Before the Flock

by David Inglish

  Talksley of Loud revs the engine. “I don’t know. bro…Not so smart, bro…My Harley in this thing? I think you should drive this fucking thing…You’re the road manager…I’ll ride my pig…I don’t want to have to ride out backward, bro. You know what I’m saying. bro? Risk and reward, man… I don’t know why it’s always me…man…just because…”

  “C’mon, Talksley! Start down there and just ride straight up the ramp. It’s easy.”

  Talksley heads toward the ramp and stops.

  Jesse yells, “Hey, that’s a balk.”

  A Mercedes Benz pulls around the yellow box truck and onto the curb in front of Lunky and Eric. Spewing hops out, hair slicked back, wearing a linen pastel suit. “L.A., baby!” Spewing yells and shakes all the available hands. EJ slaps twice on the window from the backseat. Spewing opens the door and apologizes. “Sorry, dude. Child locks.”

  “What’s up, EJ? What’s with the backseat?” Eric asks.

  “Spewing, the stupid fuck. He’s got a surfboard in the front seat. He doesn’t even surf. He’s so fucking stupid. He was a half-hour late picking me up!”

  “Hey, Eric bro, let me put my board in your yard. EJ told me no surfing. I’m down with that—but I wanted to check out the Bu, bro—Malibu.” Spewing points to his car. “You like it? I jagged this nun!”

  “Dude?”

  “And I’m fucking Catholic! Put that in your rector!”

  EJ marches to the back of the truck, looks in, and barks, “Hey, Jesse, where’s the gear? We gotta hit the road! C’mon! Traffic!”

  “It’s coming. It’s coming. I’m just waiting on Talksley here.”

  Talksley tries to untangle his long brown hair from the shoulder spikes of his leather jacket. “Bro, bro, bro, bad idea, bro, trucks are for gear, bikes are for riding, baaaaad idea, bro. Why’s it always me? I don’t want to drive a truck…”

  Lunky lumbers over and eyes the back of the truck, then presents himself to Spewing, EJ, and Eric as they watch Talksley and Jesse from the curb. “Well? Can I go? Can I go with you? I’ll do anything for you guys, security, roadie. I’ll pack that truck, drive it, just name it.”

  “You clean?” Eric asks.

  Spewing laughs.

  “Since when is personal hygiene a concern around here?” EJ asks.

  “Yeah,” Spewing adds, “are you going to fuck him or let him carry your shit?”

  “I mean drugs,” Eric says. “Lunky’s had a drug problem.”

  “I do drugs. I fall down. What’s the fucking problem?” Spewing says.

  EJ slaps him in the face. “That’s the problem.”

  “I’m forty days clean today.”

  “We don’t have a bed for you,” Eric says.

  “I’ll sleep in the closet. It doesn’t matter. You guys need me up there. You need security.”

  “Go ask Kurt,” EJ says to Eric.

  Eric finds Kurt sitting on an amp in the Jovi’s bedroom, legs folded, an acoustic guitar in his lap. “You mind if Lunky is our roadie?”

  Kurt shrugs his shoulders with a cigarette in his mouth and flows a flamenco version of “Iron Man.” Eric takes this as a yes.

  Eric walks back to Lunky, slaps his rocklike shoulder, and says, “You’re in.”

  Lunky stares off in a dreamy way, puts his arms akimbo, and says, “I always knew it would happen.”

  “What happened?” Eric asks.

  Lunky grins and walks into the house, lifts a hundred-pound Ampeg cabinet under one arm and a hundred-pound Ampeg bass head in the other, and marches out into the yard. At the back of the truck, Jesse the Giant and Talksley of Loud grow silent and still. It’s the first time that all three roadies have been together. When Lunky’s eyes meet Jesse’s deep-set stare, the little beach street takes on the feel of the O.K. Corral just before a shoot-out. If there were neighborhood womenfolk, they would be closing the shutters and bolting the doors.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing? That’s my job,” Jesse barks at Lunky.

  Lunky turns toward Jesse, the enormous weight of the gear making him move like a robot. “I’m just helping out,” he says in his high-pitched voice. “I hear you’re looking for someone to drive that truck.”

