Climbing the Rock

Chapter 7: Coming Home

March 25, 1983

Portland, Oregon

A soft spring rain was drizzling down as the band walked from their hotel room to the tour bus. As usual, they were looking a little haggard, their faces unshaven, all dealing with varying degrees of hangover. By this point in their careers, however, being hungover was an almost normal state, something that a few more hours of sleep on the bus and a few lines of coke and a few beers upon awakening would take care of. Their humor was good since they were not only starting an extended travel day off but the extended travel day was taking them home for the first time in nearly a year. They were scheduled to perform for two nights in Heritage.

"I think I like this whole having our own rooms thing," Matt was saying as they boarded. "Now that we have some privacy I was able to try out a few new things with my groupies last night."

"What kind of things?" Jake asked, wondering what there could possibly be that Matt was too embarrassed to do in front of others.

"Well," Matt said, "I always wanted to see what the whole water sports thing was about."

"Water sports?" Jake asked, folding down his bunk and tossing his bag up on it. "You tried water sports?"

"Yeah," Matt said. He shrugged. "It was all right. I don't see why all those weirdos in the porno mags get off on it though. I wasn't nothing spectacular."

"Wait a minute," Coop said, folding down his own bunk. "Are you talking about pissing? That kind of water sports?"

"Yeah," Matt said. "What's the big deal?"

"We're you pissing on the bitches or were they pissing on you?" Darren asked.

"I tried it all," Matt replied. "I had two of them up there last night. First I pissed on them."

"Where at on them?" Darren asked, seemingly fascinated.

"Their stomachs, their tits, their pussies."

"Did you do this on the bed?" Coop asked.

"No, in the fuckin bathtub, you moron," Matt told him. "Anyway, it didn't do much for me, other than relieve my bladder. So then I had them piss on me. They squatted over me and let go all over my cock and balls."

"That is purely disgusting," Bill said, though he seemed fascinated by it as well.

"It wasn't that bad," Matt said. "It was a little hotter than me doing it to them but nothing mind-blowing or anything. The only part that actually gave me a boner though was when they pissed on each other. That was so nasty it was hot."

"How'd they do it?" Darren asked. He was nearly drooling.

"Well, first they were making out with each other and then they pissed while their pussies were rubbing together. Then, later, after I'd already drilled them a few times, they sixty-nined in the tub and pissed in each other's faces."

Greg had come on the bus during this story and had caught the tail end of the conversation. He seemed genuinely appalled. "That is the sickest thing I've ever heard of, Matt," he said. "That is truly abusing Heavenly Father's gift of sexuality for perverted ends."

"Hell yeah," Matt said. "Give me a gift - any gift - and I'll abuse it any way I can think of."

Greg shook his head, took a moment to compose himself, and then put his grin back on his face. "Before you all climb in your bunks to sleep off last night's licentiousness, I do have something you'll probably want to see." He held up a copy of Spinning Rock magazine from a stack he carried under his arms. "The latest issue just came out. And look who's on the cover."

The picture was one of the few the group had actually posed for during the twenty-four hours Gloria Castle had followed them around back in New York City. It had been taken just prior to their hitting the stage at Madison Square Garden. They were dressed in their stage garb, Jake and Matt standing in the center of the shot, the rest of the band gathered in the background. But it was not the picture that captured Jake's attention. It was the print below it.

DESCENT INTO DEPRAVITY, it read. A DAY IN THE LIFE OF WHAT MAY BE THE MOST DEGENERATE ROCK BAND OF ALL TIME.

"The most degenerate rock band of all time?" Jake asked.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Greg said. "I just read the article. I couldn't have written it better myself. You boys performed splendidly for her, just splendidly. The publicity you'll get from this will be better than any advertising we could have taken out. In fact, there is already an article in the Portland newspaper's entertainment session about it. They're outraged at you boys. Absolutely outraged! It's beautiful."

"They're outraged?" Bill asked.

"And that's good?" Coop chimed in.

"Of course its good," Greg said. "Negative publicity is the best kind for a rock and roll act. Remember Ozzy Osbourne and the bat? Well that little trick you did with the cocaine in that trollop's buttock crack is going to be just as infamous. You'll be remembered forever for that thanks to this article and the follow-ups that will be done in the mainstream newspapers."

"She wrote about the coke in the groupie's ass crack?" Jake asked, horrified. His parents would see that article! Angie would see it!

"She wrote about the entire party at the hotel room," Greg confirmed. "The drinking, the drugs, the sex, everything! But the cocaine in the buttocks is the centerpiece of it all. And then there are the pictures!"

"The pictures?" Jake said, feeling a little sick to his stomach now.

"Oh yes indeed," Greg said. "The most gloriously depraved pictures I've ever seen in a mainstream publication. I imagine she had to get special permission to print some of them since they're borderline pornographic."

"Yeah?" Matt said, excited. He snatched a copy of Spinning Rock out of Greg's hands. "I need to check this shit out."

"Oh Jesus," Jake moaned as the rest of the band grabbed copies as well.

The bus pulled out of the hotel parking lot and began heading for the freeway. Jake listened to the hoots and yells of Matt, Coop, and Darren as they paged through the magazine, checking out the article and the photographs. He simply sat for a few minutes, staring at the caption on his copy, afraid to even open it. Finally he decided he might as well get it over with. He opened it up and consulted the table of contents, turning to page 19, where it started.

The first thing he saw was a picture of himself in the shower. The shot was only from the stomach up but it was quite obvious what was going on. His head was back, an expression of bliss on his face, his hands reaching downward, disappearing at the bottom of the frame but set in the universal position of a man receiving a blowjob. The caption below read: Lead singer Jake Kingsley enjoys the attention of a young female fan while showering after the show at Madison Square Garden. The group demands that five young ladies are brought back for such activities immediately following each performance.

"Oh my God," Jake said. "I can't believe this."

"I know," Greg said, nearly orgasmic with joy. "Me either. People will be outraged. This might be one of the best selling issues of Spinning Rock of all time."

There were plenty of other pictures as well - shots of the beer and liquor table, shots of the groupies being led backstage after the show, shots of the hotel room with all the girls in it just before the clothing had started to come off. Each one had a caption beneath explaining just what had been going on when the shot was taken. Jake looked at each one and then returned to the beginning and started to read the article itself.

I was recently asked to spend twenty-four hours with one of the hottest upcoming bands of the year, Intemperance, as they visited New York City for three sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden. I thought I would merely be interviewing another rock band, something I've done dozens, if not hundreds, of times in my ten years as a Spinning Rock journalist. What I encountered instead was a one-day trip into the darkest, most depraved recesses of gross intoxication and sexual perversion I have ever witnessed.

And that was just the beginning. The entire article took up twelve pages of the issue - almost ten thousand words. She touched only briefly on the background of the band members and how they had come together, covering the entire subject in three paragraphs. And one of those paragraphs contained an out-of-context quote from Jake that seemed to say he had learned to play guitar only so he could get laid. The subjects of the album, the tour, and the show itself were covered by another six or seven paragraphs. The rest of the article was almost entirely dedicated to describing in graphic detail the events that took place after the show.

The members of Intemperance are demanding and specific when it comes to their after-performance pleasures. After leaving the stage they return immediately to their dressing room where ice chests full of beer and a complete array of hard alcohol and mixers are laid out, along with a supply of both marijuana and cocaine. While cooling off after an hour of performing, they imbibe in all three of these substances, which puts them in the mood for phase two of their after-gig festivities: The shower. Now most bands simply get into the shower after their performance and get clean. Intemperance, however, likes to utilize their shower-time to get dirty. Their security force has orders to bring back a young female fan for each member of the group - that's five girls - and these girls then undress and join the band beneath the spray. The sex in the shower is usually oral in nature and the band members use terms such as "bitch" and "ho" and even the dreaded C-word as they instruct the girls on just how they like to be administered to.

