Before the Flock

by David Inglish

  “No, babe. Some girl spilled a thing on me.”

  “A what?” She laughs.

  “A coconut drink.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  The next day Kurt drives out to Pastor Ron’s Vine Church. It’s a brand-new metal-roofed rectangular auditorium in Sorrento Valley. There are rows and rows of folding chairs facing a small blue-carpeted stage beneath a giant crucifix.

  Pastor Ron has a close-cropped orange mustache and an earnest expression. He smiles when he sees Kurt. “My rock star.” They hug and walk into Pastor Ron’s office. It’s a white drywall box. Pastor Ron sits back in his folding chair and takes off his round wire rims and rubs them on the tail of his denim shirt. “What’s going on, Kurt?”

  “It’s about a psychic.”

  Pastor Ron squints at Kurt. He’s very concerned. “Witchcraft! What’s happened?”

  “Sophie, my brother’s chick, she’s consulted a psychic, and the—”

  “The witch.”

  “Yeah, the witch told my brother’s chick to leave him.”

  “Kurt that may be a good thing, if this poor girl is under satanic influences, you don’t want her in your fam—”

  “No! It’s bad, because now she’s with the Jovi, you know, Bobby Dugan.”

  “Oh. You’re worried about Bobby…”

  “No. I’m worried about the band. I don’t think I can play with the Jovi if he’s with my brother’s chick.”

  “It’s a plot, Kurt—You sing for the Lord—The devil is trying to break up your band.”

  Kurt nods while a determination builds inside. “First the devil tries to make me think I’m crazy, now he’s trying to wreck my band.” Kurt lifts his palms up to the acoustic tile above them in a grand query. “Trial after trial.”

  Pastor Ron steers his VW van. Kurt smokes and hangs his heavy hand out the window. The wind sends sparks from his cigarette across his knuckles.

  “What are we going to tell her?” Kurt asks.

  “I don’t know,” says Pastor Ron. “To stop?”

  They park before a tony strip of shops in Del Mar. Between a hair salon and an upscale Irish pub sits Phoenix’s curio shop.

  They enter and Pastor Ron approaches the register. Kurt picks up a dreamcatcher. “Don’t touch anything in here,” says Pastor Ron.

  Kurt lets it fall from his hand.

  A woman closes the cash drawer and looks up at Pastor Ron. She has a grizzled shrunken face like a carved apple beneath frizzy curls. “Listen, Phoenix,” says Pastor Ron in a terse tone. “I need you to stop attacking this man with your witch—”

  “I’m not Phoenix. Stay right here.” The woman walks away.

  Kurt and Pastor Ron wait. Surrounded by crystals, pointy hats, and didgeridoos, the eyes of a hundred wolfs seem to bear down on them from framed posters on the walls.

  “Oh my…” Pastor Ron mutters as an iron-haired beauty glides towards him in a white robe.

  “Whoa…” Kurt says when he locks eyes with a tall blonde girl, Summer, in the back of the shop.

  When the iron-haired beauty gets close, Kurt looks at Pastor Ron and sees that his mentor is enchanted. Pastor Ron cannot speak under this woman’s gaze. To him her eyes are like spinning plates. Black then green then black again.

  Back in the VW van Pastor Ron asks, “Kurt, have you been unfaithful to Priscilla?”

  Kurt looks down, very dejected. “Yes.”

  Pastor Ron nods. “Those who are given to lust, the devil has power over them.”

  “That’s what I said to the band!”

  “The devil works with illusion. Illusion is just perception. My wife is beautiful on the inside.”

  “I thought she has indigestion?”

  “You’re a good person, Kurt. You’re heart is good. The devil will never have any power over your soul. He’ll just make you think things are a lot worse than they are.”

  “That didn’t go so well in there,” says Kurt. “If she gets her info from the devil, why did we get our palms read?”

  “Know your… enemy…”

  “And what did she mean when she said I have a murderer’s thumb?”

  Pastor Ron glances down at Kurt’s thumb. It looks like it’s been sawed off, like the nail goes the wrong way. “Stay away from the harlots. Love God. Love Priscilla. Love your neighbor as yourself. When you can’t walk anymore, He’ll carry you.”

  “Maybe we should just douse her with some Holy Water next time.”

