Road Rash (11 page)

Except now the smile was gone. She was sitting there staring at me, toying with an earring, when she announced from across the table, “Man, you sure do look sexy first thing in the morning.…”

The whole table suddenly went silent. Whoa. What do you say to that? Talk about feeling like a little brother—I could actually feel myself start to blush. Then she slowly continued, totally serious, like she was mesmerized or something. “Especially with that mustache.
Yum …
”

What the …?

Jamie joined in. “No kidding. But what really does it for me is the beard—
totally
hot.…”

Huh? “I don’t have a—” Suddenly I got up and went into the restroom and looked in the mirror.

Someone had taken a big felt-tip marker and drawn a large bandito-style mustache on me while I’d slept, complete with curlicues on the ends. And a pointy black beard. Give me a big hat with a plume in it and a sword and I’d be one of the Three freakin’ Musketeers.

Okay, I laughed a little. Until I went to wash it off. It must have been a permanent marker, because soap and water didn’t budge it. Not one bit.

I went back to the table to congratulate them. But they were gone. All that was left was the check. And a note next to it, with each line in different handwriting …

There was a horn blaring outside. I looked out the window—they were heading out of the parking lot, windows down, arms waving, honking, hooting, and hollering. I glanced at the check. Fifty-two bucks. Damn! I threw three twenties on the table and ran out the door. Even then I had to chase them halfway down the block before they pulled over, but when they finally let me in, there were hugs and grins all around.

I guess I was in the band.…

We found our first club right after lunch. Hard to miss a place called the Dog & Pony when there’s a huge neon sign out front showing, well … a dog and a pony. We pulled around the back and Brad and Jamie went inside to check it out while the rest of us started unloading gear from the rear of the Bad-Mobile.

That’s one thing I like about this band—everyone works until everything’s done. None of this
Well, I’ve got my harmonica
packed, so good luck with those drums
crap. We had most of the stuff staged in the parking lot and I’d just picked up a PA cabinet when Brad came back out. “Well, you can put that back in the bus,” he said to me.

Suddenly I had visions of the gig being cancelled at the last minute, or maybe the agent had given us the wrong date? Then Glenn spoke up. “House system?”

“Yup,” Brad said. “And it’s sweet.”

Glenn and Danny bumped fists. “Yes!”

So we loaded the PA back into the motor home and carried the drums and guitar amps inside.
Whoa
 … Brad wasn’t kidding. The place had a great sound system—speaker cabinets flown overhead, dual subs on either side of the stage, monitor wedges for everyone plus side fills, the works. The stage was wide and deep and raised three feet off the floor, with light trees on either side. It was a nicer setup than anywhere
I’d
ever played before.

I was still staring like a wide-eyed tourist when a big guy walked up to us, wiping his hands on a bar towel draped over his shoulder. “You guys the band?” Then he laughed like he’d just told a hilarious joke. “Duh, huh?” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Jake, the owner.” We all shook hands. He reminded me of Chris from the yard-supply place, at least in appearance, but personality-wise he turned out to be the anti-Chris.

He motioned us over to a table near the bar. “Have a seat—you guys came a long ways. California, right?” We nodded. He spoke to one of the waitresses. “Hey, Rachel, can you get these guys whatever they want? Thanks.”

So we sat around and had cokes—well, Brad asked for a
Corona and they served him, no questions—while Jake gave us the scoop on the gig, explaining about times and breaks and stuff.

“And the rooms are upstairs,” he continued. “There are three of them—that enough?” We all nodded. After sleeping on the floor of the motor home I would have been thrilled with an old couch in a back corner of the bar.

“Good,” he said. “What else …? Oh yeah—food. We’ll comp dinner for you every night while you’re working here. Just tell your waitress you’re in the band and it’ll be taken care of. After the first day you’ll know each other anyways—they’re all real friendly.”

Jamie leaned her head sideways and batted her lashes at him. “Can’t we just stay here and be your house band all summer?” she asked. We all laughed.

“Hey, gotta take care of the band—that’s what brings in the people, right?”

“I wish all club owners felt that way,” Glenn said. “Some of them treat a touring band like they’re a bunch of escapees from a carnival.”

Jake grinned. “Well, some of them
are
. But you can smell those guys coming a mile away, and we try not to book them here.”

He glanced at his watch. “It’s been nice meeting you all, but I’d better get back to work or the girls’ll accuse me of slacking. You need anything, you let ol’ Jake know. I’m sure you guys’ll do great—Corey said you were top-notch people.” He got up and headed back into the restaurant area.

That last comment was interesting. The guys had told me
about Corey—he was our rep at the agency in Spokane, and he’d booked us for the summer based on a YouTube demo and a photo the band had sent him a few months ago. He’d never heard Bad Habit in person … or even
met
them, for that matter—it’d been all emails and phone calls. I mentioned this and Danny just clinked his glass on mine. “Welcome to the music biz.”

“But on the other hand, occasionally you run into someone like Jake,” Glenn said. He looked at Brad. “What did you think of him?”

He shrugged. “He seems like a nice guy.”

“I agree. So I think the least we can do is not drink in his place if we’re not legal. If he finds out we’re drinking underage in here, he’s probably not going to be thrilled, and it’s a huge bust for him if we’re caught.”

Made sense to me, but apparently Brad didn’t see it that way.

“How’s he gonna find out—you gonna tell him or something?”

Glenn shook his head. “ ’Course not. That’s not the issue.”

