Different Circles

Chapter 20: Providence (the one in Rhode Island)

Somewhere over northern Utah

February 28^th, 1994

The Gulfstream IV business jet cruised forty-one thousand feet over an endless expanse of high desert salt flats. Out the left side of the aircraft and slightly ahead, the gray-blue surface of the Great Salt Lake could be seen, as could the sprawling city named for it on the southeast shore. Beyond that were the snow-capped peaks of the Wasatch Mountain Range. The air was clear and calm, with not so much as a hint of turbulence since they had crossed the Sierra Nevada Mountains an hour before.

This private flight from LAX to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, had cost twenty-eight thousand dollars for the eight passengers aboard. Since it was KVA Records business, however, the funds to pay for it had come out of the KVA account. Celia and Jake had both been nominated for several Grammy awards and the ceremony was at Radio City Music Hall in New York City tomorrow evening. Neither of them expected to win anything—business as usual, especially when Whitney Houston was the primary competition—but their presence at the venue was quite expected and, though they were an independent label and answered to no corporate masters, the media would have jumped to (and reported) all kinds of wild speculations had either or both failed to accept their invitation.

Celia, in particular, was unhappy to take time off from her tour rehearsals to participate in the farce that was the awards. She and her band—Coop and Charlie playing rhythm, Dexter Price on the horn, and the best of the best available Aristocrat studio musicians playing piano, synthesizer, violin, and lead guitar—had been putting in eight-hour days, six days a week in a rented warehouse in West Covina, dialing in the show she planned to put on. And it was to be her show, not what the suits and promotion managers of Aristocrat had been envisioning. At the very first meeting Celia had with them after signing the MD&P contract, they had laid out before her a meticulously planned set list they wanted her to do, complete with choreographed dance numbers that would feature professional dancers accompanying her, multiple costume changes throughout each performance (said costumes being ridiculously scanty and sexual), and, worst of all, they had actually had the gall to suggest that each performance would be lip-synched by her while she was wearing a headset mic that would be turned off during the vocals, but on for between song banter.

“Are you out of your fucking minds?” she asked, so appalled she lapsed into a Jake-ism. “I’m not doing any of this shit!”

“But Celia,” they insisted, “this what your fans want to see! This is what they expect to see! You’re a sex symbol. You need to embrace that and go out there each night and show them what you’ve got!”

“What I’ve got is my music,” she replied. “And that is what they are going to get: a musical performance. I am going to wear jeans and a sleeveless shirt for my stage clothes. I am going to play my guitar and sing live into a microphone that sits on a stand while my band provides the music to accompany me. I am going to have simple stage lighting that lets the audience see me and the band. I am not going to dance. I am not going to have dancers on the stage with me. And I most assuredly am not going to have anything I do up on that stage choreographed by your troop of brain-dead imbeciles.”

“You want to go up there in jeans and just play your guitar?” asked Vernon Crandall, the suit assigned as her tour coordinator. “That’s boring! Nobody is going to pay money to come see that!”

“I’m pretty sure you’re talking out of your ass right now,” Jake, who had been present at the meeting (along with Pauline), put in at this point. “People are going to love her show because she’s a talented musician, songwriter, and singer. The fact that she’s attractive is secondary to all that. She doesn’t need to shake her tits and show off her legs and belly in order to keep their attention.”

“We disagree,” Crandall informed them. “And your proposal is not what we had in mind when we signed the touring contract and agreed to finance this endeavor.”

This was where Pauline came in. “It may not be what you had in mind, Vern, but it’s what you’re going to get. That contract grants all rights for tour planning, composition, lineup, musicians, and production to KVA Records. The tour is what Jake and Celia say the tour is.”

“I believe,” said Gene Rickens, the Aristocrat lawyer, “that an argument could be made for misrepresentation of terms for that contract.”

The look he got from Pauline at this point actually made him back up his chair a few inches. If looks could kill, he would’ve been halfway to the Pearly Gates. “You go ahead and make that argument, Rickens,” she challenged. “Try to get a judge to agree that you have the right to dictate tour production to KVA Records when you signed a goddamn contract that specifically states in black and fucking white that KVA Records retains those rights for itself.”

“Well...” stammered Rickens, “I’m aware of the wording of the contract we signed. I’m just suggesting that an argument could be made that, since we were clearly anticipating a choreographed production when we agreed to finance this tour, KVA’s insistence on a non-choreographed, simple production constitutes misrepresentation and bad faith negotiation.”

“You can just cram that shit right up your ass,” Jake told the counselor.

“I beg your pardon!” Rickens said, outraged now at the lack of decorum.

“What my brother means to say,” Pauline put in, “is that you don’t have a leg to stand on. You’re just blustering for your clients and you know it, I know it, and I’m reasonably sure they know it as well.”

“I do not bluster!”

“Hmm, a lawyer who does not bluster?” Pauline said mildly. “You must have skipped the first year of law school?”

“I most certainly did not!” he assured her.

She shook her head a little and chuckled. “In any case,” she said. “Did you forget that I audio-recorded all negotiation sessions? I still have those tapes and they are legally admissible evidence that can and will be presented if necessary. At no time during the negotiation of this contract did Aristocrat express, in any way, that they were expecting a particular type of performance out of Celia other than the obvious one: that she put on a ninety-minute concert on a North American tour consisting of sixty-four dates in fifty-two cities. Choreography, dancing, costume design, lip-synching ... none of these things were brought up in any way. And now you’re trying to say that we misrepresented ourselves? That’s the biggest load of bullshit I’ve heard since ... well ... since the last time I negotiated something with you record executives.”

“I do the show my way, or I don’t do it at all,” Celia said firmly.

“And that is the final word on that,” Pauline said. “Can we put this subject to rest now?”

They had put the subject to rest.

Now, as the Gulfstream flew through the sky en route to their date with rejection, Celia was sitting in the rear of the plane, just in front of the door that led to the bathroom/shower area forward of the tail. She was by herself—she and Greg had arrived at the airport together in the same limousine but had been sitting as far apart as they could get ever since boarding—sipping out of a glass filled with ice and a clear liquid that Barb, their flight attendant, had brought her a few minutes ago. Jake was reasonably sure the glass did not contain water. Greg sat alone at the front end of the cabin. He was drinking scotch on the rocks and staring out at the passing scenery, a morose expression on his face. The Nerdlys were sitting across from Greg at another of the tables, both of them working intently on something that had to do with audio reproduction while Sharon sipped from a glass of wine and Nerdly from a vodka and prune juice.

Jake was sitting in one of the chairs arranged next to a table. Pauline, who was holding Tabby in her arms and rocking her gently back and forth, sat across from him. Directly across the small aisle from them was Veronica, the twenty-two year old UCLA Business major who Pauline used to babysit her little clump on those occasions she had to leave her house for business. Ronnie, as she liked to be called, had agreed to cut two days worth of classes so she could fly private across the country, be put up in Paulie’s suite at the Sheraton New York in Times Square, and be paid two thousand dollars on top of all that just to take care of Tabby during the hours Pauline was at the ceremony as Jake’s date. For the lower middle class girl who was going to school on an academic scholarship and working two jobs just to keep from sinking under water, it was a dream assignment on several different levels.

“Shouldn’t you be going over your speech?” Pauline asked Jake when she saw he had an old Sony Walkman—the kind that played cassette tapes instead of CDs—in his hand.

“What speech?” he asked.

“The speech you’ll have to give if you manage to win one of the three Grammys you’ve been nominated for,” she said, a bit exasperated.

He shook his head. “I didn’t even come up with one,” he said. “I’m not going to win anything. This whole thing is a farce, a little production put on by the big four to help promote their own albums and their own artists. They’re sure as shit not going to hand one of those things to an independent label’s act—especially not one who is known to sniff coke out of ass cracks on occasion.”

“I have no doubt you’re correct about the awards being a farce,” Pauline said. “But remember, National is making money off your first album and Aristocrat will be making money off of your second one. Did it ever occur to you that it might behoove them to throw you a little bone and at least give you Best Rock Performance?”

He shook his head. “Nope,” he said plainly. “It never occurred to me.”

“And what if you’re wrong?” she asked. “What if they actually do hand one of those gramophones to you? What are you going to say?”

“I’ll wing it,” he said.

“Wing it?”

He nodded. “How hard can it be? I’ll say some shit like: ‘Wow, I just can’t believe this, this is all so cool. First off, I’d like to thank my sister, Pauline, who has been my manager ever since the Intemperance days and was a real inspiration in getting this song and the album into production. I’d like to thank my mom and my dad, for encouraging my musical interests back when I was a child, and, naturally, I’d like to thank the judges for selecting me for this great honor, blather, blather, blather, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.’”

Pauline looked at him for a moment, as if considering, and then nodded. “All right,” she said. “I guess you can wing it if you need to.”

“Performing is what I do, Paulie,” he told her.

“Forgive me for doubting you,” she said. She pointed at the Walkman. “Is that the tape I listened to?”

“It is,” he told her. “I’m going to have Celia give it a listen, if she’s up for it.”

Pauline looked at the beautiful, yet obviously troubled Venezuelan singer/songwriter/guitarist. “She doesn’t look like she’s up for much of anything right now, except for swilling down those vodka and tonics.”

Jake sighed. “Yeah. She does not seem to be having a good time over there. Maybe the music will cheer her up.”

“I don’t think multiple orgasms would cheer her up,” Pauline said. “Do you know what the issue is between her and Greg?”

He nodded slowly. “Yeah, I do,” he told her. He said no more.

