I was pushing through the door when the sound of screeching tires stopped me. I spun around and looked down the street, immediately recalling the episode with Mick and the blue truck, and flashing on the sensation that this had all happened before. It had, but it was not what I thought.
26
HERE HE CAME, déjà vu all over him. The shit-eating grin, just like the one I saw the day after his conquest of Rita, spread across his face, his teeth gleaming in the streetlights like a set of miniature white Christmas bulbs.
At first, after hearing the station wagon scream to a stop, I thought Sam had hit something. But that wasn’t it. They had just seen him first, strolling down the side street from the police station. And it wasn’t until he rounded the corner and I saw his cocky, bouncing steps that I knew what had happened.
I came down off the Mai Tai’s steps and watched Mick breeze down the sidewalk. Beanie and Cecil moved up beside me.
“You,” Mick yelled out, pointing at me, bouncing, bouncing, bouncing on the balls of his feet, “you are a bloody genius!”
“They let you out?” I threw my head back and exhaled. “For good?”
“I’m a bleedin’ free bird!” He threw his arms around me. “You did it, mate!”
He squeezed the breath out of my lungs, but I managed to mutter, “Rita?”
He let go. “She took it all back! I heard her old man screaming at her out front, but she wouldn’t budge, right? Not my Rita!”
Beanie raised his skinny arms to heaven. “Now you can play!”
I looked over Mick’s shoulder and saw the taillights of the station wagon blink red as Sam backed into a parking spot near the end of the block.
“Can you do the gig?” I asked him.
“Is the pope bloody Catholic? Just need to change me clothes, mate.”
We were already a half-hour late, but we could still make it. Who else would they use? I looked up to see Sam and Yogi joining our little knot on the sidewalk. Rob stopped a few paces short of the rest of us and folded his arms. “So the prodigal son returns.”
Mick’s lightbulb grin flashed around. “Bloody right, and I’m ready to rock ‘n’ roll. Where were you blokes headed?”
“Uh, well.” Sam shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “We thought you were cooked, man. We were, um—”
“Hey, not the Mickster!” He went into a little dance, throwing punches into the night air like a prizefighter. “I’m ready to play!”
“Forget it,” Rob said, his jaw tight. “It’s way too late.”
I stepped around Sam to get a direct line on Rob. “Why’s that, Rob? The equipment’s all loaded and ready to go. Mick and I just need to change clothes.”
“We’ll help you unload over there,” Cecil offered, glancing from me to Rob.
“I said forget it.” The redness of Rob’s face could be seen even through the gathering darkness. “I’m not doing it.”
Mick stopped shuffling and jerked back as if slapped. “What?”
“I said I’m not doing it. I told Candi I’d be home tomorrow.”
“Don’t be a bloody poofter, Rob. The bird’s not worth it.”
“You think so?” Rob said through gritted teeth. “And Rita was?”
Mick bounced forward. “At least she leggo my balls when she was done.”
“Fuck you, man. At least I can manage an adult relationship.”
Mick took another step closer. “Bollocks to that, mate. You think Candi’s so sweet? I’ll take Rita anytime over a ballbuster like Candi.”
I saw Rob flinch. He took a step toward Mick. “Is that right, Mick? And you’re going to introduce your little rape victim to your precious mother, huh?”
Mick met Rob and moved right up into his face. “Watch what you say about me mum, right?”
“I’m sure she’d like to know how you treat women. Just like your old man.”
“You cunt!” Mick grabbed a fistful of Rob’s shirt.
Sam tried to shove his way between them, but they were locked up, chin to chin. I edged in from the other side and pushed Mick away. Suddenly my head went sideways, my ear on fire, my knees buckling. The sidewalk rose up and smacked me, and all breath left my lungs. Stunned, I lay on the sidewalk for what seemed like several seconds before rolling over and rubbing the side of my head, heat slowly receding away to a throbbing numbness. Forcing my eyes open, I looked up into the faces of Rob, Sam, and Mick.
