Heathen

By L.A. Ferris

Mötley Crüe’s ‘The Dirt’ meets ‘Rosemary’s Baby.’

Following the death of founding member, Billy Carvin, legendary rock group Heathen, shocks the world choosing unknown prodigy, Jake Emmett, to replace their infamous lead guitarist.

Thrust into the spotlight of rock’s most coveted gig, Jake is soon a star in his own right, inspiring the band to unparalleled commercial success. Onstage, they are gods. Backstage, they put the devil himself to shame.

But the airbrushed sheen of fame and wealth conceals a dark truth.

When two members of the group’s entourage disappear under a veil of secrecy, Jake begins to suspect that the band’s notorious image conceals an insidious conspiracy. Swept up in a maelstrom of money, music, and madness, Jake is finally forced to face an unspeakable evil as old as time with the fate of his unborn child hanging in the balance.

Want to live the rock star life where no dream is out of reach, no desire unfulfilled? Here’s your ticket.

The question is: Can you survive it?

• Language: English
• Publisher: L.A. Ferris
• Release date: May 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781775025801

L.A. Ferris

Communications Director and former Broadcast News Director, L.A. Ferris lives in Spruce Grove, Canada, with his wife, Jennifer, and two sons, Mitchell and Jagger. A live music enthusiast—L.A. plays the guitar, bass and drums, and is proud to see his sons enjoying a similar passion for music.

Book preview

Prologue

Billy Carvin smiled. He had found the sweet spot at last.

If Billy were a golfer, the sweet spot would be defined as the area on the club-head that propels the ball on its truest trajectory. If he were a porn star, the sweet spot would mean something else altogether. But Billy was neither a golfer nor a porn star, though his chosen career bore similarities to both vocations. He did go on tour every year and he had shared his bed with hundreds of wanton women. In point of fact, Billy was a guitar player in a rock and roll band and the sweet spot he’d been hunting for the better part of an hour was the ultimate convergence of harmonic frequencies.

It shouldn’t have been that hard to find. His guitar tech marked the spot onstage with two strips of neon tape at the end of every sound-check. But every night, when the arena started to fill up with bodies and the temperature of the stage and his gear started to soar, the spot would start to move and his quest would begin anew.

He didn’t need the spot. The average fan didn’t even notice on those rare occasions when it eluded him entirely. Oh, he would complain to anyone who would listen that he couldn’t find the spot; that he hadn’t been on that night. Of course the fans had no idea what he was talking about, but his fellow guitarists knew. They’d stood on the spot; they’d been in the zone, and once you were in the zone there was no better place to be.

Not that the zone wasn’t a dangerous place. Too many to name had ventured in and lost it in a wall of feedback, because feedback was the very essence of the zone. It was like the force from Star Wars. If you didn’t feel the force, if you didn’t let it raise the hair on the back of your neck, then you couldn’t control it and if you couldn’t control it, you would never be its master. Ah, but if you could control it—could wield it—your legend was secure. Hendrix had proven that.

Jimi was the Dark Lord, the proverbial Darth Vader of feedback. He was the first to venture into the zone. He’d gotten his ass burned more than once, but he’d dared to defy the elements, and by doing so, he’d thrown down the gauntlet. Now you had to go in the zone! Only poseurs stayed out of it: played it safe. The rest of them, Jimi’s disciples, had to enter the zone. They had to wield the power. They had to, because they knew what the payoff was. The irony was that most of the fans didn’t.

Oh sure, when they came to the electric church to worship at the feet of the Voodoo Chile, they knew it in their guts that they were seeing the future of rock and roll. But when Jimi went too far, when he angered the Electric Gods, their wrath would erupt in a flood of feedback that bludgeoned each and every parishioner as surely as if they’d been vaporized by a dissonant Death Star. Only then would the congregation voice their displeasure with their Messiah. You’d hear it in their catcalls, in the curses flung at the altar, and in those rarest of moments, when one of the flock bleated the ultimate in blasphemies, turn it down, man!

Turn it down, man. Now, that was sacrilege. People, we have an unbeliever in our midst. Bring him to the wall! He must be stoned! Ah, what the hell, leave him alone. We’re all stoned!

Yeah, the paying customers have a way of letting you know when you’re teetering on the high wire, but that’s the price of living life without a net. Jimi knew it, but he stepped onto that wire until the day he died. Why? Because he knew that for every failed attempt, there existed that one transcendent moment when he would harness the feedback, when he would summon the spirit of his Electric Gods into a single note: a single note, so strong, so true, that it reverberated through the nerve endings of all who heard it. It vibrated at the base of their skulls and caused their skin to tingle, communicating his message in a way no words ever could.

And still it rang.

It rang until the very tools that produced it began to rend and shutter. It rang until the very integrity of the note began to pitch and sway: the final flickering from a fading beacon. Then, like a samurai sheathing his sword, Jimi would release the note in one fluid motion, its final echoes drifting away on the currents of the night air.

‘That’ is what it means to be in the zone.

If you can find the spot and dare to step on it, if you can command the harmonic energies swirling in your midst, then it’s all there for the taking—a note that carries forever. Endless sustain; a guitar player’s nirvana.

