Road Rash (34 page)

Finally, we were all loaded up and good to go.

“Well, you ready?” I asked Glenn.

I guess a door was open somewhere, because we could hear the guys in the club across the resort, loud and clear, working
through a few tunes with Nate. Listening to them, I couldn’t imagine it would take him too long to get back in the groove. With just Brad on six-string there wouldn’t be many solos until they found another guitarist, but they’d manage.

“Yup. What about you? You wanna go say one last goodbye or anything?”

“Nope,” I said. “I’ve already done it, except for Brad, and I’ve got nothing to say to him.”

He nodded. “I hear you.”

The band started playing “So Far,” our usual opener. Suddenly I felt like crap, hearing them do that with another drummer. And they totally killed it, too—Brad really was a great singer.

Glenn must have read me. He turned to me and said, “That
sucks
compared to that night when you sang it!”

That made me laugh.

At least for a minute.

SALT LAKE CITY—146 MILES
.

I can remember seeing those signs before, only I’d been driving north instead of south. Amazing what a little change in direction can mean, huh?

Anything new is an adventure. At least for a while. But then the novelty wears off and you’re stuck dealing with whatever’s left, good or bad. In this case, what was left was the simple fact that I’d been fired from my band. Again.

And no matter how hard I tried to rationalize that it wasn’t my fault or that it had nothing to do with me or my drumming, there was no getting around it. And this time it double-sucked, because getting in
this
band had kinda redeemed me from getting kicked from
that
band.

And okay, I’ll admit it—I’d had hopes of maybe getting somewhere with these guys. Especially after I’d worked with them for a while and seen what they could do. Things had started to turn around. And then … the bus drove right off a freakin’ cliff.

“What are you thinking about?” Glenn asked, interrupting my thoughts.

“Food,” I said.

“Yeah,
right
. Your knuckles are white on the wheel and you’ve got death and destruction in your eyes. That must be one hell of a hamburger you’re thinking about.”

“Okay, here’s what I’m thinking … I’m thinking this sucks. I’m thinking it sucks big-time. I know it sucks for you, too, and I really appreciate you backing me up, but that doesn’t hide the fact that I just got canned from the best band I’ve ever been in … not three months after getting canned from my
last
band. Which totally sucks.” I looked over at him for a second, then I turned back to the road. “That’s what I’m thinking. So, what are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking it’s about time to get some food.…”

A few minutes later my phone rang. Kimber. Oh God. I let it roll over to my voice mail and I listened to it maybe half an hour later, after we’d stopped and gotten a bite in Logan.

Hey, just wanted to check in with my drummer boy—I hope everything’s going good for you. You’re probably working on some new songs or something before your gig tonight. From what you said earlier, it sounds like a beautiful place. Let’s put it on our list, okay? All right, I’ll let you go. Just wanted to say have a good gig tonight, and I’ll talk to you soon. Bye!

God. I had some calls to make, and I was totally dreading them.

The first was to Don Davis about the show. I mean, I had
to let him know. I sure didn’t want them printing up posters or whatever with our name on them. Well, hopefully he’d contact me first for specifics or maybe a picture before he did something like that, but still, he’d need time to find a replacement. But I was going to feel like
such
a freakin’ chump, making that call. I mean, I’d full-on promised him that we could cover the job, and now I had to tell him that I’d been full of crap and that the band that played that song didn’t really exist. God, what a loser story
that
was, huh?

And then there was Kimber. Man, she’d just been up here and heard us and everything. And I’ll admit, it felt pretty cool to have her see me playing with such a good band in such a nice venue. It’s like it validated all the supportive things she’d been telling me all along. So to have to tell her I’d been kicked
again
 … Well, in some ways that was even worse than calling Don.

Oh yeah. And my parents. Well, that could keep until I got around to it. Or until I rolled up to the house. Whichever came first. Man, there was almost too much wonderfulness here to handle at once, huh?

Anyway, Kimber wouldn’t expect to hear back from me until tomorrow. Except she’d be in school until after noon. Of course, that way I could conveniently return her call in the morning and get away with leaving a message. But that was a little too chickenshit, even for me. The other option was to wait until tomorrow afternoon, but that meant I’d have all night and half of tomorrow to think about it.…

We’d swapped in Logan, so Glenn was driving. It was dark out, and there was music on.

The hell with it. I took out my phone.

“Hi, Zach!” she answered, really cheerful. Which only made me feel worse.

“Hi, Kimber …”

“What’s wrong?” she immediately asked.

“Nothing” was my automatic reply.
Way to go, Mr. Honesty
.

“I figured you’d be playing by now. It’s after nine there, right?”

“Uh, right …”
Brilliant, dude. Keep it up and you might make it all the way to moron
.

“Did something happen at the club? Did they cancel the gig?”

“Well, not exactly …”

“Okay. So what’s going on?” She was being patient with my stumbling, but I could tell that the long, slow buildup wasn’t going to work.

I took a deep breath and held it, then let it all out at once. “I got fired. From the band.”

“What? I can’t believe that! Why? Where are you now?”

“I’m in northern Utah, on my way home—I should be there in a couple of days.”

She sounded happy at that, which kinda threw me. “Oh God, I can’t
wait
to see you!” Then she got serious. “Sorry. Selfish. I just miss you. Tell me what happened.”

So I told her pretty much everything from the time she’d left Yellowstone until now. Except for the Neverland gig—that could wait until later. But I didn’t want to get too deep into the internal politics of the band—especially the whole Brad/Jamie/Glenn thing—because Glenn was right there, and even with
the music playing, I was pretty sure he could hear. Heck, it was weird enough just talking about the stuff we
did
discuss. So when she asked, I told her I’d give her more on that later.

