Before the Flock

by David Inglish

  The Jovi and Kostas ride their Harleys up to Neil Young’s ranch. Along the way, the Jovi pulls into the median, parks the chopper, pulls down his leather pants, and shits on the tarmac. Kostas pulls over. “What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like I’m doing?”

  “You couldn’t wait?”

  “Sometimes a hard-tail will just jar the shit right out of you. It’s fucking great!” The Jovi stands up, appreciates his work, pulls up his pants, gets back on his chopper, and launches into the fast lane.

  A few hours later the Jovi calls Talksley. “Guess where I am, bro.”

  “Where?”

  “I am at Neil Young’s ranch in NorCal. And guess what else.”

  “What?”

  “I got you a job. You’re going on tour with Neil and the Bluenotes. You’re gonna cut your teeth with a legend. You’ll be Neil Young’s second guitar tech.”

  “Lunky ain’t going? ‘Cause if he is…fuck, bro… no way, bro.”

  “No, man.”

  “Does this mean I’m done with Thunderstick?”

  “Of course not. When we get a tour, you’ll be there.”

  Late at night, almost into morning, EJ is hanging with Sven Davidson in a bar in Silverlake. “How did that slasher film work out for Nicky?” EJ asks.

  “Dude. It’s a fucking franchise. Unfortunately, she got gutted in the first one. We’re hoping she can come back in a dream or as a dead chick or something.”

  “What about Panthers and Pathogens? Are you guys still big in Japan? How’s the wandering minstrel thing working out?”

  “Fuck. Dude. The lute is a bitch. I miss my Fender P Bass. I miss rock and roll.”

  “Why don’t you come play with us?”

  “You guys got Spewing. The guy’s a mess, but he can play bass.”

  “He’s cost us a lot of coin in the studio. Kurt’s sick of it.”

  Out in his 1967 convertible LeSabre, Sven listens to the Thunderstick demo and says, “Sure. I’d do that gig.”

  “Come meet us at A&M Studios tomorrow afternoon.”

  Around noon the next day, Sven opens his closet, takes out three or four tunics and tosses them into the trash. He pulls out his old black leather motorcycle jacket, some black jeans, and an ashy black T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. He puts them on and drives over to A&M. The receptionist leads him through the hall into the control room. He’s in shock. “You guys are recording your first album in here? They gave you how much money? Panthers and Pathogens’ advance was ten grand—total. You’ve been recording for a month? Holy shit!”

  Kurt, the Jovi, and EJ say, “The job is yours if you want it.”

  “Yes, I want it.”

  Sven goes home, calls the lead singer of Panthers and Pathogens, and says, “Not into it anymore.”

  The lead singer says, “Me neither, but I’m no quitter.”

  Sophie knows it’s always there, but she also knows it’s always different, a true shape-shifter. It’s a glass of wine poured from a crystal decanter, a pill that helps you relax, a pill that helps you rally, a line of powder on a mirror, smoke from nature, smoke from science. It’s grown by benevolent bushes or made by men in labcoats. The coast is clear and there it is staring up at you, asking you, “How’s your day?” It’s always wrapped differently, multi-colored circles on a garish purple, bears blowing whistles and holding hands, trees with stars and bulbs, six-pointed stars and spinning tops, or just brown paper tied up with string.

  There was a pretty good reason for popping the pill that the other girl had, but it’s already left Sophie. There was something wrong with how she felt, or how she thought, or there was nothing wrong at all and she just realized that she was cured of whatever that terrible sickness was that had her. It was circumstance. Things had happened. Bad breaks. Misunderstandings. Life is out of our control, even the gurus will tell you that. It’s just that sometimes it’s too much so. What’s done is done. She feels fine, better than fine. And tonight she will tell James that she has changed her mind. Or she will tell him that the client wants to see her alone. Or she will tell him that he just can’t come.

  When she comes back to the hotel room late that night he smells it on her. It saddens him deeply but he’s decides he’s going to cup her gently in his hands until she comes to her senses, until she realizes the error of her ways. Right now, she wants to be on top. He looks up at her. She is backlit by the blue light of the clock radio. Her arms move in a Hindu dance. Her eyes glow inside the silhouette.

