Climbing the Rock

Chapter 6: The Road

January 29, 1983

Texarkana, Texas

The deputy was about as stereotypical of a Texas lawman as he could be. He was tall, white, had a gut that protruded over his belt, and he wore an actual Smokey the Bear hat upon his head. He had black leather gloves upon his hands. His light blue uniform featured an American flag on the shoulder and a five-pointed star pinned above the left pocket. His southern accent was so thick as to be nearly unintelligible.

"Ya'll better eat up your chow now," he told them, pointing at two trays of watery powdered eggs and burnt toast that he had shoved through the bars. "Ya ain't getting nothin' else until supper time. And that's only if ya'll are here and not down at the courthouse."

Jake glanced at the food, not just with disinterest but with actual repugnance - this despite the fact that he'd eaten nothing in the past twenty-four hours. "I'm not hungry," he said.

"Me either," replied Matt, who was sitting on the bench next to him.

They were in a holding cell in the Bowie County jail in downtown Texarkana, Texas, being held on charges of drunk and disorderly, multiple counts of assault and battery, and, most serious, assault with a deadly weapon. Both of them were quite battered. Jake had a spectacular black eye, two lacerations to his cheek and one to his forehead, and an array of bruises across his chest and back. Matt had a broken nose, two cracked ribs, and an impressive collection of body bruises as well. They were dressed in bright orange jumpsuits with BOWIE COUNTY PRISONER stenciled in black on the legs and back.

The deputy looked at them suspiciously. "Ya'll on some kinda hunger strike or somethin'? Like them Irish terrorist pukes a few years ago?"

"No," Matt said. "We just don't want to eat that swill. We'll eat as soon as we get out of this shithole."

The deputy shook his head. "Ya'll ain't getting' outta here for a long time. Ain't you figured that out yet?"

Matt simply shrugged. Jake didn't respond at all.

They had been arrested just after four o'clock the previous afternoon, at a truck stop on Interstate 30 just inside the Texarkana city limits. The tour had been on its way from Dallas, where they'd done a show the night of January 27, to Little Rock, where they were scheduled to do a show tonight. It was one of their extended travel period days off and, as such, they had not left Dallas until almost eleven in the morning, which meant the entire band and crew had been able to sleep in and stock up on some much needed rest. Since they were reasonably well rested upon setting out that morning, the band had begun drinking and partying as the bus had rolled down the interstate, all of them eagerly anticipating arriving in Little Rock that night, a night when there was no show scheduled, where they would check into their hotel and lie around watching TV, where they would crash out about eleven and sleep through the night. Extended travel days were something everyone looked forward to, even Greg and Janice. But when they'd stopped at the Texarkana truck stop to refuel the busses and the trucks Jake and Matt - who both had the munchies and wanted to buy a pie - had begged some cash from Greg and then gone into the diner. There they'd encountered a group of truckers sitting at the counter eating their suppers. The trouble began within seconds.

"Hole-ee shit," one of them said, looking at the two musicians. "Look at the hair on these boys. What the hell you boys doing with hair like a girls?"

"Maybe they are girls," another trucker said, causing them all to crack up at his wit.

"Ya'll like to suck dicks, boys?" another put in. "That why you wears your hair so long?"

Things might have ended right there if they'd kept their mouths shut or just left the diner. But they did neither. Instead Matt looked them over and said, "Well Goddamn, if it ain't a bunch of garden variety shitkickers. Everyone named Billy Bob, raise your hand."

The biggest of the truckers stood up so fast his stool fell over. His was in his early forties, about six and a half feet tall, and at least three hundred pounds. Several prison tattoos decorated his arms. "You lookin' for trouble, boy?" he asked Matt. Meanwhile, the rest of the truckers stood up and sauntered over, forming a loose circle around them.

"Uhh... Matt," Jake said, looking from one to the other. "Maybe we should..."

"You think you can give me some trouble, Bubba?" Matt asked. "Come on and give it a shot. I'll kick your fat ass from here to the fuckin' Alamo."

And that had started it off. Bubba (or whatever his name was) swung a roundhouse at Matt, who easily ducked under it and drove a solid right into Bubba's stomach. The catcalls from the other truckers began. The waitress - who was actually named Flo and had an actual nametag on her pink uniform proclaiming this - told them to take it outside. But things were too far gone for that. Bubba launched an attack, driving at Matt with his fists. Matt, a veteran of many barroom brawls, blocked most of them, ducked away from a few others, and then launched a counter-attack, landing a solid right to Bubba's cheek and a solid left to his nose.

The other truckers stayed out of it at first - no doubt driven by some sort of Texas sense of fair play. But when Matt started to really hammer Bubba's face, splitting his lip open, breaking a tooth, making him gag on his blood, they tried to move in and break it up.

"That's enough, boy," one of them told him, grabbing at Matt's arm.

Matt then made his big mistake. Instead of stopping he turned on the man trying to break it up and punched him in the face as well. All sense of fair play ended at the moment.

"Oh shit," Jake said, resigned, as the entire room rushed at the two of them.

Jake - who was not a veteran of barroom brawls, who in fact always tried to talk himself out of such situations if possible - held his own pretty well. He broke the nose of the first guy to come at him, felled the second with a kick to the balls, and held off the third by driving an elbow into his solar plexus. But then a fourth man slipped in from the right flank and delivered a solid blow to his face, stunning him. A fifth hit him with a shot to his kidneys that made him drop to his knees. And then there were fists pummeling him everywhere, hitting his face, his neck, his chest, his stomach. The adrenaline took over and he managed to pull himself out of there long enough to grab a plate from the counter which he promptly broke over someone's head (thus the assault with a deadly weapon charge). And then he was hit with a chair from behind, driving him back to his knees and opening him up for another furious attack.

Matt, meanwhile, had dropped two of the truckers to the ground, knocking them clean unconscious, but the rest had overwhelmed him and taken him down. They kicked him and punched him until he stopped fighting and was barely conscious himself.

Right about then, the cops showed up, pulling into the parking lot, red lights flashing, sirens blaring. And despite Greg's pleas, threats, and other reconciliatory attempts, Jake and Matt were both handcuffed and driven first to the local hospital where they were stitched and examined and then the jail cell where they were now residing. Not a single one of the truckers had joined them there.

"So ya'll are rock music stars, huh?" the deputy asked them now.

"Yeah," Jake said. "I guess we are."

"Ya'll think that gives you the right to come into people's towns and start a bunch of trouble? Ya think 'cause you're rich and famous you kin do whatever you want?"

"No," Jake said. "We don't think that at all."

"Well I guess them boys at the truck stop taught you a lesson or two, didn't they?"

"Yeah," Jake said. "I guess they did."

"I seen that video thing ya'll put out," the deputy said next. "That thing about hell." He pronounced this hay-all.

Jake said nothing. He ached everywhere and just wanted this man to go away.

"Ya'll think its funny making music about the Devil?"

"The song's not about the Devil," Jake said. "Did you ever listen to it?"

"I caught my daughter watchin' that crap on the MTV," he said. "I seen all I needed to see. Why don't you boys try makin' some real music instead of damnin' your souls to hell by peddlin' that Satan worshipin' stuff?"

"Real music?" Jake asked. "What kind of music would that be?"

"There's two kinds of real music. Country and Western. You'll never catch Hank Junior or Waylon singin' about no Devil worshippin' crap."

"No, I don't suppose you would," Jake sighed.

"How old is your daughter?" Matt asked.

"She's seventeen," he said. "Just started her senior year of high school."

"Yeah?" Matt said. "What's she look like? Would I do her?"

"Shit," Jake muttered as the deputy's face turned an infuriated red.