She seemed okay with letting it go, but when I mentioned about Nate being my replacement, she wasn’t about to let
that
go. “So Brad’s been planning this for a while …”

“Yeah, I guess.” Hell, I don’t know
when
he first started talking to Nate. Looking back on it, there were several places where he might have been motivated to replace me, all the way back to that first week in Bozeman. Man, I can read a crowd of five hundred from behind a drumset, but I can’t seem to see what’s going on right in front of me. “I guess I just didn’t pick up on it at the time. Hindsight’s twenty-twenty, right?”

“Yeah, but you didn’t know he was like that.” I could hear the anger coming out in her voice. “Either way, he knew about this way in advance. That’s so wrong.”

“No argument here.”

“What about the other guys … did they know what was coming?”

“Naw, they were pretty surprised, too. And not exactly happy about it, either. That’s another long story that we can go into later if you want. But at least this time I have some backup.”

“What do you mean?”

“Glenn left with me.”

“Wow! He did? What happened?”

So I told her all about that, too. When I was done, she asked me to hand the phone to Glenn. Weird, but I passed it over. “Hey, man, Kimber wants to talk to you.”

He took it. “Hello?”

She talked to him for a few minutes. He didn’t say much, just the occasional
yeah
or
thanks
, or
maybe, we’ll see
. Then he handed the phone back.

“Hey,” she said softly.

“Hey.”

“How’re you doing?”

“Better now.”

“Good. I just want to tell you one thing before I go. I know you feel really bad over this, but it doesn’t have anything to do with you or your playing.”

“Thanks.”

“You’ll land on your feet—you’re smart and you’re talented and you know how to make things happen. It’s their loss—they’ve lost a great drummer and a great guy, just because their leader has an ego problem. So the hell with him.” She paused. “I love you, and I can’t wait to see you. Keep your chin up, okay?”

“Okay. I love you, too. Bye …”

I put my phone away and Glenn said, “She seems real nice. You’re lucky.”

“Yeah, I think so, too.”

“She wanted to thank me for sticking with you. She told me a little about how bummed you were when you got fired from your old band, so she was glad you had someone with you on the way home.” He looked over at me and raised an eyebrow. “She also joked about setting me up with her older sister.”

I laughed. “Cool. You could be like my brother-in-law-in-law. Or something.”

“I don’t think I’m really going there anytime soon.”

Hmm … “Remember that stuff I said back in West Yellowstone
when we played basketball? I still think it’s true—you and Jamie’ll figure it out, sooner or later.”

“I think she’s
already
figured it out,” he said casually. “She’s figured out that she likes someone else better, that’s all.”

I turned to him. “Dude, sometimes you’re too in control for your own good! Plus, I happen to know you’re full of shit on this one.” Oh God, there goes my indie mouth again. “She’s freakin’
crazy
about you, but she doesn’t want to be second fiddle to a guitar, excuse the pun. In my dumb-ass, uninformed, unasked-for opinion, I think she’s settling for something that she thinks she might actually be able to have.”

“She tell you all that?”

“Hey, I can read between the lines.”

He snorted and shook his head. Just like you-know-who …

“But I can tell you this,” I went on. “I’ve seen her in tears over you more than once. And late one night she happened to let slip that she thought you were incredibly sexy—God, I can’t believe I just said that.… But don’t gimme that she-likes-someone-else-better crap. No, she actually likes
you
better, but she needs to know where she stands. And it better not be before the Marshall but after the Strat.” I caught his look. Uh-oh. “And I’ve said
way
too much, dude. Signing off now …” And I leaned back in the seat and closed my eyes.

He didn’t say anything. After a long time I heard “Hey …” I looked over, but he wasn’t talking to me. I closed my eyes again.

“It’s me,” he said. “I’d like to talk to you sometime after you guys get back. Pretty funny, huh? All this time, and
now
I want to talk? Yeah, I thought so, too. But there are a few things I’d like to clarify. About all the reasons I love you. I’m not always the
best at that, but I’d like to try. I know you’ve got your hands full right now, but maybe after you’re in town, we can get together and sort some stuff out. Or maybe you’re happy where you are and … If this all sounds stupid and pointless, then please just delete this message and get on with your life. But I hope … I hope I’ll see ya, JD-girl.…”

There was silence for a few minutes, then a voice in the dark.

“Hey, Zach, you awake?”

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“You were right. Even if you were wrong, you were right. So thanks for the push.”

“No problem.”

“So, what are you thinking about?”

“Food …”

I spun my computer around so Glenn could see the screen. “Hey, check
this
out …”

We were having breakfast at a Bean & Leaf in St. George, Utah, after crashing in the Worm Wagon. I remembered what I’d been thinking yesterday—about the posters—so I went to the Golden State Fair’s website. I was relieved to see that all it said was “And Special Guest” in small print down at the bottom of a full-page blast about Neverland. Whew … I resolved to call Don before we got back to California.

Anyway, I ended up clicking on Neverland’s tour schedule link, just because. And sure enough, they were all over the United States, mostly working from the East Coast out to the West. The Golden State Fair show was wedged in between multiple-night stands in L.A. and San Francisco as they worked their way up the coast toward Seattle. And in the meantime, they were playing places like Dallas and Albuquerque and Denver and Salt Lake and Phoenix … and Vegas. As in Las Vegas. As in tonight.

Glenn looked at it. “Mandalay Bay, huh? That should be a great show.”

“I guess. Somehow I can’t see them playing a casino.”

He laughed. “I can’t, either. But they’ve got a couple of cool venues there. A House of Blues and a really nice arena. They’ll be in the arena for sure—it holds, like, ten thousand people. I saw a big festival show there last summer.”