Before the Flock

by David Inglish

  “Yeah. Where’s my plastic?”

  “Sorry, sir, you must pay cash.”

  “Wait a second, bro, bring back the plastic, and we’ll talk this over.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “There was a reward.”

  “I’ve got it.” Sophie pulls a hundred-dollar bill out of her wallet.

  “Sorry, babe.” The Jovi wipes his forehead with his sleeve. “So I dropped off what was left of the purple chopper with this tweaker I know down in Point Loma. He’s gonna work on it when he can’t sleep. So, until it’s done or until the publishing money comes in, can I borrow your Jeep to drive to practice?”

  “I would love to watch you guys.”

  “Okay, okay, that’s cool.”

  “Let’s go pick up Summer. Make it a party.”

  They stop in front of an adobe house in Del Mar. Sophie sounds the horn. Summer skips out and hops in the yellow Jeep.

  “Hey!” the Jovi says. “There’s a new bounce in your shirt. Those are nice!”

  “Sophie got them for me for my birthday!”

  “You can’t see them like that!” Sophie reaches over and lifts up Summer’s shirt. Summer giggles, pushes Sophie’s hand away, and then lifts up her shirt herself.

  “Wow! I must say they look pretty natural,” the Jovi says. “You didn’t go overboard. Just a nice C cup or so. And nice nipples too, small, pink. The boys are gonna love those.”

  They walk into the Vine Church and every head is bowed. Pastor Ron holds the microphone with two hands as if it were precious. Sophie points at Pastor Ron and whispers, “He looks like he’s about to take that thing to the tonsils.”

  The Jovi laughs.

  Pastor Ron looks up, spots Sophie, and starts speaking in tongues.

  The three of them walk into the daycare room. Eric takes one look at Summer and says, “They’re gonna be praying for a while, and Kurt’s not here. Let’s go get some pie!”

  They drive over to Aunt Polly’s Pie Place off the freeway. Eric tries every trick in his very short book. “Hey, you know, Warhol hung out with models because he said they were like living works of art. You girls are like art. You know what I mean… You should be in a museum, like standing on a white box, you know, naked!”

  The girls laugh.

  “You first,” says Summer.

  “Actually I want to be an actress,” Sophie says.

  Summer holds her blonde hair in one hand, leans across the table, and licks the dollop of whipped cream off the top of Eric’s pumpkin pie. Eric gets up and comes back with a whipped-cream dispenser. He shoots up his whole plate with it, a ring around the outside, two eyes, a smiley face. Summer licks the whole thing clean. Sophie grabs the dispenser and shoots some in the Jovi’s mouth then kisses it out.

  “Let’s bring some pie back for Kurt and the guys,” Sophie suggests.

  “That’s my girl. What a sweetheart.”

  Back at the Vine Church, Sophie stands in front of Kurt, her outstretched arms holding a pie.

  “I brought these for you. I thought you might be hungry.”

  Kurt hesitates, then takes the pie.

  “Thanks.” He stares at Summer as he relentlessly shovels pie in his mouth.

  “Do you like my pie?” Summer asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “I baked it just for you.”

  “Don’t worry, Kurt, hair pie has no calories,” EJ barks out.

  “Dude. You gotta look at her tits,” the Jovi says to Kurt. “They’re perfect!” Right then a dark cloud passes over the room. They turn around and Pastor Ron is standing in front of the jungle mural. He’s about the size of the giraffe.

  “Whoa. Just kidding,” the Jovi says.

  “A pie party? And I wasn’t invited?”

  “Just some good clean fun. Pastor Ron is always invited. You want some pie?” the Jovi asks.

  “No. No, thank you. I don’t believe we’ve met.” Pastor Ron holds his hand out to Sophie. She takes it. He won’t let go. He stares into her slightly sleepy eyes, unaffected by her lush lips. She’s getting uncomfortable. Slowly, he twists her wrist, squints and asks, “Sophie Clark. You think the devil loves you?”

  She pulls her hand away and says, “Of course he does. I’ll prove it.” She turns her enchanting gaze to the Jovi. She holds both his hands. “Well? Do you love me? Confess it! Confess your love for me.”

