Charlotte: November 5th, 1996
"That was a good show back in Washington. We were good."
"Yeah, I thought so too."
"Thanks for not changing the set-list, Marc."
"Thanks for not quitting, Tony."
He laughed. "And miss this? Where else could I go to be constantly reminded of my own crushing inescapable mortality on a daily fucking basis if I left the tour? No, this is the place for me."
"Good to hear that."
"Yeah, well. It's for old times, right? Reliving the glory days."
"Yeah. The glory days."
It was two o'clock at night - or was it two o'clock in the morning? Either way, it was fucking late. The hotel was dead except for a few bleary-eyed travelers wandering dully up to their new rooms, still stinking of airports and bus stations. The place was down to a skeleton crew. Tony and Marc and their new sound guy Jordan were naked in the sauna, sharing a cigar and a six-pack. Until just now they hadn't been talking much, just relaxing and reveling in their little larceny.
They'd finished their preparations for the show, which would be happening the day after tomorrow, and they had nothing left to do but fuck around at the hotel. It was midnight when they got back from the stadium, and Tony had held up a box of cigars and offered an open invitation to anybody else who wanted to join him breaking into the swimming area, which closed down at eight.
Jordan volunteered at once, offering a six-pack of imported German beer as a contribution. He'd just come aboard a couple days ago after their usual sound man came down with a sudden case of the flu. You didn't mess around with that shit on a tour, with everybody packed together in close spaces all the time. He went home on the earliest available plane, first class, compliments of the band. Thank you for your service. Jordan came well recommended, but nobody really knew him yet. Marc said he'd come along too, but didn't have anything to bring. Tony had given him quite a look, and said that he hadn't been expecting the big man himself.
Marc wasn't sure himself why he'd agreed. He supposed that maybe he just felt like doing something crazy. And he figured it would be a good idea to get to know the new guy. He was going to be shouting at the man every day for the next couple weeks, so it would be best if he was on a first name basis. If there was one properly thankless job on the tour, it was the sound man, since everything was always your fault when things didn't sound right and if it sounded good then nobody noticed you.
It turned out that Tony could still pick a lock without breaking too much of a sweat, and there were no alarms or anything like that in the pool area, so it was smooth sailing. They locked the doors behind themselves and left almost all the lights off. The place looked spooky in the darkness, water shifting blue and gloomy in the half-light. Tony grabbed the six pack and tossed the bottles one after the other into the water.
"I was gonna drink those," Jordan complained.
Marc and Tony looked at each other and nodded in agreement. "No problem, man," Tony said.
"Yeah, go for it Jordan. They're still good," Marc said. And the two of them shoved their sound guy into the pool. He hit the water with a shriek, flailing and grasping at the air. He came up sputtering, his no-doubt pricey outfit thoroughly soaked.
"Fuck you guys!" he laughed, treading water. He dove down for a second and came up splashing, a bottle in his hand. He popped it open and tossed the cap at Tony.
"Hey, Jordan," Marc said, crouching down beside the pool. "Welcome to the crew."
Marc got splashed right in the face for that one, which got Tony laughing, which got Tony splashed next.
Next thing you knew the three of them were swimming naked in the darkness and bobbing for beers, their soaking clothes in a pile on the edge of the pool. Nudity was nothing for Marc or Tony, who'd seen each other naked as many times as any brother. Jordan had hesitated, but hadn't wanted to be the only one wearing soggy underwear, so he'd disrobed fully as well. No doubt the darkness made him feel a bit more comfortable.
There was something about swimming nude that never failed to give Marc a little thrill. It just felt right, feeling the water on his skin. Back in the day, before all the pomp and circumstance of their world tours, when it was just the four of them in a bus, they used to do it every chance they got. America was a big country, and you passed through a lot of open land traveling from city to city. They always avoided the highways, preferring back-country roads and open stretches of land where they wouldn't be hassled. It got hot in the van in the summer, and there weren't exactly a lot of showers to be had, so they usually stunk up the vehicle like a pack of dogs. Every time they found a lonely pond or wide stretch of river they would pull over and dump themselves in the water. After swimming they would run around in the fields, their pale wet skin gleaming in the sunlight. More than a couple times they'd found themselves running naked back to the road with some farmer screaming after them as he chased them off his land.
Marc didn't think he could do that anymore. They were too famous and it was too hard to be alone. Not to mention that the waters of America seemed to have gotten a lot dirtier in the last twenty years. More to the point, he very much doubted any of his band-mates would be up for it. He thought about it a lot though. Another memory to cling onto.
The three of them climbed out of the pool. They stood on the edge of the water, watching their empty beer bottles float on the surface like toy ships drifting. It was Tony who suggested the sauna. He'd always been one for saunas. The Swedish blood in him coming out, no doubt.
The sauna controls were secured with a heavy-duty looking padlock. "Not a problem," Tony had assured them, and it turned out it wasn't.
So now the three of them were sitting, one on each side of the room flicking water droplets on the steaming stones. Tony's cigar smoke curled up in dark waves, mixing with the pale steam. Marc was fairly sure that smoking in a sauna defeated at least some part of the point of the thing, but whatever. It was only the one cigar. They smoked half of it, taking a couple puffs each, then decided through silent but mutual accord to put the thing out.
Marc lay back on the smooth cherry-wood bench, looking up at the steamy haze swirling above in the dark ceiling. He'd caught a look of himself in the mirror coming over from the pool. Didn't look too bad, he thought. Little heavier than he'd been, but they'd all been wispy thin once, so he supposed he was about average now. He wasn't exactly a supermodel anymore, but he still had his looks. He'd caught a glimpse of his package as he walked. Almost six inches, nice shape. What you'd call a shower, he didn't get much bigger, just harder. Testicles were still tight, he guessed he had another decade or so before the dreaded affliction of old man balls set in. What was he looking for, though? Who cared anymore?
