FAME and GLORY (25 page)

I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.

When there were no depths, I was brought forth;

When there were no fountains abounding with water.

When he prepared the heavens, I was there.

When he set a compass upon the face of the depth;

When he gave the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment;

When he appointed the foundations of the earth: then I was by him”

Brandee quickly brushed a tear from her eye.  She thought that the poem (which she felt like she might have heard before) was beautiful in and of itself, but she was touched moreover by the sincerity of Janelle's recitation.  This young lady, of rough stock and bumpy history, could teach Brandee a thing or two about life.

Brandee took Janelle's hand in hers, and held it as the Sprinter rushed toward Reno.

***

While Brandee and Janelle were talking about philosophy, the other members of the group had problems of a more temporal nature.  The Nissan had overheated and was blowing steam into the sky just outside of Sacramento.

Diane, remembering that the blue van had overheated on the way to the group's first ever performance in Ukiah, had been keeping an eye on the temperature gauge for quite some time.  The needle had been drifting just above the center line for most of the trip, but as Diane was maneuvering the van through the traffic that always surrounded the capitol area in Sacramento, the needle had gone from mid-line to redline in a couple of minutes.

“I guess the heat got to be too much for it," Suzi said, squinting into the hot Sacramento Valley sun.

“The heat didn't help, but there must be something else going on," Jake said, putting his hand on the fender and taking a careful look at what was happening under the hood of the van.

“Whatever it is, we don't have time to monkey around out here.  We have to be in Cache Creek this afternoon.  How far is it?” Bruce asked.

Diane checked her watch before she answered.  “We have an hour or so left.  You're right.  We don't have time to fix it.”

Jake stepped back from the steaming van. He knew what needed to be done.  He mentally thanked God that he had renewed his membership with California's version of AAA.

“I'll call CAA.  They'll send a tow truck out here in less than an hour.  First, though, I'll call one of those car rental places that will come pick you guys up.  You three will take the rental car and I'll wait here in Sacramento with the van.  How does that sound?”

Diane nodded.  As much as the members of the group relied on Jake for the little things that he did before, during, and after the performances, his absence wasn't going to seriously hamper their gig at Cache Creek Casino.

“That's a good plan, Jake.  If it's just a cracked cap like it was last time, you'll be on the road in time to see the show tonight.  We're on later than usual, and it's a good thing we are, since Old Nessie spit the bit today.”

Diane stepped over to the Nissan and patted it in a motherly fashion.  Day after day behind the wheel had given the drummer a sense of camaraderie with the overloaded van.  She was sorry to see it sitting beside the freeway, gasping in the shimmering heat.

By this time, Jake had gotten in touch with a rental car agency that would allow the group to rent in Sacramento and return the vehicle in a different location. Jake gave them directions to the 16
^th
St. exit off the Capital City freeway and told the man from the agency that he would be able to see the disabled van from that exit. Jake was assured that a new van would be delivered inside of an hour, and felt good that the members of
Brandee
were likely to make their show.

Next, Jake called The Auto Club.  He was less pleased with what he heard during that call.  Apparently, the unseasonably late spring heat in the valley had caught a number of people by surprise.  The tow trucks were overworked and Jake was going to have to wait his turn.  When Jake asked the operator from CAA how long that wait might be, she showed just how many times this day that she had answered that question for stranded drivers.

“Your guess is as good as mine.  An hour, four hours.  I don't know!  We'll get to you as soon as we can.”

Resigned to the wait, Jake opened the cover of his phone again to make a third call.  He wanted to tell Brandee about what had happened so that she wouldn't worry when she got to the casino that night and didn't see the blue Nissan.

While Jake was dealing with being stranded and making the phone calls to get extricated from the situation, Brandee was leaving the Reno-Sparks area and starting the climb towards Donner Pass.  She had just asked Janelle if she knew anything about the unfortunates who had given Donner Pass its name when her phone came alive with the sound of her own voice singing “Your Ass is Mine”.  She asked Janelle if she would answer it, since Brandee had no intention of getting stopped by a California Highway Patrol officer for talking on her phone while she drove.  Janelle opened the flap and answered.

“H'lo.”

“Hi Janelle.  This is Jake.  Could you give Brandee a message for me?”

“Yeah.  What's the message?”

“The Nissan broke down.  I'm waiting in Sacramento for it to be towed.  The others are renting another van so they can get to Cache Creek in time for the show.  Pass that on to her, please.”