  “I…” The Jovi pauses, looks over at Kurt, then Pastor Ron, then back to Sophie. “I love you, but I’m not the devil.”

  Pastor Ron laughs. “God loves you, Sophie.”

  Sophie’s cheeks get flush and her eyes tear up just a little. “Bobby isn’t the devil. His light is white. He’s my angel.”

  “If you like angels, we have them flying all over.” Pastor Ron lifts his arms to show the majesty of the mini-industrial building. “You should come to church some time.”

  “I’m here.” She stops. “No, totally.”

  After Pastor Ron walks out of the room, Sophie turns to the band and says, “I want to watch you make a song.”

  “I don’t know about that.” Kurt gets real quiet and his eyes shift around the room.

  “Please, just one. You guys are going to be the most famous band of all time. I just want to… I don’t know, like, be a part of history.”

  Kurt is bashful. He takes out his acoustic and strums a song. He plays a couple bars, starts to sing the verse, and then stops. “No, no, let me try this one.” Then he starts playing another song. “No, I don’t like that one anymore.” He starts another one, all of them new. Then he starts singing “I Wanted You,” a song from the album. His voice is on. EJ hums the harmonies during the quiet part.

  “I love that song! But it’s, like, on your album, right? I want to hear a new song, watch you guys create.”

  The girls stay through the whole practice. When it is done, Kurt looks at Summer and says, “Hey, let’s go grab a drink.”

  “Let’s drink and dance,” Sophie says with an eager expression.

  Eric picks up some of the pie mess, and Sophie says, “Don’t bother with that, the roadies will get it.”

  Eric laughs. “What roadies?”

  They go to Maxime’s, but it is a Tuesday night and pretty dead. They dance to a couple songs, just the five of them under the spinning lights, the Jovi, Summer, Sophie, Kurt, and Eric. Then they sit in the back in a black leather booth. Sophie reaches over and grabs Kurt’s hand. “Let me see.” She flips it palm up. Kurt hesitates for a second then gives in. She looks in his palm. “Do you see this? This is your fame line. You’re going to be very famous. Here, look at mine, it’s the same.”

  Kurt pulls the candle over and looks into her hand.

  “See. It’s totally true.”

  “Yeah, I know we’re gonna be famous, no matter what my hand says.”

  “It’s going to be hard on you.”

  His eyes soften.

  “I can help you navigate it. I’m already helping the Jovi.”

  “Yeah, dude. She’s totally straightened my head out about this whole fame thing. We just need to make insane music. That’s all we need to worry about. Everything else is going to be fine—she told me.”

  Kurt looks into Sophie’s curious, sleepy eyes and asks, “What about my thumb? Phoenix said it’s a murderer’s thumb. Am I going to kill someone?”

  Sophie pouts. Then she leans down and kisses Kurt’s strange thumb.

  The Jovi winces.

  “I’ve been around people like you, Kurt. You don’t fit in with the rest of the world. You aren’t like them. You’re the stuff of legends. You’re from another realm,” says Sophie.

  Kurt’s head turns. “What do you know about the other world?”

  “Things,” she laughs. “I’m learning. I’ve caught glimpses my whole life.”

  “So here’s the deal. The meds are like a wall. The wall keeps the voices, the demons, all that shit, over there. But it’s like the songs are ov
er there too, and I can’t get to them.”

  “Ahh. That’s why you couldn’t write a song in the church.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your demons bring you your songs. That’s what Phoenix said.”

  “Fuck Phoenix! God gave me those songs.”

  “For me it’s the opposite.” She leans over and whispers in Kurt’s ear, “The drugs for me are the door, the door in the wall.”

  Kurt’s hand slips under the table. Sophie pulls it back up above the table, gives Kurt a knowing glance, and hops out of the booth. She grabs Summer and leads her out onto the dance floor. Sophie holds Summer’s hips and slowly, rhythmically grinds to the music.

  Kurt swallows real hard. “I just realized something. My job is to write music—not to be stable. I’m writing songs for the ages. That’s all that matters—the music. Those pills, that’s not the way God made me. That’s some science thing.”

  “You seem happier on the pills,” Eric says.

  “Happy doesn’t matter.” Kurt gets back his hard look, finishes his beer. “I gotta get home, my wife and James are gonna wonder where I am.”

