“Jason, I would never tell you how to run your life! Your detective work saved my life, and the support you provided me afterwards has turned my life around. We had never even met when you risked your life and safety to rescue Tim and me from that abusive camp prison. As far as I am concerned, they should be pinning a medal on you for your bravery and willingness to put your life on the line for others! I can understand the conflicting feelings that you have, because I experienced many of them myself. I can’t solve what has happened in your personal relations with Laura, your parents, and the others who are telling you to change your life style. Only you can do that. But I do have a plan for you, if you are interested.”
“What do you mean, Cody?”
“I do believe that you need a break from all of this. Not because you have done anything wrong or endangered others or taken reckless chances. To me your actions have always been heroic and not self-serving in any way. Now you have found out the hard way that some of your actions have created enemies. You are discovering first hand that not all human nature is focused on doing good or the right thing. You did right but the persons doing wrong hated you for it. In this last incident, someone you love got hurt because she was an important part of your personal life. So yeah, a lot of people are throwing up red flags at you and telling you to put your crusading activities on hold.
“Jason, you need to get away from all of those nay-sayers, take a fresh look at your life and decide how you want to live it in the future now that you have more perspective about the consequences of your actions. You need to get away from the Silicon Valley and spend the summer with me at the beach. Let the sand, water, and sun heal you, just like they did for me. I would like to teach you how to surf but more importantly have you connect with the ocean and nature. To my way of thinking, all the life lessons you could ever need to know are there.
“You can stay at our beach house in Malibu. In fact I would insist on it. My grandmother has already said it is okay for you to stay as long as you need to. After what you did for me, she considers you family.”
“Wow, that’s quite an offer,” Jason said with a little surprise in his voice. “And it is very tempting. But I am committed to going with Daniel on his band tour. I wouldn’t miss that for the world because of all the time we have spent getting to that place.”
“I understand that you have school, Laura, Daniel’s band, and other obligations to deal with. Your first obligation should be to get completely healed from the violence done to you. But after the tour, there is no reason you couldn’t come down to Malibu for an extended visit. My door is always open to you, Jason, because of what you did for me in my time of need. Now I want to return the favor. I want you to give my invitation serious consideration.”
“Thank you, Cody,” Jason said. “Your visit here has been really good for me. I hope I haven’t burdened you too much with my problems and concerns.”
“You are not a burden to me, Jason. You are a friend for life! Due to the distances between us, we don’t get to see each other too often, but as soon as we get together, there are no barriers to communicating and understanding each other. I consider it an honor and a privilege to listen to your innermost thoughts and concerns. You said that to me when I had to unburden myself after the Camp Chinquapin rescue. Now I am happy to return the favor.
“I have to get back on the road home soon. Someone named Jason told me that I needed to take school seriously, so this will allow me to get back home before midnight and be ready for school tomorrow. I wish you well in your recovery, my friend. I hope that we will be able to spend some significant time together this summer.”
Chapter 31
Going on the Road
(The Last Week of May and Early June)
The month of May passed by. Jason continued to stay at home, recovering from his rib injuries. Although he still had to be careful about the type of activities he did, gradually he was able to add regular exercise and walks to his daily routine. He no longer had the pain in his ribs, and no longer required bandages. His bruises were long gone and everything was healing nicely. His days were filled with doing schoolwork that he received from his study buddies, reading — although a good portion of that was reading textbooks, and having the short meetings with his many friends after school.
Jason still was kept separated from Laura, although she became his English class study buddy, since they had the class together. Most of their study sessions were spent making out. Luckily Jason did well in English class. He tried to arrange more extensive visits for Laura, but something always seemed to come up in her life to prevent that from happening. Mostly they just talked with each other on their cell phones. The last straw was when she told him that her parents were taking her on an extended two-month trip to Europe as soon as school was out. One day in frustration he asked Laura if they were still going steady. “It sure doesn’t seem like it lately.” That brought tears to Laura’s eyes, and although she answered ‘yes’ the actions of the Friesen family said ‘no’.
Just in time for final examinations, Jason was cleared to return to school. He still had a couple of weeks more before he could do fully body exercise like playing basketball, but Jason was very happy to no longer be confined at home during the day. When he returned to Merriam High School for final exams, he was treated like a returning hero. After he walked into his first period class, everyone stood and gave him an ovation. Jason smiled his big smile and said, “I didn’t know everyone was so eager to take a test!” That week passed by very quickly and then everyone was off for summer vacation. The focus quickly turned to Daniel’s upcoming tour.
The tour would occupy most of the last two weeks of June. They would be doing six performances with the Biloxi Brothers on the west coast, in Seattle, Portland, Oakland, San Jose, Los Angeles, and San Diego. The tour would start in Seattle and end in San Diego. There was travel time of a day between performances in the same general area with three days allotted between the northwest and northern California, and two days between northern and southern California.
