by Jim Fusilli
Harlan showered, dressed in silk black sweats, and he and Terry talked about Facebook and Twitter. Boxes of Harlan Sudrey T-shirts and hats were stacked in the corner of the room and Terry began doing an inventory of them.
“What we’re thinking is black jeans and these mechanic shirts,” Harlan said and took two shirts from a Goodwill bag. “You’re a medium, right?”
Otis nodded and took them.
“And I know you have your hands full, but do you think you could get more active on stage? You’ve said you can’t move around and play lead but maybe when Mickey takes a lead you can get more active.”
“We need to get the audience to groove harder,” said Terry.
Otis just nodded.
Harlan sprayed Clear Throat into his mouth and smiled. “We’ve been packing houses for five months straight. I know we’ve confirmed the four New Year’s shows in Little Rock and then the Texas run, but can you do a Southern run in February and a California run in March?”
“I have nothing planned but this. Count me in.”
Harlan nodded. “You’re a hell of a guitar player and you’re a team player. I like both of those things.”
Otis cleared his throat. “I know you said once things got rolling we could talk about a wage increase.”
“We will,” Terry said and looked up from counting shirts. “We’re locked in moneywise until spring but hold tight, brother, we’ll set you up as soon as we can.”
“Two hundred and fifty a week is tough.”
Harlan nodded and looked at his fingernails. He went to his shaving kit and began cutting them with a clipper in the vanity sink. “Don’t worry we’ll take care of all you guys. . . . Oh, and one last thing,” he said. “Did you get my email about ‘Son of a Son of a Sailor?’”
“‘Son of a Son of a Sailor?’”
“The Jimmy Buffett tune.”
“I haven’t checked my email for a couple days,” Otis said
“We’re going to do it at sound check. Maybe we’ll put it in second set by the time we get to ‘Jackpot.’”
“What key?”
“G,” said Harlan.
Otis nodded.
“And listen, since we’re talking shop, you made a few mistakes last night,” said Terry.
Otis again nodded. “Harlan and I already went over it. My tuner got stuck on ‘Tomahawks.’ But you’re right I blew ‘Champagne Sunrise.’ I always get the bridge confused with ‘Tequila, Tecate & Teresa.’”
“They are close,” said Terry. “But you got the MP3s, right?”
Otis nodded.
Harlan set his nail clippers back in his shaving kit and sat on the bed across from Otis. “And you might want to go a different direction on the solo for ‘Rolling into Raleigh.’ About half as much chicken picking and a little bit more Neal Schon. You know Journey, right?”
“I know who you’re talking about,” Otis said.
“All right,” Harlan said. “So we’ll see you at seven wearing the new shirt, okay?”
THE BAND FINISHED THE TWO last dates in Winnemucca and then did a three-day HVAC convention at Cactus Pete’s in Jackpot. After that it was four nights in Wendover at the Peppermill. They had two days off and ended the tour with a Wednesday through Saturday stint in Elko at the Stockman Casino.
Otis woke there on the Sunday morning shivering in the hotel room. He got up wearing long underwear and a sweatshirt and walked to the motel window, shut it, and turned on the heat. Outside, snow was on the ground and the morning was covered in a haze of low-hanging clouds. It was fifteen degrees out.
Lenny snored in the bed next to him. It was 10:30 a.m.
“Let’s get breakfast,” said Otis.
Lenny woke up startled. “What?” he cried.
“I’m gonna die if you keep leaving the windows open all night.”
“I get congested with fake heat,” he said.
“What kind of heat isn’t fake in winter,” Otis said and sat down on his bed.
Lenny pulled the covers up to his neck. “You’re just pissed ’cause that girl dissed you after you bought her two Long Island Iced Teas.”
“I bought her three friends one each, too,” Otis whined. “I spent eighty bucks on drinks alone.”
“I saw that one coming from ten miles away.”
“You’re full of shit, you were right there.”
“Maybe, but I didn’t buy her any drinks.”
“I’m gonna get sick if we don’t eat soon,” said Otis.