And that, like the actual events themselves, was just for the warm-up. She chronicled exactly what each band member drank, smoked, and snorted. She frequently quoted the banter that went on between them. She told how the security force brought in thirteen more girls to go with the original five and how they loaded onto the tour bus and went back to the "opulent suite overlooking Central Park" and engaged in a sex and drug party that "defies description or terminology. Merely calling it an orgy is like saying the World Trade Center towers are merely tall buildings".

And then she got to the part that was going to make Intemperance a household name and put her article into the running for a Pulitzer Prize.

By this point in the party I was speechless, beyond appalled at the debauchery I was witnessing. All of my years of watching rock acts party after their shows had led me to believe I had seen it all but it was obvious I hadn't. These musicians had managed to shock me. But the greatest shock was still coming. It came when Tisdale, still completely naked and unashamed, ordered one of the girls to perform oral sex on another one of the girls. He then grabbed yet another girl and ordered her to hold open the buttock cheeks of the girl performing the oral sex. Once this was done he actually poured cocaine in between her buttock cheeks and snorted it out of there with a drink straw. He then offered the straw to the girl who was holding the cheeks apart. She seemed reluctant but she finally took it and did what she was told. After that, Tisdale called Kingsley in from the other room (where he had taken another two girls - presumably Kingsley has at least a little shame) and poured some more cocaine into her buttocks for him to snort. Kingsley's only remark was "this is different", before he took the straw and snorted his fill as well.

"Oh, man," Jake groaned as he read this. Yes, Greg was probably right. This story was going to make them infamous. But infamy was not exactly what he had been shooting for when he signed up for this gig.

At 7:30 that night, Jake was sitting up in front of the bus next to Ken Adopolis, who was behind the wheel for this last stretch. He and Ken had just taken a few hits of marijuana from Ken's pipe and both of them were drinking from bottles of beer when the sign appeared out of the darkness in front of them.

HERITAGE CITY LIMITS

Population 343,316 Elevation 44

"There it is," Jake said, smiling as he saw it. "I never thought I'd be almost crying to see that sign."

"It must be like totally awesome, dude, to like come back to your hometown as a fuckin' star," Ken said.

"It's just nice to be home," Jake said. "To be able to see things I'm familiar with." He looked out the side window. "The river is right over there, and in a minute we'll be able to see the buildings downtown. God, I missed this place."

"I can dig it, dude," Ken said. "I can really dig it."

Ken drove them to the Royal Gardens Hotel - the same place they had met with Shaver for the first time. Since this was their hometown and the local media attention was going to be quite intense - even without the controversial article in Spinning Rock - they had been given deluxe accommodations, the best available in Heritage, in fact. WELCOME HOME, INTEMPERANCE!!! read the marquee in front of the hotel. KEEP ON ROCKIN' AND ROLLIN'.

Their check-in was quiet and uneventful. They were handed their keys and led to the sixteenth floor and their individual suites. Jake found that he had been given the exact suite they had negotiated their representation with Shaver in. He found a strange sort of irony in this.

He lay down on his bed and picked up the phone, excited about calling a local number for once. He dialed from memory the number of his sister's house in Gardenia - a house not far from that of Matt's parents. It was the second time he'd contacted her since going out on tour, the first being a collect call from a Seattle hotel room while rehearsing for the opening night of their headline tour.

"What's up, overachiever?" he asked her when she picked up the phone.

"Well if it isn't my little brother the rock star," she responded. "I've been reading about you today. Very interesting article in Spinning Rock."

"Oh great," he groaned. "I was hoping no one had seen that."

"Everyone has seen it," she told him. "You guys are all anyone talks about in this town since you got that first single on the air. They play your songs three or four times an hour on every radio station, even on stations that don't play rock music. The news has been reporting for a week that there was going to be an article about you in Spinning Rock. I hear every copy they sent to the Heritage area has sold out."

"Wow," he said. "I didn't realize people were that... you know... into us here."

"You're the first musical group from Heritage to gain nationwide popularity," she reminded. "What the hell else does this town have to be proud of?"

"I never thought of it that way," he said. "So did... you know... Mom and Dad see it?"

"Their only son gets his picture on the cover of a famous national magazine and you want to know if they saw it?"

He sighed. "Well, when you put it that way... Did they say anything about it?"

"Dad didn't. You know how hard to read he can be. Mom seems to be hoping its all just fabrication."

"This is so embarrassing," he said.

"So... did you do it?"

"Did I do what?"

"The butt-crack thing, you idiot. What do you think everyone's been talking about?"

"I thought the blowjob in the shower and the drugs might've taken precedence as the topic of conversation."

"Well, they're talking about all of it, of course, but it's the butt-crack that seems to stand out the most. It has a little bit of the sex and the drugs all in one story."

"I see," he said.

"So how much of the story is true?" she asked him.

He sighed again. "It was written in a slanted manner - very slanted actually - but the basic facts are pretty much true."

"Hmmm," she said thoughtfully. "I can see why you're concerned about the price of all that cocaine if you're dumping a quarter-gram at a time into some bimbo's ass. Does that sort of thing go on every night?"

"Usually not to that degree, but... yes. It goes on pretty much after every show."

"Well I have to admit, little brother, you're job is certainly more interesting than mine."

"If not better paying," he agreed. "Were you able to get a copy of our contract?" That had been the subject of the first call from Seattle. He wanted a lawyer to look over the contract and see if everything Gordon Strong had told him was true, and, if so, if it were enforceable. And since Pauline was the only lawyer he knew, he had turned to her for assistance. In order for her to legally get her hands on a copy of the contract, she had instructed him to send her a signed, notarized piece of paper proclaiming that she was representing him in a legal capacity and that he authorized release of all documents to her. This had been embarrassing in and of itself because in order to do this she had to wire money to him.

"I got it," she said. "Finally. I had to send a notarized copy of your authorization twice because they claimed they'd lost the first one. Then I had to spend about two hours on the phone getting passed around from person to person like a joint. Eventually, I wore them down and got hold of that Acardio guy."

"A real prince, isn't he?"

"Yeah, about as fun as a yeast infection. Anyway, he tried to play some hardball with me but he finally sent me a copy after I threatened to fly down there and get a subpoena. It just arrived yesterday. Postage due no less."

"And what do you think?" he asked. "How screwed did we get?"

"Pretty damn screwed," she told him. "I'll go over it with you tomorrow. Are we still getting together for breakfast?

"Fuckin' A," he replied. "I'm looking forward to it. I'm at the Royal Gardens, room 1602."

"A suite," she said. "I'm impressed."

"It's all for show," he said. "There's going to be a stream of media people interviewing us tomorrow and National wants them to be impressed with our decadence. Usually we stay in second rate hotels."

"Ahh," she said. "That makes sense. What time should I be there?"

"How about seven?" he suggested.

"That early?" she groaned.

"Sorry, we have to be over at KROT at nine for our first radio interview."

"I guess I can drag my ass out of bed then," she said. "Did you get tickets for all of us?"

"Yep," he confirmed. "Tickets and backstage passes for you and Mom and Dad." He hesitated. "Are you sure they still want to come? I mean... after the article and all?"

"Of course they want to come," she said. "You're still their only son, even if you do snort coke out of ass-cracks."

Jake went to bed at ten o'clock that night, his mind troubled but his body fatigued enough to allow him to drift off. A wake-up call at six-twenty got him out of bed and - as was usually the case on the rare occasions when he went to bed sober and got a good night's sleep - he felt almost giddy with energy. It was getting so it felt strange not to wake up exhausted and hungover.

