Different Circles

Chapter 16: Playing the Star Again

Canyon, Texas

October 2, 1993

The campus of West Texas A&M was located in the Amarillo suburb of Canyon, Texas, about fifteen miles south of the main city proper. The taxi that was carrying Jake and his baggage from Amarillo International Airport entered the campus and drove through the tree lined streets, which were quiet and sedate since it was a Saturday, and pulled into the spacious parking lot surrounding the twelve thousand seat arena where the college’s Division II basketball team—the Buffalos, or, the Buffs, if you were a fan—played their matches. The arena parking lot was almost completely empty, but in the loading area in the rear were two tractor trailer rigs and two large commercial transport buses.

“This is where you want to be dropped?” the cabbie asked Jake in confusion. He was Hispanic and in his late sixties. He did not recognize his passenger.

“This looks like the place,” Jake told him. “Just pull up over there by the loading door.”

“As you wish,” the cabbie said. “There is no game tonight, however. Basketball season doesn’t start until November.”

“There’s a concert here tonight,” Jake said. “Bobby Z.”

“Bobby Z?” the man asked. “Is he one of those rap people?”

“No,” Jake said with a chuckle. “Smooth jazz. My girlfriend is his sax player.”

“Ahhh, I see,” the cabbie said, though it was quite clear that he did not. “Very well. That will be thirty-one dollars, my friend.”

“Fair enough,” Jake said, pulling out his wallet. He pulled two twenties out and handed them over. “Keep the change.”

“Thank you, sir,” the cabbie said, his voice more friendly now. “Let me help you with your things.”

“I got them,” Jake said. “Just pop the trunk for me.”

“Very good.”

Jake stepped out and went around to the rear of the cab. He pulled out the battered old suitcase that had accompanied him through every Intemperance tour he had ever been on and set it down on the ground. He then pulled out a guitar case that contained his Brogan acoustic-electric and another case that contained the soprano saxophone he had bought for Laura in the Portland Music Store that one fateful day. She had had no use for it on the Bobby Z tour up to this point, but she was going to need it now—perhaps.

Jake slammed down the trunk and waved goodbye to the cabbie. The cabbie waved back and then drove away, heading on to other fares. Jake picked up all of his baggage and walked through the muggy autumn air to a set of stairs that led up to a man-door next to the loading docks. He pounded on the door for a few moments before the sound of footsteps on the other side reached him.

“Yeah, yeah,” a voice called out. “Hold your fuckin’ horses!”

“Holding them!” Jake answered back.

There were a few clicks as the locks disengaged and then then door swung open, revealing a large bear of a man with tattooed arms and long hair tied back in a ponytail. He looked like the kind of man that rode a Harley-Davidson chopper, the kind of man who enjoyed a good fight and was particularly good at carrying one out. Hanging around his neck was a backstage pass. Jake had seen enough of such things in his career to recognize that this one was an all-access pass, which allowed the wearer go anywhere in the arena at any time. His eyes looked Jake up and down for a moment before recognition flared in them.

“Mr. Kingsley,” he said, his voice still gruff but a little more polite now. “Welcome. We’ve been expecting you.”

“Call me Jake,” Jake told him. “I guess I’m in the right place?”

“Indeed you are,” the man said. “I’m Ron Adopolis, head of security for the tour. Come on in. Can I give you a hand with some of your things?”

“Sure,” Jake said, handing over the guitar case. “I see the buses are here. Is the band on site?”

“They just got here a few minutes ago,” Ron said. “The roadies just finished putting up the set and they’re getting ready for the first sound check. Z was hoping you’d get here in time to try to put your part together.”

“I guess we’ll find out,” Jake said doubtfully. He wasn’t too sure of the feasibility of what Z wanted from him, though it did sound like fun if they could pull it off. When he had talked to Bobby Z a week ago to ask if he could come visit the tour for a week of shows, Z (as he insisted Jake call him) had been delighted. But his permission came with a price.

“I’d like you to join me on stage for a couple of numbers,” Z told him.

“Excuse me?” Jake had replied, sure he had misunderstood.

He had not misunderstood. “You’ll be a special guest,” Z said, excited at the thought. “I’d like to have you and Laura do South Island Blur about mid-show and then have you sing one of my numbers you’re familiar with. How does that sound?”

“It sounds like you’ve been watching too many movies,” Jake replied.

“How’s that?”

“You know? The Hollywood jam sessions where musicians who don’t know each other and haven’t played together just step up on stage and pull off a masterpiece? Like Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future? Real life doesn’t work like that, Z. You have to rehearse up a tune to pull it off live.”

“I know that,” Z said. “I wasn’t suggesting you just step up on stage and start playing. We’ll rehearse our numbers during the sound check. If we can’t dial them in, we can’t dial them in, but we’re all familiar with South Island Blur and Teach says you’ve been listening a lot to some of my earlier work.”

“Who is Teach?” Jake asked.

“That’s Laura’s nickname,” he said.

“Ahh, I see,” he said. “Fitting.”

“We thought so. Anyway, let’s at least give it a shot, huh? How badass would it be to have Jake fucking Kingsley stepping out on the stage with us?”

And so, Jake had agreed to at least try. In truth, he really wanted a chance to step back up on a stage in front of an audience. That had always been his favorite thing about being a musician. At the same time, however, he was not going to put himself in a position where he was unprepared for a performance. I will not go up there and look like some fucking hacker, he vowed as Ron led him into the loading area of the arena.

They walked by empty boxes, empty crates stacked atop one another, spare pieces of scaffolding, and a variety of equipment that was used for moving all of this stuff around. From there they walked up a set of steps and into the locker room area, passing down a hallway lined with pipes that had doors every few feet. At the end of this hallway was a wooden wall—not part of the arena construction—that formed the rear of the backstage area. A door cut into the wall led them inside the stage left portion. Here was another haphazard collection of crates, boxes, instrument cases, and spools of wire. Several roadies were moving about, stepping over wires that were strewn across the floor.

“You know,” Jake said to Ron as he took in the sights, sounds, and smells, “I’ve really missed all of this shit.”

Ron nodded. “The road is a bitch, but she has her charms.”

“True that,” Jake agreed.

“We can set your things down here,” Ron said, pointing to a corner that was relatively debris free.

“Sure,” Jake said, putting his suitcase and the saxophone case down where told.

“Come on,” Ron said. “The band is probably out on the stage, getting ready for the check.”

Jake followed him out through the stage left door and onto the platform where Bobby Z and company (and possibly me, he reminded himself) would be performing later that night. The instrument stands had all been set up and arranged and the drum set was in place on its wheeled platform. The entire band was there. Jake only recognized Bobby Z and Laura.

Laura was dressed in a pair of faded blue jeans and a ragged white T-shirt with a picture of a basset hound on it. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail. She looked tired and worn down, but she was also one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen. She saw him as he walked out on the stage and her face lit up in huge smile.

“Jake!” she squealed, rushing over to him. “You made it!”

“I made it,” he agreed.

A moment later he was holding a hundred and twenty pounds of squirming redhead in his arms as she threw herself into him, wrapping her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist. Her mouth was kissing him on the lips, on the cheeks. He relished the feel of her soft body against him, knowing that he would, sometime in the next few hours, be naked and thrusting himself inside of her.

“Now that’s what I call a happy to see you greeting,” Z said with a smile.

“Yep,” said one of the other musicians with a nod. He had a scowl on his face, but did not seem unhappy.

Laura kissed him a few more times, including one smoking hot exchange that involved her tongue penetrating his mouth, and then finally allowed him to put her down.

“It is so good to see you,” she told him. “God, I’ve missed you.”

“I missed you too,” he said, having to squirm a little to adjust his expanding erection. “Anyplace we can be alone?”

She giggled. “Not just yet, unfortunately. Let me introduce you to the guys.”

“Right,” Jake said, looking at the band members who were all looking at him. “Hey, guys! I’m Jake.”

They laughed (except for the scowling guy). All knew who he was, of course. Laura then made the official introductions. He had never met Z before, but had spoken to him on the phone. Z had a firm handshake and did not seem the least bit effeminate. Next came the scowler, who was called Homer and who played the drums. Groove was the bass player. Sally played the trombone. And then there was Squiggle, who played the trumpet. Squiggle told Jake that he’d always admired his work and was looking forward to playing with him.

“Well ... we’ll see how this goes,” Jake said. “I’m not sure we’re going to be able to put together anything with such limited rehearsal time.”

“You never know until you try, right?” asked Z.

“I suppose so,” Jake allowed.

“I really want to perform up on stage with you, Jake,” Laura said. “Let’s try really hard.”

“I promise to give it my best,” Jake assured her.

She smiled and then pulled him into another hug, squeezing him tightly and covering his face with kisses again. “Sweet Lord, you feel good,” she whispered into his ear. “I just want to eat you alive.”

“I could get into that,” Jake whispered back, feeling even more blood go rushing south.

