Different Circles

Chapter 7: New Year’s Day

Coos Bay, Oregon

January 1, 1992

The room was fairly bright when Jake’s eyes creaked open late in the morning of New Year’s Day, 1992. His mouth was a bit dry and had a sour taste in it—the taste of a little more wine than he was accustomed to the night before. His head throbbed with a mild headache behind his eyes and his bladder was full, straining for its contents to be released. The motley group of musicians and spouses of musicians currently inhabiting the beach house on the cliff had had themselves a little impromptu New Year’s Eve celebration the night before.

The house was completely full now, and had been for the past three weeks, since the overdubs had started. Mary and Tom, Greg and Celia, Stan and Cindy, the Nerdlys, Jake, Ben, Ted, Laura, Pauline, and even Phil were all taking up residence now. Every bed was full, every room filled to capacity. It was actually working out better than they had any right to expect—partially due to the camaraderie that had developed between them all during this long and sometimes painful process, and partially due to the set of house rules (they now numbered eighteen) that served as a guideline to keep order, or at least to reduce chaos.

The party had come together when Jake had brought home two prime rib roasts and all the fixings for the New Year’s Eve meal. Celia and Greg, who had gone shopping shortly after, had picked up a couple of cases of good wine from the Napa Valley. Mary and Cindy had then constructed a couple of impressive deserts. Ted and Tom had then pitched in for a pony keg of good beer. And so, the fourteen of them had stayed up until the turn of the year, eating, drinking, eating and drinking some more, while listening to music and gathering into groups to talk about anything and everything except the recording process.

And though everyone managed to get their drink on quite nicely—Mary, Laura and Ted had had themselves a particularly good time, Jake remembered—Rule Number 1 had been adhered to. Everything had been cleaned up and put right before everyone drifted off to bed. But there were probably going to be a few sour mouths and sore heads today.

And, alas, though it was a holiday for most of the world on this half of the International Date Line, it was not for the band with no name. Though they were allowing themselves to sleep in a bit in deference to the festivities of the night before, they had to get some work done today. They were considerably behind schedule with a few hard deadlines fast approaching. Ben’s leave of absence was over and he needed to report back to work by January 18—and even if not for that, his wife was due to have their first baby somewhere in the vicinity of February 2. That meant they needed to be sure that all of the bass work overdubs were complete for all of Jake’s and Celia’s songs before then. And Mary needed to be back to her high school orchestra by January 6, although they could still snag her back any Friday through Monday stretch that they needed her. Right now, however, they were smack in the middle of a section that featured Jake’s mother quite heavily and they needed to finish it as soon as possible before her next break.

Jake creaked his eyes open, wincing a little at the light at first, but then he quickly got used to it. He turned his head to the left, to the digital clock across the room, and saw that it was reading 9:23 AM. Not bad, he thought. A little over seven hours of sleep, give or take. Not that he had gone to bed at 2:23 AM. It had actually been closer to 1:00 or so. But he had not gone to sleep right away.

He turned his head to the right and beheld the reason for that hour and twenty-some-odd minute lag time. Laura was curled up next to him. She, like he, was naked. Her right arm was sprawled across his midsection and her right leg was intertwined with his. She was breathing softly, her eyes closed, her red hair in a tangled mess of disarray. She smelled strongly of stale alcohol and sexual musk.

They had had themselves quite the little session after hitting the sheets. Not that this was unusual. Since that first time they’d gotten naked together and engaged their compatible parts just over two months ago now, they had pretty much repeated some variation of the act every single night, and often during the morning hours as well. Jake had unleased a monster of sexual lust and desire in the saxophonist with that first orgasm—or, with those first three, to be truthful—he had pulled out of her that night. Since then, her appetite for more had been insatiable.

Jake had no problem fulfilling her desires. After more than a year and a half of nothing but meaningless one-night stands punctuated by long stretches of nothing more than his own hand and his own imagination—or the occasional porno mag—having an actual woman to care about, to form a relationship with, to call his own, and to have regular sex with was a blessing on the order of a miracle. It was amazing how such a simple thing as that could bring serenity to a troubled life, could put into perspective what had once seemed unfathomable.

I have a girlfriend again, he thought now, a little trepidatious about the thought, but mostly happy. And I will not treat her badly. I will NOT.

He rolled over, gently disentangling himself from Laura’s embrace, and put his feet on the floor. She groaned and grunted a few times and then slowly opened her own eyes.

“Bleah,” she said, sticking out her tongue. “I don’t feel so good.”

Jake chuckled and then leaned down to kiss her on the forehead. “The price you have to pay for pouring them down,” he told her. “I don’t feel so great myself.”

“What time is it?” she moaned.

“Almost nine-thirty. We all agreed to get to the studio by eleven-thirty.”

“We did?” she asked. “I don’t remember agreeing to that.”

“You were pretty drunk at the time,” he said.

“Well ... yeah,” she said, “but I remember what we did when we got up here. It was quite unforgettable, actually.”

“It was all right,” Jake said, waving his hand back and forth in a see-saw motion.

She looked at him in alarm for a moment, saw his expression and then concluded he was joking. “You’re an asshole,” she told him, not unkindly.

“I have certainly been accused of that,” he assured her.

“I didn’t do anything ... you know ... embarrassing last night, did I?”

“Other than giving my dad a lap dance, not at all,” he said.

Another startled look. Another shake of the head when she saw he was kidding. “A hemorrhoidal asshole,” she told him.

He laughed and then picked up the pitcher of water he habitually kept at bedside just for such occasions. Next to it were two glasses and a bottle of Tylenol. He poured himself a healthy glassful and then used it to wash down two of the little white pills. “You want a hit of this?” he asked Laura.

“Yeah,” she said. “I think I better.”

He set her up and then handed the glass and the pills over.

“Thanks,” she said, taking them.

“I’m gonna hit the shower,” Jake told her. “Might as well get it over with.”

“Let me go pee first,” she said, rolling over and putting her own feet on the floor. They had not yet reached the stage in their relationship where they could comfortably pee or pass gas in front of each other.

“By all means,” he told her, waving to the door.

She disappeared into the bathroom and shut the door behind her. He heard her shuffling around a bit, the faint sound of urine hitting the water in the bowl, the sound of the toilet paper roll spinning, the flush of the toilet, and then the running of the sink. She came back out, still naked, and he took a moment to admire her.

“Ugg,” she groaned. “Don’t look at me. I must look absolutely terrible.”

“Actually, you’re quite beautiful,” he said. “I never get tired of looking at you naked.”

This earned him a warm smile and a kiss on the corner of his mouth. “Go take your shower,” she told him. “I’ll be in right behind you.”

“You got it,” he said. “Just give me a few minutes to uh ... you know ... take care of a few things in there first.”

“By all means,” she said.

Jake closed and locked the bathroom door behind him and then quickly took care of the first two of the three S’s of the morning routine and then brushed his teeth. He then fired up the shower to take care of the third S. The warm spray and the metabolism of the Tylenol served to knock his headache back to a faint ache. He left the water running and then opened the door back up.

“Shower’s free,” he told Laura, who was back in the bed, a pillow over her face.

“Thanks,” her muffled voice responded.

He toweled himself off and then stepped back into the bedroom area just as Laura was heading into the bathroom. She reached out and gave his wilted penis a playful stroke as she went by. He returned the favor by giving her a little pat on her shapely rear end.

She did not bother closing the door behind her so Jake kept half an eye on her nakedness as he put on a fresh pair of underwear, a fresh pair of blue jeans, and one of his t-shirts. He was just tying his shoes when Laura shut off the water and stepped out. She quickly toweled herself dry and then wrapped her hair in a white towel.

“Better?” Jake asked her as she came back into the room

“Much,” she said. “There is one thing I could use though.”

“Oh?”

She gave him her saucy smile. “Would you be a dear, dear, and eat my pussy out for me?”

Jake raised his eyebrows. “Again?” he asked. “I just did that last night.”

“I like having my pussy eaten out,” she told him, stepping closer. “I like it a lot.” And this was true. She had never had that particular sexual act done to her until Jake had introduced it to her on their second night together. Since then, she had become quite the fan of it, particularly after one night when Jake had gone down and drawn four rapid fire orgasms from her with his skillful lips and tongue.

“I would have to brush my teeth again if I did that,” he said. “How about after we get home from the studio?”

“I don’t want to wait that long,” she said with a pout. “I really think an orgasm right now would help with this hangover.”

Jake laughed. “You’re suggesting that oral copulation to completion is medically therapeutic?” he asked.

“Shut up,” she told him, slapping at him. “Don’t use Nerdlyisms on me. I’ll tell you what. I’m not above bribery. Why don’t you stand up?”

“Why?”

“How about I make it so that both of us need to brush our teeth a second time?”

“Hmmm,” Jake said, already stiffening at the thought. “An interesting offer.”

She sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at him pointedly. “Do we have a deal?”

