Road Rash (19 page)

Glenn ordered a coffee and a sandwich from the deli case. Good idea—I don’t think I’d want to eat at the ol’ Four Leaf Clover even if it
didn’t
go on our tab.

So it’s my turn to order and I’m looking at the sandwiches, too, kinda distracted, when out of my mouth comes, “Venti half-caf three-pump white mocha … nonfat, no whip, extra-hot …”

The guy behind the counter just looks at me like I’m from Jupiter or something. Glenn finally elbows me and says, “Man, we’re not at Starbucks.”

“Huh?” I look up. Oops.

“Yeah,
dude
,” the guy says in this completely over-the-top LA surfer talk. “Like, totally.”

“Dude! I am, like,
so
totally sorry. Just flew in from the Coast and I am, like,
so
majorly jet-lagged it’s, like, unbelievable.…” I dropped it. “Cup of house, and that turkey sandwich. Thanks.”

We got our stuff and sat down. What was so weird about it wasn’t just that I tried to give the guy a Starbucks order—it was the order itself. That was
Kimber’s
drink, exactly the way she liked it.

Glenn looked at me. “You okay?”

“Well, there’s this girl …” Seems like my mouth was totally off the leash and there was no getting it back.

He just laughed. “Yeah, that’s kind of a given.” He blew on his coffee and took a sip. “Anything you want to talk about?”

I shook my head. “I’m not withholding—I’m just not sure what’s up with her yet. Her brother was in my old band, and he and I were really tight.
Were …
”

“Man, that sucks. What happened?”

So I told him the whole semi–sob story about being replaced by Justin’s cousin and how it turned out that Josh’s dad had a studio and was all connected and stuff.

“… and the pisser is, I know I’m as solid as he is. I mean, I don’t think I’m God’s gift to music or anything, but—”

He held up his hand, palm out. “Stop. Man, you are head and shoulders above him. End of story.”

“You’ve heard him play?”

“Yeah, I caught them at Land of Lights before we left. I only stayed for half a set, but it was enough. They were fools to let you go.”

“Thanks. But they ended up with free access to a pro studio and a guy with connections.”

“Yeah, but
I
ended up with a very musical drummer, so I win. Connections and studios are great, but in the end it’s all about the songs and the performance.”

“Maybe, but what if you have all that but no real contacts?”

He grinned. “That’s pretty much our situation right now, isn’t it? And they’re sitting in the opposite bus. So if you had to choose, which one would you rather be driving?”

He had a point there. If only things were that simple …

After a while Glenn headed back to the FLC. I decided I’d stay and send the pics. When I checked my email, there were a couple of messages. One of them was from an address I knew as well as my own. Well, I
used
to know it that well.…

Whoa … That was, like, totally unexpected. Even though I
did
know when her birthday was. I’d been thinking I might call her.
Hmm … maybe I should send her a card, too
.

I recognized the address of the second email, too. And to tell the truth, I didn’t really want to open it. It felt like when my phone said that Glenn Taylor had called after the audition. I was pretty sure what the email said, but if I actually read it, then any shred of hope would be gone.

Not that I really had high expectations anyway. I’d just been looking for a second opinion.

Yeah, right …

I just sat there for a minute, basking in this weird mix of elation … and fear.

And then I was going to give her the good news. Tell her all about the song I’d produced … how Brad had totally shot it down … how I’d sent it to Wild 107 on a whim and just gotten this email that changed everything. What a relief it was to finally get a little validation.

But none of that was really the point, was it?

She really
was
the only one that had given me any support when things weren’t going so well—she deserved more than a phone call and a card for her birthday.

I had a few hours, so I headed to the older section of town and browsed the store windows, but I couldn’t seem to find anything. Part of the problem was, I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. I mean, was I looking for something like music or books?
Booorrring …
Or maybe for clothes, like a sweater or whatever? Get real—I was totally clueless when it came to that stuff. I spent most of my time hoping I’d get inspired by something, but I was striking out, big-time.

Finally, I found myself walking through what must have been a little gallery district, because every other shop was selling paintings or knickknacks or ceramics or whatever. There was a handcrafted-jewelry shop that had some cool-looking stuff in the window, but no
way
was I getting her jewelry.

Then I spotted them. I couldn’t believe it—a pair of silver
earrings shaped like pi signs. You know:
π
. Perfect. Plus, the novelty of the mathematical symbol would take away from the scary jewelry-ness of the whole thing.

I went in and asked the woman behind the counter if I could see them. Actually, what I really wanted to see was the price tag. I mean, why do they have to write the price of jewelry on this little microsized tag and then turn it around so you can’t see it?

Anyway, they were a hundred bucks. She must have seen my face.

“Who are they for?” she asked.

“A friend. Uh, a girl.”

She smiled. “I see. I’ll tell you what—those happen to be on sale for seventy-nine dollars, but just for today.”

That was still a lot of money, but Kimber
had
been real nice to me. And I’d saved a little of my gig money after expenses, and there was no getting around it—they were perfect for her.

“Thanks. I’ll take them. Can you wrap them for me?”

“Certainly.”

Then I bought a card next door and I got directions to a place where I could get it shipped off to her. When I got there, I filled out the card.

You know, for being such a dive, the FLC actually drew a pretty good-sized crowd. Not that they gave us standing ovations or anything, but at least they were more responsive than the staff. Which might have had something to do with the fact that they were also the hardest-drinking crowd we’d seen. At some clubs the people are there for the music, and the food and drinks are kind of a bonus. Other places are all about the social scene—the dancing, flirting, who’s-going-home-with-who thing. (And each of these places required some fine-tuning of our set list, believe me—we kept applying the hard-earned lesson we’d been taught back at the Dog & Pony.…)

But at the FLC the name of the main game was alcohol. Okay … judging by some of the people leaving and then coming back in, maybe other chemicals were involved, too. But for such a hard-drinking crowd they were reasonably behaved. At least for the first part of the week …

Friday night was packed, and the place seemed a little tense. A few fights broke out, but here the staff just let them run their course. Usually the fights ended up going outside, where you could hear shouting with lots of f-bombs being thrown back and forth. During the second set there was the sound of breaking glass, and a few minutes later I could make out the flashing red lights of a police car through the grimy windows.

At the next break Glenn came up to me. “Hey, can you live without your eighteen-inch crash?”

“I guess so.”

“Good. I just want to be ready if something breaks. If you
take the stand apart, we’ll have some pretty good lengths of pipe up here onstage.”

And not thirty minutes later I damn near used one of them. We were in the middle of a song when this total assbite decided he’d get up onstage. Maybe he just had the urge to sing along—who knows? Glenn said something to him, probably asking him to get down, and the guy ignored him. When Glenn said something again, the guy pushed him away and started heading toward Jamie. I was about to stop and help, but before I could budge, Glenn unslung his guitar—Blackie!—and swung it like a bat.

He tagged the guy in the shoulder, which spun him around, and then Glenn gave him a hard shove in the hip with his boot, and
crash
 … the guy went flailing over the front of the stage. The whole thing took maybe ten seconds, and Glenn had his guitar back on and was back in the song. The guy lay there for a minute, then staggered to his feet. He made like he was going to try to climb back up onstage, and I decided that if he did, I was going after him with a piece of that stand in my hand for insurance. But his friends grabbed him and dragged him out the door instead. Holy wow …

Thankfully, we got through the rest of the night without anything else breaking—that was one gig I was glad to see end.

I didn’t hang around afterward to unwind—I was toast. I fell asleep wondering if this is what they meant by “paying your dues.”