Before the Flock

by David Inglish

  Kurt walks back in the control room and finds the Jovi sitting in the captain’s chair. He hops up and gives him a pop.

  “Bro. That was insane. Let me throw a little something on there.”

  The song is cued from the beginning in the iso booth. It’s “Alone, Alone.” As the song gains momentum, the Jovi adds subtle notes here and there and then… guitar solo. He takes off and flutters above the band and below Kurt’s impassioned plea. As Kurt’s long vocal note fades away, the solo flies, full of confidence and hope and nothing but blue sky until Kurt’s chaotic, backward rhythm-guitar part arrives and suddenly the triumphant notes are bittersweet, being pulled toward Earth. There’s a struggle between the two, and when the Jovi’s melody escapes for the final time, it’s magic and everyone knows it.

  The Jovi walks back in the control room. Kurt puts an arm around him, hugs him like a brother, and says, “Thank you.”

  In the fall of 1985 Randy George rings the buzzer at 1 Bond Street. Sophie hasn’t seen him in a while. She’s been in Paris with a photographer. She’s been in London with a gallerist. She can’t decide which one she likes more. It’s a nice enough day but Randy George seems cold. “What’s the matter?” she asks.

  In the bright light of her apartment his cheeks look hollow. Sophie hands him a cup of tea and as his hand reaches out from his sleeve into the bright beam of light it is covered with liver spots. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Sweetheart, they think I’m a leper. Nobody will hire me. I haven’t worked in months. I’m so afraid they’re going to evict me.”

  “You can live here with me.”

  “I need to work, child.”

  Sophie struts in to Caitlin’s office. “You need to hire my friend.”

  “Who?”

  “Randy George. The makeup artist.”

  “Sophie, he’s sick. Nobody wants what he’s got. Nobody wants to be around it. Nobody even wants to be reminded that it’s happening.”

  “Fine. I don’t work unless he’s my makeup man.”

  “Hah! Then you don’t work.”

  “Did you hear me? I said I don’t work if you don’t hire him.”

  Caitlin lifts up an eight by ten glossy photo of a brunette with a mole. “Do you see this, Sophie? She’s a fresh face. The next big thing. She’s going to Jamaica this weekend. You missed your chance.”

  Sophie turns and moves towards Mr. Cassavetes office. Caitlin yells, “You can’t just go in there!”

  Sophie opens the door and there he is, sitting behind his desk, in his white suit, on the phone. “I’ll have to call you back,” he says and hangs up the receiver and smiles.

  Sophie locks the door behind her. She walks deliberately over, sticks her hand between his legs, and pushes her lips onto his. He tastes a little stale, but she likes it. She rubs up and down between his legs. He yanks her panties down and lifts her onto the desk. She takes him in her hand, holds her finger over his mouth and says, “Caitlin’s fired.”

  “What? No, I can’t just fire…”

  She squeezes him. “Fire her.”

  “Okay. Okay.”

  “Now.”

  He picks up the phone, presses the intercom button and says, “Caitlin, you’re fired.”

  “WHAT!” They hear Caitlin scream in the other room.

  “And no other girls.”

  “You’re kidd—”

  “Me only.”

  He looks into Sophie’s eyes and nods. She’s ready. “You are going to be a big star.”

  “The biggest.” She says as she takes him in.

  EJ’s mom’s station wagon is sailing north through the last patch of green in Southern California—Camp Pendleton. The 5 freeway’s four lanes of ribbed white concrete surrounded on both sides by the low hills and shrubs that used to be California. The Thunderstick three-song demo plays in the tape deck for the sixth time in a row. Kurt sits in the front. In the back, Spewing puts his leg across Ivo’s lap. Ivo raps him on the shin with the skull-end of the staff of authority.

  “OW! So, dudes, when we get in there, just let me do the talking,” Spewing says.

  Everyone laughs.

  “You’re a fucking used-car salesman. What do you know about publishing deals?”

  “I know negotiation. That’s what it’s all about. Business is business.”

  “You don’t know dick!”

  “Hey, Elmer, just ‘cause you went to college doesn’t make you the smartest guy in the car.”

