Climbing the Rock

Chapter 12A: On The Road Again

February 24, 1984

Los Angeles, California

"God I hate these fucking leather pants," Matt barked as they emerged from the makeshift dressing room and made their way towards the back-stage area of the rehearsal warehouse.

"That ain't no shit," Jake agreed, pulling at his for the twentieth time to keep it from constricting his testicles. "I forgot how hot and uncomfortable these get-ups are."

This grumbling was met by more grumbling from the rest of the band. Coop complained about the goddamn kamikaze headband and the dark shades. Bill complained about the preppie button-up shirt and the pocket protector — complete with pens and a protractor — he was wearing. Darren complained loudest of all. They had him dressed up like a Chippendale dancer, with gray leather shorts, spiked leather boots, and no shirt at all.

"What are you talking about?" asked Greg Gahn, who had been assigned once again to the role of tour manager. "You guys look great. This is the look your fans are expecting of you."

No one answered him, which was the usual response to any statements made by him.

There were no fans out in the audience today, at least not in the strict sense of the word. This was a dress rehearsal, the first of six such events scheduled before they headed for Miami and the first date of the The Thrill of Doing Business tour. There was a small audience out there that consisted of a half dozen National Records executives, some cronies these executives had brought along so they could be impressed by the up-close look at the band, and Mindy, who had brought Georgette and a small entourage of publicists and photographers who planned to further enhance the young actress's evolving image by releasing a story about her attending her boyfriend's concert. In all, Intemperance would be performing their set for about thirty people this first time, not including the roadies and the techies who ran the show. It wasn't much of an audience but it was enough to give Jake the familiar pre-show jitters and worries that were as much a part of performing as applause and sweat.

They entered the stage left portion of the warehouse. It was larger than it had been in their previous tour, with almost twice as many roadies moving about from place to place, putting the final touches on a performance that would be considerably more complex than their previous shows. The stage itself was larger, with more area for the three guitar players — Jake, Darren, and Matt — to move about in. Coop's drum set had also been expanded with more snare and trap drums, more cymbals, and even a set of bongos which would be used for a short time on Lost in the Silence, one of the ballads on the new album. Bill's grand piano had also become grander as well. He was now sporting the largest and most expensive model available from the Caldwell Piano Corporation.

Most of the additional personnel were technicians who were needed to run some of the more high-tech additions to the show. There were sixteen additional lighting techs to go with the more than two hundred stage lights that hung from movable scaffolding suspended above the stage. There were the laser technicians who would set up and control the laser show that took place behind the band during various numbers throughout the set. There was also the pyrotechnic crew, headed by a somewhat frightening man named Dave Warden.

"Okay," Greg said, waving to the band to sit down on the packing boxes well out of the way. "Fifteen minutes to show time. Everyone do a final wardrobe check."

The band did a variety of eye rolling and then dutifully looked each other up and down, looking for torn leather, unsightly stains, or anything else that was out of place.

"You know something, Jake?" Matt asked as Jake held his arms up and turned slowly around.

"What's that?"

"Your ass looks really juicy in that leather." He reached forward and gave Jake's left cheek a squeeze.

Jake and the rest of the band laughed while Greg blanched in disgust.

"In the name of Heavenly Father," Greg barked. "Be careful doing things like that!"

"We're just joking around, Greg," Matt said. "You know? Camaraderie? You ever heard of it?"

"Camaraderie is one thing," Greg said. "Homosexual behavior is something else. All it takes is one person to say that Matt grabbed Jake's buttocks and the next thing you know there's a rumor floating around that you two are engaging in oral copulation."

"Oral copulation?" Jake said. "You been hanging out with Nerdly? You're starting to talk like him."

"What's wrong with the way I talk?" Bill asked, indignantly.

"You seem awfully uptight about this homosexuality thing, Greg," Matt said. "Are you compensating for something?"

"What?" Greg asked.

"You ever smoke the old Havana?" Matt asked him. "Just to see what it was like?"

"Now you're being disgusting!" Greg spat. "I have engaged in sexual congress with exactly one person in my life and I think the subject of homosexual congress is both disgusting and sinful!"