“But, business before eating,” Z said. “We have a sound check to do, and Jake is going to want to plug in and dial in his sound as well, right, Jake?”

“Right,” Jake said with a sigh. “Business first.”

The sound check went quickly, as they tended to do once a band was in the groove of touring and used to performing them day after day (and didn’t have the Nerdlys to nitpick and over-analyze every adjustment). When all of the primary instruments and microphones were dialed in, the techs had Jake plug in his Brogan to a pre-amp. Since he would be playing clean—if he played at all—there was no need for effects pedals of any kind. He strummed his strings when told as the techies adjusted volume levels on the pre-amp, the amp, and then the speakers themselves. Once that was done, they set up a microphone stand and a voice mic for him next to Z’s piano and went through the same process with that.

“All right,” Z said in satisfaction once Jake and his guitar were locked in. “Do you want to dial in that soprano sax now, Teach?”

“Let’s do it,” Laura said, pulling it from the case and attaching a clip-on microphone to it.

It took her a little bit of time to tune the instrument and get it warmed up for proper playing. The techies used her trips up and down the scales to dial in the sound as she did this. Finally, she and Z were both happy with the sound.

“Okay now,” Z said. “Are we ready to try a little South Island Blur now?”

“I suppose,” Jake said. “You all have the sheet music I brought?”

They all did, except for Squiggle and Sally. There was no trumpet or trombone in Blur and trying to fit them in just for the sake of doing it would have increased the complexity of what they were trying to accomplish exponentially.

“Okay,” Jake said. “I’m told you’re all familiar with the tune from hearing it on the radio and CD copies, but that you’ve never actually played it before. Is that correct?”

“Not in a formal manner,” Z said, “although I have been practicing the piano parts by ear since you agreed to give this a shot.”

“This should be interesting,” Jake said. “Let’s do it just like the studio version, except you should probably allow me to lead in with the guitar and then have Laura pick up on it after the first repetition and then everyone else jump in for the third rep. It’s a four, in the key of A minor, and the beat is consistent at one hundred. Sound good?”

“Sounds good,” Z said, giving a nod of respect. “So, we’re talking four reps of the intro melodies before the vocals start instead of two reps like in the recording?”

“That’s right,” Jake said.

“Everyone down with that?” Z asked.

Everyone was down with it.

“All right,” Jake said, gripping his guitar. “Let’s do this thing.”

He began to play. Laura jumped in on the second rep, blowing that sweet, sad melody from her soprano sax. Z, Groove, and Homer jumped in on the third rep. After the fourth rep, the melody settled down and Jake began to sing.

They ran through the entire song and it sounded much better than any of them had any right to expect. Things got a little rough during the bridge section, when Homer misplayed the changeover and Groove followed his lead, and then again when they brought the tune to end and didn’t quite hit unity in silencing their instruments, but all in all, it wasn’t shitty, particularly not for a first run through of song that three of the five had never played before.

“I think we can do this,” Z opined once they were done. “We just need to jam it out a few more times.”

“Yeah,” Jake said pleasantly surprised with their efforts. “Maybe there is something to those Hollywood jam sessions after all.”

They ran through it four more times and each repetition sounded better than the one before it. They were not performing the tune flawlessly, by any means, but any errors made were easily covered for and would likely not have been even noticed by the audience had they been there to hear them. True, the rendition wasn’t as polished as it could have been, but they were going to be presenting it to the audience as an impromptu piece anyway. It was actually desirable for it to sound a little rough around the edges and quickly thrown together.

“All right,” Jake said when they finished the fourth rendition. “I guess I’ll give it a shot.”

“Perfect,” Z said, smiling. “We’re going to replace Sea Breeze with Blur for the next five shows then. Jake, that’ll be the sixth song in the set, right after Time to Talk. You down with it?”

“I’m down with it,” he said.

“Excellent. Now then. Which one of my tunes do you want to sing?”

“My favorite Bobby Z tune—and the one I’m most familiar with—would have to be I’ll Call You Tomorrow.”

“Aww man!” Z complained. “That’s one of my most popular pieces! One of the few that actually hit mainstream.”

“It’s a good tune,” Jake said. “I like the cynical tone of the lyrics quite a bit. And you did say I could do any of your tunes I wanted, right?”

“I did say that,” Z said, shaking his head. “All right. Let’s hear you do it. If you can pull it off, we’ll move that one from the number eight slot and make it the first encore. Do you need the specs on the tune, Jake?”

Jake shook his head. “As long as you’re playing it in G major and I’m only singing, I think I can handle it.”

“We are indeed playing it in G major,” Z said. “All right. Let’s give it a shot.”

This turned out to be even easier than playing Blur had been. The band, including Sally and Squiggle this time, were already well-rehearsed on this particular tune since they had been playing it nightly for the past three months. Jake was familiar enough with the tune and the lyrics to it that it was simply an exercise in karaoke for him. Again, it sounded a tad rough at times (primarily because of Jake’s timing), but again, that was kind of the effect they were going for.

“Very nice,” Z said when they finished. “Let’s do it again.”

They did it again, and then again, and then one more time for good measure. After that, they decided to go through Blur two more times, just to be sure of themselves. They continued to play Blur in an aesthetically pleasing manner as well.

“All right then,” Z said with satisfaction. “It looks like we got ourselves a special guest for the next five shows.”

“Looks like it,” Jake agreed.

Laura had her own private dressing room in the arena. She and Jake retired to it as soon as the sound check was done and Z’s opening band (they used local jazz bands to open for them at every venue—in this venue it was the West Texas A&M ensemble) began to assemble their equipment for their own sound check.

“Jake, I should take a shower first,” Laura said breathlessly as Jake threw her against the sitting chair and began tugging on her shirt to remove it.

“Shower after,” he told her, running his hands over the smooth skin of her flanks for a moment before returning to the task of taking off the shirt.

“But I’ve been on the bus all day,” she panted. “And then out doing record store signings in this muggy heat, and then in the hot arena doing the sound check. I’m all smelly and gross! And I haven’t shaved ... you know... down there in a couple of days now.”

“I don’t care,” he told her, pulling off the shirt and tossing it behind him. “I’ve been waiting months for this moment. I need you now.”

“But...”

“No buts,” he said, covering her mouth with his. He slid his tongue between her lips while his hands went to the snap on her bra. A second later it was loose and fluttering to the floor.

“Wow,” she breathed as his hands covered her breasts, squeezing them, pinching at the nipples. “I find you make a good argument.”

“Yeah,” he said, nibbling at her neck. “Let’s get those pants off of you.”

She dropped her pants and underwear to the ground and he turned her around, bending her over the back of the dressing room chair. He then dropped his own pants. A moment later, he had himself in hand and was rubbing the head of his little buddy against her slit. She was very wet down there, red stubble and all. And there was indeed a strong odor of musk and girlish sweat rising into the air from her. This did nothing but turn him on more. He pushed forward and sank inside of her in one stroke.

“Ohhh, my god,” she moaned. “Yes! Fuck me!”

He fucked her, falling quickly into that age-old motion of love, thrusting away, his hands gripping her hips as his member felt the glorious friction of an orifice that was specifically designed to pleasure it for the first time in forever.

“Oh ... Jake,” she panted as she thrust back at him. “I’ve missed this so much.”

“Me too,” he breathed.

“Do it harder!” she commanded. “And feel my tits! Put your hands all over them!”

He was nothing if not obedient.

None of the members of Bobby Z’s band caught the West Texas A&M jazz ensemble as they performed their forty-five minute set. Jake didn’t catch them either. They were all in the locker room area, sitting in chairs, drinking water from plastic bottles, and telling each other tales from the road. All were now dressed in their stage clothes. For Z it was a pair of tight black pants and a black button-up shirt. For Laura, this was a green and white dress that fell to just above her knees. Her hair had been washed and styled by Roger “Ribby” Jones, the flamboyantly gay hairdresser who proclaimed that the highlight of each of his days on this tour was getting to style an actual female’s hair. Squiggle and Sally were both dressed in neatly pressed slacks and dress shirts to match Laura’s look in the horn section. Groove and Homer, like Jake, were both dressed in jeans and simple dark colored pull-over shirts. All of them had their all-access backstage passes hung around their necks.

“So, I hear you and Celia Valdez have been working with Dexter on your latest projects,” Z said casually. It was the first time he mentioned his former lover.

“That’s right,” Jake said with a nod. “We had to sign him up after you stole Laura from us.”

Z chuckled. “I suppose that’s fair enough,” he said. “He’s a great sax player, a great musician in general.”

“He is,” Jake agreed. “He was able to get into our groove pretty easily.”

“Unlike someone else you used to play with?” Laura asked. She was sitting in one of the large chairs next to Jake, her legs stretched out across his lap.

“Hey, you got into it eventually,” Jake said. “Once we broke you of that snobby attitude.”