“Deal,” he said, standing quickly and turning to face her.

She unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned his pants. By the time she pushed the jeans and underwear down, he was already hard, this despite the two ejaculations he had only seven hours before. She smiled as she pondered his manhood and her hand reached out to touch it. She stroked it up and down a few times and then slowly sucked it between her lips and went to work.

“Oh yeah,” Jake groaned, his hand caressing her bare shoulder as she slurped and sucked on him. Despite her relative lack of sexual experience in her life, she was actually pretty good at fellatio. Her dentist had apparently been a fan of the act and, as she had told Jake on one of their after-sex intimate discussions, so she had learned the best way to finish him off quickly. Though she had never enjoyed performing the act on the good doctor, she professed that sucking his dick was different.

“How is it different?” he’d asked her. “A dick is a dick is a dick, right?”

“No,” she replied, indignant. “A dick is not a dick is not a dick. Are you trying to say that all pussies are alike?”

“Well ... no,” he had to admit. “There are a lot of pussies I wouldn’t go within ten feet of with Matt Tisdale’s mouth, but...”

“No buts,” she said. “First of all, your dick is bigger, but that’s not the primary reason.”

“What is the primary reason?”

“It’s your dick, you idiot,” she told him. “It’s attached to your body and I’m quite hot for your body.”

He had pondered that for a moment and then nodded. “I can get behind that,” he told her.

“I thought you might,” she replied. “And I have something else you can get behind, if you’re ready.”

He hadn’t been ready, but he quickly made himself so.

Since time was a bit limited on this morning, she did all she could to make short work of him. She concentrated primarily on the head and glans with her lips and tongue while her soft hand jacked him up and down. The friction she was creating was delightful and he enjoyed it without employing any of the mental blocks he used to keep orgasm at bay under normal circumstances. Within three minutes his hand gripped her shoulder and the familiar waves of pleasure exploded throughout his body. He groaned, his legs wobbly, as he shot jet after jet of semen into her sucking mouth. She swallowed every drop and then licked her lips.

“All right,” she said eagerly, laying back on the bed and spreading her legs wide. “My turn. Get to work.”

He looked down on her, seeing the now familiar sight of her wet vagina, glistening and ready for action. She had trimmed her bush considerably since that first time, removing and maintaining the removal of all the hair save a quadrilateral patch of copper on her pubis. She had also told him that he was never to refer to her vagina, pubic hair, or any other part of her genitalia as “the fire” or any analogue of synonym of that phrase. That had been the dentist’s term for it and she never wanted to hear it again. It really was a pity. Though Jake loathed the dentist and men like him, sight unseen, calling a red-haired pussy “the fire”, as in: “I’m going into the fire” or “Let me stand next to your fire”, would actually have been kind of cool. Another reason to kick the dentist’s ass if he ever did meet him.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Jake asked teasingly now. “You know this is illegal in some states, right?”

“No teasing!” Laura barked at him. “I fulfilled my end of the bargain. Now get your mouth down there and start eating.”

He got his mouth down there and started eating. He did not bother with a slow build up. He simply tongued her slippery lips up and down—plunging his tongue between them once in a while for good measure—until her clitoris peeked out of its hood to see what was going on. Once that happened, he slid two fingers inside of her and began to thrust them in and out while simultaneously latching his lips onto her clit and starting to suck.

“Oh sweet Lord,” Laura breathed. “That’s it! That is it!”

She came less than a minute later, her pelvis thrashing up and down on the edge of the bed, her legs tightening around his back, her left hand gripping his hair hard enough to hurt. Her right hand, meanwhile, picked up a pillow and she used it to cover her face and muffle her cries. This was due to Rule Number 17: Make every effort possible to keep audio in all forms from penetrating outside the walls of your sleeping area.

She thrashed and groaned and moaned for the better part of a minute before finally slowing down and eventually relaxing. Her legs and hand released their respective grips on him. She pulled the pillow away from her face, revealing a bright red blush of satisfaction.

“Oh my God, you are so good at that, Jake,” she breathed.

“My talents go beyond music,” he said. “Are we even?”

She nodded. “Even,” she told him. “I guess I’d better get dressed now.”

“Yeah,” Jake said, “but first, we’d better go brush those teeth.”

They went and brushed their teeth.

And so began the first day of the new year.

Jake and Laura came down the stairs together, into a kitchen and living room where most of their fellow housemates were already present. They did not try to hide the fact that they had just come from Jake’s room and that Laura had spent the night there. They had given up trying to keep their relationship on the down-low after only the third night of it. In the first place, there was no reason to hide their togetherness. True, Laura had been allegedly “engaged”, but everyone pretty much knew the score on that relationship. And in the second place, it was impossible to hide a sexual and romantic relationship when you lived in a house with other people. It just could not be done. Nerdly had told him after they’d come clean (so to speak) that everyone knew the two of them were together by the afternoon of day two, most because they’d heard Laura’s orgasmic expressions during that first coupling, the rest because they’d been told by those that had heard. And the fact that Rule 17 had been proposed and approved—with the specific wording: in all forms—on day three of their relationship did not seem a coincidence, as much as they wanted to believe it was.

Except for Ben and Ted, who were still absent, Jake and Laura were the last of the group to make their morning appearance. Mary was at the stove, putting the finishing touches on a large pan full of scrambled eggs with potatoes and kielbasa sausage. The Nerdlys were making toast. Stan and Cindy were setting the table. Pauline was on the phone—she often was these days. Celia and Greg were sitting at the table, drinking coffee with Phil. Tom was allegedly helping Mary but was actually just standing next to her, doing little.

“Good morning, everyone,” Laura greeted brightly. Jake echoed the sentiment.

Everyone except Pauline—who was barking something about how she was sick of having to deal with this shit every goddamn day—returned the sentiment in some form or other.

“It smells great, Mom,” Jake said. “Anything we can do to help?”

“Just sit down and have some coffee,” she told them. “Everything is under control.”

“You talked us into it,” Laura said, heading for the pot.

“Of course, you two will have primary dish washing and loading duties after we’re done,” Mary advised.

“Aww,” Jake whined good naturedly. “Doesn’t being one of the big bosses swing any weight around here?”

“I’m your mother,” Mary said. “I am always going to be a bigger boss than you.”

Jake smiled and gave her a brief hug on the way to the coffee pot to pour himself a cup. She smiled at the embrace, feeling that sense of love and contentment a mother feels when she has the sensation her child is doing all right. She, along with Tom, was most definitely in favor of the relationship between Jake and Laura, could not have been more delighted, in fact, for both of them. Jake needed a woman in his life, someone to stabilize him and keep him somewhat steady on the straight and narrow—as straight and narrow as Jake could be, anyway. And Laura ... Mary had really grown to like and respect Laura since first meeting her and had been appalled at the relationship she had been in with that married man—appalled on several different levels. She thought that Laura and Jake were very cute together and complimented each other. And they had so much in common—unlike her son’s previous long-term girlfriends going all the way back to Michelle, the religious fanatic who had publicly accused him of raping her and beating her.

After pouring his coffee, Jake looked at Nerdly, who was in charge of putting butter on the toast and was doing it with his normal methodical engineering. “Bill,” he told him, “I have to say, I have never seen such uniform distribution of a sandwich spread on a piece of heat-treated bread before.”

“Thanks, Jake,” Nerdly replied, pleased with the praise. “It’s all in the proportion picked up by the knife and the wrist action during the spread itself. I would venture to say that each piece of toast has an even spread to the edges within a tolerance of less than a millimeter, and an equal volume of butter on each piece within a milliliter of variance from slice to slice.”

Jake nodded approvingly. “That’s badass, Nerdly,” he told him.

“His name is Bill,” said Cindy, irritation in her tone. She had had more than her share of the fermented grapes the night before as well.

“Sorry, Cindy,” Jake apologized.

The Archers, as a group, were also quite in favor of the burgeoning relationship between the singer and the saxophonist, particularly Nerdly himself. Jake was Bill’s best friend in the entire world—except for Sharon, of course—and his oldest, most loyal friend. They had known each other for as long as either of them had memories in this life. They had grown up together, had played music together, had fornicated with band followers of loose morality together, had done illicit drugs together. Jake had been the best man at his wedding, his name signed on the ketuvah, or wedding contract with Sharon. He was the brother Nerdly had never had. Bill wanted nothing but happiness and contentment for him and had watched in alarm as Jake’s life had nearly spiraled out of control following the near simultaneous breakups of his relationship with Helen and the band Intemperance. He had noticed over the years that Jake’s stability and happiness levels were directly correlational with his stability and contentment in a romantic relationship with a woman. And Laura seemed such a copacetic companion for him now that she had abandoned the socially unsanctioned relationship she had been in before. Though he had liked Helen tremendously—he and Sharon had both been quite despondent for a time after the breakup—he too realized that Jake and Laura had much more in common. He liked her, and he thought, in time, he would like her as much as, if not more, than he had liked Helen.