"One person?" Jake asked. "Who was she?"

Greg turned red in the face and stormed off. He found one of the roadies and began yelling at him about a cable that wasn't properly taped down.

"I love that guy," Matt said, lighting a cigarette and inhaling deeply. "Should we make a point to fuck with him at least three times a day while we're on the road?"

"At least," Jake agreed, sipping from his water.

Dave Warden, the head pyrotechnician, came in through the stage door. He saw the band gathered in the corner and headed directly over. Dave was a tall guy, with brownish-gray hair and a scraggly mustache. An unlit cigar stump hung from the corner of his mouth. He was dressed like most of the roadies, in a pair of tattered jeans and a dirty T-shirt. He wore a tool belt around his waist that contained a variety of wire cutters, rolls of wire, and electrical connectors.

"You guys ready to go live with the pyro?" he asked them, his voice stern and unforgiving, much like a marine drill instructor's.

"Bring on the boom-boom," Matt said.

"Yeah," Jake agreed. "Nothing like a good blow."

"Hey," Darren said, "is it possible to light a smoke off one of them charges? I mean, wouldn't that be fuckin' cool? As the final boom goes off, me and Matt use it to light up our after-show smokes?"

Dave's face took on an expression of angry alarm. "Are you crazy?" he asked. "You're joking about pyrotechnic charges?"

The band looked at each other and then back at Dave. "We joke about everything, Dave," Matt told him. "Lighten up a little."

"Lighten up?" Dave asked, his eyes narrowing to slits. "You don't joke about pyrotechnics. You treat them will all the respect and caution you would a nuclear weapon."

"A nuclear weapon?" Jake said, raising his eyebrows.

"Hell, we joke about those too," Matt said.

"Really, Dave," said Bill, "don't you think it's a bit of a non-sequiturous analogy to compare destructive thermonuclear fusion to simple decorative flashes?"

Dave glared at Bill. "What the hell does that mean?" he asked.

"He's saying," Jake translated, "that it seems kind of ludicrous to compare your little pop charges to an ICBM warhead leveling Los Angeles."

"Little pop charges?" Dave barked, his eyes turning angry. "Is that what you think my pyrotechnics are?"

All five of them shrugged. "Aren't they?" Jake asked.

"Let me tell you something, you little punks," Dave said, looking from one to the other. "Those charges are made of some of the same high explosive components that the VC used on us over in Nam. Where do you think I learned this trade? It was my job to take those homemade booby-traps the gooks laid out for our boys and reverse engineer them to figure out how they worked. And I'm hear to tell you, those gooks knew what the hell they were doing and they blew off the legs, arms, faces, and testicles of many a good man over in that living hell of a jungle. Why, I remember this one time one of them booby traps blew up beneath this guy's legs and tore a hole so big in him that his intestines were hanging out where his cock used to be. You don't see shit like that in Los Angeles now, do you?"

"Uh... no, I guess you don't," Matt said slowly.

"Can't say as I've ever seen anything like that in LA," Jake had to agree.

"So... uh... are you saying," asked Darren, "that those charges you have set on the stage could blow my cock off? Because I'm not really sure I'm down with that, you know?"

"There's no shrapnel in my charges," Dave responded. "And they're shaped to produce noise and flash instead of bodily damage, but you lose respect for them, you treat them the wrong way, you bet your ass they'll blow your cock off. Remember that safety margin I told you about?"

"Yeah," Jake said. "We've been rehearsing our way around your charges the whole time."

"We'll make sure we're back at least six feet whenever one is supposed to go off," said Matt.

"You'd better make that safety margin your God, you ever-loving Jesus right down from the cross. Love my charges, love everything they'll do for you — hell, they're what's going to make your show — but never lose respect for them, and never — I mean never — let me hear you joking about them. That's just tempting the Almighty."

They all agreed to retain the utmost respect for his beloved charges. Satisfied, he left them to go man his detonation station. And, of course, the moment he was gone, they erupted into laughter and made fun of him for the better part of five minutes.