“Shut up,” Laura said, slapping at his shoulder. “I wasn’t that bad of a snob.” Jake gave her a look and she giggled. “Okay, maybe I was,” she then conceded.

“I’m glad to hear Dex is doing okay,” Z said. “A great musician, but not so great as a boyfriend. A little too much jealousy in that heart. Couldn’t stand to see the ladies fawning over me after the shows. He kept accusing me of going all hetero on him behind his back.” He shook his head. “As if.”

“That’s kind of an interesting dynamic,” Jake had to admit.

“Right,” Z said. “If you think being hetero in this business is complicated, try being a homo sometime.”

“I think I’ll pass on that one,” Jake said. “Seems more trouble than it’s worth.”

“A pity,” Z said with true regret. He had been admiring Jake’s derriere ever since he’d arrived. “Anyway ... has Dex been ... you know ... seeing anyone?”

“Well...” Jake said carefully, “I kind of make it a point to mind my own business in matters such as that, but ... honestly ... I don’t think he’s been seeing anyone exclusively. He and Phil—that’s Laura’s ex-roomie who sings some backup for us—were in the habit of going out together on Saturday nights after rehearsal, but I’m pretty sure they were not ... you know... together. They were just going out to hit the clubs and pick up a little something for themselves.”

“Yeah, I know Phil,” Z said. “We met a few times in the studio. He’s a bottom boy, like Dex. They wouldn’t be into each other in that way.”

“A bottom boy?” Jake asked.

“Are you sure you want to know what that means?” Z asked with a grin.

“I’m thinking you probably don’t,” Laura advised him.

“All right then,” Jake said. “Moving on to the next subject. What’s the word on that South American tour?”

Z chuckled and shook his head in amusement, but he let the subject drop. “It looks like the tour is going to happen. They love me down there, particularly in Brazil and Venezuela. The suits over at National are working on coming up with some kind of schedule and booking venues. If all goes well, we should be heading south just after the last leg of the US tour is done.”

Jake nodded sadly. That meant another three or four months away from Laura. And she would be in a place where it was a little more complicated for them to communicate or he to visit. “I hope it works out for you,” he said, almost sounding sincere. “I’ve never done the South American thing. There was talk about it with the last Intemperance tour, but ... well ... you know how that worked out.”

“Yeah,” Z said. “I heard about it. Drama and a shitshow all wrapped up in one. Is Tisdale really as big an asshole as he seems to be?”

“Sometimes an even bigger one,” Jake said. “Still, he and I went through a lot of shit together. It’s hard for me to hate him. I felt bad that his last album bombed like it did, but ... you know ... part of me was kind of glad too.”

“I heard that shit he put out,” Z said, shaking his head sadly. “It was astounding how unrefined those tracks were. I mean, the dude’s got incredible talent, but he should’ve let the engineers go to work on his shit. Even straight jazz cuts get more engineering than Tisdale’s shit had.”

“That was the downfall of that album,” Jake agreed. “He was always a hard-core traditionalist when it came to post-production. Even back in the good old days, before Darren’s botulism and Charlie’s tranny issues, we fought tooth and nail over every overdub, every double track, and every tweak of the levels. He basically just wanted to record a live cut in the studio and call that the tune.”

“Have you heard the new shit he’s put out?” asked Squiggle. “That road song they’ve been playing on the radio sounds pretty tight.”

“I’ve heard it,” Jake said, and he had, and had been fairly impressed with it. “It sounds like maybe he learned from his mistake—which is odd because learning from a mistake was never one of Matt’s strong points.”

The door to the locker room opened and Ron poked his head in. “The jazz ensemble has cleared the stage,” he said. “Our locals from the radio contests are being brought back right now.”

“All right,” Z said with a sigh. “I guess it’s time to get into character, huh?”

“Let’s do it,” Squiggle said, standing up.

Homer just scowled, but he stood as well.

“Time to go smile pretty for the locals,” Laura said, pulling herself up from Jake’s clutches.

“What about me?” Jake asked. “You want me to hang back here or go meet and greet with you?”

“Why don’t you hang back here?” Z said. “We don’t want anyone in the audience to know you’re here until you step out on that stage.”

“Sounds good,” Jake said.

“I’ll send someone to come get you right before stage time,” Ron said.

“I’ll be here,” Jake promised.

“I’ll see you out there,” Laura said, leaning down and giving him a big, juicy kiss on the mouth. She then whispered in his ear. “I can’t wait until after the show.”

“Me either, hon,” he told her. “Me either.”

Jake watched the show from the stage left area, peeking out through the access door as Bobby Z and company laid down their collection of smooth jazz. He paid particular attention to Laura, whose saxophone playing was required on every tune, unlike Squiggle and Sally, who got to sit out several. Laura played very well, hitting her notes with the expression and phrasing that came from being firmly in the touring groove. She looked incredibly cute in her dress and sneakers and had developed some pretty good showmanship, moving about on the stage now that they had gone to using a clip-on microphone to her horn instead of a fixed one on a mic stand. At one point, during the song Last to Go, she stood shoulder to shoulder between Squiggle and Sally as they blew out a lengthy harmonious outro to the tune. The three of them moved in near unison and then stood with hands clasped together and held high after the finale, giving each other warm looks as the applause washed over them.

She certainly seems to be having a good time doing this, Jake thought with a smile, remembering his first national tour, how it felt to know that you were playing well, that you were clicking with your bandmates, and that the audience was into you.

As the group launched into the tune Time to Talk—which meant South Island Blur would be the next one on the list—Jake felt the familiar nervousness of stage fright, which had been mildly simmering to this point, ramp up considerably. It was nothing even close to what he’d felt that first performance at D Street West back in Heritage, or that first performance in Bangor, Maine on the first national tour, but it was there all the same. It seemed that no matter how experienced one became at the game of performing, that anxiety of stepping out in front of the audience never quite went away.

As Time to Talk came to an end, one of the roadies suddenly appeared at Jake’s side. He was called Toadie, though no one had explained why, and he held Jake’s guitar in his hand. “You ready for this?” he barked into Jake’s ear.

“Ready as can be,” Jake said, removing his backstage pass and handing it over. He then took the guitar and slung it over his shoulder.

“Now remember,” Toadie said. “We’ve got your cord dangling from your mic stand. Just flip it over the hook to free it and plug in. All your knobs are exactly where you left them from the sound check.”

“Right!” Jake replied as the audience applauded the ending of the tune. Squiggle and Sally came trotting off the stage. Both of them clapped Jake on the shoulder as they passed and gave him a thumbs up.

“How is everyone doing out there tonight?” Z asked the audience. They cheered that they were doing pretty goddamned good.

“All right,” Z said, picking up his microphone out of the stand and standing up from his seat at the piano. He walked over to Laura and put his arm around her. “This is Laura Best blowing the sax for us tonight. How is she sounding out there?”

Another enthusiastic cheer erupted, a little louder this time, and Laura smiled at the audience.

“We call her ‘Teach’, because she used to be a teacher,” Z told the audience. “And some of you may know that she has kind of a famous boyfriend as well. You see, she used to play sessions for Celia Valdez and it is her fine playing that can heard on Celia’s album The Struggle—maybe some of you have heard her work there?”

Another cheer erupted. It seemed there were quite a few Celia Valdez fans out there.

“And that’s how Teach came to my attention when I found myself in need of a new saxophone player,” Z went on. “But, during her tenure with Celia Valdez, she also came into contact with Mr. Jake Kingsley, who was putting together a solo album of his own at the same time and in the same studio. Well, let’s just say that something clicked between Teach and Jake, and not only did they start dating each other, but she also laid down some smooth soprano sax for him on one of the cuts on his album, Can’t Keep Me Down. Anyone out there heard this album?”

Another round of cheers washed over them. It seemed there were quite a few Jake Kingsley fans out there as well.

“Now, by this point,” Z said, “you’re probably wondering why I’m telling you all of this. I do have a reason, you know. You see, since Teach hit the road with us, she and Jake have kind of been missing each other. You know how that is, right? The life of a traveling musician can be a lonely one; long trips on the bus day after day, sleeping in cheap motels, being far away from those you love. So, anyway, Jake thought maybe he would come out and pay a little visit to his lovely lady. He flew into Amarillo International just a few hours ago and is here with us, in this arena, right here and right now. How about that?”

This generated another cheer, the loudest so far, as the audience started to pick up on where Z was going with this.

“And,” Z said once the noise level mellowed out, “since he’s here, hanging out with us for a bit, I talked him into coming up and playing a little something from his solo album—the song that he and Teach did together. Ladies and gentlemen of Amarillo, Texas, give it up for the one, the only, the legendary Jake Kingsley!”

“All right, go!” Toadie said, clapping Jake forcefully on the back.

Jake took a deep breath and walked out onto the stage, guitar in hand, feeling the lights shining on him, feeling the heat, seeing the blur of faces in the first few rows, but, most of all, hearing the tremendous roar of the crowd washing over him. It was not quite as loud as what he’d heard during Intemperance concerts, of course, since there were only about four thousand people out there, but it was no less thrilling, no less motivating, no less life-affirming.

