Climbing the Rock

Chapter 8A: Imagery

June 28, 1983

John F. Kennedy Airport

New York City, New York

The limousine stopped as close to the Nationwide Airlines terminal as possible. The driver had been instructed not to open the door for them. That would only attract attention. The hope was to get through the airport lobby and security checkpoint as anonymously and unobtrusively as possible. It was a slim hope at best, but a hope nonetheless.

Jake opened the door and stepped out. He was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a button up short-sleeve shirt. Dark sunglasses covered his eyes. His long hair was tucked up under a San Francisco Giants baseball cap. He carried a simple duffle bag in his right hand.

Stepping out behind him was Janice Boxer — the National Records publicity department agent who had accompanied the band on their tour, coordinating autograph session and radio station interviews. The end of the Descent Into Nothing tour of 1983 had apparently, and unfortunately, not been the end of the band's association with Janice. It had only been the beginning. She had been named as Intemperance's head publicist. And even though the tour was over there was lots of publicity to cash in on.

Intemperance had the most popular song in the nation right now. After Who Needs Love? had peaked at number four The Point of Futility was released and had shot up the charts like it had been fired from a cannon. It had been at number one for the past three weeks and was showing no signs of giving up its position just yet. Nor was that the only chart Intemperance was atop of. Descent Into Nothing — the album — had been number one on the album sales chart for eleven weeks now and was still selling as fast as National Records could ship copies to the stores. It had gone platinum back in May, just six months after its release, and was predicted to go double platinum around late November.

This popularity, coupled with the morbid publicity that was still going strong from the Spinning Rock article meant that National Records was doing everything within its powers and within the vast boundaries of its contract with the band to keep Intemperance in the forefront of the public's mind. The band members were being flown all over the country — individually, in pairs, and all five at once — to attend everything from record store openings to local television news interviews to nationally syndicated telecasts. The band had appeared on Saturday Night Live and American Bandstand. Jake and Matt had been interviewed for two hours on Rockline. On this particular trip Jake had been sent solo to the seventy-two story NTV building in New York City where he was subjected to a particularly inflammatory and caustic interview by Brad Cummins of the renowned Wake Up USA show. He was still seething from the treatment he had received at the veteran interviewer's hands.

"Don't you believe that this so-called music you produce is a deliberate attempt to foment the corruption of the youth of America?" had been one question. And before Jake could even complete a sentence of his reply, Cummins began retorting. "Oh come now! You make songs about drug use and Satanism. You make videos that glorify protest and serial killers and satanic rituals. Tell me something. Is it all just an act to sell records or do you really believe in all of this?"

And of course, Jake had stammered and stuttered at this point because there was no way to answer that question without seeming to admit that he was either in favor of Satanism or at least pretending to be. The end result of this was that he came across to a nationwide audience like a stoned out moron, which was exactly what Cummins had intended. The interview had only been five minutes but it was five minutes that had been among the longest of Jake's life.

"Can you believe that asshole," Jake asked Janice as they entered the terminal building. "Shouting a bunch of accusatory questions at me and then interrupting while I'm trying to respond? They call that journalism?"

"No," Janice said. "They call it entertainment. That's all television news is. He's not a journalist, he's an actor, and a damn good one at that. He was given his lines by the people who produce the show and he read them off to you, just like an actor is supposed to."

"Did you know he was going to do that?" Jake asked her.

"Well, of course," she said, rolling her eyes a little. "That's his style. Don't you ever watch Wake Up USA?"

"No. I don't."

"Don't feel too bad. He's done that same shtick to presidential candidates, heads of state, veteran actors and actresses, judges, lawyers, you name it. And some of them came off looking even worse than you did up there."

They began to walk through the terminal, heading toward the line at the security checkpoint. Other people milled around, moving in different direction, heading for different parts of the building. A voice overhead announced arrivals and departures.

"If you knew he was going to do that," Jake asked, "then why didn't you at least warn me beforehand?"

"Warn you?" she asked. "Why would I warn you? You performed perfectly. You came across exactly the way we wanted. I couldn't have scripted you any better than that."

"You wanted me to look like an idiot up there?" he asked, grappling with his temper.

"Idiot is not the word I would use," she said. "Disorganized, unremorseful, defiant. That's what we wanted."

"That's what you wanted?"

"Of course," she said. "It not your fans who are watching Wake Up USA — your fans are still in bed at that hour — it's their parents. We need to keep their parents outraged at you as much as possible. The more disgusted with you the parents are, the more albums the kids will buy."

This was an old subject for Jake and the rest of the band. The old image is what sells your music argument. Jake didn't hold to it anymore now than he had when they'd tried to change his name to JD King. They made good music, music that people liked to listen to over and over again. That was why Descent Into Nothing had sold 1.3 million copies. That was why The Point of Futility was sitting firmly at the number one position. Not because Jake had once snorted cocaine out of a groupie's ass or because that moron producer had made some horrible videos. And certainly not because some asshole actor on a television show had made him look like an idiot.

But you couldn't tell that to people like Acardio or Janice or even Shaver, their agent. They claimed complete and total credit for the runaway success of Intemperance — a success that had surpassed even their most optimistic imaginings during the early stages of the contract. In their view a band that was promoted correctly with the proper amount of parental outrage and controversy simply had to produce palatable music in order for success to occur. They would make the admittedly compelling argument of Kiss in order to make their point. Musically, Kiss was beyond simple, edging into the territory of hopelessly mundane. All of their songs used the same basic guitar riffs and employed the same style of bland, formulistic lyrics. If not for the make-up and the blood spitting and the outfits, Kiss wouldn't have sold a thousand albums nationwide. Jake knew this was true, of course. Any real lover of music looked at bands like Kiss with contempt. But Kiss was also an anomaly, the one true example of image overcoming artistic ability. Just because the formula had been successful once, record execs had mistakenly concluded that that was the key and tried to duplicate it with every band they signed. The popularity of MTV and music videos in general was only making this trend worse. When the record companies failed to successfully promote an image-only band successfully, they blamed it on poor publicity or on the public not being quite ready for that particular image. And when a band did become successful because of good music — like Ozzy, like Dio, like Motley Crue, like Intemperance — they assumed that their image shaping had simply been a success this time.