“None of my business?” Pauline asked.

“The details ... no, not really. As her manager, co-owner of KVA, and friend, however, you should know that they’re in kind of a bad spot right now.”

“Well, no shit,” she said. “Any moron can see that. I haven’t seen them say a dozen words to each other since we came back from Oregon. They’re sitting as far apart as they can sit right now. How bad is it? Are we talking divorce here?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Jake said. “She’s extremely focused on getting out on the road. I think she’s using the stress of the planning to avoid thinking about what is really bothering her.”

Pauline nodded. “Let her know I’m here for her if she needs me.”

“I’ll do that,” Jake said.

“And as for that...” She pointed at the Walkman again. “I trust you, Jake. You know that. But you’re talking about a huge risk to KVA money. Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“As long as they’re still in the groove they were in five years ago, yes, I’m sure.”

She sighed. “All right then,” she said. “As long as Nerdly and Celia are down with it, I guess I am too.”

“Thanks, sis,” he told her. “If Celia’s up for it, we’ll need to fly up to Providence after the ceremony, spend a few days there. Is Ronnie going to be up for that?”

“Probably,” she said. “She doesn’t need to be back to school until Monday. If I keep paying her, she’ll hang in there.”

“Fair enough,” Jake said. He stood, picking up his drink glass and the Walkman, and then said, “Here goes nothing.”

“Good luck,” Pauline said.

He made his way to the rear of the plane. Celia, dressed in jeans and a peasant blouse, her hair down and with no makeup upon her face, looked away from her perusal of the passing desert and put her eyes on Jake’s face.

“Time to offload?” she asked him, nodding toward the bathroom door.

“Not just yet,” Jake told her. “I was hoping to talk to you about something.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Can I sit down?”

“Be my guest,” she said, waving to the seat next to her.

He sat, putting his drink and the Walkman on the table. Celia looked at the latter with amusement. “Wow,” she said. “That’s some retro technology you got going there.”

“I had to dig it out of storage in my attic,” Jake told her. “That and the tape that’s inside of it.”

“What’s the tape?” she asked.

“It’s a demo tape put together by a band from Providence called Brainwash,” he told her.

She raised her eyebrows up a bit. “A demo tape?”

“That’s right,” he said. “I don’t think I ever told you the story of Brainwash, did I?”

“I’m pretty sure you haven’t,” she said. “I would’ve remembered a band with a name like that.”

“They’re teachers,” Jake said. “Most of them high school teachers, but one is a middle school teacher.”

This brought a little bit of a smile to Celia’s face. “Teachers,” she said, nodding appreciatively. “Brainwash. Very clever.”

“I thought so as well,” he said. “Anyway ... the story of Brainwash. It was actually you who introduced them to me, in an indirect way.”

“Me?”

“You,” he confirmed. “I saw them perform in Boston the night after your wedding. Do you remember me telling you about the little aircraft incident Helen and I had as we were flying back home the next morning?”

She nodded. “Your plane lost an engine on takeoff,” she said. “You had to come back to the airport.” Another chuckle. “Shit like that sure seems to happen to you a lot, Jake.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know that two incidents in five years when one flies more than fifty thousand miles each year quite qualifies as ‘a lot’, but yeah. Perhaps more than your ordinary traveler. Anyway, Helen was not fond of flying commercial to begin with. That little mishap really scared her and she was afraid to go home right away. So, we decided to spend the night in Boston and go home the next morning on a different flight on a different kind of plane. That meant we had a night to kill. We went out to a club to catch some live music and that was where Brainwash was playing.”

“And they impressed you?”

“They impressed me greatly,” he said. “They’re kind of like a modern-day Fleetwood Mac. Three singer/songwriters—one male, two female—and they each sing their own tunes while the others back whoever is singing. Lots of three-part vocal harmony. The male singer used to be with the band Courage, which was a one-hit wonder group back in the early eighties. Aristocrat—lovely folks that they are—didn’t pick them up for their third option and the band broke up. When the contract term expired, he formed Brainwash with his wife—she’s the keyboardist and one of the singers—and three other teachers with some musical talent. The lead guitarist—she’s also the other female singer—can shred pretty good.”

“A female lead guitarist, huh?” Celia said, pondering that.

“She’s a lesbian,” Jake said. “The club owner I met the night they were playing seemed to think that is why she’s so proficient at the lead guitar position.”

“Well, of course,” Celia said with a chuckle. “It didn’t even occur to me that she might not be a lesbian.”

They had a laugh about this—the first genuine Celia laugh he had seen in a while—and then she turned serious again. “So ... why are you telling me all this? Why did you bring me their demo tape in a Walkman? I presume you have a reason?”

“I do,” he said. “You see, I thought so much of them after seeing them perform, that I went backstage to meet them after the show. They told me their story—how they met, who they were, how they got together, all that shit—and I asked them if they’d ever tried to go big. They said they’d made a demo tape a few years before—a copy of which is in this Walkman—but, despite the fact that they were pulling in more than five bills a show and were the most popular club band in New England, no agent would give them the time of day because they didn’t look good on camera.”

“Ahhh,” she said knowingly. “MTV syndrome.”

“Exactly,” Jake said. “I still think the music video is the first nail in the coffin of the music industry. It’s been in a steady, downward spiral ever since they first played Video Killed the Radio Star that fateful day.”

“August 1, 1981,” Celia said with a nod.

“I think that date will go down in history as the true ‘day the music died’,” Jake opined. “In any case, no one would give them a chance because they weren’t skinny sex symbols who could dance around in their underwear on a video. So, I offered to use the pull I had to get them heard by National’s suits.” He shook his head. “I really thought I was going to be able to help them go big. God, I was still pretty naïve back then, as much as I hate to admit it.”

“No deal, huh?”

“No deal,” Jake said. “I had them put together a complete portfolio to go along with the demo tape and I presented it to Crow and Doolittle, absolutely sure that they were going to be calling me up, demanding I get Brainwash in their office immediately for contract negotiation. I was going to have them use Paulie as their manager and we were going to make sure they didn’t get screwed into a typical first-time contract.” He gave a bitter bark. “None of that happened. The suits at National would not even listen to the demo once they saw what the band looked like in their publicity shots.”

“Are they ugly?” Celia asked.

“Not at all,” Jake said, “they just aren’t camera-friendly attractive. Marcie Scanlon is farm-girl sized; kind of like Helen was. She’s cute and curvy but she’s not a size zero, so Crow and the boys considered her too fat. Stephanie Zool, the guitarist, is in good shape and is kind of cute in her way as well, but she looks a bit masculine. The lesbian thing, you know. And Jim Scanlon and the other guys in the group, though not unattractive, look like what they are: a bunch of teachers. The suits didn’t give a shit how good Brainwash’s music was—that’s pretty much a direct quote, by the way—they just didn’t look right for music videos.”

“That’s a shame,” Celia said slowly. “And I think I’m starting to pick up where you’re going with this. You want me to give them a listen because you want to sign them to KVA Records.”

Jake smiled. “It’s like you’re a mind reader,” he said.

“That would cost KVA a lot of money,” Celia said. “More than it cost to produce one of our records.”

“That’s true,” Jake said. “We’d have to fly them all out here, house them, give them advance money to live on, and then pay for their studio time—hopefully up in Oregon, if Obie can get behind this. In addition, we’ll have to contract again for MD&P for the album, though we won’t be negotiating from a position of strength since Brainwash will be an unknown and I’m sure they’ll still be judged harshly for their appearance even before they give the master a listen. Promotion will cost more because of the unknown factor as well. In addition, I would refuse to exploit Brainwash the way any of the other labels would. If we sign them, they’ll have a fair contract that ensures that as long as we make money, they make money as well.”

Celia looked up at him. “You know something, Jake?”

“What’s that?”

“I think it’s fortunate you’re so musically talented and are able to make a living doing that, because you would have made a terrible salesman.”

He laughed. “Just being truthful,” he said.

“You should never be truthful when you’re trying to sell something,” she told him.

“Just my nature,” he said. “I wanted you to have all the facts and figures on the table. I know I’m asking a lot here. It’s a risky venture that might fail and cost us money. I don’t think it will, but it is possible. I’m asking you to trust my instincts for what quality music is and how to promote it. This can work. These guys have talent and, assuming they still sound as good as they did back then, I think we can pull at least a Platinum CD out of their asses.”

“You haven’t talked to them about all this yet?” she asked.

“Not a word,” Jake said. “I wanted to get everyone aboard first. For a decision like this, we all need to be unanimously in agreement to go for it.”

“I see,” she said. “Are the Nerdlys and Pauline onboard?”

“Nerdly and Sharon both loved the demo tape and can’t wait to get them into the studio and start ordering them around,” he said. “And Pauline, though not as enthusiastic, is onboard as well. She liked the demo well enough, but she’s mostly going on trust in me.”

Celia nodded carefully. “All right,” she said. “I can respect that. One thing though. If you haven’t talked to Brainwash about this yet, are you sure they’re still performing? It’s been five years, right? Bands break up all the time, especially when they’re not actually making their living by performing.”

“They were still touring around New England as of last summer,” Jake said.

“How do you know that?”

“The Nerdlys,” he said. “They spend all their time screwing around on their computer with this thing they call ‘the internet’.”

“The internet?”

“That’s what they call it,” he said. “Apparently this prophecy they’ve had for a few years about everyone connecting their computers together in this massive web of information is starting to come true. Right now, only nerds are using it, but ... well ... they’re the Nerdlys so they’re part of the club. Anyway, they were able to pull up recent reviews of Brainwash off some bulletin boards they were able to access from New England internet geeks. The reviews are all good.”

