Before the Flock Read online

  Horton Bay Books

  Copyright © 2014 by David Winston Inglish

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 061579081X

  ISBN-13: 978-0615790817

  What follows is fiction. All persons and events are fictitious. None of this ever happened. None of these people ever lived, except the famous ones and their names and likenesses are used in a purely fictitious manner. Despite any and all reports to the contrary, over and against anything you may see on YouTube, notwithstanding any coincidental similarities to real life events, none of this story is real. This is fiction.

  To the deceitful, the arrogant, the humorless, the peddlers of flesh and fancy.

  To the dancers, the drinkers, the revelers, the people who carry gear, jam in basements, and play at parties. To waitresses who smile and sway to the music. To soundmen who give more vocal in monitors. To tributes, covers and originals. To the dirty folks who get clean. To my friends, and teachers at NYU. To my editors David Hough and Jay Schaefer. To my wonderful wife and family. To The Great Mystery and my friends who help me seek It.

  Prologue: Eric the Longhair’s Note

  PART ONE

  Fortune Favors the Bold

  Big Girls (Part I)

  Reunited

  Big Girls (Part II)

  Kick Out the Jams

  Shake Your Love

  Round and Round

  Cruel Summer

  The Passenger

  Girls Just Want to Have Fun

  Youthquaker

  Hot Child In The City

  Ivo

  Kiss Me Deadly

  Please Listen to My Demo

  Father Figure

  Wasteland

  Nänce’s Pänts

  Girl from the North Country

  Time Waits for No One

  Conflict

  Girls on Film

  The First Lingerie Gig

  What’s Inside a Girl?

  Low People in High Places

  The Second Lingerie Gig

  Fatherly Advice

  Loading Out

  The Third Gig

  After the Show

  Seeing Stars

  The Wooden Stake

  The Ten-Year Deal

  PART TWO

  Quit Your Day Job

  Let’s Get Professional

  Jam with the Man

  Mo’ Money

  Mele Kalikimaka

  Kill Gilligan

  The Starlet

  High Rent

  The Fight of the Century

  Downstairs

  Urinating with the Stars

  In the Studio

  Dead Weight

  Upgrade

  I Want Candy

  Wheat from Chaff

  Sven Lays It Down

  A House of Guitars

  She Sells Sanctuary

  How Soon Is Now

  Changes

  Jealous Guy

  Don’t Worry Be Happy

  Nightclubbing

  The Hammer of Witches

  How DCA Says Merry Christmas

  New Year’s Eve

  The Pen and the Sword

  Uncontrollable Urge

  When the Whip Comes Down

  Brass in Pocket

  The New DCA

  Planet of the Apes

  The Happy Pill

  March

  Elsewhere in the World

  April

  Working the Phones for God

  Man versus Machine

  PART THREE

  White Light White Heat

  Later

  Backyard Parties

  Swear to Tell the Whole Truth

  Casting Call

  Album Oriented

  Felder Gets Dope

  More Than This

  The Album-Release Party

  Aisle, Alter, Him

  Three Minutes and Forty Seconds

  The Thrill of It All

  Disappearing Act

  The Book

  Between the Bars

  Southbound

  Presidio Park

  Welcome to the Club

  The In-Laws

  Golden-Eared Arty

  Split Personality

  In the Morning

  Fifteen Fucking Years

  The Return of Lunky the Loyal

  Idle Hands

  Never Been to Spain

  Welcome to Mexico

  Return to Glory

  Battle of the Bands

  The Cavalry Gets Lost

  The Family Man Cleans

  His Gun

  EPILOGUE

  It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll

  (But I Like It)

  I’m Eric Adams, nine. I pull the vinyl from the sleeve and put the KISS Alive II disc on my turntable. Before the first chunky power chord I can hear it all: the sound of electric air, anticipation, gunpowder, the sound of a gong as denim brushes against it. The hair on my arm stands up, saliva fills my cheeks, and I blush. This thought invades my head: I’m gonna start a band, play in front of packed houses, be wanted by women and respected by men. I get a drum set and pound away.