  “Yes, it does. And don’t call me Elmer.”

  “You didn’t graduate. Elmer.”

  EJ holds the wheel with one hand and reaches back and slaps Spewing with the other.

  “Ow! It’s true.”

  “Just because I had a little disagreement with the university—”

  “Don’t fucking worry about this college bullshit. You’re going to be rock star. Let Ivo do the talking.”

  “He’s right,” Kurt says. “Ivo’s gonna be the manager. He knows these things.”

  The station wagon shakes and rumbles as if the wheels are about to fall off. Spewing sits up, looks out the window, and yells, “Dude, I know that sound!”

  “Yes. Is fucking California earthquake,” Ivo says.

  “Am I dragging a muffler?” EJ asks.

  Outside the wagon, it’s louder, sounding like Baja has broken off from the continent. Spewing spots something black and sooty and screaming approaching at a ridiculous speed. Spewing yells, “It’s the Jovi. He’s on the Roach.”

  The Jovi comes out of nowhere, pulls up a foot from the side of the station wagon, knocks on the window with his fist, and gives the thumb’s up.

  “Dude. See. It’s the Jovi on the Roach! I told you he’d show!”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Kurt says. “We don’t need him.”

  “Yes,” Ivo says. “We fucking do.”

  The band parks on Hollywood Boulevard and climbs the stairs into the gut of a small stucco office building. The Jovi’s hair is windblown. He’s decked in vintage leather. Outside the door, Kurt remembers the pomade in his pocket. He takes out a gob with his forefinger, rubs his hands together, and waxes back the sides of his curly hair. “You look like fucking pack of rats,” Ivo says.

  “You mean the Rat Pack.”

  “Yes. Is not what I say?”

  Inside, the secretary leads the band to see Ivo’s publishing connection, Mr. Grubman. The door opens and Ivo yells at a startled little man in stone-washed jeans. “Hey, you mother-fucker! I bring fucking tape.”

  Kurt pushes his hand through the pomade and gives Grubman a greasy handshake.

  “Nice to meet you guys. I just got to say I love the fucking name of the band. Thunderprick is just right in your face—it’s such a fuck you. I love it.”

  “Our name is Thunderstick.”

  “Oh. I guess that’s okay. Maybe you guys should think about Thunderprick. It’s got presence.”

  Ivo looks as if he’s going to cough up his stomach.

  Grubman puts the tape in his boombox and listens to half the first song, fast forwards to the second, listens to half, then fast forwards again to the next song, then hits STOP. Grubman turns to the Jovi and says, “So…who writes the songs?”

  “I do,” Kurt says. “I mean we all do. I bring in the skeleton.”

  “This rocks,” Grubman says, and points at the Jovi. “This is what it’s all about right now.”

  “Yeah. We did the tape in one day—”

  “No man, this look. It’s very… postapocalypse.”

  “What about the music?” Kurt asks.

  Grubman laughs. “It sounds British. So…” Grubman turns to the Jovi. “What do you do?”

  “I play guitar.”

  “The guitar kicks ass on this tape.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Me and him together,” Kurt says, “been doing it for fifteen years. It’s probably the best guitar playing you’re ever gonna hear.”

  Grubman taps his finger on
his desk. “Okay, so what can I do for you guys?”

  “We want a record deal,” Spewing says.

  Grubman laughs. “I’m in publishing.”

  “We’d like to be published too,” Spewing returns. “Books are cool. You get someone else to write them, right?”

  EJ kicks him.

  “Nah, man, this is music publishing. You know what that is, right?”

  “So when we are talking ‘publishing,’ what exactly are we fucking saying?” Ivo winks at Grubman.

  “Publishing royalties. Ownership of the songs. Payment for radio play.”

  “Yes, and what is that?” Ivo asks, and winks again.

