by Lewis Shiner
“Better clear off, mate,” Ginger said. “They don’t like to be distracted before they go on stage.”
“All right,” Cole said. “I’ll see you later.”
Despite the bad omens, Cole’s excitement kept bubbling up. The biggest band in the world, a band he’d loved since their first album, when nobody else had heard of them, and he would be practically on stage with them. The vibe in the stadium had already changed as the crowd sensed their presence. People were screaming “Led Zeppelin!” and “rock and roll!” and, already, inevitably, “Stairway to Heaven!” as if the band might somehow forget to play it.
The tension kept mounting, the audience feeding on its own hysteria. Scuffles broke out below stage right, where a huge US flag flapped listlessly. Finally Bill Graham came out and thanked everyone for their patience, drowned out by the yelling of the crowd, in turn drowned out by the opening staccato chords of “The Song Remains the Same,” played crazy fast, the start-stop rhythm at such high volume that it threatened to disrupt Cole’s autonomic nervous system, the drums and bass locked in mechanical precision with the guitar, Page looking unsteady yet managing to play the top, 12-string neck of his double-neck sg in perfect time. Cole glanced at Linda, whose gaze was riveted on Bonham. Her jaw had gone slack.
When it finished, Plant, wearing a baby-blue “Nurses do it better” T-shirt, said, “Good afternoon! So this is what they call daylight!”
“I’ll never be that good,” Linda said.
“You were fantastic today,” Cole said. “You saved our ass.”
“I wasn’t like that,” she said, pointing at Bonham.
“Well, maybe you won’t wreck hotels and punch women in the face like he does.”
Linda shook her head in disgust. “Don’t try to cheer me up, Cole. It just shows how little you understand.”
Cole was stung into silence, which the band promptly filled with “Sick Again,” a song about underage groupies in LA, and then on through a set of meticulous, virtuosic, pile-driving rock songs, the rhythm section impeccable, Plant in shrieking good voice, and only Page unable to fully deliver the goods, his long solos slightly off, never catching fire. Still Cole wished he could see his fingers for more than the occasional glimpse when he turned his back on the stadium. The only serious lapse came during “Ten Years Gone,” when Page lost his way and had to bail out on the lead and hand the song off to Plant.
After that they all sat on stools at the front of the stage, Page with acoustic guitar, Jones with his triple-neck, Bonham with a tambourine. The crowd, so completely in their thrall moments before, was not in a mellow mood. The boos—only a few at first—started as soon as the stools came out. When they yelled for “Stairway” again, Plant cupped his ear as if he couldn’t understand them. Cole was shocked. The band was narcissistic, but how much worse was the audience, screaming for instant gratification?
They started with “Battle of Evermore,” with Jones singing Sandy Denny’s part. By the time the acoustic set had passed the half-hour mark and Page was noodling by himself in the middle of “Bron-Y-Aur Stomp,” the crowd was actively heckling. Plant made intermittent and ineffective shushing gestures until finally Bonham came in on bass drum and tambourine and they tied it off. They got off their stools and Plant said, “You want to rock?” The audience exploded. “We’re going to rock your arse off.”
Which they proceeded to do, building to “Stairway” as a climax, then leaving the stage while the audience whipped themselves into a frenzy again, before they came back for “Whole Lotta Love” and “Rock and Roll,” then did “Black Dog” as a second encore.
When it was finally over, Cole was wiped out. Valentina buzzed with energy and Linda was despondent. Luke had left after the acoustic set.
“I really need to get laid,” Valentina said, stretching provocatively. “See you guys at the hotel.”
“I’m going to go drink,” Linda said. “You coming?”
“Later,” Cole said.
He tried to make his way toward the trailers they used for dressing rooms, and Zeppelin security blocked his way. He showed his performer’s pass and said, “I’m supposed to meet Ginger.”
“Nobody goes back there until the band clears the arena.”
“Could you please ask Ginger?”
“I don’t ask Ginger nothing, mate. Now could you please fuck off before you get hurt?”