"Boy," the deputy said dangerously, "you say one more thing about my daughter and you gonna find out what an elevator ride is all about."

And of course, Matt didn't let it drop. "I can get her tickets for the show in Little Rock," he said. "I can even get her a backstage pass. Of course, there's a certain price she has to pay for that. Does she swallow? Or would she rather take it up the ass?"

"That's it," the deputy said. He spoke into his radio and less than twenty seconds later four more deputies were there with him. They opened the cell door and pounced on Matt, wrestling him down and handcuffing him. Jake made a move to help him but two more deputies had arrived by then and held him back. Matt was dragged off down the hall, disappearing around the corner.

He was brought back twenty minutes later, barely conscious, and dumped back on the floor.

Slowly he became coherent enough to talk and relate to Jake just what the elevator ride entailed.

"They put me in the elevator," he said, "and put a football helmet on my head. And then they hit me across the head over and over again with a Dallas telephone book."

"Wow," Jake said, looking at Matt's face. Though he had been beaten to within an inch of his life, there wasn't a single mark on him that hadn't been there before. "Those guys have a little more imagination than I thought."

"No shit," Matt groaned.

"You know something?" Jake said. "You really need to learn to control your mouth a little."

Matt shrugged. "You can't change who you are, you know?"

"Yeah, I know."

They sat in there for another hour, watching flies eat their breakfast and listening to the catcalls, hoots, and yells of other prisoners. Finally the same deputy came back, his face red, his fists clenched. He seemed even more upset than he'd been when Matt had been talking about his daughter. He spoke into his radio and the cell door slid open on its track.

"Git your stinkin' asses outta there," he told them.

"Are we going for another elevator ride?" Matt asked, making no move to stand. "If so, you'd better get those other five guys in here to help, because I ain't going quietly."

"Shut your ass, rock star, and git the hell out of there," he said. "Your rich, faggot Hollywood friends bought your asses free."

Matt and Jake looked at each other carefully.

"Really?" Matt said.

It was true. A couple of high priced lawyers from Dallas had shown up and re-interviewed the "victims" in the case - the group of truckers who Jake and Matt had allegedly assaulted - and the witnesses to the fracas - Flo the waitress and the other non-involved patrons. All of them - the truckers included - had changed their stories around so that Jake and Matt were now portrayed as the victims and the truckers as the aggressors. Since they no longer had a case that the district attorney would be able to win a preliminary hearing on, much less successfully prosecute, the Texarkana Police Department was withdrawing all charges.

"Does it feel good?" the deputy asked them as he led them through the halls. "Does it feel good knowin' that your rich friends passed out a couple a envelopes full a money and got a whole group of honest men and women to lie before God just so you can make your next concert?"

"Yeah," Matt said. "It does, actually."

Jake had to agree with this sentiment as well. "Fuckin' A."

They were led into a changing room where they were given back their clothes and the few belongings they'd had on them when they were arrested. The clothes were tattered and bloody of course, but someone had arranged for them to have fresh clothing instead. They took off the orange jumpsuits, tossed them into a laundry hamper, and got dressed. They signed the forms that were put in front of them and were then taken to the discharge area.

"Ya'll are free to go now," the deputy told them sourly.

Greg - dressed in his customary suit and wearing his customary grin - was waiting for them. "Thank you, officer," he said politely before turning to his musicians. "Boys. How are you doing? Did they treat you well?"

"Oh they treated us real well," Matt said, casting an eye at the deputy. "In fact, this officer was telling me that his daughter is an Intemperance fan, can you believe that?"

"Oh really?" Greg said.

"Any chance you could set her up with a couple of tickets for the Little Rock show?" Matt asked. "And maybe some backstage passes for after the show?"

"Well sure," Greg replied, turning to the deputy. "Just tell me where I should send them and I'll..."

"Get out," the deputy said through clenched teeth. "All of you, get the hell out of this jail and God help you if I ever see you out on the streets of this or any other town again!"

Greg's grin faded. "Well..." he started.

"Uh... I think we should go now," Jake said. "Right now."

They went. There was a limousine waiting for them in front of the jail. It took them to the Texarkana airport where a rented helicopter was standing by, its rotors turning at idle. Forty-five minutes after lifting off, they landed at the Little Rock airport where another limo took them to their hotel, reuniting them with the rest of the band. Doreen fussed over them for the better part of two hours, covering all of their visible bruises with thick make-up. Not only did they make it to the show on time, they made their radio station interviews and their record store signings as well.

It didn't happen very often, but the day following the Little Rock show was another extended travel period day off. They slept in until 10:30 - which was good since they'd partied at the hotel room until almost four the previous morning - and were on the road by eleven, headed for Baton Rouge. They arrived at their hotel - yet another cheap, non-descript lodging facility - just after seven that evening. Jake and Matt were paired together on this night and by 8:30 both of them were lying in their respective beds, shirtless and wearing sweatpants, watching Simon and Simon on the television.

"How's your ribs?" Jake asked, taking a final drag from his cigarette and then snubbing it out in the ashtray. He picked up a glass of soda - no booze in it tonight - and took a drink.

"Down to a mild throb," Matt told him. "Those codeine pills Greg gave me take the edge off." He yawned. "Make me tired too."

"I don't need codeine to make me tired. I'm wasted pretty much constantly."

"Yeah," Matt said, lighting a fresh cigarette of his own. "Life on the road."

"Yep."

They sat in silence for awhile, Matt smoking, Jake staring at the television without really seeing anything.

"Still haven't called her?" Matt finally asked.

He was talking about Angie of course. "No," Jake said. "Not yet."

He had had no communication with Angie at all since leaving Los Angeles. Not a letter or a phone call. God only knew what she thought about him now. He thought about how he'd promised to call her every day, twice if he could, how flippantly he'd made that promise, how naïve he'd been when it had passed his lips.

The first two weeks of their tour had passed in an unbelievable blur, a harsh and unforgiving routine of sound checks, bus rides, autograph sessions, radio station interviews, eating, drinking, getting wasted, and, briefly, for one hour every day, performing. The cities they visited passed one by one, some of them the most famous and historical cities in American history, and they saw nothing of them but hotel rooms, auditoriums, record stores, and freeway systems. From the bus windows they saw high rises, factories, parking lots, and fuel stations. Jake screamed out the names of these cities to their inhabitants, yelling them with enthusiasm, as if he were proud to be there, honored to be there, and with none of the residents realizing that he had to be reminded just what city he was currently in before he stepped out onto the stage each night. He fucked beautiful women in each city, sometimes two at a time, occasionally three at a time, and he never learned their names at all, never knew anything about them, never cared to know anything about them. And with each of these encounters he felt less and less guilt about his lack of fidelity, less and less guilt that he had not managed to call Angie yet.

Not that he hadn't tried, or at least made the effort. Their first extended travel break - after the Boston show but before the Buffalo show - he had actually picked up the hotel phone, his apology speech and excuses rehearsed and waiting on his lips. But the moment he began to dial, the busy signal started to sound in his ears. A retry produced the same result. A call to the hotel switchboard for assistance informed him that long distance calls were no authorized from his room.

"Who the hell asked for that?" Jake had asked.

"The person who made the reservations and paid for the rooms," he was told.

"Greg," he said, seething. He hung up and called Greg's room, demanding an explanation.

"We're on a strict budget for the hotel rooms," Greg told him. "They're paid in advance and we have no accommodation for extras like long distance calls."

"Are you kidding?" Jake asked. "What about all the room service we order? Isn't that an extra?"

"No, we pay a flat fee in advance for food service. It doesn't matter what you eat, it's all covered under a negotiated flat rate."