  “Yeah. Well?”

  “I’m your man.”

  Jesse throws his head back, laughs, and barks: “Walk the ramp!”

  Talksley pushes his pig backward into the street, and the metal bows under the weight as Lunky the Loyal follows orders.

  EJ nods superciliously, snaps his suspenders, and says, “That’s pretty good, but listen, Eric, I’m not paying that guy anything.”

  At the Lingerie, Vance Copeland can’t believe the crowd that is assembling at his club. He sees A&R people by the dozen, lawyers, business managers, agents, the bearded president of Virgin Records, the tall bald president of Warner Brothers Music. All of Vance’s unreturned phone calls seem to have finally paid off. His voice has been heard, and now Thunderstick is about to make him a player in Hollywood.

  Vance glides his black duster and cross into the Lingerie dressing room. Tiffany Tucker and Spewing are sitting on the molting couch. Eric is nervously pacing and picking words and band names out of the graffiti-strewn walls. The Jovi and Kurt are standing together over a green rubber trashcan. Jesse is smoking a joint.

  “Hey, guys! This gig is really coming together. Great crowd tonight.” Vance suddenly realizes that the Jovi and Kurt are urinating in the trashcan. “Don’t piss in there!”

  Jesse laughs. “C’mon, Vance, lighten up. There’s no bathroom in here.”

  “And you can’t smoke that! Put that out.”

  Jesse smiles, extends his tongue, and puts out the joint in middle of it.

  EJ storms in and grabs Vance by the shoulder and says, “We got a big problem. The soundman says he won’t do our show.”

  “What?”

  “He says he just recognized Kurt from some other show. I guess Kurt told him off. He says he won’t do it.”

  “Won’t do what?”

  “The sound!”

  The duster spins around and Vance glides out of the room with EJ in tow.

  “I knew I knew that fucking guy.” Kurt stands, slings his Telecaster behind his back, and makes for the door. “I’m gonna go show that guy a little something.”

  Jesse collars Kurt and pushes him down onto the sofa. “You’re not going anywhere. Let us deal with this. If anybody is gonna do some ass kicking, it’s gonna be me.”

  A minute later, Vance glides back in and says in a panic, “Who in here knows how to work a mixing board?” Vance points at Jesse. “You! Do you know how to work a mixing board?”

  “That won’t work,” EJ says. “The guy took the cables out of the back of the board. I saw him do it.”

  “FUCK!”

  Felder walks in, grabs Vance by the shoulder, and says, “What’s this I hear about the soundman quitting?”

  “Who are you?”

  “Fix it!”

  “I tried. I can’t.”

  “Let me handle this.” Felder walks out. EJ and Kurt exchange a look.

  Eric stands up, looks in the trashcan, holds his gut and runs out of the room.

  Tiff looks at Spewing and says, “Put your hair in a ponytail.”

  Spewing nods feverishly.

  Felder walks back in. “Everything’s fine. You guys are gonna sound great.”

  “How’d you do it?” EJ asks.

  “I just gave that guy a faceful of Hollywood.”

  “Sweet!”

  “Yeah!”

  “Right on!”

  The band takes the stage in total darkness. Beady eyes gleam in the shadows. Everyone is here. Smithy, Dickey, Gary, attorneys, reps, agents, presidents, and pawns, and when Sophie Clark walks in the room on James Franklin’s arm, blood is in the water. From the very first note of the show, every shark in town wants a bite of Thunderstick.

  The show climbs from rock show to transcendence. Kurt takes off his shirt and
holds his arms out wide, lifts his head to the heavens, and waits for the ascension in the middle of “Ice Blue Heart.” The delicate strings of the Creator lift him. He gasps for air. EJ beats the living hell out of his drums. The Jovi chunks out thick rhythms on his guitar. Demons dance on Spewing’s bass. Eric keeps his head down, long straight hair swaying back and forth like a hula skirt, playing synthesizer pads, string parts, bell sounds, and piano riffs.

  Felder walks up to a sweaty Kurt and says, “Who was that girl? The show was incredible. Get out of here. Let me deal with these assholes. I’ll meet you guys over at the Cat & the Fiddle on Sunset.”