Because all of the band members were minors under age eighteen, each band member was assigned to a chaperone who would travel and stay with them in the hotels where the band would be staying. In Jason’s and Daniel’s case, their parents split the duties, with one of them doing the first half of the tour, attending the Bay Area events together, and then the other parent acting as a chaperone for the remainder of the tour in southern California. Eric had the same arrangement with his aunt and uncle. The other three members, Tim, Jonathan, and Nick were living with single parents. The three divided up the chaperoning work three ways, something that was easy to work out with their work schedules.
One benefit for the band was that they could bring their girlfriends on the tour. Daniel, Eric, and Tim were very happy about that. Everyone was assigned a roommate for the hotel stays but not as couples. Of course Daniel and Diana, Eric and Rebecca, and Tim and Teresa would figure out a way to spend some time alone together. The tour would be providing the band members, friends, and chaperones with a bus and driver that would hold everyone, their luggage, and personal instruments. Everyone was looking forward to a fun twelve days together.
The second week of June, Daniel and the band along with all of their parents and friends going with them met with Colin Porter, the band’s manager for the tour. The guidelines and rules for the tour were explained and discussed. Mostly it was a list of things they couldn’t do on the tour: No drinking, no drug use, no trashing of their hotel rooms, no going off on their own at any time, and no deviations from the schedule that had been set up for them. The band members were expected to be cooperative at all times, and maintain a pleasant demeanor. They all were given ID badges that they had to wear when they were in the back stage area. Colin made sure that he had everyone’s cell phone numbers and gave them his, so they could remain in contact at all times.
Colin also explained the protocol of the concerts. The Second Chance All Stars were th
e opening act band, and would start the show with a thirty-minute set. It was very important that the band keep within their time limit during performances. Next week they would be meeting again for Colin to hear the actual set they were planning to use for the first concert in Seattle.
Colin talked with them about what they should wear and how they should act on stage. The gist of what he said was that the band should dress up more than just tee shirts and jeans for the shows. “Your sneakers are fine. Everyone would expect a band called the Second Chance All Stars to be wearing chucks. But you need some dressier shirts and pants.” He passed over a couple of business cards for clothing places the band members could go to shop for the outfits he was describing. “These places will treat you right and make you look good! Check them out.”
Over the next week, Daniel and the others in the band went with their parents or guardians to purchase new concert clothes. The band members met about what they would wear, and settled on black designer jeans. For their tops they decided on colored shirts, with open ties, and light coats that they could take off if it was too hot on stage or in general. They each purchased several shirt and tie options along with two pairs of black jeans and black belts. They all packed new pairs of chucks to use in the performances. For casual wear they had band tee shirts along with shorts or regular jeans.
With the tour now just a couple weeks away, and no school to deal with, Daniel and the other band members got very serious about rehearsals. They would rehearse and record just about every day. Having this time together allowed them to really tighten up their arrangements and finalize their recorded music tracks. For the tour, they had made a CD of eight songs that they would choose for the performances. The management company had agreed to purchase 500 copies of the CD for sale at the concerts.
Another thing that helped the band prepare were performances at a couple of parties prior to their tour. One was a graduation party and the other was a birthday party. This gave the band a break from rehearsing just the same music over and over again, because the sets they performed at the events included a lot of popular songs that they had learned over the past year.
Jason attended nearly all of their rehearsals, usually arriving for the last hour. After they were finished rehearsing, he would talk with them about how they were progressing and elicit information he could use on the band’s website. He would normally spend an hour or two each day doing web work. He was also planning to take extensive photos during the tour, both on and off stage. This would give him a lot of images that he could use in the band’s photo gallery on the website.
A week later, Colin came back down to hear the band’s sample set for the tour. Daniel and Eric had worked very hard to develop the perfect set with their own original tunes. The band had decided to wear their new concert clothes so that Colin could see everything about their on stage appearance. When Colin arrived, he said, “All right! You look great! Now I want to hear some great music!”
Everyone picked up their instruments and went to work. Their set began with an intricately worked out introduction that featured each band member in a short, four bar solo before going into their first song, “Can You Love Me?” A simple two-chord riff with guitar and bass started, and then Tim came in with a thundering drumbeat followed by Nick doing an energetic, syncopated comp on the piano. Daniel stepped up and sang the lyrics, an appeal to their tween audience to develop crushes on different players of the band as they listened to them sing the words “Can You Love Me?” over and over.
Their other songs were all fast, except for one ballad, “Diana”, the song Daniel had written for his steady girlfriend Diana Miglione. This was always one of Daniel’s favorite parts of the show. He picked up an acoustic guitar, sat on a stool, and began strumming a few chords, adjusting a couple of tuning pegs as he got ready to sing.