“Interesting,” Celia said. “All right. No promises, but I’ll give them a listen. I’ll let you know what I think when we land.”

“Fair enough,” Jake said, smiling. “I’ll leave you to the music.”

“You do that,” she said. “Oh ... and will you have that flight attendant bring me back another vodka and tonic? And tell her to go a little heavier on the vodka this time.”

“You got it,” Jake said.

Jake put in her drink order, as requested, and then went back to his seat next to Pauline. For the rest of the flight, as he played with little Tabby, his niece, drank a few more rum and cokes, and watched the scenery go by below, he kept half an eye on Celia. He saw her listen to the demo tape at least twice. Her face had no particular expression on it as she did so.

As they exited the plane into the chilly New Jersey night, she handed him back the Walkman just before they got into the limo for the trip to their hotel.

“If Brainwash is willing,” she told him, “I’m onboard. Contact them and run with it.”

“That’s awesome, C,” he told her, taking the device. “Thanks for listening. Thanks for trusting me.”

“Don’t let me down, Kingsley,” she warned.

“I’ll try not to,” he assured her.

“Oh, and one more thing?”

“What’s that?”

“When you meet up with them, can you score another copy of the demo for me? It kinda grew on me.”

His smile got wider. “I’ll see what I can do.”

After checking into his suite in the Sheraton of New York, it was almost 9:00 PM, although to Jake, whose body was still on California time, it only felt like early evening. He had the phone number for Jim and Marcie Scanlon in his notebook. It had not taken Pauline and her nefarious connections to acquire the number. Nor had it taken the Nerdlys and their so-called internet. The Scanlons were listed in the Providence phone book and a simple call to information had provided it.

He picked up the hotel phone, dialed for an outside line, and then punched in the number. In the earpiece, the phone began to ring.

“Hello?” a male voice answered on the fourth ring.

“Is this Jim Scanlon?” Jake asked.

“This is Jim,” the voice assured him. “With whom am I speaking?”

“This is Jake Kingsley, Jim,” Jake told him. “Do you remember me?”

A lengthy pause, and then, “Rob, is this you? Are you fucking with me again?”

“It’s not Rob, Jim,” Jake told him. “It’s Jake Kingsley. And I’m not fucking with you.”

Another lengthy pause. “Uh ... you’re serious? Is it really you, Jake?”

“It’s really me, Jim,” he said. “I’m in New York City at the Sheraton, here for the Grammys tomorrow night. Sorry it took me so long to get back to you, but I’m still pretty interested in you and the rest of Brainwash.”

“You ... you are?”

“I am,” he said. “And so are the other co-owners of KVA Records—that’s the label we own. Tell me, are you all still playing together these days?”

“Uh ... yeah! We are, as a matter of fact. We’ve been working on some new material for the summer tour.”

Jake smiled. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear,” he said. “Do you still jam together on weekends?”

“Whenever something doesn’t come up to prevent it,” he said. “You know ... kids, stuff like that. Marcie and I have a five year old and a three year old now, and Jeremy and Rick both have kids too. And Steph, she and her ex had a baby about four years ago and they share custody now.”

Jake wondered for a moment how two lesbians had had a baby, then dismissed it as irrelevant. “What about this weekend?” he asked Jim. “Are you planning to jam on Saturday and/or Sunday?”

“We are,” Jim said. “We rehearse in a storage unit in Warwick ... that’s a suburb just south of Providence. Did uh ... you know ... you want to come see us?”

“That is exactly what I want to do,” Jake told him. “I have Pauline, my sister, our manager, and part-owner of KVA with me—she’s my date for the Grammys. I also have Bill and Sharon Archer—commonly known as the Nerdlys—with me as well. They’re our audio engineering team and part owners of KVA too. They loved your demo tape and can’t wait to get their nerdy little hands on you. Are you all still interested in maybe throwing down some of your tunes on a CD and seeing if we can sell them?”

“Whoa ... wow, Jake,” Jim said slowly. “This is all a lot to process right now. I mean ... we all have kids now, most of whom go to school and all that.”

“If you’re onboard with us,” Jake said, “we can probably record over the summer when they’re not in school. I’m not asking you to commit to anything right here and right now. We just want to give you a listen and then maybe talk about what we can do. Low pressure. That’s the way I like to do things, the way we all like to do things.”

“Well ... I guess I’ll invite you to the jam session then,” Jim said. “We get together around ten o’clock on both Saturday and Sunday and then jam for three or four hours.”

“That sounds perfect, Jim,” Jake said. “How about this? The Grammys are tomorrow night, which is Tuesday. Celia and Greg are going back right away. Celia is rehearsing up her tour and Greg is getting ready for a movie premier. Me, Pauline and the Nerdlys are gonna hang out here in New York for a few days, take a little vacation, do some New York shit, and then we will fly up to Providence on Saturday afternoon. You and the group can jam together a little performance for us on Saturday and we’ll meet up with you to listen to it on Sunday at ten. Sound like a plan?”

“It sounds like a plan,” Jim said.

“Perfect. Now, what’s the address of the place you rehearse?”

Jim recited an address to the Rhode Island Storage facility in Warwick, Rhode Island. He then gave him a four-digit code that would let him in the gate. He then gave him his cellular phone number, in case he needed to call.

“I don’t have cell phone myself,” Jake said, “but Pauline and the Nerdlys all do. If there’s any issues, we’ll give you a call.”

“All right then,” Jim said happily, nervously. “I’ll see you Sunday at ten.” A pause. “You really aren’t Rob fucking with me, right?”

“I’m really not Rob fucking with you,” Jake assured him once more.

“All right,” Jim said, “but just know, if you are Rob, I’m so gonna kick your ass for this.”

The Thirty-sixth Annual Grammy Awards ceremony was held at Radio City Music Hall on March 1, 1994. It was hosted by Gary Shandling. Celia Valdez was nominated for Record of the Year (for Why?), Album of the Year (for the entire album, The Struggle) and Best Pop Vocal Performance – Female (also for Why?). Jake was nominated for Best Rock Vocal Performance – Solo (for Insignificance), for Best Rock Song (Insignificance again), and for Album of the Year (for Can’t Keep Me Down, the album).

As expected, neither won anything. Celia was edged out (again, as expected) by Whitney Houston and I Will Always Love You in both the Record of the Year and Best Vocal, and by the Bodyguard soundtrack for Album of the Year. Jake was edged out by Meatloaf (of all fucking people, he thought bitterly) and David Pirner, and Whitney Houston. Neither shed any tears. They had been rejected too many times for that.

Just after eleven o’clock in the morning, Mountain time, the day after the Grammys, the buses and trucks that carried the crew and equipment for the Matt Tisdale Hard Time North American Tour of 1994 rolled into Denver, Colorado, where they would be playing for three nights in McNichols Sports Arena while the Denver Nuggets were on a road trip.

While the trucks and the roadie buses drove to the arena to begin setting up for the first show later that night, the buses with the band and the management personnel in them rolled into the parking lot of the Hilton Hotel near the airport. It took forty minutes to check everyone in. Matt, of course, was the first.

“I’m gonna go grab a shower,” he told Greg Gahn, the tour manager, once he had his passkey in hand. “I still smell like those groupies I fucked last night in Santa Fe.”

“Uh ... yeah,” Greg said. “That’s probably a good idea then. Make it a quick one though. We have to leave for the autograph session by one o’clock.”

“I’ll be ready,” he assured the Mormon. “How about you start working on a coke deal for me? I’m getting low. There’s only about six grams left in the stash box.”

Greg nodded sourly. “I have some connections here in Denver,” he said. “I’ll get one of my people working on it.”

“And make sure it’s good shit,” Matt said. “No fucking cut. That shit you got me back in Cleveland was at least half cut. I ain’t some fucking ghetto motherfucker who don’t know the difference between good shit and bad shit. I want my coke to be pure.”

“I had to use an unknown dealer in Cleveland,” Greg said. “I’ve told you that. Such people are unreliable.”

“No shit,” Matt said. “I’m lucky there was any fucking blow in that shit at all. You have a reliable guy here?”

“I’ve known him for years,” Greg assured him. “He is completely above reproach, particularly when one is purchasing twenty grams at a time.”

“He fucking better be,” Matt warned. “If you bring me that fucking teething powder shit again, I’m flushing it right down the toilet and demanding they take the money out of your fucking salary.”

“It’ll be quality product,” Greg promised.

“And don’t forget,” Matt warned. “I’m weighing the shit when you bring it to me. I better not be so much as a microgram short. Not a single flake of my shit is to go up your nose, or in your lungs, or up your asshole, or whatever else you might think to do with it.”

“I’ve told you a thousand times,” Greg said. “I no longer use the devil’s powder.”

“Uh huh,” Matt said. “But I have no fucking doubt you’d climb right back up on that ride if you thought you could score some without having to pay for it. So, keep that shit in mind. Your ass is on one hundred percent audit when it comes to my blow. You dig?”

“I understand,” Greg said, not letting the sadness he was feeling show.

Matt checked into his suite and looked at the neatly made King-sized bed longingly. He had been up partying until well-past 3:00 AM and then had only bagged a few hours of broken sleep on the bus trip from Santa Fe. He could use a solid crash-out about now. Alas, there was a show tonight so it was not to be. He removed his clothes, put them in a collapsible hamper that was part of his luggage, and then fired up the shower.