"Oh man," Darren said with dying laughter after the last round of listening to Matt and Jake imitate Dave's voice and speech, "I gotta go take a shit."

"A shit?" asked Matt. "Right now?"

"Darren, its only six minutes until we hit the stage," Jake said. "Can't you hold it?"

"Naw," he said, standing up. "I gotta go bad. I'll be back in time."

"You fuckin' well better be," Matt said. "Jesus Christ, dude. Why didn't you shit before you got dressed?"

"I didn't have to go then," Darren said.

"Then go," Matt told him. "Hurry."

Darren scampered off, disappearing back through the stage left access door.

"Freakin' moron," Matt muttered.

"Oh, cut him a little slack," Jake said. "There's nothing worse than having your bowels want to let go while you're up on stage. Remember that time in Santa Fe when you got the shits right before we went on?"

"I remember," Matt said. "And if you'll recall, I fuckin' held it until the encore break. I was cramped and sweating and miserable the whole time, but I goddamn well held it."

"That is a singularly miserable experience," Bill said. "The passage of time seems to reduce in fluidity to the point where it seems to evolve from a liquid to a solid."

"Actually," Matt said, "my feces evolved from a solid to a liquid. That was kind of the problem, Nerdly."

They had a chuckle about this and then looked at the clock up on the wall. Five minutes to go.

"How was your fishing trip yesterday?" Jake asked Matt. "Did you get your limit?"

During his vacation in Rio de Janeiro Matt had gone on a deep-sea sport fishing expedition the resort they'd stayed in had offered. He had gone mostly on a whim, having become a little bored with the endless drinking and fornication that had marked his first week in Brazil. Prior to that trip, he'd never even been on a boat before, let alone one that went out into the open ocean. To his surprise, he'd not only not gotten seasick, as he'd feared, he'd had the time of his life. He went two more times before the vacation ended, catching fifty and sixty pound sailfish, and had come back with a new obsession, one that seemed nearly as strong as the obsession he had for his guitar and for fornication itself. Since the return, he had been out twice more, saving up his allowance and booking private charter boats out of Marina del Ray.

"Not even close," Matt said. "We got four rock cod and a yellowtail. I hooked into what was probably a barracuda but the motherfucker snapped my line before I could bring him into gaffing range."

"That's too bad," Jake said.

"No shit," Matt agreed. "And to make it worse, the bitch I took with me got seasick before we even left the harbor."

"So you didn't get any puss?"

Matt looked at him like he was an idiot. "As if," he said. "Like I give a rat's ass if she's sick. Shit, I paid two grand to book that goddamn boat and have it all to myself. I'll be damned if the slut I took with me ain't gonna give it up."

"You fucked a girl while she was seasick?" Jake asked, half appalled and half amused.

"Goddamn right. I just bent her over the railing and nailed her from behind while she barfed in the fuckin' ocean."

"Wow," said Bill, a touch of awe in his tone. "You are truly one of the most depraved people I've ever met, Matt."

"Thanks," Matt said. "And I'm here to tell you, a chick's pussy muscles do some interesting shit while they're barfing. You all oughta try it some time."

They all pondered that while another two minutes clicked by. Just as they were starting to get nervous about Darren, he came back, strolling in through the stage door and heading over to them. Jake knew immediately that he hadn't gone out to take a shit. His eyes were half-lidded and reddened, the look on his face one he only got when he was stoned. And though he had tried to cover the odor of the marijuana with a mouthful of breath mints, it wasn't quite cutting it. The smell of greenbud was reeking off of him in waves.

Jake looked at Matt and saw that he'd realized the same thing. Matt's face was getting red with anger. They had had this problem with Darren before back in their early days, while they were still doing the club scene in Heritage. A heart to heart talk in which Matt and Jake had threatened to replace him had seemed to cure Darren of this violation of their internal code of conduct. But now here he was again, smoking out before a performance.

"You fucking asshole," Matt said. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

"What?" Darren said defensively. "I was just taking a shit. I'm back in time, ain't I?"

"You were smoking weed back there!" Matt barked. "You're stoned to the fuckin' eyeballs!"