  Landing back in San Diego she looks out the window at the planes and wonders what was that girl’s name? Nänce. She looked like she knew where we could score. She looked like she understood.

  Lunky the Loyal arrives on Eric’s street, right where it all began, driving the yellow box truck filled with Thunderstick’s gear.

  “Hey, Lunky! How are you, man?”

  “Hey, Eric,” Lunky says in his high-pitched voice. “Not good.”

  “Huh?”

  “Raymo’s fucking me.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing about drums, nothing about tuning. He just tells me to take this shit over here and move it over there. Then he tells me to go get that shit and put it with this shit. It’s nothing but moving shit and stacking shit.”

  “Isn’t that what you did with us?”

  “I can’t believe you’d say that.”

  “Well, no, you did a lot more.”

  “I was security. I really worry about you guys without me. You’re gonna need me.”

  “Hey, Lunky, you’ll be back. I’ll make sure of it.”

  “I miss you guys. I miss Thunderstick.”

  “Me too, Lunky.”

  Eric’s phone rings. It’s Spewing. “Bro. Did you do your overdubs?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Bro. I never did mine, bro. I’ve called EJ and Kurt a hundred fucking times and they won’t call me back.”

  “Dude. Overdubs are stupid and useless anyway. The live tracks sound better.”

  “Are you guys fucking me?”

  “No. I guess your tracks were good enough. The gear’s all back here in the dog room. We’re out of the studio. We’re over budget and out of time. They probably wanted to save money and cut out bass overdubs. Kurt’s doing vocals and that’s it.”

  “Really, man? Are you lying to me?”

  “No, man. I wouldn’t do that.”

  Eric hangs up.

  “Who was that?” Lunky asks.

  “Spewing.”

  “You guys fired him, right? That’s what Raymo told me.”

  Sven sits in the control room in an office chair placed next to the Neve and Kostas. A thin black cord goes from Sven’s Fender P Bass to the big room, where his Ampeg sits all alone with a mic in front of it. He punches in a bass line on “Ice Blue Heart.” Kostas says, “Perfect. On to the next.”

  Sven punches in a bass line on “Wanted Love.”

  EJ laughs and says, “That was easy.”

  Sven punches in a bass line on “World War IV.”

  Kurt says, “Next!”

  Sven punches in a bass line on “Rain Fall.”

  The Jovi says, “I don’t want to jinx you, bro, but I think you’re gonna single-take the entire album.”

  “That’s a real musician,” Kostas says. “This is something I can work with—a real bass player.”

  “It’s gonna be like he never existed,” Felder says. “There won’t be a note of his on the album. His name won’t appear anywhere. We’re going to erase Patrick Spewing like he was never born.”

  Eric calls the studio. The receptionist answers. “Hey, it’s Eric from Thunderstick, can you ring the studio?”

  The Jovi answers. “What’s up, bro?”

  “That’s what I was going to ask you.”

  “Just hanging out with Sven, doing some bass lines.”

  “Did we fire Spewing?”

  “Yeah. He’s history.”

  “Nobody told me.”<
br />
  The Jovi cups the phone and calls out to the others: “Hey, you guys! No one told Eric we fired Spewing.”

  “We did,” EJ yells. “But we didn’t tell Spewing yet. We were gonna tell Spewing first.”

  The Jovi speaks into the phone. “Dude. They were gonna tell you after they told Spewing. Come up here and meet Sven. You’re going to dig him. He’s super cool.” The other line on the phone rings. “Gotta go, dude. Call you later.”

  The Jovi punches the other line. “Hay-low!”

  “Jovi. It’s Patrick. What’s going on? Is that bass I hear?”

  The Jovi cups the phone and says, “Dudes. It’s Spewing.”

  EJ grabs the phone. “Spewing, you’re fired.”

  “What’d I do?”

  “It just wasn’t working out. We tried, but you couldn’t pull it off. Go get your shit from Eric.”

  “You can’t just fire me.”

  “Yeah, we can.”

  “No, you can’t.”

  “Yes, we can.”

  “No, you can’t.”

  “Yes, we can.”

  EJ hangs up the phone.