Goddamn, I’ve missed this, Jake thought as he flashed a huge, genuine smile at the crowd, as he waved at them. Z met him halfway to his microphone stand. They exchanged a handshake and then pulled each other into a spontaneous bro-hug, just as if they’d known each other for years instead of just meeting for the first time a few hours ago. When the embrace broke, Laura came over to him next. They hugged tightly, each having to shift their respective instruments to the side to accomplish this, and then she kissed him soundly on the mouth, causing the cheers to ramp up in volume once again. A few wolf whistles drifted up as well.

He finished the walk to his microphone stand and, while the cheers were still going on, quickly located his guitar cord and unhooked it. He plugged it into his Brogan by feel and then gave a quick, instinctive sweep of it to keep it from tangling around his legs. He pulled a pick from the inlay of the guitar and held it between the thumb and index finger of his right hand. He then put his mouth to the microphone.

“Hello, Amarillo, Texas!” he greeted. “Thanks for letting me steal a little of Z’s show tonight!”

He had to wait out another round of applause and cheers. While waiting for it to die down, he checked positioning, seeing that Z was seated back at the piano and Laura now had her soprano sax in hand and was plugging in. Toadie was just disappearing back through the stage access door with her alto sax.

“All right!” Jake said. “Bear with me here, it’s been awhile since I’ve been up on stage, you know. Like Z said, we’re gonna do a little tune from my solo album that Laura and I put together with her on the soprano sax. Maybe you’ve heard it before. It’s called South Island Blur. I hope you like this.”

Another cheer swelled up. When it dampened back down, Jake glanced at the other musicians, got nods of readiness from them, and then he began to play, strumming out the opening melody of Blur. Just as they’d done in their rehearsal earlier, he went through one rep alone (generating another round of cheers) and then Laura began to play on the second rep. Z and the rest of the group joined in for the third rep. And then, after the fourth, they settled in and Jake began to sing his tale of hiding away in the far corner of the Earth and drinking his days and nights away.

They played the song almost to perfection. Again, it was just a bit rough on the transition from second verse to bridge, but that only seemed to add charm to the rendition. As Jake played and sang, he felt himself taken away by the lost but not forgotten thrill of performing. Everything else in his life—all of his worries, all of his doubts, all of his fears—became insignificant, forgotten. He basked in the vibes of love and appreciation he sensed flowing in from the audience out there on the floor of the college basketball arena. He did not want that sensation to end.

But soon, too soon, it did. The song came to an end and the loudest, most sustained applause of the night swept over him.

“Thank you,” Jake told the audience as he unplugged his guitar and draped the cord back on the hook. “You’ve been great. I appreciate you having me here. And thanks to Bobby Z for letting me come up here and play for you!”

“Jake Kingsley!” Z shouted into his microphone. “Let’s hear it for him!”

They heard it. Jake continued to bask in the applause as he walked back toward the stage left door. Z gave him a high five as he went by. Laura gave him another hug and a kiss on the cheek. Homer and Groove shook hands with him as he passed. And then he was off the stage and out of the lights, passing by Toadie, who was running out to give Laura back her alto sax for the next number.

“That was badass!” said Sally as he headed back out on the stage, trombone in hand.

“Thanks,” Jake said, shaking hands with him.

“Nice rendition,” said Squiggle. He clapped Jake on the back and then headed back out as well, disappearing before Jake had a chance to thank him.

Toadie came back in, carrying Laura’s soprano sax in his hands. He gave Jake a thumbs up and then carried the instrument over to its case and carefully set it inside.

“All right,” Z told the audience. “We’ll see if we can talk Jake into coming back out here a little later. But for now, back to your regularly scheduled Bobby Z concert. Let’s do it, guys!”

They did it. Jake resumed his position by the stage door, watching as they went on with the show, already looking forward to his next trip out onto that stage. After two more songs, Z and the rhythm section left the stage, leaving Laura, Squiggle, and Sally up there playing a complex and technical piece that involved Sally laying down a melody while Laura and Squiggle engaged in brief rounds of dueling solos.

“This is where your lady truly shines,” a freely perspiring Z told Jake between gulps out of a large bottle of Gatorade. “She composed this solo herself and it’s fuckin’ blistering, my man! Blistering! Dex himself couldn’t have done better.”

“Yeah?” Jake asked, proud to hear that.

“Yeah,” Z confirmed. “Check it out! It’s coming up now.”

The three horn blowers finished up their piece with a fancy harmonious flourish and then Squiggle and Sally stopped playing while Laura dragged out the final note. The trombonist and the trumpeter then trotted off stage, leaving Laura alone. The moment they disappeared, she launched into her solo.

“Damn,” Jake said, feeling his pride in her swell even more as she played up and down the scales, changing back and forth through different levels of tempo and intensity. She played with all of her heart and soul, moving her shoulders back and forth, her fingers moving rapidly and knowingly across the pads, her breath heaving in and out while sweat dripped from her face onto the stage. Z had not been bullshitting him. Jake had been playing with Dexter Price for a couple of months now and he was familiar with his style and talent level. Laura was every bit as good.

She played for nearly five minutes before wrapping up the solo with a fast paced crescendo that was intensively technical. When she finished the final note, she took the horn from her lips and held it high in the air with her right hand while the applause—which was every bit as loud and appreciative as that Jake had enjoyed a little earlier—washed over her.

“All right, go!” Toadie told the rest of the band.

They went, running back out on the stage. Squiggle put his arm around Laura and gave her a big hug, while Sally handed her an opened plastic bottle of Gatorade, which she put to her lips and began to swill down greedily.

“Let’s hear it for Teach!” Z yelled into his microphone. “Can she blow that horn, or what?”

The applause continued for some time before slowly dying down. Laura tossed the now empty bottle back toward the rear of the stage and put her horn back to her lips. She then began to play the melody for the next song.

In all, the concert went on for ninety-three minutes. Jake came back out for the first encore—to the wild cheers of the audience—and sang I’ll Call You Tomorrow, Z’s gentle yet cynical tune about one-night stands. Once again, the tune was slightly rough in execution, but that was expected. His rendition was well received by the audience and resulted in another lengthy period of cheering applause and adoration when he was done.

He trotted back off stage and watched while the rest of the band carried off the last two encores. When they finished the final song, they put their instruments down and linked arms together for a group bow. Jake trotted back out to join them, waving at the audience once again and then linking arms with Squiggle, who was on the end of the chain. They bowed once and then twice and then headed back to the stage left area for the final time as the house lights came up behind them.

“Good show, everyone!” Z told them. “We brought the fuckin’ house down!”

“Damn right!” Laura said, wiping the sweat from her brow. “It was great playing with you, sweetie!”

“This is the most fun I’ve had in quite some time,” Jake admitted.

“And we get to do it all again tomorrow,” Squiggle said.

“But first, there’s tonight,” Z said. “Let’s go get cooled off and get some chow, huh?”

“Now you’re talking,” Jake said.

The catered food was not quite up to the standards Jake and the rest of Intemperance had enjoyed after their performances back in the day, but it wasn’t that bad either. And the beer was cold and plentiful. Jake had two of them in his belly before he even finished his ribs and potato salad. He was surprised to see Laura swilling down the beer at the same rate. He was even more surprised when, after Z produced a couple of fat joints and started passing them around, Laura sucked down multiple hits of each like a professional. She had been a very casual pot smoker before coming out on tour, generally only smoking a hit or two once a month or so, almost always when they were out in the hot tub.

“It looks like you’re well into the spirit of touring,” Jake observed as she sucked the last joint down until it was a mere roach.

“When in Rome,” she squeaked, handing the smoldering remains over to him.

“When in Rome,” he repeated, taking it and sucking another hit down.

When they finished eating, Z explained that they always let Teach shower first, since she was the only girl among them.

“I think tonight,” Laura said, “I’ll need someone to help me wash my back.” She looked at Jake. “Any volunteers?”

“All right,” Squiggle said with a sigh, as if pondering an unpleasant task, “I’ll do it.”

Laura gave him a look that was not the least bit unfriendly. “Nice try,” she said with a laugh. “What do you say, Jakey-poo? You want to help me get clean?”

“How can I say no to an offer like that?” he asked, standing up.

“Don’t take too long in there,” Z said. “The rest of us still need to clean up as well.”

“We’ll see what we can do,” Laura said.

They went into the enclosed shower area and quickly stripped off their clothes. After spending the better part of ten minutes washing and caressing each other’s naked bodies under the warm spray, Jake dropped down to his knees before her and tongued her out until she became weak and wobbly and came all over his face.

“Oh my God,” she panted when he was done. “That was awesome. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had my pussy eaten out?”

“Hopefully not since the last time I did it,” he said.

“That was the last time,” she said, reaching out to stroke his hardness. “Why don’t I return the favor?”

