Chapter 5 Sunday, September 15

LEAVING PHOENIX FOR MONTREAL

Sunday, September 15

            Season drove me to the rehearsal hall the next morning, thrilled to death to be driving her new vehicle. I, on the other hand, was still brooding over having to leave. I was also recovering from smoking too much dope the night before. I may like being horny and drunk at the same time, but horny and stoned…that’s even better. Especially when it’s the last time you’re gonna be able to take adequate care of the horny part for a while. A week seemed like an eternity after the last few days.

            Sunglasses shading bloodshot eyes, hers as well as mine, I propped my elbow on the center console and squeezed my forehead. Season giggled.

            “Are you sure you’re okay?” She was more amused by the fact I was hungover rather than my distress over spending a week in a tour bus again.

            “I don’t want to do this,” I muttered again. She was right, my moping was not getting me anywhere.

            She took yet another deep breath and tried to be patient with me. The poor woman already knew she was going to go through years of this. “It’s not for long.”

            I sat up, pushing my sunglasses up onto my head, and looked out the window. A new tour bus, ten times more luxurious than the one we’d had last summer, was parked just a few yards away. Terry was waving at us, Randy was trying to load his guitars, Bryon was saying goodbye to Nita, and Steve was signing autographs for a rather large group of fans behind a makeshift barricade. Supposedly they were from the local fan club, and Barry was always trying to find ways for us to be “available” to them, putting the bug in their ear of where we might be in town. It was great to have loyal fans…but not today, when my heart was closing in on itself. I wanted this to be like last summer, with Season no more than a car length away, her dressing room just a few feet from my own, both of us passing each other as she came offstage and I went on. That was all over, until I could find some way for Barry to get us booked on the same bill again. Barry didn’t know if that would ever be possible, what with Rampage caught up in too many legal battles after what Perry did. They were still going to Japan in November, but were told to stand down until after Perry’s trial, and therefore were not able to open for us on these Canadian dates.

            The whole situation really, really, really bugged the shit out of me.

            I looked back at her, and it bugged me even more, because she had taken off her sunglasses and had that look in her eyes. Though being worshipped by thousands of adoring fans is a pretty cool deal, being worshipped by her is another thing entirely.

            “You look so good like that.” She was laughing, shaking her head.

            She referred to the sunglasses, pulling my hair away from my face and showing my sideburns. I didn’t see what the appeal was, but she really dug it.

            “You wanna lay the back seat down again?”

            “Don’t get any ideas,” she said. “You’re late already.” She pointed toward Barry, who was standing beside the entrance to the bus, staring at the Blazer and tapping on his watch.

            I muttered profanities and pulled my bag out of the back seat. “You ready for the fanfare?”

            She glanced over at the fan club as they oohed and aahed over the other band members. “I guess we’re the big news right now?”

            “Yeah, and you know how I love to make a grand entrance,” I said with sarcasm. “Let’s give the people what they want.”

            She replaced her shades, adjusted the really cool newsboy cap she was wearing, and we both stepped out the car.

            Suddenly, it was as if a riot had erupted. The guys’ heads turned, as the fan club crowd, a good fifty or sixty people, started shouting louder than they were before. Bryon returned to Nita’s side and Randy lit up another cigarette.

Terry shouted, “Yeah, here comes Beauty and the Beastie Boy!”

The only person who seemed disturbed by our appearance…was Steve, who stood up a little straighter in his snakeskin boots and jerked his nose into the air.

Gripping Season’s hand, I gave an acknowledging nod to the crowd, throwing a short wave into the air as they screamed our names over and over. Mickey, the band’s photographer, was snapping photos, as well as some stray paparazzi that had sneaked into the parking lot. 

Terry caught Season in a bear hug. “I’ll kidnap her, Jon, saying it was all my idea to bring her along. That way Barry won’t blame you.”

“Forget it,” she said, playfully pulling away from him. “I don’t wanna be on that nasty ol’ bus with you freaks anyway.”