“Look, just because you’re a couple years older than me doesn’t mean you can treat me like I’m your ‘little bro,’ too.”

“Dude, you’re missing the point,” Glenn replied. “I don’t give a damn what you do on your own. You want some beer, go down the street and drink all you want, if they’ll serve you. And if they won’t, I’ll buy you a sixer at the store and you can take it up to your room. I just don’t want to cause any problems for the clubs we play in.” He looked at Brad. “Okay?”

Brad didn’t answer right away. Finally, he stood. “Yeah, sounds good.” He tilted his head toward the door. “I could use a break—I’m going to walk around for a while.”

Glenn just shrugged without saying anything, and Brad left. I sat there, not really sure what to think. It was weird, like your parents fighting right in front of you or something.

Jamie looked at Amber. “So, do you feel like putting our stuff away and maybe looking around a little bit?” Amber nodded, and they left, too.

“So, what was
that
all about? I mean, the whole Glenn-and-Brad thing?” We’d finished doing a sound check—well, at least as much as we could without our singer and keyboard player—and Danny and I were sitting at the bar having cokes while Glenn was up on the stage, putting new strings on his guitar.

“Don’t sweat it—it’s just their way of sorting things out.”

“Uh, I didn’t see much sorting going on.”

“Yeah, I know. But I think it’s that old singer-guitarist creative-tension thing. Nothing to worry about.”

“Oh yeah,” I said. “Like Axl and Slash?” Okay, that was kind of a cheap shot.…

“Well, let’s hope not.” He laughed, then paused for a minute. “Politics are everywhere, bro. No exceptions.”

“You sound like my dad.”

He grinned. “See? The old man ain’t so dumb after all.”

It occurred to me that being in a working band is a strange gig in itself. It’s like a big family vacation where some of the people are opinionated about what to do and others are happy to go along for the ride. But it’s also a business, and you’re all in it together. Some bands are democracies, and others have one
guy that runs the show. I suppose either one can work, but when you blur the lines …

“So, what
are
the politics of this particular ecosystem?” I asked.

“Well, it’s a little complicated. GT’s like the musical director of the band. But Brad is sort of the manager.”

“I’d figured Glenn was the ringleader, period.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I can see where you might think that. But the band actually started as a duo, with Brad and Jamie doing coffeehouses and stuff. Then I joined and we got some guy on drums and started gigging as a band. But the drummer was sort of whatever, so we got Nate and we rocked a lot harder—we were pretty good. But Brad was never a wizard on guitar and he wanted to focus more on singing, so we scrounged around for another guitar player.”

“And you got Glenn?”

“Well, we had to go through a few other guys on the way. But when GT joined, all of a sudden we were at the next level.”

“Yeah, he’s a smoking player.”

“No doubt. But he also knows arrangements, he knows about running sound, he’s been on the road … The dude has been around.”

“But it was Brad’s band,” I added.

“And in theory, it still is. But in reality, it’s not so clear-cut anymore.”

Just then Brad walked in the front door. He went up to the stage and said a few words to Glenn, then they hugged and laughed.

A few minutes later Jamie and Amber came in. Jamie went
over to Brad and Glenn and talked for a minute, then came back to where we were sitting.

As she approached, Danny spoke up. “We all good?”

She nodded. “We’re golden. I think Brad just needed to blow off some steam.”

“Cool.”

She turned to me and winked. “Nice ’stash. You gonna keep that as a permanent fixture?”

“Yeah, why not? I think it adds to my stage presence.” Actually, I’d decided to just stop shaving until it wore off. “In fact, I was toying with hanging a sign around my neck saying
FREE RIDES
, since you and Amber seem to think the look is so hot. Think I’ll get any takers?”

“Sure.” She laughed. “Sooner or later some old barfly who’s half blind and hammered out of her mind is bound to take you up on it.”

“Ouch!”

Brad joined us. He seemed to be in a much better mood. “What’s so funny?”

“Jamie’s giving me romantic advice,” I said.

He snickered and shook his head. “Talk about the blind leading the blind …” She slugged him in the arm. “Ouch!”

Danny pointed to me. “That’s what
he
said.”

“So if you guys are ready to quit goofing around,” Jamie said, “maybe one of these days we could actually, like … play some
music
?”

“Sounds good,” Danny said.

“Yeah,” Brad said. “And thanks for setting up, guys. I owe you.”

We all got up, and as Brad and Jamie made their way to the stage ahead of us, Danny turned to me. “See? No worries …”

The full-band sound check went surprisingly well, considering. These guys were all business when it came to the music. After that we got our personal stuff out of the motor home and went up to our rooms.

I hadn’t really thought about it, but I guess I’d figured I’d end up rooming with Danny. After all, we had that whole bass ’n’ drums thing going, and we seemed to get along pretty well. But when I got upstairs, I saw that Brad and Danny had one of the rooms and the girls were in another, so that left me and Glenn. Which made sense once I thought about it. I mean, I suppose a little of that “creative tension” stuff was cool, but putting Brad and Glenn in the same room? Why push your luck.…

Anyway, I threw my duffel on one of the beds and grabbed some stuff out of it, then took a shower. When I came out, Glenn was sitting on the other bed playing his guitar through a little practice amp. He had this killer riff going—it was basically a driving 4/4 rhythm part, but it had this cool little melodic twist after each line that made it really interesting. I could hear a syncopated drum part in my head that could fit it real well. It sounded like some tune off the radio, only I couldn’t recognize it.