"Dude," a voice said on Jake's left. "Aren't you... like... Jake Kingsley, dude?"

Jake suppressed a sigh and put a smile on his face as he turned and beheld two young men in their late teens. They were dressed like college kids heading off somewhere for summer vacation, which was to say they were dressed similarly to Jake himself.

"That's me," Jake told them, already reaching for the pen he habitually kept in his back pocket for just such occasions.

"Dude," the first young man said, his eyes shining. "This is, like, so awesome. Can I get your autograph, dude?"

"Sure," Jake told him, pulling out the pen. "You got something for me to sign?"

The young man handed over his airline ticket stub. Jake asked his name.

"It's Mike," he said. "Mike Millen."

"How do you spell it?"

Mike looked at him strangely. "Uh... M-I-K-E, dude."

"No, I mean your last name," Jake said.

"Oh," Mike said, hitting himself in the forehead. "Like... duh." He spelled it out.

Jake scratched out a variation of his standard autograph scrawl: To my friend Mike Millen, Keep rockin, dude. Jake Kingsley.

Mike's friend was Jason. Jake signed his airline stub as well.

"Thanks, dude," Jason said. "You really rock, man. I was at your MSG gig. Heard you had a real good time after it, you know?"

"Yeah," Jake said. "I know. Take it easy, guys."

They thanked him, told him he rocked one last time and then wandered off, comparing each other's autographs. Jake hoped that would be the end of it, but of course it wasn't. Others had noticed the interaction and had homed in on it. Many had probably been asking themselves if that could be Jake Kingsley over there but had not been sure enough to approach and ask. Now that they saw him signing autographs for Jason and Mike, their suspicions were confirmed and their fears of approaching a celebrity were assuaged. Within seconds there were more than twenty people clustered about him, all of them chattering away and pushing airline stubs or other scraps of paper in his face.

Jake started signing, asking each person's name and how to spell it and then scrawling out basically the same thing he'd scrawled for Jason and Mike. He passed a few words with each person, shook each hand, and remained polite and soft-spoken. When they asked questions he answered as briefly and as vaguely as possible. And, of course, as always seemed to happen when he stepped out into public these days, the small crowd continued to swell as other people drifted over to see what all the fuss was about, as people leaving the crowd reported to those outside of it that it was Jake Kingsley in there. He began to get claustrophobic as they pushed in at him from all sides, as they all tried to speak at once. His hand began to cramp up after about the thirtieth signing. And, as always also happened, a few people pushed their way through not to get his autograph but to express their disapproval at what he was and what he represented.

"God will punish you harshly come the judgment," said a middle-aged woman dressed in a frumpy ankle-length skirt. "You'll burn in the fires of hell for eternity!"

"Well, at least I won't have to worry about what to wear," he replied blandly.

"Rapist!" shouted another woman, this one college age and wearing a Cornhuskers T-shirt. "Stay away from this pig, girls. He's nothing but a common sex criminal."

Jake didn't have to answer this one. Several members of the crowd spoke up for him.

"He can sex crime me any time he wants," said one young lady.

"You're just mad he won't snort coke out of your fat ass," said a young man.

This led to a shouting match between the Cornhuskers girl and the actual fans, which quickly escalated into something like a pushing match. That was when Jake decided enough was enough.

"Listen, folks," he said, raising his voice loud enough for all to hear. "I really need to get checked in for my flight. Sorry I couldn't get to everyone."

With that he pushed his way out of the crowd and headed for the security checkpoint once again, Janice trailing silently behind him. There were a few pleas from those who had not gotten their autographs and even a few angry words about how Jake was forgetting where he came from. Jake didn't look back.

"You didn't have to be so huffy to them," Janice chided. "They are your fans, after all."

Jake ignored her. If she would've had her way he would've stayed there for six hours signing something for every person in the airport.

There was a short line at the security checkpoint. The people waiting in it all stared at him and whispered among themselves, but none of them talked to him. The two security guards manning the checkpoint, however, seemed very interested in him. One of them spoke into his phone, covering his mouth and glancing over at Jake as he came closer and closer.

When Jake and Janice got to the front of the line and put their bags on the conveyer the guards let them run through the machine and then took both of them off and set them to the side. After they walked through the metal detector the guard who had been on the phone asked them if they could step over to the side for a minute.

"Is there a problem?" Jake asked.

"I don't know," the guard asked arrogantly. "Is there?"

Jake sighed. Janice seemed about to say something but changed her mind.

Within a minute two uniformed police officers arrived, one of them a sergeant. They conferred in whispers with the two security guards for a moment and then walked over to Jake.

"I'm afraid we're going to have to search through your carry-on luggage," the sergeant told them.

"What for?" Janice asked.

"The officers noticed some strange items in the X-ray," they were told. "We just want to take a closer look."

"Bullshit," Jake said. "They were on the phone to you before we even put our bags through."

He looked at Jake mildly. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said. "But even if that was the case, you are subject to search in this airport. I believe you might've seen signs to that effect when you came in?"

Jake shrugged. "Go ahead," he said. "But there aren't any drugs in there. All you're gonna find are my dirty underwear and some shampoo samples I swiped from the hotel."

They went ahead, pawing through everything in both Jake and Janice's bags in full view of the other people making their way through the checkpoint. They held up Janice's panties and even felt the lining. They opened up Jake's electric razor and sniffed the inside of it. When they failed to find anything incriminating they had both of them submit to search of their person.

"I will certainly be sending a letter to your chief about this," Janice huffed as they made her turn out her pockets and dump the contents out onto a tray.

"You do that," the cop said as he commenced patting her down.

They did the same to Jake, who dumped his cigarettes, his lighter, his wallet, and two dollars in small change out for them. When it was over they didn't apologize for the inconvenience. They simply told them they could enter the terminal and then they left.

"The nerve of those people," Janice fumed as they made their way into the terminal. "Searching me. We'll just see what my husband has to say about all this when we get back."

"He'll just try to get it written up in the newspaper somewhere," Jake said. "Jake Kingsley suspected of drug smuggling at JFK. Cops unable to find his stash."

"Hey," Janet said, brightening. "That's not a bad idea."

Jake just shook his head and showed his boarding pass to the security agent guarding access to the first class lounge.