Lenny got up from bed and used the toilet. He came out with his face washed and his hair combed. He picked his clothes off the ground and got dressed. “I feel pretty good today considering. I thought I’d be hungover as shit drinking those Lemon Drops, but I’m not.”
“Good for you.”
Lenny smiled. “Let’s go see a double feature and then hit the Sunday night NFL game in the casino. We’ll celebrate the end of the tour. Terry gave me his and Harlan’s drink tickets.”
“Double feature?”
“We’ll just leave one movie and go into the next. A modern-day double feature.”
THEY SAT ACROSS FROM EACH other in a booth at the Stockman’s Café. Otis played Keno and nursed a Coors and Lenny read the Elko Daily Free Press and drank a Bloody Mary. They were silent until the food came. They ordered two more drinks and Otis glared at the Keno screen on the back wall.
“You hit?” asked Lenny.
“Close, but no.”
“What I want to know is what the fuck happened on this tour? All my years touring I’ve never seen an amp go missing. A few guitars but never an amp.”
“I’m out nine hundred bucks,” said Otis. “And now I have to play a Peavey that looks like it’s been dumped in Sani-Hut. I have no idea where Terry got it so fast but I fuckin’ hate it.”
“At least you can drop those things out of a van and they’ll still play.”
Otis nodded. “I know my Fender was just a reissue but I loved that amp.”
“Some meth-head probably stole it,” said Lenny and poured syrup over his eggs and hamburger steak.
“When we’re done eating I’m calling every pawnshop from here to Reno. I have the serial number in my wallet and underneath the reverb tank I keep my address, name, and a hundred bucks.”
“A hundred bucks?”
“For when shit really goes south.”
“That’s a good idea,” Lenny said and covered the French toast with butter and maple syrup and dumped it on top of his eggs and hamburger.
Otis watched as the numbers on the Keno screen began to appear. “It just doesn’t make sense. It was there when we left the showroom. I heard the doors lock. A lost bass and a lost amp all on one tour.”
Lenny pointed his fork at Otis, “And don’t forget Mickey’s watch.”
“An amp, a bass, and a watch,” said Otis. “I’m gonna have a shot. You want one?”
Lenny nodded. “But get Jägermeister. The longer I’m awake the worse my stomach feels.”
Otis ordered two shots and two beers from the waitress. As she walked toward the bar Terry appeared from the casino floor and came to their table.
“You guys are already up and rolling,” he said and smiled.
Lenny nodded. “I got one question for you, Terry.”
“What’s that?”
“Why we staying an extra night? Why not leave today? I want to get the hell out of here.”
“That’s one of the things I came by to talk to you guys about. Can you meet in room 422 when you’re done with breakfast? Let’s make it a half hour. Mickey’s coming then.”
“You hear anything about my amp?” asked Otis.
“Not a thing.”
“I’m gonna check with security,” Otis said. “Maybe they’ll have surveillance footage.”
Terry rubbed his goatee and shook his head. “I already talked with them. We went over the footage minute by minute. Not a goddamn thing. Anyway we’ll talk about all that in our room, okay?”
“Man, I hate guys who whiten their teeth,” Lenny whispered.
“I wouldn’t mind him so much but he’s the worst drummer since that guy Willis.”
Lenny shook his head. “But at least Willis could play, he just couldn’t remember songs. It’s ’cause he was a glue huffer.”
“He was a glue huffer?”
Lenny nodded. “I caught him a handful of times.”
Otis laughed. “Shit, I just thought maybe he was building model airplanes or something in his room.”
ROOM 422 WAS EMPTY BUT for Mickey sitting on the bed closest to the window and both Harlan and Terry standing near the dresser. Otis and Lenny came in and sat next to Mickey. On a small table next to the TV sat three manila envelopes.
Lenny looked around and noticed the T-shirt and hat boxes and Harlan and Terry’s personal gear were gone. “Ah shit,” he said to Otis and shook his head. “We’re getting fired.”
“What?” Otis cried.
Mickey looked at them nervously.
