That line catches the vagrant’s attention. He looks at Kurt with eyes like painted Ping-Pong balls. Kurt continues: “You just have to ask God to make the voices go away. You have to tell the voices to go away in the name of God, in the name of Jesus, and they’ll go. It really works.”
The steak comes and the vagrant digs in. He eats every single thing on the plate, the beets, the parsley, the lemon wedge, everything except the lobster shell. He mops up the melted butter with a loaf of bread. The check comes quickly. Eric pays it. On the sidewalk, Kurt asks Eric for twenty bucks. He gives it to him. Kurt gives it to the vagrant. They get in the black ‘68 Mustang and drive to Club Metro. James greets them at the door.
The Jovi shows up, spots James, plugs in, plays one set, unplugs, and leaves.
“What the fuck was that?” Kurt asks.
The place is packed. The club kids like club music. It doesn’t matter.
EJ says to Eric, “It’s totally without merit. I expect a judge to throw it out of court.”
Eric says, “It’s still gonna cost us a lot of money just to get that far. Where’s that gonna come from?”
“Well.” EJ looks around the place, keen and detached, as if he were an Eskimo scanning a gray hunk of tundra. “What we really gotta do is get Kurt to split the publishing. It’s not fair if he takes fifty percent for the words and another twenty-five percent for the melody.”
“Fifty percent for words?”
“Yeah. We should split it even. It’s what the guys in U2 do. It says all songs written by U2.”
“Where is Kurt?”
“Over there.”
“Should we ask him about the publishing now?”
“No way, dude. He’s got another Betty cornered.”
In the corner, carnal thoughts fill Kurt’s head. She’s talking. He can’t hear what she says, but he can feel her breath on his neck. He shouldn’t. He loves his wife. But he can feel the heat from her skin. He shouldn’t. She might be a witch. How can he tell? He reaches out and takes her hand. She is soft. “Come with me.”
He watches her response. It’s hard to say “Where?” without smiling. She opens her mouth. He places his mouth on hers. Tongue to tongue, it’s like two fish fighting.
“I don’t care where,” she whispers in his ear.
He pulls her through the blacklights, through the poolroom, past the smiling spandex-top girl, past the bouncer, to the door of the black ‘68 Mustang Fastback in the parking lot. She grabs and pulls at every part of him. He lifts her onto the hood, devours her neck, and mounts her.
“Oh...” It comes from her center. “Your… Oh… You’re…”
Kurt’s hands grip her cold flesh. His hips drive into her. She folds around him. Her unsteady breath excites his heart like a drum roll. Her sighs have a sharp sound at the end. “Your band is really ggggoooood, oh.” He pumps harder. “I like your vvvvvvoice, oh.” He finishes in a quivering animal death jolt and pushes her into the car. He rolls over her into the driver’s seat and collapses. She leans on her side and runs her hand up and down his chest. “It’s ok,” She says. Kurt looks over. “You’re the biggest.” Her skirt is up high underneath her breasts that lie below her open blouse, overlapping each other like two U’s. Her skin folds in tiny lateral creases down her belly into the fold of her legs. The darkness isn’t enough. Kurt can’t stand her immodesty. He tugs her skirt down to her hips and says, “You just sleep with guys like this?”
“No. I like you.”
“My wife would never do something like this.”
She laughs. “I don’t want to marry you.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
She runs her finger up her thigh and lifts her skirt. “You’re moody.”
Kurt stares out the window at the swirls in the dark gray stucco on the side of the club. “I’m the best singer in the world.”
She laughs.
“I’m for real.”
“Okay.”
Kurt sees James walk out the front door of Club Metro and turn toward the parking lot. James casts an enormous black shadow on the stucco wall.
“Duck down!”
Kurt starts the car, drops it in gear, and the tires spin and smoke as he speeds into the back alley.
“Where are we going?”
James hears the chirping tires, looks up, and spots Kurt’s Mustang sliding into the alley. He shakes his head and walks back into the club. “Did you come here with Kurt?” he asks Eric. Eric is standing in a corner grinning.