"But you can't do that same thing with phone calls?"

"All your local calls are free."

"I don't want to make a local call," he yelled. "Who the hell do I know in Buffalo? I need to call Los Angeles and talk to my girlfriend!"

"Well that's easy," Greg said. "Call her collect."

Jake slammed the phone down at that point. He knew that Greg's suggestion made sense, but he couldn't bring himself to call a girl collect to apologize to her for not calling. And so the phone call went unmade. The next day he fell back into the rabbit hole of consecutive tour dates and the next time he found himself in a hotel room in a relative state of sobriety and with the time to actually make the call, the thought of calling collect was even more repugnant.

"Would she even want to talk to me now?" Jake asked Matt as Simon and Simon reached the exciting conclusion for the week. "I mean, would she even accept the charges?"

"You're asking me? Matt replied with a laugh. "The man who has made a life out of not caring what women think? You're the fucking Romeo. You figure it out."

Jake looked at the phone. He didn't pick it up. "I don't even know what day it is," he said. "Is it Saturday?"

Matt stared at the television, thinking as hard as he ever did about anything. "I think it's Tuesday," he finally said.

"Tuesday? No way. We did the show in Houston on Wednesday and got arrested on Thursday. That means the Little Rock show was Friday and this is Saturday night."

"No," Matt said. "Houston was four days ago. We got arrested after Dallas, remember?"

"Oh yeah," Jake said, shaking his head. "So that would make it Sunday then, not Tuesday."

"No," Matt protested. "It has to be Tuesday because when we did the Austin show it was Thursday and Dallas was the next day."

"No," Jake disagreed. "We did San Antonio in between Houston and Dallas, remember?"

Matt thought that over. "Fuck, you're right," he said.

"And El Paso was in there somewhere too, wasn't it? Was that before or after Austin?"

"Or was it before San Antonio?" Matt asked.

This discussion went on for several more minutes, long enough for both of them to realize that they had no idea whatsoever what day it actually was and that they had no frame of reference they could agree upon in order to fix a day in the past. It was not the most comfortable realization.

"So what about your bitch?" Matt asked when they finally stopped racking their brains about it. "You gonna call her, or what?"

"I don't even know if she's home," Jake said. "If I don't know what day it is, I don't know if she's at work or not."

Matt rolled his eyes upward. "If she's not home then no one will answer the fucking phone," he said. "It's not like a nuclear device is gonna go off under the White House if she's not there."

This was sound logic but Jake uncharacteristically did not allow it to sway him. "I think it's been too long for a phone call," he said. "I need to talk to her face to face."

"And when are you going to do that?"

"After the Louisville show next week," he said. "That's the end of our first leg. We'll have two weeks off and Greg said they'll fly us back to LA."

"Really?" Matt said. "That's bitchin'."

"They're not doing it out of the kindness of their hearts," Jake replied. "It's cheaper to fly us home and then back to Hartford when we start the second leg than it is to pay for two weeks worth of hotel rooms somewhere."

"Ahhh," Matt said, nodding. "Of course."

Jake lit another cigarette, took another drink of his soda, his brain pondering. He looked over at Matt. "Home," he said. "That's a funny thing to be talking about right now."

"How's that?"

"I don't have a home."

"Huh?" Matt said, looking at him strangely.

"I'm not talking figuratively either," Jake explained. "I'm talking literally. I gave up my apartment in Heritage when we moved to LA. I gave up my apartment in LA when we went on the road. I don't live anywhere at all. My mail is going to some PO box. If I left the tour right now, I wouldn't have anywhere to go to and no money to go there with."

"Are you thinking of leaving the tour?"

"No," Jake said. "But that's not my point. My point is that even if I wanted to, I couldn't. Not unless I wanted to be stranded in Baton Rouge or New Orleans or someplace like that without a dollar or even a quarter in my pocket. Did you ever wonder why they seem to make sure we don't have any money on us?"

"What's to wonder about?" Matt asked. "We haven't made any fucking money yet. The album has sold almost three hundred thousand copies but we're still a couple thousand fathoms in the hole because of the recoupable expenses."

This was all very true. Descent Into Nothing - the album - was selling like hotcakes all across the nation, much faster than the record execs had predicted. The biggest sales spikes were appearing in the cities that Intemperance had visited as part of the tour, spiking there in every case in the three days following the concert. And Descent Into Nothing - the single - was doing even better. When they'd listened to the top forty countdown on the radio during the bus ride to Baton Rouge earlier that day (and if either Jake or Matt would have remembered that the top forty countdown was always on Sunday, they would have realized what day it was) their song was spending its third week in the top ten, this time occupying the number six spot. Again, this was much higher than the record execs had expected since album sales were the moneymakers with hard rock bands and the individual songs usually didn't fare well on the charts. But even with all of these remarkable sales, the first of the four yearly royalty periods had passed with Intemperance - the band - still in the red, their recoupable expenses still being paid off. Though National Records was raking in the money, the band members had yet to see a penny beyond their initial advance.

"It's not just that though," Jake said. "Even if we were out of the recoupable expense hole and bringing in thousands - millions in royalties, we still wouldn't be able to get our hands on any of it out here on the road. Those checks would just be sitting in our PO boxes uncashed. I don't even have my checkbook with me and even if I did, who's going to cash an out of town check for us? They don't want us to have any money, Matt. They want us to have to rely on them for everything. Remember when we wanted to get the pie?"

"How could I forget?" he asked sourly. That had, after all, led to their beating, arrest, and general mistreatment by the Texas authorities.

"We had to beg for money from Greg in order to do that. And that was just a pie. What would happen if we wanted to go see some sights here in Baton Rouge and asked him to give us some cash for a rental car? Or what if we wanted to cruise New Orleans when we're there? After all, Mardi Gras is this week and we're gonna be in the Big Easy. You think he'd kick loose some cash for us?"

"No," Matt said at once, remembering how reluctant Greg had been to even give them money for the pie.

"Without money, we can't do anything," Jake said. "We can't even leave the hotel rooms. Food, booze, pot, coke, women - all of that is provided for us, but if we wanted to go hit some nice restaurant down on Bourbon Street... forget it. We couldn't even get a cab to take us down there. We couldn't even take the fucking city bus."

The next few days passed in its usual consecutive shows blur. They performed in Baton Rouge, in New Orleans, in Jackson, in Memphis. They did drugs and drank alcohol and fucked groupies. They crashed hard and were awakened with cocaine instead of coffee. And then, on February 4, came Nashville, the heart and soul of the country and western music industry. You would hardly be able to tell that by the crowd that filed into the 9000 seat Memphis Memorial Auditorium. Intemperance and Earthstone had sold it out weeks in advance and on the night of the show it was stuffed to the rafters with teenagers and young adults, most of the females in tight mini-skirts or tight jeans, most of the males sporting long hair and a variety of rock band T-shirts. A sea of lighters was held aloft when Jake, Matt, Bill, Darren, and Coop took the stage and began to play.

After the show, as they were sitting in their dressing room, sipping their first beers of the night, smoking their first post-show cigarettes, snorting their first post-show lines of cocaine, all of them were noticeably more gleeful than usual.

"Louisville, Kentucky tomorrow night and then two weeks off!" Jake said happily, taking the bong from Coop and inhaling a tremendous hit.

"I can't wait to go back to LA," Matt said. "By now we're famous there. The bitches will be throwing pussy at us. I'm gonna hit up every nightclub I can and fuck a bitch in every one. And the nightclubs that have B's as the first letter in any word of their name, I'm gonna either fuck two or fuck one up the ass."