They waited in the lounge for about twenty minutes. Through it all Jake could see people pointing at him, whispering about him, much of it, he was sure, disapproving in tone. The other first class passengers were mostly older types wearing suits or business dresses. They probably weren't Intemperance fans. None of them came over to talk or ask for an autograph.

The aircraft was a Boeing 747 and the first class section was on the upper deck, just behind the cockpit. They climbed up the steps and went to their assigned seats. Jake and Janice were in the second row on the left side. Janice claimed the window seat, leaving Jake on the aisle. He stretched out and tried to relax a little as the rest of the first class passengers found their own seats. No sooner had he settled in than a tall, clean-cut man wearing a white uniform and cap emerged from the cockpit and walked directly over to him.

"You're Jake Kingsley, right?" the man asked, glaring down at him.

"Yeah," he said. "I am."

"I'm Captain Simmons," the man said. "I'm in command of this aircraft."

"Uh... okay," Jake said. "Nice to meet you, Captain." He held out his right hand.

Simmons just looked at it. "You're not going to cause any trouble on this flight, are you?"

Jake let his hand drop. "I wasn't planning on it," he said. "What sort of trouble was it that you were thinking I'd cause?"

"Drunken behavior, lecherousness, drugs, Satanism. I won't put up with any of that on my aircraft."

"Satanism?" Jake asked. "You were afraid I'd have a satanic ritual on your aircraft?"

"Don't be smart with me, boy," Simmons told him. "You just keep your nose clean up here. There's any trouble from you, I'll land at the nearest airport and have the FBI take you into custody."

Jake sighed. "I'll keep that in mind," he said.

"You do that," Simmons said. "My flight attendants have been instructed to keep an eye on you."

With that he turned and walked back into the cockpit, closing the door behind him.

He wasn't gone more than ten seconds before one of the flight attendants in question came over to him. She was a redhead, in her early twenties, and possessed a body that filled out her red and white uniform quite nicely.

"Hi," she told him, leaning down so close she was flirting with violating Jake's personal space. "I'm Laura. I'll be your flight attendant. I'd just like to tell you that I really love your music."

"Thanks," Jake said, giving her a smile.

"I tried to catch your show in LA but all three dates were sold out."

"Well, maybe next time," Jake said.

"Do you think you could sign your autograph for me?" she asked.

"You bet," Jake told her, taking out his pen. "Do you have something for me to sign?"

She giggled a little. "Oh I got lots of things for you to sign," she said. "But for now, I guess we'll have to make do with this." She tore off a page from her order book and handed it to him.

"What's your last name, Laura?" he asked.

"Grover," she told him.

He had her spell it and then wrote, To Laura Grover, the best damn flight attendant in the sky. Keep on rockin, Jake Kingsley. He handed it back to her.

She read it and then giggled again and made it disappear into her pocket. "Thanks, Jake," she told him. "Now can I get either one of you a drink while we're waiting for the coach section to board?"

"I'll have a bloody Mary," Janice said. "A strong bloody Mary."

"You got it," she said, noting that down. "And what about you, Jake? Do you want a bloody Mary as well?"

"No, I'll just have..."

"How about some Chivas and Coke?" she offered. "I read in that article your agent put in Rock Star magazine that you love Chivas and Coke."

"Uh... no, thanks," he said. "I'll just have some coffee."

"Coffee?" she said, disappointed. "Just coffee?"

"It's only ten in the morning," he said. "I wouldn't want to get drunk this early. Who knows what might happen. I might start having a satanic ritual or something."

She giggled yet again, casting a knowing look towards the cockpit. "Right," she said, winking at him. "I get you."

When she returned four minutes later and set the steaming cup of coffee down before him she winked again. "Just the way you like it," she said. She then gave Janice her bloody Mary and headed off down the aisle to get more drink orders.

The coffee smelled funny to Jake. He found out why when he took the first sip. It was heavily spiked with whiskey, whiskey that tasted suspiciously like Chivas Regal. He shook his head in consternation and drank it anyway. What the hell? It's what they expect of me.

Ten minutes after they reached cruising altitude Laura propositioned him.

"Do you want to come back and see the flight attendant quarters?" she whispered in his ear.

"Uh... no, thanks," he told her. "I thought maybe I'd just get a little sleep."

"But I'll show you everything," she said. She looked around and, seeing no one paying undo attention, added, "Including the bathroom that we use, if you know what I mean." She blew softly in his ear as she said this.

He, of course, knew what she meant. And, as intriguing as the thought of joining the mile-high club with a stewardess might be, he didn't think it would be a terribly good idea right now, not with the scrutiny the captain had told him he was under. "I don't think that's a good idea, Laura," he said. "We might get caught. And if we did, they'd fire you, wouldn't they? I wouldn't want to be responsible for that."

"We won't get caught," she said. "Trust me. And even if we did, it would be worth it."

"I'll... uh... have to take a rain check on that," he said. "Sorry."

She pouted a little but didn't push the issue any further. At least not yet.

What she did do was keep feeding him drinks. She gave him another cup of spiked coffee and then a Chivas and Coke. By the time he finished these he was starting to buzz, his better judgment retreating towards the back of his brain... again.

It was after his fifth drink, as they were cruising at 38,000 feet over central Missouri, and as Janice was snoring lightly beside him, that he gave in. He exchanged a few words with Laura, receiving his instructions, and then she disappeared. He waited five minutes and then stood up and walked back to the far end of the first class section, past the staircase and into the flight attendant's quarters. There was a warming kitchen, several coffee pots, and a bar back here. The bartender was a fortyish woman who looked at him knowingly.

"I think you need the bathroom, don't you?" she asked him, giving a wink. "It's that door right there. Just go on in."

He went on in. Laura was waiting for him there, her pantyhose and panties wadded up and tossed into the small sink, lust in her eyes. She kissed him hotly, sticking her tongue into his mouth. He let his hands go to work, squeezing her bare ass with one, fingering her wet vagina with the other. She moaned into his mouth and then broke the embrace. She dropped to her knees, unbuttoning his jeans and tugging them to his feet. She took his hardness into her mouth and began to suck, delivering a blowjob with a precision and skill that equaled that of the best groupie he'd been with.

She brought him nearly to the brink and then suddenly pulled free.

