The first time Eric sees her, nothing pops, but then he looks away and the rest of the world seems dull and gray. Aristotle, he thinks to himself as he looks back at her, Aristotle would say she is a perfect form – Woman. The Jovi notices her mouth and lips. They are so full they make one think of stone fruit after a rain, almost bursting. James catches her eyes. They are big, curious, and seductive all at the same time with that slightly sleepy look, as if it is always the end of a wonderful night. Eric is particularly enchanted with her nose. It is compact, architectural, efficient, and perfectly placed. It keeps her luscious mouth from being comic. None of them can miss her blonde hair. It has just enough curl to be angelic. Now the three of them know: This is what the winner of the genetic lottery looks like. It took the Earth in all it’s horny machinations about eight to ten billion tries to create Sophie Clark.
Near the end of the hour, she raises her hand, and says, “I’m Sophie. Every time I get drunk or stoned something really bad happens.”
The group laughs and nods. She appreciates it.
“I’m from here, but I’ve been living in New York since I was fourteen. And Paris too, I lived in Paris for a while. Oh yeah, and I lived in Milan. I don’t know, my best friend died and I started partying hard, but it isn’t partying when it isn’t fun and you do it every day. And I like woke up and I was living with this fifty-year-old guy and he was my boss and then I found out some really weird stuff about him and my mom. It’s kind of like the more I’ve tried to get, the less I have. And I’m always alone. I just don’t want to be alone anymore. They said in treatment that I don’t have to be alone anymore. I’m just really glad to be here, and I’m going to listen, thanks.”
When the meeting is over, men and women converge on Sophie with numbers and names. They are hers, if she wants them. They seem to say, “You’re with us. You’re one of us. Be with us. Let us protect each other from the monsters in our souls.” She turns away. She’s headed for the door and then she stops and singles out the two– the Jovi and James. The Jovi smiles brilliant and beautiful. He says, “Let’s go get some coffee and talk.”
“Yeah,” James adds, “let’s share some feelings.”
It’s at the Pannikin where the two of them, James and the Jovi, vie for her attention. The Jovi is pulling ahead. “That was really deep, what you said, about the more you tried to get, the less you have.”
“It’s so true, right?” She asks and leans forward into the Jovi’s green eyes.
“And I really could identify with what you said about your mom betraying you.” James adds and nods sympathetically.
The Jovi reaches out and touches her hand. “You don’t have to be alone anymore.”
She’s warming. It’s going to happen. All is good. Until the night air is cut by a shrill woman’s voice as it cries out. “Diiiirrrt dick! Theeere you are! You whore! I’ve been looking all over for you.”
“Nänce. What’s happening?” the Jovi says. “Look, Nänce, I want you to meet my friend Sophie. Sophie, this is my friend Nänce.”
“Shit. I know you,” Nänce says. “You’re Sophie Clark. You’re a supermodel. We should hang out. We have a lot in common.”
When she was in rehab Giuseppe made an arrangement with Jean: Each week she would take a Polaroid of Sophie and send it via Federal Express to New York. Sophie was annoyed. “Why are you doing that?” She asked as the blue dot from the flash danced in front of her face.
“To show your father,” Jean answered.
“Dad was here like two days ago. He wants me to invest in some more land with him.”
“He loves these.”
As Giuseppe watched the girl in the white frame turn back into Sophie Clark he readied himself for her return. He called her, asked her to come back to him. Sophie never said no. Sophie never said yes. He said, “I have something very big for you.”
“All men say that.” Even the receiver knew – Her smile was abundant again.
He laughed. “How would you like to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated?”
“Okay,” She said.
Now, the day after she met the Jovi and James, she is on a plane, flying across the blue Pacific. She thinks about the two of them. She thinks she could settle down somewhere slow for a while.
Vance Copeland doesn’t walk, he glides, tiny steps beneath a black duster, like a geisha. He doesn’t talk, he whispers. He is a professional. When Kurt calls his number, a woman answers the phone and says, “Mr. Copeland will be right with you. Vance, it’s for you.”
“Be right there, Mom,” Vance answers in the distance.