He shaved, showered, and took care of his other morning duties. By the time he finished this and got dressed in a clean pair of jeans and a fresh pullover sweater, the room phone began to ring. It was the front desk, inquiring if a "Ms. Pauline Kingsley" was authorized to visit him. Typical of Pauline, she was ten minutes early.

"Send her up," he said.

Less than five minutes later she was knocking on the door.

She was as beautiful as ever. Dressed in a fashionable pair of slacks and a tight sweater, her brunette hair neatly styled, her make-up just right, she smiled broadly as she saw him. Jake was surprised to find himself near tears as he looked at her. Hers was the first familiar face he'd seen outside the band since leaving Heritage. They hugged affectionately and sincerely. Jake then gave her a brief tour of the suite, suitably impressing her. They then retreated to the sitting room, taking seats on the couch where they perused the room service menu for a few minutes before Jake placed the order.

Jake wanted to get into the discussion of their contract right away but Pauline told him that he might want to tune into the morning news instead.

"The news?" he asked. "What for?"

"I caught the six o'clock edition while I was getting ready," she said. "You guys have been moved from the entertainment section to the top story."

He took a deep breath. "The Spinning Rock article?"

She nodded. "Turn it on and see."

He turned it on, getting a strange sense of satisfaction in knowing what channel to turn to. The timing was perfect. The seven o'clock edition of the Channel 4 Reports was just starting.

Again, he felt a sense of melancholy nostalgia when they introduced the two lead anchors for the news show. He knew their names and faces, had grown up watching them deliver their daily reports to the citizens of Heritage County. It was Maureen Steward and Mike Jacobs, faces he hadn't seen or even thought of in almost a year. His nostalgia withered, however, when Jacobs began discussing their top story of the day.

"Excitement over the return of Heritage's own Intemperance for two sold-out concerts at the Community Auditorium have been somewhat marred by an article that appeared in the latest edition of Spinning Rock," he read, his face staring solemnly at his audience. "In the article, penned by veteran Spinning Rock reporter Gloria Castle, who spent twenty-four hours with the band when they visited New York City in February, are allegations of heavy cocaine and marijuana use, gross alcohol intoxication, and sexual debauchery with a number of young girls in their hotel room after the show. Ms. Castle alleges that she witnessed a drug and sex orgy in which young girls were forced to strip naked and engage in lesbian sex as well as group sex with the band members."

"Forced?" Jake nearly yelled. "Where they hell did it say..."

"Shhh," Pauline hushed him. "Just listen."

"The most disturbing allegation made is that two of the band members - lead singer Jake Kingsley and lead guitar player Matt Tisdale - ingested cocaine from the nude buttocks of a young girl while she was performing oral sex upon another young girl. The descriptions of the activities in the hotel room that night are a little more graphic then we're able to go into on the air, but many people around the country - particularly here in Heritage, the band's hometown, and in New York City, where the alleged activities took place - are shocked and disgusted."

They cut to a series of interviews in which a reporter was asking people what they thought about the allegations. The first was an overweight, middle-aged woman. "I think it's completely disgusting," she opined. "I bought my daughter tickets to that show when they went on sale but now she's certainly not going to go."

"They're just a bunch of degenerates," said the next interviewee, a middle-aged man in a suit and tie. "I never liked their music to begin with, but now I truly find it revolting."

"Would you let your children go see an Intemperance show?" the reporter asked him.

"Never," he said. "I wouldn't let them within ten miles of those people."

"Jesus," Jake said, shaking his head.

The showed a few more clips of interviews - all of them negative in nature - and then Jacobs reappeared, still looking solemn. "Intemperance sold out both of the scheduled shows in Heritage within two hours of the tickets going on sale. However, reports now are that many parents who had given permission for their teenage children to attend one of the shows have revoked that permission in light of the allegations. It is also reported that a coalition of parents are attempting to get the shows at Community Auditorium canceled."

They cut to another interview, this one with a mid-thirties woman with a beehive hairdo and thick glasses covering her eyes. She was listed as Monica Toland, member of something called the Family Values Coalition of Heritage.

"This is just another symptom of the disease that these rock music personalities are inflicting upon the American youth," Ms. Toland said angrily. "This is a band that spits upon everything American families hold sacred. They make videos about Satanism and twisted serial killers. They advocate promiscuousness, homosexuality, and drug addiction. We are calling on the Heritage City Council to meet and pass an emergency decree revoking the performance permit for this band and to pass a further measure permanently banning any future performances. Lacking that, we will picket their performances tonight to show them just what they're up against."

The scene cut back to Jacobs. "Meanwhile, in New York City, the scene of the already infamous after-show party, the NYPD is opening an investigation into the events of that night. Captain Barry Stern, spokesperson for the NYPD, had this to say at a press conference outside New York City Police Headquarters just an hour ago."

A uniformed police officer appeared on the screen, the caption listing his name and title. There were several microphones before him as he addressed the issue for the citizens of his city. "Obviously we are very concerned about these allegations of illegal drug use and possibly of unlawful sex acts. Unfortunately we are not able to pursue indictments regarding the drug use, as there is no way to get hold of any concrete evidence. However, we are attempting to locate some of the young ladies who were present at that party that night to determine if any of them were underage or if there were any issues of non-consent involved. If that is the case we will push for a grand jury indictment of any band members or their support staff who were involved and we will request arrest and extradition from whatever jurisdiction they happen to be in when the indictment is handed down."

"Holy shit," Jake said, his mouth wide open now. "Indictments? Can they really do that?"

"Were any of those girls underage?" Pauline asked him. "Or was there any... rape involved."

"They were all willing participants in everything that went on," Jake told her. "They're groupies. Nothing but common sluts who would do anything to get it on with a band member. They have to give blowjobs to the security staff just to get backstage with us."

"That's disgusting," Pauline proclaimed.

Jake shrugged. "I suppose when you come down to it," he said. "Anyway, I'm pretty sure none of them were underage either."

"Pretty sure?"

"They have to get their ID checked in order to be issued a backstage pass. Our security guy is always careful to make sure we have rubbers and that they get used and that the girls don't have weapons and all that. I never actually asked but I wouldn't think he would allow any underage girls to come back."

"Well, if that's the case you should be all right. Especially if he keeps a log of who the passes are issued to. If any underage girls tried to claim they were raped by you or one of the other band members, they would have to prove they were even there. Something they wouldn't likely be able to accomplish if they really weren't there."

"That's a relief," Jake said.

"My guess is that it's all just bluster on the NYPD's part. They get up there and jerk off the reporters and claim they're looking into it, but I imagine they actually have much better things to do with their time." She gave him a stern look. "However, I would be a little more careful if I were you, particularly when a damn reporter is in the room and taking pictures."

He nodded, ashamed. "Yeah," he said. "I think I'll keep that in mind."

Their breakfast came a few minutes later and Jake switched off the television set. When the room service waiter left they began to eat, talking of inconsequential things between bites. Pauline caught him up on family gossip. Jake shared some of his tamer anecdotes about life on the road. It was only when they were finished and the plates were put back in the tray and covered that she asked a serious question.

"How bad are you into the drugs, Jake?" she wanted to know. "No bullshit."

He thought it over for a moment, not completely sure of the answer himself. Finally, he said, "It could become a problem if I don't do something about it."

"It could become a problem?"

"Yeah," he said. "At this point - New York hotel rooms aside - I'm still in control. When we have days off I can go without it. In fact, I like going without it on my days off. But its kind of part of the routine on show nights. You just kind of get swept away by it. I mean, when everyone worships you and you get done with a show and there's cold beer and bonghits and coke just waiting for you, and when you get in the shower someone sends in a bunch of beautiful naked chicks..." He shrugged. "It's kind of hard to say no, you know?"

"Yeah," she said. "I suppose it would be."