"Sit on the toilet," she hissed at him. "I want to fuck you."

He sat on the toilet. She stepped forward and pulled up her skirt, showing him that she was indeed a natural redhead. She squatted over him and started to lower herself down. He grabbed her butt and stopped her.

"Wait a second," he told her.

"What?" she asked, panting.

"I need to put a rubber on," he said, reaching down to extract his wallet from his pants. He never left home without at least two condoms in there.

"You don't need that," she told him, trying to force herself down now that one of his hands had come free. "I'm on the pill."

"Actually, I do need it," he said, pushing her back up a little. "It's in my contract."

"In your contract?" she asked, confused.

"Yeah," he said, finally getting the wallet. "One of those clauses they put in. You know how it is?"

While she puzzled over this he extracted the wallet and then the condom from within it. It was not actually a part of his contract of course, but he'd had enough lectures on the horrors of sexually transmitted diseases and paternity suits to make sure he never rode bareback. He opened the condom and rolled it expertly into place.

Laura sighed a little. Though Jake would never know it, she actually was not on the pill and was in fact in the middle of the most fertile period of her cycle. Her vague hopes of getting herself pregnant by what she assumed was a filthy rich rock star were dashed but at least she still could still get half of what she was after. She sank her body down on Jake's cock, engulfing him within her. She then began to buck up and down, moaning while she kissed him.

Jake knew there was little chance of actually giving her an orgasm in such a cramped and nervous environment. He held on for about five minutes — enough time to qualify as a respectable performance — kissing her, feeling her ass, whispering nasty things in her ear, before allowing himself to let go and fill the condom with his sperm.

When they stood back up he removed the rubber and tied a knot in it. He then personally flushed it down the toilet, adhering to another rule that had been ground into him by National's security experts: If you're going to leave a used rubber lying around where some bitch can pick it up, you might as well just fuck 'em without it. By this point in his career his mind was so jaded by his profession he didn't even stop to think that normal men didn't have to worry about such things.

They cleaned up and then exited the bathroom. The bartender gave them both another wink but said nothing. They did not get caught.

Jake returned to his seat and was soon fast asleep. He didn't wake up until they were on final descent to LAX.

A limousine dropped Jake off in front of the twenty-eight-story Esnob Pinchazo Tower building in downtown Los Angeles. The driver opened the door for him and he stepped out, duffel bag in hand.

"Now remember," Janice told him, "we have that movie premier on Saturday night."

"I remember," Jake told her. As if he could forget. He had been dreading the experience ever since being told about it two weeks ago.

"I'm sure Manny will remind you and see that you're dressed in the tux we're sending over." She was referring to Manny Mariposa, the live-in maid/butler/cook who had been hired for him.

"I'm sure he will," Jake said.

"And do try on that pentagram medallion we gave you," she said. "It would look so... you know... Satanic if you wore it with your tux."

"I threw the pentagram medallion in the garbage," Jake said. "Don't send another one."

Janice feigned hurt feelings. "That was a gift, Jake," she said. "Mr. Acardio himself picked that out for you."

"And deducted the cost of it from my recoupables, no doubt. I'm not wearing a pentagram or anything else besides the tux, Janice. That's final."

She shook her head. "Sometimes you're just so resistant to the image enhancement program we're running, Jake. Don't you know we're just trying to look out for your interests?"

Jake snorted in disgust. "Goodbye, Janice," he said. "Nice traveling with you."

Before she could say anything else, he walked away, heading for the main lobby door.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Kingsley," said the uniformed doorman who guarded the entrance to the upscale residential building. "Did you have a nice trip?"

"Did you catch Wake Up USA this morning?" Jake asked him.

"Yes sir, I did," he said.

"Then you know what kind of trip I had."

The doorman nodded, unfazed. "Can I get someone to help you with your bag, sir?"

"No, thanks," Jake said. "I think I can manage."

"Very good, sir," he said and held the door open.

Jake entered the plush lobby and walked directly to the elevators. There were two other residents of the building standing there waiting. One was Steve O'Riley, a flamboyant weatherman on one of the local news channels. The other was Tanya Harrigan, an aging character actress whose specialty was playing a mother in made-for-television movies and after school specials. They both nodded to him, displaying as little recognition as they could socially get away with. Though the building was full of two-bit actors, local television personalities, and other minor league celebrities, most of them chose to snub Jake when they ran into him. They seemed to think that a Satan-worshipping rock musician didn't belong in their beloved high-class building. Jake had been told by one of the doormen he was friendly with that there had even been a meeting of the owner's group in which they had tried — unsuccessfully — to initiate the eviction process on both him and Bill, who also lived in the building. The only time any of them talked to him at all was when they were out of cocaine and couldn't find their dealer and, assuming Jake was a raving coke-fiend, tried to beg some off of him.

Tanya got off the elevator on the sixth floor. O'Riley got off on the ninth. Jake then rode alone all the way up to the twenty-fourth floor, where the larger condos were. He stepped out into a spacious, lushly carpeted hallway that was lined with oil paintings and walked sixty feet to his front door. He opened it with a key and stepped inside the place he was currently calling home.

He had to admit, it was a really nice condo they'd set him up with. It had three bedrooms, including an eight hundred square foot master bedroom that featured an oversized bath, a separate shower, and a six-person Jacuzzi. The living room was quite large as well and was furnished in expensive leather. There was a sixty-two inch projection television with premium cable, a stereo VCR, and a laser-disc player. Next to that, in a separate cabinet, was a top-of-the-line stereo system that included a turntable, dual cassette players, a receiver, and even one of those new-fangled compact disc players, although this last was little more than a novelty since hardly any music was being released on CDs as of yet. All of these audio and visual components could be activated and adjusted by a variety of remote controls that stood on the smoked glass coffee table before the couch. On the far side of the living room were a huge picture window and a sliding glass door that led out to a spacious balcony that overlooked downtown LA. On the near side of the room was a fully stocked and operational oak wet bar.