  On December 15, Felder calls the Jovi and starts yelling. “We’re fucked. We’re so fucked. I can’t believe how fucked we are!”

  “What’s up?”

  “It’s Bernie. It’s fucking Rolling Stone magazine. DCA fired Bernie! The whole fucking music division! They were all getting ready to take their Christmas break and DCA says, ‘Merry fucking Christmas, you’re fucking fired!’ Pink slips on every desk.”

  “Whoa, no way. No one can fire Bernie.”

  “Okay, they didn’t fire him. They actually promoted him to the board of directors. But he’s banished from the music division. He’s not allowed to have anything to do with the music division until they clean this up. They’re bringing in a new team from Capitol. We’re fucked.”

  “What happened?”

  “Go buy this month’s Rolling Stone. They’re calling Bernie the King of Payola!”

  “Well, is he?”

  “Of course. I can’t believe it. Those brazen fuckwads at Rolling Stone, they bite the nipple that feeds them. How do they have the sack to act surprised? It’s common fucking knowledge!”

  “What is?”

  “The radio business—the whole thing comes down to hookers and blow. When you hear some crap song on the radio—you don’t like it and no one you’ve ever met likes it—even the DJ can’t convince you he likes it—I’ll tell you who likes it—the label and that’s it. Every major label—and some of the minors—hire independent promoters, IPs, to get spins—radio play. It’s regional. There may be an IP for Southern California, or Chicago, or the Bay Area. The record company pays the IP to promote an artist, the IP gets to the program directors—the people who make the playlists, the people who pick the music that gets on air—and bribes them with whatever it is they like: tickets to the big game, young hookers, old hookers, little boy hookers, coke, crank, cash, whatever. The record company gets to control what’s on the radio, the program directors get laid, and we get rich! That’s how it works.”

  “The people who listen to the radio get shit?”

  “Fuck ‘em! They should buy albums. This is standard operating procedure. No big deal. The IPs get a little dirty, but the record company stays clean—that’s how it has always worked until Jerry Finklestein. I want to kill that fucking Finklestein.”

  “Who’s Finklestein?”

  “A Portland-based I P,got popped for possession and rolled on Bernie to avoid a mandatory sentence. They expected to reel in some sort of Colombian drug lord. They didn’t expect to get Bernie Zupnik, the president of DCA Records, served on a silver platter. That’s why we’re fucked!”

  The news puts Thunderstick in a fog. Kurt calls a meeting of the band. We all show up at his apartment. Kurt says, “It doesn’t matter. We just recorded one of the best albums in the history of rock. The new people are going to hear it and know the truth. You can’t keep the truth down.”

  EJ stares over the Jovi’s shoulder at the fake wood paneling and says, “It would only be logical for the new people to consider the substantial investment DCA has in our band and our album. It only makes sense for them to try and promote our band to recoup said expenditures.”

  The Jovi says, “Bernie’s still on the board. He’s still Bernie Zupnik! And Felder is still Adam Felder. They’re still on our side. They’ll fuck whoever it takes to get our album out.”

  “This probably means our album isn’t coming out in January,” Eric says.

  “Shut up, Eric! You don’t know that!” Kurt presses his index fingers into his temp
le, locks and unlocks his jaw, and turns his head to the wall. “We have to stay ready. It’s always darkest before the dawn. This only means something good is about to happen.”

  James walks in, takes one look at the Jovi, and says, “Well? Are you still fucking my chick? How’s that going for you?”

  “We’re just friends.”

  “Nänce says you’re fucking her.”

  “You can’t believe Nänce.”

  “Look, James, we’re having a band meeting here, can you give us a minute, this is important,” EJ says.

  James turns around, walks out, and slams the door.

  “Sophie’s not your friend. Just know that,” Kurt says sternly, looking at the Jovi. “We’re your friends. We’ve been playing together for fifteen fucking years. Nobody our age has that.”

  “I know—”

  “She’d fuck me.” Kurt looks around to make sure that Priscilla isn’t there. “You know that, right? She’d probably fuck me too.”

  “No, she’s not like—”

  “She would. I’m probably next in line.”

  “You’re the one that would fuck anything.”

