The room filled with blasting music.
Deacon closed his eyes and sang:
You gave me faith in a god I could not see.
You found something divine inside me.
When you walked away I thought it only fair,
Cuz what you saw inside me was never there.
“Okay, that’ll do,” the engineer blared over the PA system, which signaled the band to stop. “Thanks a lot, guys. My ears are bleeding.”
Laurie grinned. “Too loud?”
“This is a small, tight venue. Let me turn the overall volume down.”
“Whatever you say, chief.”
To Deacon’s ear, the music had sounded boomy, but that was common when playing to an empty room. When the place was packed, all those people would absorb sound, and everything would come together.
Next, the band played a snippet of “In Your Shadow,” while the engineer walked around the space checking the sound mix. He returned to his booth, tweaked volumes and sound using an equalizer and other effects, and gave them a thumbs-up. They stopped playing.
“Does everything sound okay at your end?” he asked.
They worked out a few tweaks with him, and then they were done.
“I wish every band was as easy as you guys,” the engineer said.
“They give you a hard time?” Laurie asked.
“You know how it is. Somebody almost always has some ridiculous request.”
“We’re cheap and easy.”
“I’ve never met a quieter frontman. It’s actually weird.”
“Deacon gets PTSD from normal conversations,” Joy said.
While the band laughed at his expense, the headliners burst through the doors like rock stars, glowering at Cats Are Sad for doing their sound check first instead of waiting for them. While they loaded in, Deacon went to the bar and pulled out his cell phone, along with a wrinkled business card.
Beth answered on the second ring. “Dr. Elizabeth Harris.”
“I need a therapist,” he said. “I’m crazy about a certain lady.”
She laughed. “You shouldn’t joke about mental illness.”
“Who says I’m joking? Humanity’s a spectrum disorder, remember.”
Another rewarding laugh. “Right.”
“Hey, listen. My band is playing tonight at the Wild Moon. It’s on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood. Want to come?”
“I wish I could, but I have to be up early tomorrow to catch a flight to a conference, and then I’ll have patients waiting for me when I get back.”
“I bet you’re one of those go-getters who’s always working.”
“Something like that,” she said.
“Well, physician, heal thyself. Take a break.”
“I have patients, and you need to be patient. We’ll do something soon.”
“Okay.” Deacon spotted a bottle cap the cleaners had missed and kicked it across the floor. “I’m glad we found each other again.”
She was smiling at the other end, he could tell. “Me too, Deek.”
“I don’t know how I let so much time go by.”
Beth didn’t say anything. Her invisible smile retreated into the ether. He cursed his idiocy. They both knew when and how he’d lost her. Many years ago, he’d broken her heart. He’d broken it by refusing to even acknowledge its existence.
A powerful flashback manifested, threatening to envelop him in its painful grip. Samurai Jack playing on the TV while Beth cried in his peripheral vision.
“Well,” he said in a loud voice to keep the memory at bay. He clenched his teeth in a forced smile that came out a grimace. “Let’s do it soon, okay?”
“Soon,” she agreed, though she didn’t sound as sure now as she had only moments before. “Break a leg tonight.”
“Thanks,” he said, thinking: You can leave the past behind, but the past always catches up, like some kind of zombie.
Beth ended the call, leaving Deacon with a howl building in his chest that would have to wait a few more hours before he could release it onstage.
Crammed into a booth at Denny’s, the band agreed on their set list over dinner. With only an hour allotted to them, they decided to pack the set with their most popular tracks, along with a few fresh numbers they wanted to vet.
“You guys do this right,” said Frank, playing the big shot, “see if I don’t book you at the Whisky or Roxy again by the end of the year.”
The band’s faces shifted into warped smiles as they tried to stay cool. Deacon shrugged, earning an irritated and anxious glance from their manager. Frank had never liked Deacon because he couldn’t get a hook in his mouth.
“If you do it right,” Joy said. She had a Junoesque figure and Frank was smitten with her, so she often spoke for the band. “We need that Frank Dean magic.”
“And you shall have it,” he said with solemn dignity, as if they were exchanging vows.
“We need to talk about the new album,” Laurie chimed in. “Deacon had a crazy idea that got under my skin.”
Frank’s eyes roamed from her face to her bare arms as if searching for it, which made her reflexively cross her arms over her chest. “What is it?”
“The concept started out as a mind game,” she said. “Something we’ve been tossing back and forth.”
Deacon nodded, agreeing with the lie. Laurie knew if Deacon tried to foist a finished product on the band, they’d attack it, and he’d give up. Best to make the album sound like their idea and let them have plenty of input.
He noticed everyone was staring at him, waiting for him to spill the beans. He looked down at the napkin in his hands, which he’d been tearing into strips. “I came up with a concept album about a cult that commits mass suicide.”
“Sounds like fun,” said Steve. A veteran of a dozen bands, the bassist was the group’s old man and its storm’s calm eye. He and Laurie had an on again, off again thing going, mostly because she couldn’t have normal relationships with men who weren’t musicians and didn’t understand the life—the gruel and grind of touring and the lunging ups and downs of being an artist trying to make it.