"I am not!" Darren protested. "Jesus Christ, Matt! You know I wouldn't do nothin' like that!"

Matt looked at Jake, searching for back up. Jake nodded.

"You look pretty stoned to me, Darren," he said. "You smell like it, too."

"I'm not stoned!" Darren insisted, feigning anger at the accusation and doing a poor job of it.

"Really?" Matt said. "So if I were to go back to the bathroom you just used am I going to smell your stinking shit or am I going to smell greenbud? Or were you at least smart enough to step outside before you hit your fucking pipe?"

"You guys are paranoid," Darren said. "I had to take a shit, that's all. My stomach hasn't been feeling too good today. You know how it is? Remember that time in Santa Fe, Matt?"

"Listen, asshole," Matt said. But before he could go any further, Steve Langley, the production manager, walked over.

"It's time, guys," he said. "Let's get lined up by the access door."

"Right," Matt said. He took a few deep breaths and then looked at Darren. "You'd better not fuck up out there."

"I'm not gonna fuck up," Darren said. "I'm telling you, man. I'm not stoned!"

"Uh huh," Matt said. "And you'd better believe we're going to be talking about this after the show."

"There's nothing to talk about," Darren said stubbornly.

Steve seemed a bit uncomfortable with the tension between the band members. "Is everything all right?" he asked carefully.

"I hope so," Matt said. "Come on. Let's do it."

"Let's do it," the rest of them echoed.

The lights in the warehouse had been dimmed down to near blackness. Playing from the amplifiers was a deep, ominous synthesizer melody, swelling in volume, intensifying in depth.

The band did their ritual slapping of hands. By the time they were done, their cue was upon them.

"Go," Steve told them. "And remember, stay clear of the pyro charges."

They went, walking into the darkness and finding their positions by feel and repetition. Jake picked up his guitar — a brand new Brogan Les Paul knock-off that had been re-strung and exactly tuned earlier that day by Mohammed, his personal assistant. He pulled a pick from the inlay and gripped it. He then backed up four paces, clearing himself from the danger zone of the pyrotechnic charge that would soon be exploding before him.

The synthesized recording built to a crescendo, held, and then cut-off. The moment it did, Matt hit an open low E and A string. The sound crunched out over the warehouse, blasting from the amplifiers and slowly fading away. Just as it was about to fade to nothing, Matt did a fast, finger-tapping solo, ending with a repetitive hammering of the whammy bar on the high-E string.

This was the cue for Dave, the maniacal pyrotechnician, to fire off the first of his explosives. He did it exactly and well. There was a flash of bright light and a resounding BOOM. Jake felt it hammer into his chest, smelled the smoke from the powder. His eyes were momentarily blinded but he was safe and sound, his testicles still attached to his body. The spotlights came on, illuminating them brightly to the audience, and, as one, the band launched into the first song of the set, The Thrill of Doing Business.

Thrill had an extended session of hard, heavy guitar work prior to the first vocals. Matt crunched out the lead, working the tempo up faster and louder while Jake produced a solid backing riff. As they played they moved about the front of the stage, letting the pounding beat laid down by Coop and Darren guide their body motions. They came shoulder to shoulder a few times but made sure not to cross over each other and switch sides since that would quickly tangle their guitar cords like the leashes of two dogs. At last came the final build up to the main riff. It was a furious symphony of drumbeats, piano chords, bass, and dual guitars that worked their way into a simultaneous, heavy-handed production of the main riff. Matt moved backwards, sliding in a dancing, shuffling motion that went exactly to the beat. Jake moved forward, timing his approach to the microphone so that the second he reached it, it was time for him to sing.

His voice belted out the lyrics, the words coming from his mouth smooth and sure, with exacting emotion. He sang the verses and the chorus, changed timbre for the bridge, all the while his fingers playing his guitar and his body moving and swaying to the beat. When it was time for the guitar solo he stepped back, going shoulder to shoulder with Darren in a dizzying overlay of lighting effects while Matt twisted and turned while his incredibly fast and agile fingers hammered on the neck of his guitar and tapped surely at the strings. The song ended with another furious crunch of instruments followed by a brief period of silence — the short applause break as it was called. The applause did not wash over them as it would during a full performance — after all, there were only thirty or so people out there — but they did get a resounding session of appreciation. There was lots of hand clapping and a few whistles.