Vance tells Kurt, “Monday, February first.”
Kurt tells the Jovi. The Jovi says, “Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. I’m supposed to play with Smithy at the China Club that night. Can’t do it, bro.”
“Look, we’re gonna get a record deal—a real record deal. This is how you said it works.”
“I know, Kurt, but we went through this when I joined the band—if I have a paying gig…”
“And I told you that that music isn’t real. This is real. You and me, we’ve been playing together since we were kids! Don’t stop now. Not right before it happens.”
“What’s going to happen?”
“We’re getting signed—you heard Vance.”
“Dude. I will do everything I can to be there.”
Sophie knows the drill. She hasn’t done it dry in a while, but still she remembers that even though she is only twenty, everyone on set is going to want her to be sixteen, and flirty with the straights, hopeful with the gays, and against that terrible thing that the government did with everybody else. She knows all the moves. She can skip through the air with her legs straight. She can be above you, a tower of legs and tits ready to step on your very soul. Or she can be below you, looking up, just barely covering her nipple with her perfect line of nails, as if she were shy. She’s a pro. Everyone gets what they want, except for the photographer, who’s a little aggressive with his hands. She shuts him down with a coy escape to her room and for Sophie that power over herself builds something beautiful on the inside. And that feels really good.
She knows that when she gets home she is going to have messages from both of them on her machine. She thinks of the Jovi like an inky black panther, his green eyes glowing in the jungle. She thinks of James, his strong features, his Buddy Holly style glasses. He’s like a sexy professor in a foreign film. It’s the panther, of course, who could resist? But then she remembers that girl – that Nänce girl – what she said – you whore – and Sophie thinks different.
Kurt shows up at Eric’s house at noon. Kurt sits on the stoop, leaning back and knocking occasionally on the door, chain-smoking cigarettes and snuffing them out in the grass until, at one forty-five, Eric pulls up in his blue four-door BMW. Kurt barks, “We have a gig in L.A.! Where have you been?”
“University.”
Kurt rocks his head from side to side and mutters in a sarcastic southern drawl, “Alright, how mellow—college kid gonna play a little rock and roll.”
Eric wrinkles his brow and gets his stuff. The keyboard is gently wrapped in a towel and placed on the backseat. His amp fits in the trunk. They drive down to the beach, up the windy road to the boulevard—the two blocks to Kurt’s apartment. Kurt brings an acoustic guitar, an electric guitar, and an amp down the stairs to the curb. They take out the keyboard and cram it all in. Then they place the keyboard on top of the amps. The back door won’t close, so Kurt kicks it. Eric rubs the dent. They hit the road.
Down in Pacific Beach, Spewing flexes into his mirror, puts on his white blazer, slicks his hair back, and does some air guitar. He lugs his amp into the trunk of his bronze Benz. He slips his bass down the middle and heads for L.A. with a tallboy in his lap.
Downtown, EJ leaves work at five sharp, wearing a three-piece gray suit with braces. He hops in his mom’s station wagon, which is already loaded with his drums, and heads north on the 5.
The Jovi wakes up at Smith
y’s around one, and they hop on the choppers and head over to Duke’s for a late breakfast. Sitting at a table in the corner are two black-banged chicks done up in fetish leather like truck-stop hookers. Smithy tells the Jovi to do the usual. The Jovi walks over and says, “Hi, ladies. My friend Brian—you know—Smith—Smithy—would like to meet you.”
The girls look over at Smithy. He shows his teeth and waves. They seem willing to party, but a little confused.
The Jovi takes the cue. “Smithy was in the Love Guns.”
“Oh, of course!” the older one says. “I know Smithy. I did the wardrobe for the ‘Heroin Hurts’ video.”
The younger one extends her hand. “I’m Mitzy. I’m a model.”
“Tell it to Mr. Chubb,” the Jovi says, and leads them over to Smithy’s table.
The older one is Tiffany Tucker, wardrobe stylist to the stars. She spends her days shopping, returning, schmoozing, four-wheeling in the desert, getting treatments. She spends her nights dolled up in black leather and crosses. She knows everybody in L.A. She is thirty-five. The Jovi is now twenty-three.