Yes, it was a really nice place to stay and it was the only place Jake could refer to as "home" at the moment, but it wasn't really his. The luxury condo was leased by National Records and had been assigned to Jake as part of the "housing assistance" clause of his contract. What this clause stated was that if one of the undersigned were unable to secure housing between or during contract periods the label would provide housing appropriate to the "perceived public status expected of a person of their stature". The label would also provide necessary groceries, clothing, toiletries, grooming supplies, and, of course, "entertainment items". There was also a clause in there about providing a "manservant" if such a thing was deemed appropriate.

It went without saying, of course, that the cost of all of this was being deducted from the recoupable expenses account. Jake had asked for and received a copy of one of his monthly expense reports and was unsurprised to find that all of this luxury was running him an average of eight thousand dollars a month. And that did not even account for the cost of the limousines he rode in whenever he went somewhere or the cash allowance of one thousand dollars he was given every two weeks.

"Can't you set me up in a smaller place?" he'd asked at one point. "Just a little apartment in Hollywood somewhere? I can drive my own car and use my cash allowance for groceries."

"Remember the contract clause, Jake," Acardio responded. "We need to keep you in a place appropriate to your stature. People don't want to see a famous rock star living in some shithole Hollywood Boulevard dive. They want to see you in luxury. They don't want to see you driving some piece of shit car. They want to see you in a limo."

"But what about that manservant guy," Jake asked next.

"Manny? You don't like Manny? He came highly recommended."

"And he comes highly expensive as well," Jake said. "He's costing me two grand a month in salary and god knows how much in food. I can do my own laundry and clean my own house."

"We've found it best over the years if our musicians have someone take care of those duties for them. After all, we do have guests come over to your condo from time to time. We prefer that things remain professionally clean when such occurrences happen."

"So I can't get rid of Manny?"

"You're looking at this the wrong way, Jake. You're living in the lap of luxury. You should be grateful we're providing all of this for you."

And that had pretty much been the end of the discussion. Jake had made a phone call to Pauline later that day and asked her to peruse her copy of the contract again.

"Can they force me to live in this place and make me have to pay for everything associated with it?" he asked her. "Isn't there any way I can demand they put me in some place cheaper?"

She'd looked it over while he'd waited on the phone and her answer had been, incredibly enough, yes, they could and no he couldn't.

"They could put you up in some apartment in the middle of Watts or in a six million dollar mansion in Malibu with a complete staff of servants if they wanted to. Unless you're able to independently secure your own housing and pay for it out of your pocket, you have to live where they say."

And of course he couldn't pay for even the Watts apartment out of his own pocket. He had no cash flow of his own. Though the royalties were pouring in from the sales of the album and all the singles, and though the tour they'd completed had sold out every venue and had actually made money instead of losing it (a rarity among tours), the recoupable expenses were still eating up more than twice as much income as the royalties were bringing in. On the day Descent Into Nothing went platinum the band as a whole was more than ninety thousand dollars in the red. And now that the tour was over and the housing expenses were being deducted as well they were going even deeper into the hole.

As Jake closed the door behind him, Manny emerged through the kitchen door, smiling. Manny was forty years old but looked much younger. He was exquisitely fit, a flaming, lisping homosexual, and, like many menially employed people in the greater Los Angeles area, a frustrated actor. Though he was always polite — even when Jake wasn't — and though Jake had actually learned to like having a manservant, he instinctively knew where Manny's real loyalties lie. He was just another babysitter, just another spy for National Records who would report anything Jake said or did to Acardio if he deemed it something Acardio would want to know about.

"Jake," Manny greeted. "It's good to see you back. How was your trip?"

"Just groovy," Jake said, closing the door behind him and walking over to the couch. "What's that you're cooking? It smells funny."

"Hausenpepper," Manny said.

"A rabbit?" Jake asked. "You're cooking me a rabbit for dinner?"

"Oh, you've heard of it?"

Jake nodded. "Yeah, on a Bugs Bunny cartoon."

Manny looked at him strangely for a moment and then decided not to pursue the Bugs Bunny reference. Instead, he rushed over to take Jake's duffel bag. "Let me take this to the laundry room for you. I'll get everything washed up and put away before I go to bed tonight."

"Sure," Jake said, relinquishing possession of the bag.

"Can I get you a drink?"

"Naw," Jake told him. "You go back to stewing your rabbit. I'm gonna go take a shower and change. I'll get my own drink when I'm done."

"As you wish," Manny said, giving a polite little bow. With that, he whisked the duffel bag off towards the laundry room.

Jake locked the bedroom door behind him and then took a long, luxuriant shower, washing the smell of the redhead stewardess from his body. He dried off, dropping the towel into a laundry hamper Manny had installed and then put on a pair of baggy sweat pants and a loose fitting T-shirt. He sat down at his desk in the corner of the room and looked at the telephone. Like a Pavlov reaction, thoughts of Angie came flitting into his head. He still knew her telephone number. Assuming she was on the same schedule she had been on before the tour, he could dial that number right now and be talking to her in less than twenty seconds.

He sighed as he thought about it. "You're so pathetic," he told himself.

He still hadn't spoken to her since that last day, when they'd climbed on the bus to head for their first concert in Bangor. Even when they'd actually been in Los Angeles for three concerts, when he could have called her from the hotel room phone, he hadn't done it. That had been when the Spinning Rock article was all everyone was talking about. He'd told himself he couldn't face her after that, that she wouldn't want to speak to him. And then when they'd returned to Los Angeles after the tour, when they'd set him up in this condo, he hadn't called her then either. She lived less than six miles away and he couldn't bring himself to contact her.

Call her now, a part of his mind whispered. Pick up that fucking phone and call her. She could come over tonight and you could talk to her. Maybe she'll be disgusted with what you've become, with the things you've done, but then, maybe she'll understand. Wasn't that always the best part of your relationship with her? She was a girlfriend, not just a slut you fucked. You could talk to her, relate to her, tell her your fears and frustrations and she would listen and commiserate.

He picked up the phone. But he didn't dial Angie's number. Instead he called Bill, who lived in a smaller condo just three floors down.

"Hey, Jake," Bill said, his voice a little strained. "Caught you on the show this morning. Had to get up with this overindulgence syndrome to do it, but I caught you."

"Yeah, that asshole fucked me over pretty good," Jake said.

"It wasn't very aesthetic," Bill had to agree. "You just get back?"

"Yeah. You must've gone out last night if you got the overindulgence syndrome again."