Everyone cracked up at this, not only because it was funny but because they knew Matt took such vows seriously. If he said he was going to do that, then he meant to do just that.

Jake coughed out his hit. "Jesus, Matt," he said, still chortling. "Where do you come up with this shit?"

"It's the way my mind works."

Greg walked into the room. "Hey, guys," he said in his best glad-handed manner, the way he talked when he was pretending to be just one of the boys. "Great show tonight. You rocked hard and steadily."

"Thanks," Matt said blandly. "And you set up your usual impressive spread of hooch, blow, and smoke. So what about the groupies?"

"Yeah," Bill said. "Is Jack gathering us a suitable cross-section of Nashville promiscuousness?"

This caused another outburst of laughter. They were in a good mood indeed.

"I know nothing about that," Greg said in his best conspiratorial voice. "You boys are aware of my views on fornication."

"Hey, Greg," Coop asked. "Tell us the truth. You been doing this gig for a few years. Ain't you ever slammed a groupie? Not even once?"

"Never," Greg said with righteous conviction. "My wife and I were sealed in the Temple. To violate our vows would be the utmost betrayal of my faith before Heavenly Father."

"But snorting a couple grams of coke a week is cool with The Man?" Jake asked.

Greg grinned. "That's just to keep me alert and responsive enough to do this trying job I've been assigned," he said. "It's a minor infraction and I'm sure I'll be forgiven come judgment, especially in light of all the other temptations I avoid."

"Of course," Jake said.

"Anyway," Greg said, "I was on the phone with Mr. Acardio while you guys were playing. The results are in for the week and Descent Into Nothing has slipped back to number eight on the charts. Since it's reached its peak and is heading back down, we're going to release Who Needs Love? on Monday. The radio stations across the country will start receiving their copies of the song by next Friday and hopefully it'll start getting airplay over the weekend."

All five band members uttered some version of approval at this. Cool, bitchin, awesome, groovy (that contribution from Bill).

"A new release," Greg continued, "means we're going to need to get a new video out. Fortunately there's a two-week break in the tour coming up after tomorrow's show. We're going to utilize that break to film videos for Who Needs Love? and for The Point of Futility, which will be the next release."

This time there were five different phrases of disapproval from the band members, most of them profanity-based.

"I'm sorry, guys," Greg said. "I'm just passing on orders."

"Two videos?" Matt asked. "Christ, it took us a week to shoot the Descent video. Our whole vacation is shot to shit."

"This is supposed to be a break," Jake said. "Is Acardio unaware of what the definition of that word is?"

Greg simply shrugged. "I'm just a small cog in the National Records machine," he said. "They don't consult me when they make these decisions."

"Why the fuck not?" Matt grumbled.

Greg wasn't sure whether he was supposed to answer that or not. You never could tell with Matt. He chose not to.

"Are they flying us out of Louisville then?" Bill asked.

"Does Louisville even have an airport?" Jake put in.

"We're not flying anywhere," Greg said. "We'll be taking the tour bus."

"The tour bus?" Matt asked. "We're driving all the way back Los Angeles? That'll take three days."

"We're not going to Los Angeles," Greg said. "We're going to Orlando, Florida."

"What?" Jake said, sitting up so fast his beer dumped onto the floor. "Orlando? Why the hell are we going to Orlando?"

"Well, because we're close by it and NTV maintains a studio there. Norman Rutger and his production staff are on their way there now to start setting up the pre-production details."

"Great," Jake said, kicking his beer bottle across the dressing room. It spun from one corner to the next, spraying beer the entire trip.

Greg's grin faded the tiniest bit. "Orlando's a great place, Jake," he said. "And I hear Mr. Rutger has some awesome themes for the videos. They're flying a complete wardrobe out for all of you!"

Jake grabbed another beer out of the ice chest. "I can't wait," he said. "I just can't fucking wait."

They managed to film both videos in twelve days, although this meant the days in question were spent with them on the set at least twelve hours and sometimes as much as sixteen. If not for the cocaine - Matt and Jake had both decided that filming a video was not exactly performing so the no drugs rule was ruled not-applicable - they might very well have collapsed from sheer exhaustion.

None of the band was happy with the end results of their efforts. Once again they were forced into bizarre clothing and forced to act out a bizarre production that had little or nothing to do with what the songs were actually about. Who Needs Love? was about a man who simply enjoyed casual relationships because he didn't want to experience the lack of freedom that went with commitment. But the video for the song, utilizing Matt as the main character, was about a disturbed serial murderer who killed every woman who got into a relationship with him. It was full of images of beautiful women sliding notes to him or trying to move things into his house or displaying other signs of affection for him and then ending up as the starring feature of various crime scenes. And The Point of Futility came out as being an anti-nuclear weapons piece, complete with images of old nuclear tests, protests at various weapons productions facilities, and still photos of victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.

"My God, you freakin' moron!" Jake had screamed at Rutger, infuriated, when he first read the script. "This is a song about breaking up with a woman! It's about the point when you realize its over and there's nothing more to be done to save the relationship! It's not about nuclear weapons! Not even remotely!"

This, of course led to a dramatic tantrum by Rutger and threats to end his relationship with National Records and NTV. "These are visionless buffoons you've sent to me!" he complained. "Buffoons!"

And this, of course, led to phone calls from Max Acardio and a few people even higher up the ladder, all of them issuing threats and reading provisions of the contract to him.

The videos were shot as scripted and the band members dressed as they were told and did what they were told.

The upshot was that they never saw anything of Orlando but the inside of cheap hotel rooms and the inside of the NTV Florida studios. Jake never got a chance to call Angie, and, in truth, his desire to do so was rapidly fading.

The second leg of the Earthstone/Intemperance US tour started on February 20 in Hartford, Connecticut. The following night they played in Newark, New Jersey. The night after that brought them to New York City and a break in the routine. Though they would still be doing consecutive shows they would not have to travel in order to do them. They were playing Madison Square Garden - one of the most prestigious venues in the country - not just once but three times, every one of the shows a sell-out of the 17,000 seat facility.

The members of Earthstone were initially very proud of this fact and were quick to take credit for it. This was natural since they were the headliners of the show. On the day they got the news, just prior to the end of the first leg of the tour, all four of them had been strutting around like Gods, high-fiving each other, and proclaiming that this album had indeed been their shining jewel. Their attitude was understandable. On their three previous tours they had only sold out the smaller venues and had never been booked at Madison Square Garden at all.

It was Greg, in a fit of cocaine-induced tactlessness, who had been the one to burst their bubble. "You guys didn't have anything to do with the sell-outs," he told them. "It's Intemperance they're coming to see, not you."

They tried to scoff at this suggestion but Greg scoffed at their scoffing.

"I'm not making this stuff up," he told them. "National has done the studies and the polls. Intemperance is hot and most of the people buying tickets are doing it to see them and not you. It seems like the word has spread about how good of a show they put on."

Earthstone had undoubtedly already suspected this fact but having it pointed out to them in such a fashion had been perhaps one of the unkindest things Greg could have done. From that point on the indifference Earthstone had shown towards the members of Intemperance changed to out and out hostility.

"Nice," Jake told Greg as he watched the four men he had once idolized go storming out of the backstage area, kicking over boxes and trashcans on the way. "Did you have to be so brutal with them?"

"Fuck 'em," Matt said with a shrug. "It's a brutal world."

Jake could not deny that it was indeed a brutal world.

For reasons they were initially unable to fathom, each member of Intemperance was put up in a luxury suite in the Park Avenue Towers Hotel for the duration of their stay in New York - this despite the fact that Earthstone was still assigned to what was little better than a motel across the river in Jersey City. Jake, though mystified, could not help but be impressed by the 1600 square foot room on the 43^rd floor, a room that overlooked Central Park.