The couple carried their coffee cups over to the large dining room table and sat down in the chairs across from Greg and Celia, next to Phil.

Phil was perhaps the worst dressed gay man that Jake had ever met. He was currently wearing a pair of baggy black jeans and a bright orange sweater that made him look like a county jail inmate, or perhaps a misplaced San Francisco Giants fan. This was typical of his attire, perhaps even a little quieter than some.

“How’s the morning going, Phil?” Laura asked him, reaching over to finger the material of his sweater.

“Pretty good,” Phil said. “Just wondering if you’re going to need me today.”

“We’re not,” Jake told him. “We have to get those bass and drum tracks laid down today. That is our mission. And even if we manage to complete it, we’ll still be working primarily on the outro. No vocals are likely to be recorded today.”

Phil nodded. “All right then,” he said. “Looks like a day off. Can I use your car again, Jake?”

“It’s all yours,” Jake assured him.

“Perfect, thank you,” Phil said, smiling, hoping that today might be the day he successfully found whatever gay community had to exist in this place so he could get himself laid. Having Jake’s Beemer would undoubtedly help in the second endeavor, if not the first.

Phil too was quite pleased with the relationship between Jake and Laura, and not just because the singer was nice enough to let him use his sixty thousand dollar car. He genuinely loved Laura as a man would love his own sister and he was quite happy that she had finally ended that horrid relationship with Dave the dentist—well ... Dave had yet to acknowledge the fact that the relationship was over, but that was just a formality. And though Phil had been a bit chagrined to find that Jake was not gay or even bisexual—what a goddamn shame that was!—he liked the man and respected him musically. True, he had quite a colorful past, some of which was dotted with reports of him not treating his girlfriends so nicely, but he had gotten to know the man over the past few months and he had a hard time equating those reports with what he saw and knew. Jake treated Laura well and he cared about her. And, based on the sounds he had heard coming out of that bedroom on a few occasions, he knew his way around the female anatomy. Those sounds, after all, had never come out of Laura’s bedroom when Dr. Dave had been in there.

“Just don’t leave me an empty tank,” Jake warned.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Phil assured him.

Jake turned back toward Greg and Celia. “What are you gonna do today, Greg?” Jake asked the actor, who was impeccably dressed in a pair of slacks and a dress shirt, as usual. Perhaps Phil could learn a few fashion tips from him?

“Well, now that there seems to be a break in the rain,” Greg responded, “I’m going to drive out and look at the site again.”

The site he was referring to was a 3000-acre parcel of beachfront dune property outside of the Coos County town of Bandon, about twenty minutes north of the Coos Bay Bridge off Highway 101. Currently owned by a land rich, income poor extended family that had held title to it since the days when the State of Oregon had been called Oregon Territory and the coastal regions had been accessible only by ocean going vessels, they were looking to unload it for the purpose of cashing in on land they had no financial means to develop. Greg, who had fallen in love with the region after visiting it the first time, had seen the potential of the property. Since it sat atop sand dunes, for the most part, it could not be developed into a dense residential and commercial area, but it would be ideal for an exclusive oceanfront golf resort worthy of the PGA tour. He was currently in the process of trying to find investors for the project and he was actually starting to get a few nibbles of interest, both from individuals and real estate development companies.

“You really think you’re going to get this thing off the ground, huh?” Jake asked.

“I am unequivocally going to get it off the ground,” Greg replied confidently. “My mind is set. When my mind is set, I accomplish what I’m after.”

Jake nodded. You had to respect an attitude like that.

“I’d love to come out and look at the area some time,” Laura said shyly. She was still somewhat awed by the fact that she was living in a house with Greg Oldfellow and that she could just converse with him whenever she wanted like he was a normal human being.

“Funny you should ask that,” Greg said. “I’ve been wanting Jake to come out and take a look at it as well. Maybe we could make a day of it the next time there’s a break in the action.”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “I would like to take a look. Maybe next Sunday?”

“It’s a date,” Greg said. “I’ll pencil it into my schedule.”

Greg was also quite happy about the new relationship between Jake and Laura. Though he considered the rock and roll musician a close friend—one of his closest true friends, as opposed to professional friends, hangers-on, and business associates, although Jake was, in fact, a business associate as well—he had not failed to pick up on the uncomfortable vibe that existed between his friend and his wife. It was a vibe he had first noticed when Jake and Helen had visited his new home in Palm Springs more than two years ago, when they had put on a little impromptu concert with their guitars after dinner. That vibe had grown considerably stronger, easier to pick up on in the past six months since they had started working closely together on their album projects. Of course, he did not understand what Celia could possibly see in the musician when compared to himself—Jake after all, was worth only a twentieth or so of what Greg was, was uneducated, and sang songs for a living, for Christ’s sake—that connection was undeniably there. But now that Jake’s attention was occupied with the cute saxophonist—Greg often wondered what she looked like naked, and how she was in bed (perhaps Jake would share some of those details with him they next time they pounded down some drinks together without the women present)—he was hopeful that vibe would dampen down to some degree. Not that he feared that Celia would actually act upon the vibe, because he knew she wouldn’t, and not because he thought that Jake would be so crass as to sleep with his friend’s wife, because he knew he wouldn’t, but just because the mere existence of that connection nagged at him, like a piece of meat stuck in one’s tooth, or a canker sore in one’s mouth.

“Be sure to bring your hiking shoes when you go,” Celia advised them.

“Yeah?” Jake asked.

“Yeah,” she confirmed. “There are no roads on the property at all except for the little dirt access road that comes off the highway. And some of those dunes are huge.”

“I don’t even have any hiking shoes,” Laura said.

“We’ll get you some,” Jake assured her, reaching over and giving a playful stroke to her shoulder.

Celia noted the contact and then took another sip of her coffee. Of everyone in the house, she was the only person somewhat conflicted about the Laura/Jake coupling. Her instincts were to be opposed to it but she knew it was an instinct born out of irrationality and ... she had to admit it to herself, despite being loathe to ... jealousy. She loved her husband and enjoyed the life she had with him. Of that there was no doubt. But she had powerful feelings for Jake and suspected he had them for her. They had so much in common with each other, shared connections with each other on so many levels. Their shared love of music and their shared profession of making music meant she could talk to Jake about things that Greg was simply unable to understand or even comprehend. But it was more than an intellectual or a professional attraction she felt for him. There was an intense physical and emotional attraction to him as well. She thought about him all the time, about his voice, his smile, his sense of humor, about the way his eyes flitted to her when he thought she wasn’t looking, examining her body. There was a heavy degree of simple infatuation involved, but it was much more than that as well. Sometimes she wished she had never met Greg, that she had been single when Jake and Helen had broken up. And always she felt ashamed and guilty when these thoughts flitted to her forebrain.

She remembered the first night that Jake and Laura had gone upstairs together, the night she had glimpsed her sneaking up to his room like a teenager trying to get away with something. How that dark stab of jealousy had hit her directly in the heart when she realized what was going on. And then later, when the sounds of Laura’s excited, frantic moans had come drifting down, taking away any doubt about what they were actually doing up there, that stab had become an icy grip of despair that had caught her completely by surprise. She had actually hated Laura in that moment, had had the thought that maybe firing her from the band was in order.

Those feelings had faded, of course. In the first place, who Jake slept with was absolutely none of her business. The rational part of her knew that and knew it well. And in the second place, it was really hard to hate Laura, especially when she wasn’t doing anything wrong. She was, at heart, a really sweet person with a sharp and witty personality and a love of music that equaled that belonging to herself and Jake. And she was talented as well. Laura’s saxophone playing was a major factor in what was going to help make her upcoming album a success. She was grateful for the tireless efforts the redhead had put in. Nor could she deny that Jake seemed much happier since the two of them had hooked up, that they actually made quite a cute couple.

No, she could not hate Laura for more than that fleeting moment in time. She actually enjoyed talking to her, hanging out with her, playing music with her. She considered Laura to be a friend and, when the thoughts of Jake were taken out of the equation, she was genuinely glad that Laura had gotten out of that horrible exploitive relationship she had been in before.

At the same time, however, she knew in her heart that she would secretly rejoice if their relationship ultimately did not work out.

Just over two hours later, the band was in the studio, their instruments tuned, their sound checked, all of them that were participating in this particular phase ready to start the initial run-through exercise before the actual recording of today’s piece began.

Though they were technically in the overdub stage, which meant that all of the basic tracks for both albums had already been laid down and the focus was now on adding additional instrument and vocal tracks, today’s project (and probably the project for the next week at least) was not quite an overdub. It was a reworking of the outro to Celia’s song Done With You (or Done, as they called it), the final portion, after the vocals, just before the song ended in the terminal flourish.

As originally laid down, the tune had featured heavily both Mary on the violin and Laura on the alto sax with a simple violin solo that would fade to black as the outro. But it just hadn’t sounded right to any of their ears once put down. There was something else needed, some subtle change that needed to take place to advance Done from a good tune to a great one.

