Ghost Tour (ch.18)

September 23, 1998

It was morning when Reid woke in the captains chair just past Reno. The bus began its climb upwards into the Sierras.

The unfolding drama of pines clinging to craggy rock took Reid out of himself, but not entirely. He still felt he’d done something wrong the night before without exactly knowing what it was. It was an old familiar feeling.

There was already snow in the highest elevations. When the electric blue Welcome to California sign appeared with its golden poppies, it seemed like they’d finally made it. The dream of the West had been achieved.

The bus climbed higher, reaching its peak at Donner Summit. This felt like an additional accomplishment, but it didn’t escape Reid’s notice that this was the point in the trip when a group of travelers had once eaten each other.

# # #

A collective sense of anticipation filled the tour bus as they swept across the Bay Bridge with the San Francisco skyline fast approaching. Liz borrowed Roncho’s cellphone.

“I think maybe ten minutes,” she told her friend Celia.

“I’ll be there,” Celia said.

When the bus pulled up to the motor inn two blocks from Slim’s, Liz didn’t bother fighting to use the day room first. They could keep it.

Celia pulled up. She had a different car since back in Burlington, but it had dried lavender hanging from the rearview mirror just like her old one. It still smelled like Celia’s car.

“You mind if we stop at the co-op first?” Celia asked.

“Please!” Liz said.

She was in heaven. She bought curried chickpeas, a tofu wrap, a kale salad, a vegan brownie.

“Don’t they feed you?” Celia asked.

Celia had one of those classic San Francisco apartments on Telegraph Hill with the continuous staircase running all the way up to the third floor. Liz almost ran the whole way.

They laid their lunch out on the table but didn’t eat it yet. First things first. It was an unmodernized apartment with a clawfoot tub. Liz made it as hot as she could stand with a rose-scented bath bomb foaming under the tap.

“Take as long as you need,” Celia called through the door.

Liz lowered herself so that her nose was just above the steaming water. Stretching back, she let her hair float atop the surface, then ran her fingers through to drench every strand. The tub was almost deep enough to float. She closed her eyes.

I could just stay here and never leave, she thought.

# # #

Reid’s fold-out map didn’t list elevations. There were probably easier routes, but Nob Hill got his lungs pumping, helped clear his mind from the night before. The view of downtown was worth the climb, anyway.

A few blocks back down into Chinatown, he still had two hours before soundcheck. He grabbed a couple of steamed buns and ate them as he walked. Kristina would love this. The grocery stores, exotic fruits, spices, teas in bundles and boxes.

He stood in front of an emporium window. Knives, pipes, bits of jade. Nothing in particular. He went inside. Musty, ramshackle. But draped over an otherwise abused-looking mannequin, the scarf caught his eye immediately.

Blue, yellow, orange, black and white, a dozen mismatching patterns. It shouldn’t work, but somehow it did. He touched it with his fingers. Real silk. The proprietress saw the way he was looking at it and didn’t bother to ask. She took it to the counter, folded it, wrapped it in tissue paper, small enough to fit the inside pocket of his jean jacket.

He wasn’t sure if you were supposed to bargain in these places, he just gave her what she asked. His pockets were stuffed with unspent per diems anyway.

He could already picture Kristina tossing it casually around her neck and shoulders. It would bring out the color of her eyes. But then, she could make anything look good.

# # #

Jordan sat in the dressing room at Slim’s staring at his notebook. They’d worked out tonight’s setlist, but still hadn’t settled on unplugged versions for their radio appearance on KCRV tomorrow when they hit Los Angeles.

“Where’s Reid?” he asked Corey, who was half sacked out on the couch.

“Said something about going to Chinatown.”

Jordan was glad Reid was starting to loosen up, but he needed him to have his head in the game. With album sales lagging, LA was make-or-break. Reid better not flake.

Liz was nowhere to be seen either.

Owen Kaye walked in, which made Corey sit up. It was a surprise visit, Owen Kaye hadn’t come into their dressing room all tour.

“A little favor to ask,” Owen said with slight hesitance, but the confidence of someone who usually got what he wanted.

“Shoot,” Jordan said.

“We’d like to borrow your drummer,” Owen said, looking briefly to Corey, but otherwise locked on Jordan.

Corey was sure he’d misheard, but his heart was racing like a rabbit’s.

“Our drummer…” Jordan said, trying to tease out where this was going.

“After your set,” Owen clarified. “Our good friend Aiden punched a wall last night. Broke his hand in three places.”

“Ouch,” Jordan said.

Owen shrugged, almost as if this had been an inevitability.

“Nic Alberti’s flying into LA tomorrow, he knows the songs. But tonight we’re…a little stuck. What do you say?”

“I can do it,” Corey blurted, looking from Owen to Jordan, on whom this whole thing was hinging. The request upset the power balance in ways Jordan couldn’t calculate fast enough, but the short answer was, it was best not to disappoint Owen Kaye.