  “Dude. Where should we go to celebrate?” the Jovi asks.

  “There’s this place on Wilshire that serves martinis and meatloaf until two in the morning?” Sven says.

  “Perfect.”

  The new band has a steak dinner in Beverly Hills. The room is stark, white, and minimalist. The booth is leather. The band sits beneath the restaurant’s only decoration, a giant mural of the Hagler-Hearns fight.

  Eric arrives in a sweat and the five bandmates lift a glass to the new bass player, to the album, to the tour, and eat their meat rare.

  August is for mixing. Kostas and Felder are clueless. EJ and Kurt don’t leave the room until a suit from DCA shows up and kicks them out. The band returns to La Jolla to wait for an album release and a tour—all of which should be happening in September. Sven takes a room in his grandmother’s thatched-roof house overlooking the ocean. The Jovi moves back into the pool house at his parents’.

  “We’re a signed band. Can someone tell me why we’re playing at a guitar shop in Clairemont? In the middle of the day?” the Jovi asks during soundcheck.

  “We need to play in front of as many people as possible right now,” Kurt says.

  “C’mon, Kurt. Until we get a tour, we should just relax. It’s like baseball. When the season’s over, we shake hands, go our separate ways, and meet up again at spring training.”

  “Not in this band. I have a physical need to play—respect that. If someone asks us to play, we’re there.”

  “Dude. There’s a monstrous storm off the coast of New Zealand. That means a major south swell is on tap. Let’s go down to Tarantula Bay in Mexico. Camp. Surf. Kick it.”

  “We’re playing this gig.”

  “Hey,” the soundman yells. “I can’t run this PA you rented and the A/C. They suck too much juice. It’s one or the other. Pick your poison.”

  “It’s a hundred degrees out there,” Eric says.

  “A hundred and three, actually. It’s September, and surprise, surprise, the Santa Anas are blowing,” the soundman says.

  “Turn off the A/C. We need the PA. People need to hear this voice.” Kurt points at the guitars hanging on the walls surrounding the tiny stage. “And what are you going to do with all these guitars?”

  “Leave ‘em.”

  “Look, man, we’re a professional band, with the biggest record deal in the history of this town. We can’t be playing up here with all these guitars.”

  “How am I going to sell guitars if nobody can see ‘em?”

  “You know, Kurt, you’re the one who wanted to play in a guitar store in the first place,” EJ says from behind his drum kit.

  Kurt looks back at the soundman. “Can you just take some of ‘em down?”

  The soundman walks over to where Kurt is standing, takes one guitar off the wall, and asks, “Happy?”

  The band walks next door and changes in the bathroom of a travel agency. Sven eyes his glistening panther done in fresh ink on his skinny arm. The Jovi gets dolled up in a pirate blouse with leather pants and motorcycle boots. Kurt looks in the mirror and adjusts his dog collar. They take the stage. The audience sits on the floor of the guitar shop in the hundred-degree heat. Most of them are surfers from Windansea. They want to see this band that just recorded a huge album with U2. It’s sunny and hot, so they are dressed in slaps, board shorts, and tank tops. Looking out at the audience, everyone in the band except for Kurt begins to realize something important is missing—booze. And it dawns on them that this is a really bad idea. Then Nänce walks in through the crowd up to the stage and tugs on the Jovi’s pant leg. “Heeeyyy, Diiiirtdick. I need to talk to you.”

  The Jovi looks over at Kurt. Kurt shakes his head no. The Jovi says to Nänce, “Wait a second.”

  The wheel of Kurt’s arm grinds over the strings of his Telecaster. The train starts to move, builds momentum. It’s strong. Then it gets weird. In the middle of “Alone, Alone,” Kurt yells at Eric. “You’re fucking out of tune! What’s fucking wrong with you?”

  Eric looks down at his synthesizer. “Kurt, it can’t be out of tune.”

  “Just stop playing! Stop fucking playing! You’re ruining the song!”

  Eric stops, stands in the tiny space behind his keyboards, and dodges the head of Sven’s bass. When the song ends, he walks off and sits with the surfers and Nänce on the floor.

  “What happened?” Nänce yells in his ear.