It was Nerdly who came up with the idea. Instead of having Mary play the melody with her Nicolas Lupot, as she had played every other melody and fill so far, he set her up with a solid body electric violin with steel strings and piezoelectric pickups that he then ran through a pre-amp and a guitar amplifier adjusted for mild distortion such as what an electric guitar used. He then had Mary play the exact same melody at the exact same tempo as before. This allowed her to convey a tougher, angrier tone to the piece, much more suitable to the emotion that needed to be projected.

Needless to say, Mary liked none of this at first. In fact, she hated it. She loathed the electric violin, even though it was the same size, shape, and general weight as her primary violin.

“I can’t hear it when I play!” she complained the first time she tried it out.

“You hear it through your headphones, don’t you?” asked Sharon, confused, wondering if she had forgot to turn a dial or flip a switch.

“Yes, but that’s not the same,” Mary said. “When I’m playing my Lupot, even when I’m listening through headphones, I still hear the sound coming from the strings themselves, I still feel what I’m doing. This isn’t the same.”

“I know it’s new to you, Mom,” Jake said. “You’ll just have to get used to it.”

“I can’t get used to it,” she said. “The strings feel different too. The bow doesn’t slide across them like it does on my instrument. I’m not sure I can do this.”

“You can do it, Mom,” Jake assured her.

“And the sound it’s making!” she continued on. “Not only is the output quite inferior to my Lupot, but it’s distorted!”

“That’s what we’re going for here, Mom,” Jake reminded her. “The distortion is the whole point of using that instrument.”

She gave it her best efforts—she was a professional, after all—and gradually, though she would never embrace producing music in this manner, she warmed to it a bit and got used to the idiosyncrasies. The melodies came out well in the end, so well, that Celia, with encouragement from Jake and Nerdly, decided to up the game a bit and rework the entire outro to the tune. Instead of just having the single violin solo to close it out, they put Laura to work and had her and Mary work up a complex dueling solos mixture that would culminate in them playing in harmony for the finale. Since this had changed both the length and the structure of the outro they had originally laid down, they needed to re-record all of it—the rhythm tracks, Jake’s and Celia’s guitar tracks, and the piano fills—for the final thirty-eight seconds of the tune.

Today they would be recording the rhythm tracks: Ben and Ted simultaneously—the method they had found worked best for those two.

“Okay,” Sharon told everyone now, her voice going to their respective headphones. “Let’s do the run-through of the outro section only, picking up from just after where the fade out of Celia’s last vocalization ends. Is everyone ready?”

Jake, Ben, Ted, Mary, and Cindy were all in the main studio. Celia, with her acoustic-electric guitar and her vocal microphone, was in one isolation booth, Laura, with her alto sax, was in the other. Everyone gave Sharon a thumbs up.

“All right,” Sharon said. “Go ahead and get us started, Celia.”

Celia began to sing and strum out her portion of the rhythm and sing the final line of the song: “It’s time to say, it’s time to go. I’m finally done with youuuuuuuuuuuuu!”

As she drew out the last syllable, stretching it over a lengthy series of notes, everyone else kicked in. Jake played the distorted guitar chords, Cindy played a flurry of piano keys, Ted pounded out a complex drum arrangement, and Ben kept the time. And then they all switched over to the primary melody of the tune again and the outro began in earnest with Laura blowing out her first solo.

Mary, bow in hand, electric violin on her shoulder, waited without playing until Laura finished up. She then opened up her own first solo of the outro, a fairly simple arrangement that matched the intensity of what Laura had just laid down, but was unique instead of simply a repetition with a different instrument.

Mary finished up, stretching out the last note, and then Laura picked up again, upping the intensity and the complexity for her second solo, almost as if she were challenging Mary to keep up.

Mary rose to the challenge. Even before Laura’s last note was gone, Mary laid down a blistering piece of her own in answer, her arm pumping that bow up and down, changing the angle of attack with each stroke, her fingers flying over her strings, the distorted notes sounding out in their headphones.

Nice, Jake thought from his position. He was playing mechanically, a simple three chord rhythm that repeated over and over, something that did not require intense concentration on his part. He watched as the two women played off of each other, as they both fully immersed themselves into the music, as they bonded together over the piece. Neither of them were looking at their music sheets—they had long since memorized their parts—they were looking at each other through the glass of the isolation booth, occasionally giving each other a little nod of respect and encouragement. It was all Jake could do to keep from shouting out some encouragement to them.

Laura did her final solo of the tune, a lengthier piece that was extremely technical and complex. It flitted up and down, down and up, and then drew out to a finale that she allowed to slowly fade down while Mary started in with her final solo. Hers was no less complex, no less technical. She played a flurry of notes up and down the scale, her tempo changing up and then down as well. And then, when her last note was played, the two of them launched into the harmony section, which was an up-tempo variation of the tune’s primary melody. They ran through the repetition of it three times, varying the key with each repeat, and then closed out with a final cascade that everyone else matched as well.

The sound faded away and the two soloists smiled happily at each other, giving each other the thumbs up.

“That was badass!” Jake yelled. “Holy shit!”

Celia, who couldn’t hear what Jake was saying because she was in the isolation booth, offered some praise of her own. “Madres de Dios!” she told them. “That was intense! You did it!”

“I agree,” said Nerdly’s voice. Since there was no synthesizer in the primary tracks—though there would be some overdubbed in later—he was next to Sharon in the control room. “The challenge and answer methodology of the solos was enhanced by the musical camaraderie that has developed between Mary and Laura.”

“Well put, Bill,” Celia told him.

“Thank you,” Bill said. “And the knowledge that Laura is having non-legally sanctioned intercourse and cohabitation with her son did not seem to affect Mary’s playing a bit.”

“Uh ... right,” Celia said slowly, while both Mary and Laura blushed and Jake looked down at the floor, shaking his head.

“In fact,” Bill added enthusiastically, “I suspect the relationship might have actually helped enhance the basic emotional content of the...”

“We get the idea, Bill,” Sharon interrupted, pulling his microphone away from his mouth.

Jake set his guitar down next to his chair and walked over to his mother. He put his arm around her and gave her a hug. “That was tight, Mom. Seriously. You nailed those solos, you and Laura both.”

“That was rather enjoyable,” Mary admitted. “I think I’m starting to appreciate the emotion of playing with electric distortion. It has a certain ... feel to it.”

Jake smiled and gave her another hug. “Everyone hear that?” he asked loudly. “Mom just got her rock and roll on!”

Mary smiled. “I guess I did, didn’t I?” she asked in wonder.

“It sounded great,” said the voice of Sharon—their heartless taskmaster. “Now let’s do it again. This time with the recorders on. Think you can lay down the rhythm for that in one take?”

That was funny enough that everyone enjoyed a laugh about it.

At one o’clock that same day, in another part of the Blake Studios complex, Pauline was having a meeting with Oren Blake II, aka OB2, aka Obie, in his office. She was there at his request, the subject of the meeting something he had not cared to share with her when requesting it.

“You look like you were rode hard and put away wet, Obie,” Pauline observed as she sat before his desk beneath the gold and platinum records on the wall.

“Thank you for pointing that out,” Obie told her, though it was true. His eyes were red and his beard was a bit frazzled. There were bags under his eyes. “I enjoyed New Year’s Eve perhaps a little more than I should have last night.”

“Yeah,” Pauline said. “A lot of that going around.”

“Can I get you anything?” Obie asked her next. “Some coffee? A little hair of the dog, maybe?”

“I’m good,” Pauline said. “I had three cups of coffee before I came here, and I never have alcohol or anything else mind-altering before a business discussion or meeting.”

“No?” Obie said, raising his eyebrows a bit.

“No,” she confirmed. “A little something I learned from brother dear. It’s served him well in the past, and me too.”

“Interesting,” Obie said. “I’ll have to consider that someday. For now, however...” He reached over to the bar and pulled a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black down. He set it on the desk and then put six ice cubes in a highball glass. He poured a healthy shot of the scotch over the ice and then picked it up and had a sip. “Ahhh,” he said. “That’s heaven.” He looked at her. “How are things going with your boys out on the road? I heard you have had some issues.”

Pauline did not ask how Obie might have heard that. He had connections far and wide throughout the music industry. Not that he would have really needed them for this. Much of Veteran’s issues were finding their way into the entertainment press and even the popular press on occasion.

“It’s a shitshow,” she told him. “I’ve got five guys that don’t really care for each other trying to put together a show night after night while four of them are wasted to the gills. At least twice a week someone threatens to quit. At least once a week two of them get into a fight. And three times now fucking Hamm has been too wasted to go onstage and we had to delay the start of the show while we sobered him up.”

Obie nodded sympathetically. “Sounds like them boys need a little discipline in the ranks,” he observed.

“From your mouth to God’s ears,” Pauline said. “Or at least to Aristocrat Records’ ears. They are doing nothing to discourage this behavior. They think it helps sell their albums.”