"Yeah, Jake!" Jake heard Mindy scream up at him. "Damn you're good, baby!"

Jake couldn't see her, or anyone else in the audience for that matter, since the stage was as bright as daylight and the seating area was in darkness. Still, he smiled and looked at the place where he thought she was sitting. He then stepped back to his microphone just as Coop did the four count and launched them into the next song.

They played solidly for the next seventy-six minutes, working their way through a mixed combination of tunes from Descent Into Nothing and the new album. Their motions on stage remained as spontaneous and improvised as they'd always been, though this was only because of another battle fought with the National Records executives, who had hired a choreography team and had tried to turn the entire production into a complex, coordinated dance in which every on-stage motion was pre-planned and carefully rehearsed.

"It's the way concerts are evolving," Crow told them when the idea was first explained. "It's part of the MTV effect on the industry. People don't want to see you just going up there and playing your instruments and singing. That's boring. They want to see production, flair, performance. This choreography team is the best in the business. They'll work with you step by step until every concert you do will be exactly the same, with everyone in an exact place at any particular time. You'll move in synchronicity up there, with new modern dance steps, some jumps, and even some basic gymnastic moves."

"Uh... no, sorry," Matt replied. "Not gonna happen. We'll keep doing our shows the way we've always done them."

This refusal of course led to arguments, threats of contract breach lawsuits, profane declarations by Crow and Doolittle about how they (the band) would do whatever the fuck they were told to do and like it, but by now Jake and Matt, with the help of Pauline, knew the wording of their contract inside and out.

"You have the right to plan a tour for us," Jake told Doolittle during a meeting on the issue, "you have the right to compel us to perform on the tour, you have the right to schedule the tour any way you see fit, you have the right to choose the songs we play during our concerts and in what order to perform them in, you have the right to arrange for all this laser lighting and explosive crap, and you even have the right to make us pay for half of the expenses of all this. But nowhere in our contract does it say anything about you having the right to choreograph our actual performance on stage. So take your choreographers and shove them up your ass. We'll continue performing our songs the way we always have."

This led to another meeting, this time with National Records lawyers, who tried to tell Jake and Matt that they were misinterpreting the contract, that the order of musical performance clause gave National every right in the world to dictate just how the songs would be performed, up to and including the assignment of dance moves.

"Then take us to court," Jake said calmly, puffing on a cigarette while Matt, who had said little, was making a big production out of rolling a joint on the lawyer's desk.

"We don't want it to come to that, Jake," the head lawyer said. "It makes for bad publicity and hard feelings."

"We already have the fuckin' hard feelings," Matt said. He held up his joint for Jake's perusal. "What do you think of this one? Too tight for the greenbud to burn? You know how wet that shit is."

"Maybe a little less twisting on the end," Jake said. "And if you leave a big opening on the flame end it'll let in enough oxygen to get the bud burning instead of just the paper."

"Does that solve the clogging problem, though? I mean, with all the resin in this greenbud it chokes off the airflow by about the third hit."

"Gentlemen!" the lawyer said, exasperated, as, of course, had been the intention. "Could you put away your illegal substances so we can concentrate on the matter at hand?"

Matt shrugged and put the joint behind his ear. "Not much to concentrate on," he said. "I think our position is pretty clear."

"Your position is untenable," the lawyer said.

"Hey," Matt said, "that's a Nerdly word."

"A what?" the lawyer asked, appalled. "Are you calling me a nerd?"

"Look," Jake said, "it's very simple. We will not allow our performance to be choreographed unless you bring us a decision from a Superior Court judge proclaiming that we have to. So take us to court if you think the contract allows this sort of direction, but meanwhile that's going to delay the start of the tour, isn't it?"

"And that might affect album sales," Matt added.