  I’m ten, alone in the basement with the headphones on. I am ready, the kid the Stones are going to grab at the last minute to replace Charlie Watts when he’s puking his guts out from food poisoning.

  I’m sixteen. Jamming UFO tunes in a friend’s basement seems insular. Plus, the dedicated drummers have already passed me. I need another angle, the rock life maybe. A nice car, a mayonnaise jar full of coke and one co-ed in particular are my goals. I never make it. I snort half-vials, crash cars, lose my license months after I get it. The girl tells everyone I am a joke. Dangle in the wind for a while, then, I clean up.

  I’m eighteen and the desire to rock rises up in me yet again. The ’80s are happening, and bands like A Flock of Seagulls and the Psychedelic Furs make me think that the keyboards are the place to be. I buy a Korg and try to remember my piano lessons from childhood.

  I’m twenty-three. I sit with my bros in a skyscraper inking a deal that is going to make us rock stars. I’ve figured it out: The trick to flying is don’t look down.

  “‘Til there was rock, you only had God.”

  —David Bowie

  When Kurt’s father, Wayne, shows up in town from the desert for one night, Kurt is determined to share the miracle. Kurt calls the booker at the Spirit and says, “My band needs to play tonight.”

  “We’re all booked up. How about a week from Tuesday.”

  “This is an emergency. It’s gotta be tonight.”

  “Sorry. I got nothing.”

  Kurt phones EJ the drummer, Gary the bass player, and Dickey the guitar player and tells them all: “Be there. We’re playing the Spirit. Tonight.”

  Dickey is of little faith. “C’mon, Kurt. Is this gig for real?”

  “Just be there.”

  “Dad, we’re playing tonight at the Spirit. I want you to come,” Kurt says on the phone.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah, my band’s getting good.”

  “You still play that rock and roll?”

  “New Romantic. You should give it a chance.”

  “Why?”

  “On this one song, during the solo, I flip from a major progression to the Mixolydian minor. It’s heavy,” Kurt says.

  “Ooh, a key change. They’ve been doing that for, uh, what, three hundred years?”

  “The whole show is different now. I’m different now. I’m off the drugs.”

  “We call them meds, Kurt. Those of us who still take them.”

  “I don’t need them.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “I was dead.”

  “You were stable.”

  “Just come to the show.”
>
  “I’ll try.”

  The miracle happened a month ago. Kurt Franklin was alone. His wife, Priscilla, didn’t have the heart to divorce him, didn’t have any desire to live with him. She was at her mother’s house in El Cajon. Pastor Ron had told Kurt the day that he married them on the beach, “The closer you get to God the harder the devil is going to fight to get into your life.”

  Kurt knew the devil, didn’t like him, wished he’d quit talking shit in his ear, but this, breaking up his marriage, was too much. She just left. Then, she came back, with her mom, for her stuff but didn’t say anything. Brown cardboard boxes were filled with plastic containers and Ziploc bags. Her mom did the talking. “Priscilla needs some time to think.”

  It was all a blur, the loneliness, the failure, the Mellaril. Other kids had gone to college. Kurt Franklin had gone on meds. Kurt should’ve never told that shrink at the high school that the devil tried to tell him what to do, as far as Kurt was concerned it wasn’t a problem—he didn’t listen. Nevertheless, he should’ve stuck with Pastor Ron. Pastor Ron understood.

  The shrink wasn’t all bad. She got Kurt on psychiatric disability, the “crazy checks” as Kurt called them. But that Mellaril, it was a thought suppressant, like earmuffs that you wore on the inside. Kurt felt like it partitioned his brain. When he was in the kitchen he couldn’t hear the howling in the basement. On the good days he felt like Winnie the Pooh in a half-shirt. On the bad days he felt like Bela Lugosi in a bloodless world. Life was simple. He played his guitar, sang, and watched reruns of CHiPs There was something soothing in the repetition. Ponch and John, they always got the bad guy the third time. Kurt could count on that.