“Perhaps they have a point?” Obie suggested. “Veteran’s debut album has been number one on the charts for the past month now, right?”

“There is that,” Pauline admitted.

“You’ve already gone platinum and you’re sure to go double platinum by March. Not bad at all.”

“I don’t think those sales figures have anything to do with my band getting wasted and fucking up their performances night after night. If anything, they would have sold more albums if they’d kept their shit together and put on decent shows.”

Obie shrugged. “I guess we’ll never know, huh?”

“I guess we won’t,” she had to agree. “So, what’s up, Obie? Why’d you haul your hungover ass in here on New Year’s Day to talk to my hungover ass?”

He took a larger drink of his scotch and appraised her for a moment. He then set the glass down. “I’ve been keeping an eye on the progress of Jake and Celia,” he told her.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Troy and Alicia have been giving me reports, of course—and they are really enjoying their time with the Nerdlys, by the way.”

“Glad to hear it,” she said. “They’re fast learners and good at their jobs, Sharon tells me.”

“That’s why I hired them,” Obie said. “Anyway, they tell me your people are laying down some pretty impressive tunes in that studio. Not just feel-good pop or formula rock music, but actual artistically pleasing shit that is probably going to sell quite well once it’s released.”

“That is our goal,” Pauline allowed.

“That’s everybody’s goal,” he said. “The problem is that most people can’t seem to pull it off to the level they hope for. That’s kind of what I assumed was going to happen when I signed y’all up for the studio time, you know.”

“Oh really?” Pauline said with a smile. “You didn’t have faith in them, Obie?”

He shrugged. “I had no reason to have faith in them,” he said. “I didn’t know them. I like a few of those Intemperance tunes I’ve heard over the years. The road songs that Jake writes are particularly poignant. I Found Myself Again is deep, gets me right here.” He pounded his fist on his chest, just over his heart. “And as for Celia, I’ve heard that drivel that she used to put out with those other beaners, and I never really cared for it, except for listening to her voice and watching those titties of hers bounce around in her videos, you know what I’m saying?”

“I know what you’re saying,” Pauline allowed. After all, she had gotten an almost glimpse of the titties in question one night after she sang in the shower. And they really were a set to be reckoned with.

“Anyway,” Obie continued, “I had no reason to suspect that those two were actually going to put out something worthwhile and profitable. I was trying to get my hands on the Nerdlys for a bit. That was the sole motivation of doing business with y’all.”

“I understand that,” Pauline said, wondering: Where is he going with this?

“But anyway, when I started hearing reports from my people that they actually are putting down some decent tunes, well, I decided to check into it a little.”

“Check into it?”

He nodded. “It’s my recording studio, and I have access to everything that’s stored here. So the other night I had Alicia stay after y’all left and told her to cue me up some of their work.”

“Really?” Pauline said, wondering if she should be offended or not.

“I wasn’t trying to pry or anything ... well ... okay, maybe I was. Anyway, I took a listen to your basics and I have to say I’m impressed. They really are putting down some good solid tracks, and the Nerdlys haven’t even really started to work on them yet.” He looked at her pointedly. “Those albums are going to sell.”

“Again,” Pauline said, “that’s the goal.”

“It’s a goal you’re going to achieve,” Obie said. “And I want in on it.”

“You are in on it,” she reminded him. “You’ll be pulling in three percent royalties on both albums for eternity. Not a bad deal, really.”

“It’s not,” he agreed. “Especially since y’all are also paying me for studio time and I get the Nerdlys for a bit when it’s done. Still, I want more.”

“You signed a contract with us, Obie. You’re not entitled to more.”

He dismissed that with a wave of his hand. “That’s not what I’m talking about,” he assured her. “I’m not trying to change the terms of our contract. I’m happy with that part and, even if you don’t agree to what I’m about to suggest, I’ll still pull in a healthy profit from y’all.”

“Okay,” she said slowly. “What are you suggesting?”

“I’m suggesting y’all contract with Blake Family Records for manufacturing, distribution and promotion of those albums.”

Pauline blinked slowly. “Contract with Blake Family Records?” she asked.

“I did not misspeak, ma’am,” he said.

She sighed. What kind of bullshit is he trying to pull here? she thought, then decided it was a valid enough concern to say aloud. “What kind of bullshit are you trying to pull here, Obie?”

“No bullshit,” he assured her. “I am sincere in my offer.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” she said, “but doesn’t Blake Family Records have to contract with Mason-Dixon Records for MD&P?”

“Well ... yes, that is true,” he admitted.

“You don’t have your own manufacturing and distribution network set up, Obie. How are you planning to manufacture and distribute and, most importantly, promote these albums without that very necessary apparatus in place?”

“Obviously I would have to contract with one of the record companies for that,” he said.

Pauline shook her head and gave him an eye roll. “I fail to see how this suggestion could possibly be advantageous to KVA Records. You’re talking about adding a middle man where none exists currently. That cannot possibly make KVA more profitable. We are prepared to negotiate directly with the record companies once we have masters in hand.”

“And that is what I’m offering you,” Obie said. “I know it sounds like a scam on the surface, but it’s not. I am prepared to offer both Jake and Celia complete and total packages of manufacturing, distribution, and promotion for forty percent royalties atop what I already have in place for giving you studio time.”

Pauline looked at him sharply. “Forty percent, huh?”

“It’s a fair offer,” Obie told her, “and I’m offering it prior to engaging in any negotiations of my own.”

“In other words,” Pauline said, “you seem to think you can negotiate a royalty rate for Jake and Celia’s albums that is considerably less than forty percent, otherwise you wouldn’t have made the offer.”

“That is correct,” Obie said. “I believe I can probably get thirty-two percent, thirty-five at the most.”

“If you can get thirty-two or thirty-five, then so can we,” Pauline said.

“Ahhh now, that’s where you’re wrong,” he said. “I have extensive contacts throughout this industry and I am well respected as a musician, businessman, and negotiator of all things music related. Furthermore, I know how to talk to those people. Now you, Pauline, I’m not saying you haven’t done a fine job at being a manager—the tales of your renegotiation of the Intemperance contract are fuckin’ legendary, you know what I’m saying?—but you’re still relatively new to it, you still don’t have all that many contacts, and, perhaps most damning, you’re not an insider to the biz. You pushed your way in where many felt you didn’t belong. The fact that you did it successfully doesn’t mean shit to them. I’ve grown up with these people. I can talk to them. I can get that thirty-two to thirty-five, but you’ll be lucky if you can negotiate them down below forty-five. If you were to get forty, it would be a miracle on the order of the baby Jesus Himself. And there is no way in hell you are going to get below forty, even if you threw in a few blowjobs along the way.”

She was shaking her head again. This still didn’t ring true to her. “I don’t see why any record company would offer you thirty-two percent if they know that they can just come to us and offer forty—the same that you would be charging us—and we would take it. Explain that to me, Obie.”

“Obviously it would only work if I already have a contract with you and they cannot go behind my back and offer you forty. That is why I’m offering you this now, before you have masters in hand and before any of those pricks have had a chance to hear what it is y’all are going to be negotiating with. You see, I’m taking advantage of my unique ability to evaluate your efforts before anyone else can and I’m making this offer on the strength of what I’ve heard so far. I have faith in Jake and Celia. Those albums are going to sell. And, if you sign with me at forty percent, that is all I’m going to take from you in royalties no matter what I ultimately end up with. You see, I’m taking the risk here, not you. If I’m wrong, and no record company will sign a MD&P deal with me for less than ... say, fifty-five percent, I’m the one who is going to have to eat that, not you. I’ll be paying fifteen percent royalties out of my own pocket, not you.”

That did actually sound kind of intriguing, Pauline had to admit to herself. Truth be told, their best-case estimates of what royalty rate they would end up paying the record company they signed with had been in the thirty-five to forty percent range— and those were the best-case estimates. And here was Obie offering to sign them to forty, masters unheard. Very interesting.

“You have certainly given me something to think about, Obie,” she told him.

“That was my intention,” he said.

“It’s not a decision I can make right here and right now, however. I’ll have to talk it over with Jake and Celia and the Nerdlys ... and Greg, of course.”

“I wasn’t trying to push for a deal here and now,” he said. “There would still be a whole lot of particulars that need to be negotiated anyway. I just wanted to put the offer on the table for you.”

“I will pick up that offer and present it,” she said.

“Very good,” Obie said. “There is one thing I would like to impress upon you, darlin’, and I hope that you convey it to your people.”

“What is that?”

“I’m an honest man,” he said plainly. “I don’t play games, I don’t lie, I don’t cheat. I’m interested in making money, and making lots of it, and I’m a tough-ass negotiator who will try to get whatever advantage I can, but I play by the rules at all times and I will tell you what is on my mind at all times. My offer is genuine and my assessment of how y’all would do on your own is my best opinion, without exaggeration. I don’t have any way of proving to you and yours I speak the truth, but I do, and I expect the same out of y’all.”