“Man, you O.K.?” Rob’s voice sounded muffled. I rubbed at the ear again and struggled into a sitting position. Rob was flexing his right hand as he looked at my ear. “God, man, I’m sorry,” he said.
Yogi, Beanie, and Cecil edged into the circle. Rob was now on his knees beside me. “I didn’t mean to hit you, Daniel. Are you O.K.?”
I looked up blankly for a minute, then said, “Yeah, I think so.” I touched my swollen ear. “What’d you hit me with? A brick?”
“It wasn’t meant for you.” He glanced over at Mick.
I shook the numbness out of my head and tried to grin through the pain. “Violence, Rob? I didn’t know you had it in you.”
Rob looked chagrined and embarrassed. “Yeah, well, shit. He shouldn’t have said that about Candi.”
Mick leaned down. “Hey, sorry, mate.”
Rob took my arm and helped me up. I stepped out of the circle to brush off my clothes, and Rob came up beside me. I heard the breath coming hard through his nose. “Look,” he said, lowering his voice and glancing back at the others. He was about to continue, but he paused, rolled his eyes upward to the night sky, and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. His eyes finally came back to my face. “Candi ... look, man, she’s leaving me. At least I think she is. I guess that’s why I blew.”
I stopped rubbing my ear. “She’s what?”
“She met somebody else, a professor at the college, and she’s talking about moving out. She told me on the phone the other day.”
“Christ, Rob. One of her teachers?”
Rob nodded, his eyes closing for a moment. “Yeah. She thinks he’s some hot-shit intellectual, and I guess I’m not, at least not while I’m playing in a band. I’ve been trying to talk her out of it the last few days. I asked her to wait until I got home before making a decision, but then you booked the Heart gig.”
“God, I’m sorry. But why didn’t you tell me? I thought she was just jealous about you being away with us.”
He shook his head and looked down at the sidewalk.
“So that’s why you’ve been wanting to get back so bad?”
“I thought I could stop her.”
I looked at him until his eyes came up. “I guess we haven’t been on the same track lately, have we?”
“Not lately, man,” Rob said. “But I’m still sorry I hit you.”
I checked my ear again. “Maybe you knocked some sense into me.”
He breathed out what sounded like a chuckle. “Hope so.”
From over Rob’s shoulder, I saw the other guys huddled near the station wagon. They seemed to sense that they needed to give us some space, so they hung back, watching. Leaning against the brick wall of the Mai Tai, virtually in the same spot where Nita had been the night before, I felt my gaze turn back to Rob, and I realized that he’d been reacting to events exactly the way he always had. He was trying to keep Candi happy, and he couldn’t without making me unhappy—a major quandary for a guy who liked to please everyone. No wonder he had become so combative and disagreeable. Rob was miserable. He hadn’t changed. I had.
This realization, along with the continued throb of my ear from Rob’s fist, jarred something in my head, loosened another one of those thoughts that had been stuck there over the past twenty-four hours. What was it that I had said to Rita earlier in the day? You could not go around hurting people you care about? Maybe it was time for me to take my own advice.
I caught Rob’s eye and took a deep breath. My entire body hurt from the effort. “Look, Rob, we go back way too far to let this kinda stu
ff come between us, y’know?”
Rob nodded. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“I guess I’ve been a real shit about things,” I continued, searching for the right words, “and I’m really sorry about all the grief I’ve been causing you.”
I paused for his reaction, but Rob only gave me a slight nod in recognition of my way-too-late apology for the way I’d been acting.
I took another deep breath. “But, look Rob, I’m dealing with some stuff myself that’s been kind of fucking with my head lately. It just seems like all this crap’s been building up in me for years, this urge to get outta Creedly, to stay outta Creedly. Man, you know, this gig—I guess I see it as my way to finally leave it behind. But I know it’s not like that for you. You’ve got things back home that are important to you.”
He was listening carefully, his head turned, an ear angled toward me. “By any chance,” he said slowly, “does this have anything to do with Kevin?”
I felt myself flinch inside at the mention of my dead brother’s name, and I suddenly visualized Mom rubbing at the stain on Kevin’s khakis. Why couldn’t I get that memory out of my head? “I dunno,” I finally answered. “Yeah, I guess maybe it does. I’ve always seen the band, the music, as my way of getting away from all of that shit.”
