“No? Why?”
“You’re married for one.”
“I don’t know if that’s going to last.”
She laughs. “Sure. That’s very funny. Two, you’re driving.”
“You can’t just do that to me.”
“Look, Kurt, I really like you. But I’m not the kind of girl who fools around with married men.”
“But I like you too.”
“Well, you know where to find me.”
Kurt drops Summer off at Phoenix’s house. There are wind chimes and sticks woven into symbolic geometric shapes in the yard.
“Is your mom a witch?”
“My mom is weird.”
“If I leave my wife, would you become a Christian for me?”
She smiles and slams the door.
Kurt steps into his dark apartment. The lump on the floor says, “Hey. How was the gig?”
“Good.”
“Was she there?”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck. You let her come to your gigs?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t care anymore, do you?”
A woman’s voice near the lump asks, “Who are you talking to?”
“That’s my brother. This is his apartment.”
“Right on.”
Kurt steps into his bedroom and closes the door. He drops his clothes on the floor and slips beneath the sheets. Priscilla is sleeping on her stomach. He runs his hand up her leg, feeling the tiny hairs bristle at his touch until his hand stops between her legs. Right now it’s just skin and hair, a flap of skin that he rubs, hoping for transformation. He breathes her in, puts his dry lips on her back. The skin loosens up and separates with moisture. He is hard. He finds the moisture and pushes. It resists. He pushes a little harder.
“Oh my God. Oh, it’s you. Thank God. What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“I was dreaming that the devil was trying to have sex with me.”
“Well he’s not. It’s your husband.”
“Oh, stop. Please stop.”
“Okay. Okay.”
“Leave me alone for a second, would you?”
“What the hell is going on here?” Kurt jumps out of bed and throws his hands up in the air. “My own wife won’t have sex with me.” He kicks one leg in his pants, then the other, zips up, and walks past the lump and down the stairs.
In the morning, Kurt calls Eric. “Get your ass over here. Now!”
The door is open, the shades are drawn, and Pastor Ron and a group from the Vine Church are sitting on the dumpy sofa in front of a massage table. Kurt is standing in the doorway to the bedroom, wearing nothing but a towel.
“What’s up, dude?”
“These guys figured out what’s wrong with my jaw.”
“What?”
“Show him.” Kurt motions to Pastor Ron. Pastor Ron holds a bundled blanket in his arms. He sets it down on the coffee table and ceremoniously unwraps it. Inside is a book, not an old leather-bound book with a giant lock, just a regular brand-new book with a pastel drawing of a woman in a negligee sitting on a crescent moon.
“So?” Eric says.
Pastor Ron shakes his head in disgust. “It’s a book of spells. Doesn’t it bother you?”
“Why should it?”
“Look.” He uses the corner of the blanket to open the cover. Written on the inside is:
James Franklin
Bobby Dugan
Bobby Dugan
Bobby Dugan
Kurt Franklin
Elmer Watts Junior
Sven Davidson
Eric Adams
Adam Felder
Darren Getty
The names have Wiccan symbols beside them. Eric reaches for the book.
“No! Don’t touch it! That’s why it’s in the blanket. It’s evil.”
Kurt looks Eric up and down. “That’s why the devil attacked my jaw. ‘Cuz I’m in her book. Do you still have your…” Kurt looks over at Pastor Ron. Pastor Ron nods at Kurt. Kurt continues. “Penis?”
Eric laughs. “Kinda.”
“It’s not a joke, Eric.” Pastor Ron says. “Check.”
Eric pulls on his jeans and looks down. “It’s there.”
“Clearly, she’s put a curse on the band, we don’t know what’s next,” Pastor Ron says.
“Who?” Eric asks.
“Sophie Clark!”
“How’d you guys get this book?” Eric asks. Nobody answers. They look at him with hollow eyes. “Who are these people?” Eric points at two dudes and an old lady sitting in the corner.
“They’re heavy with the Spirit. They are going to break the power of the curse and fix my jaw.”
“This is nuts.”
“No, Eric, it’s not,” Priscilla says from the bedroom. She walks out, big sad eyes, business suit, black tights. “That’s what I thought, but now I know it’s true. Eric, you have to believe them.” She kisses Kurt on the cheek and says, “Bye, everyone,” as she walks out the door.
Pastor Ron’s mustache moves above his trembling lips. “Eric, you’re in the book too. Kurt tells me your back hurts. Coincidence? No. Klaus can fix it.” Pastor Ron points at a compact Austrian with a strawberry-blond ‘fro who steps forward and cracks his knuckles. “First let us pray. Everyone take a knee, put your hands on each other’s shoulders. Good. Good. Dear Lord, we ask that you protect Kurt and Eric. They have wandered into the devil’s den, done battle with evil, and suffered the lacerations. Kurt, Eric, repeat after me, to the demons that attack Kurt’s jaw, to the demons that attack my wife with indigestion, to the demons that attack this band—we banish thee in the name of Christ.”
Then Pastor Ron’s head nods off to the side, and he whispers in an unknown dialect for quite some time. Pastor Ron comes to and speaks in a strong voice. “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will hurt you.”
