“And I saw him. He’s worried about you.”
“Who?”
“He’s an artist…”
“Hmm?”
“He paints women’s faces.”
“Randy George.”
Instantly Sophie is flush and moved. Tears stream down her face.
“Sophie, we can overcome all of this. You just need to come and see me every day when you’re in town. I’m going to teach you some spells. You’re going to win this time around.”
Sophie wipes her cheeks and asks, “Do you have another joint? One for the road?”
“Sure.” Phoenix says. “Do you just want to buy a dime bag?”
“Okay. One more thing. Can you ask Randy George? The man that I’m with, he’s super nice but there’s this other one that I think maybe I’m supposed to be with. What does he think?”
Phoenix closes her eyes, shudders, then spits into Sophie’s upturned palm. She rubs the spit in circles, searching deep into its glimmer. “The one you are with, he is a warrior. You are a butterfly.”
“That is like so…” Sophie holds her hands over her heart and shakes her head.
“I have something for you.” Phoenix hands Sophie a book with a pastel drawing of a woman in a negligee sitting on a crescent moon that hangs within a Roman arch above a small stream. “You don’t have to be powerless anymore.”
Sophie opens the book and it falls to a chapter entitled Spells of Love. “Thanks, I guess.”
“Be careful. Powerful stuff in there. Don’t try any until we go over them first. You don’t know what dark forces may rise up.”
“Mmmm, okay.”
“And something else…”
“Yes?”
“Do you think that Summer would work more if she had larger breasts?”
“Uh, yeah. She’s flat-chested, isn’t she?”
Phoenix nods sadly and pats her own chest. “It’s my fault.”
Sophie takes out her sacred book. On the endpaper she puts a line through the name JAMES FRANKLIN and writes underneath it: BOBBY DUGAN, BOBBY DUGAN, BOBBY DUGAN.
She hears a knock on her door.
When she opens it, she is mildly surprised. It works. Her powers are strong. He’s standing right there.
“Hey, Sophie, how’s it going? Is James here?” The Jovi smiles.
For a second she’s sad and lost and then he touches her hand and she has hope. “I…” She holds her breath, searches his eyes. “You’re not here for James.” She exhales and moves closer.
“No.”
She pulls him in and bolts the door.
“I’m here for you.”
Blood flushes, air stills, he pushes the flowing material from her body and plunges every ounce of his strength into her softness again and again until he isn’t hard and she isn’t soft. Until, they are one.
“Can you believe she asked me to move out?” James says to the Jovi, Eric, and Kurt at Chuck’s Steak House. “It’s gotta have something to do with the psychic. She just started seeing this bitch, Phoenix, and then she changed.”
“Really?” the Jovi asks and feels a twisting in his gut. “Where are you staying?”
“In Kurt’s living room. On the floor. At least until we work this shit out.”
“A psychic?” Eric asks. “Like what? Tarot cards? Palm reading?”
“Yeah, all that. And past life shit, too,” James says.
“Spiritual warfare,” Kurt says and nods in a powerful, knowing manner. “I should’ve expected this. We need somebody heavy in the spirit to straighten her out. We should call in Pastor Ron.”
“Who’s Pastor Ron?” Eric asks.
“Pastor Ron pulled me out of Juvi. He brought us to the Lord.” Kurt says and holds his hands out towards James and the Jovi.
“Have you made up your minds?” a perky waitress asks.
“Four New York Strips. Rare.” Kurt hands her the menus.
“Okay. Help yourself to our salad bar.”
The meat arrives on the table, and Kurt bows his head and is about to say a prayer.
James interrupts him. “When Sophie comes back to me, I want you guys to be my groomsmen.”
Eric smiles brightly. “Thanks, James, I mean it’s an hon—”
“Sorry, Eric. I meant Kurt and the Jovi. I want Pastor Ron to marry… us… like… did Kurt and Priscilla… Yeah Pastor Ron, I need to…” James stops himself. Then starts on his steak with a sharp knife then stops again. “Not… hungry.” Behind his Buddy Holly–style glasses, his eyes are red. “I had… dream…” Then he sobs a little.