Yes, Hendrix had been the first to preach the new gospel, but Billy Carvin had long been his loyal disciple. And now, standing on the sweet spot once again, Billy knew it was his time now.

He stood at center stage in front of an adoring throng and the roar filled his ears, his body sheathed in sweat, his right hand shaking all of the emotion he could muster out of the note that swam through his senses. The heady scent of pot drifted in the air, mingling with the coalescing mists of dry ice wafting serpentine across the stage floor. Four blinding spotlights bathed him in a white womb of illumination. Underneath their glaring swath, the flames sparkled before him like a sea of drifting stars. He looked into the crowd and smiled at the sight of their constellation, row upon row of butane lighters held aloft in silent homage to him: the new Electric God.

He raised his right arm to acknowledge their tribute. The note he was holding began to flutter and moan. He turned back towards his amplifier to coax one last second of sustain from the air crackling around him. He waited a moment longer and then hunched over the guitar unleashing a torrential cascade of notes. His right hand swept over the strings in a blur, ascending up the neck of the guitar at breakneck speed. At the apex of the run, he bent the strings upward in screeching protest, leaning his body backwards and thrusting his hips forward to punctuate each screaming bend. Each pelvic thrust elicited a salvo of screams from the teenage girls sandwiched in the front row.

He flung his head back with an imperious air, tossing his thick mane of coal black curls off his forehead and over his shoulders. He fixed a lascivious gaze on a busty brunette at the right corner of the stage sauntering in her direction as his fingers began to caress a breathtaking passage of soulful slides from his guitar. He stood directly over her and she stared up into his eyes with obvious adulation. Her right hand reached up and grasped his calf through his skintight leather pants. Her eyes traveled downward, hungrily examining every inch of his muscled chest and leather-bound crotch. He dropped to his knees in front of her, thrusting the neck of the guitar outward. His right hand slid up and down the strings, cascading a climactic deluge of notes into the hazy air of the auditorium. The squeal of the final note filled his ears, soaring over the roar of the crowd, as the glittering constellation exploded into a frenzied ovation. He bent forward and his wet curls fell forward, draping the girl in a sweaty veil. His mouth curled into a sly grin as her tongue slithered over his neck. Hey baby, was it good for you? he chuckled.

He jumped to his feet, swinging his guitar high overhead, an exultant smile lighting his face. He glanced to his side, seeing his band-mates readying themselves to return from the offstage shadows. He looked back into the sea of sweaty, shouting humanity: many of them still holding their lighters aloft, their faces bathed in a fiery glow as they shouted and whistled. The chant started somewhere in the back, a low rumble growing in volume as it surged towards the stage. Within moments the mantra reached thunderous proportions and it suddenly occurred to Billy, standing on this spot, as their chant rang in his ears sending a chill down his spine, this was the sweetest spot of all.

He looked out into the crowd, a heartfelt smile conveying his humble appreciation. Then he lowered his guitar to his side and bent forward, his free arm flourishing to the side in a deep, theatrical bow. He held the bow for a second, drinking it all in—the unforgettable sound of twenty thousand fanatics chanting his name.

Billy! Billy! Billy!

Billy! Billy!

Rudy Kilgore stormed across the parking lot, sucking a deep breath into his lungs and yelling again. Billy! His chest flexed, its ire drawn by the impertinence of this sudden exertion and he coughed, a jagged spasm that made him wince.

Fucking cigarettes and fucking Billy! I got better things to do than chase around a spoiled, juvenile delinquent who can’t be bothered to show up on time for a sonavabitchin’ soundcheck! You’re damn lucky I’m your best bud, Billy, cos you can be a major pain in the ass sometimes.

The hot Arizona sun beat down on the back of Rudy’s neck as he crossed the asphalt expanse outside Sun Devil stadium towards a large, jet-black bus with obsidian tinted windows. The bus squatted alongside a row of gleaming semis, its side emblazoned with the words, Heathen – World Tour 1978, in silver script. The sound of his motorcycle boots clacking on the hard pavement throbbed in his ears and he spat to clear the taste of bile from his mouth. His tongue felt swollen and his bowels gurgled, the final remnants of the Southern Comfort and Tequila binge from last night’s load-out. He glanced up at the bus’s ebony windows as he drew near, detecting no sign of movement within. He shook his head in disgust as he stomped toward the front-side door.

What the hell was it going to be this time? A little floozy that he couldn’t drag himself away from, or was it something more run of the mill like a bad case of the trots from last night’s drunk?

He pushed the door open and clambered up the steel steps, his head swinging to the left to survey the interior of the band’s inner sanctum. They called the front compartment of the bus the ‘War Room’ and it deserved the title. Millions of brain cells had been sacrificed on this battlefield.