Pauline looked in his reddened eyes with the brown irises. She nodded. “I believe you, Obie,” she told him sincerely. “And I can assure you that Jake and Celia and I operate the same way.”

“Fair enough,” he said with a smile. “Now then, our business seems to be concluded for the day, right?”

“I suppose it is,” she allowed.

“How about that drink now?”

Her smile got bigger. “Stolichnaya on the rocks?” she asked.

“Coming right up,” he told her.

That same evening, one thousand, eight hundred air miles to the southeast, in Houston, Texas, Matt Tisdale was more than a little hung over as well, more so, by a considerable margin, than his normal level of hangover just prior to a show.

New Year’s Eve had been an extended travel day off, a day of rest after traveling from the December 30 show in New Orleans. He and his band and a few select roadies who were part of his inner circle had spent the entire day, the entire night, and most of the early morning hours in a state of catastrophic annihilation. They had done it all: Cocaine, marijuana, a little bit of the methamphetamine that the roadies were fond of, and, of course, gallons and gallons of high-tension booze, mostly consumed directly from the bottles.

Matt did not even remember the turn of the year. His last recorded memory was sometime around ten o’clock. He remembered snorting two lines of coke and chasing them down with a swig from a bottle of some kind of clear booze—it might have been gin or vodka—while a hot looking young groupie they’d picked up in the hotel bar earlier (at least, he thought she was young and hot looking, but he knew the beer goggles had been on) was sucking his dick out on the balcony of his hotel room. The next thing he knew, it was nine-thirty in the morning, he felt like he had been dead for the past two weeks, and Greg fucking Gahn was telling him that he needed to be at the local hard rock station for an interview in one hour.

Though usually Matt’s rule of four hours prior to a show meant that he actually did no intoxicating substance for the entire day before the show, he made an exception on this day and accepted two more lines of coke from Greg to get himself moving. It didn’t work very well, but it was enough to get him through a shower and into the bus, where he needed two more lines so he could be coherent enough to speak to the moronic DJ who would be interviewing him.

And now, ten minutes to showtime, as he and his band sat in the stage left area, listening to the enthusiasm of the six thousand, three hundred and twelve Matt Tisdale fans who had shown up for his show in Spencer Arena south of downtown, he still felt only slightly better than terminally ill and fading. His head throbbed rhythmically despite having taken two grams of Tylenol on two occasions today. His mouth was as dry as a ninety year old woman’s pussy, despite the nearly gallon of water he’d put down his throat in the last two hours. And he ached all over, every joint in every appendage he possessed.

Maybe I oughta start thinking about slowing down on some of this shit, he thought, not for the first time, and with not so much of an inkling of sincerity.

Still, the show must go on was a credo that Matt believed in with every fiber of his being. When the time came, he stood up with his band and walked out on that stage. The cheers of adoration seemed to revive him a bit. He picked up his Strat and, when the lights came on, he started to play.

No one out in the audience noticed anything amiss. Matt played with his usual enthusiasm. He did not miss a single riff, did not misplay a single note, did not fail to follow a single tempo change. His voice sounded good despite the dry throat. If there was any outward sign of what was occurring, it was perhaps the amount of sweat coming out of his pores. Though sweating during performance was normal and expected—after all, a performer was standing under hot lights and moving at aerobic exercise level for ninety minutes at a time—this fell well into the range of excessive. Sweat was pouring down Matt’s face and dripping onto the stage floor, was running freely down his arms, down his chest. Though he usually waited until the first extended guitar solo to take off his shirt, he pulled it off during the second song on this night.

As for Matt himself, he knew that something was not right almost from the start. He could feel his heart hammering in his chest, a physical, pounding, beating thing that felt like a jackhammer. And it seemed like he just wasn’t getting quite as much air as he really needed. He sang fine, but it seemed he had to gasp between verses, between chorus and bridge, something that he had never had to do before. And there was this troubling ache in his chest. It was a burning sensation, an unpleasant heat that spread from his sternum into his shoulders.

He ignored all of this the best he could and went on with the show. As the time stretched by, he began to feel worse and worse, his breathing now a pant when he wasn’t singing. When the final number of the main set came to a close, he didn’t even have the energy to give them the fake good night bit before the encore break. He simply staggered off the stage into the stage left area. He immediately sat down on a crate and began to pant.

“Matt, you okay?” asked Roger Stone, his personal assistant, who was standing there with a large bottle of Gatorade.

“Gimmee that shit,” Matt panted, nearly snatching it from him. He drank heavily, but had to keep pulling the bottle from his lips to take a few breaths.

“Dude, you seriously don’t look all right,” Roger told him. “You’re as pale as a fuckin’ ghost!”

“My heart is beating kind of funny,” Matt said. He took another drink of Gatorade, took another couple of deep breaths, and then held out his hand to Roger. “Take my pulse.”

“I don’t know how to take a fuckin’ pulse!” Roger replied.

“Jesus Christ,” Matt muttered. “Gimmee your watch.”

Roger looked at him for a moment and then took the cheap Timex off his wrist and handed it over. It was an analog watch, the kind with a second hand. Matt wrapped the band around the fingers of his right hand and turned it so he could see that second hand. He then felt on the thumb side of his inner wrist with his left hand, seeking and finally finding the beating pulse there. He could tell without even counting that it was going far too fast, but he counted anyway, noting each beat for fifteen seconds on the watch. Fifty-five beats went by in that time frame.

Fifty-five times four is ... is... His stressed out mind struggled for a moment to do the math. And when he did come up with the answer, he couldn’t believe it. Two hundred and fucking twenty? No way! I counted wrong! He repeated the procedure. This time he came up with fifty-six beats. He did the math again. Two hundred and twenty-four? Fuck me!

“Roger, quick, check my math!”

“Your math? What the fuck are you talking about?”

“What’s fifty-six times four?”

“What?”

“Fifty-six times fucking four!” Matt screamed at him. “Is it two hundred and twenty-four, or not?”

Roger was looking at him as if he were some kind of alien. Matt wanted to punch him—would have if he had the energy.

“Somebody fucking check my math!” he screamed. “Fifty-six times four! Do it now!”

Steve finally grabbed a scrap of packing paper from one of the crates and then grabbed a pen from one of the tech roadies. He scratched out the equation on the paper and then began to solve it. All the while, the crowd out there were stomping their feet and calling for the encore. They were now a couple of minutes behind schedule.

“You’re right, Matt,” Steve told him after carrying the two and doing the final addition. “It’s two hundred and twenty-four. What does that mean?”

Matt took another deep breath, feeling actual fear flowing through him now. Two hundred and twenty-four was way too fast. Even at the height of a cocaine blitz, his heart rate was usually no faster than a hundred twenty or so. And even after jumping around on stage at top speed, it was usually no more than one-fifty. What the hell was going on here?

“Matt?” Roger said. “What’s going on, dude? Tell me what to do!”

“Get Gahn down here,” Matt told him. “Tell him to bring his little doctor bag with him.”

“What? Are you serious?” Roger asked.

“I’m dead fucking serious. Get that asshole down here. Tell him my heart is beating two-hundred and twenty-four fucking beats a minute.”

“And that’s not good, right?” Roger asked.

“No, it’s not fucking good. Now get on it!”

Roger rushed off to get on it. Matt took a few more deep breaths and then felt his pulse again. It was still trucking along at the same rate.

“What now, Matt?” Steve asked.

Matt looked up him. “Now,” he said, throwing Roger’s watch on the floor, “we get our asses back out there and finish the show.”

“Finish the show?” Steve asked. “But your heart...”

“My heart will hang on for another eighteen minutes,” Matt said. “I ain’t leaving this place without finishing what I started. Now let’s hit it.”

They looked doubtful but they headed for the stage entrance. Matt breathed deeply a few more times and then forced himself to his feet. He had a momentary attack of dizziness that was staggering in its intensity. His vision started to gray. A wave of nausea swept over him. He powered through it the best he could, remaining standing and, after twenty seconds or so, it started to fade. He looked up and saw that his bass player, his drummer, and every roadie in visual range was staring at him.

“I don’t think you should go out there, Matt!” Steve told him. “You kind of bleached out on us for a minute there.”

“I’m better now,” Matt said. “Let’s hit it.”

“But...”

“Let’s fucking hit it!” Matt yelled. “Come on. I need to get this shit over with.”

With that, he walked back out onto the stage, waving his hand at the crowd like nothing was wrong at all. The cheers erupted anew as they saw him. His band, with nothing else to do, followed him out and took their places while Matt picked up his Strat once again.

“All right, motherfuckers!” Matt yelled into the microphone. “Let’s do a little bit more here, okay?”

The cheer increased and he began to play.

He went through the two encore songs just as they had been rehearsed. He moved about on the stage just as he had in every other show of the tour. He sang out his lyrics with all the force and emotion that he always put into them. And through it all, his chest ached like a rotted tooth and he felt like he could hardly breathe.