“Yeah.”
“He just took off.”
“Shit. That’s the second time he’s done that to me.”
“Yeah. You want a ride?”
“You don’t have a car.”
“I know. I met this chick. She can drive us.”
James and Eric squeeze into the back of a Karmann Ghia.
James says, “Nicky, this is Eric, my brother’s keyboard player.”
From the passenger’s seat, Nicky says, “Oh my God! Your band is awesome.”
Eric shakes her hand then reaches his hand out the short distance to the driver. “Hi, I’m Eric.” The driver doesn’t turn around. “Hi, I’m Eric. I’m the keyboard player,” Eric says a little louder. The driver doesn’t flinch. He sits back in his seat.
“Oh my God! I forgot to tell you. Sandy’s deaf!” Nicky pats the driver on the shoulder and points at Eric in the backseat.
“Nahlow,” Sandy moans.
“I’m hungry. You girls hungry? HEY, SANDY! DO YOU LIKE THE MUSIC IN THE CLUB? YOU KNOW LIKE YOU CAN FEEL THE VIBRATION ‘CAUSE IT’S SO LOUD, RIGHT?” Eric asks.
“Yelling won’t help her hear.” Nicky flaps out Eric’s question to Sandy on her hands.
“Ngyah.” Sandy nods and smiles at Eric.
They end up at a twenty-four-hour diner off the freeway in Pacific Beach. Dust covered plastic plants surround the bright white booth. It is trimmed with red piping. The girls get up to go to the bathroom together. Eric gathers his courage and asks James, “How did Kurt get so…?”
“Yeah?”
“—Kurt.”
“I don’t know. It just kind of happened. He was pretty normal and then our lives got destroyed.”
“Do you think he’s like Van Gogh? So creative ‘cause he’s—?”
“He’s not crazy. I can tell you why I think he got so good, but you should ask him yourself.”
Eric nods, “That could be dangerous.” Eric smiles. “Tell me what you think, I’m curious.”
James takes a sip of water and looks around the restaurant. “Okay. This one night when we were kids, before they split, our dad opened up for B.B. King at Croce’s. ‘Cause it was a bar and we were kids they wouldn’t let us in the audience. We had to sit on the side of the stage. Our mom sat right in front. We watched her. She was kind of blue from the stage lights. By herself watching dad on his stool. He started playing this insane Asturian flamenco thing on his acoustic. It was fucking intricate and beautiful, faster and faster as he played building to this insane climax. The people in the bar were laughing and smoking and talking and fucking around. You could here them the whole time. It was pearls before swine for sure. When it was over my dad walked off the stage and handed his acoustic guitar to Kurt. He said, ‘Watch this guy. He’s not bad.’ Kurt sat there, side-stage, and played every note that B.B. King did. It was like an echo.”
“Whoa.”
“The people in the audience couldn’t see Kurt. They were too busy going apeshit.”
“What is it with white people and the blues?”
“Yeah, I know. So, B.B. King got annoyed with the kid copying his licks. He had the bouncers throw us out.”
“So how did that make Kurt so good?”
“Kurt told me afterwards, after our mom left us, that that night was the only time he ever saw mom look at dad like she loved him, when he was up there on the stage.”
“Ouch.”
“Kurt told me when dad spoke through his guitar, mo
m understood.”
“Fuck.”
“He’s been playing for four hours a day ever since. You’d probably be pretty good too if you played that much.”
“I’ll never be like Kurt, the Jovi, EJ, or even Sven.”
“You can hang.”
Eric shakes his head at the sugar. “So that deaf girl? She’s kind of sexy. What do you think it would sound like if she had an orgasm?”
“Eric—”
“It could be uncouth like a foghorn or it could be like Lorelei on the banks of the river Rhine – the most beautiful thing you’ve ever heard.”
“You don’t have to do that wingman shit with me, I’m not the Jovi.”
“I want to hear it. Really.”
“You’re...”
The girls are back. They sit in the booth.
