Ghost Tour (ch.20)

September 25, 1998

Breakfast companionship was a random situation, based on whoever managed to drag themselves downstairs in time.

Reid joined Roncho and Rex at a linen-covered table, fresh daisies in a small vase. When the waiter delivered three French press coffee makers, Rex began to plunge prematurely.

“Wait a minute, it will be stronger,” Roncho said.

Rex continued anyway. The waiter reappeared, ready to take orders.

“Can I get a brioche bun even if I don’t order the breakfast sandwich?” Roncho asked him.

“I can do that for you. Otherwise all breakfasts come with our signature muffin tops.”

“What do you do with the rest of the muffin?” Rex asked.

“Sorry?”

“When you cut the tops off, what do you with the bottoms? Is there, like, this massive pile of muffin bottoms somewhere?”

“I’m not sure…I can ask our chef if you’d like.”

“Because I’ve noticed a lot of homeless people in this burgh,” Rex said, as if in earnest, “maybe you could donate them.”

“Just order,” Reid said.

The waiter, to his credit, did not break character. He returned to the kitchen to place their order unfazed. Probably an actor.

“Why is this so weak?” Rex said, sipping his coffee.

“Kristina hasn’t called?” Reid asked Roncho.

“Not since last time.”

“Hmm.”

Reid hadn’t spoken with her since, when, Denver? Didn’t feel right. He’d call her from the room today.

“You gonna jump back on this thing?” Roncho asked, patting the computer bag slouching on the empty seat.

Reid was half thinking someone else could do the journal if his efforts weren’t being appreciated. But then, he’d developed a sense of pride about it. He didn’t want to let anyone fuck it up, even if no one knew he was the one writing it.

“Okay, lemme see that thing,” Reid said.

He slid the French press and white porcelain cup to one side, making room for Roncho’s laptop. He began to type.

# # #

By definition, Pareidolia means seeing things that aren’t there. Our cavemen ancestors must’ve seen faces in tree bark on the lookout for mountain lions in overhanging branches.

We had to consider that whatever we’d seen on the bus was just our imaginations playing tricks on us. Thing is, we’d all seen the same thing. Unless someone had tabbed all of us, or the bus had a serious carbon monoxide leak, it just didn’t seem likely.

We told Subs to keep that black box in his smelly gym bag and not take it out again. Things seemed to calm down after that. Until our signing at Tower Records here in Los Angeles.

Lots of people came out. We’re always psyched to meet y’all. Some people brought their old copies of Toss Up for us to sign. One girl brought her chihuahua.

We thought we were all done when one last guy showed up. Tall, slim, his gaunt face shadowed by the porkpie hat he was wearing. We all froze. It was the same freaking dude who’d materialized on the tour bus. It was our ghost.

“I’m not too late, am I?” he said.

“No, you’re right on time,” Jordan said and picked up his pen.

None of us looked at what we were signing. We couldn’t take our eyes off his shadowy face.

As he backed away from the table, he held up what we thought was our cd cover, but it seemed to unfold, looked more like some kind of contract.

“What the hell did we just sign?” Liz said.

The guy backed his way toward the front of Tower Records.

“We have unfinished business,” he said.

We leapt from behind the table to grab him, but it was too late. He slipped out the glass doors and vanished into the golden twilight on Sunset Boulevard.

# # #

Back at the suite, Reid arrived just in time to find Corey all packed and wheeling his suitcase out the door.

“Where you going?”

“I’m switching hotels,” Corey said.

“Switching hotels?”

“I’ll explain later, see you at the gig.”

“Uh, okay…”

Must’ve found a girl or something. Anyway, this meant Reid had the suite to himself. Not such a bad thing.

He picked up the phone from the end table. This had gone on long enough. He pulled the folded number from his pocket. As with last time, Isabella answered.

“Reid, why didn’t you tell me who you were the night of the party,” Isabella said. “I’ve never met a real rock star.”

“You still haven’t,” Reid said. “Is Kristina still there?”

“She’s whipping something up… I’m looking forward to seeing you when you get back.”

Not going to happen, Reid thought.

When Kristina said picked up there was an exasperation from the get-go.

“You don’t exactly sound glad to hear from me.”

“I talked to Liz,” she said. “She told me.”

“Told you what.”

“That you’ve been doing drugs again.”

Fucking Liz.

“I smoked one joint,” Reid said.

“And you’ve been drinking.”

“I had one beer.”

“You promised, Reid.”

To him, this didn’t seem to be the issue at hand.

“Why are you still staying with those people?”

“Don’t try to turn this around.”

“Tell me you haven’t done any coke since the last time I saw you.”

“I’m not the one with the problem, Reid.”

Going nuclear was not what he intended, but the ultimatum slipped from his mouth before he had time to consider the corner he was painting himself into.

“If you like it better at your new party friends’ house, you can just stay there,” he said.