“Oh, you know there’s only one real freak on our bus.” He nudged me. “Long Duck Dong motherfucker.”

I shoved him. “Shut up.”

He splayed his palms in the air in a pseudo-helpless gesture. “Touch-y!” He grinned at Season.  “You kick him out of bed this morning?”

“He’s stoned,” she whispered.

“I was stoned,” I said. “Now I’m just pissed off.”

Goodbyes were exchanged among the men and the only two women present. The others climbed on the bus, waving to the fans, Steve throwing an angry look at Season and me as we ended up being the last two to part. Amazingly, our final moment alone was not staged, as people might think it was. Barry stood close by, almost pleased it had worked out that way

I looked down at her for a long time, feeling we’d never have a private moment in our lives again. I didn’t want to be the exhibitionist then. I didn’t want everyone to watch me profess my love and kiss her like there was no tomorrow. I wanted it to just be us.

She took off her sunglasses again, and when I saw them, jade-green eyes I could drown in, I was that close to grabbing her hand and running back to the Blazer, Canadian rock fans be damned.

“I’ll miss you,” she said softly, almost reaching out to touch me but restraining herself, possibly feeling just as exposed as I.

I nodded slowly. They’d read my lips, zoom in their camera lenses…

Oh, what the fuck.

“I love you.” My mouth formed the words but no sound came out, not that it mattered.  

Season did the same. I heard some girls squealing.

I cupped my hand around the left side of her face, and kissed her slowly and deliberately, easing my tongue into her mouth, not really caring what anyone thought. This was my goodbye, and even if I had to do it in front of an audience, I was going to do it the way it needed to be done.

At least we were dressed.

My other hand gripping the strap of my bag, I pulled her to me, my arm around her shoulders. I ignored the roar behind us, as well as Barry’s impatient stare, enjoying her arms around my waist at last. I pressed my cheek into the top of her head, and then reluctantly stepped back, pulling my sunglasses back down over my eyes. Squeezing her hand one last time, I climbed onto the bus.

“Well, wasn’t that sweet?” Steve was stretched out in the back lounge, his feet propped up.

Randy hit him with a copy of Guitar magazine. “You’re just jealous, asshole.”

I didn’t comment, and sat down hard directly across from him. I was in no mood for his bullshit.

“Yeah, you know how hard it is trying to tear yourself away from such a prime piece of ass.” Terry plopped down beside me as the bus began to move forward. “You need some vitamin E?”

I scowled at him, then glanced behind me out the window. Season was still right outside, talking to Nita as they watched their significant others ride off into rock and roll oblivion. It would have done me no good to wave through the heavy-tinted glass. “No.”

He grimaced. “You were stoned,” he observed. “You look like you’ve got pinkeye.”

Somehow that comment hit me just right and I burst out laughing. “You suck,” I said.

“I think that’s someone else we know,” Bryon mused, lightheartedly. He already had the cap off a Lowenbrau. Waving Randy’s cigarette smoke out of his face, he took a swig and settled down next to Steve. “Y’know, you might be glad for the time away.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Fatherhood not what it’s cracked up to be already?”

He took a long swig out of the bottle. “I’m hoping there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.”

“Women,” Randy muttered, setting the heels of his ostrich skin boots on the table separating the couches. “I think you guys are missing the whole point of going on the road.”

Terry cocked his head side to side, sticking out his bottom lip. “I thought the whole point of going on the road was the women.”

“I think what our fine, young, guitar-slinging, pussy-marauding friend here is trying to say,” Bryon began, waving his bottle in the air like a conductor’s baton, “is that married men go on the road to get away from women, and single guys go to find women.”

“Don’t married men go to find women, too?” Terry asked, as if he were posing a serious discussion topic in a graduate-level philosophy class. “So they can keep things…fresh?” He poked me in the ribs, making me scoot away from him.