Janelle shared this information verbatim with Brandee, who took it in with a serious expression on her face.

“Ask him if he wants us to come get him, and he can just leave the Nissan in Sacramento until we finish the tour.  Then he can go back and get it.”

Janelle shuttled Brandee's question to Jake.  He was pleased that Brandee was apparently willing to go out of her way to come get him, since maybe that meant that things were getting back to normal.  He knew, though, how much she liked her pre-show routine.  Rehearse, rest, candy, water, oranges, think, perform.  He wanted her to be able to do that.

“No, let's just leave it the way it is.  I don't know Sacramento so I won't be able to tell her how to get to me.  I'm going to go get an iced tea at the little cafe that I can see just off the freeway.  I'll wait for the tow truck driver there after the rest of our gang gets on their way.  Good God, it's hot!”

Janelle was ready to end the conversation.  “Okay.  I'll tell her.  Bye.”

Janelle told Brandee what Jake had said.  She didn't tell Brandee how she was jumping up and down inside.  This meant that she wouldn't have to share Brandee with Jake before the show.  When Brandee wanted her oranges or anything else, Janelle would be the one to get it for her.  After the show tonight, when the group got together to eat, Brandee would be all hers too.  This trip just kept getting better and better.  Now, she just hoped for one more thing that would indicate that Jake wasn't going to show up later and ruin it for her.

A little over an hour later, Janelle's wish came true.  As the Sprinter swept through West Sacramento, she pointed to the right shoulder of the road.  There sat the Nissan, still waiting for its tow.  Jake was nowhere to be seen.

Brandee shook her head, “Poor Jake."

Janelle squeezed Brandee's hand.  “He'll be okay.  It's more important that you get to the show anyway.  You're the one that the people are there to see.”

Brandee laughed.  Janelle's loyalty apparently knew no bounds.  Brandee picked up Janelle's hand that was intertwined with her own and quickly kissed the back of her wrist.

“I'm going to miss you when you leave us to go see your parents.  You're good for my ego.”

At that moment, Janelle would have gladly sold her parents to the circus if it meant that Brandee would kiss her hand again.  Janelle bit back the words that she wanted to say.  It was enough, for now, to hold her hand and ride with her in the Sprinter.

Jake didn't see the Sprinter go by, even though his booth had a view of the broken-down Nissan.  By the time Brandee and Janelle had gotten to Sacramento, enough time had passed and enough iced tea was consumed that Jake was making regular trips to the men's room, which was where he was when the Sprinter sped by.  Now that he was back at the table, he tapped the Nissan's ignition key nervously on the Formica tabletop, wishing that the tow truck would arrive.

Cache Creek Casino was located in Brooks, California, at the northeastern edge of what is commonly called “Wine Country”.  One of the largest in all of California, it is the largest of the booming Native American casinos in the northern half of the state.  Tens of thousands of vehicles jam its parking lots every week, filled with people anxious to strike it rich in the gaming halls, play golf at the Yocha-De-He 18-hole championship golf course, or see some rising entertainer in the Cache Creek outdoor Summer Amphitheater.

Brandee
was at Cache Creek on just the second night of the summer season.  The crowd in the amphitheater was in good spirits as twilight approached.  Those who had won at the casino were in a mood to celebrate, and those who had lost were ready to forget about their day and see a good show.  Those who had golfed were simply tired after a round or two on the first really warm day of the season.  The band had fertile ground in which to plant their unique crop of new material and cover pieces.

Janelle had done all that she could to make Brandee Evans' life easy before the show.  She had taken the mandarin oranges out of the refrigerator and placed them in the freezer for five minutes before putting them on the serving table, hoping that Brandee would notice the extra chill when she bit into one.

Janelle had “refined” Brandee's candy dish as well.  She had taken all of the red M&M's out of the bowl and replaced them with more green ones.  “That's for good luck,” she told an amused Brandee.

Twenty minutes before show time, Janelle asked Brandee if she would like a foot rub.  Brandee lay back on the couch and allowed the younger girl to minister to her feet.  The singer hadn't had that before, at least not pre-show.  She found that it relaxed her and helped her to center her mind.

The rest of the band prepared for the show in their usual manner, with one slight deviation: a mutual eye roll they shared when they saw Janelle earnestly rubbing Brandee's feet while Brandee lay with her arm flung over her closed eyes.  One thing was now painfully obvious to the musicians.  At the start of the tour,
Brandee
had been a band.  Now they were three hard working musicians and a STAR!