The floor was covered with plush carpet, blood red in color. Rows of recessed lights cast a warm glow over sumptuous leather furnishings and the ornate tapestries hanging on the walls. An enclosure to Rudy’s right separated the driver from the lounge, a wise idea given the sybaritic behavior exhibited within the chamber on a nightly basis. Opposite the driver’s partition loomed a gleaming projection television and a state-of-the-art stereo system ensconced in a soundproof wall dividing the social hub from the sleeping berths beyond. A mahogany door in the center of the wall opened onto a narrow hallway that ran the remaining length of the bus, the cramped passageway flanked on either side by the individual sleeping quarters of the four band members and their ever changing retinue.

He made his way across the War Room, picking a path through the rubble of ashtrays, bottles, audio tapes, pillows and God knows what else that was strewn across the carpet. He stepped over a large water pipe perched near the door. The pipe’s spherical base was filled with a muddy, amber fluid and several hoses jutted out the top, falling in a haphazard tangle on the carpet. The pungent aroma of hashish hung in the air.

Dammit! How many times have I told them to keep this crap out of sight? Why don’t they just hang a big sign on the side of the bus that reads ‘Bust Us?’

He bent over and picked up the bong, glancing around the room for a place to stow the incriminating device. A sly grin wrinkled his stubble-encrusted cheeks and he grabbed the edge of the nearest tapestry, pulling it away from the wall. He leaned forward and wedged the pipe alongside one of the large speakers mounted in the side wall, then pulled the tapestry tight, tucking the loose seam into a tuft in the ubiquitous crushed velvet upholstery covering the interior of the bus.

There, let them try and find it there. They’ll be halfway to Sacramento by the time they figure that one out.

He turned and surveyed the War Room. Nodding in satisfaction, he returned to the hall door. Time to find Billy.

Billy! he yelled. He flung the door open and stomped down the hallway. Billy!

He winced at the volume of his own voice in the cramped hallway, his hangover welling up again, knowing it couldn’t be helped. When it came to this band, you announced your presence. You certainly didn’t bust in on them when they least expected it. He’d made that mistake once and it had almost cost him his job. He wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice.

Funny, how quiet the bus was though. Usually there was some loud tunes pounding away, some laughing or talking, something. Maybe Billy was sleeping one off. Lord knows he’d been hitting the bottle hard lately.

Halfway down the hall, he stopped in front of the door to Billy’s berth. Billy? He waited a few seconds, then rapped his knuckles on the door, C’mon Billy, it’s me Rudy, quit screwing around! We’ve got a soundcheck to do and the rest of the band is waiting. They’re seriously pissed with you. He waited a few more seconds then banged on the door again, a little louder this time. C’mon Billy, he cajoled. You want to find your spot, don’t you? C’mon man, the boys want to do a run through on the new single. Get your lazy ass out of bed!

There was no reply. He tilted his head toward the door, listening for some sign of life within the berth. He heard nothing and a knot tightened in the pit of his stomach. They’d always kidded Billy that he’d go out just like his hero. Oh fuck, what if?

He chewed his bottom lip and looked back down the hallway. A drop of cold sweat trickled between his shoulder blades. C’mon Rudy, get a hold of yourself man. There’s nothing wrong here, just another day in the orifice. You’re going to open up this door and catch him in the middle of somebody and you’re going to get your head bitten off, that’s all.

He tilted his ear towards the door again and listened intently—nothing, dead quiet. He reached down with a trembling hand to turn the doorknob. He paused, sucking a whistling breath through clenched teeth and pushed. The door swung open and the first thought that lurched into his mind was how peaceful Billy looked.

He lay on a disheveled bunk on the right side of the berth. His lifeless eyes were open wide, staring into Rudy’s own, and his skin was the color of a frozen river. Dried blood covered his lips and nostrils, and his curly hair hung in matted clumps over his neck and shoulders. His arms were outstretched as if in silent supplication to the wraith that had stolen his spirit.

Oh, sweet Jesus, gasped Rudy, and he stumbled over to the bedside, falling to his knees beside the bunk. His eyes searched the room, falling upon an empty syringe lying alongside Billy’s arm. Damn it, Billy! Why? Why? he wailed. He picked up one of Billy’s thin arms, the flesh cold under his fingertips. He pinched two fingers at the base of his wrist, feeling for a pulse. Nothing! He reached out with his other hand and held a finger under his nose. Nothing! He couldn’t feel a damn thing. He was dead. His best friend was gone!

He laid Billy’s arm at his side and took his hands away. He hung his head and a jumble of images flashed through his mind: Billy’s beaming smile at the end of his solo last night, his braying laugh when you told him a dirty joke, his nonchalant way of saying, Fuck you very much, when you gave him a compliment. So many memories, so many good times, and now…now this!

He looked into the eyes of his dead friend, remembering Billy’s words from no more than a week past. They were in this very room, on the road, the bus rolling on to the next city, to the next gig. He remembering drinking his share that night, but Billy was over the top, completely smashed and in one of his moods. They’d shared a joint as a Doors tape played in the background and he tried to bring up the drinking, but it never seemed to be the right time. Hell, Billy was down, depressed, he didn’t need a freaking lecture. They were buds, right?

He looked into the soulless eyes staring back at him, the guilt spreading through him like a cancer. Yeah, I was a real good friend to you, wasn’t I Billy? Look at you now buddy. Look what you’ve done to yourself. You tried to tell me that night, didn’t you? You asked for my help and I was too out of it to understand.