“Mmm, maybe later,” Jake said, squirming reluctantly away from her. “The others are probably waiting for the shower and ... well ... we have a hotel room all to ourselves tonight, don’t we?”

“It’s a motel room,” she corrected, “but yes. I’ll have you all to myself for the whole night.”

“Let’s save it for there,” he said.

“If you insist,” she sighed, giving one last stroke of his member. “But I do want you to come in my mouth at least once tonight. I’ve kind of missed that.”

He nodded. “I think we’ll be able to arrange that.”

They toweled off and got dressed in their street clothes, leaving their stage clothes in the laundry hamper just inside the door. They emerged back out into the locker room to find that the groupies had been brought in. Jake was actually kind of surprised to see them. He had not realized there was even such a thing as smooth jazz groupies.

“About time,” Z said with a knowing smile. He had two fine looking male specimens sitting beside him. “Did you leave any hot water for the rest of us?”

“We were just making sure everything was clean,” Laura said sweetly. She grabbed another beer and then held out her hand to Z. “Got any more pot?”

“Of course,” he said, pulling a fresh joint from his pack of cigarettes.

She took it from him and put it in her mouth. “You got a light, sweetie?” she asked.

The motel they stayed in was just west of the airport in Amarillo. It was indeed squalid, but it was private. Laura and Jake retired to her room as soon as the bus pulled in. Z retired to his own room with his two male groupies in tow. Squiggle and Sally had brought no groupies with them on this night, but they went to Squiggle’s room with a bottle of Jack Daniels and a couple of two-liter bottles of Coke. Homer and Groove had each picked up a single groupie. They too retired to their rooms to enjoy the spoils of their status.

Jake and Laura fully reacquainted themselves with each other’s bodies behind the closed door of Room 114. They quickly undressed and then licked and sucked, probed and touched, caressed and stroked every little part they could find for the better part of an hour, until both of them were raging with desire and wanting. Laura then collected her prize, sucking Jake off until he shot a huge load into her gulping mouth. She swallowed every drop and then he returned the favor, starting at her toes and then licking his way up to her dripping chasm. After pulling three orgasms from her with his tongue, his little buddy was back in the game and ready for more action. He provided that action, sliding into tightness and fucking her in a variety of positions for the better part of another hour.

Finally, at long last, they collapsed onto the bed, both of them sweaty, panting, sated.

“Going without that is, by far, the hardest part of being out here on the road,” Laura said, as she sprawled her naked leg across his thigh.

Jake had never actually had to go without sex while out on the road—there had always been either groupies or Helen to keep him satisfied—but he knew where she was coming from. After all, he had been living on the other side of the equation for months. “I know what you’re saying,” he told her. “We’ve got a lot to make up for.”

“I want to do it at least twice a day every day you’re with us,” she said. “Oh, and I want to do it on the bus too.”

“On the bus?” he asked. He had never actually had sex on the bus before. The bus rides were for sleeping and intoxication.

“I have a private sleeping area,” she said. “It has a curtain for privacy. It’ll be tight with two of us in there, but we have to do it. I insist.”

He nodded. “We’ll see if we can make that happen,” he said, his hand idly stroking her bare breast.

They lay in silence for a bit, letting their sweat dry in the muggy air, letting their hearts return to normal. Finally, Jake looked over at her. “Are you having fun out here, hon?” he asked.

She nodded. “I’m having the time of my life,” she said. “It’s brutal, especially the long bus rides, but I think this is what I was put on Earth to do. I love getting up on that stage every night, listening to them cheer for us, for me. And tonight, having you up there with me ... that was special, sweetie. I’ll treasure that always.”

“So will I,” he said, leaning over and giving her a kiss.

The next morning, at 6:30, they climbed aboard the bus, all of them weary and out of sorts and tired. They climbed into their spaces and settled in for the ride. It would be a seven hour slog to El Paso.

They had a show there tonight.

Six miles south of Land’s End, Baja Peninsula, Mexico

October 7, 1993

The forty-foot vessel Pescador de mar road easily up and down on the rolling swells of the Pacific Ocean six miles off the southern tip of the Baja peninsula. The vessel was captained by Mario Delgado, a sixty-year-old mariner who had spent his entire life on the sea. His two sons, Miguel and Jesus, who had grown up on the vessel, assisted their father in his business.

The boat was capable of holding thirty anglers per trip. Today it only held four. Matt Tisdale, who owned a home on the beach in Cabo San Lucas, where Pescador de mar’s home harbor was located, had chartered the entire vessel for the day so he could show his bandmates what real fishing was all about. They had been out for nearly eight hours now and had caught three blue marlin, two bluefin tuna, and two dorado, totaling well over two hundred pounds of fish. They were now heading back to the harbor, chugging along through the swells, Mario at the helm while Miguel and Jesus moved about, cleaning the deck and putting things back in order.

Matt, Austin Jefferson (his bass player), and Corban Slate (the twenty-three year old studio guitar player Matt had picked to be his rhythm guitarist on the upcoming tour), sat on the benches at the stern of the boat, passing a joint around and drinking cans of beer from one of the two large ice chests Matt had brought with them. They were the only three who had had a good time on the trip. Steve Calhoun, the drummer, had never been on a boat before today and had not found the experience to his liking. He had become seasick even before they left the harbor and had been pretty much incapacitated ever since they moved out into the open ocean. He was curled up on one of the benches on the port side, getting up a few times an hour to barf into the sea, but otherwise just lying there and moaning.

“What a fuckin’ pussy,” Matt said with contempt as he saw the drummer rise up for another round of puking over the side. At this point in the game, Calhoun had little left in his stomach to vomit up and was reduced to nothing but dry heaves.

Austin, who was quite intoxicated after drinking twelve cans of beer and taking part in the smoking of three communal joints, laughed and called over: “Hey, Calhoun! You’re looking a little empty over there! You want one of these sardine sandwiches we got?”

Calhoun looked at him for a moment, seemed to turn an even darker shade of green, and then leaned over the rail again for another round of retching.

“I guess he don’t want the sandwich,” said Matt with a chuckle.

“Do we really have sardine sandwiches?” asked Corban. Though he was twenty-three, he looked like he was fourteen at the most. His face was smooth skinned, as if he had never shaved a day in his life. His brown hair was cut short on the sides and spiked up on the top with blonde highlights brushed in—apparently that was the latest rage among his age group. Matt thought he looked and acted like a fucking faggot, but Corban claimed that he was completely heterosexual. And he was quite the prodigy on the guitar. Matt had been impressed with both his acoustic and distorted electric skills, particularly his ability to pick up a riff and reproduce it exactly just by listening to it once or twice.

“No,” Matt said, irritation in his voice. “We don’t have any fucking sardine sandwiches. What is the matter with you? Can’t you keep a fucking joke going?”

“Sorry,” Corban said, taking a swig from his beer. “I don’t smoke ganja very often, dude. It makes me hungry, and a sardine sandwich sounds pretty fuckin’ gnarly right about now.”

“Stop calling me dude, dude,” Matt told him. “You make it sound like you’re talking to an old motherfucker when you say it.”

“Well ... you are kind of old, dude,” Corban pointed out. “What are you, like forty-five? That’s fucking ancient.”

“I’m thirty-fucking-four!” Matt barked.

“Dude!” Corban cried. “No shit?”

“No fucking shit,” Matt barked. “And your ass is about one ‘dude’ away from swimming back to shore!”

“Sorry, dude ... uh ... I mean Matt,” Corban said. “What do we have to eat though?”

“Fuck me,” Matt whispered. He opened up the ice chest and pulled out a soggy chicken and cheese burrito in a plastic bag. He’d bought it from one of the roach stands on the waterfront. “Here,” he said, tossing it over. “Munch on this.”

“Thanks, Matt!” Corban said happily.

“I hope it gives you the shits,” Matt told him.

“Dude, that’s not cool,” Corban said, ripping open the wrapper.

Matt just shook his head and took another swig of beer. It was quite clear that Corban didn’t have a hair on his ass, but one had to wonder if he even had any on his balls. Still, a good guitar player—the best of the bunch that National had paraded before him for auditions. He had picked up his part of the show with an uncanny speed and skill over the past six weeks of rehearsals.

They had just finished up the final two full dress rehearsals for the tour two days ago. As they floated out here on the ocean, the road crew were engaged in extensive training on how to tear the set down and set it back up again. In two more days, the entire set—including that belonging to their opening band, Primal Fire, who had just released their second album after their first had gone gold—would be packed up in four tractor trailers and shipped across the country to Bangor, Maine for the first date of the tour on October 16^th. Primal Fire would ride on the bus with the caravan. Matt and his band would be riding the bus between venues themselves, but they at least would be flown out to the first date instead of having to ride cross country. That was why Matt had invited/ordered his bandmates to accompany him down to Cabo. Though he considered all of them to be nothing more than the best of the best of the studio hackers, they needed some serious bro-time after all the rehearsals and recording. They needed to cut loose a bit before submitting to the grind of the road.