  “Cool.”

  The band drives over to the bar. The roadies load out the gear and join them. Lunky slaps Eric on the shoulder and says, “Good show, you got any food?”

  “Let’s get a couple cheeseburgers.”

  Lunky follows Eric to the bar. A meathead looks at Eric’s long hair and says, “Hey, you look like a girl. Let’s fuck.”

  Eric says “Bend over, bitch” under his breath and keeps walking.

  The meathead has superior hearing. He grabs Eric’s shoulder, pushes him, puffs out his chest, and says, “You want some of this?”

  “No.”

  Lunky the Loyal steps out from behind Eric and says, “Yes.” Lunky grabs the meathead by the collar with his left hand and hits him in the face with a jackhammering right hand. On the third punch, blood spatters all over the place. Lunky lets go and the guy falls in a lump next to a broken jukebox.

  “Dude, you didn’t have to do that.”

  “Yeah, I did. I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.”

  “Thanks, Lunky. You still want that cheeseburger?”

  “Boy, do I.”

  Felder walks past the bloody blob, grabs Kurt and the Jovi, hugs them, and says, “It’s on. This place is a dump. Let’s go somewhere nice.”

  “Cool.”

  “On second thought, I want you guys fresh for our meetings tomorrow. Go back to the hotel. Get some sleep.” Felder grabs Eric. “Make sure Kurt gets some sleep. Got it? Oh, and that keyboard intro thing was shit. That’s not us. Whose idea was that?”

  “Kurt’s.”

  “Next time you’re gonna do something stupid like that—don’t! Got it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And make sure Kurt gets some sleep.”

  There’s nothing magical about the Magic Hotel. It’s a white deco apartment building built around a pool. Felder rents the band a two-bedroom suite.

  “Where’s the Jovi?” Eric asks.

  “Fuck if I know,” says EJ.

  “Let’s get some bitches in here,” Spewing yells. “Pronto!”

  EJ slaps Spewing’s face. “We’re going to sleep. You heard Felder.”

  Jesse approaches Eric. “You’ve got to see this.”

  In the bedroom, Jesse slides open the closet door and there is Lunky, propped up against the wall, sleeping chin to chest as if he were in the womb.

  “Looks like a fucking baby,” Jesse says. “Baby Huey maybe or that baby on Bugs Bunny who robbed banks. What a fucking crack-up. Where do you find these guys, Eric?”

  “I met Lunky at a self-help group for addicts. He wanted a ride to an endless condo complex in Mira Mesa. I gave him a ride to a couch, someone he knew. I told Lunky to have hope. Lunky told me ‘Nice car’ and rubbed the dash with both hands.”

  “Yeah. Whatever.”

  Kurt closes the closet door and says, “I need to sleep.”

  Eric strips to his underwear, crawls into the single bed next to the closet and rubs the closet door with his free hand. Kurt takes the bed by the window. Jesse kicks EJ and Spewing out of the living room and takes the couch.

  Eric falls asleep, his snore an unpredictable nasal gasp.

  Kurt lies in bed staring at the ceiling. He gets pissed. “You’re fucking snoring!”

  “Sorry, sorry, I’m sorry,” Eric says in a daze. Afraid to sleep, he stays awake and lays perfectly still, eyes closed to little slits as he watches Kurt.

  Kurt sleeps for fifteen minutes, then gets up and smokes cigarettes and stares out the window, sleeps for a half-hour, gets up, smokes, stares out the window, sleeps for an hour, gets up, smokes, stares out the window. This time he sits longer, opening and closing the glass slats of the window, smoking and watching the houses in the Hollywood Hills as they appear and disappear.

  In the morning Felder shows up with Tiff and says, “C’mon, babe. Make ‘em look sharp. We got meetings and you know the rule. People hear what they see.”

  “Where’s the Jovi?” Tiff asks.

  “He’s not with you?”

  “Hmmf,” she says.

  Tiff works a little styling magic. Everyone in black. Spewing’s hair in a ponytail. Vintage leather jackets. They look like the original bikers. Not the smelly, hippie, Henry Fonda fuckers of the seventies, but the crisply dressed assassins of the 1950s. They all have on black leather collarless jackets, with lace-up black leather vests on top of that, plus the strange and dressy addition of pleated black trousers, tight at the ankle, topped off with Beatle boots.