His thoughts returned to that night. They hadn’t said much at first. The weed was good and they were both pretty wasted. They just sat there, entranced by Morrison’s hypnotic baritone, and then Billy began to talk about death. Not his own, at least not yet, just the inevitability of it. He didn’t fear death or so he said. To him, it was just another stage, another realm to be explored. They sat a while longer and listened to the poetry of Lord Jim and it was at that point that Billy began to expound on the inevitability of his own demise.

Listen to him, Rudy. Morrison knew what was coming. I mean it’s only a matter of time in this line of work. Billy laughed, a sharp, shallow sound.

The memory of his reply swam through his mind, the words so weak, so utterly inadequate. C’mon Billy, don’t talk like that. You’re too smart for that shit.

Billy looked at him, his face a mixture of despair and resignation. Rudy shook his head at the recollection. He knew now that he would remember that expression for the rest of his life.

"That’s bullshit, Rudy and you know it. We’re dropping like flies and we always have. Morrison, Bolan, Moon, Janis, and Jimi of course, and those are only the ones I can name off the top of my head. That doesn’t even scratch the surface. And it’s not just rock, man. Plenty of blues and jazz dudes have kicked early, going all the way back to Robert Johnson.

He turned and stared out the window as the tranquil plains of the Midwest rolled past. When he spoke again, his voice was somber, his eyes focused despite his prodigious intake of chemicals that night. Robert Johnson, he snorted. Wasn’t he a sign of things to come?

Billy looked at him then and the look had made the blood run cold in his veins.

Rudy, I want to tell you something, man, and I don’t ever want you to forget it. You gotta learn from my mistakes, man.

He stared back at Billy. It was late. They were stoned. Billy was drunk, but this was important. He didn’t know why, but he could feel it in his bones. Go ahead, man, I’m not going anywhere.

Billy looked out the window. The Doors tape had ended, the low static of the tape machine hissing in the corner. Rudy, I…I can’t tell you what I’ve seen… what I’ve done. I don’t want you to think I’m crazy man. He smiled, a brittle grin, the smile of a victim who’d survived.

He interrupted, Billy, it’s ok, I….

Billy waved a hand for him to stop. "No man, it’s not ok. It hasn’t been ok for a long time buddy, maybe since the beginning. I’m dealing with some heavy shit right now, my brother."|

He felt Billy’s stare like a weight on his shoulders, his friend’s face set with a look of absolute conviction as he continued.

There are things in this life that you don’t mess with, Rudy. Sometimes the price you pay is just too damn high.

Billy looked at him with quiet desperation and his heart tightened. His friend’s face twisted in anguish as he searched for the right words, any words. He reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. Billy, you’re not making sense. You…you’re just depressed, man. You’ve been hitting the bottle pretty hard lately, maybe…

No! screamed Billy. He threw his head down in his hands, his dark hair falling over his face, like a shroud. Don’t you get it, Rudy? That’s the fucking problem. I can’t tell you! I can’t even warn my best friend, because that’s part of the deal. I can’t break it even if I want to…even if I need to.

Billy looked up at him, tears streaming down his face, and he looked away, ashamed. He tried to comfort his friend, his words hollow on his tongue. Ah, come on Billy, forget this shit. It’s freaking Morrison man, he’ll depress the hell out of anybody. C’mon, I’ll twist up another doobie and we’ll go see what the boys are up to.

Billy sucked in a shuddering breath and trembled. He wiped his tears away with the back of his forearm and they sat in awkward silence for a while longer. When he spoke again, his voice was flat, lifeless. You’re right, Rudy. I don’t know what I’m going on about. What’s the big deal? Die young; leave a good-looking corpse. That’s rock n’ roll, right? You always got leave the crowd wanting more.

They pulled themselves together then, and arms around each other’s shoulders, staggered down the hallway to the War Room where the nightly craziness pulled them in and made them forget. Later in the night, Billy’s lopsided grin even made an appearance when one of the groupies had thrown on some Hendrix, and the next night he played like no else in the world could. He left the stage that night the conquering hero, borne aloft on a wave of worship. As always—the crowd wanted more.

Rudy reached out and folded Billy’s pale arms across his motionless chest. Then, he clasped his hands and for the first time in the longest time he could remember, he prayed. He prayed for the soul of his dead friend and he prayed for forgiveness: forgiveness for his failure, for his denial while he watched a life slip away.

When he was done, he reached over and picked up the syringe at Billy’s side. His friend was dead now. Nothing would change that, and as much as he hated to admit it, there was the band, the cops and the press to think about. He stood on shaky legs and surveyed the room. He had a job to do.

Chapter 1

Talk about the wrong tool for the job.

Jake Emmett looked up from the guitar string he was changing into the bloodshot eyes of the skinniest human being he had ever seen.

Excuse me?

The skeleton gestured towards his guitar. "Your guitar, man. It’s the wrong tool for the trade. A Les Paul? C’mon, you can’t replace Carvin with that. Everyone knows he was a Strat man. That’s the Heathen sound."

