi was starting to nod off. I looked back across the room and repeated Cecil’s words to myself: Me and Beanie’ll take of it. Cecil, maybe, but Beanie? I pictured him taking on some burly bikers coming at us with bottles. They would kill him. Then they would kill the rest of us.
But Beanie giggled, oblivious to the tension in the room. “Some of ’em are actually pretty nice.”
“Oh, I bet,” Rob said, his fingers tapping out a furious rhythm on his knee.
“No, Beanie’s right,” Cecil added. “Most of ’em are O.K. They just look scary.”
“My favorites are Butch and Whiskey.” Beanie was shadowboxing again. “Butch’s got a red dagger tattooed on the back of his hand and this big scar across his cheek. Whiskey’s his woman, and she kinda looks like Butch, only a little shorter. She always wears this leather thing”—he drew his hands across his concave chest—“and she has a rose tattooed on her boobs. Anyhow, they’re pretty nice.” He danced a little more “Butch usually buys me a beer when they come in.”
“Her boobs are nice?” Mick asked with sudden interest.
Beanie’s eyes lowered, his face going bright red. “I mean Butch and Whiskey. They’re nice.”
“Oh.” Mick squirmed in his chair. “Not to change the subject, but how’d you blokes end up at a grotty place like this?”
Beanie gave him another one of his weird grins. “Probably the same way you guys did. We just drifted in, you know, like turds blown by the wind.” He giggled at his vivid imagery. “Actually, we came in one night to get a beer,
and Cecil broke up a fight between two guys. Tom offered him a job, and my buddy here talked him into hiring me, too. We only get ten bucks a night, but we get our room free.”
“You’re staying here?” Mick asked, surprised. I was, too. I hadn’t seen anyone going up or down the stairs.
“We’re on the ground floor, just off the lobby.”
I crossed the room to get another beer and brought back a couple more for Beanie and Cecil. “So then you guys aren’t from around here?” I handed them the beers.
“Hell, no.” Cecil ripped the metal tab from the beer can like it was a piece of paper. “Me and Beanie got outta the Navy about three months ago and got discharged at the shipyard in Bremerton, over near Seattle. We didn’t know what the hell to do, so we decided to hitchhike up the peninsula. Then we were going to hitch down the coast to Frisco or L.A.” He stopped for a moment and grinned self-consciously. “Well, hell, we didn’t get very far did we, Beanie? I left my wallet at a gas station toilet in Sequim, and somebody ripped it off with almost all the money we had. So when we got here and Tom offered me the job, I figured I’d better take it. We’re trying to save up so we can get outta here.”
We all nodded at him. The Mai Tai Hotel had a way of making you want to flee.
“Why’s nobody else staying here?” Sam asked. “And where’s the maid service? We’ve been here since Monday, and nobody’s even brought up fresh towels. And the bathroom stinks.”
“We wondered the same thing at first,” Cecil said. “The bands usually stay here, but outside of them, hardly anyone else does. Strange, huh?”
“Pretty weird,” I agreed.
“At least no bleedin’ rednecks have tried to kill you,” Mick said. “Some sods tried to run me down last night.”
Cecil didn’t look surprised. “We heard about it from Tom. We helped him put the plywood in the window. He seemed to know who did it.”
Getting in Tune Page 11