The musicians and their star went onstage at precisely 8:15.  All of them were ready to rock the house on this warm summer night.  After two nights in a row of more subdued performing, the group wanted to give the Cache Creek crowd a ride that was full gallop.

Brandee was in magnificent form!  She had the crowd on its collective feet from the time that she took the microphone out of its stand.  She was prowling around the stage, sharing her considerable musical talent with the large crowd as a whole, and her considerable sex appeal with those close enough to see her well.  By the time she had moaned her way through “Kitten's Claws”, every Catholic male within 50 feet had mentally scheduled a trip to confession for impure thoughts.

Diane was reveling in the outdoor atmosphere.  Her short blonde locks were bobbing up and down as she gashed a hole in the air with her flying sticks.  She had developed a very real musician's kinship with Bruce.  Together, they were backing Brandee's vocals with a rhythm that was both rich in melody and intricate in harmony.  Even Brandee noticed; she nodded appreciatively to the two of them during “Blaze!”, a number that was new to the performance this night.

Only Suzi seemed a little off.  She had been the first member of the group to grasp the details of “Blaze!”, a piece that required fast fret work during the chorus, and a strong right hand during the verse portion.  Suzi stumbled a bit as they worked their way through the first chorus, and again, almost imperceptibly, on the second verse.

After “Blaze!” Brandee introduced the members of the band.  When she introduced Suzi, she stepped toward her, turned off her own mike and said, quietly, but urgently, “Come on, Suzi!  Fuckin' step your game up!”

Suzi bit her lip and nodded, not sure what was wrong.  She thought that it was a cop out to blame every one of her bobbles on being pregnant.  Physically, she felt fine, and it was now hours after her early morning nausea issues.  If it was just a bad night, she needed to fix it. Suzi knew that Brandee, for all of her diva faults, was right.  She told herself that repeatedly as she tried to fight through whatever doldrums she had drifted into at Cache Creek.

The evening breeze from the west, so common in northern California, kicked up just as full darkness descended on the amphitheater.  It refreshed the crowd as well as the band as the members of
Brandee
got into the second half of the show.  The wind was gusty enough that Brandee made a quick decision on the fly as she was getting her refreshment from Janelle during Diane's drum solo.

“Tell them not to turn the wind on for 'Kneel Before You',” she said into Janelle's ear.  “It will look fucking ridiculous if I look like I'm in The Wizard of Oz” out there.

Janelle ran to the back of the amphitheater and up a small flight of steps to the sound and light board to relay Brandee's wishes.  The operator gave her a quick nod as he brought up the lights for the crescendo to “These Eyes”.  Janelle walked back to the apron of the stage at a more leisurely pace, but just as she arrived, she yelped as she saw a bright flash of light appear on stage.  The flash appeared to be coming from Brandee’s face.

Brandee was using a Beta SM 57 dynamic microphone, connected to a Behringer 6 mixer.  Her preference was a Sure-Sound SM 58, but the one she was using tonight had tested better for the outdoor setting during the sound check.

Twice during the first half of the show, her microphone had shocked her ever so slightly.  She had considered putting a foam pop filter on the mike when she had taken her break, but decided against it.  The mic had been fine for at least a half hour, and she hadn't sound checked it with a filter on.

Nobody in the audience knew the cause of what happened next.  As Brandee was swaying gently on the stage, she opened her mouth for the first words of “The Darkest Time of Night” when a tongue of fire arced from the microphone into Brandee's face.

Brandee screamed and dropped to one knee, clawing at her face as she flung the microphone toward the front of the stage.

“AM I ON FIRE?  I'M ON FIRE!  OH GOD!  OH GOD!  I'M ON FIRE!  IT HURTS!  IT HURTS!”

Bruce Jackson was the first musician to Brandee's side, but he wasn't the first person to get there.  Janelle was the first to see the tongue of flame and dove on stage almost before Brandee's first words were out of her mouth.  She cradled the singer's head in her arms and shot a command to Bruce.

“Find out if there's a doctor here!  Call 9-1-1 too!  Do it now!”

Bruce stood up to ask the crowd if there was a doctor in the house.  Already, he saw an older man coming through the crowd at a run, toward the stage.

Diane knelt beside the fallen singer.  Brandee's eyes were closed and she appeared to be breathing faster than normal. The drummer knew that was probably the shock of what had occurred rather than a sign of internal injury.  At least, that was part of the prayer that she sent heavenward.