"To what do we owe this pleasure?" he asked Greg as they headed for the radio station interview of the day.

"Just a little reward for you boys for doing such a good job on the tour so far," Greg responded, grinning from ear to ear of course.

It was the next morning - after playing before their largest crowd ever and then engaging in a night of New York debauchery - that the real reason became clear. A reporter from Spinning Rock magazine - the premier publication for rock music and everything associated with it - arrived to hang out with the band for twenty-four hours so she could do a story on them. Her name was Gloria Castle and she was an attractive, self-assured woman in her late thirties dressed in jeans and a T-shirt from the recent Rolling Stones world tour.

"As you can see," Greg told her after introducing her to the band in Jake's suite shortly after breakfast, "the band members demand only the best in their accommodations and we at the record company go to great lengths to keep them happy."

"I can see that," Gloria said, scratching a few things in a notebook she carried. "And do you guys enjoy this sort of treatment in every city you visit?"

"Of course they do," Greg said, before any of them could answer. "We treat our talent like royalty at National. Like the kings that they are."

"Jesus," Jake muttered, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

"We're hip-deep in the bullshit here," Matt agreed.

If Gloria heard their comments, she made no indication so. She simply snapped a few pictures of the room, a few pictures of the band sitting at the dining room table, and then sat down.

"Would you care for a little party-favor?" Greg inquired, whipping out his fabled cocaine kit and cracking it open.

"By all means," Gloria replied, smiling for the first time.

Greg laid out a tremendous spread of the drug, covering nearly the entire mirror. It was passed from person to person, with no one abstaining. Once this ritual was complete, everyone was in a better mood.

"So tell me," she asked no one in particular, "how did you guys get together in the first place? My understanding is that you all met in college in Heritage?"

"Well, kind of," Matt said, lighting a cigarette. "You see, Darren and I have been friends since junior high school. And Coop hooked up with us in high school, when we tried to get our first band together."

"What was the name of the high school?" she asked.

"Casa del Oro in Gardenia. That's a suburb of Heritage."

"The rich suburb," Jake said. "And Casa del Oro was where all the rich kids went."

"Hey, my family wasn't rich," Darren protested.

"No shit," Matt said. "That was why I hung out with you. I hated rich kids."

"You were one of the rich kids," Coop said.

"I know. That's why I hated them so much. A bunch of preppie faggots."

"So you didn't know them in high school, Jake?" she asked.

"No," he said. "I grew up in South Heritage. I've known Bill since I was a kid though."

"Oh?" she said.

"Yes," he confirmed. He tried to explain how their mothers were best friends and fellow musicians in the Heritage Philharmonic Orchestra, but she wasn't interested.

"Tell me about how the five of you came together," she said after interrupting his story. "That's what the readers are really going to want to know."

"Well," Matt said, "Darren, Coop, and I had been playing together all through high school. Some other guys drifted in and out of the band, most of them sucked ass, a few were decent, but none of them wanted to make the band like... you know... the most important thing in their lives. They would get jobs or find girlfriends who didn't want them spending so much time rehearsing and shit. Anyway, after we graduated from high school we started doing some original songs together. I was singing at that time. I have a pretty good voice and..."

"So you went to college?" she cut in, not wanting to hear about how good Matt thought his voice was.

He gave her an irritated look but kept his tongue civil. "Yeah," he said. "We couldn't get any gigs or nothing because we just didn't sound quite right. I decided to take some classes at Heritage Community College - some of the music courses just to... you know... get a little more educated in my field." He scoffed. "That was a joke. I had already studied most of that shit on my own. I knew more about music theory than most of the instructors. And I sure as shit played better than any of the guitar instructors who tried to..."

"So that was where you met Jake?" she interrupted again.

The look of irritation was a little stronger this time. "Yeah. That was where I met Jake."

"And what were you doing there, Jake?" she asked him.

"I was taking general ed classes," he replied. "After I graduated, I worked for about a year and just kind of drifted from job to job. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life... other than be a musician of course, and that seemed like such a long shot I didn't gear myself too much towards it. So anyway, I got tired of my parents nagging at me to go to college and get a degree so I signed up for some classes, thinking I'd start working towards an English degree and then kind of decide from there what I wanted to do. I had this vague thought that maybe I'd like to be a teacher. You know... so I could..."

"And then Matt crossed your path at some point?" she cut in.

This time the look of irritation came from Jake. "Yes," he said slowly. "Matt's path crossed mine. I took some of the music courses as a general elective and for pretty much the same reason as Matt - because I thought I might learn something I didn't already know." He shook his head. "And like Matt, I didn't. I was already a better musician than anyone I encountered in those classes... except for Matt."

"We ended up in Advanced Guitar together," Matt said. "Everyone else in that class was a fuckin hacker, the instructor included. And then I heard Jake play." He took a drag off his smoke and nodded appreciatively. "I knew he was bad-ass from the start. Almost as good as me."

Jake chuckled a little. "Almost," he agreed. "So we gravitated towards each other and hit it off. And Matt told me he had a band with a good drummer and a good bass player but that they needed something else to make the sound a little richer. He asked if I would come jam with them and see about playing a little rhythm guitar."

"So you had never been in a band before?" she asked.

"Never. I'd been playing and singing since I was a kid but I was kind of shy about doing it in front of other people. Usually the only time I would was when I was drunk and trying to... you know... catch the attention of a few females. I learned a long time before that singing and playing guitar was an almost certain way to get... uh... you know..."

"Laid?" she asked.

Jake chuckled again. "Yeah. It was an easy way to get laid. So anyway, I was a little nervous at first but I got together with Matt and Coop and Darren and we had a few sessions with me playing rhythm. Now up until this point, Matt didn't know that I was a singer too. I listened to him sing and he's not bad at all, but I knew that my voice would sound a little better."

"Just a little," Matt joked.

"Well, I had more range and endurance than Matt. So I finally took him aside one day and asked him if he would let me take the microphone for one of the songs."

"And how did you react to this?" she asked Matt.

"I was kind of pissed off at him at first," Matt admitted. "I mean, he was treading on my fuckin' territory there, or at least that's what I thought. But I let him give it a shot. I'll never forget that moment, not if I live to be fuckin' ninety. He did Who Needs Love? - or at least the version of it we had before Bill." Matt shook his head. "It was fuckin' awesome, man. He belted out that song with all the emotion I'd put into writing it and it was perfect, just perfect. Before he even got to the first chorus I knew my days of singing for Intemperance were over."

"And does this ever bother you?" she asked him.

"Not a single bit," he said. "We wouldn't be sitting where we are today if it wasn't for Jake's voice. The man can sing, as I'm sure you heard."

"I will agree with that," she said. "And what about Bill? He is probably most responsible for the unique sound you have. Where did he come in?"

"Nerdly was Jake's doing," Matt said.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah," Jake said. "As I was saying earlier, Nerdly and I have been friends since we were little kids. We both come from musical families. He has always been something of a prodigy on the piano and I just had this feeling that mixing a classical piano in with the hard rock would sound good." He shrugged. "I guess my mind just thinks that way when it comes to music. So I brought up the suggestion to Matt... who had the predictable reaction at first."

"I thought he was out of his fuckin' mind," Matt said. "I mean... a fucking piano? But we smoked a bunch of bud one day and Jake convinced me to at least give it a listen."

"Bill blew them away," Jake said. "Just like I knew he would."

They expected her to ask a few questions of Bill at this point but she didn't. She didn't even look in his direction. "And the rest is history," she concluded. "So what's this rumor I hear about the tour splitting at the end of this leg?"