“Well if you don’t straighten yourself the fuck up, maybe I will.”

They did not exactly hang up on each other, but the exchange ended there.

That did not go where I hoped it would, Reid thought.

# # #

By the time the sprinter van came to pick them up, Reid and Liz were already going at it in the lobby.

“Why the hell did you talk to Kristina?”

“I was looking out for you,” she said.

“I didn’t ask you to.”

“She did.”

Jordan came down from his suite with Lila Parker who, not realizing they were stumbling into something, kissed Reid on both cheeks for some reason as if they were in Europe or something.

“Why haven’t you called Evie?” she asked him.

Reid still had the Chicago matchbook with Evie’s phone number in his jean jacket pocket. He’d resisted the urge to look at it, but he knew it was there.

“I’ve been busy,” Reid said.

“Well, she’ll be at the party tonight, you’re coming, right?”

“I’ll be there,” he said, though it was the last thing on his mind.

Lila gave Jordan a more consequential kiss.

“See you at the club,” she said, then beelined toward the valet.

“Where’s Corey?” Jordan said.

“He changed hotels.”

“What’d he do that for?”

“How do I know…”

The van ride to the venue was just a few miles but they got caught up on La Cienega. By the time they got to the El Rey on Wilshire, Benzedrine was already sound checking. Corey was on stage with them.

“What the hell is he doing up there again?” Jordan asked, but no one knew.

When they finished, Owen Kaye came out to front of house to confer with their sound man. Jordan had to speak up.

“He playing with you again?”

“You know Nic Alberti didn’t show, right?”

Jordan, involved with helping Lila get ready for her party, had not kept the arrival details of Benzedrine’s replacement drummer in the forefront of his mind. But whatever.

“It’s okay, you can borrow ours another night,” Jordan said.

Owen Kaye scanned Jordan’s eyes. The obliviousness was for real.

“Corey didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what.”

Pause.

“Talk to Corey,” Owen said, and walked off before things got messy.

Jordan found Corey, not in X-13’s dressing room, but in Benzedrine’s.

“What’s going on, Corey?”

Corey conveniently crossed the dressing room, getting himself a towel and putting himself out of striking range at the same time.

“Yeah, I was gonna tell you…they asked me to keep playing.”

“Tonight…”

“The rest of their tour,” Corey said.

Jordan could barely calculate the implications fast enough.

“You know we are opening for Jetco in Austin three nights from now,” Jordan said, as if Corey could have possibly forgotten that X-13 still had a whole second leg of this tour to go.

Corey wiped his face with the towel.

“Sorry Jordan…we’re going to Japan.”

He emphasized the word Japan as if this detail made it obvious that anyone in his position would make the same decision.

Jordan couldn’t decide whether to leap or throw something.

“I’m going to break your fucking fingers,” he said.

# # #

Corey, wisely, decided to stick with Benzedrine’s dressing room.

Jordan, back in X-13’s, broke the heavy silence of whatever dust-up had followed Reid and Liz in here.

“We need a new drummer,” he said.

He proceeded to explain the situation in its entirety.

“What the fuck,” Reid said.

“The engineer over at Noise Haus, he’s from Austin, what was his name? He’s got to know a dozen drummers in Austin,” Jordan said. “We need to get him on the phone. We’ve still got three days…”

“Guys, soundcheck?” Roncho said, looking into the room, wondering why they weren’t onstage already.

Corey was giving Subs some kick drum. No one said anything as they filed past. They took turns, as usual, playing whatever little doodads Subs used to check the levels in the house and in the monitors.

“You wanna do one?” Subs called out.

“We’re good,” Jordan said, set his guitar in its stand and walked abruptly offstage. Reid did the same.

“Liz, do you need me to…” Corey started, but she walked off too.

In the brief time before their set, the dressing room become a war room, Jordan directing Roncho to make various inquiries in Austin, trying to put a tourniquet on this thing.

Out of the blue, Kenny gave a knock and wandered into the dressing room, cheerily unaware of what he was walking into.

“Hey guys.”

It occurred to Reid he’d never actually seen Kenny inside a club this whole tour.

“Hey Kenny, what’re you doing here? Don’t they have you staying out in the Valley somewhere?”

“They do,” Kenny said. “But this is, like, your big night. Didn’t want to miss it.”

Kenny had his hair sort-of combed to one side and was wearing a button-up instead of his usual sweatshirt, his version of getting dressed up for a night out.

“I don’t know, Kenny, this might not be our best show,” Reid said, trying to manage expectations.

“What do you mean, you guys are gonna do great. Got a packed house already.”

Reid cracked a smile for Kenny’s sake, the extent of positivity before they took the stage at the El Rey.

As with soundcheck, no one said anything to Corey as they strapped on their instruments. The crowd welcomed them generously. Like Kenny, they were ready for a good show.