Once he was clean and dressed in fresh clothes, two lines of cocaine took care of that fatigue quite nicely. He would have two more just before the record store signings and that would have to do him until after the show tonight. Though he had adjusted his own personal moratorium hours prior to performance—it was currently shakily holding at six hours—he still considered the four-hour mark to be a sacred, unbreakable line in the sand.

It just seemed like he couldn’t get through the day any more without a little pick-me-up to keep him going.

It was probably because he was getting older. That shit kind of sucked, they said.

Though he was tired and out of sorts, Matt was, nonetheless, in a pretty good mood. Hard Time, his new album, was selling very well thanks to the saturation airplay it was receiving on the hard rock stations across the country. Matt’s road song, Time to Go, was currently the most requested tune on the hards nationwide. The title cut of the album, which the promo team had just released for airplay two weeks before, was the third most requested. Now that two songs were being heard and being enjoyed, sales of the album were bumping up quite nicely—Hard Time had just passed Platinum status and was still picking up momentum—as were sales of concert tickets in each city. Matt had sold out his last fifteen dates, had sold out all three of the Denver shows, and was close to selling out both of the Salt Lake City shows after Denver. And, just to add to the fun and nostalgia, the SLC city council was trying to get his concert permit revoked on the grounds that Matt Tisdale did not conform to the community standards of decency in their fair city. The effort had no hope of succeeding—this issue had already been fought and lost several times back in the Intemperance days and a solid precedent had been set—but the publicity it was generating was doing nothing but selling more tickets and albums.

Tower of Power Records, as it had been in the Intemp days, was a major sponsor of Matt’s tour. Nearly every city they visited featured a T of P visit for autograph sessions. The crowds at such events were always large and enthusiastic on this tour. The crowd at the Denver store was no exception. Perhaps a thousand people were there, maybe even more. They stood in a loose, unruly line that stretched from the front door of the establishment all the way around the block. A quartet of Denver police officers and twice that many unarmed private security officers were on hand to keep things under control. Or so they hoped.

The bus parked behind the business. Matt and Greg Gahn got out. The rest of the band stayed on the bus.

“They ain’t here to see your asses,” Matt had told his crew at the very first autograph session back when the tour began. “They ain’t here to get your fuckin’ autographs. They’re here to see me and get my fuckin’ autograph. Now give the people what they want and stay your asses on the bus.”

By this point, the band was well-adapted to the routine and used the time to catch up on some sleep—after all, they’d been partying almost as hard as Matt the night before.

Matt and Greg entered the Tower of Power through the rear door and were led through the business. Cheers erupted as those customers already inside saw the guitarist in their midst. Matt smiled and waved at them, pausing to shake a hand here and there, before he got to his signing table just inside the front door. Here, was a simple folding chair for him to sit in and a poster board tacked to the front of the table showing the cover of Hard Time, at the bottom of which was the times Matt would be available to sign CD inserts: 1:30 PM to 3:00 PM. Next to the table was a display featuring hundreds of copies of the CD, for those who had not already purchased one. The manager of the store had a table of his own set up and a portable cash register available to him so he could facilitate such purchases. One of the Denver PD guys and one of the unarmed rent-a-cops stood at post just behind the table.

Matt greeted everyone at the table, even the cop, and then grabbed a seat. Greg took up position just behind the manager’s position, keeping his trademark phony grin on his face.

“All right,” Matt said, picking up a pen. “Let’s get this fuckin’ show on the road.”

They got the fuckin’ show on the road. One by one, customers approached the table and got to spend about twenty to thirty seconds each in the presence of Matt Tisdale. Overwhelmingly, most were males. When there was a female present, she was generally on the arm of a male. Most were between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, the primary demographic that bought Matt Tisdale albums and attended his concerts. Most were dressed in jeans and rock group shirts—Intemperance shirts being the most prevalent. Almost all had copies of Hard Time in hand when they approached, the inserts pulled out of the case and ready to be signed. The word had been passed well in advance of this signing, as it was for all signings, that Matt Tisdale would not sign any Intemperance albums, CDs, shirts, hats, or anything else associated with his former band. This information had been announced for days on every hard rock station that was helping promote the session. Still, not everyone had gotten the word. Those few that showed up with Intemp material in hand were told at the front door that they would need to stow it out of Matt’s sight and buy a copy of Hard Time if they wanted an autograph.

Matt shook hands, greeted fans, answered inane questions, and signed CD inserts one after the other, maintaining a cool politeness for the most part, but also managing to stay in character.

“You fuckin’ rock, dude,” one twentyish longhaired male told him as he shook Matt’s hand enthusiastically. “You’re like the best fuckin’ guitar player on the planet and shit.”

“Fuck yeah, I am,” Matt told him. “Who the fuck says I’m not?”

This generated a cheer from those in line behind the longhair. Matt then scratched his signature on the insert and thanked the longhair for showing up.

Everything was pretty routine until about forty minutes into the session, when a young man of perhaps twenty-one came up to the table and set down the insert for Next Phase.

“How you doing, dude?” Matt asked him, holding out his hand to shake.

“I’m all right, Matt,” the guy said, shaking with him. “I was hoping I’d get to talk to you before you finished up.”

“And here you are,” Matt said, scratching out his signature just below the picture on the insert. “Not too many people bringing in Next Phase for me to sign. Did you like the album?”

“I fuckin’ loved it, dude,” the man assured him. “I’ve listened to it a thousand times at least. I know every note, every riff, every solo by heart. It’s some of the best guitar ever put down.”

“Thanks,” Matt said, genuinely pleased with the praise. It was always nice to know that someone got what you were trying to do. “I put my heart and soul into that album. A lot of people just didn’t appreciate it, you know?”

“Idiots,” the guy said, picking up his insert. “They don’t appreciate real talent, real energy.”

“Fuckin’ A,” Matt told him. “That’s what I was saying the whole time. What do you think of the new album?”

“Well ... to be honest with you, dude, I’ve only heard the songs they play on the radio.”

“Hey,” Matt said. “They’re selling copies of it right fuckin’ there.” He pointed to the manager’s display. “Get one now and I’ll sign it too.”

The kid shook his head. “I’m gonna pass on that,” he said.

Matt looked up at him. “You’re gonna pass?”

“Yeah,” the kid said. “I like your real shit, dude, not that fuckin’ sellout shit you just put out.”

“Sellout shit?” Matt asked incredulously. “You think my new shit is selling out?”

The kid shrugged. “Don’t you?” he asked. And then he walked away without another word.

Matt continued to sign autographs and make conversation until 3:30, when it was time to head for KROK, the most popular of the local hard rock stations. But the kid’s words kept echoing in his mind, bothering him.

The echoes got worse during the radio interview with Jack Flasher (not his real name, obviously), the afternoon DJ at KROK. After the usual blather about the show tonight, the direction Matt was taking his music, a few anecdotes about life on the road, Flasher asked a loaded question.

“A lot of our listeners are giving us feedback on the two cuts we’ve been playing from Hard Time,” he said. “They seem to feel that you’ve gone quite a few steps into the mainstream with this album, that you’ve tailored your music to appeal to a broader demographic. Many of them feel that you’ve sold out to some degree, that you’ve sacrificed the integrity of your art in order to make money. How would you respond to that?”

It was fortunate that the station manager had taken the precaution of setting up the interview with a ten-second delay, or they might very well have been fined by the FCC.

And then, just before the opening band took the stage, Matt and the rest of his band were backstage, meeting with the locals who had won various radio contests or, through whatever other means, managed to get their hands on backstage passes to meet the performers. One of the locals was a hard-core metal chick, one of the few dedicated fans of Matt who did not have a Y chromosome. She was dressed in a leather miniskirt, a black Hard Time Tour ‘94 t-shirt, had multiple piercings in both ears, her nose, and her tongue, and a tattoo of the Intemperance logo on her right shoulder.

“I fuckin’ love you, Matt!” she told him enthusiastically as she hugged him tightly and suggestively after he introduced himself. She made a point to grind her ample breasts into his chest.

“Damn, baby,” Matt told her, wondering what it would be like to get a blowjob from a chick with a tongue stud. Something to add to the to-do list for sure. “It sure seems like you do.”

She broke the embrace and then asked Matt if he would sign her tit.

“Fuckin’ break it out,” he told her.

She rucked up her shirt, revealing the fact that she had no bra on and that she had tremendously huge breasts. He took a sharpie from her and signed his name just above the left nipple while she giggled at the touch.

“Tomorrow morning,” she told him, “I’m going to the tattoo parlor and having him tat that signature in for good. For the rest of my life, I’m going to have Matt Tisdale’s autograph on my tit.”

Matt nodded, impressed at her dedication. Maybe he should invite her backstage after the show? She was moderately good looking in a young female sort of way, and he could scratch the whole blowjob-by-a-tongue-stud thing off the list on the same day it was put on there.

Before he could make the offer, however, the girl—her name was Anna—pulled a long-haired male, perhaps a year or two older than her, forward by the arm. “This is Clay, my boyfriend,” she told him.

Clay was a formidable looking man, well-built, well-muscled, and with the air of someone you did not want to trifle with. He was wearing jeans and an Intemperance t-shirt from the Lines on the Map tour.

“Hey, Clay,” Matt said, holding out his hand for a shake. “How they hanging?”

Clay did not shake with him. “Like they should,” he said plainly. “Unlike yours.”

“Clay!” Anna barked at him, her face alarmed. “I told you not to do this shit! This is Matt Tisdale!”