Sandy slaps the tabletop and motions at Nicky. Nicky says, “Sandy has something she wants me to tell you.”
Sandy uses her hands. Nicky translates. “Sandy says, she can read lips, even from a distance, and understand us, so she wants to teach Eric some sign language so he can understand her.”
“Oh, cool.” Eric says. He hunches his shoulders towards the deaf girl and tries to look suave and attentive.
She holds out two fists. Then, slowly, she lifts both of her middle fingers. “FUGME? FUGOO!”
Kurt drives alone across town. The car rattles. He wants to know why the car rattles. The day he bought the car it was perfect. It didn’t rattle. That same afternoon he broke the sliding louver above the gear shifter. It wouldn’t go down; he couldn’t get his smokes. He forced it. It came off in his hand. Six months later, a lot of the car has come off in his hand. And now it rattles. Kurt decides that he’s going to turn the tide tonight, change all that. Tonight he is going to stop every rattle. There’s only one way to do this: drive, listen, stop, fix it. He drives, hears something in the right rear tire. He stops, takes off the hubcap, tightens the lug nuts, looks in the hubcap, nothing, puts the hubcap back on, drives. He still hears it. There it is again. He stops at a gas station. He stuffs blue paper towels in his pocket, looks around, drives away. There it is again. He stops, takes off the hubcap, crunches the blue paper towels in his hands, stuffs them in the hubcap, drives on. Yes. Silence. But what’s that? The muffler. It must be the muffler. He drives, looking for bumps in the road. Yes, something is loose, something in the exhaust. He’s smart. He parks the car halfway on a curb, two wheels up. He gets out, slides under the car. It’s dark. He flicks his Zippo. He sees a hole but no bolt. He takes off his belt, wraps it around the muffler. It’s hot. The belt is too big, too long. He needs to punch another hole in the belt. He needs something sharp, something like an ice pick. In shop class they called it something like an awe—an awl, that’s what he needs. Idea. Wrap it twice. Once. Twice. It’s done. Drive. What’s that? Something in the trunk. Some noise in the trunk…
Hours later Kurt opens the door to his apartment very slowly and steps into the darkness.
“Big night?” the lump of bedding on the floor asks.
“Hey.”
“Was she there?”
“Who?”
“You know who.”
“No. No, she wasn’t.”
“You fucked her, didn’t you?”
“No, man.”
“I know you did.”
“What are you talking about?”
“She told me.”
“Who?”
“I can hear her.”
“How?”
“I can hear her fingernails scratching on the hood.”
“Who are you?”
“You know me—I’m the one who knows you…”
Kurt recognizes the voice. “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus!” Kurt walks over and stands above the lump with his fist cocked. “What you got now, fucker?” There is no response. “WHAT YOU GOT NOW, FUCKER?” He kicks the blanket into the air, grabs it, whips it from side to side like a dog with a chew toy. A beam of bedroom light falls across Kurt’s feet.
“Honey? Are you okay?”
Kurt turns to find Priscilla standing in the doorway, outlined in radiant yellow light. He drops the blanket, goes to her, kneels at her feet, holds her robe, and cries. She runs her fingers through his hair.
Thunderstick shows up at the studio for Monday practice and there is no power. It’s been shut off. The next day we have a band meeting at Eric’s house and call Bill Wellington. He says, “The rent and utilities are paid in full. I’ll call the landlord.”
Five minutes later Wellington calls back. “Which one of you geniuses signed a lease for the band with a no bands clause in it?”
“We thought if we played after ten, no one would care. They did, so, ten became twelve, twelve became two, two became three, how can those fuckers complain now? We play in the middle of the night.”
“They’re done complaining—they’re evicting.”
“This is a good opportunity to take some time off,” the Jovi says. “Without a tour date, there really isn’t any reason to practice five nights a week anyway. We should move our stuff out and take a hiatus.”
“Cool.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
“No fucking way,” Kurt says.
“What are we going to do without power?” Eric asks.