“Right?” Laurie said. “We could—”
“Hang on.” Steve raised his hands. “It sounds like fun, but I don’t know if a concept album is the right move.”
Frank snorted. “Yeah. Because it’s a shit idea.”
Laurie bristled. “Why?”
“Simple economics,” Bart said, ignoring the collective groan that followed.
“We get it, you’re a libertarian,” Joy said. “That doesn’t make you an expert.”
“Long-tail economic theory, to be specific,” the drummer pressed on. “We have a strong niche in fifty percent of the market shared by a million bands. We need to inch our way toward the handful of bands that dominate the other fifty percent. That’s where the real money is.”
“You make it sound easy.”
Bart turned to Deacon. “Listen, brother, you write some freaky lyrics, and your performances helped build up a nice fan base, but we need to keep evolving. We need songs that indie rock stations will want to play. A little less nihilism.”
Laurie glowered at him. “The art comes first.”
“Why not have art and money? Radiohead—”
“Concept albums don’t sell,” Frank said. “They just don’t. End of story.”
“What about Tommy?” Laurie said. “The Wall, Ziggy Stardust, American Idiot—”
“All put out by bands who’d already made it.”
“I just think concept albums are pretentious,” Steve said. “For every American Idiot, there’s a hundred tuneless wonders that go on and on.” He raised his hands again, not wanting to offend anyone. “It’s a real risk, is all I’m saying.”
Laurie shot a look at Deacon, but he only sipped his tea, which he drank with honey before a show to lube his vocal cords, and went back to ripping his napkin into tiny pieces. She let out a loud sigh and sat back in her seat, the remains of her omelet forgo
tten on the table. She was apparently done trying.
Joy offered her and Deacon an apologetic smile. “It’s a great idea, but maybe now’s not the right time. I feel like we’re close to something major breaking for us soon. We can see about doing it later.”
“Later,” Frank agreed, and muttered, “or never.”
She raised her hand to silence him. “Okay, Laurie? Deacon?”
“Fine,” Laurie growled.
In the rock business, an album was a major undertaking. Expensive in money, energy, stress, talent. Deacon knew they were just being practical. Committing to a concept album would be very risky during a time in their careers where a single misstep could sink their band or anchor it in obscurity.
He shrugged. “Fine. Whatever.”
They went back to the Wild Moon and cracked open beers in the green room to loosen up. The night’s three bands were all there and pumped to perform. Laurie did her finger exercises and disappeared. Deacon sat on the couch nursing his beer and smiled and nodded while a roadie for Kung Fu Hip told animated stories from their last tour. The hours to showtime ground away to nothing.
At 9:40, the sound engineer played trip hop to warm up the crowd. Laurie reappeared, wiping her eyes until they bled black, and said she was ready to play and go to hell, don’t ask me why I’m sad.
The band wrapped up their backstage prep and put on their game faces, determined to blow the roof off the house.
Laurie nudged Deacon. “You okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You’re smiling like the nice, quiet bandmate who turns out to have a dozen bodies buried in his basement.”
He forced a chuckle. “Everything is just perfect.”
“Showtime, guys,” Frank said. “Go melt some faces.”
The band swaggered onto the stage, playing it cool. Wearing the same dumb grin from the band poster, Deacon followed like some kid who’d wandered backstage and accidentally ended up in the show. He positioned himself behind the mic. The room was filled with people ready to rock, the vibes excellent.
When Cats Are Sad played, they did so for themselves, but when they performed, it was for total strangers wanting to bond with them and participate in the show, like a religious ritual. For however long the connection lasted, the audience became a mirror, and right now, the band loved what they saw. Right now, they saw gods. Deacon was ready to sing. This gloomy club was his church, the Shure SM58 microphone under the harsh spotlight his pulpit.
Let the Gospel of Deacon begin.
The band launched into a strong rhythm played at blasting volume.
Deacon always kicked off “Shadow Boxer” with a long cry to rouse the blood, but this time, once it started to come out of him, he didn’t stop. He had plenty of air in his lungs, a whole lot of scream to purge. Emily’s death, David acting like a stranger, his old betrayal of Beth, the band rejecting his vision as unmarketable in an industry where art was product. His traumatic past, his future mortality. The cry built in strength and volume until he became the living shofar calling the faithful to rail at the universe for a crummy deal. The band rolled with it, shooting each other questioning looks while they jammed and Deacon went on howling.
It was so raw and over the top that the crowd went wild. Everyone in the band grinned now, all cool forgotten as they poured their hearts into the jam and followed their frontman to mad glory. The engineer got into the act and pulsed the lights.
Then Bart steered the rhythm into the song in the hopes it was all a spontaneous artistic eccentricity on Deacon’s part, and not an onstage freak-out that would make them famous for the wrong reasons. On cue, Deacon sang:
Why do the young want to die?
Some fast
Some slow
Why do the old want to live?
