Rock and Roll Death Trip

By Sean McDonough

The Demons of the Four Points have been unleashed in the California desert. The roads run red as they rip a bloody path from Barstow to Primm. Ferocious. Merciless. Unstoppable.

Shock rocker Jackie Galindo was just looking to take a break from his life as the most beloved and reviled front man in all of rock and roll. He didn’t

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sean McDonough
• Release date: Sep 22, 2017
• ISBN: 9781513625386

Book preview

1

Mike didn’t want to open his eyes. Not with his head throbbing like it was. Not while his limbs felt like they were weighed down with iron chains. Every inch of his body was either sore, bruised, or burning. The surface under his back felt hard. Gritty. Jesus Christ, had he slept in the fucking parking lot?

He gritted his teeth. All right, man up. Open your eyes and let’s check out the damage.

His punishment was swift and severe. The mere thought of moving stirred up the fury of the hangover beasts nesting in the ruins of his head. Mike tried to close his eyes even tighter, as if in apology, but the roaring thing the inside of his skull showed him no mercy.

Please, he moaned. I take it back. I’ll stay here. I’ll sleep in the parking lot. Anything. Whatever it took to quiet the snarling agony in his head, that’s what he would do. He’d live in the parking lot. Give up his trailer. Sell his-

His keys! His eyes bulged beneath his closed eyelids. Where the hell were his keys!? He couldn’t feel them in his pants pockets. That left only his jacket packet. If he was lucky.

Please. Please, let me be lucky.

Eyes closed, he summoned all of his will and prepared to move his arm. Just a little. Just far enough to pat his pocket. Please God, he thought, I’ve suffered enough. Just let me still have my truck keys.

Mike wiggled his fingers. Winced. Fuck, it was only going to get worse; but there was nothing else for it. He braced himself. 1… 2…

His arm rattled. Something heavy shuffled along with his wrist. He registered something cold clamped around his wrist… a bracelet? Another blackout mystery waiting to be solved. His text messages were going to be hilarious.

IF I still have my phone, that is.

Only one way to find out. Mike summoned all of his will and finally did it. He opened his eyes. He looked around and discovered that there were worse things than pain in this world. Worse things than missing truck keys.

There were memories.

We went to the Hangar Bar after work. Me, Zee, Joe Scro, and that blonde chick with the ink that Zee’s always trying to hook up with. Car bombs? Hell yes. I’d been working double shifts all week and the only thing I wanted to do was throw twenty dollars into the jukebox, hang out with my friends, and get completely fucked up.

And then THEY came.

THEM.

Mike remembered everything now. And if he there was anything he’d forgotten, the scene before his eyes filled in way too many blanks. The Hangar Bar, his second home since his first fake ID, was in flames. Every window was shattered. The jukebox lay upside down on the smoldering porch.

The bodies were everywhere. The bartenders were impaled on the decorative propeller blades mounted over the door. Some other poor bastard lay draped over a smashed windowsill. His blood ran down the wall and pooled on the boards beneath his carcass.

Zee had finally gotten that blonde after all. Her severed head rested between his legs.

Where Zee’s head was, Mike had no idea.

Mike leapt up. His keys didn’t matter. Run. Run before THEY realize someone’s still alive. That was his intention, except he could not leap. He couldn’t even stand. His limbs would not allow it. He could do nothing but thrash and flop on the asphalt like a fish choking on air.

He thought he could get away? They already had him. They’d gotten him before he’d even woken up.

They had him lying spread-eagle in the parking lot, held in place by lengths of chains shackled to his wrists and ankles.

At the far end of each chain was an automobile. A Dodge Ram shackled to his right arm. A Porsche Boxster chained to his left arm. A Cadillac Escalade strapped to one leg. And a real beaut, a 1973 Mustang Mach 1, cuffed to his other leg. Each vehicle was pure, matte black. Each one was aimed at a different point of the compass.

Each one stood idling, just waiting for a foot to step on the gas.

Mike understood then. He screamed and writhed as much as his chains would allow.

But not enough to get free. Never enough to get away.

NOO! he begged. DON’T! PLEASE! PLEASE DON’T DO IT!

The only response was music drifting from the open window of the Ram truck. George Thorogood and the Destroyers. Who Do You Love?

The engines revved. The lurking power of thirty-two combined cylinders snorted and rumbled in the silence of the night, begging to be let loose. The rumbling roadhouse guitar blasted right alongside it.