He got another beer, drank it in three long swallows, then used the staff restroom. When he checked back, the thugs were gone. Which probably meant the band was gone as well. He made his way to the cluster of trailers parked under the lip of the stadium, inside the security fence. Three were set up for dressing rooms, though as far as Cole knew, nobody had used them. One of them was painted with the Bill Graham Presents logo, and Cole saw Jim Matzorkis, one of Graham’s security guys, climbing the steps with a clutch of wooden signs under his arm.
“Hey, Jim,” Cole said.
“Hi, Cole. Good show this morning.”
“Audience didn’t seem to think so.”
“Hey, what do they know, right?”
Cole waved and walked on, then thought to ask if Matzorkis had seen Ginger. At that moment four men and a boy walked up to the trailer and Cole instinctively stepped into the shadow of a concrete column. In the lead was Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, massive, bearded, a look of barely concealed rage on his face. He was followed by Peter Grant, 300 pounds, six foot three, scraggly beard and stringy hair. Beside him was a long-haired kid, maybe 10 years old. Then came the road manager, the one Ginger called Ricardo. He was the smallest of the four, not by much, with big dark sideburns and mustache. Bringing up the rear was a blond hulk, clean shaven and handsome except for the air of thoughtless, arrogant menace that came off him. Cole held himself absolutely still.
“Him!” the boy said. “That’s the one.” Cole realized they were talking about Matzorkis. This is bad, Cole thought.
“You,” Bonham said. “Come out here.”
Matzorkis appeared at the top of the steps.
Bonham pointed at the boy. “You know who this is?”
“No. He was stealing the signs from the dressing rooms a few minutes ago. I never saw him before that.”
“That’s Peter Grant’s son, you fucking cunt.”
“Did you put your hands on my kid?” Grant asked.
“I took the signs away from him, that’s all.” Matzorkis was a big guy, but he was badly outnumbered and Cole heard an edge of nervousness in his voice.
“Did you hit him?” Grant said.
“Absolutely not. I just told him he couldn’t have the signs.”
“He says you hit him,” Grant said. “Are you calling my son a liar?”
“This is a misunderstanding,” Matzorkis said.
“You don’t hit Peter Grant’s kid, you cunt,” Bonham said, and he lunged up the steps and kicked Matzorkis in the crotch. Matzorkis flew backward into the trailer and the others went up after him.
Cole ran. He saw a couple of Graham’s security people and shouted, “Get to the storage trailer, they’re killing Jim. Call the cops, call somebody.” He ran on to the office trailer at the end of the row.
Graham was on the phone. Cole said, “Bill, you have to come, they’re killing Jim Matzorkis.”
Graham said, “I’ll call you back,” and jumped out of his chair. “Who is?”
“Bonham, Peter Grant, some other guys.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know, something to do with Grant’s kid.”
By the time they got to the storage trailer, Matzorkis was gone. Bonham, Grant, Ricardo, and the blond paced back and forth, in a standoff with a handful of Graham’s security people. Cole could smell the testosterone in the air.
“Bill,” Grant said, “I’m very unhappy with you. One of your people hit my boy.”
“Hold on,” Graham said. “I know this man. He would not hit a kid.”
“My son is not a liar.”
O
ne of the security guys took Graham aside and whispered in his ear. Graham nodded and said, “Why don’t we all sit down and talk this out?”
Cole, on the fringes, slumped down on the oil-stained concrete and leaned against one of the trailers. He had managed to go his whole life without ever getting in a serious fight, just a few ineffectual body blows between kids that were over before they started. He had never seen cold-blooded, animal violence first-hand, and it made him sick and scared and angry. Ashamed that it had come to this. The Stones, Zeppelin, The Who, destroying everything in their paths, protected by their armies of homicidal maniacs. He understood that Graham had to placate them, that the second show was less than 24 hours away and if the band refused to play, a full-blown riot would result. Still Cole wanted their blood.