“You got the energy for two shows?” Jordan asked Corey.

“I can do ten shows,” Corey said, which squeezed a chuckle from Owen.

So it was decided.

# # #

When Liz came into the hall, she saw Corey on stage drumming during Benzedrine’s soundcheck.

“What’s he doing up there?” she asked Jordan, who was watching by the sound desk.

“Long story,” Jordan said, “where’s Reid?”

“Glad to see you too.”

On stage, Benzedrine’s guitar tech was taking a break from his usual duties, sitting on a crate on the drum riser, coaching Corey through the transitions, but he almost didn’t have to. Corey had been watching Aiden Dunlop like a hawk the whole tour. He knew what to do.

Liz watched the rest of the song then went looking for Roncho, who she found in the business office, bullshitting with the local promoter.

“What can I do for you?” Roncho said. He’d gotten used to making small accommodations, her requests were usually reasonable.

“I want to bring a friend on the bus tonight.”

“Fine with me if it’s fine with everyone else.”

“It’ll be fine,” she said.

Roncho’s ringtone chirped up, he answered, then cupped the phone.

“You see Reid?” he asked Liz.

What was she, Reid’s social secretary?

“He’s walking around somewhere.”

“Sorry Kristina, he’s not here at the moment,” Roncho said into the phone, “you want me to take a message?”

Liz thought quickly.

“Wait,” she said to Roncho, “let me talk to her.”

# # #

X-13 had played Slim’s in 95 and almost filled it themselves. Finally, a room of people waiting three years for their return.

Jordan knew they had the crowd when they started hooting before the lights even came on. He strapped his guitar on, tapped the mic, fixed his eyes on Corey, who counted them into Re-Entry and the song took over from there.

They were deep into the tour. No matter what happened the other twenty-three hours, the stage was the collective dream they tapped into on a nightly basis, uniting them into a single reality. It just happened.

The San Francisco fanbase included a subset of the Liz Carlisle fan club. They called her name between songs. It made her smile. Reid was glad to see it. He tried to catch her eye once or twice, but she wouldn’t quite make eye contact.

Corey tried to stay focused. He knew from pool, you don’t miss your first shot lining up your second.

But still, at one point during the set, he found himself saying under his breath:

“I’m ready for my close-up, mother fuckers…”

# # #

Jordan, Reid, and Liz stood in the shadows on stage right, more eagerly anticipating Benzedrine’s set than usual. There was another woman standing to Liz’s left. It took Reid a minute to recognize her.

“Celia?”

“Hey Reid, nice show.”

It’d been years since they’d all gone to school together back in Burlington. Celia and Liz had been roommates at one point. Now that he thought about it, he remembered something about Celia having moved to San Francisco, but he’d forgotten about that. It didn’t occur to him that she was still out here and might turn up at the show.

The house music went down, the crowd started cheering, and Benzedrine took the stage, Corey among them. He looked confident. Owen made no introductory banter, they just launched right in.

As in soundcheck, Benzedrine’s tech was on stage, but now squatting behind the bass amp so the crowd couldn’t see him. Like a maestro, he held his hands at the ready to direct Corey as their opening song went into its first chorus, but Corey had a handle on it.

Billy Somerville likewise had eyes locked on Corey, cautious, but nodding approvingly. Midway through the third song, Billy took the training wheels off and turned to face the crowd as usual. The song kept going without a hitch. This thing was working.

No one cheered louder than Jordan, Reid and Liz from the sidelines. This was one of theirs stepping up, and he was nailing it. They all knew he was good, but none of them knew quite how good until this moment. You could not help but feel nervous and proud all at the same time, it was almost more exhilarating than their own set.

At the same time, Jordan felt an anxiousness in his gut that went beyond his desire to see Corey do this thing and not mess up. His drummer, for the moment, was in a more famous band than he was.

It felt like he was losing control.

# # #

The party on the bus that night was more boisterous than usual. Corey was recounting choice moments from the Benzedrine show, when things could have gone horribly wrong but did not. For the first time this tour, he was holding court.

Reid, for his part, did not feel like going to sleep, but he did not trust himself not to get sucked back in at this point. He found Liz’s Vanity Fair on the table, climbed into his bunk and turned on the reading lamp.

The bus lumbered its way from the city streets back onto 80 toward the Bay Bridge having barely been in San Francisco twelve hours but a lot had been crammed in, not all of it expected.

Reid was about halfway into an article trying to make sense of what was unfolding in Bosnia when he heard an unmistakably ooohmm sound coming from the empty bunk beneath him.

Dangling from his upper bunk, he threw open the curtain of the lower bunk, where he found Celia, meditating.

“Oh, sorry Reid, didn’t mean to startle you.”

Celia couldn’t know that, compared with the prospect of finding a glowing, disembodied human skull, Reid was actually quite relieved.

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