Mitzy is twenty-six and totally over modeling. All she wants to do is act.
Smithy says, “Let’s go for a ride.”
They chopper up. Mitzy heads for the Jovi’s Roach, but the long arm of Smithy grabs her and sticks her on the back of his hard-tail hog. Tiffany’s tight leather chaps squeak as she wraps herself around the Jovi. Smithy takes them straight up the hill to his house. Mitzy calls for a cab. Tiffany wants to talk. Smithy gets bored and tells Tiffany: “I’m gonna go have a nice wank in my room. You want to watch?”
Tiffany shakes her black ponytail.
“Wanna help?”
Tiffany tilts her head to the side. “You are so cute,” she says, “but no.”
EJ shows up at the Lingerie at eight. Kurt walks up to him and says, “Where the hell is the Jovi?”
“Nice to see you too, Kurt.”
Across town at the China Club, an announcer addresses a packed house. “Put your hands together for the Brian Smith Band.”
There are hair flips, knee drops, loud sounds from amps, loud sounds from drums, loud sounds from Smithy. The drummer has a white towel wrapped around his neck as if he were a boxer. The bass player is skipping around in a little circle. The Jovi’s solo is excessive. He backs into Smithy like a bear trying to scratch his back on a maple tree.
At nine Kurt goes catatonic. He’s sitting on the floor below the graffiti-stained walls in the dressing room at the Lingerie. Eric approaches him. EJ says, “Don’t. Leave him alone. He’ll be fine.”
At ten forty-one the Jovi is in a booth with Smithy, the Luig, and Tiffany Tucker at the China Club. The Luig looks at Tiffany and says, “You got any friends that want to fuck the Luig?”
“Who’s the Luig?”
“Me. The drummer. Who else?”
Tiffany laughs at him.
“Hey! I may be a little guy, but God gave it to me where it counts.”
“Are you some kind of tripod?”
“Hey, you laugh now, but you won’t be laughing when I stick this thing in your ass!”
“Jesus Christ!” Smithy yells. “Too far, little man! Where’s the civility? We are cavalier cave dwellers not French infantrymen.”
“What time is it?” the Jovi asks. Tiffany tells him.
“Oh shit.”
Eleven P.M. Vance puts a hand on Kurt’s shoulder and says, “It’s time.”
Kurt looks up and sees Vance’s giant cross dangling above his head. “Alright. Let’s go. We start with ‘Alone, Alone.’”
Kurt is up on stage. He throws his acoustic over his shoulder, hits the harmonics, and sings up high in a falsetto. EJ taps on his skins, building a crescendo for the opening. Spewing thumbs a muted bass string. Eric comes in very low with a two-note chord. A loud screech and pop break the serenity. Kurt looks over. It’s the Jovi plugging in. The band takes it down a notch, lets it build again, and comes in together. The sound is steady and tranquil like a canoe breaking the sky’s reflection on a placid pond.
The song builds to the Jovi’s guitar solo. The band, the audience, Vance Copeland, the soundman, everyone is right there in the moment, especially Spewing. He is feeling it, jerking his head to the music so hard that the ash falls off his cigarette and down his shirt.
First song, second song, third song, fourth song, the band sounds good.
It’s the fifth song, a hard-driving rocker, “My Minister.” Spewing is locked in the pocket, plucking the bass strings with all he’s got when his second string snaps. No big deal, he thinks, I’ve got three strings left I’ll play this pig down to one.
But it’s different. Because the tension on the neck changes with three strings instead of four, his bass is completely out of tune. Kurt waves at him over his shoulder, motioning for him to be quiet. Spewing stares at a chick in the crowd and punches his pelvis into the back of his bass. He doesn’t hear a note he is playing. Spewing pokes and pecks. Between vocal phrases, Kurt mule kicks Spewing. It catches him by surprise. Spewing dodges back and forth trying to avoid Kurt’s Beatle boots while staying toward the front of the stage in the lights, where he can see the chick. Kurt is done with the verse. He turns around, chases Spewing into a dark corner, and commences to kicking, all while still strumming his Tele and not missing a note. Spewing squirts out and does a duckwalk across the stage—a bad Chuck Berry impersonation with the squat and the kick. Kurt skips up from behind and boots him hard in the ass. Spewing falls off the stage into the audience. Everyone cheers. The band keeps playing. Spewing crawls back on the stage and holds his arms up in a victory V.
