Demonologist (2 page)

Sixteen miles away, the L.A. Forum was packed full of screaming teens. There were even some folks in their twenties and thirties who hadn’t yet found the desire to grow up. The rafters shook. Spotlights swirled crazily from eight uppermost points, smoke spiraling lazily in their beams. For over two hours,
Bevant
Mathers
performed his heart and soul out. It was homecoming of sorts; the local boy’s second CD
Beneath
had gone platinum, thanks to the number one single, “Blush”, which still rode the top twenty-five on the
Billboard
charts after eighteen weeks. He’d toured America for nine months and returned home to the wanton screams of fans his daughter’s age. What a rush.

On this evening, Friday, November 8th, Bev rocked the Forum with nearly every original song in his repertoire, plus a few covers thrown in as surprises, like the Floyd and Zeppelin numbers he’d played night after night in the clubs for over twenty years. Bev waited in the hallway leading from the stage, soaking in sweat and the unrelenting roar of the crowd who waited in hope for one more encore. He’d had one more for them too, a cover of
Marillion’s
“
Kayleigh
”, a lighter song that was written and recorded back when most of these concertgoers were still in diapers. A perfect end, he felt, to a perfect night.

Surrounded by his band, he went back onstage to the frenzied delight of the crowd, the wavering spots focusing on his brazen presence. He thanked them all for coming, then launched into the song with no introduction. He sang Derek Dick’s lyric perfectly. It rang true throughout the hall:

Do you remember, you never understood I had to go.

By the way, didn’t I break your heart?

Please excuse me, I never meant to break your heart
.

At some point after the second verse, during the guitar solo, he felt funny. The music sounded suddenly muffled, the beat of the drums offset, the instrumental pieces falling away from one another, creating a dissonance in his mind. After his guitar lead, he sang the third verse, feeling terribly distant from the music—in over twenty years of playing live, he’d never experienced anything quite like this. It felt as though the music was trying to separate itself from him. He couldn’t concentrate. He stepped back from the microphone. The third and final chorus would go unsung, he decided, but then again, did anyone in the crowd really know how the song was supposed to be played? The song finally ended. He waved to the delirious crowd and said “good night”, then walked off the stage.

Like magic, the house lights came up. The crowd stopped screaming and started dissipating. Now they would all have to take their fading buzzes back home and lay in the quiet darkness of their bedrooms listening to their ears ring.

He paced down the hall, shrugging off the looming music reporters with a sidelong smile. Bev and the four musicians in his band waved a few times then closed out the imposing world behind the safeguarded door of their dressing room. Not that it was any less crowded here: family members and friends and music execs awaited.

Slyly, Bev skirted the crowd and padded down a short hall into the bathroom. He shut the door behind him, muting the noise; he could hear the familiar thump of “Blush” surging from stereo speakers. Taking a deep breath, he ran the water and splashed it onto his face, then looked at the tired man the mirror.
Man, what just happened out there?
He had no guess. But indeed, it was still happening. He felt a vibration in his head, as though someone was running a fingernail across the inside of his skull. The bathroom took on an oblong shape. His stomach twisted and he felt suddenly nauseous. He’d never felt so...so
vague
. He gripped the porcelain sides of the sink and held on.
I’m getting too old for this. Man, why did I have to break out at such a late age?

He thought of Kristin, his daughter, who was here somewhere. His twenty-one-year-old was probably mixing it up with the celebs and reporters and drinking rum & Cokes. The tabloids had it right. Rock stars’ kids grew up fast.

He wiped his face with a paper towel, feeling instantly better now; only a ghostly echo of the sensation remained.
What was that? Felt like something crawled into my head. Better get out there and mingle
, he thought. Most of the people had come to see
him
.

He
banded
his shoulder-length hair into a ponytail, then exited the bathroom and moved into the crowded room. Feeling a bit tense, he attentively lobbed his glance around. All the people were caught up in conversation and alcohol and cigarettes, and more discreetly, cocaine. The bright lights from above cut into their wearied looks and ignited their bloodshot eyes. His drummer, Ian
Mosely
, talked to a male reporter but kept his gaze pinned on a young blonde who returned his attention with a coy, accepting smile. People milled about, laughing, chatting, shouting. There were girlfriends, cousins, neighbors, more girlfriends, and a few attractive wallflowers that’d used their assertive sexuality to coax their way backstage. These women, usually named Tiffany or Samantha, were present at every show, wearing outfits more suitable for pole-swinging at strip clubs. Like ferrets, they’d crane their necks seeking Bev, and upon finding him, would wander over and seductively offer their wares to him—sometimes two or three at a time.
God
. After nine months on the road, even that grew old, especially for a 43 year-old who could barely keep it up on a nightly basis.

Tonight, he just wanted to see Kristin. He searched the growing crowd.
Who are all these people?
He didn’t see her.

“Bev! Bev my
man
! Fucking brilliant, fucking brilliant!” His manager, Jake Ritchie, overweight and jovial, eyes glimmering with mischief, wrapped his pudgy arms around Bev’s body. For a moment Bev thought he’d suffocate, but Jake let go. Dark remnants of Bev’s sweat marred Jake’s blue silk shirt. “What a stellar performance!” he sputtered, breath reeking of vodka.

They were suddenly framed by the crowd, who’d taken apt notice of Bev’s presence. Adoring women ogled, even those with partners. A few cameras flashed, and a videographer zoomed in on him. Beyond, folks shouted their approval of tonight’s performance. No one seemed to have noticed his breakdown during the final encore; if they had, it wasn’t evident.