  Randy George died in the spring of 1986 at the NYU Medical Center on First Avenue. He had worked until he couldn’t work any more. Sophie held his hand and met his parents who were quiet people from Missouri. They didn’t really react. The father shook a little, but they were tough people accustomed to tragedy. Sophie walked down into an Irish pub and started drinking. When she came to, there was a plumber on her. She screamed for him to get off. He did. The more she drank, the more the world shed, until she reached a type of existential equilibrium. Nothing existed but now. She thought of Randy George’s words to her, “Live in the now.” She drank until there was nothing but now, and when she started in on the pills, even now started to slip away. Giuseppe Cassavetes hired strong young drivers to get her from place to place. They delivered the baggage that had once been Sophie Clark, to the shoots, to the plane, to the award show or benefit. And Giuseppe did not mind until one day she didn’t look right. He called Jean. Jean asked Audrey, “What should we do?”

  Audrey said, “Bring her home. Stick her in treatment. Dry her ass out.” And they did. In December of 1987 Sophie checked in to the McDonald Center in San Diego.

  It is January of 1988. Thunderstick gigs in San Diego. Eric has worked his way into the whole set. The first time he plays “Rain Fall” with the band it is at Poseidon’s Place, an inland bar stuck in the corner of a strip mall between a gun shop and a Noodle House. When they come out of the solo, Eric plays the three notes, his three notes, same as usual but this time Kurt continues his acoustic solo right through the chord change, right through the break. The two melodies play off each other, one simple and nostalgic, the other intricate and exuberant. The beauty of it takes Eric by surprise. Hot tears run down his face. The Jovi looks at him and smiles. “You’re crying?”

  “I’m not crying.” Eric says and rubs his eye into his shoulder while keeping his fingers on the keyboard. “Something’s in my eye.”

  “Why are you crying?” The Jovi laughs.

  With the Jovi on guitar, Thunderstick defies classification. Kurt’s deep baritone is definitely New Romantic, but the Jovi’s chunky power chords belong in a rock anthem. Add a little synth pad in the background, and the whole thing is just different enough. Thunderstick opens for hair bands. Thunderstick plays Goth gigs. Thunderstick rips house parties. But we aren’t getting any closer to a record deal.

  Another night we are under the blacklights in Mission Valley, opening up for the Tom Zombie Orchestra. The audience is entirely Undead—white faces, black lips, black nails, black hair, black eyes. Thunderstick is set up in the middle of the dance floor, inside a chain-link fence. Space is limited. The Zombies have a lot of gear. Kurt looks out at the crowd and says, “You want dark, we go dark.” He dusts off a few of the old songs about suicide and makes it hurt.

  Through the whole set some dark prince in a black floor-length duster and a white frock is watching. When the stage lights come up for the Zombie’s roadies, Kurt is relieved to see that the guy in the duster has an enormous foot-long wooden cross hanging around his neck. He extends a pale and frail hand from a lacey cuff and says, “I’m Vance Copeland. I want to manage you.”

  The giant wooden cross and Vance’s calm demeanor make Kurt think Vance is some kind of holy man. “Are you from around here?” Kurt asks.

  “I’m from Hollywood.”

  “What part?” EJ asks.

  “Sherman Way.”

  “Sherman Way? That’s the Valley,” EJ says.

  “It’s North Hollywood,” Vance answers. “I run a show, the first Monday of every month at the Lingerie on Sunset Strip. It’s called ‘Selling England by the Pound.’ I want to manage you and showcase you and get you a record deal.”

  “We’re not into that pay-to-play shit,” the Jovi says.

  “Yeah,” EJ says. “I’m in finance.”

  “This isn’t like that. You can play for free. Just let me be your manager.”

  “You want a contract?” EJ asks.

  “No contract.”

  The Jovi says, “I’m down.”

  Kurt gets somber, eyes Vance’s cross, and says, “We’ve been waiting for you, for someone who’s right with the Lord.”

  “Dude,” the Jovi interjects. “He’s not a priest. He’s a Goth.”

  Kurt silences the Jovi with an outstretched hand, nods at Vance, and says, “Okay. You’re our manager. When’s the first gig?”

