Before the Flock

by David Inglish

  “He’s clean now. Doesn’t pull that shit.”

  “Will he work for free?” Kurt asks.

  “I’ll call him.”

  Ten minutes later, Talksley of Loud shows up on his Electraglide. He has long hair and a leather jacket with spikes on the shoulder. He looks like an extra in a Viking movie. The bike is a gleam machine, as thick and round as a jet engine, riding on two squishy whitewalls that look like marshmallows.

  The Jovi says, “I want you to meet my roommate. Talksley, this is Eric. Eric, this is Talksley.”

  Talksley and Eric stare at each other as if they are looking in a mirror; they both have long brown hair to the middle of their backs with leather biker jackets.

  “Nice to meet you, man,” Talksley says.

  “Same.” Eric says and slaps the seat of the Electraglide. “The wheels on this thing could go on a Chevette.”

  “I could see you on one of these, Eric. You should get one,” the Jovi says.

  “Yeah, sit on it, bro.”

  Eric sits on it and says, “Let’s ride over to the Pannikin.”

  They laugh at him. “Dude. I can’t let you ride bitch. Take your car.”

  Kurt and Eric get in the blue BMW and follow Talksley on his Electraglide and the Jovi on the Roach. They pull into the 7-Eleven.

  Eric rolls down his window and asks, “What are we doing here?”

  The Jovi says, “Come in here, bro. I need some smokes and I want to show you something.”

  Kurt eyes the clerk and says, “I’m gonna sit in the car.”

  They walk straight over to the magazine rack. The Jovi looks at Eric and says, “Hey, man, remember Sophie?”

  “How could I forget?”

  The Jovi grabs the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition from the rack, points at a goddess in a bathing suit on the cover, and says, “That’s her. That’s Sophie.”

  “Ooh. Baby likes.”

  “Hang on to your diaper, baby. We met her at that meeting. Remember? She’s sober and she liked me, but she’s fucking James.”

  “How does that feel?”

  “I’m happy for my bro.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, well quantity over quality, I guess?” The Jovi shakes his head. “Shit.”

  Eric takes the magazine. Sophie Clark stares at him. She’s hazy-eyed, floating in the ecstatic dream of a tide pool; she is eclipsing the sun, descending from the sky to awaken Man; she is dressed in kelp as she emerges from a triumphant ocean. “I love my girlfriend.” Eric whispers and repeats to himself several times over.

  Talksley has his own copy. He stretches his arms out, holds up each shot, and exhales. “Hhhhholy shiiiiit! Would you look at that, man…would you fucking look…” Talksley grabs the magazine out of Eric’s hand so he can hold up two of them. “Fuck. Dude. Nah. Man. Nah. That’s just too much. That’s just too fucking much, man. I can’t…fucking no. Nah, man. It’s that dick of his? It’s gotta be that fucking dick of his. Does he feed that fucking thing mice, man? That’s what I should ask the fucker. That’s what I want to know. What do you feed that thing, man? That’s what…” Talksley keeps going. The Jovi looks wounded as the two Sophies sprawl out in front of him.

  They chopper up and roll over to the Pannikin, take a booth.

  Spewing drops in the booth.

  “Hey, how’s your ass?” asks The Jovi.

  “Oh, Kurt’s boot? I liked it. Did you hear how loud they cheered for me? We should do that every show. What do you think, Kurt?”

  “You need a second P Bass. That’s what I think. It’s not professional to have just one. Why do you have shitty equipment? Where’s your priorities?”

  “I think we should call you Hurt Me from now on.” The Jovi turns to Kurt. “And you the Human Time Bomb. Hurt Me and the Human Time Bomb. That’s a good name for a band. You guys need each other.”

  “We need a guitar tech.” Kurt says, and motions with his fist in the air. “Someone who can switch out a broken string in the middle of a show. That’s what we need.” He turns to Talksley and yells, “WELL? ARE YOU GOING TO DO IT OR NOT?”

  “Do what? Dude. This is the first I’ve heard of this. Shit…I mean…Yeah…you know…I don’t know nothing about guitars and shit…but hell…”

  “You can learn,” the Jovi says. “You’re rock, that’s what’s important. I can teach you how to change a string, set up my pedals, tune a guitar. What do you think?”

  “Alright, I’m in…I’ll be your guitar tech… I’m in… But, man…None of this…and, you know…I want to have…”

  It’s a sunny Sunday afternoon at the Pannikin. The lateral branch of the sweetgum tree is bare but speckled with bright light. The Jovi is in the corner, the seat of honor, holding court, holding coffee. Tiffany Tucker bends over, kisses him, turns, and struts to her Jeep. Her plastic pants squeak with each step. She extends herself on the running board, waves her hat in the air, and triumphantly drives off toward the 5.