He finished and he and the band took their bows at the front of the stage, Matt in the middle, his arms around their shoulders. When the bow was done, he did not release the embrace as he normally did.

“Walk me off this stage,” he panted to them. “Make it look cool.”

With scared faces, they did as he asked, escorting their boss out of the spotlight and back into the stage left area. By the time they got him to the crate he had sat on before, he could barely breathe at all and his chest felt like it was being squeezed in a vice. His legs could no longer hold him up.

“Put him down right there!” Greg barked at the bandmembers, pointing to the stage floor next to the crate. “If he’s truly as tachycardic as he says, he’s probably hypotensive as well.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” asked Steve.

“It means put him down where I told you!” Greg yelled. “Now! Do it now!”

They did it now. Greg, who, per directions, had his little back bag in hand, made no move to open it. Instead, he knelt beside Matt and picked up his sweaty wrist.

“How are you doing, Matt?” he asked him.

“I’ve been better,” Matt gasped.

Greg looked at his Rolex watch as he felt Matt’s pulse. He chewed on his lip a few times during the fifteen seconds. He then shook his head. “Two twenty-eight,” he said. “You’re having a cardiac arrythmia, Matt.”

“No fucking shit,” Matt barked. “Give me something for it!”

“I don’t have anything for this,” Greg said. “We need to get some paramedics here and get you to the hospital.”

“You don’t have anything for this?” Matt yelled. “You have fucking heroin in there, speed, downers of all kinds, Valium, Narcan, fucking Demerol, but you don’t have anything to slow my heart down?”

“No, this is not something I’m trained to deal with,” Greg told him. “Relax. Take deep breaths. We’re going to get you some help.”

There was a local paramedic team that had been on standby for the event. One of the security team went and got them just as they were packing up their equipment so they could go home. They were dragged backstage and brought to the stricken guitarist.

“Holy shit!” said the paramedic of the crew, a tall, lanky brown haired guy in his late thirties. He sported an unruly mustache and was dressed in a dark blue uniform. “This is Matt Tisdale!”

“You mean the guy who everyone came here to see?” asked his partner, an EMT. She was much younger, perhaps only early twenties, and cute enough that Matt might have tried to pick up on her under different circumstances.

“The guy that everyone came here to see,” Matt breathed. “I really feel like I got one foot in the fuckin’ grave, guys. How about you do some paramedic shit here?”

“Right!” the medic barked. “Tell me what happened.”

“My heart is beating too fast,” Matt told him.

“It’s two hundred and twenty-eight the last I checked,” Greg put in.

“Right,” Matt said. “And I can’t breathe very well, and my chest feels like a fat chick is sitting on it.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“Pretty much since the show started, but it’s been getting worse the whole time. When I came back in for the encore break is when I actually took my pulse and found out how fuckin’ fast it was going.”

The medic’s eyes widened. “You mean ... you knew your heart was doing this and you still went back out for the encore?”

“The fuckin’ show must go on,” Matt told him. “Those are words I live by.”

“Jesus Christ,” the medic said, appalled respect showing in his eyes. He shrugged this off and resumed his assessment. “Has this ever happened to you before?”

“Never,” Matt said.

“Any drugs tonight?”

“Cocaine about eight hours ago,” Matt said. “Other than that, nothing. I always perform sober.”

“I heard that about you,” the medic said with a nod. He turned to his partner. “Get him on the monitor and get me a blood pressure. Let’s see what we’re dealing with here.”

“Right,” she said.

It took her a few minutes to apply the heart monitor. He was so sweaty that the little sticker electrodes kept falling off. Finally, the medic opened up a couple of alcohol prep packages and wiped his skin down on his chest. That let them stick long enough for him to get a good reading.

“SVT at two-twenty,” he said. “Let’s get that BP, Lisa.”

“Working on it,” she said, as she put a cuff around his arm.

“What’s SVT?” Matt asked.

“Supraventricular tachycardia,” the medic told him. “The electrical system of your heart is in a feedback loop and triggering the beats too quickly. You heart doesn’t have time to fill with blood between beats. It’s a very inefficient way to run things.”

“I can feel that,” Matt said. “What causes it?”

“Sometimes it just happens,” the medic said. “In your case, however, I’d have to guess the cocaine had something to do with it, particularly if you use the shit a lot.”

“I use the shit a lot,” Matt assured him.

“Well ... this is the consequence of that,” the medic said. He turned to his partner. “How we looking?”

She let the air out of the blood pressure cuff and shook her head. “Sixty-four over thirty,” she said. “I checked it twice.”

The medic nodded slowly. “I see,” he said.

“What do you see?” Matt asked. “That’s a pretty fucked up blood pressure, right?”

“Pretty fucked up,” the medic agreed. “I need to get you out of that rhythm right away or you might die.”

“Well fucking do it then!” Matt barked.

“I will,” the medic said, “but ... well ... I only have one way of doing it.”

“And that is?” Matt asked.

“I have to do what’s called synchronized cardioversion.”

“I don’t care what it’s called, just fucking do it.”

“It means I have to deliver electricity to your heart to reset it,” the medic explained.

Matt looked up at him. “Deliver electricity?” he asked. “You mean you’re going to fucking shock me with those paddles?”

“Yes,” the medic said.

“While I’m fucking awake?”

“Sometimes we start an IV and sedate a patient before doing that,” the medic said, “but you’re too unstable. We can’t wait. I have to do it now.”

Matt took a nibble of his bottom lip. “Is it going to hurt?” he asked.

“Yes,” the medic said. “It is extremely painful, but it should get you back in a rhythm that is conducive to life.”

Matt took another breath. “All right,” he said. “Fucking do it! Let’s get this shit over with.”

“All right,” the medic said, pulling his heart monitor a little closer and then opening a zipper pocket in its case. He pulled out a tube of what looked like lube. It wasn’t lube. Matt could plainly read the words, Conducting Gel on the side of it. That was when things really started to get real for him.

This motherfucker is actually going to shock me with those paddles, his mind screamed at him. While I’m awake! What the fuck?

The medic pulled the two paddles from the top of the monitor. Each was rectangular in shape, with rounded corners, the business ends a smooth expanse of silver metal about five inches by four in size. The handle parts were white and each had a big red button right where the medic’s thumb would rest. The handles were attached to the monitor by lengths of white stretch cord like that on a telephone handle. The medic opened the top of the Conducting Gel and, instead of squirting it onto the silver surfaces and rubbing them together like seen on a hundred medical dramas, he squirted some directly onto Matt’s chest, one blob just above his left nipple, the other on his flank, just below and to the right of his right nipple. He then put the paddles in those spots. The metal was cold against his skin. It felt dangerous. He squished the paddles around a bit, spreading the Conducting Gel around, and then removed them, setting them down on the floor next to him.

“Why didn’t you do the rubbing thing like on TV?” Matt had to ask, though he was as terrified right now as he’d ever been in his life.

“Because real life is not like TV,” the medic said. “That scratches the surfaces of the paddles and makes the electricity arc in the scratches. You can burn though someone’s skin if the arc is too narrow. Besides, it’s easier to just squirt the gel onto the patient.”

“Makes sense,” Matt said with a nod.

“You ready for this, my friend?” the medic asked him.

“Yeah,” Matt said. “Let’s do it.”

They did it. The medic flipped a few switches on the monitor and then pushed a button. A high-pitched whine, similar to a camera flash charging, filled the air, getting louder until it shut off.

“Charged!” the medic said, picking up the paddles again. “Everyone get clear.”

Everyone backed off a ridiculous amount. Matt wished he could do the same.

The medic put the paddles to his chest and flank again. They were a little warmer now. This did not make him feel better.

“Okay, we’re going to do this. Hang tight.” He looked up and down Matt’s body. “Cardioverting now!” he barked. “I’m clear, everyone clear. Here we go!”

Matt saw his thumbs push down on the buttons. For a moment, nothing happened and he had time to think that maybe the fucking machine had malfunctioned. And then the most incredible, intense pain he had ever felt or even imagined came slamming into him. It was centered between the two paddles, but it erupted outward from there to his entire physical being, from the top of his head all the way down to his toes. He was vaguely aware that he screamed like a little fucking girl. He saw that smoke was actually coming up from his chest and he could smell burned flesh.

“Fuck me!” he yelled as the pain eased off. He looked to his right, at the medic’s monitor, with its green line going up and down and showing the state of his heart. He could see a big, disorganized jumble on the right side of the screen, where the shock had been delivered only a second or so ago. On the left side of the screen, however, which was current time, the green line was flat as a pancake.

I’m fucking flat lining! his mind screamed at him. That motherfucker just killed my ass!

As if to lend credence to this, Matt felt the chest pain swelling up in him, overriding the fading pain of the electrical shock, making him feel as if it was going to swallow him whole. And he could not take in a breath, despite the fact that he desperately needed to. He felt his consciousness starting to slide downward. I’m living the last fucking seconds of my life, right here and right now.