Bryon adopted the voice of Yoda. “True, this is, my young apprentice. Keeps in shape light saber dueling abilities.”

“Oh, here goes the sci-fi debate again.” Steve tucked a pillow behind his head. “Why don’t you guys grow up?”

“Why don’t you, pompous ass?” Randy said, taking a drag.

“I do on an hourly basis, jerkwad,” Steve retorted, grabbing his testicles.

Terry cackled and poked at me again. “So what? Your measly five inches can’t beat Jon’s eight!”

I slouched down in my seat.

“Talk about wielding your goddamned light saber,” Randy joked.

Steve just smirked. “Yeah, I got your light saber.” He put his arm over his eyes. “You morons.”

Randy started punching the toe of his boot into Steve’s ribs. “And how many Canadian girls have you done?”

“More than you have.” Steve pushed Randy’s toe away. “I wasn’t the only one who bagged a stripper in Vancouver.” He took the pillow out from under his head and chucked it at me. 

The other boys hooted as I caught the pillow and put it under my own head. “Exotic dancer,” I amended.

“So what kind of dancing has “Ursula” done for you lately?” asked Randy, helping himself to his own bottle of beer.

“Ursula” was Season’s alter ego, the stage name she used when she surprised me with a striptease act at the Penthouse Club in Vancouver just last month. Because my mother had worked there years ago, she taught my girlfriend some of her old moves and talked her into putting them into action.

My mother was a “stripper” for only about a month or so, when she lost another audition to a big musical production she’d hoped to get into. And that was back in the early sixties, long before mud wrestling and “taking it all off.” I guess you’d say she was more of a burlesque dancer than an exotic dancer. She’d just been trying to make a living doing the only thing she knew how to do. The only thing she loved to do.

Much like it was with me and music. She and I had so much more in common than I’d ever realized. The idea made me think back into the past again, something I was unfortunately doing a lot lately. And Randy’s next question didn’t help.

“Jon, you never told me the rest of that story about the Canadian girl you knew.”

“In a biblical sense?” Bryon asked.

“How else should you know ‘em?” Terry blurted out.

I sighed, making myself more comfortable. “Do you remember about a week or so before Mike died, and my parents made me go with them to Vancouver to help move my grandmother to Tombstone?”

“Yeah! When your mom made you cut your hair?” Randy cradled his bottle on his lap. “You came back looking like Rick Springfield.”

Terry laughed out loud. “You’re shitting me!”

“It wasn’t that bad,” I grumbled. “It was just…shorter.”

“Damn!” Terry placed his hands over the stringy blackness that covered his head protectively.  “That bites!”

            “Yeah, he had the longest hair of all of us before that,” Steve said. “We had to keep ours shorter because we were working.”

            “And he came back with that MacGyver look,” said Randy.

            “It didn’t look like MacGyver,” I argued.

            “Close enough.” The guitarist lit another cigarette. “Get to the girl.”

            “Yeah, get to the fucking part.” Bryon opened his second beer.

            “Jon’s favorite subject now.” Terry sat back down on the floor, pawing through a bag of potato chips.

            I thumped him in the head much like I used to do my sister.  “She lived next door to my grandparents for years, so I knew her pretty well, hanging out in the neighborhood and everything.”

            “What’d she look like?” Steve asked, peering at me from under his arm.

            “Blonde. Good legs.”

            Randy smirked. “Remember her name?”

            “Jon usually does,” said Bryon. “Which is more than I can say for you.”

            “Who needs her goddamn name?” the guitarist joked. “As long as her legs are spread…”

            “How do you bag a babe at your grandmother’s?” Terry asked. “That’s kinky as shit.”

            “I don’t know how he bagged a babe at all with that haircut,” Steve quipped.

            I threw the pillow back at him. “She was helping us pack stuff,” I explained. “She’d been over to help out my grandmother a lot, especially after Gran-pere died.” I sat back in my seat, lacing my fingers over my stomach. “Sometime that Saturday afternoon, everybody except Dad and I went to the movies, and Michelle just kinda hung around.”