Terry cleared his throat. “You’re not getting fired, but he’s right our time together is done. We both appreciate the hell out of the last year you’ve given us. You got us closer to the goal line and we, of course, got you all some good exposure. We were a good team. But there’s no point in beating around the bush. Harlan and me are moving on to Nashville. Our wives are heading there as we speak. He’s inked a deal but part of the deal was to rethink the band. The look of the band, the sound of it. We’re going to start from scratch in Nashville. That’s the truth. So in each of the envelopes is a bus ticket to Phoenix leaving tomorrow at 10 a.m., a thousand dollars for the four weeks, and a bonus each of two hundred dollars plus an extra hundred for baggage charges.”
Mickey began shaking his head. “I hate the bus. Couldn’t you at least fly us out of Salt Lake or Reno?”
“I looked into it but we don’t have that kind of money,” said Terry.
“What did you do with our gear?” asked Lenny.
“It’s in the showroom. We’ve loaded out our stuff already. Security has a man keeping an eye on it. Otis, you can keep the Peavey.”
“You keep the fucking Peavey,” said Otis. “I want my Deluxe back.”
“I want it back, too,” Terry said. “But there’s nothing stating it’s our liability.”
Lenny began laughing and stood up. “Shit, let’s get out of here.”
MICKEY SAT IN THE MIDDLE nursing a pint of Jim Beam and eating an extra-large pack of Red Vines. To the left of him Lenny was drinking off a pint of peppermint schnapps and eating popcorn, and to the right was Otis drinking off a pint of Jägermeister and eating from a jumbo-sized bag of M&M’s. They had seen Bridge of Spies and were now watching Spectre.
When the movie ended they walked back toward the Stockman and dusk fell on the empty streets.
“There’s nothing sadder than a Sunday night in a small town,” said Lenny quietly.
“That’s true,” Mickey said, drunk and depressed. He stopped and pointed down a residential street. “Over there is where all the whorehouses are. Last night I saw Harlan coming out of one. We get fired and he’s having a good time getting laid.”
“Harlan was coming out of a whorehouse?” Lenny said and laughed. “Were you just walking by or going in?”
“Walking by,” Mickey said. “I’m trying to lose weight so I’ve been walking. Anyway, the last time I checked I had twenty-three dollars in my bank account.”
Otis stared down the street and began kicking the ground with his boot. “What was the name of the place he came out of?”
“I think it started with an I. Maybe Ingrid’s,” Mickey said.
“Well,” said Lenny, “it’s like my dad always told me, ‘If a man don’t wear his vice out in the open like a headband then put on your track shoes and run as fast as you can the other way. ’Cause what he’s hiding ain’t something you want to know anything about.’”
Mickey laughed but Otis was lost in thought and kept looking down the street. He kept kicking his boot on the ground. “Well boys,” he said after a time, “I guess this is where we part. I’m heading down to the whorehouses.”
“You’re nuts, man,” Lenny laughed. “The last time you went to a hooker you got so depressed you didn’t stay sober for a week.”
“I was only drunk for five days,” Otis said, grinned, and began walking down the street alone.
HE CAME TO A SMALL row of brothels: Inez’s D&D—Dancing and Diddling—Sue’s Fantasy Club, and Mona’s Ranch. Inside Inez’s, he ordered a drink at the bar and waited until an overweight redhead in her thirties sat next to him dressed in a black lace nightgown.
“Are you here to party?” she asked.
Otis nodded. “Last night my buddy came in here. He looks like a model, about six feet tall, has tattoos on both his arms, and is always wearing a black cowboy hat that looks dipped in plastic. He also wears a black leather motorcycle jacket.”
“What about him?”
“You remember him?”
“I think so.”
“He said the girl he was with blew his mind. I’m looking for her. Do you remember who it was?”
“I’ll tell you for twenty bucks,” she said.
Otis took twenty dollars from his shirt pocket and handed it to her.
She folded the money and put it between her breast and the nightgown. “It was Amber,” she said.
“You mind getting her?”
The woman got up and said to the bartender, “This boy here said he’d buy me a Manhattan. I’ll be right back.”
