Fast Lane Page 4

I just know he did.

  The thing was, it wasn’t something he had that he held over anyone else.

  In the way Tim needed it, he did that shit with Timmy too. I didn’t know when or how, I just saw Tim come into himself and how Preach settled into that, so I knew he had a hand in it.

  Dave didn’t need it.

  Dave needed drumsticks, pussy, pot and blow, and Dave was all good.

  [Chuckles]

  I got my first blowjob in Michigan City.

  It was a Preacher castoff, he told her to blow me, she did, and I did not and still to this day do not give that first fuck.

  I’ve had more experience since.

  [Grins]

  So now I know.

  That woman gave righteous head.

  Lost my cherry, as it were, in South Bend.

  She was not a castoff.

  She was mine.

  Her name was Beth.

  Even though she was just a one go, guys sang “Beth” to me for the next I don’t know how many months.

  Don’t care about that either.

  [Grins again]

  I love that fuckin’ song.

  I don’t know how he got it, or if Tommy got it, it was probably Tom, but they got it.

  It was Preach that gave it to me, though.

  My mom had wanted me to go to the doctor. Always on my ass about picking, so I didn’t pick.

  Or squeeze.

  I didn’t want to think about it. I just wanted to wake up one day and it’d be gone.

  Preacher and Tom did something about it.

  Took two months using that cream they got their hands on, prescription shit, and then not a single zit.

  Never came back.

  [Points at face]

  That’s Preacher’s, sister.

  It was Tommy and Preacher who called my shit out.

  It wasn’t long after South Bend.

  The seal was broken, and I was on a tear.

  I don’t know where the guys were, but I was in the camper getting laid.

  Got off, she took off, and I was gonna try to find the guys, so I cleaned up, took off after her, still tucking my junk in my jeans.

  Saw Tom first, he was down the lane from where we were in the RV park.

  He gives a head lift, I think to me, but I closed the door and Preach is there, leaning with his shoulders against the camper.

  I’m all “Hey, dude.”

  He’s staring in the distance and all “You figure your shit out.”

  “What?” I ask.

  That’s when he looks at me.

  “I listened to that whole thing, it didn’t last even ten minutes and it was about you, brother. Figure your shit out.”

  Needless to say, I repeated my question because I didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about.

  “You get her off?” he asked.

  You know…

  [Shakes head]

  Shit.

  I lived more than half my life wide open and not every second of it was stellar.

  And it is no lie, I have never felt as humiliated as I was right then.

  “Learn to eat pussy,” Preach advised. “You need pointers?”

  I think I broke a record tellin’ him I did not.

  Even though I probably did.

  “Fingers too, brother. Until you figure out the g-spot, and after, man. She’s got a clit for a reason. You hear?”

  He waited for me to nod and then waited more, like he wanted me to know how important this was.

  I figure I somehow communicated that I got it because he took off and joined Tommy to do whatever it was they did.

  Mostly planning world domination.

  It’s stone-cold, but true, that Tommy was about brand even before anyone called it a brand.

  A fan did not leave a gig without being satisfied, you get me?

  For Preach, it was something else.

  You know about Lyla.

  So, I figure you get that too.

  It was Christmas when they told me.

  We were home, had some gigs Tommy set up in Indy, but we all got to sleep in beds in our own houses.

  Or our parents’ houses.

  Penny had just had the kid and she was a hollowed-out shell, and that is no fuckin’ pun.

  They told me, and I scoured town until I found whatever chick’s bed Preach had fallen into and I knocked on the door until he answered, barefoot, no shirt, jeans not done up, and no words needed to be spoken what I’d interrupted.

  He took one look at my face, and it was her pad, but she took a hike and he got the Jack and we sat in her living room, me on her couch, Preacher sitting on her coffee table in front of me.

  “Dad’s got cancer.”

  He caught me at the back of the neck with his hand and just held on, staring in my eyes.

  You know, that moment lasted so long, when I think about it now, I’m surprised I’m still not sittin’ on the couch, looking into Preacher’s eyes.

  I told you about getting those notebooks at Kmart.

  I didn’t tell you, it was Preach that drove me around to all of them, miles and miles, until I thought I had enough.

  He didn’t bitch once.

  We were in Pennsylvania when we got word.

  Pittsburgh.

  Me and Preach, a map and a Yellow Pages so we could find Kmarts.

  I wrote that down too.

  That’s somewhere in the first notebook Dad gave me.

  I wrote down those patches of road Preach drove in Pittsburgh the day Dad died.

  Every stretch.

  Preach and me flew home. The band voted. Tim stood down, because he was my oldest friend, but he knew Preach was the one who should go. Not for me, for Mom and the girls.

  We didn’t make dick and every penny we could, we set aside ’cause Tommy played it that way.

  He wanted us in a studio. He wanted us to cut a demo. Studio time cost a fortune.

  He was getting us more money and sometimes managed to get us takes of the door. That was part that Tommy was a man it was hard to say no to and part that we were getting a following.

  Seriously.

  Sometimes, we’d play “Give Then Take” and people would sing it with us, not that first record pressed, not a joke.