Mike screamed almost as loudly.

Cued by some silent signal, the cars and trucks bellowed together. Tires squealed.

They peeled out to the four points. North, South, East, and West. The meager slack in the chains disappeared in less than two seconds. Mike was lifted. His limbs pulled taut and then flew apart. The roaring vehicles ripped Mike’s limbs from their sockets and left him a bleeding square of meat, mewling out his last breath on the dirty asphalt.

Which isn’t to say that it wasn’t exceedingly painful for the few moments that Mike lingered alongside the living.

The vehicles drove on, Mike’s limbs flapping off their bumpers like wedding streamers. As they faded into the night, George Thorogood wailed out from the darkness, asking the same question just one more time:

Who do you love?

2

From Rolling Stone magazine, November 5th, 2005. Interview of Jackie Galindo by Djavan Dean:

Rock and Roll? he says. Rock and Roll is the Death Trip.

He laughs at my surprise. He already has his skull-face makeup on (neon green and black this time. A Day of the Dead skeleton from raver hell), and when he smiles the effect is like a mouth smiling within another mouth. Aliens by way of Guillermo Del Toro. I tell him as much and that double smile just gets wider. This is obviously the kind of compliment Jackie Galindo loves to hear.

But I don’t want to get too far away from the point he just made. I ask him what he means when he calls Rock and Roll, his lifeblood and mine, the Death Trip.

Exactly what I said, he responds. It’s music for the suicidal, the terminal, and the homicidal.

"AC/DC, Long Way to the Top if You Wanna Rock and Roll, I challenge. Motley Crue, Kickstart My Heart. Iggy Pop, Lust for Life."

Death, Jackie says. Death, death, and, oh yeah, death.

I was in the crowd when Ozzy bit the head off of that live bat. I know how to react to that. I know how to respond to musicians who want to do an interview in the nude or give their responses in between lines of blow. I know what those guys want and I know better than to give it to them.

I don’t know how to respond to this. Part of me wonders if I’m talking to Pat Robertson masquerading in Jackie Galindo’s green and black skeleton makeup. But then he laughs at my discomfort and there’s too much arrogant, contemptuous glee in that cackle for this to be anything but the genuine article.

Iggy, Bon, Vince. Did any of those guys make responsible life choices? No! It’s a bald-ass miracle two out of the three are still alive. And that’s what they sang about. Rock and Roll is about not giving a fuck if you live or die. It’s about going as hard as you can as fast as you can… and if you lose your head for it, then so what?

He leans forward and there’s a mad gleam in his eye. I’d call it Devil May Care but Jackie Galindo is the Devil and it’s obvious that he does not care. You can make Rock and Roll about having a good time, he says. "I’ve made a lot of money that way. You can make Rock and Roll about being in love or getting dumped or any other emotion on the wheel of life. But that’s all shared real estate. You want to feel good? You can go to country music, rap music, pop, or your local pharmacist. It’s common ground.

"But when you’re riding the bomb all the way to ground zero, when you’re going to a gun fight and all you’re bringing is your teeth, when you know the end is coming but you’re determined to go out with a smile and as many motherfuckers as you can take for company… that’s when nothing else will do the trick. That’s when the only thing you’ve got on this earth is Rock and Roll."

I’ve done my best to reproduce the gravity of his words, but I don’t know if I can. There’s an impact that can only come with sharing a room with Jackie Galindo. Looking at him, it’s easy to believe that the painted skull is all there is and there’s no human face behind it.

Well, Jack. 

Jackie, he interrupts me. Always Jackie. Jack is what it says on my taxes.

Well, Jackie, I correct myself. …It sounds like this Death Trip is a philosophy you’ve put a lot of thought into.

Jackie leans back in his seat. The better to grab the open bottle of Jim Beam on the corner table.

Nah, not really, he says.

3

Elle trusted her phone’s GPS to guide her through the unfamiliar curves of the Hollywood Hills.

She trusted in a God that she technically didn’t believe in to keep the wheezy Firebird from breaking down before she got where she was going.

And why wouldn’t she? God may not exist, but she still had more faith in him than she did in Joe Abner’s Six Month Lemon Fresh Guarantee.

As if to prove her point, the car’s AC system sputtered, coughed, and then ran lukewarm.

Great.