Back in La Jolla, the phone rings at Eric’s house. He picks it up.
A man with a British accent asks, “Are you in Thunderstick?”
“Yup.”
“I’m a manager. I manage the Pet Shop Boys. I loved your show at the Lingerie. There was an element of danger. When’s your next gig in L.A.?”
Eric walks in to the living room and tells the Jovi about the phone call.
“Element of danger? That guy hasn’t seen anything yet. Did you tell him our lead singer’s a human time bomb?”
“Nahh.”
“Yeah, dude. If you listen carefully, you can hear him ticking. The other day he walked into the 7-Eleven and threatened to kill himself if the clerk didn’t give him a pack of cigarettes.”
“What’d the guy do?”
“What would you do?”
“Give him the fucking cigarettes.”
“Exactly!”
“Why is Kurt like that?”
The Jovi shakes his head and says, “It’s fucked up. He was a normal kid and then all this shit happened at once. He hit puberty. His dad punched his mom. Kurt fucked up his dad. They both got thrown in the can, and their mom baled.”
“Baled?”
“She split, left Kurt and James with this derelict who lived next to the high school. She told Kurt that he was the same as his father. I think that’s the part that really stripped the bolts in his brain. Some Ph.D. even wrote a paper on them, Father and Son –Fucked, I think it was called.”
“What?” Eric laughs.
“But here’s what’s weird, after all that shit happened Kurt got really, really, really good at the guitar. He was like the rest of us, and then he wasn’t.”
“So?”
“It was like God blasted him with all that talent and all that turmoil and it fucking fried his hea—”
“Hey, Kurt!” Eric stares over the Jovi’s shoulder.
Kurt is standing in the doorway holding his head in his right hand, looking sheepish. “What are you guys talking about?”
“It’s the Franklin…How are you, bro?”
“Spewing’s got to get another bass. He ruined that show. He made me kick him.”
“Yeah. Totally. And maybe we should get a guitar tech—someone who could change out a set of strings and tune a guitar,” the Jovi says.
“Who?”
“How about Talksley?”
“Talksley?”
“Yeah, Talksley of Loud.”
“Talksley of Loud? What’s with the Homeric epithet?” Eric asks. “Who is this guy?”
“Talksley’s a local legend. You shoulda seen him when he was a kid. He was the baby-derel with the Mohawk who sat on top of the Pumphouse and threw rocks at tourists’ cars as they drove by the beach.”
Kurt adjusts his jaw, stares at the floor, and grumbles, “Everyone did that.”
“Right? So Talksley wanted to see the Cramps in L.A., so he sat in front of La V on Prospect waiting for the valets to get a little lax. When some guy left his keys in his Porsche 911 and walked into the Whaling Bar, Talksley jumped in and took off. He was nearly in Hollywood when the phone rang in the car. Talksley picked up the headset and said, ‘What.’ The guy said, ‘Hey, you little jerk, you stole my car.’ Talksley said, ‘Fuck, dude. This car is insane. How much did you pay for this thing? I’m going…one twenty right now. Oh my God. It doesn’t even feel like it. I love this thing. How do I get one of these? Shit. I guess I already got one. Whose dick did you have to suck to get this car? Fuck. Whose dick do I have to suck to get this car? I love this fucking thing. The tachometer is all big and in the middle. Those fucking Germans, they don’t care how…’ So the guy starts screaming and actually hangs up on Talksley. Talksley parked the car on the Strip, saw the show, and after no one in the world would pick him up hitching, he took the bus home a couple days later.”
“The Cramps—that’s not even music,” Kurt says. “Why steal a car to go see the Cramps?”
“Is this the kind of guy you want handling our gear?” Eric asks.
Before the Flock Page 8