            Randy started singing the Beatles’ tune. “Michelle, my belle…” Then he stopped. “I can’t remember those stupid French lyrics.”

            “Wow.” Terry sputtered crumbs out of his mouth. “Like Michelle Pfeiffer? Michelle Welch?”

            “That’s Raquel Welch, you idiot,” Steve said.

            “Oh, yeah.”

            “I think my Dad went to have coffee with my uncle,” I continued. “Then Michelle and I got to talking about getting high and she called somebody she knew to bring us some pot.”

            “Stoner-boy at it even in the early days!” More crumbs from Terry. “You slut.”

            One more thump on the back of the head.

            “Hey! Your sister’s right! You do that too hard! I have a fractured skull!”

            “What about when you whack your drumsticks on my damn head?”

            “You’ve got a harder head than mine! I’m a pansy!”

            “That’s no lie,” Randy said.

            Terry threw the chip bag at him.

            “So where’d you do the deed?” Steve asked. “Right there in the house?”

            I shook my head. “Behind the woodshed.”

            Praise and catcalls abounded throughout the cabin.

            “Damn! You’ll do it anywhere!” Terry said.

            “I couldn’t do it in the house. All the furniture was packed, and if my mother smelled the pot, she’d take me back to the barber to shave off the rest of my hair.”

            “Shit,” Randy said. “No woman’s worth that.”

            “How was she?” Steve sat up, suddenly much more intrigued by the story, now that it had reached its climax, so to speak.

            I tried to remember that part, but like a lot of my other sexual memories, it had faded away. I couldn’t really recall the feel of her skin, the movement of her body, if she said or did anything remotely monumentous…all I could think of was Season. I could see her face instead of Michelle’s, feel her mouth and hands on me, like the last few nights. I think what transpired behind the woodshed was just the result of toking on some really good shit, then making out pretty hot and heavy. We didn’t even get totally naked. I don’t remember any wild, lustful screaming or an orgasm that made me take the Lord’s name in vain over and over again…an integral part of my lovemaking now. But after being with only one other girl before that, after my and Sandra’s break-up…Michelle didn’t exactly rock my world at every turn, as my “rape fantasy” song likes to claim.

            I shrugged. “Not bad.”

            “You were probably too high,” Bryon said, belching and setting his empty bottle on the table. He may have a bachelor’s degree, but he can still expel gas as well as the rest of us uneducated losers.

            “No, no, no,” Terry shook his head wildly. “Have you ever watched him when he was high?”

            I felt my face burn with embarrassment as Terry leaped up and started emulating an extra in Urban Cowboy. “He could be in the frickin’ PBR!”

            More hooting and catcalls. I grabbed his arm. “Sit your ass down!”

            He giggled, his butt landing on the seat beside me with an ugly thud. “I’m sorry, man. You should be in a rodeo.”

            “She did say she always thought I was cute,” I mumbled.

            “Even with the shitty haircut?” Randy asked.

            “What she’d think of your…instrument?” Bryon asked, kicking back another Lowenbrau.

            Personally, I didn’t remember that either. “She didn’t comment.”

            “Oh, she had to have,” Terry said. “All your women do.”

            “How would you know?” I asked. “You haven’t seen me do every woman I’ve been with.”

            “That doesn’t matter,” Terry said. “With a tool like that, every woman’s bound to say something.” He somehow managed to find another bag of chips to eat. “Unless they just wanted to shove it in their mouth first.”

            The others laughed, and I rolled my eyes again. I didn’t mind people knowing I was well-endowed as much I minded Terry talking about it all the time. He was gonna let that slip in an on-camera interview one day and I’d never be able to live it down.

            “Anyway,” I said. “That’s my Canadian girl story.”

            I didn’t tell them what happened when my Dad caught me and Michelle sneaking back into the house afterward, in order to avoid my mother and Mamere, who had returned from the movies and were packing dishes in the kitchen.