Jake looked down and began to wind the string again. He knew this was going to happen. Someone was going to try and mess with his mind today and he wasn’t about to let it happen. The skeleton ignored the rebuff, folding his lanky frame into the chair opposite Jake’s, his eyes following his every move, studying the competition.

Jake glanced over at the skeleton, grinning in spite of himself. He guessed the guy to be in his mid-thirties, a little old for this gig. He wore the de rigueur rock and roll outfit: a skintight pair of ripped jeans, motorcycle boots, and a ripped t-shirt with a garishly colored iron-on covering his pinched chest. The iron-on depicted a slavering, demon rising up over a scantily clad and absurdly proportioned, some would say gifted, damsel. Similar works of art etched in indelible ink crisscrossed the length of his angular arms, his bony wrists wrapped in an assortment of metal bracelets and bangles. The carefully, crafted image was topped by the requisite head dress, an egg whisk mop of hair, jet black in color.

The skeleton sucked in his sallow cheeks preparing for another pithy observation when Jake interjected.

The Heathen sound, you think it comes from the type of guitar Carvin used?

The skeleton’s eyebrows arched in surprise. You don’t?

He shrugged. No, not really. He leaned forward. I think the Heathen sound comes out of a lot of things. Burke’s voice is the obvious key. The interplay between the rhythm section creates those grooves that just stick in your head for days and Carvin’s sound was really the icing on the cake.

The icing on the cake! spat the skeleton. You’ve got an audition with Heathen, a chance to replace one of the greatest rock and roll guitar players who ever lived, and you’re calling him the icing on the cake? Billy Carvin is on the short list of all-time greats: Hendrix, Clapton, Page, Beck, and maybe this new kid, what’s his name?

Edward Van Halen? offered Jake.

Yeah, him, he’ll be up there too. If he keeps it up.

A knowing smile crept across Jake’s face. There was no doubt in his mind that Eddie Van Halen had the guitar prowess to keep it up. He resumed his string change, pausing when he heard the telltale sound of the string winding into the proper pitch. He stopped and looked over at the skeleton.

"So you feel the same away about Van Halen? I mean…you think their sound is all based on Eddie’s rig?"

The skeleton nodded. Definitely man. Everyone’s trying to figure out what that kid’s using. His sound is huge. He sounds like fuckin’ Hiroshima on that album.

He nodded. "Yeah, it’s a killer sound alright. I’m sure he’s got some tricks up his sleeve. Actually, rumor has it that he hooked up a Variac to his amp.

A Variac? What the hell’s that? A new pedal?

No, smiled Jake. It’s like a power soak. It lowers the voltage running through the amp. Gives you a great sound, but it melts the hell out of your tubes after a while.

The skeleton leaned back, rubbing his chin. A Variac, so that’s how he does it.

Jake shook his head. "No, see that’s just it. I don’t think you can fixate on one little gimmick and say, that’s it. That’s the reason this guy doesn’t sound like anybody else. I mean this Variac might’ve given Eddie’s amp some more balls, but listen to the music, man. There’s a lot of new stuff going on there. He’s pioneering some techniques that are going to take the instrument to the next level. It was the same thing with Carvin."

The skeleton snorted. And what’s Eddie using? A Strat, just like Carvin did. You can’t get around that. He smirked and waved at Jake’s guitar. Outside of Page, nobody’s using those anymore. And from what I’ve heard, he records with a Telecaster anyway. Oh wait, I guess there is the guy from KISS. The skeleton erupted into laughter, a raspy chortle that threatened to split his narrow rib cage.

Jake frowned. KISS was the top selling band on the planet and their foray into the world of merchandising had launched an empire that churned out millions from any item emblazoned with the distinctive KISS Logo. From posters to lunch boxes, the kids snapped it up and while this had undoubtedly filled the bank accounts of the quartet from New York City, it gave them little credibility in the musician’s community: a community long populated by staunch purists who saw nobility in suffering for your art and saved their most venomous scorn for those musicians savvy enough to actually make a living. He waited for the skeleton’s sniggering to subside, readying himself for the reaction he knew would surely follow his next statement.

Actually, I like some of KISS’s guitar sounds and I really like what they’re doing for rock and roll right now.

The skeleton gaped at him. "You like KISS! They prance around the stage in high heels and clown makeup. Is that your idea of musical integrity?"

Jake grinned. No doubt about it, he was definitely beginning to get under this guy’s skin, which is exactly what the guy had planned to do to him.

No, that’s my idea of entertainment, which is what KISS is all about, and what’s wrong with that? Music’s always been about forgetting your troubles for a while and if a KISS concert helps someone do that, what’s the problem?

The skeleton crossed his scrawny arms and shook his head. Call it what you want. I guarantee that you won’t be hearing from them in ten or twenty years and bands with real integrity like UFO and Emerson Lake and Palmer will still be going strong.

He shrugged. You might be right. We’ll have to see what happens. He reached over and offered his hand. Jake Emmett.