It’s too late
The story’s told
Laurie launched a spectral glide for the chorus, rocking her pedal to crest it, adding turbo distortion to dirty the sound until its alien growl stained the walls. She frowned at the readouts at her feet, controlling the bends and swells, juggling frequencies. Together with the rest of the band, she was hacking brains, triggering oxytocin and cortisol and adrenaline, inviting the audience to join an infinite flow chasing the euphoric catharsis of falling in love while dying.
The pain so exquisite, Deacon gave the performance of his life.
The set had a hard close at eleven, no encore. Cats Are Sad ended their show with “Stood Up” and was cheered off the stage. Afterward, the band loaded up the van and covered the equipment with blankets before heading back inside to catch the headline act and enjoy a few postshow drinks. In the green room, they’d talk about how the show went, dart out to pose for selfies with fans, and find out how much merch Frank sold. Their stage high was about to crash, and they all wanted to bring the night in for a soft landing.
Laurie joined Deacon on the couch, where he sat staring into space while nursing the same beer he had earlier. “How are you?”
Drained and overexposed, his ears rang. “I’m awesome.”
“What were you thinking about just now?”
Calling Beth to tell her he was sorry. “Nothing at all.”
“I read your songs.”
He perked up. “What did you think?”
She knocked back the rest of her Budweiser in several long, thirsty gulps, then came up for air. “It’s personal for you, isn’t it?”
Bart loomed over them, gripping a beer in one of his big paws while the other combed his beard. “That opening, dude. That was something.”
Deacon blinked. “Thanks.”
“It was off the hook! Think we could build it into our act?”
“Probably.”
Laurie leaned toward Deacon’s ear, her breath warm and electric. “Do you want to split?”
He answered with a grateful nod.
She stood and took his hand. “We’re gonna grab some fresh air, Bartman.”
“Hurry back. That set was on fire. It must be analyzed, understood, bottled.”
Deacon followed Laurie out to her ancient VW bug and folded himself into the little passenger seat. He accepted a bag full of pilfered beer in his lap and bent his head to light a Camel. “Where are we going?”
“My roommate’s out for the night, so my place,” she said. “We need to have a long, serious talk, my friend.”
“Sure.” He was still feeling strangely docile.
“You were wondering why I was crying before we went onstage? I was reading your shit, that’s why. Nothing gets me anymore, but this did.”
Deacon nodded, saying nothing.
“A long talk.” She threw the transmission into gear, and the VW bug growled out of the parking lot. “Starting now. What’s the story there?”
Deacon stared out the window at the endless city lights struggling with the inky blackness beyond. “Do you know about the Medford Mystery?”
“Dude.” Of course she did.
“The Family of the Living Spirit?”
“Yeah, yeah. So, what, then? You had a family member in the cult?”
He blew smoke out the crack in the window. “Yup.”
“Ha! That’s what I thought.”
“I was also in it myself.”
She chuckled. “What, when you were a toddler?”
“I’ll be thirty in September, Laurie.”
“So you were…”
“My mom joined when I was eleven. I lived with the Family for four years.”
The chuckling stopped. She turned with wide eyes. “What the hell, Deacon? Are you serious? You were there the last night? As a kid?”
“The funeral I went to was for Emily, another survivor. She killed herself. Only four of us there that night are still alive.”
“Oh. My. God.”
“Okay.” Too tired to fake anything.
“So what’s the inside scoop? About the last night?”
“I don’t have the energy right now. Sorry.”
&nbs
p; Laurie bounced in her seat. “This album. This album! It needs to be made.”
He shrugged. “You heard the others. They don’t like it.”
“Yeah, well, they’re stupid.”
Deacon closed his eyes and let the warm wind dry the sweat in his hair.
Then Laurie was shaking him. “Come on, we’re here.”
He followed her into the apartment building. The silence during the elevator ride became deafening as his ears struggled with post-performance reality.
They exited onto a corridor and stopped in front of a door.
“This is me,” she said.
She unlocked it and walked into the messy living room, pulling her shirt over her head to toss onto the floor. A tiny skull and crossbones was tattooed on the pale flesh of her left shoulder.
Deacon closed the door behind him, hugging the plastic bag full of beer.
“Somehow, some way, we’re going to make this album.” Laurie turned, tugging at her belt buckle. “Let’s fuck, and then we can get to work.”
7
CONFABULATE
Dr. Elizabeth Harris poured herself a full, relaxing glass of expensive Cabernet Sauvignon while Mozart streamed from her Bluetooth speakers.
Just enough time to make everything right before she had to go.
A little early today, don’t you think? It’s not even ten in the morning.
“Yup,” she said. “I earned it.”
Even the pouring filled her with contentment. The glug of the wine, the thud of the bottle as she set it down. She scooped her glass and swirled it as she inspected her pristine condo from the comfort of her couch. Everything white with little splashes of color. A series of shelves crammed with books, mostly tomes documenting the vagaries of the human mind. The large picture windows offered a clear view of Santa Barbara and the Santa Ynez Mountains.
Not bad for a messed-up kid coughed out of the institutional system eleven years ago with a GED and few prospects, all thanks to hard work, scholarships, a supportive foster family, and a mountain of debt.
The Children of Red Peak Page 8