  Tommy found the cheapest seats he could get, and I’ll always owe it to the boys that they let us have the money so we could fly home for Dad’s funeral.

  Preach was the rock, you know? Not just for me. For Mom. Penny. My baby sister, Lana.

  He did dishes, man.

  [Leans forward, shaking head then hangs it]

  [Mumbling] He did everything.

  [Long silence]

  [Coughs, lifts head, but does not sit back]

  He slept on the floor by my bed in my old bedroom. Mom hadn’t moved anything out. We didn’t have a guest room. He didn’t sleep on the couch. He slept on a sleeping bag on the floor by my bed the whole week we were there.

  One of those nights, that was when he told me.

  Told me how he knew his version of giving then taking and how fuckin’ serious-ass ugly that shit was.

  Told me about his parents.

  About why he was not in Louisiana but in Indiana and, “We’ll tour one day, brother. But we will not go down there. We will never go down there.”

  New Orleans is a party town and it’s a fantastic place. I’ve been there more than once.

  But we never played there.

  Not once.

  He didn’t tell me that to lay a heavy vibe on me.

  He told me that so I could rejoice even after my loss.

  Preacher had what he had.

  My dad cowed to my mom, hated doing it, didn’t hide it, didn’t stop doing it, ended up hating her for it.

  But in the end, she stood by his side and she took him to his treatments, and she held his hand when he slipped away and she wept at his funeral holding my hand and Lana’s hand, while me and Preach held onto Penny.

  And my dad loved me.
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  It was fucked up, but it was family.

  What Preach had was just fucked up.

  So, I got what he was saying.

  I felt what he was saying.

  Dad was gone and that sucked.

  But I’d had a dad like him.

  So, I was lucky.

  We went back to the band and it felt like I was seven hundred years older.

  And that much wiser too.

  That was when I noticed it.

  We were all ambitious.

  We all wanted to play stadiums.

  But none of us were as ambitious as Tommy.

  And Preacher.

  I didn’t think much on it, but after the funeral I did. I figured it out, because we had no money to make posters. We had no money to put ads in the papers of places where we’d play.

  I don’t know if he had some payout from the marines or if he’d been socking money away before he saw us play or what. I never asked.

  Tommy told you what Tommy thought you should know. We all learned that early, learned not to question it, learned to trust it.

  Trust him.

  But Tom Mancosa didn’t just manage the band.

  He invested in it.

  Me and one of the guys would be head to foot in the bed above the cab, sleepin’ off a gig, and the booze, weed and pussy after, and the other in the cab or off in some chick’s bed.

  And Preacher and Tommy would be at the table in that camper, heads bent over it, Tom going over his strategy, Preacher okaying it.

  Tom Mancosa faced making us the biggest rock band in history like he’d face going to war, ready and equipped to fight battle after battle until you won the whole fuckin’ thing.

  You know he’s almost as famous as we are.

  So, just sayin’.

  He was a great fuckin’ general.

  [Off tape]

  Isn’t this around the time the band took on Josh Hardy?

  Yup.

  And the famous Larry Bird speech?

  [Laughs for a long time]

  Yup.

  Josh was keys.

  He came to us.

  We did a tryout.

  He was good.

  Really good.

  Tommy hated him on sight and Preacher stared at him like he was a bug he was about to crush, so I don’t know why both of them voted him in, but they did.

  Looking back, I think it was because Preach’s music was transcending, you know? This is why we’d later take on DuShawn and his horn and piano and talent. Preacher needed more for us to play in a way it was worthy of the songs he was writing.

  We were never a four-man band when it came to Preacher’s music.

  Not really.

  We needed keys, piano, horns, backup singers.

  I honestly don’t think they thought Josh would last very long, but he was what we could get at the time and they wanted the band to be more. They wanted more for the music. They wanted more for the audience.

  And when the time came, they’d lose him and get someone who worked.

  But Josh worked, at the time.

  Dave had crazy-ass, curly hair and ended up tearing off his tee when he was playing ’cause he was sweating so bad. Short. Burly. Hairy.

  Preacher had that long, layered look and a beard. John Bonham, Bob Seger, you know, staying true to the seventies because they were cool, and he hated the eighties shit that was happening, because it was not cool.

  When we played, he wore a button-down with the sleeves rolled up over his elbows.

  Or a short-sleeved Henley with the sleeves rolled up to his shoulders.

  Or tight tees that made his chest look like a wall.

  Timmy looked like a clean-cut surfer. A month rolled ’round, Tim didn’t miss hitting a barber no matter where we were so he could get a cleanup. Always wore concert tees for other people’s bands. Kiss. Van Halen. Drove Tom insane that Timmy was advertising other bands while playing in ours.

  [Laughs]

  Preacher was my spirit animal.

  [Laughs again]

  So, I had the thick, seventies mustache and long hair and scoured vintage shops for cool T-shirts like he sometimes wore, but I switched ’em up, wearing a vest over them and lots of necklaces.

  [Laughs again]

  Also started doing his Rocky workouts, pushups, pull ups, sit ups with something heavy on my chest.