“This is a new song I have been working on for my friend, Diana,” Daniel said as he started to strum the opening chords of the song. “See what you think,” he added as he sang the introduction:
When I’m lost in the grind of every day
And I worry over what my friends might say,
Or I’m stuck in a world of too much to do,
That’s when I’m so glad that I am with you.
On the word “you”, Daniel broke into a timed accompaniment joined by Eric and Tim. After vamping a couple of times he sang the main part of the song.
Diana, your happy smile leads the way
Diana, I love you and so I pray
That you always will be with me wherever I go
Giving me your warmth and your golden glow.
Diana, da de da,
You’re the one for me, la de da,
Diana, don’t ever go away,
I need you by my side every night and day
The song continued with a few more choruses. When Daniel was singing this song, he would basically close out the outside world so he could concentrate completely on his singing and guitar playing. At these moments, Daniel was a true ballad singer.
There were a couple more songs in their short set, but “Diana” was the song that Daniel was hoping would grab the many young girls attending the concerts. If not, he liked singing it for Diana anyway. He knew she loved hearing it every time the band performed it.
The band finished up their set with the “Freedom Song” that was originally part of Nick’s Requiem for the Lost Children. But this was a happy song in the way that it spoke about freedom and good times. It was a song that they felt any audience could relate to. The lyrics were easy and the music had a revival meeting feel. Daniel would sing the first two lines of each verse, and then the whole band joined in singing “Hallelujah”.
At last freedom we have found
And it has a happy sound.
Hallelujah, Hallelujah!
There is laughter in the air
You can hear it everywhere.
Hallelujah, Hallelujah!
When the band finished, Colin applauded and congratulated Daniel, Eric, Tim, Nick and Jonathan on their hard work to get the music ready. “You guys are certainly ready from a musical standpoint. Now it will be interesting to see how your audiences respond to this new band from the Silicon Valley!”
Chapter 32
Seattle
(Thursday and Friday, Late June)
Finally the day came when Daniel and the Second Chance All Stars would leave for their tour. It was decided that the bus would pick everyone up at Tim’s house, since the band equipment that they were bringing with them on tour was kept there. Because the sound company would provide all the amplification equipment and speakers, all they needed to bring equipment-wise was their instruments and personal electronics. It had also been arranged that there would be a grand piano for Nick to perform on in addition to the synthesizer he was bringing. The bus arrived at 6:30 AM to get loaded up for the twelve-hour trip.
The party for the first leg of the trip, up to Seattle and Portland, included the band members, their steady girlfriends, Diana, Rebecca, and Teresa, Gary Holmes, Edith Hunter, Marilyn Ferreira, and Jeff Wilkinson, who were acting as chaperones, and Colin Porter, their road manager for the tour. Along with Colin was Tammy Paulsen, who did publicity work for the management company sponsoring the tour. The bus would take them through to Seattle in a single day, with a stop in Medford, Oregon to change drivers and have a lunch break.
Once everything was loaded, everyone got settled into the comfortable seats in the bus, which also had its own lavatory. The adults settled in at the front of the bus, while the single guys moved to the back. Daniel, Eric, and Tim sat in the middle with their girlfriends, holding hands and resting. No one had slept particularly well the night before, due to the anticipation and excitement over the tour actually starting.
Jason really felt the absence of Laura as he sat down toward the back with Nick and Jonathan. But he was grateful that he was fully recovered from his injuries and could move around normally again. Besides he had a lot do on t
he trip, chronicling every part of the tour with his digital camera, working on keeping the band’s website updated, but most importantly being there with his best friend Daniel at this new high point in his life.
Daniel and the other band members were on Cloud 9 right now, excited that their dream of performing professionally had come true. At the same time, there was a knot of nervousness inside, not knowing how the audience would respond the first time they came on stage to perform. They would be starting in a venue where they weren’t known at all, in front of a crowd there to see the headliners, The Biloxi Brothers. Daniel and his fellow band members knew that they had worked hard to prepare the music they would perform, and they were all first rate performers. Now their task was to sell this to their audience.
Just after seven PM, the bus pulled up into the hotel where they would be spending the next two nights. Weary after their long day on the road, everyone began unloading their luggage while Colin went inside to register and get room cards for everyone. The room assignments paired Jason and Daniel, Eric and Nick, Tim and Jonathan, Gary and Jeff, and Marilyn and Edith. The three girl friends were in a slightly larger room with three beds. Colin and Tammy had their own private rooms. People on the tour were put up on two floors of the hotel, and there was security to keep fans and outsiders away from the band members and the others on the official tour. Everyone had to use their room cards to enter the elevator to these floors, and show their backstage IDs to the security guards to gain access to the floor where their rooms were located.
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