Kurt puts his arm on James’s shoulder and says. “Everything will be okay. We’ve walked through trials greater than this. Let’s pray.”
It is October, and the album has been mastered. A release date is set—January 21, 1989. The band is just waiting for the album, the tour, and the publishing deal.
The Jovi rides his chopper up to L.A. to the Chateau Marmont. At the desk they hand him a key. He sprints to the room. She is naked and waiting.
The Jovi’s insides are knotted, every muscle in his body is twitching as he hovers above her. “This is going to cause a lot of problems,” he says.
“For who? Not for you.” She takes him and guides him in. Her eyes flutter and she moans.
Afterward the Jovi strokes her hair and says, “It’s just going to take a little while.”
“I don’t belong to James. I never did.” She reaches over to the bedstand and takes out a joint. “I don’t see what you’re so worried about.” She strikes a match and breathes in deeply.
The Jovi is a little startled. “You’re getting high?”
“As long as I don’t drink. It’s fine.”
The Jovi nods his head slowly at the ceiling. “Yeah.”
Sophie throws her long leg over the back of the purple chopper and they ride. She holds him tight as they sip the cold moist air in Topanga Canyon. She arches her back in a bend of freedom as they breathe in the warm dry air at the top of Mulholland. The sky is no longer blue but azure, the L.A. smog no longer gray but brilliant yellow.
The Jovi rides back from L.A. just in time for band practice. Thunderstick rehearses at an industrial site out in Mira Mesa. The lease had a NO ROCK BANDS clause, but they signed it anyway. Bill Wellington sends the check. The whole complex is brand-new and almost vacant. Somebody complained about the volume, so now the band doesn’t practice until after midnight. James shows up and asks the Jovi, “Where’ve you been?”
“L.A.”
“Who were you with?”
“Alexandra.”
“I thought you guys broke up.”
“Not totally. You know the drill.”
Kurt grips his head and says in a fake southern accent, “Alright, how mellow, nobody has any idea how much pain I’m in. My TMJ is killing me and nobody cares. My music makes the pain go away. Alright, best singer in the world has no one to play with. Alright. How mellow. No respect.”
“We’re here now,” the Jovi says, and chunks out a guitar chord that makes the walls shake.
Two days later James knocks on Sophie’s door and says, “I know you’re fucking him.”
“James,” she says with a laugh, “it’s my body. You’re out of line.”
“You can have anyone you want. Why’d it have to be the Jovi?”
“He’s my soul mate.”
“Did Phoenix tell you that?”
“I would’ve figured it out on my own eventually.”
James stomps over to Kurt’s apartment. “Look, man, I just want you to know that the Jovi is fucking my girlfriend!”
“No,” says Kurt. “He knows what that would do.”
“That fucking psychic told her that he’s her soul mate! Such fucking bullshit!”
“Call him,” Kurt says sternly. “Band meeting.”
The Jovi walks over to Kurt’s apartment and hits the buzzer. He climbs the stairs and lets himself in. Before he is two feet in the room, James slugs him in the eye. Th
e Jovi falls to the ground. James dives on top of him and hammer punches his ribs. The Jovi doesn’t fight back until he hears a crack and feels a sharp pain. He pulls James’s arm under him and rolls on top. In a crushing blow, Kurt drives his own shoulder into the Jovi’s ribs and screams, “Get off him!”
James gets to his feet. Kurt sits on the Jovi’s chest. Both of them look down at him. “Well, is it true? Did you fuck James’s chick?”
The Jovi nods and holds his hands over his face. Kurt lifts his fist, then stops, looks around, and shakes his head.
“Tell him you’re sorry. Tell him!”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“You have everything, why do you have to take from me?” James picks up his glasses but doesn’t put them on. His eyes look out of place.
“This is the Garden of Eden. She’s the forbidden fruit. You can have any chick—just not her. Do you hear me? You can’t have her!” Kurt says.
“Yeah, yeah.”
“He can’t take it.” Kurt thrusts his finger at James then thumps his own hollow chest. “I can’t take it. You know our mother left our father. It’s different for us. You don’t understand. You’ll never understand.”