National gave in. This didn't stop Crow and Doolittle and Greg and Janice from constantly whining and complaining about the decision, or from making snide little remarks about how much better the performance would be if it were only choreographed, but they gave in none-the-less. As Intemperance performed at the dress rehearsal before their audience of thirty their moves on stage came from their hearts, their souls, forged by their musical instinct and talent, and not from a choreographer's idea of what a rock audience was looking for in a show.

The stage effects, however, were something else entirely. The lighting was impressive, that was to be sure, but it both dizzying and occasionally nauseating as multi-colored spotlights spun back and forth, over and across, and flicked on and off. Individual spotlights would blare onto Matt while he was doing a solo, or Bill while he was doing a piano solo, or Jake while he was strumming out the opening acoustical portion of one of the ballads. When this happened the heat generated was almost unbearable and by the time they were halfway done Jake and Matt were both pouring sweat down their faces, their shirts saturated, their bodies screaming out for rehydration.

And then there was the laser show. At three points during the performance — during the ballads Point of Futility and Crossing the Line and during the hard-rocking Descent Into Nothing — a superfluity of blue and red beams crossed ten feet over their heads, whipping back and forth, forming patterns and pulsations that moved to the beat of the music. In order to make these patterns visible to the audience a sparse fog of carbon dioxide was created with dry ice and water and blown gently out over the stage. Though most of the gas stayed up above them, enough drifted down to fill their mouths with the biting dryness, their noses with the acrid aroma. And though it was the sort of thing that probably looked really cool when one was stoned, Jake and Matt both thought it did more to detract from the music than to enhance it. They tried their best to ignore it while the performance was taking place.

What they could not ignore were the explosions. The opening pyrotechnic was only the first of three detonations throughout the show. The closing song was Almost Too Easy, a hard-rocker from the Descent album that enjoyed copious airplay after the fade of Point of Futility from the charts but had that had only climbed to the low thirties itself. They did a crashing crescendo to end the song and then the second explosion went off just as the final chords were being struck. The third explosion came at the end of the two song encore set, as the finale to Who Needs Love? This set of detonations, they had been warned by Dave Warden, was to be nearly three times the size and length of the previous two. He was not exaggerating, they found. The cue came and four separate devices went off at the front of the stage, followed by six more on either side and then two more mounted just in front of Coops drum set. The concussions hammered into Jake's chest, into his ears, jarring his teeth and rattling his eardrums. But, as before, all band members remained in the safe zone and had come out of it no worse for wear.

"Thank you," Jake said into the microphone as the thirty people stood and applauded. "Thank you and good night."

And that concluded the dress rehearsal.

Jake and Mindy met that night at Flamer's Steakhouse on restaurant row. Flamer's was one of the most exclusive eateries in the greater Los Angeles region, with a waiting list for reservations more than three months long but Jake had gotten them a table with single phone call made less than four hours before. This was one of the perks to being a celebrity. Another was that they would not have to pay for their meal (although of course they would leave a hefty tip for their server). The reasoning for this was that Flamer's was one of those restaurants with a reputation for having the famous frequently dine there, which, of course, drew a steady stream of non-famous diners who were willing to spring for eighteen to thirty dollar entrees.

Their table sat in the middle of the main dining room, within easy view of most of the other diners. Jake wore a dark suit and a red necktie, Mindy a low-cut lavender gown. Though there were lots of whispers behind closed hands, nonchalant nods in their direction, and staring eyes cast upon them, no one actually came over to them. Apparently there was an unstated but well-understood rule that those granted precious seating at Flamer's were to treat any celebrities who happened to be present like museum artifacts in a display case. You could look and admire but not touch or interact with. Jake sipped from a glass of 1972 Merlot. Since the trip to Las Vegas he had developed a taste for both caviar and fine wine. Mindy munched on a cracker topped with goose liver pate while drinking a Long Island iced tea. Both had just placed their entrée orders.

"So what was the problem with Darren?" Mindy asked. Jake had mentioned to her after the dress rehearsal that there had been a problem but had not gone into details about what it was.

He explained about the sudden trip to the bathroom before hitting the stage, the reddened eyes, the mint-enhanced odor of greenbud, and, most damning, the familiar mannerisms and speech of Darren stoned.