  “I love that look. What’s she all about?” John DiBitonti asks.

  “That’s Tiffany Tucker. She’s gonna get us a record deal.” The Jovi watches her shiny black mane whip in the wind as she drives away. “Hey, man, what are you doing tonight?”

  “Nah, man, tell me more…”

  “She came down on Friday. Arrived at Eric’s wearing jodhpurs and knee-high leather boots, like she was in a desert caravan or something. Dane, Eric’s girlfriend, dug it. Eric asked Tiff what was up with the outfit. Tiff said she loved to ride. Eric said, ‘Ride this’ and slid her under my door. I was asleep. She’s thirty-five—knows the drill—got naked. I gave her what she came for…”

  “How was that?” DiBitonti asks.

  “I don’t know, dude. Have you ever had a chick that just, you know, really, I don’t know how to say it…”

  “Out with it.”

  “She stunk, man.”

  “Oh…” DiBitonti puts his hand over his mouth and chuckles.

  “Should I tell her?”

  “Yeah. Maybe she can do something about it.”

  “Anyway…so here’s the part I don’t know, after I give her my polluted load, she starts to put her little outfit back together. She reaches around under the sheets for her thong, it’s dark, she finds some nylon and slides it on. She doesn’t realize the thong ain’t hers.”

  “Whoa, brother…”

  “She says she wants some coffee, just then Kurt sticks his head in the door, fricking winces because of the funk, and says, ‘Get up, bro. It’s sound check.’ We drive out to the La Paloma. Set up the gear. Do a song. And Tiffany is sitting there in the eighth row with Dane. The song ends. Tiff stands up in the dark and yells, ‘Oh my God, you guys are good! I’m going to get you a record deal! When’s the next show in L.A.?’ ‘March seventh,’ I say. ‘Consider it done,’ she says. Spewing, our bass player, he lifts his hands up in the air, yells out, ‘Record deal, baby!’ And he leans back on the velvet curtain and disappears in a hole.”

  “What an asshole…”

  “Yeah. Everyone laughed. Kurt finger-picked his acoustic and stomped his foot like a hillbilly and sang with a twang, ‘Fifteen years old, played the Starlight Bowl. Spewing’s on da stage, he fell in a ho-hole…’”

  “So what about the thong?”

  “After the next song, Tiff comes walking out of the bathroom, throws her chain wallet at me, and yells, ‘Asshole!’ I say, ‘What’s the matter, baby?’ And she holds out a tan thong. ‘This is the matter, baby!’”

  “So whose was it?”

  “Fuck if I know.”

  “So is she still gonna get you a record deal?”

  “Yeah. Like I said, she’s thirty-five, she knows the drill.”

  Vance Copeland has no idea that Tiffany Tucker just walked into the Lingerie with a real Hollywood manager, Adam Felder. Vance is too busy schmoozing a low-level, independent publishing person, who kind of liked the Thunderstick demo. Vance grabs a waitress by the arm, puts a five on her round plastic tra
y, and tells her, “Get him drunk.”

  “Take the five. Buy a hammer. Hit the fucker on the head,” she says.

  Vance pulls a ball of lint, keys, and two one-dollar bills out of his pocket, and hands her the money. She shakes her head and marches back to the bar.

  Tiffany’s entrance is grand. She is wearing a big-shouldered man’s blazer with nothing underneath except a black lacy bra and a pair of bicycle shorts. On her arm is Adam Felder, a tall guy with frizzy hair. He wears Levi’s and an expensive Japanese designer dress shirt, untucked. His hair is parted on the side; half of it combed back, the other half covering one eye. After the first song, he looks at Tiff and pushes the hanging hair behind his ear, revealing his hidden eye. He says “They’re good” as if he’s surprised, then the hair flops back in front of his eye.

  After the show, the boys in the band approach him as he sits on a barstool with a beaming Tiffany Tucker by his side. Felder shakes each person’s hand and says, “If I was going to be in a band, this is the band I would be in.” He looks around the room. “I understand this guy Vance, the promoter, he thinks he’s your manager.”

  Kurt nods and stares at the floor.

  “Look, I’m not here to steal you guys away—you’re gonna get a record deal—one way or the other. You’re that good. You go with me, my job is to make sure it’s the right record deal.”

  Kurt looks around as if he’s ashamed of something, but then he lifts his head and nods at Felder. “I’m into it.”