The Jovi starts to say something but stops.
“I know what it’s like to sin. I know. God knows I’m a sinner. Okay? Just ask for forgiveness and don’t do it again.”
“She’s yours. Your chick. I shouldn’t have…”
“Tell James you’ll never do it again.”
“I’ll never touch her again.”
“Swear it!”
“I swear.”
Kurt gets off the Jovi. He stands up, looking crooked and broken in the middle. They shake hands.
“We just need to work through this,” James says.
The Jovi smiles. “Yeah, we go way back. We can’t let a chick…”
“No. Me and Sophie. We can get through this. You can’t just turn it off—what we had.”
“Yeah. I know. You can’t just turn it off.”
Sophie, Felder, and the Jovi have lunch in L.A. at the Ivy on Robertson. Above the white tablecloth, below the green trellis, Felder studies Sophie. He’s waiting for a moment he remembers when he thought he saw her eyes flash. It happens. She looks up from the endive, pear, and goat cheese salad. “Is everything okay, Adam?” Her eyes go dark, like a jewel’s facet turning in the sun. Beauty disappears then reappears with shocking color and light.
“Don’t worry about a thing,” he says, “it’s good for the band.”
The Jovi smiles, exhales.
“The fact that you’re dating a supermodel—it’s what we want. We’ll get some press. People will get your vibe. Kurt’ll get over it. C’mon! What’s the big deal? No worries.”
“Adam, is that all I am to you?” Sophie laughs. “A supermodel?”
“No, no, I didn’t mean it like… I meant…” Felder puts his finger on the Jovi’s swollen eye and says, “James fucks with you again, and I’ll give him a faceful of Hollywood.”
The Jovi laughs and hugs Sophie.
“Don’t you love this?” Sophie holds her arm out in a beam of light.
“What?” the Jovi asks.
“The golden sunshine of fall.”
Soon it is December, dark at five, then a damp beach chill. Two months, and still James won’t let it go, still sad, and restless on the floor in the living room. Priscilla had to ask for her old job back. She sleeps in the bedroom by herself until Kurt comes home in the early morning hours, smelling faintly of perfume and motor oil. James is awake, lying on a lumpy futon, staring at the popcorn ceiling. “You know, his dad’s a doctor. Our dad’s nuts. The Dugans have never had any respect for us.”
Kurt looks around with nervous eyes, goes into the bedroom just as Priscilla is coming out in her work clothes. He kisses her on the cheek and gets into bed. Priscilla makes James a cup of coffee, and the two of them sit silently.
Then she says, “Have a good day.”
The Jovi rides out to Mira Mesa for practice. Everyone else is already there. Kurt has his guitar on and is picking bluegrass-style and staring at the wall. The Jovi opens his guitar case, looks sick and hot in the head. He turns to Kurt and asks, “Did you do this to my guitar?”
Kurt drops his Telecaster on the floor. “What do you fucking expect of me? You’re fucking my brother’s girl.” He walks out.
EJ and Eric look at the Jovi, then at the guitar. They turn away in disgust. The Mustang’s engine roars and its tires screech.
The Jovi’s sunburst Les Paul has been disemboweled. The strings have been pulled off and the pick-ups are hanging from the guitar on stringy red wires like two eyeballs popped from their sockets. On the other side, the word “BACKSTABR” is crudely carved into the pristine finish. Clearly, Kurt ran out of space for the second “B” and the “E.”
“Gibson gave me this guitar. Do you fucking hear me?” the Jovi yells at EJ, Sven, and Eric. “You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to fix this guitar, and I’m going to play it. And Kurt’s going to look over at me, and he’s going to see it, see me playing it. That’s what I’m going to do.”
Kurt and Eric are on the 805 freeway. It’s five lanes of economy cars and the dim light they cast on the world, but it leads to Club Metro. Kurt lights a smoke and says, “No more masturbation.”
1988 is almost over.
“Masturbation leaves you weak and alone. I used to masturbate a lot when I was on the drugs. No woman wants you if you masturbate. I don’t know how they know, but they do.”
“Yeah?” Eric asks.