"So what happened when you talked to him about it?" she asked.

"Nothing," Jake responded. "He kept denying it and denying it and denying it some more, no matter what we said to him. It's the same thing he did before, back when he was pulling that shit at D Street West in Heritage, but at least he stopped doing it when we threatened to kick his ass out of the band."

"Do you think that will work now?"

He shrugged. "Hopefully. I'm not sure what we'll actually do if it doesn't. It would be a little harder to get rid of him now. The way our contract is written we would need the record company's permission to fire a band member."

"Wouldn't they go along with you? I mean, he's using drugs before performing."

Jake grunted and took another sip of his wine. "Actually, they'd love to find out he's getting loaded before hitting the stage. They'd probably hold a press conference to announce it. It would fit in with this whole image they're trying to push on us."

"Image is important," Mindy said. "I'll be the first to agree with that."

"Yeah," Jake said, holding his tongue. He was well aware how much she agreed with that particular statement.

"But," she said, "it's a lot more important to have your head straight when you perform. Look at me. I take my acting every bit as seriously as you and Matt take your music and I wouldn't dream of trying to do a scene or even a rehearsal while I was stoned, or drunk, or coked out. It's just impossible to give your all, to do your best that way, no matter how much you're used to it. And doing your best is how you get to the top and stay there, right?"

"Right," Jake said, surprised again, as he often was, at her eerily accurate common sense insight into certain things.

"In the movie industry if an actor or actress is showing up to work under the influence of something, the producer will put a stop to it immediately. It doesn't matter how famous the actor is, how much money has been advanced, how much pull the actor has, it will be stopped or the actor will be fired from the project because the producers realize that you can't perform your best that way. I just don't see why your record producers aren't the same way."

"They are a different breed, that's for sure," Jake said. "Unlike your movie producers, they are convinced that image is more important than quality. The image they want of rock stars is of drugged out, strung out lowlifes and they do everything they can to promote that image. That's why they supply us with endless amounts of booze and coke and pot. They want us to be addicts. They want us to get fucked up before we go onstage. If we screw up a performance because we're wasted, they see that as an asset, a reinforcement of what they think is the most important thing."

"It's sad," Mindy said, draining the last of her drink and signaling to the waiter for another.

"Yeah," he agreed, "and hopefully Darren will get back into line. As long as he doesn't realize that we can't really fire him, he should."

Their dinner came and they ate slowly, relishing the tender cuts of filet mignon and the recently deceased Maine lobsters. For desert they had baked Alaska served with kahlua and cream.

"Well," said Mindy after the last bite went down her throat, "there's another twenty minutes of workout for the next two days. I can feel all this food trying to work its way into my butt as we speak."

"It's worth it though," Jake said, his stomach just below the threshold of being uncomfortably full.

"Agreed," she said. She twirled the remnants of her drink for a moment. "So when do I get my copy of your new album?"

"I told you," he said, "they're not giving us our complimentary copies until the last day of February. Once they do, I'll personally deliver it to you."

"That's only one day before its released in stores," she pouted. "Doesn't being your girlfriend get me any privileges?"

"Not with National it doesn't," he said. "They sent out about thirty copies of the first single to some of the radio stations they have close ties to but the album itself is locked up solid. They're not even pre-shipping it to the record stores until the 27^th."

"I guess everything fits in with some master plan," she said.

"Of course."

"And you're leaving for Miami on what day?" she asked.

"We climb on the bus March 12 and drive across the country again," he said. "The first show is on the 15^th. We'll be up and down the east coast and the Midwest for two and half months after that."

"They've got quite a schedule for you."

He nodded. "Lots of consecutive dates, lots of smaller cities we didn't hit before in addition to the ones that we did. It's going to be brutal but I'm looking forward to it. Performing is why I got into this business, after all."

"Not just for the free food?"

"Not just for the free food," he confirmed.

"Jake," she said, "there's something I need to talk to you about."

He looked up warily. "What's that?"

"It's nothing bad," she said. "Not really, anyway. It's just that... well... Georgette and I have been talking about what this tour is going to mean to our images... yours and mine."