The skeleton recoiled, snatching his hand away as if Jake had thrust a hot poker in his direction. Jake frowned at the strange reaction and then it occurred to him that this guy was actually paranoid enough to think he might try to damage his hand before the audition with some sort of vise-grip handshake. The skeleton squirmed to recover his dignity, puffing his chest out as much as his leather second skin would allow. Tommy, he rasped. Tommy McCarty.

Jake placed his guitar to the side and brushed a stray wisp of long, blonde hair away from his eyes. He began to drum his fingers, keeping them loose. So, how did you find out about the audition, Tommy?

Tommy’s toothy smile returned. Rudy Kilgore. He’s the band’s Road Manager. We’ve known each other since grade school. He put in a word for me when the band decided they were going to continue. The guys had probably heard of me already. My band’s Leather Angel. I’m sure you’ve heard of us? He asked the question with a haughty air as if the band was a household name on par with the Beatles.

Jake nodded, stifling the urge to laugh. He’d heard of Leather Angel from one of the guys at school who was from LA. The group spent the majority of their time playing heavy metal covers in C circuit biker bars. The only reason he’d even remembered their name was a story he’d heard that their singer’s hair had spontaneously combusted one night when he’d leaned too close to an exploding flashpot. Apparently one Leather Angel had a little too much hairspray lacquered on the old halo that night.

Oh yeah, he smiled. I’ve heard of Leather Angel. You guys have quite the reputation.

Tommy stretched, flexing his pipe cleaner limbs, Yeah, what can I say: sex, drugs and rock and roll man, he winked. We’ve got some great originals dude. We shopped a demo around a little while back and we’re getting strong interest from all of the labels. It’s only a matter of time.

Jake resisted the temptation to ask if the labels were insisting on self-immolation for all of the band’s performances, Is that right? Well then why bother with this audition? It sounds like you’ve got a pretty good thing on the go.

Tommy squirmed in his seat, Hey, that’s what I told Rudy, man. But you know how friends are. He insisted, said the band was really down after they lost Carvin. He figured I was just what they needed to turn it around. He shrugged his narrow shoulders. Who am I to argue?

Jake nodded. I hear ya. This guy was too much. Did he actually expect anyone to believe that his band was on the verge of mega-stardom and he was just doing this audition as a favor to a friend?

Tommy squinted at him curiously. And where are you from, Jake? I’ve never heard of you.

Yeah, well I’ve haven’t done the bar scene much. I’ve been at Berklee for the last couple years.

Berkley? Oh, you’re a north shore boy.

More of an east coast boy actually, grinned Jake. I attend Berklee College in Boston, my hometown.

No shit man, yeah…I figured your accent from somewhere back east. Berklee, that’s far out. I heard some of the dudes outta there got some serious chops going down.

Yeah, nodded Jake. It’s a good school. The instructor’s are pretty committed.

Well that’s cool, but how did Heathen find out about some college boy from out east?

He blushed. I ah… I sent them a demo tape with some of my compositions on it. They got a hold of me a few weeks later.

Tommy’s eyes widened, in surprise. He caught himself as quickly as he could, feigning indifference. Really? he sighed. He leaned over and whispered, Hey, you better watch it man. They’re probably just stringing you along so that they can rip off some of your stuff. It wouldn’t be the first time ya know.

Jake nodded. Yeah, the Johnny Mason lawsuit. I heard about that. His estate claims that Burke and Carvin copped the riff from Bad Love off an old blues tune of his. I gotta admit the chord progression sounds similar, but what are ya gonna do? There’s only 12 notes for everyone. There’s going to be some similarities between songs over the years. That’s just the nature of the beast. Anyway I took some precautions. I’m not too worried about it.

Tommy clucked his tongue like an overprotective mother. Yeah, well you better. Did you send them a picture with the demo?

No, said Jake, taken off guard by the question. Why?

Tommy shook his head. Amateurs, he snorted. "Image, man. Image is everything with Heathen. He gave Jake the once over. I gotta tell ya, man, aside from your guitar which is a big enough problem, you don’t have the right look for this gig."

Jake frowned. How do you figure?

Tommy waved his hand, "Well first off, the hair. Their look is black and spiky and you’ve got this blonde, surfer thing on the go. And the clothes…is this the best you can do?"

Jake looked down at his outfit. He wore a faded pair of blue jeans and a black t-shirt with an Ernie Ball logo on the breast pocket, a pair of white North Star sneakers on his feet. What’s wrong with my clothes? he stammered. This is how people dress. You don’t think these guys dress like they do in concert all the time, do you?

Tommy rolled his eyes. "Professor, wake up. This isn’t Gilligan’s Island. This is rock and roll, man. Of course these guys dress like that all the time. They’re stars man!" The word ‘stars’ oozed out of Tommy’s mouth, drenched in reverence, as it had when he’d mentioned Clapton and Page earlier.

He motioned down the hallway. Take a look man. That is what you’re up against. He swept his arm down the narrow hallway they were seated in, towards a small, rectangular room at the end of the corridor. The other hopefuls sat there, each of them striving to maintain their masks of cool confidence. Like Tommy, they were all clad in the standard Heathen look: leather, boots, their glossy, ebony coifs perfect in razor edged disarray.