“Yes, Father,” Kurt says.
“Eric? Don’t you have something to confess?” Pastor Ron asks from within his trance.
“No. I’m cool.”
“I can feel something.”
“I’m not exactly a good person, if that’s what you mean.”
“Tell me.”
“God loves the cripples; I can barely deal with a smelly grandparent.”
“That’s just the beginning. There’s something more, some kind of demon upon you. I can feel it. It’s in this room. You’ve seen this demon too, haven’t you?”
“Yeah, once I kind of did. I think it was Kurt’s demon. I think what he has is contagious. The thing jumped on me for a while.”
“Where did you see it?”
“In my bedroom.”
“What were you doing?”
“I was doing Carrie Gomez.”
“Fornication! I knew it.”
“Look, I believe in God. God got me off drugs. It’s all this devil stuff I’m not sure I believe in.”
“Eric, if you believe in one thing, you must believe in its opposite. How can you believe in the goodness of God and not believe in the evil of the dark one?”
“Dunno.”
“This band has fallen under a heavy satanic influence, and it must be purged before Kurt’s jaw can heal, before the band can be successful.”
“Look, I’m not the only fornicator in the band.”
“Eric, woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation on earth. Klaus! Hold him.” The compact Austrian man grabs Eric and wraps his arms around Eric’s shoulders and neck. “Ask for forgiveness, Eric!”
“Forgive me, Father, for my fortune in cheese!”
“Demon, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.” Pastor Ron reaches back and slaps Eric in the face with everything he’s got.
He collapses on the floor. “Fffuck.”
Pastor Ron nods and solemnly declares, “Okay, it’s time to get to work.” They put K
urt on the massage table, and Klaus starts manipulating his arms and legs and neck and back. The others lay hands on him. Pastor Ron starts with the tongues again. Eric opens his eyes to a side view of the world fringed in brown shag. The smell of old carpet fills his nostrils. Time fades in and out, and then Eric is facedown on Klaus’s table. Klaus rubs. Eric moans with pleasure. “Strong hands.” Klaus flips him over, bends Eric’s knee to his chin, and cracks his back like a lobster shell. Eric sees stars and feels a little nauseated. Klaus looks down. “Dahn’t vorry.” Eric feels Klaus’s flaccid dick poking into his elbow. Eric moves the elbow. The penis, sheathed only in silky short shorts follows Eric’s elbow wherever it goes. Klaus makes a loud groaning sound while he rubs Eric’s calf and pushes his cock and balls into the sole of Eric’s foot. Klaus walks around the table to the top; he grabs Eric’s shoulders and lifts him in the air, setting him down in a seated position on the side of the table.
“Thanks,” Eric says.
“You know, Klaus is very poor. Can you make a donation?” Pastor Ron asks.
Eric opens his wallet. There is a twenty. He hands it to Klaus.
“I don’t know about you,” Kurt says, “but I feel a lot better.”
Felder books Thunderstik a gig at the Lingerie in Hollywood, so they can play for Ron Headley’s touring agent and Josh Weiner from Polygram. The dressing room at the Lingerie is layered with even more graffiti and band stickers and filth. EJ and Eric are the first to arrive. Waiting for them in the horrible dressing room is Bill Wellington in a gray three-piece suit. “Hi, fellas. Would one of you mind signing for this?” He motions toward a brown cardboard box.
“Sure, what is it?” EJ asks.
“It’s all your financial records, checks for the guys who have something left in their accounts, bills for the others. We are terminating our relationship with the band.”
Kurt walks in with Priscilla under his arm. “What’s going on?”
“Our accountants are firing us,” EJ says.
“Hello, Kurt, we were hoping you could write us a check tonight for the loan.”
“I don’t have anything at all. I don’t have a car. My wife drove me up here. I don’t have money for smokes.”
“This is an urgent matter that requires your immediate attention.”
“I’ll send you a check when I get home. What do we owe you?” Priscilla says.
“We need the entire loan amount, plus interest. It comes to twenty-one thousand seven hundred forty-three dollars and seventy-six cents.”
Priscilla turns to Kurt. “You borrowed twenty-one thousand dollars without asking me?”
“I bought you that car!”
“I didn’t need that car. I don’t know how we are ever going to…” She puts her face in her hands and runs out of the room.
Kurt yells at her as she runs away. “We’re going to make so much money this isn’t going to matter!” Then he turns to Wellington. “You’re going to be sorry you fired us!”
“I’m willing to take that chance. Good-bye, gentlemen.”
Twenty minutes later Kurt is sitting, stewing by himself, when Sophie and Summer walk in wearing matching, formfitting, short Azzedine Alaïa dresses—the dress that Sophie is making famous. She has a closet full of them. These dresses are tight Lycra socks that stretch from a woman’s breasts to the very top of her thigh. There is so much leg and so much tit and and so much hair that Sophie and Summer look like they just walked straight out of a giant ball of flame in a rock video—except for the bulge in Sophie’s belly. Kurt does a double take. He hops up and runs over to Summer, holds her hand, and asks gently, “What are you doing here?”
Summer and Sophie put their hands on his shoulders and push him down.
“Sit in the chair.”