  He was well groomed, better than well groomed. He combed his hair for hours at a time. When he got hungry he walked down to the 7-Eleven for a microwave burrito and a pack of smokes. The clerk always shorted the change, but Kurt was too wracked with fear to say a word. Time to comb the hair.

  The miracle began in the mirror. During an epic comb down session, Kurt noticed that there was another version of him in the mirror, the Malibu version. The other person shared Kurt’s deep-set yet sensitive eyes, slightly turned up on the corners, but instead of the curly brown hair, the hair that was the bane of his existence, the hair that necessitated gel and comb for hours at a time, the other Kurt had long straight blonde hair and Buddy Holly style glasses.

  “Hey!” the other Kurt said.

  “James? Bro?” Kurt asked as the pieces drifted together. “Is that you? How did you get in my mirror?”

  “I’m over here.” James Franklin reached out and touched Kurt on the shoulder.

  Kurt turned away from the mirror, in his brother’s direction, and said, “Oh, that’s how.”

  “How long?” James asked.

  “What?”

  “How long have you been here combing your hair? Staring at yourself in the mirror, how long?”

  “I don’t do that.” Kurt put the comb on the counter, parallel to the toothbrush, to the left of the folded towel.

  James’s eyes became glossy behind his glasses. “Look, man, look at yourself.”

  “What do you think I’m doing in here?”

  “No, man, look. You’re a zombie.”

  “I’m a musician.”

  “No more pills.”

  “You don’t understand. The State of California pays me to take those pills. I’ll show you the check. That’s what the doctor said. I’m doing my part for a better—”

  “Kurt, look, God got me off blow and weed and windowpane, I won a contest in Laguna, everything’s really good for me right now—and it’s because I quit drugs.”

  Kurt refolded the towel and set it back next to the comb. “Me too. I’m stoked.”

  “What about Priscilla? Do you want your wife to come back?”

  “Why do you have to bring that up?”

  “If you quit drugs, maybe…”

  Kurt turned to the mirror. He saw the hair, that one hair, sticking up. He reached for the comb.

  James grabbed his hand. “No!”

  Kurt started to cry. “Don’t take that away from me.”

  James changed his tack. “Do you believe in God?”

  “Fully,” Kurt said.

  “Then you know He can do anything.”

  “Yeah?”

  James put the bottle in Kurt’s hand and said, “Get on your knees and ask Him to get you off these drugs.”

  Kurt took the Mellaril, struggled with the safety cap, looked in at them all huddled together, held them above his head and poured them into the toilet. They bobbed in the water helplessly. He pushed the lever, and they began to spin around the edges. They gathered in the middle, screaming, and disappeared.

  On his knees Kurt prayed: “Dear Lord, if You get me clean, everything I do will be for You. Every song I sing, every show I play.”

  For three weeks Kurt didn’t sleep. By day he pounded nails. By night he sang in an empty parking garage. Love songs echoed underground.

  He felt the ocean on his skin, saw his friends in the line-up, felt the power of a wave. In the evening the low sun illuminated the blue-green walls of water. He crouched in the face, front-side or switch-foot, surfing.

  Kurt was alive.

  Eighteen pounds disappeared. Everything white and pasty about Kurt sloughed away. Suddenly he was tan and muscular. The girls smiled at him. And on the inside, he wasn’t afraid anymore, not even of the devil.

  “You aren’t playing here tonight” are the first words Kurt says to the lead singer of the other band when he shows up at the Spirit. The guy has long hair dyed black, pale skin, and a black leather jacket. Kurt knows it’s a costume.

  “There must be some kind of mistake,” the singer says. “It’s Friday, right?”

  “No mistake. You can’t play. Sorry.”

  “Do you work here?” he asks.

  “No.”

  The poser longhair laughs. “Then who do you think you are?”

  “Look. My band is playing here tonight. You can’t play. I need your slot.”

  The singer isn’t alone anymore. Two bandmates stand behind him. One twirls drumsticks.

  “Hey, buddy, I don’t know who you think you are. We made flyers. Do you get it?” the drummer says.