  “Well, let’s go somewhere where we can talk.”

  The band follows Felder’s Porsche over the hill and into the Valley. They pull up at DCA world headquarters. The large and squat white building has black windows. At night it feels like an abandoned lunar outpost in a sci-fi horror film. They park illegally in front of the lobby. Felder tells the security guard he’ll only be a minute.

  Once inside, the band members start to realize it’s just an office building.

  “So…Do you work for DCA?” the Jovi asks.

  “No. I used to work for Bernie Zupnik—you know Bernie Zupnik—the president of DCA Records. I used to work for Bernie’s management company. Now I’m independent.”

  “So…Why’s your office in DCA’s world headquarters?”

  “Me and Bernie, we go way back. Bernie let me keep my office. We sold more Brougham LTD records in the ‘70s than anybody. Now I manage the lead singer of Brougham LTD. Ron—you know—Headley.”

  Felder has platinum and gold records on the floor leaning against every wall of his office. He sits, pulls out an award, an MTV Astronaut from his desk drawer, and waves it in the air. He says, “This is for Ron Headley’s video to ‘Everybody Wants It.’ Take a seat.”

  The guys survey the black leather couch. It’s covered in platinum albums. EJ picks one up and looks at Felder. He says, “Just put that anywhere.” EJ puts it in a black plastic trashcan.

  “So who writes the songs?”

  “Kurt brings in the bones. We put on the flesh,” says EJ.

  “Is that right?” Felder looks at Kurt.

  “Yeah. I bring in the songs, then we flesh ‘em out.” Kurt’s look goes from sheepish to fierce in a half second. He lifts his gnarled hands above his head and points at the Jovi. “Me and this guy have been playing together for fifteen FUCKING years. We played the Starlight Bowl when we were fifteen. We’ve been at this a while. You’re just not going to find guys our age who have done that.”

  The Jovi takes a drag off his cigarette and says, “I do some gun-for-hire gigs on the side, but this is where my heart is.”

  “Oh, yeah. Tiff says you play with Smithy. Love Smithy. Smithy’s great. But not like this. This is the real deal. How old are you?”

  Nobody answers.

  “C’mon. Each of you. I want to know.” Felder points at Kurt. He answers, “Twenty-three.” The Jovi: “Twenty-three. EJ: “Twenty-five.” Spewing: “Twenty-two.” Eric: “Twenty-three.”

  “You guys got a demo I can listen to?”

  “Yup. Give it to him,” Kurt says to EJ.

  EJ hands Felder a cassette tape.

  Felder puts it in his system and hits play.

  After listening to it, he says, “Wow.”

  It’s morning and Kurt’s phone is ringing. He picks it up and his father, Wayne, says, “Meet me at the Pannikin.”

  His dad looks a little agitated, sitting in the corner beneath the spiky, flowering vines of the purple bougainvillea. He moves his head in short contained jerks and mutters and laughs to himself. Kurt sits next to him with a coffee mug and Wayne gets still. “Hey, dad.”

  Wayne watches four finches fly from a bush and attack a half-eaten muffin. Kurt waits for a response. None comes. “So, dad, you don’t get mad any more.”

  “I get mad. I don’t get even.”

  Kurt laughs a little. “I get mad then I get even.”

  “Causes problems.”

  “I know.” Kurt nods.

  “Meds. That’s how.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Kurt, some day you may do something you really didn’t want to do. They told you to do it, but they don’t go to jail. You do. My blood boils same as yours, uncontrollable. That’s when you’re ready to try the meds again.”

  “My wife left me when I was ON the meds.”

  “You’re married?”

  “I am.”

  “Where is she?”

  “She lives at her mom’s.”

  “Yup. Been there.” Wayne looks around. “You walked, huh? Where’s your car?”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “She took your heart and your car. Yup, been there too.” Wayne gets a dark look on his face and continues in a secretive growl. “Women. They’ll take everything you have.”

  Kurt’s eyes move down to the coffee mug in his hands.

  “You know, Kurt, you’re her husband, you make the payments, that’s your car. Take it back. Break the chain.”

  Kurt nods nervously. He knows Priscilla works the makeup counter at Macy’s. He’s never made a car payment.

  Wayne wraps his hand around Kurt’s clenched fist. “Kurt, let’s get that car back. Let’s go take back what is yours.”

  “How?”

  “Let me see that!” Wayne leans over and grabs Kurt’s keys off the table. “Look at this. What’s this key to right here?”

  “That’s to Priscilla’s car. She gave it to me when we got married. In case I needed to borrow it.”