“Here’s the deal,” Matt said now. “Once we get ashore, the beaner bitches that work the docks will gut and filet all these fish for us. Most of the shit I’m going to ship back home to put in my freezer, but we’ll hold back enough for a serious fish fry out on my patio as the sun goes down tomorrow night. We’ll get some drinks going, find some local gash to invite and violate in as many ways as possible, and burn some of that Acapulco Gold shit I picked up the other day.”

“Sounds like a plan, Matt,” Austin said. “Are the local bitches into brothers?”

“If you’re a guest of Matt Tisdale they are,” he said.

“Out of sight,” Austin said.

“When you say, ‘local bitches’,” Corban asked, “what exactly are we talking here, dude? Do you mean Mexican women?”

“We are in Mexico, dude,” Matt reminded him. “Do you have something against Mexican gash?”

“No, not at all,” Corban said. “I mean ... I don’t think so, anyway. It’s just that I’ve never had any of that.”

“It’s just like American gash,” Matt told him. “Except a lot of times they don’t speak English. Oh ... and they don’t tend to shave their pussies like American bitches do.”

Corban’s eyes widened. “They don’t shave?” he asked, frowning, as if he had never conceived of such a thing.

“At least they shave their fuckin’ armpits,” Matt said. “When we were touring over in Europe, you should’ve seen some of the shit I fucked over there. Most of the bitches there don’t shave anywhere.”

“Anywhere?” Corban asked, appalled.

“Anywhere,” Matt confirmed. “Hairy fuckin’ pits, hairy fuckin’ arms, hairy fuckin’ legs. I boned this one French bitch that had so much hair on her gash I had a hard time even finding it. That shit grew all the way past her asshole in the rear and all the way up to her belly button in the front.”

“That is disgusting!” declared Corban.

“Why?” Matt asked. “There was a pussy under all that, and it still felt like a pussy once I managed to search it out and stick my fuckin’ schlong in it. Variety is the spice of fuckin’ life, dude.”

“I’m feeling a little bit sick,” Corban moaned, tossing the remains of his burrito into the ocean.

“Did I tell you that they don’t wear deodorant over in Europe either,” Matt said with a smile.

“Dude,” Corban said, shaking his head. “That is not all right.”

They talked a little more about Matt’s road history, including the time he managed to score some genuine Icelandic gash on the beach in France (this was one of Matt’s proudest accomplishments of his life and career). By the time this tale was told, they were back in the safety of the harbor and motoring toward the boat’s berth.

They dragged Steve ashore and parked him under a tree while they attended to their fish. It took less than thirty minutes for the two elderly women who worked the dock to gut and clean their catch and pack it into vacuum sealed plastic bags separated by species. For this service, Matt paid each of them ten American dollars, plus two bucks apiece for a tip. They thanked him sincerely in Spanish and Matt answered them in the Pidgin-like method of expression he’d adapted when dealing with the non-English speaking locals.

“All right,” Matt said, once the fish was all packed away. “Let’s get a taxi home.” He looked down at the drummer, who was slumped over beneath a tree, his eyes tightly closed, his skin red with sunburn. “You gonna live, Calhoun? I hope so. It’s too late for me to break in another drummer.”

“The nausea is better,” he croaked, “but I think I’m suffering from dehydration. Is there a hospital in this place?”

Matt laughed. “You don’t want to go to no fuckin’ hospital in Mexico, dude. This is a like a fuckin’ third world country here. They’d charge you money just to walk in the door, some dude who got his medical degree by bribing their board would examine you with dirty hands, and then they’d give you the fuckin’ hiv when they started an IV on you by reusing shit they’d already used on someone else.”

“No shit?” Calhoun asked.

“No shit,” Matt assured him, although he had never actually used the Mexican healthcare system in any capacity or even heard anything about it. He just assumed that was what it was like.

“What do I do then?” Steve asked.

“Get your ass up and get in the cab,” Matt told him. “Drink some of the bottled water I have back at my place when we get there and then smoke a few bonghits of the gold. Best cure there is for everything up to and including pancreatitis.”

The drummer thought this over for a moment and then nodded. “All right,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

They did it, helping Steve into one of the cabs and then piling in after him. The trip to Matt’s 3200 square foot house, which sat on two acres of beachfront property on the Sea of Cortez, took only ten minutes and cost Matt ten American dollars, including the tip. They dragged their drummer and all of the ice chests inside and then, while Steve started quaffing down water bottles, and while Corban and Austin headed to their respective rooms to shower and then take some much needed naps, Matt carefully packed up all the fish he was going to ship home and moved it into his walk-in freezer. Tomorrow, while he was out rounding up some local snatch to come to his fish fry, he would pick up some dry ice to put in the shipping boxes.

Once the fish were tended to, he went upstairs to the master suite, which featured a large picture window that looked out over his deck and the shimmering blue Sea of Cortez beyond it. He took a moment to appreciate the view—at least playing with those fucking sellouts for the first part of his career had allowed him to lease this property and the house upon it—and then stripped off his fishy smelling clothes and took a long shower.

He dressed in a pair of tattered gym shorts and a faded Corona t-shirt that had holes in the armpits and several permanent stains from spilling bongwater on it. Still, it was one of his favorite shirts and he couldn’t bear to part with it. He headed back downstairs to the entertainment room, where a sixty-five-inch projection television and a top-of-the-line sound system were installed. The television was hooked to a satellite dish that had been installed beside the house and pointed southeast, where it was able to hook into the feed from a Hughes communications satellite in geosynchronous orbit over the coast of Brazil. Though his setup—which had cost him twelve thousand dollars to install—was not exactly legal, and the Hughes Telecommunications Company would undoubtedly disapprove of it, this was Mexico and if any legal authorities decided to look into how he got his television programming, a few envelopes full of greenbacks would quickly make them conclude that Matt’s satellite dish was nothing more than a yard decoration.

Steve was sitting in one of the chairs, still wearing the clothes he had gone fishing in, still looking like death warmed over. Four empty water bottles were sitting on the end table next to him and he was sipping out of a fifth.

“I should kick your ass for sitting on my fucking furniture after being out on a fishing boat all day,” Matt told him, “but it’s not like you actually touched any fish, right?”

“I don’t ever want to see or smell a fish again,” Steve groaned.

“Fuck that shit,” Matt said, walking over to a cabinet next to the entertainment center. “You gotta try the beer-battered marlin filets I’m going to be cooking up tomorrow night. I won’t play music with any man who won’t eat my fish.”

This caused Steve to groan and swig down some more water.

“Here,” Matt said, opening the cabinet door. “Let’s get you fixed up.” He pulled out an old water bong and one of his baggies of Acapulco Gold and carried them over to the couch. “Pour some of that water in here,” he said, holding out the bong.

Steve poured some in, filling the water chamber.

“All right,” Matt said, opening the bag of pungent, sticky cannabis. “Let’s go medicinal here.”

They took three hits apiece, and Steve actually reported he was starting to feel a little better as the THC surged through his system.

“Told you,” Matt said. “You up for some chow yet? We got some leftover pizza in the fridge.”

“Uhhhhh,” Steve said, shaking his head. “Not just yet. I’ll get there.”

“All right,” Matt said, “but eat something before you crash out. Don’t starve yourself.”

“I won’t,” the drummer promised.

Matt picked up the two remote controls that controlled his television and satellite receiver. “Let’s see what’s on the tube,” he said, turning on first the TV and then the receiver.

The screen came to life and he began to flip around through the channels. He could pull in literally hundreds of separate channels, but many of them were aimed at the Latin American nations and were either in Spanish or Portuguese. He dialed over to the bank where the American broadcasts were primarily found and began to channel surf, passing over an episode of Love Boat, several episodes of Cheers, a variety of news broadcasts, a couple of porno channels, HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, and ESPN, before finally stumbling onto a broadcast of American Entertainment, the celebrity gossip show based in Los Angeles. He was about to flip onward to the next station—he had no interest in that show whatsoever—when he noticed a picture of himself up there, standing with the other members of Intemperance. It was the group photo from the back cover of the Lines on the Map album, Intemperance’s last studio work.

“What the fuck?” he asked, pausing, turning up the volume a bit.

“Coming up next on AE,” said the skinny female commentator with the bolt-on titties and at least a hundred grand worth of facial surgeries, “a report on the infamous death metal band Intemperance and it’s notorious former members. What are they doing these days? Some of their exploits just might surprise you.”

“They’re talking about you,” Steve said. “What’s up with that?”

“I don’t know,” Matt said. “Nobody contacted me about doing a piece on that slander show.”

“Do they have to contact you?”

“Not really,” he said with a shrug. “The gossip shows don’t really count as journalism.”