"Splitting?" Jake asked.

"What do you mean?" Matt asked.

"Well," she said, "I hear that you're going to be headlining your own show after this leg. That since you're responsible for selling out all the venues for Earthstone, National thinks it's time you went out on your own."

Matt, Jake, Coop, Darren, and Bill all shook their heads at this question. They had heard nothing whatsoever about this alleged rumor. But Greg popped up at this point.

"Actually, I just got word on that this morning," he said. "Starting March 15^th Intemperance will be headlining a North American tour starting in Seattle."

"What?" Jake asked, forgetting about the journalist as he tried to absorb this information.

"We're going to be headlining a North American tour?" Matt asked. "Holy fucking shit! Why didn't you tell us this?"

"I was going to wait until after the interview," Greg said. "I guess Gloria has some pretty good sources.

"Yes I do," she confirmed, casting a knowing look at Greg.

The interview was put on hold for a few minutes as the band members swamped Greg with questions - most of which he put off for the moment claiming that all the details had not been worked out yet.

"The home office is busy at work as we speak, booking dates and working out a tour schedule," Greg told them. "All I know for certain is that we'll start in Seattle on March 15^th and that Voyeur will be the opening band."

"Voyeur?" Matt scoffed. "They're a bunch of fuckin' hackers if I ever heard any. Can't you get anyone better than that to open for us?"

Greg's smile disappeared in an instant. "Uh... I think you're thinking of a different band, Matt," he said forcefully. "Voyeur is a fine band, one of National's best hard-rock groups."

Matt didn't notice Greg's look or his tone, nor did he notice the look of interest in Gloria's eyes. "They suck ass," he said. "They're nothing but an AC/DC sound-alike band. And they don't even do a good job of that. In fact, I bet..."

"Matt!" Greg hissed.

This finally got Matt's attention. He looked up to see Greg making throat-cutting gestures and casting his eyes towards Gloria. Finally, he got it. "Oh..." he said slowly. "You mean Voyeur! I'm sorry. I thought you meant... uh... that other group that... you know..."

"So you don't care too much for Voyeur, do you Matt?" Gloria asked. "Would you care to elaborate on that?"

"No," Greg said. "He wouldn't."

Gloria smiled and penned a few notes while Matt became uncharacteristically quiet, at least until she changed the subject and asked him about another rumor she'd heard. "What's this I hear about a filing cabinet and a bunch of Polaroid shots?"

"Oh... you mean my map of the US?" Matt said proudly.

"You mean your map of sinfulness," Greg said with disapproval in his voice, although he was the only one Gloria could have received the information from unless she'd been talking to the bus drivers, which was unlikely.

"So it's true then?" she asked. "You are actually taking photographs of all the girls you have sex with while you're on the road and pasting them in an album?"

"Fuckin' A," he replied. "You wanna see it?"

She did. He dashed out of the room and disappeared for a few minutes. When he returned he held an oversized United States road atlas in his hands. The atlas was tattered looking, the pages bulging unnaturally. He set it on the table and opened it up to the first state in which there were entries - Arkansas. Stapled up in the corners of the Arkansas map were two Polaroid pictures. Each was of a girl with Matt's penis in her mouth, looking up at him into the camera. On the bottom margin of the photos the date and city the picture had been taken were neatly printed. In this case they both said the same thing: Little Rock, 1-29-83.

"I'm doing pretty good," Matt told her as she examined the shots. "So far I've gotten a piece of ass in twenty-three of the fifty states, not including California, my home state."

"You record every one of your... uh... conquests?" Gloria asked.

"Every one that I'm coherent enough to take a picture of," he said. "My goal is to nail some poon in every state of the union, plus at least two in the District of Columbia. I'm almost halfway there."

"I see that," she said, flipping through the atlas in wonder. On some of the states like Missouri and Ohio and particularly Texas, where they had visited multiple cities, there were up to fifteen pictures stapled, all of them showing the same thing - a groupie with her mouth around Matt's penis.

"None of these pictures have names on them," Gloria noted. "Why is that?"

"Groupies don't have names," Matt said. "They're just groupies."

"I see," she said, making a careful note of that particular quote.

The official interview went on for another fifteen minutes or so. Gloria then retreated to the corner telling the band to just do what they normally did and ignore her presence. "This is a day-in-the-life-of story," she said. "I'm here to chronicle your life on the road."

"Remember," Greg whispered to each of them individually when she was out of earshot, "debauchery, debauchery, and more debauchery. Let her see you living up to the Intemperance name. It's your image we're selling here. Your image is what sells your albums."

Jake simply rolled his eyes, his intent to do nothing different than he normally did. Of course, by this point in his career, he had already forgotten that what he normally did was well inside the definition of debauchery.

As for Matt, he openly proclaimed that if they wanted to see debauchery, then he was going to give them debauchery.

"What could you do that you haven't already done?" Jake asked him.

"I don't know," he replied. "But I'll think of something."

Jake had no doubt he was right.

Gloria rode in the bus with them when they went to another local radio station for interviews and two more local branches of Zimmer's Records to sign autographs. She rode with them to Madison Square Garden and watched as they did the sound check. She accompanied them to the dressing and locker room area, stepping out briefly while they actually put on their stage clothes and then stepping back in for the hairdressing portion. Through it all, she snapped pictures and made notes in her notebook. When the time came for them to head backstage to meet the locals, she followed them there as well. She snapped a few more pictures just before the lights went out prior to them taking the stage.

"Listen to that crowd," she commented to no one in particular. "Do you guys ever get nervous about going out in front of seventeen thousand people?"

"Naw," Darren answered, taking a final drag of his smoke. "It's just like D Street West back in Heritage. Just a few more people is all."

The crowd roared as they took the stage for their second night in New York City. The set went off without a hitch. And went it was over, the crowd screamed and cheered for an encore that would not be granted.

As the band opened their first post-show beers and snorted up their customary lines of post-show cocaine, Gloria was there, snapping a few more pictures of them with their hair sweaty, their shirts sticking to their skin, of the ice chests full of beer, of the liquor bottles on the tables. She accepted a few lines of cocaine when it was offered but declined when Matt offered to rub his naked body against hers.

And then they entered the shower area. As had become customary, five groupies were brought in to help the boys shower and get them in the mood for more partying. Gloria, still fully dressed, trailed in behind them and watched impassively as soapy female bodies were rubbed and palpated, as blowjobs were delivered.

"Never kiss a groupie!" Darren yelled at her as a particularly voluptuous redhead slurped and sucked and slobbered all over his knob. "That's the most important thing about being on tour! Never kiss a fucking groupie!"

"It would seem that would go without saying," she said blandly, snapping a picture of Jake as his head fell back in ecstasy.

When they returned to Jake's suite to continue the party, eighteen girls came with them, filling the tour bus to capacity. Gloria parked herself in the corner, trying, and mostly succeeding, at being as unobtrusive as possible.

Jake had had reservations about her presence ever since the first interview. Just how much of this shit was she actually going to write down? But with each drink he consumed, with each line of cocaine he snorted, with each bonghit he sucked into his lungs, his reservations diminished, finally disappearing into the haze of gross intoxication. It wasn't long before he forgot she was even there at all.

He coaxed two of the groupies into the sitting room with him where he had them kneel naked next to each other in the doggie-style position, side-by-side. He slid into one, gave her ten or fifteen thrusts with his condom-capped manhood, and then switched to the other. When the two girls - who had not known each other prior to ending up as part of the "whore brigade" as Matt always put it - began to tongue-kiss each other while he fucked them, he felt his second orgasm of the night starting to churn towards eruption. That was when Matt's voice interrupted him from the other room.