"I think once the tour is over things will slow down. I think I have the willpower for that."

She looked doubtful but did not contradict him. Instead, she opened her briefcase and removed a large manila envelope. "Let's talk about your contract then," she said.

"Yes," he said, grateful for the change in subject. "Let's do that."

"I have to say," she told him, "I've only been practicing law for three years but corporate contracts are my specialty. I've read hundreds of them, maybe thousands. And never have I seen one as screwy and one-sided as this thing. There are clauses in here that even the most unethical and sleazy management wouldn't dream of trying to pull off, things that tilt this entire relationship horribly in the record company's favor. Didn't you read this thing before you signed it?"

"Yes," he said. "Most of it anyway. But it's written in lawyer language."

"Why didn't you have a lawyer go over it for you?"

"We didn't think we needed that," he said. "We had Shaver - our agent - who was supposed to be making sure we didn't get screwed."

She gave a sharp, cynical laugh. "He did a good job of making sure he didn't get screwed. He's raking in his portion of your royalties just fine. They take his twenty-one percent off the top before they start deducting your portion for all the recoupables."

Jake shook his head. "That asshole. No wonder he pushed us to sign once he got the royalty rate as high as he could."

"You guys were babes in the woods," she said. "You made the mistake of thinking that anyone gave a shit about you. Now you're going to be paying the price."

"So you're saying that all that stuff Gordon Strong told me is true? They're making us pay for all the coke and booze and crank and all that?"

"You got it," she said. "Expenses related to entertaining the band, it's road crew, and its agents are considered entertainment expenses and are one hundred percent recoupable."

"But we're talking about illegal drugs. How can they justify that on an expense report?"

"I don't know for sure, but my guess would be that they're simply recording each drug purchase as a generic cash transaction for miscellaneous supplies."

"But what about if we ask for an audit of the books? Don't we have the right to do that?"

"Well... that's one of those screwy things I was telling you about. You have the right to demand an audit, but they don't have to grant it."

"They don't have to grant it? Is that legal?"

"Sure it is," she said. "You signed a contract that granted the right of refusal to them." She flipped through her copy of the contract for a moment until she came to a section she had highlighted. "Right here. 'Audit of expenses are done at the sole discretion of National Records. Requests for audit by the undersigned'... that's you... 'will be considered, but National Records reserves exclusive rights and judgment as to the necessity of said audit'." She put the contract back down. "In other words, if they don't think there's a need for an audit of the books, they don't have to grant one. And how often do you think they're going to decide there's a need for an audit?"

"Jesus," he said. "Is there any way out of it?"

"Not that I can see," she said. "Any failure to abide by the terms of the contract is considered a breach. If that happens, they have the right to sue you for any money they could have reasonably expected to make off of you through the terms of the contract. And at the rate you guys are selling records, that would be enough to have them garnisheeing your wages for the rest of your life."

"So we got fucked without lube is what you're saying?"

"With a Louisville Slugger," she confirmed.

He picked up a cigarette from a pack on the table and lit up. Pauline gave him a disapproving look but said nothing.

"Oh well," he sighed. "Live and learn, I guess. At least with the success we're getting with this album we'll be able to negotiate from a position of strength for our next album."

"Uh... actually that's not true," she said. "This is a six year contract, Jake, calling for six albums, not including Greatest Hits re-releases or live albums. Are you telling me you didn't know that?"

"Well, I know it's a potentially six year contract," he said. "I'm not completely stupid. But there are those options for re-negotiation after each contract period. Didn't you read that part?"

"Oh I read it all right," she said. "But apparently you didn't. Those options you're talking about all belong to the label, not you."

"Huh?" he asked, starting to get a sinking feeling in his stomach.

"Each option period is for one year and one new album," she explained. "You signed up for six option periods. At the end of this period the label has the option of retaining your contract for another period, which means another year and another album. If they didn't like the way your first album sold, they have the option of releasing you from the contract. You, however, do not have the option of doing anything but what they decide. If they want you to record another album you are obligated under the contract to do so and the terms you signed up for on the first album will still apply."

"You mean we're stuck with a fifty thousand dollar advance and all the recoupable expenses?" he asked.

"You got it. And furthermore, any debt you incur as a result of those recoupable expenses will carry over to the next album. They'll still give you your advance, but you'll start out two or three hundred thousand in the hole and it'll only get worse. And once that second contract period is up, they can force you to exercise the third option, and then the fourth, and then the fifth and finally the sixth, all under the same terms. You're stuck with this deal, Jake, until 1988 at least."

Every interview they did that day was longer than usual, both because it was their hometown and it was therefore felt they owed the local media a little more and because of the Spinning Rock article and the tumult it had caused. The first of the day was with Brian Anderson of KROT, the local hard rock station. Anderson was a DJ they had all listened to for years, his voice as familiar to them as their mothers and fathers. The first question out of his mouth was one the band was already becoming intimately familiar with.

"Did you really snort cocaine out of a girl's butt?" he enquired.

"I would certainly never imbibe in illegal drug use," Jake responded with a forced laugh.

"And even if we did," Matt added. "It's not polite to snort and tell."

Anderson laughed, saying he understood. He then went on to a more conventional interview.

From KROT they were driven to the Channel 6 studios in South Heritage, very near Jake's old neighborhood. The interviewer here - a heavily made-up, impossibly Ken-doll like man named Nolan Starr - was not quite as friendly.

"So you're denying the allegations?" he asked.

Jake tried to keep things on an even keel. "Well, I'm certainly not going to admit to them."

"Is that the same as denying?" Starr probed.

"We're taking the fifth on this, dude," Matt told him. "You dig?"

Starr dug, but he didn't let the issue drop. "What do you think about the efforts of the Family Values Coalition of Heritage to get the city council to revoke your auditorium permit?"

"Well, obviously I'm against that," Jake said. "This is our hometown and I'd hate to have our local fans miss out on our show just because a few people are overreacting to a entertainment article."

"So you think the people who are upset by these allegations are overreacting?" Starr asked. "That the parents of many of your fans who believe you advocate Satanism and drug use and rampant, irresponsible sexuality are overreacting as well?"

"I'm just a musician," Jake said. "I don't advocate anything."

"Then you do think they're overreacting."

"Yeah," he said. "I guess I do."

"And what about the allegations that you had sex with minors?" Starr asked next.

"I have never had sex with a minor," Jake said forcefully, although that wasn't entirely true, but it hadn't happened since he was eighteen and had slept with a seventeen-year-old girl.

That interview ended soon after. They were immediately driven across town to another one, this one for the Channel 9 news. It went pretty much the same as the Channel 6 one had.

From Channel 9 they went to the Lemon Hill branch of Zimmer's Records. There was the usual crowd of fans waiting outside to have their albums and singles signed but there was also a group of news crews with cameras set up and a group of hostile older people off to the side. When they got out this latter group pelted them with rolls of toilet paper and chanted, "Clean yourselves up or get out of our town!" The sheriff's department, which had been standing by to control the crowd, kept the angry mob away from them. And when they went inside and began signing autographs nearly ever person asked their own version of the same question: Did you really snort coke out of a girl's ass?

By the time they finished with all of this, it was after three o'clock. They were given bag lunches of sandwiches in the bus as they were driven downtown to Community Auditorium. They ate them in their seats, washing them down with cold beer since it was still over four hours until eight-thirty, the time they were scheduled to take the stage.

Since they'd been delayed so long with interviews the entire schedule was running behind. The members of Voyeur could not complete their sound-check because Intemperance needed to complete theirs first. As such, they were waiting impatiently just off-stage in the stage right bleacher section when Jake and the others emerged from the backstage area to finally get it done. None of the Voyeur members acknowledged the Intemperance members other than their lead singer - a short, skinny man who called himself Scott Bonner (though his real name was Steve Callman) - looking at his watch impatiently.