Jake noticed the ‘look’ when he’d first come in, but he’d written it off as a classic symptom of ‘wannabe disease.’ All of the guitar players in LA had the same look right now and he hated it. What’s more, he was sure it wasn’t what the band was looking for. He had grown up with their music. The music was all that mattered to them. He was certain of that. They were the band that had inspired him to pick up the guitar. Their music had so much conviction, so much feeling. He just knew they couldn’t care less about the way he dressed. It was how he played that mattered.

His friends at Berklee weren’t so sure.

When he told them he’d been invited to Los Angeles to audition, a couple of the guys had suggested that a little image might go a long way, but he was adamant. Screw the clothes and the hair and striking the right poses, he was going to let the music do the talking. If he knew the guys in this band the way he thought he did, that would be good enough.

But now, confronted with Tommy’s cynicism and looking at the fashion show on display at the end of the hall, the doubts began to surface. He shook his head, pushing Tommy’s words from his mind. No. I don’t buy it. He nodded towards the others. There’s more to it than that. There has to be.

Tommy shrugged "I wish there was, but if you want to go to the dance you gotta dress the part, and for this gig you gotta look…dangerous."

Jake smiled. He didn’t know what was more ridiculous, that Tommy had used the word ‘dangerous’ to describe the way he dressed or that he actually believed it.

Tommy shook his head in exasperation. You know what I mean. Take a look at the Sex Pistols. They’re changing everything man. It’s not about ten minute guitar solos and getting stoned anymore. It’s about putting a safety pin through your nose and smashing your guitar. He frowned at Jake, pounding his fist on his knee. Dangerous, he affirmed.

I don’t know, Tommy. Maybe this image thing is just something they put on for the cameras and if it isn’t, well…maybe I can add a little something different to the mix?

Tommy snorted. You might as well be. I’m sorry, Jake. I don’t make the rules, but in rock and roll, image is everything. That’s just the way it is.

Jake thought about what Tommy was saying. The guy probably couldn’t play his way out of a paper bag, but from the sound of it, he’d been around. Maybe there was some truth to what he was saying. He reached over and picked up his guitar. This wasn’t doing a lot for his confidence. He looked down the hallway at the other players and he wondered if any these guys had the right look and the right sound.

He turned back to Tommy. Can I ask you something?

Tommy leaned forward. Shoot man.

How can you buy into that? How can you say it’s all about image? Does that mean if Clapton or Hendrix or Page or even this new guy, Van Halen, didn’t have the right look, that you’d just ignore their music? Think about what a waste that would be man. When all is said and done, isn’t the music the only thing that matters?

The skeleton’s cynical façade softened in surprise and for the first time Jake caught a glimpse of what he must’ve looked like in his prime, before the long years and late nights had taken their toll. In that instant, he could see a charismatic figure, full of youth and fire. It was hard to believe, but he could definitely picture it. In his day, Tommy McCarty had been a bad-ass.

Tommy looked away, struggling to maintain his carefully calculated detachment. What the hell was he doing? Here he was pushing forty years old for God’s sake and he was doing everything he could to mess up this kid’s mind, and for what? To give him some doubts, to turn him into a bundle of nerves so that he’d hopefully screw up his audition? How pathetic was that?

It wasn’t like he was going to get this gig anyhow. Rudy had made that perfectly clear when he went begging for an audition. It was all he could do to get a hold of him in the first place. He hadn’t seen his ‘old friend’ in years, but that didn’t stop Rudy from being brutally honest did it? He’d told him in no uncertain terms that the band was not interested in auditioning some dinosaur from the LA club scene, but he just couldn’t take no for an answer could he? He had begged and pleaded, leaning on an old friendship that barely existed and finally Rudy had given in—to shut him up if nothing else. He said he couldn’t make any promises and he didn’t think it would do a damn bit of good, but he would run it by the band and see what happened.

That was all Tommy needed to hear. He slapped the grizzled Road Manager on the back and told him he wouldn’t regret it, but he’d been as surprised as anyone when Rudy called a few days later and told him that the band had actually agreed to see him. You could have peeled him off the ceiling for the next couple of days. After all these years, after all the crummy, beer-soaked dives and countless rejections from the labels—he was finally getting his shot.

But tonight, sitting in that room down the hall, surrounded by an arsenal of hot shots, all young and talented and hungry, the truth had hit hard. Who was he kidding? He didn’t have a hope in hell of getting this gig. Maybe a decade ago, when the music was everything and he’d spent every waking moment playing. Maybe then he’d have a shot, but not now.

He sat there, for the last two hours, in the dingy entrance of this crummy warehouse on the edge of Hollywood, watching as, one by one, each guy was called in for his audition. He recognized a few of them from gigs around town. They were playing in the better bars: the Whiskey, the Rainbow, the Roxy, and all of them were drawing crowds that Leather Angel couldn’t hope to match. They were young and they had the look down pat, but he knew there wasn’t an original player in the lot. Maybe, just maybe, he could stand out from the rest of these clones. At least that’s what he’d started to tell himself until Jake walked through the door: a young blonde guy who’d looked around nervously and sidled out of the room as quickly as he’d come in, but not before he’d caught the attention of every guy in the place. Oh, they played their parts well, straining to look as bored as a eunuch in a strip bar, but it was obvious to all of them—the kid had star written all over him.