“Really, Bev, this was a magnificent end to the tour! Now...uh, not to mix business with pleasure, but I have to remind you that Epic wants you in the studio next week. I do hope you’ve written new material while on the road.”

“It’s all business, Jake.”

Bev liked Jake. He’d been there since the beginning, when Bev first started out in the clubs with the various incarnations of bands he played with. Jake had found success in his twenties after his first client
Lionheart
went into the top fifty with the single, “Back To The Light”. He’d managed them for six years. After their decline, he moved on, earning a number of bands varying degrees of success. Through it all, Jake had never stopped shopping Bev’s demos. Most that’d known Bev had written him off as a washed-up club musician. But Jake had seen the talent and drive in him, and shopped his demos unremittingly until Epic took a shot with his first CD,
Re-Birth
. It went gold, and laid out the red carpet for the platinum
Beneath
, and the top-ten “Blush”. Bev
Mathers
had finally become a star.

Jake fumbled for a cigarette in his shirt pocket, then a lighter. The act took him at least thirty seconds. “
So’d
you pen some killers, shithead?” Slovenly, and always in need of shave, Jake’s tendency for profanity was usually overlooked by his indelible grin. His everlasting consumption of alcohol loosened his tongue even further but also exacerbated his joviality. His waning lack of motor skills, that was another thing altogether.

“There’s a couple of real good ones.”

“A couple? A couple? Are they thirty minutes long?” He swayed like a
bouy
.

“More than a couple. A few.”

“Well I bloody well hope so. It’s expected of you.”

“Put the pressure on, why don’t you.”

“Like you said, it’s all business.” And it was. The music industry was like that. Give them an inch, they take a mile, and expect you to run it even faster, especially when you’ve tasted success. Unreasonable, but doable. The pressure would indeed be on for Bev.

“Right. You see Kristin anywhere?” Bev glanced around, feeling a bit odd again, his head itching on the inside.
Feels like a fingernail scratching my skull
. He waved to some familiar faces while Jake playfully called someone a
douchebag
, pudgy hands grabbing a beer from a waitresses’ tray.

Jake swilled the beer. Some spilled down his chin, adding to the assortment of dark splotches on his shirt. “
Naw
, ain’t seen the bitch anywhere!” He guffawed, then melted into the crowd, shouting
cuntlips
!
at Bev’s bassist, Pete Morse. Pete grinned uncomfortably. Bev chuckled then circumvented the room, looking for Kristin. He couldn’t travel two feet without being stopped.

While in conversation with
Rock Hard Magazine
publicist Rebecca
Haviland
, Bev shot a subtle glance across the room to a dark middle-aged man standing against the wall. Good looking. Chiseled features. Shadow of a beard. He had his hands behind his waist and stared at Bev, eyes contemplating him intensely. The man wasn’t at all familiar. Bev returned his attention to Rebecca. Smiled.

“
Douchebag
! There’s someone here you should meet.” Jake, of course.

Bev turned away from Rebecca, suddenly disengaged. “Excuse me,” he told her, grinning.

Jake brought over a thirtyish suit-wearing man with a grin as wide as city bus. “Let me introduce you to Bobby
SanSouci
.” Jake leaned over and whispered sour breath in Bev’s face, “He’s with Epic. They’re talking about renegotiating your contract for three more albums.” Jake grinned. Bev expected a canary’s feather to pop out of his mouth. “Eh? Eh? Can I work, or what?”

Bev smiled. This was good news. “Pleased to meet you, Bobby.”

Bobby kept on smiling, didn’t say word. Couldn’t really. Jake was all over it. “I’ve got his card, Bev. We’ll call on Monday and arrange a meeting. Sound good Bobby?”

Bobby nodded.

“Now go get laid. We’re not talking any more business tonight!” Jake winked at Bev, leaned over, whispered, “He’s a piece of fucking cake, Bev. You’re gonna be richer than richer!” Jake’s lips were wet with drool.

“Thank you,
douchebag
,” Bev said sarcastically, and again, Jake filtered into the crowd, cheeks glowing red, spewing more innocent abuse around. The man really enjoyed being outlandish. Knowing Jake for so long, Bev assumed it to be a way of compensating for a lack of self-esteem—toss his drinking into the mix, and you had a legendary case of low self-worth being masked by disposition. Just this last tour Jake had gone on a binge in Kansas City at Lou Piniella’s Restaurant & Bar and ended up trying to take on the entire Royals baseball team, calling them a bunch of ass-slapping faggots. Luckily, some of the road crew were there to bail Jake’s ass out before any real damage could occur.

“Bev?” Rebecca
Haviland
, still waiting. Smiling adoringly.

“Oh...I’m sorry,” he said, tossing a glance over to the spot where the dark man had stood. Gone. “Any chance we can do this another time? I haven’t seen my daughter in nine months, and she’s supposed to be here.”

She nodded, as though expecting him to shrug her off. “Call me on Monday. We’d like to get the story done for—”

“Daddy!”

She appeared from the crowd like an angel. She’d grown since the last time he saw her. Gone were the pudgy cheeks, the innocent eyes, even the dark freckles. Wow. His little girl had quickly turned into a woman, just like that. She ran to him and wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly. He kissed her soft cheek, just as he’d done a million times in the past, and even now, it felt no differently as it had when she was a baby.

They broke the clutch, holding hands. He stepped back to admire her. Five four. A hundred-fifteen pounds. Blonde hair, walnut eyes, a beautician’s makeover. She wore low-rise jeans and a tank top that revealed too much of her breasts. Suddenly, his admiration turned to offense. This was his daughter.