"Jake! Come out here, brother! You've got to check this shit out!"

"I'm busy!" he yelled back.

"Make yourself un-busy!" was the reply. "I got a fantasy coming true out here!"

That was enough to pique his interest. He withdrew from the girl on the left and patted both of them on their bare asses. "Keep yourselves occupied for a minute," he told them. "I'll be right back."

Still naked, his wet condom still on his fully erect cock, he walked back into the main living room of the suite. There, amid the full-blown orgy that was going on, a naked groupie was lying on her back on the carpet, her legs spread wide while another groupie - an Olivia Newton-John wannabe - also naked, was kneeling between her legs and licking her. Matt, equally naked, his cock capped with a rubber as well, was kneeling behind Olivia and dumping cocaine into her ass-crack while yet another groupie was spreading it open for him.

"You've heard of body shots, right?" Matt asked Jake. "Well this is a fuckin' crack line! Check it out!"

And with that he leaned forward and stuck a drink straw into her crack and snorted up. The groupie raised her head up and giggled as she felt the sensation.

"That is something new," Jake said, impressed.

"Ahhh," Matt said, sniffing a few times and then dumping some more into the girl's crack. He handed the straw to the groupie holding the cheeks open. "You want in on this, hon?" he asked her.

She did. Matt took over the duty of holding the cheeks open while the groupie snorted up the cocaine.

"You want some of this, Jake?" Matt asked him, dumping some more into the valley.

"Hell yeah," Jake heard himself say. He walked over and took the straw in hand. He leaned in and snorted. It would be one of the last things he would remember doing that night.

On February 12, 1983, Descent Into Nothing - the album - went gold when the five hundred thousandth copy was sold. Two days later the band opened for Earthstone in Miami, Florida. It was the last date of the second leg of the tour and it would be the last time in their existence that Intemperance would open for anyone. The following day Earthstone would be bussed back to Los Angeles for two weeks off prior to starting the third leg of their tour in Tucson, Arizona. Intemperance would be bussed to Seattle where a small auditorium had already been rented for them to begin rehearsing for the first leg of their North American tour.

After their set was over, the band did their normal cool-off routine in the dressing room. They cracked a cold beer, lit up smokes, and took a few bonghits to put them into the mood for their post-gig shower and the customary blowjobs from nameless, faceless groupies. No sooner had those first beers been consumed than Greg utilized his patented schoolmaster hand-clapping routine and told them it was time for them to get out of those clothes so they could be cleaned and put away. Right at that moment the dressing room door opened up and Gordon Strong, Earthstone's drummer came strolling into the room. Dressed in his stage garb of parachute pants, a muscle shirt, and with a Kamikaze bandana around his neck, he was smoking a cigarette of his own and had a joint cocked behind his left ear.

The band fell silent as he looked them over. Relations between the two bands had remained strained since Greg's contemptuous comments and they had gone out of their way to avoid each other even more so than they had before.

Gordon took a thoughtful drag off his smoke and blew it out into the room. He looked at each one of them. "I caught your show tonight," he told them.

"Oh yeah?" Matt replied, not exactly politely - he had been on the receiving end of more than one insult by an Earthstone member.

"Yeah," Gordon said. "I thought it might be a good idea since... you know... this is our last gig together and none of us have even seen you yet."

The silence stretched out, quickly becoming uncomfortable. Jake finally broke it.

"What did you think?" he asked.

Gordon nodded. "Pretty fuckin' good," he said. "I can see why you sold out MSG and all the other venues. You guys rock."

"No shit, Sherlock," Matt said, unwilling to be appeased. "Sorry it hurts your feelings so much."

Gordon was undaunted by this. He simply shrugged. "Just thought I'd let you know that," he said. "If we don't see you again, have a good tour."

"Yeah," Matt said, standing up and passing threateningly close to Gordon. "You do the same." He looked at the rest of the band. "Come on guys. There are sluts awaiting."

He walked out the door, heading for the locker room. Coop, Darren, and Bill got up and followed him. Jake stood but remained in place.

"You comin', Jake?" Bill asked.

"In a few," Jake replied. "Go ahead and start without me."

Bill nodded and disappeared through the door. Greg remained behind, watching the two musicians nervously.

Jake and Gordon stood looking at each other, ignoring Greg's presence.

"You really liked the show?" Jake asked Gordon.

"Yeah," he said. "I really did. Have you caught our show yet?"

Jake laughed. "I paid twenty bucks two years ago to catch your show. I paid sixteen the year before. But now that I've been touring with you for three months, I haven't even heard a single note of it."

Gordon nodded. "I know how it is, friend. Believe me. I know how it is. You want to catch it tonight?"

"Is this a lure to get me backstage so the rest of your band can kick my ass?"

Gordon laughed. "I can't guarantee an insult-free trip, but I think the boys are a little too wasted to kick anyone's ass right now. Come on. I'll burn one with you before we go on."

Jake smiled. "You talked me into it."

"Wait a minute," Greg said. "What about your clothes? What about your shower? What about getting back to the hotel? The bus leaves well before the main act is complete."

"Well," Jake said thoughtfully, "Reginald can just wait on my clothes. I won't be needing them again until Seattle, right?"

"Well... yes, but..."

"And you guys can give me a lift back to the hotel when your set is over, can't you?" Jake asked Gordon.

"I think we can squeeze you in," Gordon assured him.

"So there you have it, Greg," Jake said. "Just leave my clothes in the locker room and I'll shower after the show."

This all made sense, but Greg didn't like it. His carefully orchestrated routine was being upset. "You really should stay with your band, Jake," he said. "I don't like the idea of leaving you alone here."

"I'm not a five year old child, Greg," Jake told him. "I'm a big boy. I'll be all right."

"But..."

"Goodbye, Greg," Jake said firmly. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Greg obviously wanted to say more but he held his tongue. Fuming, he stormed through the door and disappeared.

"You gotta love tour managers, huh?" Gordon asked. "Zed Golan - he's our tour manager - had the same shitfit when I told him I wanted to get dressed early and catch your show tonight."

"I'm surprised they let us go to the bathroom by ourselves," Jake said. He reached in the ice chest and grabbed another bottle of beer.

"Are those for anyone?" Gordon asked.

Jake smiled. "Help yourself."

Gordon did. To two of them.

They walked in silence to the stage left area, which was teeming with activity as Intemperance's roadies were removing their band's equipment from the stage and stowing it in a back corner for later transfer to the trucks while Earthstone's roadies were busy setting up their band's instruments and equipment on the stage. It was a dance no less delicate and intricate than that performed by the flight deck crews aboard an aircraft carrier during a launch and recovery cycle. And by this point in the show both sets of roadies had it down to a fine science.

"Hey, Jake," Mohammad greeted as he trotted by with a microphone stand in each hand, two lengths of guitar cord looped around his shoulders, and a cigarette poking out of his mouth. Mo had trimmed down considerably these last few months, but not just because of the hard work. He, like the other roadies, had been using a lot of crank, subsisting upon it for days at a time during the consecutive set periods. His face had thinned out and was showing an outbreak of acne. His hair had grown long and was suffering from an acute lack of combing.

"How you doing, Mo?" Jake asked him.

"I'm ready for a few weeks off," he said wearily. "What are you doing back here? Shouldn't you be getting your helmet polished about now?"

"Thought I'd catch the Earthstone gig tonight."

"Ahh," he said. "Well bang a groupie for me, later, will ya?"

"You know it," Jake told him.