  “It’s so hot that none of the guitars can stay in tune. They all keep going flat, but sometimes they all go flat together. That’s why Kurt thought it was me. Kurt’s singing off key to stay with the band.”

  After a couple more songs, Kurt gives up singing and the gig degenerates into a forty-minute free-form jam that thins the crowd down to almost nothing. Kurt turns up his amp. It is an assault on the senses, so loud that it makes the body secrete oil and sweat, ears make wax, eyes tear up. All feel ill. Nänce sits curled in a ball with her fingers stuck in her ears.

  The storeowner eventually walks up to Kurt and says, “That’s enough.”

  Kurt, dripping with sweat, nods his head.

  The Jovi walks off the stage in mild disgust. Nänce runs after him. “Hey Dirrtdick!”

  “What’s up, Nänce?”

  “I’ve got some good news.”

  “What?”

  She takes his hand and pulls him into the stockroom. She kisses him awkwardly and grabs at the buttons on his sweaty leather. “Guess what?”

  “What?”

  “Guess.”

  “You want a pounding.”

  “Yeah… and what else…?” She yanks his pants down his moist thighs.

  “Hey, you’re not going to be able to talk with my cock in your mouth.”

  She takes it out and strokes it. “C’mon, guess.”

  The Jovi sighs and leans back against the wall. “Umm, you…I don’t know…”

  She slaps him on the ass. “You give up?”

  “Yeah. I give up.” The Jovi’s eyelids are drooping. He runs his fingers through her short dark hair.

  “Sophie wants to have a three-way. You, me, and her.”

  “She what?”

  Nänce stuffs him back in her mouth. The Jovi pulls her up. “She what?”

  “You heard me. She wants to do both of us.”

  “No. Not Sophie. She’s not like that.”

  Nänce giggles and tries to drop back down. He holds her up. “Tell me you’re shitting me?”

  “No. She’s bi. She wants me, but she really wants you. Says she’s gonna fuck your lights out.”

  Sophie has become good friends with a B-rated model named Summer. Like most of the B models, Summer is very good-looking, tall and blonde, but kind of insecty—too many vertebrae, really long from the hip to the shoulder, and no curves. Summer’s mother is a psychic named Phoenix who owns a little curio shop on the strip up
near Fourteenth Street in Del Mar. They sell crystal medallions and crystal balls and crystal rocks and candles and dream catchers and books on the black arts. Like most parents, Phoenix looks at Sophie and looks at Summer, and can’t understand how one girl makes millions of dollars and the other makes thirty-six thousand—if she is willing to live in a shoebox apartment in Tokyo for half the year. Phoenix thinks that Sophie can help Summer get better modeling jobs and bigger contracts. Phoenix offers Sophie a few free readings. Sophie shows up for the first one. Phoenix lights up a joint, and the two pass it back and forth until it’s a tiny, soggy triangle. Phoenix snuffs it out and the session begins.

  “What do you want to know?” Phoenix asks and holds both of Sophie’s hands across a small table covered in a red silk embroidered cloth.

  “I want to know why it’s gone. When I was a little girl it was everywhere, surrounding me, if I turned fast enough I could see them hiding and giggling and somehow I knew they were looking out for me. But they weren’t. They weren’t there when I needed them.”

  “So you want to find out…”

  “Where did the magic go?”

  “This is very common. I treat this all the time. There are evil elements that try to wall you off from your magic. It’s the challenge of rebirth – you will face the same problems in every one of your lives until you overcome.”

  “You mean I’ve been here before?”

  “It’s so obvious to me. Let me call upon the spirit world for confirmation.”

  An eerie quiet comes over the room. Phoenix has frozen, still looking at Sophie, but departed. She has gone to the other realm. Like a good shrink, Phoenix lets that silence become a participant. Phoenix re-enters Phoenix, and her eyes and face become animated once again. “Oh, Sophie. What I have just seen… I was right. You’ve lived this life before.”

  “What life is that?”

  “The life of an immortal beauty.”

  “What did you see?”

  “I saw you on a barge in the Nile with Marc Anthony. I saw you beheaded in the market square in France.”

  Sophie chuckles. “I’m sorry, but that’s a bit much.”