  As he walks out, Summer grabs her ankles and Sophie drives into her hips from behind in big, elongated strokes.

  Kurt opens the door and steps into his dark apartment. The lump of bedding on the floor says, “Hey.”

  “Hey.”

  “How was practice?”

  “Good.”

  “You guys playing any time soon?”

  “Yeah. You getting any sleep?”

  “No. Have you looked at the fucking magazine rack at the 7-Eleven? It’s all her. She’s on, like, four covers right now.”

  “Yeah. Well, what can you do?”

  “I can even smell her right now. Like she just walked in the room. Fucking weird, huh?”

  “I guess. Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  In his bedroom, Kurt can see the outline of Priscilla turned on her side beneath the white comforter. He reaches beneath the cover and holds the sole of her foot against the palm of his hand. “You loved me when no one else did,” he whispers. She grumbles and rolls onto her stomach.

  Kurt closes the bathroom door and turns on the light. On the counter, his brush, his towel, his hairwax, Priscilla’s makeup—all of it is in disarray and it doesn’t bother him. In the mirror he sees that his hair is a jumble of lines and curls, none of the hairs doing what they should, and it doesn’t bother him. He pours himself a glass of water, opens his bottle of lithium, and empties out a pill in his hand. He tosses it in his mouth. He sticks out his tongue, the white pill cradled in the center.

  This keeps you in there, he thinks, looking at the guy in the mirror.

  This makes everything okay

  It steals the gift

  He takes a gulp of water, tosses his head back, then looks in the mirror very sternly.

  Are you tonguing your meds?

  The man in the mirror opens his mouth, lifts his tongue, and reveals the white pill underneath.

  You don’t want to make the doctor angry now do you?

  He takes another gulp of water.

  Well? Show me Did you?

  He opens his mouth, lifts his tongue, no pill.

  What about the sides?

  He smiles. He sticks his finger in his mouth and pulls his lip to the side. The pill is in the back, wedged between a molar and the gum.

  This is your last chance Do it again, and we’re going to start giving you the needle

  Kurt takes a slug of water, swishes it around in his mouth, then shoots it out in a stream at the mirror.

  I don’t have to listen to you

  Kurt spits the pill into the toilet.

  You can’t do that

  Just did This is for the music

  Kurt takes the bottle of pills and pours it in the toilet. He flushes. The pills spin and bob and lose their command.

  It’s the beginning of June. Thunderstick has a gig at EJ’s mom’s house in Birdrock; it is EJ’s little brother’s birthday party. The gear is set up in the backyard beneath a mature, blooming, lemon-scented magnolia tree wrapped with white Christmas lights. The younger kids in La Jolla really look up to Thunderstick, and there is a keg—hence the big crowd.

  Eric is with EJ in his filthy room, looking around for a clean place to sit. Someone knocks. EJ lifts the bottom of the Madonna poster that hangs over the giant hole in his door, and they can see Sven. He sticks his head in the hole. “This is nice. I like what you’ve done with the place.”

  “In the old days you could punch a door and nothing would happen. Shitty construction these days.”

  Eric picks up one of the old green bottles of beer, holds it to the light, and notices it is cultivating inch-thick white mold above last remaining swallow. “Dude. You done with this?” He brings it towards his lips.

  “Shut up, Eric!” EJ says.

  Kurt kicks the door open, walks in clutching his skull, and yells, “I just heard from Felder. The album isn’t coming out for another two months.”

  “Fuck,” Eric says.

  “Fuck is right,” Sven says.

  They sit silently for a second. The walking bass line of a rap song drones from the yard through the wall. Kurt presses his fingers into his jaw, and slowly opens and closes his mouth.

  “Kurt, are you still taking the happy pills?” Eric asks.

  Kurt glares at him. “I wish people would stop FUCKING ASKING ME THAT!”

  “Sorry, dude.”

  Kurt opens his mouth and twists his head until his chin touches his neck. “I feel better than ever.”

  “What’s up, guys?” The Jovi stands in the door with a big smile on his face. “You guys! Good news. One of my swimmers found his way home.”

  “What?”