"Indeed I did," he said. "Matt and I went to the Yellow Ostrich Club again."

The Yellow Ostrich Club was a trendy Los Angeles nightclub near downtown. It was one of eleven such places they were allowed to frequent, which was to say that they were on the list of places their limo drivers would take them to. Though it had never been admitted to them Jake was pretty sure that National Records had some sort of endorsement contract with the establishments on the list. If they tried to go someplace not on the list, the limo drivers would refuse. And it had been threatened that if any of them used their allowance money to call a cab and go someplace not on the list on their own, the allowance money would be cut off for a month.

"Did you get laid?" Jake asked.

"I think so," Bill said. "Two of my rubbers were gone when I woke up and there was a pair of panties next to my bed."

"That's usually a reliable sign. Were they nice panties?"

"Pink bikini cut," Bill said. "Size small."

"Well, odds are she was hot. What're you doing now?"

"Laying around in my pajamas and waiting for my headache to go away."

"Why don't you come upstairs?" Jake asked. "We'll burn some and then eat the hausenpepper Manny is making for me."

"Hausenpepper?" Bill asked. "You mean like on Bugs Bunny?"

"That's the stuff," Jake said. "You in?"

"I'm in," Bill said.

Bill came up ten minutes later, unshaven, dressed in a pair of knee-length shorts that showed off his knobby knees and a tank top that showed off his skinny arms. His coke-bottle glasses were resting in their accustomed place and his crew cut was only two days old.

"Would you care for a drink, Mr. Archer?" Manny asked after inviting him inside.

"I'll get the drinks, Manny," Jake told him. "You go get the stash and load up the bong for us."

"As you wish," Manny said, disappearing into the kitchen.

Jake mixed Bill his favorite drink, Crown Royal and 7up. He mixed himself a potent concoction of coke and imported Jamaican rum. They settled in before the television set just as Manny came back carrying a hand-blown glass bong filled with ice water and a lemon slice. He set it down before them and then handed Jake a silver container filled with high-grade marijuana.

"Would you care for me to load the water pipe for you?" Manny asked.

"Naw, go stew your rabbit," Jake told him. "We'll manage on our own."

And they did. They took three hits apiece and then sipped quietly on their drinks. They talked about going out to one of the clubs but eventually decided not to. Instead they engaged in one of their more frequent activities, playing video games on the Atari 2600 console. They played Space Invaders and Missile Command until it was time to eat. After destroying Manny's hausenpepper they smoked some more weed and played for another three hours, drinking all the while.

It was a fulfilling evening.

The next morning a limousine picked up Jake at 8:30 in the morning. He was clean-shaven and dressed in a pair of dress slacks and a dress shirt. The driver cruised through the congested downtown streets until he arrived at the Maton Pauvrete building, which was yet another higher end condominium building full of second rate celebrities. This was where Matt had been assigned to live. He had a huge suite up on the twenty-first floor of the twenty-three-story building.

The driver opened the door and Matt stepped inside, finding a seat directly across from Jake. He was dressed a little more casually for the meeting they were about to attend, as was typical. He wore stonewashed jeans and a T-shirt he'd picked up during a recent day-trip to Mexico. The logo on the shirt was an advertisement for a popular Tijuana brothel Matt had visited and eventually been kicked out of.

"Wassup, brother," he greeted as he lit up a cigarette. "Caught you on the tube yesterday. Pretty fucked up showing."

"Yeah," Jake agreed. "It was about as much fun as a rectal exam."

They were driven to Hollywood and dropped off in front of the National Records Building. A group of tourists that had been wandering by spotted them and quickly swarmed them. They signed ten or fifteen autographs apiece before managing to break free and make it to the main lobby entrance. There they were admitted to the elevator by an aging security guard. The rode up to the eighteenth floor and were led by yet another security guard into a conference room.

Sitting at the table in the room were Max Acardio, Shaver, Rick Bailey from the Artist Development Department, and, of course, Janice Boxer, their publicity manager. All had cups of coffee and plates of bagels before them. A cocaine mirror sat in the middle of the table, residue plainly visible on it.

"Matt, Jake," Acardio greeted, getting up to give them the obligatory hug of greeting. "How are you doing this morning?"

They both grunted that they were fine and then took a seat.

"We were just enjoying a little Bolivian flake while we waited for you," Shaver said. "Would you boys like me to set you up?"

"No, thanks," both answered, making a point to be as cool to Shaver as possible. While he was still technically their agent, they no longer met with him, sought out his advice, or even talked to him. While it was true he had opened the door for them in the recording industry their gratefulness for that was overridden by the fact that he had allowed them to be screwed by their contract while he himself had been nicely taken care of and was currently raking in twenty-one percent of all their royalties before any deductions were taken out. They had tried to fire him when National decided to exercise their second option on the contract but they were unable. Intemperance's contract with Shaver specified that he would be their agent for the duration of any contract he secured with the recording industry — including any option periods. It hadn't seemed like a big deal back in the beginning, when the goal had simply been to secure a contract in the first place, but it was certainly a big deal now.

"I will take some of that coffee though," Jake told Acardio. "If its not too much trouble."

"Of course not," Acardio replied. He rang for his secretary.

The coffee was poured and Jake took a sip. It was excellent brew, imported directly from Costa Rica.

Acardio, the chairperson of the meeting, passed a few more preliminaries and then got to business. "Let me start off by saying that we at the label appreciate all of the traveling you two, as well as the rest of the band, have been doing in order to keep the album promotion machinery rolling. I know we've had some problems with each other, that we don't always see eye to eye on a lot of matters, but you've been very good sports about all this, particularly you, Jake. The way Brad Cummins treated you was appalling, absolutely un-called for."

"I thought you wanted him to treat me that way," Jake said.

"Well, we wanted controversy of course," Acardio said. "It does sell your albums, after all. But we weren't expecting him to be quite that brutal. I apologize for putting you into that particular position."

"Yeah," Jake said, not believing him for an instant.

"Anyway," Acardio said, "we've spent the last two weeks going over the recordings you boys made for us. I must say, you did a very good job with that primative equipment."