            “You never told us this story,” Steve said, still settled back on the couch. He blew his nose on a Kleenex and grumbled. “Damn cold. It better be gone by tomorrow.” He took a bottle of some antibiotic out of his pocket, popping a pill in his mouth and washing it down with Randy’s beer.

            Bryon eyed him disgustedly. “Like that’ll help.”
            “Fuck you.” The singer sat up and addressed me. “You were so pissed about your hair you didn’t tell us you got laid.”

            “It wasn’t any of your business, asshole,” Randy said, taking his Martin acoustic out of its case. He started to tune it. “Jon doesn’t brag like you do.”

            “Still, it would’ve been cool to know.” Steve fussed with his own tousled mane. “Especially since all of Jon’s Phoenix women seem to be turning up all over the place now that he’s getting married.” There was a sparkle in his blue eyes I didn’t like.

            I slouched down further where I sat, as Terry began to cackle.

            “And she’s still requesting Rush, too, by the looks of it,” the drummer quipped.

            “Shut up.” I kicked the toe of my boot into his shin and he flinched. 

            “Hey, Renata wasn’t so bad,” Steve said, stretching his arms behind his head. “She kept us booked.”

            “Now, wait a minute,” I interrupted almost immediately. “I kept us booked at the Mustang.”

            “With some help,” the singer grinned, displaying his perfect white teeth. “We kept going back because you kept going back. Until that last time…”

            I was starting to get pissed. “Renata Collins made me look like a guy who took advantage of nice girls who maybe weren’t so lucky with guys…like I used them because I felt sorry for them.”

            “It was true, wasn’t it?” Steve asked, egging me on. “Like a mercy fuck?”

            It was all I could do to hold my temper in check, and I was glad I did take my meds this morning. I stood up as the bus swerved around a corner.

            “Sara McMahon was not a mercy fuck,” I said. “I really liked her. Otherwise I wouldn’t have invited her to spend the next weekend with me. And Renata Collins fucked all that up with her bullshit mouth.” I took a deep breath as the others tensed up and stared at me. “And if she does it again, I’ll take that bitch out.”

            “I take it Season knows the whole story?” Steve asked. What the hell was he trying to start?

            I scowled down at him, feeling adrenaline pour through my body and making my hands shake. “Yes, she does.”

            “Have you told her how many?” he asked. “I know she told you everything about her. What about your side?”

            “How would you know if she told me everything about her past?” I growled. “What do you know about it?”

            I remembered a moment last summer, watching her step out of his hotel room on a night she and I weren’t getting along so well. She’d told me he could be a good listener.

            “I know what happened between her and that Cajun dickwad you beat the hell out of last summer,” Steve continued. “And there were what? Three others?”

            “Don’t forget Jon Bon Jovi,” Terry added.

            “Nothing happened with him,” I said, quickly. “The Rampage guys just tease her about it.”

            “So including you, that makes, five, or six guys total?” Steve seemed to be enjoying his little math lesson. “Compared to your what…ninety or so?”

            “Compared to your two thousand or so?” Randy ceased his finger-picking on the Martin  “Get off it, Steve. What the hell are you trying to prove?”

            “She needs a straight answer,” Steve said simply  “And Jon hasn’t given her one.”

            I looked at each band member in turn, growing angrier by the minute. I felt they’d ganged up on me for no reason, other than to discuss my sexual repertoire.

            “This is nobody’s goddamned business but mine,” I barked. “Now back the fuck off.” I left the lounge and went up front, taking a seat directly behind the bus driver.

            “What’s wrong with you?” Barry asked, smoking his cigar and looking through a copy of Billboard. “You still pissed because I wouldn’t let Season come along?”

            Er…I didn’t even want to think of her right now. The guys were making me fear she might not be home when I got back.

            “No.” I tried to make myself comfortable in the small space, tucking my arms over my chest and closing my eyes. “Just leave me alone.”