Mohammad dumped off his load of equipment and then rushed back to the stage to get another. Jake and Gordon wandered over to the far side of the stage left area, where the packing cases were stacked. They found seats here, sitting on splintery boxes and leaning against the auditorium wall. From outside the muted murmur of the crowd could be heard. Gordon pulled the joint from his ear and lit it up with a disposable lighter. He took a large hit and then passed it over to Jake.

"Thanks," Jake said, putting it in his mouth.

They smoked it until it was a roach and then Gordon simply threw it on the floor like it was a cigarette butt. He then took out a real cigarette and sparked that up. Jake lit one as well, enjoying the sensation of the marijuana surging through him and finding himself feeling an excitement he hadn't felt in a very long time. He was going to see a concert tonight! And a concert by one of his favorite bands. And he was, in fact, getting stoned with the drummer from that band and was going to watch it from backstage. How many times had he dreamed of such a thing?

"Wow," he said in amazement.

"Pretty good shit, huh?" Gordon asked, opening his own beer and draining half it at a swallow.

"Yeah," Jake said, grinning, feeling the best he had felt in months. "In fact, in a way, it made me feel like a kid again."

Gordon raised his eyebrows but offered no further comment on that. Instead, he commented on Descent Into Nothing. "Heard you went gold the other day. Congratulations."

"Thanks," Jake said.

"And in only four months. That's pretty damn fast for any album, especially a debut album. You guys will go platinum by mid-summer."

"You think so?"

"I know so," Gordon said. "And you'll go double-platinum by New Year's Day, maybe sooner if you get a few more songs on the radio."

"Too cool," Jake replied. "That means I'll make twenty-eight thousand in royalties for the year instead of fourteen." He shrugged. "Oh well. I guess that's better than a poke in the ass with a fireplace implement."

Gordon was laughing, but Jake could tell it wasn't at his joke.

"What?" he said.

"You think you're going to earn twenty-eight grand off a double platinum album?" Gordon asked him.

Jake was embarrassed. "I know it's not much but that's what we calculated it out to. Maybe the next album we'll get a little better royalty rate. Especially if it sells as well as this one is doing."

Gordon's laughter trickled off and became a look of pity. "Jake," he said. "You ain't gonna make shit off this album and I mean that quite literally."

"Huh?"

"We've put out three gold albums in the last four years. And this album, which is our fastest seller yet, is probably going to go platinum. I'm the primary songwriter. And do you know how much I've made in royalties all this time?"

"How much?"

"Not a fucking dime," he said. "I have never seen a royalty check. Not even one. In fact, our recoupable expenses clause has got us more than a quarter of a million dollars in the hole."

"Jesus," Jake said. "How the hell did that happen? What kind of contract did you sign?"

"Pretty much the same contract that you signed," Gordon told him. "Twenty percent for Shaver, recording and promotion costs one hundred percent recoupable, tour costs and video costs fifty percent recoupable. That sound about like what you signed?"

"Yeah," Jake replied, not mentioning that Shaver was actually getting twenty-one percent out of them. "That's what we signed. But when we calculated it out we came out to fourteen grand apiece if we went platinum. Nerdly did the math on this and he never screws up math."

"I'm sure his math is correct," Gordon said. "He just didn't calculate in some of the incidental clauses in the contract."

"Incidental clauses?"

"All that pot you smoke, all that booze you drink, all that coke you stuff up your nose, all that coke your tour manager is stuffing up his nose. Who do you think is paying for all that?"

Jake's eyes widened a little. He had never really thought about who was paying for all of it. He had always just assumed it was part of the perks of being on tour. "That's all coming out of our recoupables?" he asked.

"Yep," Gordon confirmed.

"But isn't it included in the estimates of the tour costs?"

"Nope. It's completely separate. It doesn't fall under the category of 'tour costs'. It is considered part of the 'entertainment costs' clause and that, as you may or may not know, is one hundred percent recoupable."

"You're telling me that we're paying for that fuckhead Greg to snort coke day and night. We're paying for all of that?"

"Well, you're not physically paying for it, but it's being deducted from your royalties. You're also paying for all of that crank your roadies are snorting. You could make an argument that, since the roadies rely on that shit to put the show up and then tear it back down day after day, it is an operational cost and therefore subject to the fifty percent recoupable rate. Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, National doesn't quite see it that way. The consider the crank part of the 'entertainment costs' as well."

"So it wasn't included in the estimate either," Jake said numbly.

"You're starting to see the light," Gordon told him. "My guess is that you're about fifty grand in the hole at this point. It'll be close to a hundred grand by the time you're done touring for this album, maybe even a little more. You and your guitar player got arrested and thrown in jail didn't you? The bribe money they used to get you out, the cost of the helicopter they rented to fly you out here, the lawyer fees, the limousine rides, all of that shit falls under the 'legal costs' clause of your contract. That too is one hundred percent recoupable."

Jake was shaking his head. "I'm not gonna put up with this," he said. "Paying for Greg's fucking cocaine? Fuck that!"

"There's no way around it, Jake. There's absolutely nothing you can do about it. If you quit the tour, you'll be in breach of contract and the record company will sue you for everything they're losing, and they'll win. No lawyer would even take your case. And if you demanded that Greg snort less coke, all they'd do is jerk you off and say they'll have a word with him and nothing will change."

Jake was fuming now, his happy feeling of earlier shattered into a million pieces.

"Welcome to being a rock star," Gordon said. "Ain't it a glamorous life?"

"Jesus," Jake said, shaking his head.

"But look on the bright side," Gordon said.

"There's a bright side?"

"There's always a bright side. It just depends on how you look at things. Forget about the recoupable expenses. Forget about being in the hole. It doesn't matter."

"What do you mean, it doesn't matter?"

"You're a star, Jake, and you're going to be treated like one as long as you play their little games. So you don't have any money in your wallet? So you don't even have a fucking bank account? Who cares? The record company will take care of you as long as you're still hot."

"Take care of me?"

"You get to get wasted all the time," Gordon said. "You don't have to worry about going out and finding your dope or buying your booze. They do it for you. They get women for you - some of the most beautiful women in the world and they're just dying to fuck you. How many times have you been laid on this tour?"

"More than I can count," Jake admitted.

"And when the tour is over, they'll set you up in a nice pad somewhere in LA and keep you supplied with drugs and booze and broads and even some spending money for when you want to go out on the town. You'll get limo service wherever you want to go. You'll fly first class - or maybe even private - whenever you have to travel to another city. And you'll have a premium sound studio that you and your boys can rehearse in for your next album. Is that really all that bad?"

"But what about when you're not hot anymore?" Jake asked him. "What then?"

Gordon sighed. "Well, that's kind of when it all falls apart," he admitted. "If you stop selling albums and making money for them, they drop you like a rock and you'll be out on your own."

"Uh huh," Jake said.

Gordon shrugged. "It's the life we choose, Jake. It's the life we choose."

The rest of Earthstone emerged into the backstage area at that point. They cast hostile looks at Jake but said nothing to him. They gathered over on the other side, near the stage entrance, and their tour manager began crunching up some cocaine for them.

"Oops," Gordon said. "That's my cue." He stood up and clapped Jake on the shoulder. "Don't sweat it, Jake. Just go with the flow. You're a fuckin' rock star, man. It may not be what you thought it was, but it ain't that bad either."

Jake made no reply and Gordon walked away, heading for the table and the cocaine.

Jake watched the Earthstone members as the lines on the mirror were formed. They were all looking eagerly at it, reminding him strongly of dogs salivating as their canned food was being opened and dumped into a dish by an attentive master. He looked at their faces. They all looked years older than they really were, like men in their mid-forties instead of their late twenties.

"The life we choose," he muttered. "The life we choose."