The recordings he was referring to were a cassette tape full of music the band had recorded in the small warehouse the label had rented for them to rehearse and compose in (the cost of which was being deducted from their recoupables as well). The recording quality was only expected to be good enough for the National executive to hear what the raw songs sounded like so they could decide which ones to use. The lyrics did not even have to be discernable since lyric sheets were provided with the recording. As such the only equipment they had been provided in order to produce the recording were an old mixing board and a commercial cassette recorder. No technicians of any kind had been assigned to assist them.

"It's very simple," Acardio had instructed. "Just plug everything into the mixing board, turn all the dials up to about mid-range, put the cassette in the machine, and start playing. Give us at least twelve songs, more if you got them. It shouldn't take you more than an afternoon."

It had actually taken three afternoons to record fifteen songs. Bill took control of the mixing board and sound checked and adjusted each and every input as carefully and anally as he used to oversee their sound checks at D Street West. The end result had been not exactly a studio-quality recording but about as close as it was possible to get without actually utilizing the resources of a studio.

"Thank you," Jake said. "We did work very hard on that, particularly Bill."

"There are some catchy tunes in there," Acardio said. "We're pretty sure we can use about half of them.

"Half?" Matt asked. "That's it?"

"That right," Acardio replied. "Here's a list of the songs we've decided on." He passed out slips of memo paper to Jake and Matt. They looked at them carefully, both noting that "about half" meant seven out of the fifteen selections.

"As you can see," Acardio said. "Most of the tunes we've selected were the un-recorded tunes you performed during the tour as filler. The audience response was good enough that we are almost obligated to include those selections on the next album. It's obvious, however, that we're going to need a few more songs from you before we start the recording process."

"We don't have any more songs," Jake said. This was literally the truth. The fifteen they'd presented were all songs they'd written and performed in the D Street West days. They had come up with nothing new since then, as they had had neither the time nor the inclination. Jake had not even sat down and strummed on his guitar — the process he used when composing new material — since before they'd released Descent Into Nothing.

"We need ten cuts for the album," Acardio said. "We can possibly get away with nine if you extend one of the less commercially viable tunes into a non-radio format length. That's what Earthstone generally does."

"Or we could use some of these songs you rejected," Jake said.

"No," Acardio said. "That's out of the question."

"What the fuck for?" Matt asked. "I mean, sure, a few of those are maybe a little simple — it's some of our earliest stuff — but you've also shitcanned some of our best work here. How about It's In The Book? The D Street crowd loved that one but you keep rejecting it. You wouldn't let us record it for the first album, you wouldn't let us use it as filler on the tour, and now you don't want it on the second album either."

Janice fielded this one. "It is a reasonably catchy tune," she said, "but I'm afraid it's too controversial. The subject matter, you know."

"Excuse me?" Jake said. "Too controversial? Do you even know what the song is about?"

"Of course we know what its about," Janice said. "It's a grotesque and highly offensive parody of the Bible."

"It's an examination of the negative values taught by the Bible," Jake corrected. "And a condemnation of religious hypocrisy."

"We can't release an anti-biblical piece," Acardio said. "The controversy would be too severe."

"Let me get this straight," Jake said carefully. "You're trying to make us out to be a bunch of Satan worshipping pagans because you think that sells albums, but you don't want an anti-bible song on our next album? Am I missing something here?"

"You're not following the context under which we're rejecting it," Janice said.

"Well, please enlighten us then," Jake said.

"It's too specifically insulting to the Bible," she explained. "Though you don't mention the scriptures by name, it's very obvious what you're talking about. We want any anti-religious or anti-biblical lyrics to be deniably vague. Like the lyrics for Descent Into Nothing. That's a perfect example of a deliberately vague satanic song."

"Descent Into Nothing is not about Satanism," Jake hissed angrily.

"Exactly," Janice said. "That's what we say when the censorship nuts or the family values people start complaining about it. The lyrics are vague enough so they can't point out a specific reference to the tenants of anti-religious doctrine."

"The song has nothing to do with religion," Jake said. "It's about..."

"It doesn't matter what your interpretation of the lyrics is," Acardio cut in (once again infuriating Jake with the suggestion that he didn't know what his own song was about). "The point is that Descent is vague and unspecific, only hinting at the Satanist theme that it encompasses. It's In The Book, on the other hand, is specific in it's content and would give the censorship freaks something solid to latch onto. Our goal is to make you controversial, even hated by certain classes of people, but not to step over the line to the point where people might actually start to consider real censorship of music. If that happens, this entire industry could flounder."

"And that means less money for all of us," Bailey said.

"Oh, well we certainly wouldn't want to make less money, now, would we?" Jake said sarcastically.

"I'm not going to get into that discussion with you again, Jake," Acardio said firmly. "You are bound by the terms of your contract and that's all there is to it. You are also bound to produce another album for us and you're short a few songs. So let's talk about what we're going to do about that, okay?"

"Fine," Jake said. "I guess we could try to compose a few more songs for you. There's a few ideas I've been mulling over in my head lately."

"Yeah," Matt said. "Me too. I've been thinking about doing a song about..."

"Uh, well actually," Acardio said, "I think we might have solved that problem for you."

"Come again?" Jake said.

"Well, obviously it takes you guys a little while to compose and perfect a new tune," he said. "And quite frankly, we need to get you into the studio as soon as possible so we can get the second album finished and ready for release when Descent Into Nothing finally starts to fade off the charts. We're on the crest of a wave here and we want to stay up there. There should be little or no lag time between album successes. Before people start to get sick of hearing the songs from Descent on the radio, we need to be able to give them some new ones."

"I'm down with that," Matt said. "But how are you going to help?"

"Mr. Bailey can answer that," Acardio said.

"Right," Bailey said, opening his briefcase and pulling out two packets of papers. "Over the past two months I've been working with some of our songwriting teams to put together some new material for you. They came up with a selection of eight tunes that we feel would be both commercially viable as single releases while maintaining the Intemperance image."

"Whoa whoa whoa," Matt said. "Hold on just a fucking second here. Are you saying you had songwriters come up with music that you want us to play and put on an album with our name on it? Is that what the fuck you're trying to say?"

"No need to get hostile, Matt," Acardio said. "We're not trying to insult you or anything, it's just that our songwriters have a better idea of what the public is after in an Intemperance style song than you do. They've been around a long time and they know what the demographic group you appeal to wants. It's a very common thing in the industry."