The drink was thirteen dollars and the woman was gone for ten minutes before a fat middle-aged trucker came from the hall and shortly after him an Asian woman dressed in a shiny red gown. She was just five feet tall and had immense fake breasts.
“So you want to party,” she asked and sat down next to Otis.
He told her he did and she grabbed his hand and took him down a hall to her room. Inside was just a small tract-home-style bedroom. The walls were painted red and it smelled of lemon air freshener and patchouli. There was a red light and a black light glowing in opposite corners of the room.
“So what kind of sugar do you want?” she asked.
“What I really need is some information.” He took forty dollars and two joints from his shirt pocket. “There was a guy who came here last night. He had a bunch of tattoos, looks like a movie star. He has a black cowboy hat that looks like it’s been dipped in plastic. I was just wondering what he did with you.”
She looked at the money and the joints. “Why do you want to know?”
“It’s a long story,” Otis said. “But he’s married to my sister.”
She took the money and the joints. “He fucked me in the ass and took a video of it,” she said, got up, and opened the door. “Is that it?”
“How much that cost?”
“Five hundred,” she said.
“Five hundred dollars?” Otis cried.
“How much would you charge to be fucked in the ass while someone taped it?”
IN THE BACK OF THE casino bar, while the Sunday night NFL game played, Otis sat for two hours with his laptop and phone. Mickey and Lenny ate four orders of chicken wings, drank beer and shots, and watched the game in the near empty bar. Otis called brothels in Winnemucca, Battle Mountain, Carlin, Wells, and Reno and as the night wore on he found a brothel in each area that had seen a good-looking man with tattoos and black cowboy hat come in. Otis even sent a PayPal payment of fifty dollars to a prostitute in Wells, Nevada, who told him the same thing. Harlan fucked her in the ass and recorded it on a digital camera.
“How much?” Otis had asked her.
“Four hundred,” she said.
LENNY LOST FIFTY ON THE Seahawks and Mickey puked in his beer glass and had to be carried to his room. As they left him on his bed, Otis told Lenny what he found out about Harlan.
“I’m gonna kill that motherf
ucker,” Lenny yelled drunkenly and threw a full beer bottle against the wall of the hotel and stormed off.
The next morning Mickey beat on their door at 8:30. “I just wanted to make sure you guys are up,” he said when Otis let him in.
“Thanks,” said Otis.
“Jesus, why is it so cold in here?”
“It’s Lenny,” Otis said and went to the window, closed it, and turned on the heat. He used the toilet, dressed, and went to Lenny and shook him until he woke up.
“Wha?” Lenny cried.
“We gotta get some chow and be at the bus station in an hour.”
Lenny tried to sit up but as he did he began to gag. He sprang out of bed fully dressed and ran into the bathroom and vomited. He came out ten minutes later sweating and pale but clean-shaven.
“You shaved the handlebar,” Otis said and laughed.
He nodded and collapsed back on the bed.
THE BUS TO LAS VEGAS was a quarter full and Lenny was leaned against the window glass, passed out in a row by himself. Mickey was in the row in front of him, and Otis was across the aisle from Lenny. They had left the station and were on the outskirts of town when he called Terry.
“You guys get the bus all right?” Terry asked.
“Did you know Harlan was a pervert?” asked Otis.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“We’re driving right now.”
“You and he stole the bass, the watch, and my amp.”
“I didn’t steal anything.”
“So it’s just Harlan?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
“I called a bunch of brothels. He’s spending four to five hundred a night. He stole Lenny’s dad’s bass just so he could fuck a hooker?”
Terry kept silent.
“At least tell us where he sold the shit so we can get it back.”
“I’ll call you in ten minutes,” Terry said and hung up. Otis waited a half hour and called back to find his number blocked.
THE BUS STOPPED FOR A lunch break at the Silver State Restaurant in Ely. They had just ordered when Mickey received a call and went outside. He was on the phone for a half hour. Lenny ate a half a piece of French toast and put his head on the table. Otis ate and then put Mickey’s food in a to-go container and they left. Lenny stumbled across the street to a minimart, bought a pint of schnapps, and they got back on the bus.
