When Hell Freezes Over

by Rick Blechta

  “When I saw that poor girl lying on the bathroom floor, I just freaked. Angus told me it had been an accident. After I’d walked out of the suite, the girl had gotten into some of the booze and more drugs. Eventually, she’d come on to Rolly, and when he’s had a snootful, he has no conscience, so off they went to the bedroom. Once in there, Rolly had wasted no time in niceties and told her to strip. She’d gone that far, but as the moment of truth approached, she’d freaked out.

  “Rolly got upset and told her to get the hell out. The poor thing grabbed her clothes and ran into his bathroom.”

  “You mean that he raped her?” Shannon looked disgusted.

  “Rolly can be stupid, but he’s not that stupid, certainly not when there’s a room full of willing girls on the other side of the door. Angus told me at the time that Rolly was so wasted, he probably couldn’t have done anything anyway. No, the girl just freaked. Her earlier come-on to me had all been bravado. She was only playing at being a ‘bad girl’.

  “As near as we can figure it, the floor was wet and she must have slipped. It looked like she fell over backwards and her head hit the edge of the toilet.”

  “How come none of this ever made the news?”

  “That’s what I’m so ashamed of, Shannon. As we looked down at the girl’s body, Angus turned to me and said he had an idea to make the whole mess go away.

  “Before he came to get me, he’d cleared the suite, so no one knew anything bad had happened.

  “‘All we need to do is get rid of the body,’ Angus said, ‘There isn’t even any blood. She simply slipped and fell. The girl came here of her own free will, and it’s too ruddy bad what happened, but why should we take the blame?’”

  Shannon sighed. “And you swallowed what he was saying?”

  “He kept at me for an hour: what was at stake, all the hard work, that it was not Rolly’s fault. You can imagine what it was like.”

  “And you gave in.”

  A wave of shame flooded over me. I’d been down this road so many times over the years, and it never got any better.

  “Angus fetched one of Rolly’s wardrobe cases. I helped him wrap the girl in a blanket, and we just wheeled the case out of the hotel. It was that simple. Afterwards, the three of us never discussed it. It was like it never happened. Next day, Rolly was hung over but didn’t seem any different. Angus was Angus.”

  “And you?”

  I turned and looked out the window, unable to face Shannon. “In the cold light of day, when I realized what we’d done, I was literally ill. Two concerts later, I bailed. I could not face what I’d done. Nothing was worth that much! If this was what success meant, I wanted no part of it.”

  “And you never contacted the police?”

  “I couldn’t! They were my mates! I grew up with Rolly. Besides, it was an accident.”

  Her next comment was made softly, but its impact was devastating.

  “Did you ever make an attempt to find out if the body was ever found?

  There were other people involved in this, you know. It wasn’t just you and Rolly and Angus. That girl had parents. She had a family.”

  Shannon had cut right to the heart of the matter, the thing that had eaten away at my insides for twenty-four years.

  “About a year later, I went back to Chicago. It’s a big city, and they have lots of murders, but with a little digging, I found a few news reports, but they weren’t much. The body was found two days later. She’d apparently gone to Chicago alone. Someone saw her talking to a couple of guys outside the hotel that afternoon, and she’d gone off with them. The cops figured they had something to do with it, but the crime was never solved.”

  “And the girl’s family?”

  “Kentucky. Single mom, four other kids. They lived in a trailer park. Dad nowhere to be seen. When I went to check it out, she’d moved. I tried to find her a few times over the years, but with no luck.”

  “Was the girl over eighteen?”

  “By two lousy days! She’d used her birthday money to get to Chicago. She was looking for a way out, a better life, and the silly kid thought she’d find it with me.”

  I looked at Shannon, but her expression didn’t tell me anything.

  “There’s something more. Tonight, when I had the dream, the ending was different... It wasn’t the girl lying on the floor of the bathroom; it was you, you as you would have been at the time that girl died. I’ve seen the photos on that shelf in your sitting room. I know >what you looked like at eighteen. What made it so unbearable was I realized it easily could have been you in that room that night. Tell me it’s not true. You’ve told me yourself how you felt! I just couldn’t bear the thought...”