  Smoke a cigarette and then go on a five-mile run.

  [More laughter]

  Play bass in a rock band, get chicks.

  Play bass in a rock band and have a good body.

  Get more chicks.

  What can I say?

  I was nineteen, man.

  [More laughter]

  Josh rounded shit up, feathered hair on top, long on the bottom, not a mullet, but cut the sides, and there you have it. Wore a rolled bandana around his forehead even when he wasn’t playing, which was douchy, even then. Always in a shirt with the sleeves cut off and unbuttoned down the front to wherever.

  At first, I thought it was just that we’d gone through a lot together, on the road, and before, with Nicky and Ricky and Penny and my dad dying.

  I thought this was why Josh didn’t fit in.

  In the end, it came clear Josh didn’t fit in because he was an asshole.

  Josh came on board, we’d hit a town, and Tom would find us rehearsal space.

  It might have no heat, but it’d have electricity.

  And he was a drill sergeant about that shit, sister.

  Even Preacher would bitch about it.

  We were getting more gigs, thanks to Tom, for sure. Always Friday and Saturday nights. Bars’d get bands in for live music nights to pull people in during the week, we got a lot of those too.

  If you don’t do it, you think it’s easy, standing up there, three, four hours a night, playing sets.

  But it’s work. It’s physical.

  After getting loose and laid after a gig, we didn’t want to eat breakfast and haul our asses to a warehouse or someone’s basement or whatever and practice for four, five hours.

  [Off tape]

  This is the Larry Bird speech.

  Yeah.

  ’Cause we were about to hit Indy for some gigs and I hadn’t been back since my dad died and I was tweaking. Preach had his eye on me, and straight up, we’d been at it, no breaks, except for a funeral, for over a year.

  Lotsa road. Setting up. Tearing down. Booze. Women. Drugs. Brawls.

  So, I guess Tommy had enough of us moaning, and he says, “You know, Larry Bird went out and shot hoops for hours every night as a kid.”

  We all knew who Larry Bird was, but we had no idea why Tommy was talking about him.

  “Every fuckin’ night, he’s out there for hours, throwing a ball at a basket,” he says. “Night after night. Now, the guy is tall. The guy’s got talent. He could get on a high school team and be a star just bein’ nearly seven foot. He could get on a college team mostly for the same reason. But this tall, white guy isn’t gonna be shit beyond that, unless he practices.”

  We got in then.

  [Chuckles]

  “Man’s poor as dirt,” Tommy tells us. “He doesn’t wanna be poor and live in a tiny town in southern Indiana the rest of his life. Doesn’t want his momma poor for the rest of hers. What’s he gonna do about that?” Tommy asks. “He’s got two things. The guy is nearly seven feet tall and he can handle a ball. That’s what he’s gonna do about it.”

  [Smiles]

  Then he says, “You can have talent. And honest as fuck, you don’t need it. Half the people who are rich and famous are famous ’cause they’re pretty. Probably dumb as rocks, half of ’em. Most of ’em would work at McDonald’s if they didn’t have a killer smile. That sucks, but it’s the way of the world.”

  And you know, he was right about that.

  “You can have passion,” he says. “And you need it, ’cause this shit is hard work, and if you don’t got the fire for it, you’re gonna fail.”

  G
otta say, Tom was right about that too.

  But Tommy was right about a lot of things.

  “But you want respect,” he says, “you gotta be good at what you do, and to be good at what you do, you gotta practice, you gotta go at it hard, and gotta do it a lot. No one who’s got talent, money and respect gets it pissin’ about and givin’ thirty percent. They earn it because they give it their all.”

  [Lengthy pause]

  “Now,” Tommy said, “you gotta make your minds up. You gonna get a little because you’re all pretty and you can play in a rock band? Or are you gonna earn it all?”

  [Slouches in seat]

  Yeah.

  That was the Larry Bird speech.

  To this day, I have no clue if Larry Bird actually went out and practiced like that when he was a kid.

  But it doesn’t matter.

  No one bitched after that.

  And we had a good number of gigs.

  But we practiced.

  All the fuckin’ time.

  Jesse:

  They’d tease him, in the beginning, you know?

  [Long pause]

  [Off tape]

  No, I don’t know.

  Her name was Lyla. Dave and even Tim would tease him.

  Lyla. Layla.

  Get it?

  [Another long pause]

  They learned not to tease him, though.

  I didn’t understand. Not in the beginning.

  She was…

  [Lengthy pause]

  Not his scene.

  Straight up, he didn’t seem to be hers, either.

  Nothing seemed to be her scene.

  We hooked up with her and her friends at the bar where we’d played, and she was not into it.

  I mean, her friends and her, chalk and freakin’ cheese.

  Serious.

  She wasn’t into the bar, the music, the band.

  Tight with her friends, you could tell, but us and everything around us?

  Nope.

  She didn’t even dress like them. Like a rocker-groupie girl.

  She didn’t even dress eighties, Madonna teased out hair and rubber bracelets and lotsa lace. Or neon. Or whatever the fuck.

  No, you know, that isn’t right.