He waited through the commercial break, which was kind of odd with his setup. Sometimes it was just a blue screen because the actual ads were being broadcast from the local stations, not over the satellite, and sometimes the commercials were there because they were network commercials. After two periods of blue screen interspersed with two ads for upcoming network shows, AE came back on. The picture of Jake, Matt, Coop, Nerdly, and Charlie reappeared.

“The members of the death metal band, Intemperance,” the commentator said, “went their separate ways almost three years ago now, breaking up after the tragic heroin related death of former bass player Darren Appleman while his replacement, Charlie Meyer, was out on tour with the rest of the band. It was well publicized at the time that iconic guitarist Matt Tisdale—known as much for his relationship with adult film actress Mary Ann Cummings as for his prowess with the guitar—blamed the rest of the band for Appleman’s death because they’d voted to replace him over Tisdale’s objections. Tisdale is on record multiple times accusing the other band members of murder and vowing that he will never play music with any of them ever again. So far, that is a vow he has kept as both he and former Intemperance lead singer Jake Kingsley have both released solo albums.”

“Fuckin’ A right, I kept that vow,” Matt grunted.

“You really called them murderers?” Steve asked.

“I did,” Matt said softly.

“Dude, isn’t that a bit harsh?” Steve asked.

Matt sighed. “Maybe,” he reluctantly allowed. “It was how I felt at the time.”

The graphic on the screen changed to show a silent video clip of Matt up on stage, shirtless and playing his strat. Matt recognized the clip as having come from a publicity video that had been shot during the Next Phase tour. He even remembered the venue where they had shot it. It had been in Jackson, Mississippi, just four days before his little bout with SVT and having electricity coursing through his body to shock him out of it.

As the clip played on, the commentator continued commentating. “Tisdale released a solo album last year and went on tour to support it. The critics panned his album, Next Phase, as ‘poorly executed noise’ and sales of the album were quite dismal. The tour itself was far from successful, with ticket sales a mere shadow of what they’d been in the Intemperance days.

“Undaunted, however, Tisdale returned to the studio a few months ago and his latest effort, an album called Hard Time, just hit the shelves two days ago. The first release from that album, a song called Time to Go, has been getting extensive airplay across the nation for the past two weeks now and it is receiving much warmer reviews from the critics. His effort has been called ‘the true next phase of his music’ and ‘a complex masterpiece of metal guitar work and dark, powerful lyrics’.”

“How about that shit?” Steve asked. “They like our tune!”

“What’s not to fuckin’ like about it?” Matt asked.

“Tisdale and his band will be hitting the road again soon,” the commentator continued on. “They will be starting their tour in Bangor, Maine and working their way across the northeast United States over the next few months. According to Steve Crow, of National Records, Tisdale’s artist and repertoire representative, Matt is being booked in first-rate arenas across the board and advance ticket sales, while still lagging, are starting to pick up.”

“Fuck yeah!” Steve said. “I can’t wait to get out there and play our shit!”

“Crow didn’t tell me he’d talked to those fucks,” Matt growled. “Fucking typical.”

The graphic changed again, this time showing silent video of Jake Kingsley strumming his Les Paul and singing into a microphone on stage. Once again, Matt recognized the source of the video. It was an old clip taken from the video release of In Action, their live album. This particular segment had been filmed in Detroit, Michigan and Jake was singing the tune Life of Toil, one of the non-studio cuts from that show.

“Jake Kingsley, meanwhile,” the commentator stated, “has been enjoying his own brand of success since parting ways with Intemperance. His solo album, Can’t Keep Me Down, has spawned four Top Ten hits on the Billboard chart and, just last week, achieved triple platinum in sales. While Kingsley has not toured to support the album, just this week he made several surprise appearances on stage as a guest performer with smooth jazz legend Bobby Z.”

“He did what?” Matt asked.

“Jake and Bobby Z?” Steve asked. “What the fuck?”

“As we reported a few months ago,” she continued, “Bobby Z and his former saxophone player, Dexter Price, had what Bobby’s manager termed ‘a professional disagreement in musical direction’ and parted ways just as his tour was getting underway. Price was replaced on the sax by Laura Best, who came to fame recently when she put down the saxophone tracks for Celia Valdez’s hit album, The Struggle, which, as we reported two weeks ago, has now passed quadruple platinum and is still selling well. Kingsley and Laura Best became romantically involved with each other during the recording of this album, as Jake was recording his album at the same time and in the same studio as Valdez.

“Jake decided to go visit Laura out on tour while Bobby Z and his band were making their way through the southwest last week. Bobby asked Jake if he would be interested in joining him on stage for a few numbers and Jake took him up on the offer. Here’s a clip of Kingsley performing his hit song, South Island Blur, in Albuquerque three nights ago.”

The screen changed to a video clip, with sound this time, of Jake up on stage. He was holding a Brogan acoustic-electric in his hands and singing the lyrics to South Island Blur into a microphone. On Jake’s right, Bobby Z was playing the piano. On Jake’s left, the redheaded bitch he was boning was playing a straight sax. Behind them were a drummer and some dweeb playing a fucking standup bass. The clip played for nearly twenty seconds. The sound quality was not the best, but Matt could hear that Jake’s voice was still strong and carried well.

“Can you believe that shit?” Matt said, shaking his head. “He actually got up on stage and played with that fucking faggot!”

“Bobby Z is a faggot?” Steve asked.

“Of course he’s a fuckin’ faggot!” Matt said. “Don’t you know anything?”

The clip came to an end and the commentator came back on. The graphic behind her changed once again, this time to a shot of a black man with dreadlocks. It took Matt a moment to recognize the face. It was Bigg G, the rapper.

“Playing on stage with Bobby Z is not the only side project that Jake Kingsley had been working on these days,” the commentator said. “Rapper Bigg G, who grew up on the mean streets of East Palo Alto, California and turned his talent for rap and hip hop into four multi-platinum albums, just released his latest effort this week as well. And the first cut on this new album, a tune called Step Inside, represents a new direction for Bigg G’s musical style and it features none other than Jake Kingsley playing acoustic guitar on the cut while Bigg G sings the vocals and his band and DJ accompany.

“Jake Kingsley and Bigg G doing a song together?” Steve asked, astonished. “Have you heard of this shit, Matt?”

“No,” Matt said, just as astonished. “How the fuck can you put an acoustic guitar into a rap song? How does that shit work?”

The graphic changed again, this time showing several still shots of Jake and Bigg G in a studio, both with headphones on their heads, Jake sitting in a chair with his guitar, Bigg G with his mouth in front of a microphone. It was obviously a staged publicity shot since there was no way that Jake and Bigg G would have been in the same room during the actual recording process.

“Pauline Kingsley,” the commentator went on, “Jake Kingsley’s sister, is the former manager of Intemperance and the current manager of both Kingsley himself and Celia Valdez. She tells us that Jake and Bigg G have known each other for several years now, having met in the National Records studio back when both were signed with that label. They became friends and socialize with each other on occasion, and that was how Bigg G came to ask Jake if he felt like helping him out with an experimental cut. Jake agreed and the rest is history. The tune has only been getting airplay for a few days now, but, so far, critics seem to enjoy it. Roger Eagle of Music Monthly magazine declares Step Inside to be ‘a delightful and thought-provoking merger of rap and rock music for which there is no precedent’.”

“No precedent?” Matt yelled at the screen. “That’s fuckin’ bullshit! My song Grandeur on Lines on the Map is a mix of rap and rock! I pioneered that shit!”

“That is a cool fuckin’ tune,” Steve said. “One of your best from those days.”

The graphic changed back to the collective band photo from Lines on the Map.

“Now the question that everyone always has,” the commentator said, “is whether there is any possibility of an Intemperance reunion. While that seems very unlikely, as Matt Tisdale has been quoted as saying many times that he will never play with any member of Intemperance again, Pauline Kingsley tells us that the other four members of the group—Kingsley, Nerdly Archer, John Cooper, and replacement bassist Charlie Meyer—have put together a little reunion without Tisdale. Jake and Celia Valdez are both about to enter the studio to begin recording their second solo albums and they are using the former Intemperance members as studio musicians to lay down the tracks for those recordings.”

“It’s fucking true,” Matt said, feeling anger, and another emotion he was not completely familiar with: jealousy.

“Can they do that shit?” Steve asked.

“Apparently they can,” Matt growled.

“That Charlie Meyer motherfucker is a real freak-o-rama, isn’t he?”

“That doesn’t even begin to describe him,” Matt said.

“Pauline Kingsley stresses to us,” the commentator said, “that we should not expect anything like an Intemperance album from this reunion. ‘Jake and Celia are both fully committed to the new direction they’ve taken their music,’ she says. ‘Nerdly, Coop, and Charlie are there as studio musicians only, chosen because they are quality musicians that Jake has familiarity working with and professional respect for. They are not attempting to recreate Intemperance and will be performing or recording no Intemperance material’.”

The graphic changed once more to a silent clip from the In Action video. This time it was showing the entire band at once, again in Detroit, and playing the hard-driving bridge portion of Living by the Law.