The longer Graham talked, the quieter Grant and the others got, until it seemed like it had blown over. Grant said he just wanted to meet with Matzorkis, one-on-one, to “make peace and settle this.”
“I have your word?” Graham said. “Your word as a gentleman that that’s all you want?”
“Yes.”
Graham turned to the guy who’d whispered in his ear and said, “He’s at the Winnebago?”
The man nodded. In addition to the trailers inside the gates, Graham had a mobile home in the public parking lot on the south side of the stadium, which was apparently where Matzorkis had holed up.
The entire group walked there together, Grant and Bonham, Ricardo and the blond, Graham and his people, a handful of other Zeppelin security guys. Cole, unable to look away, followed a few steps behind.
The sun was low in the sky and long shadows carved up the asphalt of the deserted parking lot. The Winnebago was parked next to a row of stanchions, thigh-high lengths of metal pipe filled with concrete, meant to keep anyone from driving through the open gate.
At the door of the Winnebago, Graham said, “Let me just talk to him first.”
Grant opened both hands, as if to say, “Of course.”
Graham went in and closed the door. He was only gone a few seconds. The body language in the Zeppelin camp was neutral. Graham opened the door and motioned Grant in. “After you, Peter.”
Grant got on the rv. Graham turned to follow him and in an instant the huge blond man had jumped up behind him. A crash came from deep inside the vehicle and Cole involuntarily sucked in a lungful of air. The blond appeared at the top of the stairs, carrying Graham like a stack of lumber over one shoulder. He set Graham on the tarmac, gave him a gentle shove, and got back on the bus and shut and locked the door.
Cole heard Matzorkis yell for help over the sound of crashing furniture and breaking glass. The entire Winnebago shook with the violence of it. Graham pounded on the locked door, then ran back and forth alongside the trailer shouting, “Jim! Jim! Are you all right?”
One of Graham’s people said, “I’ve got a gun in my car,” and took off at a run.
Suddenly Ricardo, a crazed look in his eyes, came running toward the Winnebago with a piece of aluminum pipe. He apparently meant to go after Matzorkis with it, but he couldn’t get in the locked door, so he stood guard there, swinging the pipe like a bat.
Matzorkis, miraculously, had broken free, but was now trapped in the trailer by Ricardo. Cole heard him pounding on the door, crying for help. One of Graham’s people went for Ricardo, but had to jump back from the path of the metal pipe. “Cocksucker!” he yelled at Ricardo. “Fucking Limey cocksucking son of a bitch!”
Ricardo, clearly out of his mind on coke, lunged for him, and the guy ran out into the parking lot, Ricardo in pursuit.
The door of the bus flew open and Matzorkis stumbled out, Grant and the blond right behind him. Suddenly, too late, Cole realized he was in the line of fire. He turned to run as somebody he never saw hit him in the back, yelling, “Out of my way, ya cunt,” and Cole went into the stanchion, the edge of it hitting his collarbone. Agony flooded the left side of his body. He fell on his right side, hitting his head, and curled into a ball, grinding his teeth against the pain.
He heard yelling all around him. He felt like he was inside a giant red membrane, darkness below. He wanted to go into the darkness and the pain wouldn’t let him. He lay there on the hot pavement as the pain flashed endlessly up and down his shoulder and left arm.
Finally an American voice said, “Hey, this guy’s hurt too.”
He heard Graham say, “Cole, what the fuck?”
“Knocked me down,” Cole said. “Broke something…”
“Hey!” Graham yelled. “This guy needs to go in the ambulance too!”
“Fuck,” Cole said.
“It’s okay,” Graham said. “There’s an ambulance. We’ll get you taken care of.”
It wasn’t that. It was that he was 16 again, Elton half-carrying him off the oil rig, being loaded into the ambulance next to Jerry’s dead body.
“Over here!” Graham yelled.
Somebody leaned over him. Did he have red hair and freckles, or was Cole having a flashback?
“Where are you hurt?”
“Collarbone,” Cole said. “Left side.”