  Shannon looked at me for a long time, but I couldn’t stand the X - ray gaze and kept averting my eyes. I had hoped I might feel better having finally told the story to someone, but if anything I felt worse.

  Shannon got to her feet and picked up her coat. “Michael, I’m going for a walk. I need to do a lot of thinking. I may or may not be back. I really don’t know.”

  “I understand.”

  At the door, she stopped and gave me a wan smile. “Don’t forget that the bad guys are still around. If I were you, I’d be very, very careful. Tonight was a warning. You can’t keep dodging them forever.”

  Twenty-Seven

  Rehearsal didn’t start that day until noon because Scotty, the lighting designer, needed to make changes to the overhead rig—not that we were in any condition to be out there at the crack of dawn anyway.

  In the years I’d been away, a lot had changed, and lighting systems were infinitely more flexible and powerful, with fixtures that could move, refocus, change colour and do just about anything you’d want at the touch of a finger on a computer keyboard. Since it involved computers, that meant programming, and John had hired a really talented person to design the lighting for the concert.

  After Shannon left that morning, I had an annoying burst of energy that wouldn’t allow me to sit still, even though I should have been dead beat. A long walk would have been a good idea, but after what had happened the previous night in the other hotel, something like that was off the menu.

  So I grabbed my laptop, answered a few emails from the shop and made a note to call the lads when they got in. At least nothing was going wrong there. The package I’d ordered from my travel agent would be arriving that morning: two plane and concert tickets for each of the lads, accommodation for two nights, the full monty. I wished I could have seen their faces. Hopefully, being shut down for three days wouldn’t screw up anything at Quinn beyond repair.

  I had the telly on in the background, hoping something would capture my interest and keep my brain from recycling all the bad thoughts over and over.

  When Rolly called from his room shortly after ten to find out if I wanted to take part in an interview for Granada, I actually jumped at the chance, even though I usually wouldn’t go within ten miles of that sort of thing.

  He was on the second floor from the top of the Hilton and had a splendid view of the west end of Glasgow, fading off into the distant highlands. The weather was finally clear, and the sun shone brilliantly.

  A television crew was already set up, and the other lads werepresent. The taping had begun, and they made a big deal in front of the camera about me being late. It was all in good fun, but I was embarrassed nonetheless, because it made me look as if I were trying to upstage them. The interviewer, a young woman probably picked more for the way she looked than her skill level, asked the usual questions. “What’s it like playing together again after all these years?” That sort of crap. She had probably been about two when the original lineup of Neurotica had last played. She’d looked rather disappointed when I’d told her I would not answer any questions about Angus’s death or what had happened in Canada. There had already been way too much about that in the British press.

  I let the rest of the lads have their fun with the interview and only spoke when directly asked a ques
tion. It took her about fifteen minutes to get around to The Question.

  “Michael, you left the band right in the midst of its most successful tour, you had a worldwide number one hit album, sold out stadiums. So, tell me, why did it happen?”

  The room went dead silent, with everyone staring at me. I don’t know if the girl was looking for a scoop or just had no idea what she was asking.

  For a brief moment, I toyed with the idea of giving her that scoop, letting her know exactly why I’d left the band, and I think Rolly saw that flash across my face as I risked a quick glance at him. He certainly looked plenty apprehensive.

  Since I’d finally spilled my guts to Shannon only a few hours earlier, it still might come out sooner rather than later, but I decided that now was not the time. This was about Angus and what he meant to us. That had to stay top of mind.

  “I, ah, guess I just couldn’t handle things,” I began, and this time I looked at Rolly a bit longer. “It was too much too fast and I, ah...”

  Tommy saved me by butting in. “You see, our Michael is a bit of a wallflower and never could handle the rock and roll lifestyle. He’d rather sit in his room and practise or read a book.”