Jordan didn’t look back, he merely reached behind and pointed his finger at the drum set. Corey clicked them in, and the show began. Same set as San Francisco, they could play it with their eyes closed. Which was more-or-less what Reid did.

He couldn’t look at Liz. He couldn’t look at Jordan. He definitely couldn’t look at Corey. And he couldn’t look at the crowd either. He was feeling about as exposed as ever, not a good state to be in in front of a live audience.

Jordan was all but spitting out the lyrics.

how was I to know?

there’d always be a place to go…

Bus Station had always been a hopeful song in its way, but tonight it felt like whatever innocence was left from their early days was being rammed into a meat grinder. The LA audience was there for them, but Jordan couldn’t see it.

He didn’t have as many pedals as Reid, but they were at his feet to do his bidding. In a sudden fit of rage, he stomped on a distortion pedal called The Attacker with all his force, right in the middle of Reid’s lilting solo.

The piercing screech caught Subs by surprise. The mains screamed with feedback, half the audience reflexively put fingers into ears. Subs scrambled to pull Jordan’s guitar down, which quelled the feedback in the room but did not bring the sound down onstage, which eclipsed the monitors until Jordan dialed the effect back down for the last verse and chorus.

Initially caught off guard, Reid rolled with Jordan’s sonic outburst since it more-or-less expressed the way he was feeling himself. Liz was less sympathetic, but held up her end of the bargain as always.

Collectively, the band lurched forward, capable but wary, having been put on notice that Jordan could go off the rails at any moment.

Jordan stayed the course for the next several songs, as if he had gotten it out of his system, until the second-to-last song, Uroboros, triggered something in him. Again he drove his foot into his distortion pedal, only this time he didn’t take it back off. And this time Reid decided to respond in kind.

Looking down at his own pedal board, there was only one he’d yet to deploy this tour. He called it the Giant Killer. The time had come. He waited for the end of the next four count, then unleashed its power.

The sound on stage became mayhem. With half the band out of control at this point, Subs didn’t have much to work with.

“Keep playing!” Liz yelled back to Corey, a common practice dating back to barroom brawls of the wild west.

Corey, who’d had enough, thought Fuck it anyway. When he went free jazz, he veered so wildly off beat the whole thing imploded like a multi-car pile-up on the 405. Liz stopped playing entirely and walked off the stage. This was the only clue to the audience that something was amiss.

Jordan fell to his knees for a final round of knob twiddling before leaning his guitar against his amp with the volume still up, cutting the set one song short. He quit the stage with Reid close on his heels. Corey was left to add a few inconclusive cymbal crashes before sneaking off the back of the drum riser.

Subs faded the mains, leaving only the feedback of Jordan’s amplifier, which Rex silenced by walking out onstage and switching to standby, signaling the end of the performance.

The audience gave it up for X-13 like the whole thing had been intentional. The last five minutes might not have been what was expected, but most of them had gone along with it, thinking it was experimental.

But Brandon was watching the whole thing from stage left. That’s not what he thought at all.

# # #

An iced bottle of Veuve Clicquot was waiting in the dressing room, along with Lila Parker who’d put it there, and Liz who was smoking furiously. Reading the room quickly as the rest of band filed in, Lila quickly deduced this wasn’t the kick-off to the night’s festivities she’d imagined.

“Can I talk to you a minute?” Brandon called to Jordan, who followed him back into the hallway, not realizing Lila was just inside the doorway, listening in.

“What the hell was that?” Brandon said

“Just blowing off a little steam.” Jordan laughed for the first time all night.

“Are you trying to finish this thing off? Because that’s what you’re doing.”

Billy Somerville, hearing Jordan’s voice, ducked out of Benzedrine’s dressing room. He sensed this wasn’t a good time, but he wanted to say his piece.

“Look man, I just wanna say, this wasn’t my idea,” Billy said to Jordan.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“For the record, I voted against it.”

“It’s cool,” Jordan said, even though it obviously wasn’t.

Billy looked from Jordan to Brandon, then ducked back into his own dressing room, leaving the conversation to continue.

“MaybeYes is filling the opening slot with Jetco,” Brandon said.

“You can’t be serious.”

“You don’t have a drummer, Jordan.”

“We’ll have one by Austin,” Jordan said. “Roncho already talked with someone, he’s into it.”

“What’s his name?”

“I don’t know, Keith something, we’re FedEx-ing practice tapes tomorrow.”

“Keith something does not instill confidence. What happens when this doesn’t work out?”

“We switch gears, do the unplugged thing.”

Brandon shook his head.

“This isn’t how it’s done.”

“Look,” Jordan said, not laughing anymore, “you’re the one who insisted on Corey in the first place.”

“I take full responsibility for that. But at this moment, we don’t have a viable game plan. I’m calling it.”

“We can make this work,” Jordan said, and believed it.

“Sorry, Jordan…the tour is over.”

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