“I know who it is,” Clay said, contempt in his voice. “The guy who used to be the greatest fucking guitar player on the planet, but who is now nothing but a sellout.”

Matt glared at the man, slowly letting his hand drop back down. “Sellout?” he asked. “You’re calling me a fucking sellout?”

“You are a fucking sellout!” Clay told him. “You went mainstream, dude, just so you could sell a few CDs to the unsophisticated who are too fuckin’ dumb to get your music! That is selling out!”

“That’s fuckin’ bullshit!” Matt told him, taking a step forward.

“Clay!” Anna said, trying to grab his arm again. He shook it off and continued to stare at Matt.

“I used to worship you, man!” Clay told him. “I used to listen to every cut on your albums and try to imitate what you were playing. I never could get it right, man, because that’s how fuckin’ awesome, how fuckin’ fast you are! And now I want to puke when I hear that pop music shit you just put out. It’s fuckin’ garbage!”

The security guys, who had been standing over in the corner, started to move in their direction. They knew Matt well enough to know that when someone talked to him like that, some sort of physical confrontation was about to happen. They were not wrong.

“Hey, fuck you, bitch!” Matt said, stepping forward into Clay’s personal space. “How dare you come onto my stage and accuse me of selling out! Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“Someone who knows the fuckin’ truth,” Clay told him. “You’re an ass-sucking little sellout who compromised your music just to make a little money. Admit it!”

“I think you better leave right now, motherfucker,” Matt said, “before I start mopping up this stage with your fuckin’ face.”

“Clay! Let’s get out of here right now!” Anna cried.

Clay ignored her. “Give it a shot, sellout. I’d love to kick your ass for you.”

Matt gave it a shot. He threw a sharp right directly at Clay’s face. Clay, expecting the jab, blocked it easily and then countered with a right of his own. Matt, however, was a veteran of many brawls and was quite wily. He grabbed Clay’s jabbing hand in his, grasping it tightly, then twisted it to the outside, causing Clay to have to bend sideways to the right and take a step in that direction to keep from falling down. This left his face exposed. Matt immediately began to hammer that face with right hooks. He managed to get three of them in before the security guys got hold of him and dragged him away.

“You’re still a fuckin’ sellout!” Clay yelled after him, his nose dripping blood, his left eye already starting to swell. “Go on, go sing some of your fuckin’ pop music for us!”

Matt had to take a couple of Ibuprofen from Greg’s little black bag in order to go on stage two hours later. His hand was sore where he had punched the asshole’s face in. Fortunately, it was his picking and strumming hand, not his chording hand. Still, the experience left a sour taste in his mouth and the confrontation continued to bother him all throughout the show that night. He was a professional, however, and he played just as he always did: with heart, with emotion, with feeling. The cheers he received after each song were genuine.

After the final encore, while the house lights were coming up behind him and the audience was starting to make their way to the exits, Matt walked off stage into the stage left area and found Greg Gahn and Jack Ferguson (head of tour security) standing next to a couple of Denver police officers.

“What’s this shit?” he asked them.

“You don’t have to say anything to them, Matt,” Greg said. “I’ve already got our lawyers working on it.”

“Working on what?” Matt asked. “What the fuck is going on?”

“We have a complaint that you assaulted a fan before the show tonight,” the first officer said. He was a younger cop, so young he looked like a boy scout with a gun. “We’re here to interview you and get your side of the story.”

“That fuckin’ loser?” Matt said, shaking his head. “He was no fuckin’ fan, but yeah, I kicked his ass.”

“Matt!” Greg hissed. “I said you don’t have to say anything! It’s your constitutional right!”

“Fuck my rights,” Matt said. “That asshole deserved it.” He turned to the second cop, she was female and a little older, perhaps thirty, and in exquisite physical shape. Matt wondered what kind of titties she had under that bullet proof vest beneath her shirt. “Can you imagine?” he asked her. “The asshole comes back into my backstage area and starts talking shit to me, calling me a fuckin’ sellout and shit like that. I can’t let shit like that go unanswered.”

“Then you admit you punched him?” the female cop asked. Her nametag said she was R. Brooker.

“Fuck yeah,” Matt said.

“Only after he took a swing at you first, right Matt?” Jack said carefully, loudly.

“Naw,” Matt said, shaking his head. “I threw the first punch. He blocked it and then tried to catch me with a right. Weak ass shit. I got him in a hand lock and was able to tune up his face a bit before the guys pulled me away.”

Jack was now burying his face in his hands and shaking his head. Greg’s signature grin had faded.

“Interesting,” said the first cop. His nametag read Z. Timpkin. “Even the guy’s girlfriend claims that Mr. Carver threw the first punch. All of your security people back her up. But you’re saying that you threw the first punch?”

Matt laughed. “The bitch turned on her own boyfriend, huh? That’s fuckin’ classic.” He turned to R. Brooker again. “She’s a hard-core fan,” he explained. “She wasn’t too happy about her boyfriend talking his shit to me. Not only that, I’m pretty sure she wants to slurp on my schlong, you know what I’m saying?”

R. Brooker blinked slowly but her face did not otherwise change expression. “Mr. Carver,” she said, “wishes to file charges against you for assault and battery.”

“What a puss,” Matt said with contempt. “Remember the good old days, when you could get in a fight when someone talked shit, kick their ass, and that was the end of it? Whatever happened to those days?”

“We often ask ourselves that same question,” R. Brooker said. “In any case, this assault that you admit to does not rise to the level of a felony. Since it was a misdemeanor, not committed in our presence, we told Mr. Carver that we could not arrest you for it, but that he can make a citizen’s arrest if he wishes. Well ... he wished. That is why we are here, Mr. Tisdale.”

“You’re going to arrest me?” he asked.

“We are,” she said. “We will then take you down to the jail and book you. Now, my understanding is that you’ve had some run-ins with law enforcement before, that you’ve resisted arrest violently on several occasions.”

“Yeah,” Matt said carefully. “You could say that.”

“We would appreciate it if you would just accompany us to the jail without fuss,” R. Brooker said. “This is not a big deal at all. We won’t even handcuff you if you just agree to go with us. This is a shitty misdemeanor assault charge that the DA will undoubtedly drop as soon as he gets his hands on it. I am absolutely sure you’ll be released on your own recognizance once the booking is completed. You can be back to your hotel room before midnight.”

Matt pondered this information for a few moments and then nodded. “Sounds good,” he said. “Take me away and let’s get this shit over with.”

“Do not answer any more questions, Matt,” Greg warned. “Just cooperate and do what they say. I already have a lawyer on the way to the jail.”

“Bitchin,” Matt said. He turned to R. Brookings again. “This bitch of Carver’s,” he said—he did not remember her name. “Is she still floating around somewhere?”

“I have no idea,” R. Brookings told him. “Carver went to the hospital in an ambulance, and...”

“An ambulance?” Matt said, shaking his head again. “He really is a fuckin’ pussy.”

“Yeah,” R. Brookings said. “Be that as it may, his girlfriend elected not to go with him. She seemed rather upset about the whole thing.”

“I’m sure she is,” Matt said. He turned to Jack. “Hey, Jack, see if you can find her out there, will you? If you do, see if she wants to come to the after-gig party at the hotel. She’s got a fuckin’ tongue piercing with my name on it, brother.”

Jack chuckled a little. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said.

“And if you can’t find her,” Matt said, “try to find me some bitch who does have one of them tongue studs. I’m kinda intrigued by this shit.”

“Understood,” Jack said.

Matt turned back to the two cops. “All right then,” he said. “Take me away!”

As the two cops led him away, unhandcuffed and unbeaten, he took a moment to reflect upon how much he had matured since his last run-in with law enforcement officers.

I guess I’m growing up, he thought.

The Rhode Island Storage facility in Warwick, Rhode Island was a large lot, surrounded by chain link topped with razor wire, just adjacent to the interchange of Interstate 95 and State Highway 37. Most of the facility was general storage bays, unpowered, with no environmental controls. In the very back, however, in the areas that nestled up against the interstate, was a row of larger buildings that featured power and heating within larger bays big enough to hold a vehicle.

Jake parked the rental Audi he’d procured from nearby T.F. Green International Airport in front of stall 433, which was standing open and had two other vehicles—a Toyota Corolla and a white Ford Van—parked beside it. Inside the bay were the regional rock group Brainwash and their equipment. There was a double bass drum set sitting on a platform, three microphone stands arrayed in a line, one of which had an electric keyboard set sitting in front of it. A few amplifiers were in the rear of the stall and a variety of guitars and open guitar cases were stacked here and there.

Jake, Pauline, and the Nerdlys got out of the vehicle and walked to the open stall. Jim Scanlon, looking a little older and slightly pudgier around the middle than the last time Jake had seen him, walked over to greet them.

“It really wasn’t Rob fucking with me,” he said in wonder as he held out his hand.

“It really wasn’t,” Jake said, shaking with him. “It’s good to see you guys again. This is Pauline Kingsley, my sister, my manager, a badass lawyer, and one of the owners of KVA Records.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” she said, shaking with Jim while the rest of the band came forward.

“And this is Bill and Sharon Archer,” Jake told them next. “If you’re an Intemperance fan, you know Nerdly here was the piano player. These days, he and Sharon are our sound engineers and they also own a quarter of KVA.”

Handshakes were done and then Jim introduced the rest of the band to those who had never met them before. “Marcie, my wife and our keyboardist,” he said, pulling her forward.