  It was said kindly, but had a typical barb in it, so I shot my own back, “Well, I know a certain drummer who could stand a little practising in his room.”

  The rest of the lads hooted, so Tommy chucked a pillow at me, which I caught and chucked back.

  John, with perfect timing, said, “See what happens when rockers get on in years? Twenty years ago, we would have trashed the room. Now we have pillow fights.”

  Things began to deteriorate, so the interview was stopped, but the girl seemed pleased, and her sound recorder gave us a thumbs up from the corner of the room.

  As everyone got ready to leave, Rolly came over and said in a low voice, “We have to talk.”

  ***

  I went back down to my room to grab my laptop and jacket, but more to see if Shannon had returned. She hadn’t, so I left a note asking her to come out to the rehearsal if and when she returned. I toyed with saying more but decided that wouldn’t be a good idea, since hotel staff would certainly see it.

  It wasn’t hard to get John to give me a lift along with Lee to the arena. Shannon’s warning really had me spooked.

  On the way over the Clyde to Braehead, John and Lee chatted away, not about the old days, but about what they liked and didn’t like with the music being produced now. My mind was back downtown, wondering where Shannon had got to, what she was thinking, but most importantly, what the outcome of those thoughts would be.

  Our set, not counting my intro (which still had to be finalized) came in at just under two hours. We ran straight it through, minor warts and all, and with the adjusted lighting and sound system wailing, it was quite a rush. By the end, we were all dripping with sweat as the crew applauded.

  “That’s a bit of all right,” Lee said, wiping down the neck of his bass.

  The sound man called out from his desk at the far end of the arena, “Want to hear what the audience is going to get?”

  We trooped back, wondering what he meant. I was bringing up the rear with John, who’d thrown off all pretense of aloofness and was wildly enthusiastic about the way the run-through had gone.

  Since I was paying attention to John, I didn’t see who was sitting next to Randy, our sound man.

  It was Shannon.

  I guess the lads thought she was with him, because they didn’t say anything until she looked up at me and said, “I got your message and came out to listen. Randy let me sit with him.”

  John, asked teasingly, “So who’s the lady, Michael?”

  I really had no idea what to say, since everything was upside down at the moment, but Shannon’s quick wit saved me.

  “I’m the former president of the Neurotica Fan Club at my old high school. I had tickets to hear you guys on the last tour Michael was with the band, and I’ve never forgiven him for it being cancelled, so I made him bring me to Glasgow.”

  The sweater Shannon had been wearing lay draped over the back of her chair, and she was sitting there in just a T -shirt.

  Lee whistled. “With those biceps, darlin’, I can see why he’d pay attention.”

  She grinned at him, and I felt reassured.

  Lee sat down next to her. “So what do the fans think of the way Neurotica sounds now?”

  “All of the songs are subtly changed, especially Michael’s parts. That big brown keyboard that sounds like violins and choirs is really cool.”

  “You like the mellotron?”

  “Well, it’s a bit retro, but it sounds right. Know what I mean?”

  John gave me a nudge in the ribs and leaned over. “Next thing he’ll say is that it was his idea.”

  Randy was adjusting the knobs and sliders that covered the big mixing desk and was ready with his demo.

  “This, my friends, is exactly what was coming out of the speakers while you were playing. Kindly give a listen and let me know where I’ve got it right and where I don’t.”

  Without Angus by the desk making sure things were the way they should be, I’d been very apprehensive as to what the sound would be like. Most engineers these days mix very bottom heavy, assuming that it gives the sound presence. It just makes mud as far as I’m concerned.

  I needn’t have worried. Randy was doing a fantastic job, but then, according to John, he was one of the top audio engineers in the States.

  We listened to the whole set, stopping occasionally to discuss the balance of the mix, and the entire time Shannon pretty well ignored me. She could actually have been just the former president of a fan club. Lee and Rolly were busy chatting her up.