“We’re here to do your makeup.”
He fights off a smile. “Look Sophie…Summer…I don’t think…”
Sophie leans in and whispers in his ear. “Sshhh.”
Kurt sits calmly, obediently. He even looks up when Sophie tells him to. She takes out a long black mascara pen, brings it slowly to his eye, and presses on the flesh, moving the black line halfway across the bottom of his eye.
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING TO MY HUSBAND!” screams Priscilla. “YOU GOT YOUR OWN HUSBAND. LEAVE MINE ALONE!”
“What is your problem? I’m just doing his makeup.”
“This is my problem—right here!” Priscilla dumps the book of incantations out of the blanket onto the floor. The thing flops open, its spine bent back revealing the names written inside the cover.
“Where did you get that?”
“Take my husband out of your book!”
“Did you go in my house?”
“Take him out!”
“This is personal. This is none of your business.” Sophie picks up the book and holds it as if it were a child. She runs her finger across the woman on the cover. “You have no right—”
“The first name in there is James,” Priscilla says. “Do you even remember him? You used to fuck him? He was the Jovi’s best friend. He sleeps in my living room now. Does that ring a bell? He’s heartbroken! He loved you! Do you even remember him?”
“I never hurt him! I loved—”
“Don’t you do that to my husband! Take him out! You slut!”
Sophie’s face creases up like burning paper. She sits back on the hideous couch. Summer drops down next to her and pulls her in to her chest. “It’s for his own good,” Sophie says with a quivering voice. “It’s not black magic. It’s white. I don’t want your husband—”
“I DON’T CARE.”
The Jovi steps in between the girls. “Look, Priscilla, everything’s okay. There’s no need for this. We’ve all been through a lot…”
Kurt walks over and stands right in the Jovi’s face. “Don’t tell my wife what to do.”
“Dude. I’m not telling her what to do.”
“Yeah, you are. Don’t ever tell my wife what to do.”
“Well, don’t tell my wife what to do.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Well, she was. She was telling my wife what to do. So I told her not to do it.”
“Don’t tell my wife what to do. I’ll tell my wife what to do,” Kurt says. “Not you.”
“Nobody tells me what to do,” Priscilla says.
“Me neither,” Sophie says, sniveling on the couch.
“Fine. Then nobody tells anybody what to do,” the Jovi declares.
“Well, you can’t tell me what to do. If I stop telling people what to do, it’s ‘cuz I want to. Not ‘cuz you told me to. I’m the lead singer of this band. It’s my job to tell people what to do.”
“Just don’t do it.” The Jovi grits his teeth.
“I won’t. Because I don’t want to.”
The Jovi shakes his head, turns around, and kisses Sophie on the forehead. She stands up, grabs Summer by the hand, and pulls her out the door.
Priscilla does Kurt’s makeup—over does it, it isn’t cool. Thunderstik plays. Kurt sings. He looks like a big bad-ass drag queen. Priscilla stands in the crowd, looking up at Kurt like a conscience. Kurt stares straight ahead, not looking at his wife. He’s hoping to see Summer or Sophie or Felder or Weiner or Headley’s touring agent. All he sees is a bright white spotlight shining in his face.
Afterward, the Jovi pulls Eric aside. “Dude. Breaking news. Summer says she wants to fuck you.”
“No fucking way.”
“No, dude, for real. And let me tell you something else, this buddy of mine is a gynecologist, and he told me if you ever wonder if a woman keeps it nice and clean and orderly down there, just look at her toes. Look at Summer’s toes.”
“What about ‘em?”
“They’re fucking perfect, nice polish, no corns, no calluses. My buddy says when some girl comes into the exam room with chewed-up feet, he knows he’s gonna to need pruning shears and a gas mask when he goes down there to have a look.”
“The wisdom of th
e Jovi. It never ends, does it?”
“Never, bro. Stick around, you can learn a lot from me.”
“So how do we proceed here?”
“Divide and conquer. Wait for Kurt to leave with Priscilla. When he leaves, we meet the girls over at this club off Vine. Take her by the hand and bring her out into the middle of the dance floor.”
“Kurt and Priscilla already split.”
“Good. It will be loud and dark on the dance floor, and you’re a filthy little guy—let nature take its place.”
Driving with the Jovi over to the club, Eric feels happy and high. The doorman knows the Jovi. The girls meet them inside. Eric’s eyes move straight down Summer’s body to her toes poking out through her high-heeled sandals. The Jovi is right. She has really clean-looking feet with fresh, clear nail polish. Eric looks up and she is smiling at him. He leans over to the Jovi. “Dude. She’s a eucalyptus tree and I’m a koala bear.”
“Baby needs to keep his diapers on for another minute.”
Sophie says, “Eric, you guys were really good tonight. I’ve never heard that piano part before.”
“Me neither! There’s piano on those songs?”
Sophie laughs.
“You girls were at the show? I thought you left.”
“Totally! We wouldn’t miss it.”
“Sorry about Priscilla.”
“Huh?” Sophie cups her ear with her hand.
“Never mind. Hey, Summer, you look hot. Get it? It’s a play on words.”
Before the Flock Page 26