“I’m going to turn you on your back, real slow.”
Unfortunately, Cole failed to black out from the pain.
“Yeah, clavicle fracture. You’re going to need an X-ray, but it looks like it’s not displaced. That’s the good news.”
“Hurts,” Cole gasped.
“That’s the bad news. These things hurt like a sonofabitch. We got stuff for that, though.”
The power of suggestion, Cole thought. He could practically feel the Demerol rush through him. Then the needle appeared, and went into his right arm, and the bright red of the pain turned pale pink.
Oh god, Cole thought, how I have missed this.
They loaded Cole on a stretcher and put him in the ambulance. Matzorkis was already there, sitting up. His face was swollen and bloody, his eyes puffed shut. “Cole?” he said.
“Yeah. I got in somebody’s way. Knocked me into one of those barrier things.”
“Oh, man.”
“I can’t believe you made it out of that trailer alive.”
“That big blond guy, they had me on the floor under the table, and he was gouging my eyes out. I mean, he was going to take them out. I had some kind of adrenalin rush, man, like I never had before. What kind of person would do something like that to another human being?”
One of the medics got in back with them. “You guys should try and rest.”
“Fuck,” Cole said. “How am I going to play guitar tomorrow?”
The medic laughed. “You can forget about playing guitar for a while.”
*
Cole lay on his back, the head of the bed cranked high. His left arm was in a sling and the sling was bound to his chest to completely immobilize it. His head was turned so he could see out the window. Darkness had settled on Highland Hospital, and Demerol had made the slow sunset compelling and emotional. Though the last light had been gone from the sky for a long time, he had no urge to do anything other than watch the night sky.
“Cole?”
Bill Graham had come in.
“I just saw Jim,” Graham said. “He’s going to be okay, eventually. I’m taking him home with me tonight, just to make sure those bastards don’t try to come after him again.”
“That’s good,” Cole said.
“What the fuck happened to you?”
“One of them, one of the Brits, shoved me out of his way. I didn’t even see who it was.”
“They’re going to pay. I’m flying twenty-five of my guys to their next stop, which is New Orleans, and there is going to be payback.”
“Okay,” Cole said. The problem, he thought, lay with a universe in which the events of the day could have occurred at all. More beatings wouldn’t solve that. Though he did want to see the four of them, Grant, Bonham, Ricardo, and the blond, slowly tortured to death. Followed by Page, because if there was a god who had watched from on high and allowed
it to happen, it was Jimmy Page.
“Their lawyer is forcing me to sign a paper indemnifying the band against any legal action,” Graham said. “Because otherwise they might be too upset to play tomorrow.”
“You’re not going to sign it?”
“My guy says it’s economic duress, anything I sign under those circumstances is worthless.”
A rising, helpless anger fought the Demerol for control of his emotions. “Speaking of playing tomorrow,” Cole said, “I’m not. You may have figured that out.”
“They told me you’re sidelined for at least two months. I can’t believe I gave you another chance and you let me down again.”
Cole saw that it was meant to be a joke. “What are you going to do?”
“I was just going to cancel the opening slot, but there’s an English heavy metal act in town, Judas Priest, and they said they can cover for you.”
“And nobody gives a shit about the opening act anyway, right?”
“Not at a Led Zeppelin show.”
“I appreciate your coming around to cheer me up, Bill.”
“Get some rest. We’ll talk later.”
“Bill? Take care of Jim.”
“Don’t worry.”
A while later Linda and Luke came in. Linda’s eye makeup was badly smeared and she looked like she’d been halfway to drunk and then forced to sober up. She had a couple of roses that she must have bought on the street outside the hospital. She stuck them in his plastic water pitcher.
“What happened?” she said, and Cole told her the whole story.
“Bonham?” Linda said. “No way. It can’t be.”
Cole closed his eyes.
“Bill Graham came to the hotel,” Linda said. “He told us about you, said he was putting another band on tomorrow. Val tried to talk him out of it, said we could do the show without you, but he wasn’t buying.”