  “Let’s go,” Kurt says, and puts up his fists.

  “What are you doing, man?” asks the poser longhair.

  “C’mon, you guys think you’re gonna play here. There’s the stage. I’m alone. Come and take it.” Kurt stands with his heels against the painted particleboard.

  “Are you fucking crazy?”

  Kurt smiles. “Not anymore.”

  “Get out of my face…”

  “C’mon!” Kurt lunges forward. “I’m ready to fight for my band! How ‘bout you?”

  The poser longhair looks at the stage. It is beaten and used, barely two feet above the dance floor. The whole place reeks of beer and urine.

  “This is fucked man! You’re a fucking…”

  Kurt takes a quick step toward the guy. The poser takes two steps back. Kurt’s eyes are unforgiving. The veins in his neck bulge.

  “We’re never playing this place. Ever again,” the guy says.

  “Yeah, this is bogus! X-Ray is out of here!” adds the drummer, and they take their things and leave.

  When Dickey, Gary, and EJ show up, the bar is still empty. The soundman wears Carrera shades, a beret, and a baby-blue silk baseball jacket. He searches a clipboard in his hand. “What’s your band called?”

  “Thunderstick,” Kurt answers in the mic from the stage.

  “I don’t have you on here. Oh well. This has got to be quick and dirty. We got three bands tonight. X-Ray never showed, so I guess you guys go last.” The soundman notes four guys on the stage. “The usual? Two guitars, bass, and drums?”

  “Yeah. I play the acoustic on some songs. Telecaster on others.”

  “Just one thing. Keep the stage volume low. Let me knock their socks off with th
e house speaks.”

  “No problem.”

  “Do what I say, and I’ll make you sound like pros.”

  “Thanks, but we don’t need you for that.” Kurt looks slyly at Dickey.

  “Oh really?”

  “Yeah.” Kurt picks his guitar, banjo style, Deliverance.

  “If you guys are so great, what are you doing here?”

  “I was gonna ask you the same thing.”

  “Hey fuck you, buddy.”

  Kurt continues picking his guitar. He smiles coolly.

  “Can we just do the soundcheck?” EJ interjects. “We’re pros. You’re a pro. Let’s just be professionals here and do our job.” EJ is wearing a gray three-piece suit. He hasn’t changed after work. His face is round with narrow dark eyes.

  “Never fuck with the soundman. Have you ever heard that one before? If you guys think you’re ever going to make it in the biz, you should remember that. I’m the rule around here. It’s my way or the highway.”

  “Ten-four, good buddy,” Kurt says in a trucker’s CB voice, and smiles at Gary. Gary’s expression is as stiff as his gelled hair.

  By midnight, the Spirit is packed. The lights are low. The guys in the band change into their outfits. Gary wears a silver silk shirt with billowing sleeves. Dickey wears black jeans and a dynamite shirt. EJ has his black logger’s boots, they make him taller, and his black T-shirt for the guns. Kurt wears his maroon dinner jacket with the rounded lapel, black slacks, and pointy, ankle-high Beatle boots.

  When Kurt sees Wayne in the back in a brown cardigan sweater, he gives the signal to Dickey, who then picks the intro to “Sweetly She Talks So” with flawless rhythmic precision, the notes bouncing off one another and floating down from the rafters. EJ taps out a four-count and the band comes in together; blue light splashes the stage. Kurt feels the music like he hasn’t felt it in years. Every part of his body is energized. He is barely on the stage. His right arm strums time, and the rest of him quivers. EJ is the backbone. His groove is a pocket in which the music rocks back and forth.

  The song list is written in block letters down by Kurt’s effects pedals. “Sweetly She Talks So.” “Alone, Alone.” “Kick It Clean.” He wrote them all in the last few weeks. The dinner jacket comes off during “Alone, Alone.” The Truth is on Kurt. He moves like a fish.

  At the end of “Kick It Clean,” he lights a smoke with his Zippo and speaks into the PA. “Can I get a little more vocal in the monitors?” Smoke rises from Kurt’s mouth in the spotlight.