Suzi had been the last to react.  Now, she stood behind Janelle as the younger girl cradled Brandee in her arms, rocking her gently.

Brandee opened her eyes and looked up at Janelle.  “It hurts, Jannie," she said quietly.

“I know it does, baby.  I know it does.”

Just then, the doctor from the casino arrived on the scene.  Normally, he was somewhere close to the gaming room, taking care of gamblers who get a little too excited.  He had just stepped outside and was standing at the back of the amphitheater listening to the music and enjoying the cool of the evening.  Luckily for Brandee, he had been outside long enough see her fall.

He got down on the floor and spoke quietly, but directly, to Brandee, watching the pupils of her eyes as much as listening to her responses.

“Can you hear me, sweetheart?” he said.

Brandee nodded.

“What's your name?

“Brandee Evans.”

“How old are you?”

“23.”

“When will you be 24?”

Brandee hesitated for a moment.  “December 10
^th
.”

The doctor looked up to the group.  “Is that right?”

Diane nodded.  “That's correct, doctor," she said.

The doctor looked pleased.  Internal injuries, including brain damage, are possible from an electrical shock.  Even a seemingly small charge like the one that had burned Brandee's face can pack a wallop that could do major damage.

So far, so good
, he thought to himself.  He turned his attention back to his patient, lifting her ever so gently off of Janelle and laying her flat on her back on the stage.

“I'm going to touch your face, but I'm going to try not to hurt you. Okay?”

Brandee nodded again, comforted by the doctor's quiet voice.

The doctor gently touched the marks on Brandee's face.  The singer flinched at the first touch but then lay quietly as the doctor examined her.  After a minute or two, the doctor said, “You're going to be just fine, honey.”

Everyone on the stage let out a collective sigh of relief when they heard that.  None of them had any real experience with burns, and certainly not electrical burns.  Janelle had accidentally set a classmate's couch on fire when they were getting high one night, but that was the closest thing to incendiary history any of them had.

Diane spoke next, “What should we do?” she said to the doctor.

“There is an ambulance on the way.  Just as a precaution, I want to take her to St. Helena in Woodland.  It's the closest hospital.  She's going to be fine," he reiterated to the suddenly worried faces surrounding him, “I just want to check her eyesight and her reflexes.  They will put a dressing on her burns that is designed for electrical burns.  That will take the sting away.”

Bruce suddenly stood up and stepped to the front of the stage, avoiding the microphone that was lying on the ground.  He spoke as loud as he could to the crowd, which was standing in hushed silence.

“Brandee is going to go to the hospital.”

The crowd waited for more.  Bruce realized that he should have said something more reassuring than that.

“The doctor says she's going to be all right, though.”

The crowd cheered.  They were sorry that the show had been so abruptly brought to a close, but they were glad to hear that the pretty young singer who had been working so hard for them just a few minutes ago was going to be all right.  The portion of the crowd that didn't head for the casino or the hotel started for the parking lot.

Just then, the wail of a siren became audible in the distance.  The white and red paramedic wagon with “Yolo County Ambulance” painted on its side pulled into the parking lot.  Those inside jumped out of the van and came to the stage from behind the performance risers. The members of the band stayed beside Brandee until the EMTs had her ready to go.  Janelle held her hand until they had lifted her on to the stretcher.  Brandee lay motionless with her eyes closed through most of the preparation for her departure.  The EMTs wrapped her securely in a light covering and opened the back door of the ambulance, ready to head for the hospital.

“I'm going with her,” Janelle declared.

The other members of the band looked at one another.  Suzi was the next to speak.  She directed her words to the oldest of the paramedic team.

“Can I go, too?”

The paramedic, a man with steel gray hair and a name badge on his white coat that said “Wes”, looked at the group.

“One of you can come in the wagon with her.  The rest of you can follow along behind.  We're going to St. Helena Medical Center on Sutter Drive in Woodland”

He indicated the casino doctor with an inclination of his head.  “Dr. Lake can tell you where it is.  We need to get going, though, so decide.”

There was no deciding.  Janelle clambered up the step bumper of the ambulance and went inside before Brandee was even moved into place.  She moved all the way to the wall of the van so the paramedics could get Brandee's stretcher placed properly.

Dr. Lake spoke to the other members of the group.  “Let's go into the office real quick.  I'll get some driving directions for you so you can follow your friend.  Don't worry about your instruments or your gear.  I'll have the staff from the casino come out and get all of it securely into storage for you.  It will be here waiting for you when you get back.”