“I didn’t know that, man.” Rob reached out and put his hand on my shoulder. “You never talk about it.”
“It’s ... it never goes away.” I closed my eyes for a moment. “Listen, Rob, go on home and deal with Candi. This gig isn’t worth losing her. The music doesn’t matter that much.”
He started to nod.
I saw Mick break away from the huddle near the station wagon and come toward us. “Hey, Rob, I didn’t mean any of that stuff about Candi, right? It’s just that I wanna do this gig. Candi’s cool. So nothing personal, O.K.?”
Rob’s pale blue eyes seemed to fade back into his head. He looked at Mick with a blank stare. “You really mean that, Mick?”
“Sure,” Mick said, breaking into a grin. “We’re best mates, right? And a little row between mates don’t mean shit, right?”
Rob seemed to roll that around in his head before he answered. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“And, look, Rob,” Mick said, “I always want me mates up there on the stage with me. Can’t do my thing without my favorite bass player, right? And you gotta be up there when I shake me bum for the Wilson sisters. Like Daniel’s always saying, we’re all in this bloody thing together.”
Rob’s face finally relaxed a bit. “Yeah, and it seems like I said that last night, didn’t I?”
Mick looked at him blankly. “Last night?”
“That’s right,” Rob said, smiling to himself. “You were out of it when we were trying to talk Daniel into doing his songs.
“And I never thanked you for that,” I said. “I wouldn’t have done ’em if you hadn’t pushed me.”
Rob nodded reflectively.
“So, Rob, you forgive me, mate?” Mick persisted.
“Don’t sweat it,” he answered, still with that reflective look on his face.
Mick turned and gazed back at Sam and Yogi, who were standing with Beanie and Cecil near the station wagon. “Speaking of the Wilson sisters,” he said, “the guys are wondering what we’re doing.”
I pushed myself off the wall. “We’re not doing the gig. Rob needs to—”
“Yeah, we are,” Rob broke in. “We’re doing it.”
“What?”
“We’re doing the gig.”
“We are?”
Rob’s eyes locked back in. “What you said a minute ago, Daniel, you’re wrong. The music matters. At least, I know it matters to you. I don’t want to get sentimental about this, but I wouldn’t have ever gotten to know any of you guys if it wasn’t for our music.” He half-smiled, but his forehead creased with strain, giving me the impression that it took all his strength to go on. “Maybe it’s the only thing that really does matter when you get down to it.” He spat on the ground, punctuating his next words. “The rest of it is pure bullshit.”
“You sure?”
His face relaxed into that serene hippie smile of his, the one I hadn’t seen for days. “Hell, what’s one more night here in paradise?”
Mick threw his arms around the two of us. “We’re just like the bloody Who. Like I said, what’s a row between mates, right? Let’s rock‘n’ roll!”
Sitting in her orange VW van facing out toward the road, Kitten was waiting for us just inside the gated entry into the fairground’s parking lot. Mick was beside me in the van; the rest of the guys, including Beanie and Cecil, were jammed into the station wagon behind us.
On Kitten’s hand signal, a security guard swung the gate open and we pulled in. My headlights caught Kitten flush in the face, and she squinted and rolled down her window. I pulled up beside her.
“You’re way late, kid,” she said, flicking cigarette ash toward us. “The promoter’s pissed.”
“I had to get our lead singer outta jail first,” I said, motioning toward Mick.
“Jail? You playing Monopoly?”
“It’s a long story. Where do we load in?”
She shook out her mane of tangled midnight-black hair. “Follow me. By the way, where’s your little friend?”
I knew who she meant, and I wanted to tell her to stuff it, but now that we were here, the gig was the only thing that mattered. “She’s gone.”
“Too bad.” A tight-lipped grin came back. “Hope it wasn’t on my account.” She tossed out the cigarette and spun the wheels of the VW in a wide U-turn.
“Lovely lass,” Mick said. “How’s she in the sack?”