"To our images?"

"Yes," she said. "You see, you're going to be gone for months, almost six of them, right?"

"About five and a half before the whole tour is over," he confirmed.

"And you're going to be... you know... doing your thing with the groupies and the drugs and all that while you're out there."

"Mindy..."

"Hold on a second," she said. "Let me talk. I told you before that it doesn't bother me when you do that and it doesn't. You can screw all the groupies you want. I expect you to. But you see... the media is going to be reporting that you're doing that, aren't they?"

He tried to formulate several responses to this question and failed. Finally, he just asked, "What is it you're trying to say?"

"Well, it would look really bad for both of us if, in the eyes of the public, we were a couple and the media was constantly reporting that you were out there getting it on with a bunch of sluts after your concerts night after night. They'd portray you as a heartless womanizer and they'd portray me as a suffering abused woman. Every time they got pictures or reports of you with some groupie, they'd start hounding me and asking me what I thought about it. It would be a zoo. You have to agree with that, don't you?"

"I suppose that would be a source of negative imagery," Jake allowed. "So what are you saying? You want to break up with me?"

"Not in real life," she said. "But on the record, yes, I think we should."

"On the record?"

"It's simple," she said, "we have Georgette and Shaver announce that we have decided to end our romantic relationship with each other for personal reasons. We don't make it ugly or anything, we just say that we decided to remain friends only and go our separate ways. That way, you'll be free to do your thing with the groupies while you're out on tour and it won't reflect negatively on either one of us. I'm sure Shaver and the executives at National would agree that this is the only way."

Jake was unsure what to say, what to think. This was a rather large bombshell for her to drop on him without any warning. "What if I told you," he suggested, "that I would stay away from the groupies while I'm on tour."

She was shaking her head before he even finished this statement. "That will never work," she said. "In the first place, do you really think you could do that?"

"Yes," he said. "I could."

"Jake, I wouldn't want you to do that," she said. "You would be miserable out there if your friends were always getting in on and you were being left out."

"I did it before," he said. "When Michelle and I were together I never slept with a single groupie."

"And look how that ended," she said. "She still broke up with you. But that's a moot point anyway, because look what happened with Angie. You were committed to her when you left on your first tour, weren't you? And didn't you tell me that you fucked a groupie after your very first show?"

The mention of Angie still had the power to send waves of guilt trudging through him. "Yes," he said softly.

"In fact, you never even talked to her again, did you? Never said goodbye? Never gave her an explanation?"

"No," he said. "I didn't."

"Don't you see the difference, Jake? With Michelle, you were performing in your own town all the time. She was always there for you. With Angie, she wasn't. You were away from her for months and you knew that. You would do the same thing if we stayed together. Be honest with yourself."

He did as requested and knew that in all likelihood, she was right. He might hold off for a month or maybe six weeks, but in the end, he would probably give at some point. "Okay," he said. "I get your point."

"And even if you were faithful to me — something I don't want you to have to be — the media would still see Matt and Darren and Bill and Coop doing all those things with their groupies and they would assume that you were doing the same anyway. It wouldn't matter if you were faithful because they wouldn't want to report that. They love scandal and they would use every piece of innuendo they could come up with. Jake, honey, I love you dearly — really I do — but this is the only way."

He sighed, his pleasant evening suddenly turned morose. "Okay," he said, resigned. "If you want to break up, I'm certainly not going to stop you."

"But we're not really breaking up," she said. "That's the best part of this. We're just pretending to break up. We'll still see each other when we can. It'll just have to be secret. Really secret this time."

Jake nodded. "Sure," he said. "Really secret this time."

"You understand, don't you?" she asked, her eyes giving the innocent puppy gaze she was so famous for.

"I understand that the image wins again," he told her. "Shall we get out of here now?"

They got out of there. Jake tried to remain aloof with her as they rode in the limo back to his place. His intention was to dismiss her. If she wanted to break up, then they would break up. His intentions lasted only as long as it took her to open the fly of his dress pants and start sucking him while they drove through the streets of Hollywood.