  Kurt turns to the Jovi, the veins in his neck filling with blood and his eyes sinking to blackness. “Do you have any idea what’s going on here?”

  “Hold on there, guys, cool down,” EJ says.

  “There are other realms at work here. The devil is fucking with our band. My brother’s chick. DCA. The witch. My jaw. None of you could even deal with this kind of pain. I have the worst TMJ that anybody has ever had. The pain starts in my fucking head and shoots down my arm until I can barely move.” Kurt slugs himself in the jaw. Bone on bone, the sound reverberates. He looks around the room, unfazed. “I’d do anything just to make the pain go away. I am a sinner. How many fucking times do I have to tell you that? I have sinned on my wife.”

  “Look, we’re all sinners, Kurt,” EJ says. “It doesn’t matter. What matters here is this business. Our band is a business.”

  “EJ’s right,” Sven says. “We’ve got to treat it like—”

  “Look,” Kurt points at the Jovi. “You invited evil into this band! Pastor Ron knows. Everybody knows but you. That psychic is behind this whole thing. I wish we could drown her like in the old days.”

  “Kurt, actually, only the ones that weren’t witches drowned. That was kind of the problem—congratulations your daughter wasn’t a witch, oh but she’s dead—”

  “SHUT UP, ERIC!”

  In a few hours it will be a new day, a new year, one year from a new decade—1989. It’s New Year’s Eve and Thunderstick is playing at a Persian disco called Maxime’s in downtown La Jolla. Unlike the House of Guitars gig, unlike so many of the other gigs that Kurt has forced Thunderstick to do, this gig looks like it will be fun. He tells the band over and over, “We need to play in front of as many people as possible right now.”

  Before the gig, Eric tells Kurt, “Dude. I’ve done it.”

  “Done what?”

  “I haven’t beaten my heater in like weeks. I’m about to explode.”

  Kurt laughs.

  “I can feel it—some male fluffing force building in my loins. It’s working. The chicks can feel my fluff.”

  “Where’s Dane?”

  “L.A.”

  “It’s New Year’s Eve and your chick isn’t with you?”

  “Some job for Tiffany Tucker—I don’t know.”

  “You got to straighten that out. Dane’s a great girl, but you’re the man.”

  “I know, man. I wish I could freeze her and thaw her out when all this horniness goes away.”

  “You can’t.”

  “That little actress in L.A.? All I can think about is that second I stuck my hand down her pants. I don’t know how to stop it.”

  “Pray about it.”

  “I don’t want to. I love Dane—true love. But I just want to throw true love in the fire and pull it out while it’s still smoking.”

  “Dude, what’s come over you? This whole band. It’s like you guys are under some dark force.”

  “You think?”

  Thunderstik rocks, forty-five minutes worth. Then it’s house music all night long.

  Carrie Gomez is a beautiful Mexican girl with dark skin and coarse straight black hair. Her mouth is wide and turned up at the corners. Her strong hands grip Eric’s shoulders and rub. He wants to get her out of the bar before she spots the Jovi, James, or Kurt and leaves with one of them.

  “I saw you at the beach,” she says, after they get in his blue BMW.

  “Really? When?”

  “A long time ago.”

  “You remember?”

  “Yeah. I don’t forget hair like this. I liked you from the first second I saw you. Do you like me?” She puts her strong dark hands in her lap.

  Eric notices the nurse vibe—white hose, short orange sixties-style dress. “Oh yeah. You look like a popsicle. I love that.”

  “What do you do to a popsicle?”

  “What do you do? Hmmm. You lick it, right?”

  “Yes.”

  He gets her back into his bedroom in the converted garage. Carrie is tender and talkative from the start. Eric feels eyes upon him. He looks around the room, sees little demons perched in the corners of the ceiling. He thinks they must belong to the Jovi—this is his old room. He turns his face from the nape of Carrie’s neck and sees the suffering Christ. He starts to think that whatever Kurt has is contagious.

  The next morning there is a persistent knocking on Eric’s front door. He drags himself out of bed, opens it, and finds two high school jocks standing there in baseball caps and sleeveless sweatshirts. One of them says, “Are you Eric Adams of Thunderstick?”

  “Yes.”

  The other one hands Eric a brown envelope and says, “You’ve been served.” They turn and run as if they think Eric is going to chase them.