“Scary as hell.”
“And she’s going to manage us?”
“I haven’t signed anything yet.”
“Right.” Mick nodded. “Well, if she can get us gigs with Heart, maybe she’s worth it.” He cracked a smile. “And, look, I can take her off your hands if she’s too much for you.”
I followed her van across the muddy parking lot. On the far side, cars were flowing in from a separate entrance. We drove past what looked like a rodeo arena and around an exhibition hall to the rear of an old brick auditorium. A tour bus, emblazoned with the swirling pinkish Heart logo from their Dreamboat Annie album, was parked next to two panel trucks alongside a loading dock. A surge of red-hot energy shot through me.
I must’ve muttered or sighed or something because Mick glanced over at me. “You know,” he said in a musing tone, “I feel sorry for those Wilson sisters.”
That caught my attention. “How so?”
“Cuz, look, mate. We’re gonna show ‘em what rock ’n’ roll’s all about, right? And after I give ’em a little of my magic man routine, just wait, see. Those poor sisters’ll go crazy on the Mickster. Know what I mean?”
He waited for my nervous face to react, and then he gave me that smirky Jaggeresque grin. Christ, I could’ve kissed him.
WITH A GUITAR CASE in one hand and a canvas bag of cords in the other, I stood and stared out across the vast expanse of the stage’s hardwood flooring. It was easily the largest stage we’d ever played. An amazing and expensive array of amps, speakers, keyboards, and drums had been set up and awaited their now-famous owners. The name Heart had been stenciled on everything but the drums. Enormous PA. speakers, stacked four boxes high, anchored both corners of the stage near the front edge, and in between stood a row of three microphones, with 15-inch monitor speakers aimed at each. Cecil had already rolled my Fender Twin Reverb onto the stage, and it looked pathetically inadequate next to the Marshall stack looming over it.
My bowels started to tighten. I peered into the auditorium and watched a crew of eight men work at pulling out a set of bleacher-style seats along the right-hand wall. A matching set of seats had already been moved out from the opposite wall. In between, running from the stage to the double-wide set of doors leading to the lobby, lay a wide swath of open concrete flooring maybe six feet
below the level of the stage.
I heard footsteps behind me.
“Hey-ho, Puente Harbor!”
Mick’s voice echoed around the empty spaces of the auditorium. He stopped in the wings, hands on hips, jeans tight, chartreuse scarf wrapped around his neck and flowing down over his shoulders. Behind him, Rob and Cecil came up pushing Rob’s Peavey amp toward the stage. Sam and Beanie trailed them, each lugging one of Yogi’s floor toms.
In four bouncing steps Mick pulled up beside me, cupped his hands, and called out, “And God save the queen and the Royal Albert Hall!”
The workers stopped and looked up at us.
“Can it, Mick,” I said. “Let’s get set up.”
A bearded roadie dragging a set of cables appeared from the far side of the stage and motioned Rob, Cecil, and the Peavey toward him. Our equipment was being set up in front of Heart’s, which gave us an immediate and clear sense of our place in the order of things. When we finished our set, our gear would be quickly shoved aside, clearing the way for the main attraction. Still, I figured being pushed out of the way for Heart beat the hell out of commanding the stage at the Mai Tai.
I headed back out to help with the rest of the drums but stopped when I saw Kitten, a sheaf of papers in her hand, coming toward me. Walking with her was a man sporting a huge ball of brown permed hair.
“Daniel,” she called out, “this is Bob Beeber. He’s promoting the show.” Beeber looked to be about forty, my height, skinny in the chest but paunchy at the gut. A roll of flab bunched up at the stomach of his too-tight Allman Brothers T-shirt. If Kitten was allowing this guy to sleep with her, as Cecil had suggested, then I could see why he owed her.
I stuck out my hand, but Beeber ignored it.
“You know what time it is?” he asked in an agitated nasally whine, sounding a lot like Rick Astley. Did these guys grow on trees?
I dropped my hand. “About six-twenty?”
“Damn right, smart-ass.” The kinks in his hair jiggled. “And you’re way fucking late.”
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