  “Dude. Of all the little guys that I have spilled in my hand, in my car, in my shower, in smiling mouths, in little dummies and hoors, only one swimmer has ever been able to make it to the Promised Land.”

  He looks at the band.

  They look back at him.

  “Sophie’s pregnant! We’re getting married.”

  “You’re getting married to Sophie?” Kurt looks concerned.

  “Yeah, that’s what I said. She’s pregnant! We’re getting married.”

  We all stand there for a second; the dull sound of teenage laughter from the yard fills the silence.

  “What, nobody’s going to congratulate me?”

  Thunderstick takes the stage and begins the set with “Alone, Alone.” The song starts mellow and builds momentum—a solid opener. It sounds good, and the kids seem to like it. There are three cute girls dancing together at the front of the crowd. Then, somewhere toward the back, two teenage boys start wrestling with each other, pulling hair and clothes, throwing punches. Kurt sees this from behind the mic, stops singing in the middle of the chorus, drops his guitar, runs off the stage, grabs one of the kids, and works him over. The other kid doesn’t know what to do. He steps away. The other members of the band look at one another and then look out into the crowd as Kurt is finishing up the kid with a barrage of uppercuts. The band slows the song down to a sad halt, and Kurt pushes the slumping kid into a planter box, looks around at the shocked faces, and yells, “DON’T EVER FIGHT WHEN WE’RE PLAYING MUSIC!” Then he walks off toward the cars on the street with the crowd parting before him like he is the pontiff or a man on death row.

  Thunderstick is ordered back to L.A. for depositions in the Spewing v Thunderstick four-million-dollar lawsuit. Spewing’s lawyer claims that his client was kicked and slapped repeatedly while on the job. Thunderstick claims that Spewing was woefully inadequate, cost the band one hundred thousand dollars in lost recording time, and had a confirmed drug habit that he tried to push on every other member of the band. Everyone is right. Why can’t we just shake hands and go home? Or settle it like men with some senseless violence followed by a group hug. Instead, Kurt and EJ sit at a conference table being deposed by Sp
ewing’s shopping-mall attorney, the leather-faced law books looking down at them while the clock runs and the bands’ dollars disappear.

  The band drives over to Felder’s office afterward. Felder says, “I’ve got some good news and some bad news and some more good news. First the bad news, apparently the name Thunderstick is already taken—not in the U.S. but in the UK. The drummer from the band Samson did a solo project and called it Thunderstick.” Felder pulls out the actual album and shows it to the band. The dark eyes of a tortured soul stare from inside a black leather mask embedded with a thousand shiny metal studs.

  “Whoa,” Eric says. “That guy looks like I feel.”

  “That takes creepy to a whole new level.” The Jovi adds.

  “Yeah and he’s wearing a fucking rubber suit and an asphyxiation collar,” Sven says. “I want to party with this guy.”

  “Lucky for us he never got the trademark in America,” Felder says, “but it screws us for our foreign sales. We’ve got to change the name of the band.”

  Kurt looks at the black eyes on the cover. His expression changes from dismay to fear to anger. He puts his hands above his head and screams, “NO FUCKING WAY! THIS IS CLEARLY THE DEVIL FUCKING WITH US! IT CAN’T BE REAL!”

  Sven taps the album with his finger, turns to Kurt, and says, “It’s real.”

  There is a moment of silence, everyone looking from the album cover to Kurt as he sinks down into a leather chair, his head in hands.

  “So what’s the good news?” the Jovi asks.

  “We’ve got a release date. This time it’s happening. Our album’s coming out in August!”

  “Sweet!”

  “Insane!”

  “Rad!”

  “Look, man, we’re Thunderstick! Do you get it? That guy is not Thunderstick!” Kurt says, as if he didn’t hear the good news.

  Felder nods at Kurt. “I know. I know. Look, the best thing to do is come up with a completely new name.”

  “NO! HELL NO! I WANT EVERYONE TO KNOW WE MADE IT!”

  “Cool down, Kurt. I talked to the lawyers. The other option is to make a minor change, like call the band Thunderstix, T-Stick, or spell it funny, like with no C.”

  Felder takes out a piece of paper and writes THUNDERSTIK. “See, like that.”