  Eric closes the door, sits on his black leather couch, opens the envelope, and finds that the envelope does not contain fan mail or a promotional copy of the album. It’s a lawsuit. Spewing is suing Eric and everyone else in the band for four million dollars. Wrongful termination. His attorney is straight out of some North County strip mall. He has a photo of himself in the top left corner of his stationery like he’s a goddamned Realtor.

  Oh, shit, Eric says to himself. He calls Kurt and says, “Don’t answer your door.”

  “Too late.”

  “Come over and we’ll call Felder.”

  Kurt walks the two blocks. They call Felder. Felder says, “We’re gonna cram that guy’s head so far up his ass he’s gonna have to unzip his pants to pick his fucking teeth.”

  “How’s that?” Kurt asks.

  “This is fucking easy. I’ve seen these guys do it a million times. We come at him with two smoking barrels. We hit him with so much paperwork and delays that it runs up his legal bills and he just folds.”

  “So you’re going to call Stein and get him on this?” Eric asks.

  “No, man. Stein’s a deal guy. He doesn’t do this kinda thing. We call in the litigators.”

  “Stein took thirty grand and that’s it—now he’s done?”

  “Yeah. Basically.”

  “How much are these guys gonna be?”

  “More,” Felder says. “It’ll come out of the T-shirt money.”

  “I need that money to fix the TMJ in my jaw,” Kurt says.

  “Don’t worry, Kurt. I’ll tell Wellington to get you a loan. How’s about that?”

  Kurt presses his index fingers into his jaw and stares at the floor. “Fucking Spewing.”

  “Dude,” Eric says to Kurt, “I saw the devil. He’s fucking with me.”

  Kurt presses his finger on the receiver, looks Eric in the eye and says, “Have you seen any talking animals?”

  Felder calls the litigators and asks, “What do you need for a retainer?”

  “How many albums have they sold?”

  “Zero.”

  “Eighty gra
nd.”

  Felder calls Stein. “Execute the Summerland deal.”

  “The merchandizing deal?”

  “Yup.”

  “When?”

  “Now.”

  Felder calls Bill Wellington and says, “When the Summerland money comes in, send eighty grand to the litigators.”

  “These guys are going broke.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m working on a publishing deal that could be worth five hundred grand.”

  “Nice.”

  Kurt is a generous guy. No one would ever doubt that. Up in L.A. he gave away the last of his money to bums on the street. Now he still wants to reach out to those guys, the guys he understands. Kurt and Eric are on their way out to dinner in La Jolla before a gig at Club Metro. Eric asks Kurt, “What are the other signs of witchcraft?”

  “I told you about talking animals, right?” asks Kurt.

  “I’m good on that.”

  “Being unable to find your cock.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, Pastor Ron told me a witch can steal your stuff. You have to go and make the witch give it back to you. It’s in his book.”

  “What book is that?”

  “Malleus Malificarum. It’s five hundred years old and full-on.”

  “Whoa.” Eric reaches between his legs. “This is getting weird.”

  “The devil really doesn’t want our album to come out.”

  On the sidewalk a young bum, midtwenties and clearly crazy, is hanging out in front of Le Grande Gamin. He has a scruffy beard, a red homeless-man tan, shell-shocked eyes, and a tightly wound little bundle of clothes and bedding under his arm. Kurt walks up, looks him in the eye, and says, “Hey, man, are you hungry?” The guy nods and Kurt says, “Do you want to have dinner with us?”

  Inside the fancy restaurant, the three of them sit down among the tourists, golfers, and retirees—Kurt and Eric in their black leather gig gear, the vagrant in torn flannel. Kurt and Eric sit with menus in their laps. The homeless man sits looking at the walls and ceiling as if they are a new and troublesome technology. When the waitress comes over, she tries to take the bundle of clothes and bedding off the table and put it on the floor. The vagrant squeaks. She acquiesces. Kurt orders surf ‘n’ turf for three. They sit silently. Kurt looks at the vagrant, ready to say something, but somehow holds his tongue until finally, after the salad, he starts: “I know what it’s like. Living on the street. Abandoned by everyone who said they loved you. People call you crazy, but you’re not. Don’t listen to them—the voices—they’re not real.”