Marcie Scanlon had also put on a bit of weight since Jake had seen her last. It did not look bad on her as she distributed it well. Her hair was now long and had a few speckles of gray in it. All in all, she was still an attractive woman of farmgirl proportion. Her hand was soft, but her grip firm as she shook with everyone and told them how pleased she was to meet them.

“Stephanie Zool,” Jim said, “lead guitar and vocalist on her material.”

Stephanie also looked different than before. Her hair was shorter and she looked like she was trying to display her lesbianism instead of downplaying it. She looked just like a butch dyke, complete with loose fitting jeans, studded leather belt, and a wife-beater shirt that showed off the tattoo on her well-muscled left upper arm—a ring of female gender symbols (a circle with a cross attached at the six o’clock position) that went around the entire circumference. Both of her ears were studded with multiple piercings.

“I can’t believe we’re actually going to play for you,” Stephanie said, her eyes showing a certain amount of awe at their presence.

“I’ve actually been quite looking forward to this,” Jake told her.

Next came the bass player, Jeremy White. He looked no different than the last time Jake had seen him. His hair was cut short and professional, he had no tattoos, and a pair of glasses rested on his face. After him was Rick Jackson, the drummer. He no longer had any hair. A victim of premature male pattern baldness the first time Jake had met him, he was now apparently shaving up there. It was a good look for him, though he still looked like a teacher instead of a drummer.

“All right,” Jim said. “How do we want to do this?”

“Well, I’m assuming you got your instruments all tuned and your sound dialed in to your satisfaction?” Jake asked.

“Yes, of course,” Jim said.

“And I assume you have some tunes you’ve been rehearsing of late that you could play for us?” he asked next.

“We’ve been mostly working on new songs these past three weeks,” Marcie said, “but we have a considerable catalogue of material after doing this for eight years now. A lot of it we could do in our sleep.”

“Then let’s hear what you got,” Jake said. “Play a little something from each of the singers. Play a little mellow shit and then hit us with the hard stuff. We want to see a good cross section of your work.”

“All right,” Jim said, nodding thoughtfully.

“Oh ... one thing,” Jake said.

“What’s that?”

“The Nerdlys are going to hate your sound set-up, no matter how good it is. Don’t take it personally. They’re anal to the tenth power when it comes to sound. It’s just one of those things that has to be, like a law of physics.”

“We’ve asked them not to criticize or judge too much based on your sound reproduction,” Pauline said.

“That’s right,” Nerdly said. “And we will honor that agreement and concentrate instead on just how much better you will sound when Sharon and I are the ones setting it up for you.”

“Assuming we get that far,” Pauline said.

“Assuming we get that far,” Jake agreed with a nod. He turned back to the band, who was now looking a lot more nervous than they had been just a minute before. “Now then, let’s hear what you got.”

The band took their positions and picked up their respective instruments. Jeremy flipped a few switches on their sound board and powered up. They then held a whispered conversation among themselves, seemed to come to an agreement, and then got ready.

“All right,” Jim said into his microphone. His voice was now coming out of the speaker. “We’ll start with one of mine. This is one we worked up for our tour last summer and it was always a crowd favorite. It’s called Look at Me. I hope you like it.”

With that, Jim stepped on one of the three effects pedals arrayed around his microphone and began to play his Stratocaster guitar, the music coming out clean, as if he were playing a straight acoustic. Marcie began to play as well, setting a secondary melody on the piano sound. Jeremy and Rick set a gentle backbeat at around a hundred a minute. Stephanie contributed little at this point, just some minor fills with her distorted Hamer guitar.

Jim began to sing. His voice was a pleasant tenor and he had good command of it. He sang a song that seemed to be a declaration that he was somebody, that he did not care what people thought about him, what their opinion of him was, but that he still had a need for them to know who he was and what he was about. As the tune went on, the tempo picked up and the intensity increased with each verse. Stephanie’s fills became more numerous, more powerful. Jim himself pushed down on a pedal and changed over to distorted sound. On the choruses—which contained what Jake thought was a good hook line (I need you to look at me, see what’s here to see, understand me... )—they sang in perfect three-part harmony, the tenor, contralto, and mezzo-soprano mixing beautifully.

“Not bad,” Nerdly said to Jake, “although they really do need someone to work on their sound.”

“What do you want from a couple amps and a speaker in a storage room, Nerdly?” Jake returned. “Just listen to the music.”

“I’m listening,” Nerdly assured him. “It is aesthetically pleasing.”

They wrapped up Look at Me with a bit of a rough ending that was the mark of a lack of recent rehearsal of the tune. They then played one of Stephanie’s tunes, a hard driving, almost heavy metal piece called I’m Sorry. It seemed to deal with the way she’d treated a former lover, acknowledging that she’d treated the lover badly during the relationship, that the lover had, in fact, left her because of this treatment. The chorus, which contained the title, served as a flippant apology that seemed to want to be taken as insincere and without regret. It was actually a masterful piece of cynical, realistic songwriting and it included a blistering guitar solo between the third and final verses.

After this, they did one of Marcie’s songs. This one was called It Never Fails, and was a mellow piece featuring the clean guitar from Jim and the piano as the primary melodic instrument. It was a song about self-doubt and making mistakes but always learning from them, always pushing forward, and never giving up. Pauline, in particular, liked the theme of the tune.

From here, they played some of their older stuff, their classics that the New England fans particularly enjoyed. It was plain to see that Brainwash was intimately familiar with these classics as they played them perfectly, without so much as a missed note or a single lapse in timing.

“How are we doing, guys?” Jim asked his guests after song number eight was finished.

“You’re doing great,” Jake assured them. “We’re thoroughly enjoying the show.”

“Although,” Nerdly could not help but saying, “if you ramped up the high end on the keyboard and cut down the low end just a bit on the vocal mics, it would serve to...”

“That’s his way of saying he likes it too,” Jake interrupted. “If he didn’t like your shit, he wouldn’t be trying to think of a way to improve it.”

“I would think that would go without saying,” Nerdly said.

“Uh ... right,” Jim said. “Have you heard enough? Or should we do some more?”

“How about one more?” Jake suggested. “The best you got. The one the audiences love. One of the songs you wrap up the final encore with.”

Marcie, Jim, and Stephanie all looked at each other knowingly. A nod passed among them. They turned to the rhythm section. “Together,” Jim said.

“Fuck yeah,” Jeremy said with a smile.

“Let’s do it,” agreed Rick, twirling one of his drumsticks.

“It sounds like you have just the tune,” Jake said.

“We do,” Jim said. “It’s kind of a duet ... sort of. Marcie and I sing it together. She sings the verses but I come in for the choruses and the bridge. It’s about ... well ... it’s about the ups and downs of a long-term relationship. Sometimes we open with it, but usually it’s our final encore. The audiences get royally pissed, however, if we don’t play it at some point during a set.”

“I’m intrigued,” Jake said. “Let’s hear it.”

“Well ... the thing is,” Jim said, “it’s also kind of technical and we haven’t rehearsed it up recently, not since the last tour anyway. It might be a little rough right here and right now.”

“We can see through rough,” Jake said. “Let’s hear it.”

“All right,” Jim said. He looked at his bandmates again and they all gave him non-verbal communication that they were ready.

Marcie began to play the piano, a gentle repetitive melody. She started singing, her contralto voice up in the higher range, asking how can you look at me each day and not see the same thing? As soon as this line was sung, the tempo kicked up as the drum and bass came in. Stephanie began to play a distorted build-up riff. Jim started playing a mildly distorted rhythm to match the tempo. Marcie asked another question about the relationship, answered her own question, and then, as they reached the first chorus, the tune truly kicked into gear. The tempo came up even more and the guitars began to crunch out a heavy metal sound backed with pounding drum beats. Jim sang out the chorus, a proclaiming of unconditional love that was sometimes strained by familiarity and needed renewal. Marcie then assured him that the renewal was a two-way street that would always be there.

Jake and Nerdly looked at each other as the tune pounded out for them. Holy shit, Jake thought in amazement. We’re really onto something here. Nerdly could tell what he was thinking. He nodded in agreement. The tune was awesome, well put together, relevant, and driving. It was the kind of tune that made you feel good just listening to it.

This will be the first cut released from their album, Jake thought. The first thing people hear on the radio from them. And they’re going to fucking love them.

The two groups agreed to meet for lunch in the lobby of the Hilton hotel in downtown Providence, which was where Jake, Pauline, and the Nerdlys were staying. On the drive back to the hotel, the group from Los Angeles talked over what they had just seen. All had a favorable opinion.

“So ... we go for this?” Jake asked at the end of the discussion.

“It’s still a big gamble,” Pauline said. “We’ve done the math. They’ll have to sell more than five hundred and fifty thousand CDs before KVA gets into the black on them. That is considered extremely high risk for an unknown band, particularly one that will not be touring in support of the CD.”

“Understood,” Jake said, “but I have faith in my ability to predict success and in my ability to promote their album. They sounded amazing. You heard that, right?”

Pauline nodded. “They did sound amazing,” she admitted. “And I have faith in you as well ... you know that ... but five hundred and fifty thousand? That’s a lot of CDs to sell.”

“They’ll sell them,” Jake assured her. “The public is going to love them.”

“I vote we proceed with the project,” Nerdly said. “They have a unique sound and I think the world is ready to hear them.”

“Right,” said Sharon. “And I can’t wait to start putting their tracks down. I’m very excited by this.”

Pauline sighed. “All right,” she said. “We already have Celia’s go-ahead as long as the rest of us are unanimous in moving forward. Far be it from me to be the hold out. Let’s sign them if they’re willing.”