  Dane is from a strong, nervous, Germanic line, always cleaning, never resting, often investigating. It’s on one of these missions that Dane finds a pair of Nänce’s jeans outside the Jovi’s room. She picks them up, makes a coughing, puking gesture with her mouth, and screams. “Good Lord almighty! Eric! Get your big ol’ ass in here and have a look at this.”

  Eric is watching a cartoon where the superheroes are half cat and half human. He is waiting for them to point their sword to the sky and say the magic words that make it pulse and swell. Dane says, “I mean it!” with a hint of fear. It gets him off the couch. He walks into the galley kitchen only to find Dane, stooped over a little pile of denim fabric, prying it open with a fly swatter.

  “Look at this,” she says.

  Bending over, he looks into the jeans. They are yellow and green from the button fly all the way along the seam to the back of the butt.

  “What is that?” He asks.

  “That’s kiki juice!”

  “No?”

  “That’s juice from down there!”

  “Holy shit! What’s she got? That’s not normal.”

  “Shhh! That’s from sleeping with him. That’s from sleeping with the Jovi. I told you how dirty he is,” she whispers.

  Eric laughs and looks at the stain again. “I gotta see this in the light.” In the front room there are more windows, but it is a cloudy day, so he takes the jeans onto the brick walkway that substitutes for a front porch. He sees the swampy color in all its splendor. He is attracted and repulsed by the stain. It sets his imagination free. Warmth, activity, this is physical proof of passion. But what about the day after, or ten days after, would a dick itch relentlessly? Would it hurt to pee? Would there be a trip to the doctor? Dane is right, he thinks, this is better than TV.

  “What should we do with them?” He asks.

  “Put them back.”

  “We could wash them and leave them outside the door.”

  “Not with my clothes you don’t!”

  “We could take a sample and have it analyzed… scientifically.”

  Dane laughs.

  “Have you sniffed them?” Eric asks.

  “No!”

  “What’ll you give me?”

  “No, don’t do it!”

  “C’mon, just a little sniff.”

  “If you sniff those pants, I’m never talking to you ever again.”

  “Yeah, you will. You love me.”

  “Not anymore. Not if you sniff those pants.”

  Eric cautiously lifts the jeans toward his nose. Getting about six inches from the crotch, he breathes in ever so slightly. He recognizes the smell but cannot place it. He sniffs a little more. It is coming to him—something like Thanksgiving. Suddenly he feels a stinging sensation on his nose and he tastes a mouth full of denim. Dane has snuck up behind him and yanked the jeans over his head. Waving his stiff arms like some Frankenstein monster, he pulls off th
e jeans. And there is Dane—electric little-girl eyes. She turns and runs. With the jeans held tightly in his hand, he chases her down the street. She laughs hysterically. Her blonde hair swishes back and forth as she dodges his grasp. He tackles her on the fourth tiny yard toward the ocean and is going to rub the jeans in her face but thinks better of it. He rubs his own filthy face and hair all over her. She laughs more, grabs him by his ears, and puts her soft lips to his. “You’re right. I still love you,” she says.

  “What are you guys doing with my jeans?”

  They look up to see the silhouette of Nänce blocking out the sun. The left side of her short hair sticks up and out like a rooster’s tail—classic bed head. She is wearing a tank top, nude-colored underwear, and nothing else.

  “You wear underwear?” Dane asks.

  “You guys are so weird!” Nänce grabs her jeans and walks back toward the house.

  The Jovi, James, and Eric walk on stone steps through a garden at night to a door surrounded by anonymous smokers holding glowing orange embers. Against a wall, the open flowers of a yellow hibiscus appear suspended in midair. Inside the small wooden church, strangers assemble in a circle and talk freely about drugs and human bondage. The meeting begins. The person with the most overdoses starts the discussion with a story of impossible human redemption. Eric raises his hand, introduces himself, and tells of drinking from the bottle and running from the cops until he was outnumbered. The Jovi tells tales of coke and despair. Then she walks in. The group thinks it has seen her before, a college girl that has too much to drink, wakes up with a stranger, and does her penance here, only to laugh about it a month later over cocktails. Her glow, her smile, they tell the group: This can’t be a woman who has suffered. How could they know? It’s only on the inside that she is tattered.