  “And she never took it back?”

  “No.”

  “Hah! There’s the answer. Tonight we take back what is rightfully yours.”

  Night falls. Wayne and Kurt ride in the rattling diesel Rabbit out to El Cajon. Kurt gives the directions while Wayne hunches over the wheel.

  “That’s it right there.” Kurt points to a brown Datsun B-210.

  Wayne stops down the block. Kurt hops out. Wayne floors it. The diesel Rabbit disappears into a cloud of its own smoke.

  Kurt gets in the B-210, starts it, the little sewing machine engine hums. He’s thinking about pulling away until he’s stopped by a voice. For a split second he’s afraid they have returned, the voices, but then he realizes it’s his own voice. It is coming from the radio. Priscilla has been listening to his demo, the song he wrote for her. Something changes in his heart, and he starts to think that maybe Priscilla is the one person in the world who really loves him. He feels flush in the face. He turns off the car, walks up to the house, and rings the doorbell.

  The door opens and there she is, softly backlit. Her big sad eyes tell him he has a chance. He is thinner and tanner and more man than she remembers. He puts out his hand and sings, “All of my life, I’ve been searching for true love…”

  She hears the resonance, the undeniable truth, the ecstatic yearning, and starts to cry. That’s it. They embrace. She takes her neatly packed boxes filled with plastic containers and Ziploc bags, puts what she can in the B-210, and they drive back to Kurt’s apartment,
man and wife.

  Everyone knows that something big is about to happen. Word is out. Thunderstick has Felder. Thunderstick is getting a record deal. Thunderstick is building an army. There are many who want to fight. They show up in Eric’s front yard—goat-eyed randoms standing in line to carry a guitar stand. People have seen it happening, in backyards, on the beach, in bars, at parties. It is obvious. Thunderstick is going somewhere, and for people such as Lunky the Loyal, Talksley of Loud, and Jesse the Giant, somewhere sounds pretty good.

  It’s a fact: There are those who want to be roadies. They are the same men who would’ve shown up on the dock just as a whaling boat was heading out to sea a hundred and fifty years ago. These men stand with all their worldly possessions stuffed in a burlap sack, ready to see the world and erase the past, ready to risk their lives and break their backs for adventure and nothing else. These are the men who feel the tentacles of boredom wrapping around their chests and squeezing out the very breath of their existence so tightly that they would rather enslave themselves to an exotic life than go on living the stale one they have for one minute more. These are the men who tamed the world. They are the hand in the glove. In the world of rock, they are called roadies.

  No one better expresses this yearning than Lunky the Loyal. He has just gotten out of jail or the military or rehab. He shows up with the others at Eric’s house. He doesn’t have a car or a bike, but he’s not the kind of guy who takes the bus. He stands as sturdy as a stone fence among the lesser applicants—his stark white hair sheared in a bowl cut, his muscles, his deranged cobalt-blue stare—all in all, a hell of a good-looking guy.

  “I hear Thunderstick has a gig in L.A.,” Lunky says in his silky birdlike voice.

  “Yeah,” Eric says. “It’s load out.”

  “You guys need me up there. You need roadies.”

  “Thanks, but we’ve already got Talksley and Jesse.”

  Lunky looks at the ground, sad for a moment, then the lamp of genius lights up proudly above his head. “I’ll be security.”

  Talksley of Loud was first. He’s the Jovi’s guitar tech. Kurt figured if the Jovi had his own roadie, he needed one too. So Kurt promised one of his oldest friends, Jesse the Giant, the position of road manager. Jesse had never managed a band, played in a band, or gone on a rock tour in his life. Still, on some primal level it makes sense that Jesse should be the Chief and everyone else the Indians. Jesse has a shirt with a collar, and the shirt is tucked into his jeans—he almost looks like he could have a job. If he walked into a motel and asked for five rooms, wearing that shirt with a collar, the clerk might give them to him. And Jesse is a natural-born alpha male. He’s huge. He’s athletic, the best to come out of La Jolla High for a good many years, but now, thanks to ten years on the marijuana maintenance program, he is the would-a-could-a-should-a guy. But he’s good in a fight. He has hands like canned hams. He’s famous for the two-hit fight: He hits them; they hit the floor. All of this together makes lesser men want to stand in line behind Jesse, but not Talksley. He’s not used to taking orders. He is sitting on his Electraglide at the end of the silver metal ramp that leads into the back of a yellow box truck. Jesse the Giant stands at the side of the truck and yells, “C’mon, man! Charge it!”