“Hell to the yeah,” Jake said, and then winced. “Sorry. It just slipped out.”

The members of Brainwash sat on one side of the table. The representatives of KVA Records sat on the other. Everyone, at Jake’s suggestion, was drinking iced tea.

“Rule number one when dealing with sleazy record company executives such as ourselves,” Jake told them, “is do not drink alcohol or use any other intoxicating substance prior to or during any meeting. Drink your booze and smoke your shit after an agreement has been reached.”

“We don’t do much shit smoking ourselves,” Jim said. “The five of us seem to get ‘randomly’ chosen for drug testing an awful lot.”

“Especially after we come off tour,” Stephanie said. “I don’t think a September has gone by that didn’t find me peeing in a jar in a bathroom with blue toilet water.”

“I take it the school district still has not embraced your art?” Jake asked, remembering their discussion about that subject back in Boston on that fateful night.

“We are the biggest thorn in their side that they have,” Marcie said with a chuckle. “The district, the PTA, and a good chunk of the ‘good citizens’ of Providence all think we’re evil personified because we sing rock and roll music.”

“And because I’m a lesbian,” Stephanie put in. “Or at least they believe I’m a lesbian. I’ve never actually admitted it before.”

“They do jump to some pretty big conclusions,” Jim said.

“Exactly,” Stephanie said. “Just because a girl has short hair, wears jeans and flannel shirts, never dates men, is a PE coach, has been known to frequent gay bars in Boston, and has a ring of female symbols tattooed around her bicep, they go right to the lesbian thing. What can you do?”

“Don’t forget the Subaru Forester,” Marcie put in. “You drive the number one lesbian car.”

“Only because it’s practical and gets good fuel mileage,” Stephanie said with a chuckle.

They all had a laugh over this.

“Trust me,” said Jim. “The district would fire each and every one of our asses if they could find any reason whatsoever. Only the fact that we’re damn good teachers and our students love us—they think we’re cool—keeps us hanging in there. That, and we don’t give them any ammunition.”

“We are the subject of endless rumors, however,” Marcie said. “The most prevalent one is that Jim, Steph and I regularly engage in group sex with each other.”

“Do you?” Nerdly asked, intrigued by the very thought.

The two women looked at him harshly for a moment, but then saw in his face that he was merely curious, not sexually harassing them.

“Not regularly,” Marcie said with a smile.

Jim and Marcie laughed as if this was the funniest thing they had ever heard. Jeremy and Rick were pretty amused by it as well. Jake laughed with them, but he sensed that there was a little more than a joke implied by Stephanie’s words.

“All right,” Pauline said. “Enough about Subaru Foresters and lesbian love ... as appealing as the subject can be. How about we talk some business here?”

“All right,” Jim said. “Let’s talk.”

“We all like your music,” Jake said. “We’ve been listening to the demo CD you sent me and we were all impressed with what you just played for us. I’ve been impressed with you since the first time I heard you. I wanted to get you signed back then. Unfortunately, the powers-that-be of the time did not include me. The suits of National Records that I tried to get to sign you would not even listen to your demo, not even after I begged and pleaded with them to. Do you know why?”

“We don’t look good on camera,” Jim said. “That’s what we’ve been told every time we’ve tried to hook up with an agent.”

“That’s correct,” Jake said. “That is exactly what they told me. ‘Brainwash will never amount to anything, no matter how great their music is, because they don’t look good in a music video’. I felt that was bullshit then, and I feel that is bullshit now. Now, however, I’m part owner of my own record company and we can do whatever we want. And what we want to do is have you record a CD for us and we’ll see if we can sell it. We want to put my theory that good music will still trump image to the test.”

“And you want us to record this album over the summer?” Jim asked.

“That would be ideal,” Jake said. “We have a connection with Oren Blake II.”

“He’s your baby’s daddy, right?” Marcie asked Pauline.

“That’s right,” she said. “He put the little clump in my belly. And he owns Blake Studios in Oregon, where Jake and Celia recorded their past two albums. He’s out on tour right now, but I believe he would be inclined to help us out with studio time over the summer break—for his usual price of five hundred dollars per hour and three percent royalties on all CD sales in perpetuity.”

The members of Brainwash all shared a look with each other and passed around some silent communication.

“Five hundred dollars an hour?” Jim finally said. “There’s no way we could afford that.”

“We’re just a group of teachers,” Marcie said, “making teacher pay.”

“You would not be paying that five hundred an hour,” Jake said. “We would.”

“You would?” Stephanie asked.

“Yes,” Jake said. “That’s what signing you to the label is all about. We pay to get the album recorded, manufactured, distributed, and promoted and, in turn, we get to make a good chunk of the profit from it. Did you not understand that this is how the recording industry worked?”

“Uh ... well, yeah, I did understand that,” Jim said. “I just never thought about it so ... you know ... clinically.”

“When you say that you get to keep the profit,” Stephanie said, “what exactly do you mean by that? How do we get paid?”

“You’ll be given royalties on your album,” Pauline said. “The industry standard for first time contracts is ten percent.”

“Ten percent?” Jim said. “That’s not very much.”

“It’s not,” Jake said. “It kind of sucks, really. Fortunately for you, Nerdly and I were the victims of one of these first-time contracts back when Intemperance was first signed to National and we have sympathy for your cause. We are not going to screw you like we got screwed. I could not live with myself if I participated in something like that.”

“What are you offering then?” asked Marcie.

“We’re offering fifteen percent royalties on all CDs sold,” Jake said.

“That’s not a lot more than ten percent,” Stephanie said.

“It’s not,” Jake said, “but it’s also the highest we can go without taking too large of a financial risk ourselves. You have to understand that putting an album together and getting it out into the world is expensive. Our estimation is that it will cost approximately one and a half million dollars to get you recorded, mixed, mastered, manufactured and distributed. And that’s only the first part. You’ll also have to be promoted or no one will ever hear you. The only way for us to promote you is to use the thoroughly corrupted system that has been put in place and maintained by the big four record companies for decades. That is perhaps the most expensive part of the process. For an unknown band that they will probably think is going to ultimately fail—because you don’t look good on camera, remember?—we will be lucky if can secure promotion for forty percent royalties to whomever agrees to do it. That means that forty percent of every wholesale album sale—and that rate is at six dollars apiece currently—goes to National, or Aristocrat, or Warner Brothers, or whoever else picks up the MD&P contract. Are you following me so far?”

“You’re saying that even though you’re an independent record company,” Jim said, “you still have to deal with the bigs in order for your music to be heard.”

“Correct,” Jake said. “And the bigs aren’t cheap. So, right there you have forty percent royalties going to one of the big four and three percent going to Obie for letting us have the studio time. That’s forty-three percent, right?”

“Right,” Nerdly said.

“Add your fifteen percent royalties to that and we’re now at...” He looked at Nerdly.

“Fifty-eight percent royalties committed to production, promotion, and band compensation,” Nerdly said. “That leaves forty-two percent left over for KVA Records.”

“That’s quite a lot,” Stephanie said. “More than anyone else is getting.”

“True,” Jake said, “but I think you’re looking at this through the wrong prism. KVA is the one who is financing everything. We’re the one plopping down the million and half to get the CDs on the shelf. A million and a half is a lot of money, guys. Do you know how many CDs you’ll have to sell before we get that million and a half back and start showing some profit?”

“How many?” Jim asked.

“Tell him, Nerdly,” Jake said.

Nerdly told him. “At the going rate of six dollars wholesale per unit sold, multiplied by zero point four two—KVA’s royalty rate—we will get two dollars and fifty-two cents for each CD purchased. That means, that in order to recoup our investment, Brainwash will have to sell at least five hundred and ninety-five thousand, two hundred and thirty-eight CDs.”

“Wow,” Jim said. “That’s a lot.”

“You will have to go Gold and then some before KVA gets into the black on you,” Jake said. “We’re taking a fairly big risk here, guys. None of the big four would take a chance like this.”

“Absolutely not,” Pauline said. “They consider a break-even point of two hundred thousand units sold to be high risk. Granted, they can put albums out more cheaply than we can because they have all the infrastructure in place, and, of course, they screw their artists up their collective asses without using lube in order to maximize their profits.”

“That’s right,” Jake said. “We’re making things more expensive because we refuse to screw you in the industry standard manner. For instance, the only recoupable expense we will saddle you with will be advance money so you can settle in and take care of yourselves while you’re recording. We will pay for your housing, your food, your transportation to and from the studio. In addition, your royalty rate is your royalty rate without strings and exceptions attached. No breakage fees, manufacturing fees, shipment fees, fucking entertainment expenses or housing clauses—all the shit that they fucked us with on our first trip to fantasy land.”

The members of Brainwash looked at each other again. This time Jake was able to interpret their silent communication. They were starting to feel they were in over their head.

“Look, guys,” Pauline said. “This is a straightforward deal, the best you will ever be offered as a band that needs a record company to get them heard. Jake is sincere when he says that he wants no part of a screwing and I don’t either. We’re being extremely generous here with fifteen percent and no additional expenses tacked on. You will have virtually no risk whatsoever. The worse that can happen to you is that we’re wrong and your CD doesn’t sell that much. You’ll still get your share of royalties for each unit sold. And as long as you sell enough to cover your advance money, you’ll be in the black long before we will.”

“What do you mean?” Stephanie asked.