"Yeah yeah," Matt told him. "Keep your fuckin' pants on, hacker. We'll be done in a little while and then you can get up there and do your poor man's imitation of AC/DC again."

Callman - aka Scott Bonner - fumed but kept his mouth shut. He had already had his eye blackened and two of his ribs sprung when he'd made the mistake of getting in Matt's face for insulting their musical abilities and their unabashed (and poor) imitation of AC/DC. That had been prior to their second tour date together, just before Voyeur had taken the stage, just after Matt had accused him of sacrilege for having the audacity to call himself Scott Bonner - an obvious reference to the legendary Bon Scott, the original singer of AC/DC who had died of an alcohol overdose in 1980.

That had just been the culmination of the tension that had existed between the two bands even before they had met for the first time in Seattle. Voyeur was touring for their third album, having put out two gold albums prior to their latest effort, which was called The Promised Land. They seemed to think it was demeaning to have to open for a band touring for their debut album, as if seniority carried any shit with the National Records executives. Intemperance, on the other hand, thought it was demeaning to have their very name on the same ticket as a group whose sole appeal was imitating another band. To any professional musician or true music aficionado their music was atrocious - their guitar chords were hopelessly simple, their backbeats were unimaginative, and their lyrics were nothing but blatant rewrites of the concepts the band they were imitating had already covered.

"Look at this shit they're passing off as original music," Matt complained at one point. "Road to Purgatory, Murder For Hire, Blown Out of the Sky, Black is the Color, all played with repetitive three-chord riffs and that asshole singing in his quasi-evil voice. How do they get away with it? Why the hell doesn't AC/DC sue their asses?"

"As long as they don't duplicate the actual melodies or the actual lyrics, they're in the clear," explained Bill, who - among his other talents - was a semi-expert in copyright law.

"At least you can be assured that they're even further in the hole than we are," Jake put in. "They've barely made gold their first two releases."

"Proof that there's enough stupid-asses out there to buy anything as long as it's played on the radio enough," Matt said.

Voyeur's tour manager - a veteran at the post - knew that it was in everyone's best interest to keep the two groups as separated as possible at all times. As such, he gathered them up and whisked them away with the promise of some fresh cocaine lines while Intemperance mounted the stage and began their sound check.

As Mo handed Jake his Brogan guitar and as he stepped up to his microphone at the front of the stage, he looked out over the empty auditorium floor in wonder. Though he had done these same actions in dozens of auditoriums in dozens of cities across the country, this time it was different. This was Community Auditorium in Heritage! This was the auditorium where he'd attended his very first concert - Rainbow, in 1975. Since then, he'd seen scores of acts here. He'd seen Black Sabbath multiple times, with both Ozzy and Ronnie James Dio at the helm. He'd seen Styx and Foghat and ZZ Top and AC/DC with both Bon Scott and Brian Johnson. He'd seen Journey, Foreigner, REO Speedwagon, Jethro Tull, Kansas, Rush, Blue Oyster Cult, Supertramp, Santana, The Doobie Brothers. He'd camped out in line all night long in order to get tickets to see Led Zepplin in this auditorium. He'd seen concerts here from numerous other bands that had been mere flashes in the pan, bands whose names he couldn't even remember anymore. He'd attended concerts alone here, seeing acts he secretly enjoyed but wouldn't have admitted to under torture - acts like Chicago, Neil Diamond, Robert John, Johnny Cash, even, most embarrassing of all, Abba. And at every single performance he'd dreamed and fantasized that one day he would be up there on that stage in this auditorium, that one day he would be the one the citizens of his city were coming to see. And now, here he was, standing on that very stage, looking down at that very floor where he'd crowded in with thousands of others, pushing and shoving to get to the front, passing joints around. Tonight they were coming to see him. This night was the quintessence of his dream coming true. He was performing at Community Auditorium.

It took only twenty minutes for the tech roadies to achieve what they considered the perfect mix of outputs for the various instruments to optimize the acoustic qualities of the auditorium. The positions of the various switches and dials were carefully noted down and the band left the stage, leaving the roadies to remove their guitars and cords from the sound system, to remove their microphones and stands, and to wheel the platform containing Coop's drum set off into the corner of the stage. Voyeur's roadies then began assembling their drum set and stringing cables and placing microphones. Of course, long before the culmination of this process, Intemperance was back in their dressing room and enjoying their last beers before the onset of the four-hour pre-show moratorium.

They took their showers and put on their stage clothes just before five o'clock. As Doreen began fixing their hair they watched the nightly newscast on Channel 4. Once again, they were the lead story. This time it was read by Kimberly Caswell, another familiar and famous face in the Heritage television news community. She was hopelessly cute and cuddly looking, perhaps the most loved of all the local newscasters since she was the epitome of the girl-next-door who rises to fame and fortune and who - according to the reports in Heritage Magazine and in the local newspapers - never let it go to her head. She had started out as plain old Kimberly Morgan, the girl who read the weather and the traffic reports and then, about five years before, she had become very publicly engaged to and subsequently married Jonathan Caswell, the head of Caswell Development, the most successful real estate development firm in Heritage and a man whose reputation for philanthropy was almost saintly. Twice in the past three years they had been voted Heritage's cutest couple.

"She's so fuckin' innocent looking," Matt observed as the camera zoomed on her. "Just like a librarian or a kindergarten teacher. Wouldn't you just love to nut all over her face?"

"Matt," said Doreen in motherly disapproval. "Must you use such crude language in my presence?"

Matt actually blushed a little. "Sorry, Doreen," he mumbled and she went back to teasing his hair with her brush.

"The Family Values Coalition of Heritage," Kimberly read, "failed to convince the Heritage City Council to revoke the concert permit for controversial local band, Intemperance, tonight and tomorrow. The controversy centers around an article in Spinning Rock in which the band's excessive drug use and sexual exploits are graphically detailed, including allegations that lead singer Jake Kingsley and lead guitarist Matt Tisdale snorted cocaine from between the naked buttocks of a young girl. The FVCH, citing concerns that many of Intemperance's fans are teenage children, petitioned the city council to open an emergency meeting and to revoke the permits on the grounds that the band violates local standards of decency and therefore constitutes obscenity. Mayor Mary Bancroft refused to call for such a meeting and refused to meet with FVCH members. Her office did release a statement in which Mayor Bancroft stated, 'While I don't agree with the alleged actions of these band members, and while I believe their so-called music is indeed an unhealthy influence, charging them with obscenity based upon unsubstantiated reports in a magazine would never stand up. If we were to pass such a decree, Intemperance's lawyers would have a court order for us to rescind it within two hours.'

"Monica Toland, leader and spokeswoman for the FVCH, expressed anger and disappointment at Mayor Bancroft and the city council for refusing to take up the issue." They cut to a shot of Toland outside city hall.

"I think it's a flagrant breach of accountability to the voters that our mayor and elected officials are unwilling to take steps to protect Heritage's children from obscenity simply because they think a judge will reverse their decision. I would call on every citizen concerned about this matter to place phone calls to Mayor Bancroft's office, demanding that these concerts be cancelled."

The shot cut back to Kimberly Caswell. "Since it is now after five o'clock and city hall closed for the day more than an hour before, members of the FVCH have moved their protest to Community Auditorium downtown, where the first concert is scheduled to begin in just over two hours. We have Bob Goldman on hand there. Bob, can you tell us what's happening?"

They cut to a live shot of a grinning, toupee-wearing man dressed in a suit and tie and holding a microphone. "Kimberly," he said, "as you can see behind me here, Intemperance fans began to line up some hours ago for admission to tonight's show." There was a pan of the camera and they were looking at a long line of fans stretching from the auditorium doors, down the steps, and down the street and out of sight. Many of the fans began to wave and cheer and hold their lighters up as they saw the camera looking at them. "And over here, on the other side of the entrance, members of the Family Values Coalition of Heritage and dozens of concerned parents have begun picketing."