  It was decided to start again in an hour. Catering had been brought in for the duration, so we could all eat without leaving. Deciding I wasn’t hungry, I went to the stage with a mind to working on my intro to the concert. Not looking back, I crossed the floor of the arena alone.

  Headphones on, I worked for about twenty minutes, with Tommy’s son hanging about. Eventually John joined us, and I was so engrossed in what I was doing, I forgot about being rather angry with Shannon.

  As the rest of the band appeared in the corridor behind the stage, I saw Shannon walking along with Rolly, the two of them deep in conversation. I felt a twinge in my gut as I thought of the way my dream had ended the previous night and wondered if she knew the effect her behaviour might be having on me.

  She came right up on the stage. “And this handsome young man must be your son, Tommy,” she said. “He looks a lot like you.”

  Tommy laughed. “You mean the way I looked about thirty years ago, maybe.” He ruffled his son’s hair affectionately. “But he’s a great lad. Takes care of this here drum kit better than his old dad.”

  I decided to try my intro straight through, and Shannon and the lads went out onto the arena floor to listen.

  We were using in-ear monitors for the gig, since it kept the sound level down on stage and more controllable out front, so I felt as if I was in a cut-off world of my own. There was actually no amplification around me at all, the organ’s Leslie speaker having been moved behind the stage by Randy. The rest of the instruments went directly into my mixing board—other than the “seventeenth century amplification” of the grand piano, the only keyboard on the stage which actually produced acoustic sounds.

  Using my laptop to control two of the synths allowed me more complexity and texture in what I’d composed. I’d recorded most of that back in Toronto with only a bit of tweaking here and there. That left me with one synth, the organ, the electric and acoustic pianos and the mellotron to play live—more than enough to manage!

  The lighting designer, not having heard it before, was flying blind, but he caught on pretty quickly, starting with a blue wash as the programmed synths did their deep rumbly thing: my impression of the music of the spheres. It echoed around the empty arena like anamorphous mass and proved John’s intuition to be co
rrect when he’d said not to give it too much melodic direction.

  I started off on the piano, using the synth harmonies as a springboard to what I meant to sound like improvisation, but which was fairly worked out. I’d decided on some keyboard flash here and there to make a personal statement that I was back and better than ever. Conceited? Maybe, but I’d taken a lot of heat over the years from the music journalists.

  Little bits of various Neurotica tunes flew out from under my fingers as I pulled more sound out of the piano with larger chords and heavier playing. I also started working in a bit of the live synth to punctuate and enhance. Snippets of “Don’t Push Me” began to appear, but never in any sort of cohesive form, more like an elaborate tease.

  John, knowing how the thing was put together, got Rolly up on the back of the stage, where he stood, looking like a dark shadow.

  As I moved to the mellotron, using the bass clarinet voice on one keyboard and the classic “three violins” on the other, stabbingly bright, very tightly focussed white lights shot down on me from the truss above. Out in the arena, I was peripherally aware of someone clapping and whistling.

  Now I used the minimoog to play the melody of the chorus of “Don’t Push Me” with the boys’ choir voice on the mellotron providing the chordal accompaniment. Out in the arena, I was hoping it had the “celestial” effect I was going for.

  As the verse started, Rolly, with impeccable timing, began to sing. Bright red lights shot down onto him.

  I’d purposely transposed the song down a third, so he’d be forced to sing it in his heavier midrange, and at the slower tempo, the lyrics took on their original meaning. This was no longer a party song of “let’s get it on, baby”, but something more moody and filled with longing, the way we’d envisioned it.

  As the chorus returned, John and Lee came in with their vocal harmony parts, but the lighting on them was purple and subdued. Where they’d come from, I didn’t know, but the whole effect was brilliant.

  When I switched over to organ, the background synths dropped out, the riff to our opening number, one of the band’s earliest tunes,appropriately enough called “How Did We Get Here?”, started with butt-kicking intensity, and the band held off until the tension had reached breaking point before exploding into the song, full up lights and you could almost hear the crowd roar.