“Yeah. But here’s the hard part. When you stop masturbating, it gives you what you need, that little something that makes you get with a chick. And that’s a sin. But I don’t know which one’s worse—the sin of masturbating or the sin of cheating on your wife.”
“Cheating, right?”
“Maybe. But being alone is the biggest sin there is against God. And masturbating really makes you alone. It’s like you never really live your life. It’s like you’re watching your life on TV. Life is a gift from God—to waste it, that’s worse.”
“When I got with that little actress, part of me felt really guilty and the other part felt really alive. Something in my head said, ‘You’ll only be young once. Go for it.’”
“I know both of those voices. One is from the devil. Try it for a few days.”
“Try what?”
“Don’t masturbate.”
Kurt and Eric enter Club Metro. They walk the gauntlet of eyes through the poolroom. A chesty brunette leans out across the green felt. Her tits roll forward and stop at the top of her U-shaped spandex neckline. She looks up at Kurt and winks. Kurt and Eric escape into the blacklights. Another girl bumps into Kurt, puts her hands on his chest, and giggles. Eric thinks to himself, It’s natural selection like the apes One male gets a whole harem, the other males are sent off into the woods alone.
“Isn’t that Nänce over there?” Eric asks Kurt.
“Yeah.”
They walk over. “Hey, Nänce. What’s up?”
“Yooou teeell meee.”
“Is the Jovi here?” Eric asks.
“Dirtdick?” Her blue eyes are surrounded by delicate, discolored skin. Nänce looks very sick and very beautiful at the same time. “I don’t know.”
“Is he with my brother’s chick?”
“Don’t know.” Nänce sips a red drink through a straw. “Hey, have you met Phoenix? She’s been saying some trippy shit about you.”
“I don’t know anyone named Phoenix.”
“That’s funny. She knows you.” Nänce smiles.
“Who the fuck is Phoenix?”
“She’s Sophie’s psychic. She says you and James are warriors—Sophie is a butterfly.”
“I’m a Christian. I know where that information comes from—it comes from demons.”
“Tell James you can’t grab a butterfly by the wings. You know what happens, right? The
wings come off in your fingers; they fucking disintegrate. And you look at your fucking fingers and it looks like a smudge of color, like makeup.”
“Fuck Phoenix. Tell her to leave my band alone.”
“You know what else she says about you?”
“SHUT THE FUCK UP!”
Nänce quivers, then smiles. “Fucking forget it. You’ll find out soon enough.” Nänce disappears into the sea of bodies on the dance floor.
Kurt marches into the poolroom, slugs down a beer and asks the Lycra-topped girl, “What’s up?”
The club is a labyrinth. Eric is lost in dancers, then on a couch under some stairs, then by the bar three people deep. Everyone looks really beautiful, then beauty goes home and what’s left looks desperate. Eric searches for Kurt Franklin. He is nowhere to be found. Outside, Eric calls a cab.
Kurt opens his front door very slowly. He can see a lump of bedding in the middle of the living-room floor. “Was she there?”
“Who?”
“Sophie. Was she?”
“No, man. Where?”
“Club Metro. How about the Jovi, did you see him?”
“No.”
“He’s fucking her. I know it. They’re probably in L.A., probably fucking right now.”
“No, man.”
“It’s like when we were kids. He has everything. We have nothing.”
“Nah.”
“Yeah. You started this band and you’re broke. You write all the songs.”
“It’s a band. We share.”
“You’re the only one sharing. What do those guys share with you?”
“What are you guys doing up?” Priscilla asks from the door to the bedroom.
“I’m always up. I just fucking lie here at night and stare at the ceiling.”
“Hey, Scilla, I’m sorry,” Kurt says.
“It’s okay. I have to get up anyway. What time is it?”
“I don’t know. I’m gonna take a shower and get some sleep.” Kurt kisses Priscilla on the forehead and walks past her into the bathroom.
“What’s that smell?” Priscilla asks, and wrinkles her nose.
“Smoke? Beer?”
“No. I know it. It’s a really cheap lotion that all the strippers buy. Did you go to a strip bar?”
Before the Flock Page 17