The camera panned over there and, sure enough, there were nearly a hundred people holding up signs and chanting "Intemperance go away! Don't come back another day!" over and over. The camera panned over some of the signs, catching slogans like: GLORIFY TEMPERANCE INSTEAD, PROTECT OUR CHILDREN, INTEMPERANCE SUPPORTS DRUG USE, FRIENDS DON'T LET FRIENDS SEE INTEMPERANCE, or JUST SAY NO - TO INTEMPERANCE.

"Isn't this beautiful?" asked Greg, who was hovering just behind the band, nearly drooling as he saw the coverage. "You can't pay for this kind of publicity. I couldn't have planned this better myself."

"What's so great about it?" asked Coop. "The news in our own hometown is bagging on us. Our own mayor told people we were an unhealthy influence."

"It's publicity," Greg said. "When your target audience are teenagers and young adults, the best way to get them to buy your product is for their parents and elders to be against it. People who didn't even like you or that haven't even heard of you will go buy your albums now. They'll pay more attention when a DJ announces that one of your songs is about to play. Having that writer observe you in your after-show debauchery was brilliant, just brilliant!"

Jake sighed, watching as Bob Goldman walked over to interview a few of the sign carrying FVCH members. He found a fat, middle-aged redhead, and as she began explaining about obscenity and drugs and Satanism and how the band Intemperance was evil personified, the camera panned back a bit, showing some of the other protestors. Jake's breath froze as he caught sight of a familiar face. He leaned forward. "Holy shit!" he yelled. "There's Michelle!"

"Michelle?" asked Matt, leaning forward as well - which served to jerk some of his hair right out of Doreen's hands. "You mean that bible-thumper bitch you used to fuck?"

"That's her!" Jake said. "Right there!"

And it was. She looked a little older and more mature, but it was definitely her. She was nodding in agreement every time the interviewee said something negative about Intemperance. In her hands was a sign that said: INTEMPERANCE IS SATAN'S TOOL!

"Son of a bitch," said Darren. "That is her!"

"Satan's tool?" Bill said. "She really is a bible-thumper, isn't she?"

"She's the bitch that let Jake eat her pussy out one last time before she broke up with him, but then wouldn't let him tear one off in return," said Matt. "Remember that shit, Jake?"

"Yeah," Jake said sourly. "I remember."

"Did she really do that?" asked Doreen.

"She really did," he confirmed.

Doreen seemed appalled by this. "Some people just have no manners," she said.

"Listen to that," Jake said in wonder as the sound of the audience filled the backstage area. It was 8:15 PM, fifteen minutes after Voyeur had finished their set, fifteen minutes before Intemperance was to take the stage, and everyone out there was shouting out In-temp-erance, In-temp-erance, at the top of their lungs and stamping their feet against the bleacher seats or the floor.

"I guess the fucking family values bitches didn't change that many minds, did they?" asked Matt.

"Nope, I guess not," Jake agreed.

He had glanced out at the audience a few minutes ago, peeking through the stage access door and out over the auditorium. It was packed to standing room only on the floor, which was the general admission area, and it was equally packed in the bleachers, which were reserved seating. Their fans had signs of their own, signs that said things like, HERITAGE LOVES INTEMPERANCE, ROCK ON INTEMPERANCE, and FUCK FAMILY VALUES!! He even saw one gorgeous young woman holding one that read, YOU CAN SNORT COKE OUT OF MY ASS ANYTIME!

Greg confirmed that not many people had stayed away. "We sold 9200 tickets for tonight's show," he said. "As of ten minutes ago, 8925 people had come through the doors, and there's still well over a hundred partying out in the parking lot. You see how it works? Even if a lot of parents did refuse to let their teenagers come see the show, the tickets were just sold to someone else. I checked a few back issues of the local paper and flipped through the classifieds. Intemperance tickets were selling for sixty to seventy dollars. And Jack tells me that the scalpers out front were charging ninety bucks for them. Ninety! Can you believe it? I haven't heard of tickets going on the black market for that much since the Rolling Stones tour!"

The time clicked by and the chants for In-temp-erance grew louder and louder. When the lights were finally turned down just before the show, the cheers grew deafening. Jake was grinning as he heard it, as he basked in it. True, he had played before seventeen thousand at Madison Square Garden, but that didn't have shit on this. That was Heritage out there! Those were his people!

"It's time," said Steve Langley. "Hit the stage."

They all took a deep breath, clasped hands in a circle, and then released. Moving in darkness they went through the door and out on the stage. They picked up their instruments and got ready. The cue came, the lights blared to life, and they began to play. The audience was so loud they nearly overrode the amplification system.

Since they were now the headliner, and since they now had two hit songs (Who Needs Love? was currently at number 16 on the chart and rising fast), their set had been changed around and an additional thirty minutes had been added to it. They opened with their first hit song, Descent Into Nothing. They closed with the hard driving Who Needs Love? And then came the encores. They did three more songs, Point of Futility, which was slated to be the next single released, Living By The Law, which hadn't been recorded yet but which any fan who used to catch Intemperance at D Street West would recognize, and Almost Too Easy, which was the last cut on the album and was slated to be released as a single after Point of Futility peaked. Through it all the audience cheered wildly and steadily, holding up their signs, holding up their lighters, dancing and singing along with the music, throwing panties, bras, and marijuana pipes up on stage. For once Jake didn't have to struggle to remember what city he was in during his between-song banter. He didn't have to fear that he would accidentally blurt out the name of the city they'd been in yesterday, or the one they would be in tomorrow. He was home and performing before people he actually knew: his parents, his sister, his friends from high school, girls he had slept with and guys he had drank beer and smoked pot with. This was his town and, though performing on stage was always the highlight of every long tedious day on the road, never had it felt this good, this real, this satisfying.

The set actually ran ten minutes longer than usual because of the extended cheerings after each number they did. And when it was finally over they were given a standing ovation that was still going on long after they left the stage and the house lights were turned back on. It died out only as the roadies took the stage and began disassembling the show.

Jake had taken Greg aside before their set and asked him politely to keep the dressing room spread confined to only alcohol while they were in Heritage.

"My parents are going to be in there tonight," he explained, "and I'd just assume we maintain a little bit of an illusion for them."

"Of course," Greg had promised. "Consider it done." And it was. When they arrived there, still sweating and out of breath and sipping from their Gatorade, there was no marijuana bong or cocaine mirror in sight.

Actually, it wasn't just Jake's parents who came back, it was Bill's as well.

"Jake!" squealed his mother when they finally made it through the gauntlet of security and entered the room.

Smiling, Jake stood and walked to his mother, who was holding out her arms for a hug. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," he warned her. "I'm all sweaty from the show."

"Oh I don't care about that," his mom told him. "I used to change your diapers, after all, didn't I? Now give me a hug."

He gave her a hug. Next his father came up and refused the handshake in favor of a hug of his own.

"Great show you put on," his dad told him. "You've gotten better since we saw you at that D Street place."

"Thanks, Dad," he said, looking over the two of them.

Pauline came up and punched him on the shoulder, just the way she used to when she wanted to annoy him as they were growing up. "I agree," she said. "You guys rock."

He was also hugged by Stan and Cynthia Archer, Bill's parents, whom had been his alternate family ever since he was a toddler. They both told him it had been a great show as well. While they were doing that his parents went over and hugged Bill before greeting the rest of the band.

"Good show, guys," his dad told Matt and Coop and Darren, who were all sipping from bottles of beer.