And then the flat line grew a single blip. It went flat for another second or two and then two more blips occurred. After that, they kicked into gear, blipping one after another in a regular pattern. Matt felt the drain of consciousness reverse and energy came flowing back into him. The pain in his chest faded off and disappeared. He took in a few breaths and never had the air tasted so good.

The medic let out a great exhalation of breath. “All right,” he said. “You’ve converted back to a sinus rhythm at ninety-two.”

“It worked?” Matt asked carefully.

“It worked,” the medic assured him. “That was a little bit of a butt-pucker moment there, wasn’t it?”

“Imagine it from my end,” Matt told him.

“Good point,” the medic said. “That first couple of seconds after cardioversion seems to take an hour. I just pushed the reset button on your heart. It necessarily stops for a bit after I do that.”

“Yeah,” Matt said. “It hurt like a motherfucker when you did that shit, but seeing myself in a flatline was worse.”

“I think you’re going to be all right now,” the medic said. He turned back to his partner. “Let’s get another BP.”

“I’m on it,” she said.

She pumped up the cuff and took her reading. She smiled as she recited it to the medic. “One thirty-eight over seventy-six.”

The medic gave a thumbs up and then looked down at Matt. “Let’s get you to the hospital, Matt.”

“Do I have to?” Matt asked. “I feel a lot better now.”

“Yeah, you have to,” the medic told him. “I don’t know that you’re not going to go back into SVT at any second. And if I were to release-at-scene someone I had cardioverted, they would take my paramedic card and use it to start the fire at the base of the stake they tied to me.”

“All right,” Matt said. “I’ll go, but I have a show to do tomorrow in Dallas.”

“I don’t think you’re going to make that show,” the medic said.

“The fuck I’m not,” Matt told him. “The show must go on.”

They took him to the emergency room of Houston Methodist Hospital, which was both the closest facility to the arena and, according to paramedic, the best cardiac center in eastern Texas. He was treated well there, brought immediately to a room where he was hooked to dozens of wires, tubes, and other doodads. The medic had started an IV on him on the way in, but the nurses started another one anyway. They drew blood from him, had him piss into a bottle so they could send it to the lab, and ran some IV fluids into him, which made him have to piss every ten minutes or so.

Through it all, Matt continued to feel pretty good. True, his chest and flank hurt as if he’d been sunburned badly in those regions, but otherwise he felt the best he’d felt all day. He was well enough to even try picking up on one of his nurses—a hot looking brunette with a thick southern accent who smiled and teased back at him, but shot down every advance he made with the skill of a long-term gunner.

The emergency room physician assigned to his case was Dr. Goldstein, a late thirties guy who looked like about the squarest motherfucker Matt had met since Nerdly himself, but a guy who knew his shit.

“I have to say,” Goldstein told him once the tests were all back, “that you actually tested positive for every single thing we check for on our urine toxicology screen.”

“Yeah?” Matt asked.

“Yeah,” the doc told him. “Cocaine, marijuana, opioids, and amphetamines. That is quite impressive.”

Matt shrugged. “I don’t do opioids normally,” he told him. “The medic lit me up with some morphine on the way in though.”

“Yes, of course,” Goldstein said. “And the cocaine and the amphetamines?”

“Well, I don’t normally use meth either,” he said. “It’s kind of raunchy for my tastes, you know what I’m saying?”

“I really don’t,” the doctor told him.

“Anyway, I think the meth might be what triggered this whole fuckin’ thing. You see, I was kind of tired from the bus ride yesterday and the coke wasn’t really doing it for me like it normally does, so one of the roadies set me up with a couple lines of their meth to get me in the mood for New Year’s Eve.” He shrugged. “I guess that was a mistake. I ain’t doing any of that shit anymore.”

“I would hope not,” Goldstein said. “What about the cocaine use?”

“What about it?” Matt asked.

The doctor blinked. “You use it a lot, do you?”

“Oh, fuck yeah,” Matt said. “Like every day, dude. It’s the elixir of life out on the road. I don’t use it before a show, of course, but after the show, when they roll the groupies on back and they start slurping on some schlong, that’s when the coke feels the best.”

“I ... uh ... I see,” Goldstein said slowly. “Well ... I think maybe you might want to stop doing that in light of what happened to your heart today.”

“Stop having groupies suck my schlong?” Matt asked. “What the fuck does that have to do with anything?”

“Uh ... no, not the groupies thing,” Goldstein said, “although I think I’ll suggest that Dr. Fator add a standardized STD panel to your admit labs. What I was referring to was the cocaine use.”

“Stop doing coke?” Matt asked. “Fuck that! You and that medic both seem to think that it was the blow that did this to me. It can’t be the blow, doc. I’ve been doing that shit for years and nothing like this has ever happened before. It has to be that meth. That’s the only thing that was really different.”

“Uh ... Mr. Tisdale...”

“Matt,” Matt told him. “Call me Matt, doc.”

“Matt,” he said. “Just because cocaine has not caused these symptoms in the past, does not mean it wasn’t the primary cause of them today. Damage done by stimulants—methamphetamine and cocaine both—is cumulative, not immediate. You say you’ve been using cocaine for a number of years?”

“Well, I first tried it when I was about fifteen, I think, but I didn’t start using it like really regularly until Intemperance hit the big time. That was back in eighty-two.”

“Then we’re talking about nine years of heavy, daily cocaine use?”

“Well ... not exactly daily, per se, but ... yeah, for the most part, that’s an accurate statement.”

“Nine years of heavy cocaine use is quite enough to cause cumulative damage to the heart conduction system and lead to the dangerous rhythm you displayed today. I understand you’re a smoker as well?”

“Yeah, a pack a day or so,” Matt admitted.

“That factors into the damage as well,” Goldstein said. “And I couldn’t help but notice that your liver enzymes were quite high despite the fact that you did not have any measurable alcohol in your system when you came in.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means your liver is quite unhappy with you, and it probably has been for some time. The usual reason for this is alcohol abuse. How much do you drink, Matt?”

“As much as I can,” Matt assured him.

“So ... you drink every day?”

“Pretty much, although never before a show.”

“Of course not,” Goldstein said. “And if you don’t drink, do you get shaky, or tremors in your hands, or anything like that?”

Matt shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I never go long enough without drinking to find out.”

“I see,” the doctor said. “Well, I’m going to be honest with you, Matt. You’re thirty-three years old and you have the body of someone fifteen years older. If you keep living the way you are right now, it is doubtful that you will see your fortieth birthday.”

Matt shrugged again. “That’s the same shit they told Keith Richards and look at that motherfucker. I’ll tell you what I’ll do though, doc. No more meth for me. That’s a promise.”

Goldstein looked at his patient and gave a little shake of the head. “Well ... I suppose that’s a small victory,” he said.

“Sometimes those are the best kind,” Matt told him. “So ... can I get out of here now?”

“You mean leave?” the doctor asked in disbelief.

“Fuck yeah I mean leave,” Matt said. “I got a show to do in Dallas tomorrow.”

“You’re not going to make your show in Dallas tomorrow,” Goldstein told him. “Nor are you going to make any shows for the next week or so. I’m going to have you admitted to the cardiac floor and we’re going to do a complete cardiac workup on you in the morning. Treadmill stress test, nuclear stress echo, the whole bit.”

“Uh ... yeah, doc,” Matt said. “That’s awfully nice of you to offer, but I’m going to have to decline that shit.”

“Decline?”

“Decline,” Matt said. “My heart’s back to normal, right?”

“Well ... for the moment, but it could go back into a lethal arrythmia at any time.”

“I’ll just have to deal with that when it happens,” he said. “The show must go on, doc. I’m busting out of here. Go ahead and start getting the paperwork together, huh?”

“Matt, this is a very bad decision,” Goldstein warned.

“Yeah,” Matt said. “I’ve made a few of those in my time. Anyway, while you’re working on the paperwork to get me out of here, can you send someone out to the waiting room to collect Greg Gahn for me? He’s a grinning little weasel of a freak. Looks like a cross between a car salesman and one of those TV preachers that rip off old ladies.”

“Matt, I think we should talk about this some more.”

“Are you going to try to keep me here against my will?” Matt asked.

“No, of course not,” the doctor said. “You have the right to refuse medical care as long as you’re coherent, but I don’t think you’re taking what happened to you seriously. You need to have that cardiac workup so we can determine to what extent the damage to your heart is.”

“I’m gonna have to pass on that,” Matt told him. “Like I said, there’s a show tomorrow and the show must go on.”

Matt signed out of Houston Methodist twenty minutes later, wearing the jeans he had come in with and a paper hospital shirt. Greg drove him back to the hotel in a rented car and they arrived there just after midnight.

There were still a few groupies hanging around. So Matt had a few drinks, a few bonghits, and two lines of cocaine. That put him nicely in the mood for some meaningless fornication.