“It’s the only thing that takes away the pain in my jaw. I have a physical need to play. Respect that!”
“I do. But we can’t really practice without electricity.”
“Let me deal with that.”
The next day Kurt calls everyone and says, “Be there at three A.M.”
“Did you get the power back on?”
“I rented a generator.”
“No fucking way.”
When he tells EJ, EJ says, “Kurt, that’s ridiculous. I’m not paying for a generator, and I am not playing at three in the morning.”
Kurt says, “Alright, how mellow, I write all the songs, but somehow I’m the brokest guy in the band. No one listens to me, alright, how mellow. I guess I’ll just take my fifty percent of the publishing for the lyrics—my two hundred and fifty grand.”
“Fine, we’ll be there.”
Every member of the band shows up at three A.M. Eric is sick, sneezing, coughing, and whimpering about razor blades in his throat. The Jovi is there in body. His mind is on a beach in Barbados with Sophie spreading for the lens. Sven is sleepy-eyed and slow. Jesse the Giant is stoned and contemplating the thick extension cord that runs between his legs, under the garage door, and out to the VW-sized generator. Nobody has remembered to bring a plug-in lamp so we practice in darkness.
When we show up the next night, the locks have been changed. It’s a relief to everyone except Kurt.
We go to Eric’s house and call Bill Wellington. He tells us: “Financially speaking, we are pissing blood. We can’t afford that studio anyway.”
Wellington calls the landlord and threatens a lawsuit. Thunderstick gets their stuff and moves it into the Vine Church. Pastor Ron says, “You are welcome to practice at night after services.”
Thunderstick loads in and sets up on the blue-carpeted stage in the giant auditorium between two hundred empty chairs and Jesus hanging on the cross.
Kurt’s physical need to play is like a tether. For Eric, Sven, and EJ, it keeps them from sleep, interrupts dinner plans, and keeps their ears ringing throughout the week. They don’t care. For the Jovi, Kurt’s physical need to play is keeping him from the love of his life. He takes her to the airport, watches her fly away, waits for her call, drives by her new house up on Gravila. He wonders with whom she’s talking. Who’s she looking at now? When she calls it’s like a thunderbolt of joy.
He picks her up in front of the terminal. “Could you do me a big favor?” She asks. “My script is up and it’s too late to call my doctor.”
He finds himself in the places he had tried to forget, making the connect, at 40th and El Cajon. Standing in front of a rancid wooden shack, he thi
nks to himself, I don’t ever want Sophie to come to these places, but there she is, sitting in the Jeep. Back at her place, he stares at the pills for a long time. He wants to make sure they’re legit. He wonders if he should try one for her. She comes over and takes them out of his hand, looks at them closely and tosses two down with a glass of water. “It’s just for my nerves,” she says.
“I know, baby.”
The word comes down from the top. And the new top is Jaime Seller from Capitol Records. He hires someone to hire all the other little someones. The little someones are upgraded assistants, sons of singers, daughters of friends, someone from radio, someone from Harvard with an MBA and a coke habit. They all know one another from summer camp or Hebrew school or rehab. They all listen to music and use the word “genius” until it means “stolen.” They’re all really fucking nice when they talk to you. The chicks look at you with big doe eyes and slip off their wedding rings. The guys have hockey hair and silk social-club jackets like union workers wear. Nobody understands Jeff Beck, New Order, and Lords of the New Church but them. Nobody develops artists anymore but them. Nobody cares about music but them. They might like you. They might hate you. You’ll never know. They’re planning your release and then the word comes down from the top and the word is: Stop working on Thunderstick.
Felder can sense it, smell it, see it in the evasive eyes of the DCA employees. He calls Jaime Seller, leaves a message, and doesn’t get a call back. He lets a week pass. He calls again.
“What can I do for you, Adam?”
“What’s going on with Thunderstick?”
“You tell me.”
“We delivered a great album. We want a release date, some spins, some promo, and a tour.”
Seller laughs. “That’s what everyone wants.”
Before the Flock Page 19