“We’re proposing an advance of fifty thousand dollars to take care of your living expenses during the recording process,” Pauline explained. “That is all you will be responsible for covering under this deal, and, in truth, in the unlikely event that your album completely bombs and doesn’t even sell enough to cover that fifty-k, we’re not going to go after you for the balance anyway.”

“How many albums would we have to sell to cover that fifty thousand dollars?” Stephanie asked.

“Bill, tell ‘em,” Pauline said.

“At fifteen percent royalties,” Nerdly explained, “on a six dollar wholesale rate, that means Brainwash, the band, will be collecting ninety cents per CD sold. In order to cover that fifty thousand, you will need to sell only fifty-five thousand, five hundred and fifty-six CDs. Everything after that is pure profit for the band, even if we end up losing money on this endeavor.”

The band pondered that for a minute. “Wow,” Stephanie said. “This sounds almost too good to be true.”

“We have faith in you,” Sharon said. “Or, at least we have faith in Jake’s ability to pick winners.”

Jim looked at Jake. “How much do you think we’ll sell?” he asked.

“I am absolutely confident that, as long as who we contract with keeps their end of the bargain and promotes you properly, you will at least go Platinum. That is one million copies sold.”

“One million copies ... times ninety cents per copy...” Jim struggled to do the math in his head.

Nerdly helped him out. “The band would pull in nine hundred thousand dollars if you went Platinum,” he said. “If you divided that evenly among the five of you, that would be one hundred and eighty thousand dollars each.”

This definitely got their attention. “One hundred and eighty thousand dollars?” Jim said. “Holy shit!”

“That’s three hundred and sixty thousand for the two of us!” Marcie exclaimed.

Jake smiled as he saw their excitement. Though, to him, they were talking chump change amounts, to a group of middle-class school teachers, this was like winning the lottery. He did need to bust their bubble just a little bit, however. “One thing you need to take into account, guys,” he told them, “is that this money is pre-tax. We’re not like a regular employer who will take your taxes out each check. Your quarterly royalty checks will arrive in their full amount. You will be responsible for figuring and paying taxes on the income.”

“I would suggest you get a good accountant immediately,” Nerdly said. “Assuming you accept our proposal, that is.”

“Oh ... yeah, of course,” Jim said. “But what about an agent? When I was with Courage, we had an agent who helped us negotiate things and watched out for us.”

“And what did your agent charge you for this service?” Pauline asked.

“Twenty percent, right off the top,” Jim said.

“You’re free to get an agent if you think you need one,” Pauline told her. “Far be it from me to discourage that, since I was Intemperance’s agent until they broke up and that is how I made my first million. For a band in your position, however, the primary purpose of having an agent is to be heard and to secure a record contract in the first place. We have already offered you a record contract that is far more generous than any agent could have dreamed of securing for you. If you want to pay someone twenty percent of what you make when you have already accomplished what he or she might have done, you go right ahead.”

“Oh ... well ... I guess that makes sense,” Jim said.

“There’s another reason to have an agent,” Stephanie said. “They can look over the contract you offer before we sign and make sure ... you know ... that everything is on the up and up. Not that we don’t trust you ... but ... you know...”

“I know where you’re coming from,” Pauline said. “We’re a group of Hollywood music people who just swept in here from out of nowhere and are offering you a contract that seems too good to be true. I would hope that you would have someone look it over before you signed it. Instead of getting an agent and committing to that twenty percent, however, I would suggest you dig up a lawyer that specializes in entertainment contracts and pay he or she to review it for you. You can probably find such a creature in New York, although I will admonish you to be careful that the lawyer doesn’t try to take advantage of you in some way. In any case, you and the lawyer will find that the contract we’re proposing will be written in plain language that spells out the terms we just proposed and has no hidden clauses. That is not the way we do business, but you’re certainly welcome and encouraged to confirm that.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Marcie said slowly, after thinking this over for a moment.

“Like we’ve been saying,” Jake said. “We’re not here to screw you. We’re here because we like your music and we think there’s some potential to make some money off of it. This contract we’re proposing, unlike the first one we signed as Intemperance, is only for one album. In addition, you get to retain the rights to your music in all ways other than we reserve the right to exclusively sell the CD for ten years. If you all want to sign up with another label after the first album, you’re free to do so and you’re free to perform any music on that CD at any time, at least as far as we’re concerned. Because of this, we are not offering songwriting royalties to the songwriters like a standard contract. You’re free to market and sell the rights to your music to anyone you please for extra money and we’ll stay out of it. Jim, if you want to let the Ford motor company use your song in a commercial, that’s your business. Marcie, if you want to let them use one of your songs as part of the score in a Hollywood chick-flick, you can do it. And Stephanie, if you want to lay down one of your tracks to help Subaru sell some more of those Foresters to their target demographic, fuckin’ go for it. We won’t care because that’s your business.”

“And on the other side of that coin,” Pauline said, “if you are appalled by the thought of your music being used to sell cars or shampoo or beer or soda, like I know Jake is, that too is in your business. KVA cannot sell those rights to Pepsi or Budweiser or Subaru because we do not own the rights ourselves.”

“All right,” Stephanie said. “I’m really starting to warm up to this proposal. I still got this nagging feeling of ‘too good to be true’, but I understand that’s just my natural cynicism of the world.”

“Understandable,” Pauline said.

“Tell me about the recording process,” Stephanie said next. “How would it work? You say we can do it over the summer break?”

“Yes, assuming Obie is on board with the studio time,” Jake said.

“He’ll be on board,” Pauline said. “Otherwise, I’ll be forced to cut him off.”

“That’s playing dirty,” Jake said.

“You do what you gotta do in this business,” she said. “Anyway, let’s assume the studio time is a done deal. I’ll handle it.”

“Right,” Jake said. “Making the assumption.” He turned back to Brainwash. “We’ll need you to rehearse up at least fifteen of your best tunes before summer break starts. We’ll want a relatively equal mix of Jim songs, Marcie songs, and Stephanie songs. We’ll want a couple of ballads and a couple of your hard drivers. I’m going to strongly suggest that you include that tune you just closed out your set with. I think that will be the breakout tune for you, the one that makes people notice you.”

“People do love that one,” Jim said.

“And I never get tired of playing it,” Marcie added.

“In any case, have all that shit ready to go when the school year ends,” Jake said. “Then we’ll ship all of your instruments and equipment out to Oregon by truck. We’ll fly you all out to North Bend—first class of course since we know how to take care of the talent—and put you up in a rental house for the duration.”

“What about our kids?” Marcie asked.

“Bring them with you,” Jake said. “They can stay in the house. We’ll hire a nanny of some sort to keep everyone watched and fed and safe while you’re all recording. How many kids are we talking here, and what ages?”

“Five and three from us,” Jim said.

“Mine will probably stay with his other mom,” Stephanie said. “Although he might come out to visit here and there.”

“Fair enough,” Jake said. He turned to the rhythm section. “And you two?”

“Well ... I have a six year old and an eight year old,” Jeremy said. “But what about my wife?”

“Bring her along,” Jake said. “Maybe she can be the nanny? Hell, we’ll even pay her.”

“She works,” Jeremy said.

“Doing what?” asked Pauline.

“Uh ... a retail job,” he said. “She sells appliances at Sears.”

“Does she like doing that?” Pauline asked.

“No, she hates it with a passion.”

“Well,” Jake said, “I’m not going to tell you what she should do, but I know what I would do if I had a job I hated and my husband was being given an opportunity and someone was offering to pay me for childcare duties at a rate that would probably be equivalent to what I was being paid for selling appliances.”

“Assuming, of course, that Marcie and Jim trust your wife to watch their children,” said Nerdly matter-of-factly.

“Jenny would be awesome at the job!” Marcie said immediately. “She’s a wonderful mother! Germ, you’ve got to convince her to come with us. It would be perfect!”

“I’ll talk to her,” he promised, still trying to process everything.

“And what about you, Rick?” Jake asked. “You have kids too, right?”

“Right,” he said. “A ten year old and a thirteen your old.”

“And a wife?”

“Thirty-eight years old,” he confirmed. “And I don’t think she would be up for dragging herself and the kids across the country for three months. She’s a nurse at Providence General. It’s a good job that pays more than what I make.”

“Is this a deal breaker?” Jake asked.

“What? No! Not at all,” Rick said, shaking his head. “We’ll work it out. She’s used to having me away touring with the band most of the summer anyway. Her sister and her mom can watch the kids. Hell, maybe I can even fly them out for a few weeks. They’ve never been west of the Mississippi before. And if Jenny is there to babysit ... well ... I think they’d have a good time.”

“All right then,” Jake said. “It sounds like you all are seriously considering our deal?”

“We would have to look at the specific contract first,” Stephanie said, “and, you know, have that lawyer look it over, but...” She looked at the rest of the band. “What do you think, guys?”

“If everything is on the up and up,” Jim said, “I’m in.”

“Me too,” said Marcie.

“Sign me up,” said Jeremy.

“Me as well,” said Rick.

“Awesome,” Jake said, happily. “Pauline will draw up the contract before we fly out tomorrow and get copies of it to you all. Look it over, have that lawyer look it over, and then get back to Pauline as soon as you’ve made your decision.”

“What if we want to negotiate on something in the contract?” Jim asked.

“There is no negotiation,” Jake said. “We’re offering you a very fair contract. It’s a take it or leave it deal.”

“I see,” Jim said, somewhat taken aback.

Jake ignored his discomfort. “Now then,” he said. “It seems the business part of this meeting is now complete. Anyone up for a cocktail?”

It turned out that everyone was up for a cocktail.