"Thanks, Mr. Kingsley," Matt said politely, in classic Eddie Haskell form. "Can we offer anyone a drink? The beer is nice and cold."

As it turned out, everyone wanted a drink. Bottles were passed around and opened and then everyone found seats.

"It's too bad you can't stay longer," Jake's mom said. "Can't they give you more than two short days here?"

"We have a tight schedule," Jake told her. "We have to be in Sacramento day after tomorrow, Oakland the day after that, and Los Angeles the day after that."

"Don't forget San Jose," Matt said. "That's between Oakland and LA."

"Oh yeah," Jake said.

"My goodness but they run you boys ragged, don't they?" his mom asked.

"It's the life we choose, Mom," Jake told her. "The life we choose."

"And what about that nice girl you said you were dating in Los Angeles?" she asked next. "Are you and she still an item?"

Jake felt the normal twinge of guilt at the mention of Angie. "Uh... well, we haven't talked too much since I went out on tour. It's kind of hard to maintain a long-distance relationship, you know."

"That's too bad," his dad said neutrally. "She sounded like a very sweet girl. You haven't found too many girls like that, have you?"

"I'm trying, Dad," he said.

"Uh huh," his dad replied, staring at him.

This, of course, led to the discussion of the Spinning Rock article and all the media publicity of the past twenty-four hours.

"All those things that woman said," his mom asked. "Well... that wasn't true... was it?"

"Of course not, Mom," he lied smoothly. "Our attorneys are looking into slander charges against that rag. We were just as shocked as anyone when we read that."

"Really?" Bill's mom said. "So you boys didn't really... you know... do what they said?"

"Do you really think I would do anything like that, Mom?" Bill asked her. "Remember, I didn't even have a date until after high school."

"Well... I admit it didn't sound like something you would do," she said.

"He surely wouldn't, Mrs. Archer," Matt told her. "Bill here is straight as an arrow out there on the road. You would be proud of him."

She beamed as she heard this. Mr. Archer looked a little more doubtful, but his mind seemed to ease as well.

"So you're not really doing all those other things the article said," Jake's mom asked next. "The things with those... you know... those women and the drugs."

"Nobody could do all those things, Mom," Jake assured her.

"There are those who would give it a try though," Jake's dad put in. "Are you sure there's no accuracy to that article, Jake? If you're starting to get yourself into trouble, we can help you."

"We're not in any trouble, Dad," Jake assured him. "I mean, sure, we smoke a little weed every once in a while. I mean, who doesn't, right?"

"Yeah," his dad said guiltily.

"And there's usually beer and stuff like that for after the show," Jake went on. "That is kind of standard."

"But what about the cocaine, honey?" his mom asked. "Pot and alcohol are one thing. Your father and I would be awful hypocrites to try to condemn you for that. But you're not getting into cocaine, are you?"

"Well, we've all tried it a few times you know," Jake said. "Just to see what its like. But using it after every show?" He shook his head vehemently. "No way. That reporter had it in for us."

"So you didn't really... uh... snort it out of that girl's... out of her..."

"No way!" Matt said. "Not only is that sick, it's unsanitary."

"And all those... those... girls?" his mother asked next. "That's not true either?"

"Not even close," Jake said. "I mean, sure, we meet some girls every now and then while we're out on the road, but we're not having orgies or anything. That's just the record company and the media hyping us up to try to sell records. You see, if we get a reputation like that they feel we'll sell more albums. I don't agree with that concept but there isn't a whole lot I can do to stop them from spreading things like that. To tell you the truth, it embarrasses me."

"So your security guards aren't bringing back five naked women for you when you take your showers?" Jake's dad asked.

"Absolutely not," Jake assured him.

"I don't think girls would even do that anyway," Matt put in.

At that very moment, before anyone else could even reply, the door banged open and Jack Ferguson came walking in. With him were five excited and giggling young groupies. He closed the door behind him, failing to notice that the band was sitting on the other side of the room. He turned to the groupies. "Okay, girls," he said. "You've earned your backstage passes. Now the guys are in the shower by now so let's get those clothes off and get in there and start sucking some cock. Remember, no fighting over which band member you get and no letting any cock in your pussies until after the shower."

The girls giggled again and began pulling off shirts and pushing down skirts and pants while the parents of the band members watched with their mouths hanging open.

"Jesus," Jake groaned, dropping his head into his hands.

"Do you think they bought your story?" Matt asked Jake an hour later, as the five of them, plus Greg, were riding the elevator to their rooms on the top of the Royal Gardens. The story he was referring to was the hastily concocted explanation Jake had given his and Bill's parents for the appearance of Jack Ferguson and the groupies.

"That it was just a practical joke on Jack's part, that he knew we were in the dressing room all along?" He shook his head. "No. I don't really think so."

"Me either," Matt agreed. "But that was some pretty quick thinking. You're pretty good at that."

"Yeah," Jake grumbled. "And at least they pretended to believe it."

"I'm sorry," Greg said for perhaps the twentieth time. "It's all my fault. I forgot to let Jack know that the routine in Heritage was to be a little different. At least I got rid of cocaine, didn't I?"

"At least there's that," Jake had to agree.

The usual after-show party had been assembled, this time in Coop's suite. Nineteen groupies had been brought back with them and the alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine were flowing in their usual quantities. Jake opened a beer but before he could even take a drink of it and get a good look at the groupies for the night, Matt was beside him.

"Got a surprise for you," he said. "My old man paid a little visit to the hotel earlier."

"Oh yeah?" Jake asked. "Where is he?"

"I didn't want to socialize with him or anything, I just had Pops do a favor for me. Gather up some coke and enough pot for a couple of joints and meet me by the front door in five minutes."

"What are you up to?" Jake asked him.

"A little hometown celebration," Matt said. "Just do it."

Jake did it. He took the plastic wrappers from Coop's bathroom drinking glasses. He dumped some cocaine into one and some pot in the other. He then pocketed them and made his way to the front door. While Jack Ferguson and two of his underlings were watching Bill, Coop, and Darren get the orgy started, Matt and Jake slipped out the door and into the hallway. They went down the elevator to the lobby and out to the front of the hotel. A quick walk around the building brought them to the parking lot. After a few moments searching they came to a Mercedes convertible.

"Isn't this one of your dad's cars?" Jake asked.

"Bet your ass," Matt said. "We're going out for a night on the town."

"Where we going?"

Matt grinned. "Today is Wednesday," he said. "I actually confirmed that with a copy of the Heritage Register. I also confirmed that D Street West still has live entertainment on Wednesdays. Guess who is playing there tonight?"

"Who?" Jake asked, grinning, starting to like this idea.

"Airburst," he said. "Of course, the show is already over by now - its almost 11:30 -but we can still close out the bar, can't we?"

"I suppose we can," Jake agreed. "Do you have the keys?"

Matt opened the door of the driver's side. It wasn't locked. He leaned over and opened Jake's door. Jake sat down in the luxurious seat.

"Open the glove box," Matt told him.

Jake did so. Inside were the keys and a white envelope. Matt took both. The keys he put in the ignition. The envelope, he opened. Inside was a stack of bills.

"A thousand bucks," Matt said, smiling. "God I love my old man. He does just what I tell him to do." He peeled off roughly half of the cash and handed it across to Jake. "Come on. Let's go have ourselves a good time."

Jake pocketed the money. Ten minutes later they were pulling up in front of D Street West.

The hero worship Jake had experienced at D Street West in the past, when they were simply Heritage's most popular club band, was nothing compared to what they experienced that night. The bouncer guarding the door - a man both Jake and Matt knew well and had partied with many times - was hardly able to form an articulate sentence when he saw them. He absolutely refused to take the cover charge from them.

Within seconds of their walking through the door, everyone in the building knew they were there. A huge crowd formed around them, with people pushing and pulling and shoving and shouting, everyone trying to be the ones next to them, to be close enough to see them and converse with them.