"Yes," Bailey agreed, "and I must say that we utilized our best people for this project and they outdid themselves both with the lyrics and the melodies. When people hear Jake sing this stuff and when they hear Matt grinding out the riffs in that quaint style of his, they're going to go insane. The next album is going to fly off the shelves. I guarantee it."

"They really are very good tunes," Janice added. "I looked them over yesterday. Quite frankly, I think they're much better than anything you did on Descent and look at how well that album is selling."

Matt was actually starting to turn red in the face. Jake wasn't too far behind him. Before either of them could say anything, however, Bailey pushed the papers over to each of them. They were music sheets that covered the basic melody and the lyrics. They each looked at the top sheet, which was for a song entitled, Embrace of Darkness.

"That first song is what we're thinking of naming the new album," Bailey said excitedly. "Look it over. Tell us what you think."

Matt clenched his fists a few times and then, more out of morbid curiosity than anything else, he looked at the sheet, ignoring the lyrics and checking out the music. "You call this a riff?" he asked after about two seconds. "It's a simple three-chord repetition, just like that crap Voyeur plays."

"Well, you'll be given a little bit of latitude in how you interpret the music," Bailey said. "I mean, you can't change the basic melody, but you can enhance it in that style you have."

Jake, meanwhile, had been looking at the lyrics. He was shaking his head in disbelief. "Goodbye to light, goodbye to joy," he recited. "The King of Darkness uses me like a toy?"

"The fucking King of Darkness?" Matt said. "Uses me like a toy? Are you shitting me?"

Jake read a little further down. "I feel his hands upon me, I feel him pulling me in. My awareness is full now, I'm jumping down into sin." He looked up at the record execs. "Isn't that a bit homo-erotic?"

"Well, in a vague sort of way, I suppose it is," Bailey said. "I mean, after all, you are Intemperance and you do represent lust and sin."

"You're suggesting that Jake sing about getting butt-fucked by the Devil?" Matt asked.

"It doesn't say anything in there about the Devil or about anal sex," Janice said. "Like Mr. Acardio said, the lyrics are kept deliberately vague."

"Well you can throw this shit deliberately in the trash can," Matt told her. "We ain't playing this crap."

"Amen to that," Jake said.

Acardio sighed. "Look guys," he said. "A lot of people worked a lot of hours to compose this music for you."

"I hope you didn't pay 'em too much," Matt said.

"They probably paid them as much as we get paid," Jake said, causing both of them to crack up.

"Look," Acardio said, losing his decorum just a bit, "we don't care whether you like the songs or not. You are employees of National Records and those are the songs we want you to do. So my suggestion is that you pick out at least three that you can live with and start rehearsing them. I'll want a preliminary recording of your efforts on my desk in two weeks."

"Oh, and I must insist that Embrace of Darkness be among the three," Bailey said. "We're already working on the premise that that will be the name of the album."

"Right," Acardio said. "Pick out two of your favorites in addition to Embrace, which will be mandatory."

"No," Matt said firmly. "I don't give a rat's ass what you want, we are not performing any of this crap. We write our own songs and compose our own melodies."

Acardio took a deep breath. He looked at Jake. "Jake," he said reasonably. "You need to try to talk some sense into Matt. If we don't have a complete set of songs from you by the end of the month some very unpleasant consequences might occur."

"What kind of consequences?" Jake asked.

"Breach of contract kind of consequences," Acardio said.

Matt stood up so fast his chair fell over backwards. His hand went to his crotch and gave it a large, contemptuous squeeze. "I got your fuckin' contract right here," he told Acardio. "We ain't performing that shit! Period! I don't care if the United States Supreme fucking Court calls me up and tells me I have to. It ain't gonna happen. I will not play a song that some ass-sucking hacker wrote for you."

"Matt, there's no need to get threatening," Janice said nervously.

"Who's threatening?" Matt responded. "I'm doing nothing but stating a plain fucking fact. We ain't gonna do it."

"Jake," Acardio said, appealing to the calmer head. "What do you have to say about this?"

Jake stood up next to Matt. "I say that any productivity we might've hoped to achieve in this meeting has probably been lost. We should probably adjourn for the day."

"We need to settle this now," Acardio said firmly.

"It's already settled," Matt said. "You can hold a fuckin' gun to my head and I ain't playing that shit."

"Why don't we meet on Monday?" Jake suggested.

"You aren't thinking about caving to this fuck, are you, Jake?" Matt suddenly asked. "Because even if you do, I still ain't doing this shit!"

"I'm not thinking of doing anything right now, Matt," Jake told him. "But I think its time for us to go, okay?"

"We need to work this out," Bailey cried.

"There's nothing to work out," Acardio said. "You're doing the songs we tell you to do."

"I'll live in a skid-row flophouse before I play one of them songs," Matt said. "See if I'm kidding, Acardio. See if I'm fucking kidding!"

"You see if I'm fucking kidding," Acardio returned. "You will fall into line and do what you're told or your music career is over!"

"We're leaving now," Jake said, grabbing Matt by the arm. "We'll be back on Monday. Have your secretary call me to set up a time."

"You two need to get back here and..."

"Goodbye," Jake said, leading Matt out the door. Matt reluctantly allowed himself to be pulled from the room. The last thing they heard was Acardio yelling at them to take the fucking music sheets with them.

They didn't talk until they got into the elevator. At that point Matt turned on Jake with a fury.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing, dragging me out of there like that?" he demanded. "Why the fuck weren't you supporting me?"

"I am supporting you," Jake told him. "I have no intention of singing any of that crap they wrote for us."

"Then why the fuck didn't you say that? Why were you letting me just yell at those pricks by myself?"

"Because this isn't the time to make a stand on this," Jake told him.

"What?"

"We don't have enough facts right now."

"Facts? What the fuck are you..."

"Look," Jake interrupted, "I don't think that they can really force us to sing those songs. I've read that entire contract now and, though I still don't understand a lot of it, I don't remember it saying anywhere that they have the right to force us to sing songs we don't want to sing."

"So why the fuck didn't you tell them that?" he asked.

"Because I want to be absolutely sure of what our legal position is before I start spouting off."

"So what are you going to do?"

"I need to talk to Pauline," he said.