“So that’s the inside story on the former death metal band Intemperance and the different circles the members of that groups paths have taken them on since the break-up. This is Maureen Willow reporting for AE. Stay tuned for our next segment, where we’ll discuss the latest exploits of sultry, controversial actress, Mindy Snow.”

The show cut to blue screen as a commercial came on. Matt picked up the remote and turned everything off. He was no longer interested in the television. His emotions were now in a state of turmoil. Jake Kingsley out performing with Bobby Z? Ludicrous. Jake doing a rap recording with Bigg G? Insane. The members of Intemperance getting back together to be studio musicians for Jake and that Venezuelan bitch with the nice titties? Infuriating!

There was nothing he could do about any of it. He wasn’t even sure why all of this made him angry. But it did.

Jake had been with the Bobby Z tour for seven days now. They traveled from Amarillo to El Paso, from El Paso to Albuquerque, from Albuquerque to Phoenix, from Phoenix to Tucson, and then, an extended travel day from Tucson to Las Vegas. Through it all, Jake was a part of the band, with all the rights, privileges and misery that such a position came with. He rode on the bus with them (he and Laura had indeed managed to pull off a fairly decent coital encounter in her bunk on the second road trip). He stayed in the cheap motels with them and ate the greasy catered food with them. And each night, at each venue they visited, he stepped up on stage and played music with them to the delight of the crowds.

Word of mouth and through the media had quickly spread to each upcoming venue that Jake Kingsley was going to be a special guest at the performance of Bobby Z and ticket sales increased exponentially. National Records’ management, which had been opposed to Jake performing with Z and the band on general principals when they first heard about it (but who had no legal way to stop it since Z was operating on a second contract that gave him power over performance lineup and decisions), suddenly became extremely enthusiastic about the guest appearances. So enthusiastic that Steve Crow himself actually called Jake on the phone one night to try to get him to keep touring with them.

“I can’t, Steve,” Jake told him. “I’m just here for a visit. I have to be in Obie’s studio on the 11th to start laying down the basics for my next album.”

“Put it on hold!” Crow nearly begged. “It’s worth it, Jake!”

“Worth it for who?” Jake asked him.

“For everyone!” Crow cried. “We’ve got a positive feedback loop going on here. Word that you’re performing with Z has spread and we’re selling out the goddamn arenas, raking in the ticket revenue. This means that people who are not Bobby Z fans, who don’t even like smooth jazz as a genre, are coming to those concerts to see you play. They’re being exposed to Z’s music and getting into it. His album sales are spiking well above the baseline in every city you visit right after you leave there! Do you know what that means?”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “It means I’m helping introduce Z to some new fans and he’s selling more albums because of it. It’s cool, and I’m happy for Z, but I’ve got a contract in place for that studio time. I can’t put it off.”

“What if we pay the cancellation fee for you at Blake Studios and let you use our studio after the Bobby Z tour at half cost? Would that convince you?”

“Sorry,” Jake said. “That would screw up Celia’s schedule as well, even if I was inclined to spend six months traipsing around the US and South America. It’s just not going to happen, Crow.”

Crow actually worked his way up to offering to pay Celia’s cancellation fee as well, upgrading the accommodations for Z and the rest of them, and then to let Jake, Celia, and the entire group use National’s studio for free if Jake would just stay throughout the American portion of the tour.

“No can do,” Jake told him. “I’m on the plane from Vegas back to LA on Friday night. The next morning, I’ll be in my own plane on the way to Coos Bay.”

“You’re passing up an incredible opportunity for publicity and album sales, Jake,” Crow chastised once he finally concluded that Jake was serious and not just sweetening his negotiation position.

“Yeah,” Jake told him, “most of which would benefit National Records. Goodbye, Crow. As always, it was a pleasure speaking to you.”

He hung up before Crow could try again.

Now, however, as he packed up his belongings in Room 207 of the North Las Vegas Motel 6, where the band was staying on their extended travel day before tomorrow’s show, a big part of him wished he had shirked his responsibilities and agreed to stay with the tour.

His motivation was not financial in any way. Part of it was that he’d truly enjoyed his brief foray back into life on the road. He was a traveling musician and it had been a blast to dip back into the lifestyle for a week. Getting up on stage and performing before an audience was a great high, better than the finest bud, the purest cocaine, the most premium of spirits. He longed to do it more, to walk out into the bright lights and play his guitar and sing. It was an addiction like any other and now he’d had a renewed taste of it.

The biggest part of his regret, however, was the redheaded sax player who was laying on the bed, wearing only a T-shirt that barely covered her sexy legs, watching him pack up with a mournful, sad expression on her face. She did not want him to go either, but she knew he had to.

Spending the last seven days and nights with her, performing with her on the stage, watching her perform alone on stage, had done nothing but reaffirm the intense love he felt for her. They had reveled in each other’s presence as they had back in Oregon when they first became romantic with each other. Their spark for each other was still very much alive and had burned brightly for the past week. They had been after each other’s body at every opportunity, doing it every night in every hotel room, in the showers after performances, on the bus one time, and even in the backstage area, inside one of the packing cases, on one memorable occasion. They had just been at each other twenty minutes before, right before Jake had stepped into the shower to clean up before leaving for the airport.

“How long until your cab gets here?” she asked him as he closed up his suitcase and dropped it next to the door beside the guitar case and the soprano sax case.

“Less than five minutes, they say,” he said.

She nodded softly, a single tear running down her face. “God I’m going to miss you,” she said. “I can’t believe how fast this week went by.”

“I know,” he said, coming over and sitting on the foot of the bed. He reached out and stroked her bare leg. “It was the experience of a lifetime though, wasn’t it?”

She wiped the tear away and smiled. “It was that. And my poor little pussy has been rubbed raw by all the fucking we’ve done.”

“My poor little dick is in the same shape,” he said.

“At least we’ll have time to heal up before the next time, huh?”

“I guess there’s always a silver lining,” he agreed.

She spread her legs apart, showing him that she was not wearing any underpants. She then reached forward and grabbed his hand, pulling it further up her leg, onto her thigh. “Do you think that maybe we have time for one more quick one before the cab gets here?” she whispered.

He looked at the junction of her legs. She had just shaved when she’d taken her post-bus ride shower. She was still swollen and wet from their last encounter. Despite the fact that he’d already come once in her mouth and once in her vagina in the past twelve hours, he felt himself stirring inside his pants. He swallowed audibly.

“I have to fly on an airplane in an hour,” he told her. “I can’t do that smelling like you.”

“Why not?” she asked. “I’m sure that’s not the nastiest thing you’ve ever done on an airplane, is it?”

“Uh ... well...” he said, remembering another redhead in the bathroom of a 747 many years before. “I’m gonna take the Fifth on that one.”

She moved her bare foot up and began to caress his crotch with it. “Come on, sweetie,” she said. “You’re sitting in first class, aren’t you?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” he asked, his voice not quite steady, his member stiffening even more as her foot rubbed it.

“I have no idea,” she said with a giggle. “But you’re Jake Kingsley. People expect you to smell like you just fucked someone. Now come on, earn that smell. I want one more before you go.”

“Well ... if you insist,” he said, standing up and moving his hands to his belt.

“I insist,” she said, scooting up the edge of the bed and hiking up the hem of her T-shirt.

They did it fast and hard, his manhood plunging in and out of her, his hands pulling on her hair, his mouth alternating between bites on her neck and deep tongue swirling kisses on her mouth. She came quickly under this treatment and he was right behind her, pouring himself into her body one last time.

No sooner had the final spasm faded out, the final post-coital kiss of passion wrapped up, that the splash of headlights from outside suddenly blazed across the cheap motel curtains covering the window. A horn sounded twice.

Jake sighed. “I gotta go,” he said.

“I know,” she said, still holding him tight against her. He could feel her tears on his neck now.

Finally, after the horn sounded again, she released him. He stood up, his now wilted penis slipping out of her body with a drool of their combined juices. He still had his shoes and pants on. He pulled them up and buckled them, wincing a little as the material of his underwear rubbed against his abraded and sore phallus. He walked quickly to the door, opened it a crack, and made eye contact with the cabbie behind the wheel of the idling Yellow cab. He held up one finger and got a thumbs up in return.

When he turned around, Laura was standing there, the tears flowing freely down her face now. “I love you, Jake,” she told him.

“I love you too,” he assured her.

They shared one last hug, one last kiss, and then he picked up his baggage and walked out the door. Laura closed it behind him and he walked to the cab. The driver had already popped the trunk. Jake put the baggage inside and slammed down the trunk lid. He took one last look at the closed door of the motel room and then wiped at his eyes. He then opened the rear door of the cab and sat down.

“Good evening, my friend,” greeted the cabbie, a man in his fifties who was wearing a turban. “I understand we’re going to the airport?”

“That’s right,” Jake said. “United Airlines terminal.”

“Very good,” the cabbie said.

They drove off into the night. Jake did not look back.