  The four present members look perfect, still no Jovi.

  Lunky walks out of the closet looking good. Tiff looks at his platinum bowl cut and mirror shades, and says, “This look is very now. He should go with the band.”

  “I like it. It’ll confuse the hell out of the suits,” says Felder.

  Lunky slides a giant hunting knife into his belt and nods.

  Jesse slaps his forehead, says, “What the fuck?” and leaves the room.

  Kurt lifts his hands and says, “Where the fuck is the Jovi?”

  Like magic, the Jovi walks in, his hand in the back pocket of a blue-eyed, dark-haired vixen. “What’s up, guys? This is Alexandra. She really dug our show. She’s…” He notices Tiff and her souring expression. “Hey! Tiff! What’s up? Great to see you.”

  “Dress yourself, asshole.” She dumps some clothes on the floor and starts for the door. She grabs the knob, stops herself, turns, and says, “Good luck, boys.”

  Felder looks at the Jovi. “You look rock. Let’s go.” He looks at Alexandra. “Can sweetheart find her way home?”

  “Totally,” she says, and tosses her hair.

  Felder and the Jovi ride together in Felder’s Porsche. The rest ride in Spewing’s Benz.

  The band arrives at Warner Bros. The whole record division is assembled on a giant redwood deck. It’s a party for Depeche Mode; their latest album has just gone platinum. Industry people stand around, drink box wine, and slap one another on the back while they wait for the band to arrive. Thunderstick walks in instead. The vibe is strong. We take the place over.

  Depeche Mode arrives and they look like four cancer patients from Manchester next to Thunderstick. Lunky the Loyal puts himself in a visual lockdown with their bodyguard, a short and wide tough guy with a shaved head. The two of them vibe each other until everyone in the place can feel it. The Warner security men, in their brown polyester pants and matching baseball caps, begin to circle Lunky. Lunky doesn’t budge. Someone walks over to Felder and asks him why Lunky has an eight-inch knife. Felder laughs, walks over to Lunky, takes the knife, and hands it to a surprised security guard. Lunky unfolds his thick arms and puts them on his hips. The bald guy walks away. The president of Warner Bros. wants to meet the band.

  Down in some A&R guy’s office, a dark room crammed with rock posters, they begin the dissection of the band. “Who writes the songs?” “What producers do you like?” “Where do you play?” “How long did the demo take you?”

  Virgin Records has a little airy office building all to themselves in Beverly Hills. They have a crunchy president, complete with twinkling eyes and a health-food beard. With his legs folded neatly beneath his cupped hands and his hands under his pot-belly, he is like the Buddha with an attitude. He sarcastically asks the band, “So, do you ever load up the Benz and go out on the road?”

  Something clicks in Kurt. H
e ashes on the floor, leans forward, points his cigarette at the beard, and says, “Hey, that’s not my car. It’s not like that for me. Don’t go thinking I’m some spoon-fed just ‘cause I’m from La Jolla. Nobody ever gave me anything.”

  Felder says, “Hey, hey, guys. It’s not about the car. It’s about the music.”

  The beard says, “Oh, I just thought, you know, maybe…So, who writes the songs?”

  In the parking lot Kurt puts his arms up with his hands angled oddly out to the side and says in a fake southern accent: “Alright, look at me, how mellow, I’m a hippie, but you’re fired. I’m the president of a big company, but I hate money. I hate it so much I think I’ll give a bunch of it to Bob Marley’s son ‘cause he’s got dreadlocks. Can’t play a note, but he’s got a cool haircut! Alright! How mellow! Look at me! Rasta-fucking-phony-ian!”

  The band laughs. Felder tells Kurt, “Don’t worry about it. He likes us. That’s just his thing.”

  Spewing’s Benz follows Adam’s Porsche into the Valley to DCA. It’s time to meet with Bernie Zupnik. Standing by the elevator at DCA, Felder looks at the band and says, “Act like we’re too good for DCA. It’ll drive Bernie nuts.”