Imagine! Aside from the long, blonde hair, he had the nerve to show up in a pair of jeans and sneakers! And to top it off, it was obvious from the shape of the road case he was carrying that he actually intended to audition with a Les Paul. What balls! Either this kid was completely out of touch, just plain stupid, or he was one of the hottest players imaginable. He took one look at him and bet on the latter. He knew it. He could feel it deep in his guts that this kid was the one to beat. He didn’t fit in at all, but he had something. You couldn’t take your eyes off him. Just one look and you knew he was a player.

For the next hour, he sized the kid up from a distance. Finally, his curiosity got the better of him and at the risk of compromising his ‘you’re all wasting your time because I’ve got this gig in the bag’ attitude, he sauntered down the hallway to check out the competition.

His suspicions had been confirmed in short order. The kid was from Berklee. He had to have some serious chops and when he said that the band had invited him on the strength of an unsolicited demo tape that clinched it. Obviously there was enough on that tape for them to offer an audition to a complete unknown, a student for God’s sake. And the way he had referred to the music on his tape as compositions was what really worried him. The kid hadn’t said licks or riffs or solos. No, he used the word compositions. That hinted at something more than just some impressive guitar fireworks. That hinted at the work of a mature musician. That hinted at a player who could be a serious threat in this audition. It was at that moment that Tommy’s greatest strength kicked into gear, his instinct for self-preservation.

He attacked the kid on all fronts: his guitar, his clothes, hell, even his looks, and it was working. For the first time since the kid had come into the building, that unwavering confidence, that gunslinger demeanor that had instantly set him apart from the rest had started to falter. His mental sabotage was working and now, now that he was so close to accomplishing what he’d set out to do when he’d first sat down across from the kid, his will to finish him off was fading.

What was to be gained from all of this? Damn it, he was a dinosaur. He could be the best player in this place today and he wasn’t going to get this gig. He was too damn old. His shot had passed him by. So what was the point of all this? For the first time he was beginning to see what all of the years of slogging it out in the clubs had done. He’d become a jaded, bitter man, so ashamed of his own failure that he sought to extinguish the light from a rising star rather than face the reality of his own fading on the horizon.

No, this was not what he was about. This was not why he’d gotten into music in the first place. Looking at this kid, so eager to succeed, so in love with the music, reminded him of the past when he’d been the young gun, the one that turned heads. He could still see those days in the rearview mirror. He’d been so full of hope, so full of life, before all the broken promises and missed opportunities. Looking back on it now, he couldn’t pinpoint the exact day the hope had died, but he knew it was when he’d started to buy into the lies, when he’d started to convince himself that it was all about the right image, the right sound. That was when he’d sold out. Oh, he’d done a helluva job in convincing himself that he was doing it the right way. He could look down his nose at the successful bands that he regarded as the true sellouts, pointing out to anyone who’d listen how they’d sold their musical integrity down the river to get a deal. But inside, he knew he’d do the same damn thing in a heartbeat for just one shot at that brass ring. Inside he knew it had stopped being about the music a long time ago.

His time had passed him by. He could see that now, but he finally realized something that he should’ve figured out a lifetime ago. He wasn’t a failure because he hadn’t made the big time. He was a failure because he’d stopped living by his principles. He looked over at Jake and shook his head. Unbelievable, Jake. I didn’t even know your name ten minutes ago, but I’ll never forget you.

He leaned forward and smiled, looking Jake in the eye. "Yeah, you’re right, man. The music is the only thing that matters. You just remember that and you’ll be fine. Hell, you’ve probably been practicing your ass off up in Berklee. I’m sure you’ll knock ‘em dead."

Jake was stunned. Encouragement was the last thing he would’ve expected from this guy. From the moment they met, he was sure that Tommy’s whole trip was about getting him off his game, but now, he just sat there with that goofy smile on his face. Jake smiled back, without the slightest clue as to why they were both grinning like idiots, but feeling good about it just the same. Tommy rose to leave, offering his hand and Jake felt a surge of disappointment, a reaction he wouldn’t have thought possible ten minutes ago.

It was good meeting ya man. For what it’s worth, best of luck in this thing.

Jake shook his hand, lightly at first, and then more firmly as Tommy reciprocated. Yeah…it’s been good to meet you too, Tommy. Good luck, man. Hey, maybe we can grab a beer or something after?

Tommy smiled again and Jake suddenly realized where he’d seen that look before. It was his father’s smile. Unbelievable. Tommy McCarty reminded him of his dad.

Thanks, Jake, I might take you up on that if I’m still around when you get out of there. He flashed him a hang loose sign, then turned and ambled down the hallway towards the others, their curious eyes looking away as soon as the two of them parted.

Jake watched him go, his mind playing over their conversation and the bizarre twist it had taken. He couldn’t stand the guy at first. He seemed like a has-been, or worse,