Nor were they allowed to buy drinks. The bartenders - again, most of them people Jake and Matt knew on a first-name basis - fell all over themselves to give them free drinks. And not just them either, but anyone who happened to be officially in conversation with them at the moment.

While Matt reveled in the attention and privilege, Jake found it a bit disconcerting, especially when it was someone he knew who was acting so strangely. A good example of this was Chuck O'Donnell, the owner, the man who had booked them for that first gig and so many after it. He was almost slobbering with excitement at having Matt and Jake in his establishment. He hugged them repeatedly and offered them anything from the bar that they wanted.

"Thanks, Chuck," Jake told him. "But we're just regular customers. You don't have to treat us special."

Chuck scoffed at this suggestion as if it were sacrilege.

And then there was Airburst, a band that had opened for them dozens of times, that had partied with them even more than that, a band whose female lead singer Matt had once enjoyed a threesome with. They were just as awe-struck as everyone else, unable to converse on the same level they once had, able to do little more than blather out the same simple phrases like "we really love your music" and "you guys rock".

This bothered Jake for a while, especially since he'd once considered Dave Merlin, Airburst's lead guitarist, one of his closest friends outside his own band. But, like with everything else, a few drinks and a few lines of coke made it all seem better.

Jake ended up running into a girl that he knew from high school. Her name was Sara Borne and she had been one of the elite back then, a girl who wouldn't have given him the time of day had he been the last boy on Earth. Now, she was just doing anything she could think of to get into his good graces.

At closing time, she abandoned the group she had come to the club with in favor of leaving with Jake and Matt. Matt, of course, had picked up a girl of his own - a naïve and innocent looking nineteen year old named Julie. The four of them - Matt and Julie in the front, Jake and Sara in the back - went cruising through the city, passing a joint around from time to time, snorting a little coke from time to time. By the time they reached the rural area north of the city, they were feeling very loose.

"Do you want me?" Sara asked Jake when they finally parked off the road in a grove of walnut trees on someone's farm. Her eyes were shining and excited, as if she couldn't believe that she was actually doing this. Matt and Julie had already disappeared, having "gone for a walk" the moment they'd parked. They had been carrying a blanket with them.

"I used to fantasize about you," Jake told her, his hand reaching out to stroke her face. "You were one of the best looking girls in school."

She giggled. "I always thought you were pretty cute too," she said.

Jake frowned a little. "No lies," he said. "Let's keep things honest here. You used to call me 'Bonerack' along with everyone else. You and your friends used to make fun of me because I had long hair and wore nothing but rock band T-shirts and I hung out with the losers."

She opened her mouth to deny this but then thought better of it. "I'm sorry," she said shamefully. "I've grown up since then."

He looked her up and down. "Yes," he said. "You certainly have. And you're just as hot as you ever were."

Another giggle. "So, you want me then?"

"Do you want me?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. "Very much."

"Why?" he asked. "What's different about me now? I've put on a few pounds, that's true, but I'm still the same person. I'm still have long hair. I still hang out with stoners. I'm still dressed in jeans and a rock band T-shirt. What's different?"

"I'm able to see you for who you really are now," she said. "I've listened to your music. You're deep, Jake. Incredibly deep. Deeper than any of us ever would have thought possible."

Jake digested this for a moment and then smiled. "Good answer," he said. "Damn good answer."

She laughed. "Shall we take a walk?" she asked him.

He reached out and stroked her face again. "Do you know what I really want to do with you?" he asked.

"What's that?" she asked, perhaps with a bit of nervousness. After all, she had to have heard about some of the things he had done with other women.

"I want to kiss you," he said. "I want to kiss you a lot."

"Kiss me?"

"Yeah," he said. "I haven't kissed a girl in months, since before we went out on the road."

"What?" she asked. "But those stories about you and the..."

"Oh I've fucked dozens of girls," he said. "In every way, shape, and form. But I haven't kissed one. Not even a single time."

"How come?" she asked.

"It's a long story," he said. "But I want to kiss you. I want to kiss you very badly. Are you a good kisser?"

She licked her lips slowly. "I've never had any complaints," she said.

"I bet you haven't," he said.

They leaned into each other and kissed very softly. She had puffy lips, the kind of lips men dreamed of kissing. In fact, when he had fantasized about her back in his high school days, when she was a cheerleader and student council vice president, her puffy lips had been the body feature he used to dream about the most. Was that perhaps the reason he had focused on her tonight? He thought it probably was.

"Mmmm," she said softly when they broke the first kiss. "That was nice."

"Yes," he said, his arms going around her trim body. "It was very nice. Let's do it some more. A lot more."

They did it a lot more. They kissed deeply and softly, firmly and passionately, they enjoyed every kind of mouth-to-mouth contact it was possible to enjoy. Jake reveled in her mouth, in her lips, in the feel and taste of her tongue. He licked her lips and sucked on them. He nibbled on them and ran his tongue over them. He slid his tongue over her teeth and over the inside of her lips. He sucked on her tongue and encouraged her to suck on his. For more than twenty minutes they did nothing but kiss each other. His hands stayed on her waist or on her back. Her hands stayed around his neck. Both of them became very heated from this.

"We're making out," she panted at one point, while Jake ran his tongue over her lips, while he sucked the top one into his mouth. "I haven't done this in years. I mean, not like this... in a car."

"Me either," he said. "It makes me feel like a kid again. And I haven't felt like that in a while now."

They went back to kissing. Eventually, of course, they became heated enough to push things along a bit. His hand went to her breasts, first through her sweater and then beneath it. As he cupped her bare tit, her hand dropped to his lap, finding the bulge of his erection. She palpated and felt it for several minutes before finally finding the buttons of his jeans and opening them.

He pulled her sweater and bra up, baring one breast, which he put into his mouth and suckled. She jacked him with her hand the entire time. Finally she kicked off her shoes and he pulled her pants and panties off, leaving her nude from the waist down. He dropped his own pants down around his ankles. He fumbled in his pocket for a moment, trying to find a condom, while she lay back on the back seat and put one leg up on the front seat, opening herself. At last, he found the package and capped his tool. He lay down upon her and they had sex, rutting in the uncomfortable, cramped, noisy, and oh-so-exciting manner of teenagers trying it out for the first time.

They arrived back at the hotel just before 4 AM, parking the Mercedes back where they had found it and staggering to the hotel lobby. Greg was waiting for them upstairs and he was furious at them.

"Where in Heavenly Father's name have you two been?" he demanded. "I've been frantic! I thought you were kidnapped! I've even had the police out looking for you!"

"The police?" Jake asked. "Are you serious?"

"Oh course I'm serious," he said. "You disappeared without a trace from the hotel. What am I supposed to do?"

"You're supposed to conclude that we went out on the town and had a good time," Matt told him. "We are adults, aren't we?"

"You can't do things like this!" Greg said. "Anything could have happened to you!"

"Is that in our contract, Greg?" Jake asked him.

"What?"

"Does it say somewhere in our contract that we aren't allowed to leave the hotel without permission?"

"Well... no, but..."

"Then fuck off," Jake told him. "Last time I checked, this was still America and I was still an American citizen."

"You have no reason to talk to me like this," Greg said. "All I'm trying to do is look out for your welfare."

"The record company is looking out for our welfare," Jake nearly spat. "Doesn't that make you feel better, Matt?"

"Yes," Matt said. "I'll sleep good knowing that they're looking out for me."

"Listen, you two," Greg said. "In the future..."

"Good night, Greg," Jake said. "I'm going to bed now. I think I have to get up in a few hours, don't I?"

"Yep," Matt agreed. "There's a show tonight."

They went into their rooms, leaving Greg standing in the hallway.