Elle rolled down the window using an honest to God crankshaft. She watched the four million dollar homes roll by and wondered, not for the first time, which one of these millionaires had called all the way out to Santa Clarita for this rolling crap bucket.

Stupid question. She had the name on the address slip Abner had given to her. The same name that had been running laps around her shaved head ever since she had left the valley.

It’s not really him.

It can’t be.

It wasn’t even the right name. Jack Galindo. Jack, not Jackie.

And it’s always Jackie. Always. He said it himself.

Besides, it wasn’t like Jack Galindo was that exotic of a name. There were probably hundreds of them.

The GPS brought her to 20 Saturn Road and announced she had reached her destination: a luxurious, old-style stucco manor. There was a For Sale sign posted in the grassless, sustainable front yard. Elle didn’t even want to guess how much it went for.

She shifted into park. Looked at the house. Jack Galindo, she repeated to herself. Just Jack. She stepped out of the car. Probably some dentist sick of people always asking him if he’s that weirdo in the skull makeup.

So she told herself. And then she took off her denim jacket and threw it on the passenger seat She wore a t-shirt underneath. No sleeves, the better to show off the thorn branch tattoos running up and down her arms. And no midriff, the better to display the tipped-over whiskey bottle tattooed below her breasts.

Keep your jacket on. Try to look respectable for God’s sake, Abner had said. Well, fuck him. Like he was ever going to know. She opened her purse and fastened her nose studs and lip ring back into place.

Okay, it probably wasn’t HIM. But… if it was, well, then Elle wasn’t about to knock on Jackie Galindo’s door dressed like some chump norm who cleaned out used cars for a living. No, she wanted to come before him as the bassist from MurderCycle Diaries, and as a pilgrim on the path of the Rock and Roll Death Trip.

You’re just setting yourself up to get let down.

Maybe. But no matter what she told herself, she grew more and more anxious with every step that brought her closer to the front door.

Tracy, wait!

She heard the voice clearly through the door. It was shrill and toothless. A beggar’s voice.

Elle slowed her roll. That’s not Jackie Galindo. No way. That was some puss-ass studio exec pleading after his little fuck-puppet while she left him for a fatter wallet.

You weren’t even supposed to be here, Jack! I could come and get my things and not have to see you. You promised me!

Ah, and there was the fuck-puppet. Just as Elle expected. Along with the drama, she could hear the echo of stamping feet over stone tile.

I’m sorry! the wimp pleaded.

Fuck your sorry! The fuck-puppet screeched back. I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t ask for anything except not to hear another one of your fucking lies!

I know that I fucked up. But I love you-

You don’t go behind somebody’s back if you love them!

Just stop for a second! He cried, so loud Elle might as well have been in the room with him. So agonized, you’d think he was getting eviscerated instead of dumped.

Elle hesitated before knocking. Maybe she should do a lap and hope the Real Ex-housewife was gone before she came back.

And then the door flew open and made the decision for her. A blonde came storming out with a foo-foo dog tucked under one arm and a carrier full of dog crap under the other.

It’s over! the blonde screamed. She didn’t slow down. Didn’t look back over her shoulder. Stop calling me! Stop texting me! Stop trying to see me!

She didn’t even acknowledge Elle. Just kept right on moving. Elle didn’t even have time to get a good look at her as she swept by.

But you saw enough, didn’t you? Enough to think you’ve seen her before.

But the thought fled as soon as it appeared. All thoughts fled as he came running down the stairs. He wasn’t wearing his skeleton facepaint, but it didn’t matter. Elle recognized the rattlesnake tattoo wrapped around his neck. She even had his piercings memorized- a curved scimitar dangling from one earlobe, and the horned devil head stud in the cartilage of his other ear.

JACKIE GALINDO!

Tracy, please wait! Jack screamed.

Tracy did not wait. She put the dog and the carrier into the back of a Tesla, and her only response was a slamming door and the high whirring of the engine as she sped off.

Elle didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

Oh my God. Oh shit. Oh shit. It was him! Really him! He was right in front of her!

…Wasn’t he?

Elle’s phone background was a picture of Jackie Galindo at Ozzfest ’06- Jackie Galindo in red and black skullface, mouth forever frozen in an eternal scream of fury. She had the cover art from Sulfuric Messiah tattooed between her shoulder blades- Jackie Galindo crawling out of a rancid yellow