He'd had to fight the urge to grab hold of himself in the mirror. Nothing sexual, just a thing, he supposed. They'd been free with each other back then, all crammed in the van with no one else around for miles and none of them picky about the gender of their partner. Marc had sucked off all three of his band-mates more times than he could remember, and vice-versa. They'd all been wildly oversexed, and weren't shy about helping themselves. The usual way to wake someone up was with a handjob or a wet finger in one hole or other. They'd been tight-knit and exploding with hormones. It had become somewhat well-known that if you hooked up with one member of Cashmere when they rolled into town you'd probably end up fucking all four before they left again.
Like everything else, that had faded with time. The bigger they got the more things there were that started to come between them. By the eighties their sexual exploits had drifted from a unified front to four separate spheres, sometimes bumping up against one another, but never overlapping the way they'd once done. He guessed that was just the way things went. Couldn't be young forever.
"Our old sound guy was a fucking prick, you know," Tony announced, out of the blue.
"Yeah?" Jordan leaned forward a little, flicking a few drops onto the hot rocks. They hissed, puffs of steam rising.
"Total bastard. I never liked him, buried the bass, too."
"He did not," Marc groaned. If there was one phrase he never wanted to hear again...
"He did!" Tony insisted, "He fucking buried it. Might as well be digging me a grave out there. Trying to put me out of my misery, doubtless. No such luck, unfortunately."
"The bass was mixed pretty low in Washington," Jordan interjected, quite unhelpfully.
"Of course it was low, it's the bass," Marc shot back. "This bastard's been complaining about our mixing for two decades, so watch out. He's gonna come for you next."
"Might as well just perform it A Capella again," Tony grumbled.
"A Capella bass?"
"You tell him, Marc."
"Nah."
Jordan looked interested now. "Come on, what's he talking about?"
Marc sighed. "Okay, okay. So this was back in seventy-seven, I think. Tony and I had just discovered cocaine."
Tony grunted. "You'd just discovered it, maybe."
"Fine fine. Tony introduced me to it properly. You wanna tell the story yourself or do you wanna shut the fuck up? Anyway, we were both a little crazy at the time. Usually there was always somebody around who was holding. I mean, a rock and roll tour in the seventies, you didn't have to go far to find coke. But that day we weren't having any luck for some reason. Where was it?"
"Maryland."
"Right. Fucking Maryland. The whole scene was bone dry, or at least it seemed that way. This guy though, local guy, he told us that there was a dealer who lived a couple blocks down. So Tony and I decide to check it out, we go straight there after finishing the final rehearsal for the gig, and Tony's in such a hurry to get a couple lines that he doesn't even put his bass down. He's got it strapped on his back and we're walking down the street to this guy's house."
Jordan laughed.
"Oh, it gets better. We go there and we get the stuff. It goes okay, no problems. Anyway. Tony wants to test it right there. I know. And the show starts in about an hour. So we do a couple lines. Well, Tony does more than a couple."
"What can I say? I had a difficult childhood," he said, rather drolly.
"Suddenly I'm looking at my watch. Oh shit, right? And we rush right out of there, go running across town with white powder all over our faces, and we get back just in time and they rush us out to the stage. We get there, I'm not kidding, not a minute too late. The show is happening now. We rush out on stage in front of a couple hundred people, Roger and Jo are already playing, I run up and start singing, everybody cheers like it was all choreographed. Then I look over, and Tony's freaking out. He put his bass down at the dealer's house and left it there. He's standing up there with no fucking instrument, with this look of utter panic coming over him. So what's he going to do, right? He's fucked. So what does he do?"
"You're kidding."
"I'm not. He steps up to the mic and starts singing his bass lines. He's just standing there, coked out of his mind, going 'rum bum bum bum.' Goes on for four songs before one of the techs found him a spare instrument and brought it out. Roger looked like he wanted to light us both on fire."
Jordan and Marc laughed. Tony grinned ruefully. "I wasn't too bad, really. Thought about doing it again sometimes."
"Yeah, Tony, you were bad. That was the cocaine you were hearing."
Tony snorted derisively.
"Jesus," Jordan said, shaking his head, "sounds like you guys had some times."
"You don't know the half of it."
Marc and Tony looked at each other for a moment, their eyes meeting for just an instant. Marc couldn't help wondering what the other man was thinking. The guy was like a brick wall, always had been. Marc never knew what was really on his mind, never had and probably never would. Tony was impassive to a fault. Jordan flicked more water on the rocks, and a cloud of steam leaped up between them, breaking their eye contact.
Marc got up, stretching languidly. "Back in the pool?"
"You go ahead," Tony said, staring at the rocks and flicking tiny droplets in their direction.
Marc shrugged. He slipped out of the sauna and in four quick steps he dove and broke the cool surface of the water. He swam down, all the way down to the bottom of the pool. He turned around, opening his eyes despite the sting of chlorine and he looked up. Darkness, only the faintest shimmer of light on the surface of the water. He thought about all those times the band hand gone swimming in random ponds on warm California nights, their bodies knifing through the darkness.
He looked up, and for all he could tell it might as well have been the infinite night sky above and not the ceiling of the hotel's indoor swimming pool. He looked up and saw a face coming out of the darkness in the window of his mind's eye. The face that he saw in the darkness belonged to a young man in his twenties with piercing blue eyes.
It belonged to Cal.
* * *
Marc leaned against the window of the taxi, watching the outskirts of Charlotte fade away. There were still leaves on the trees in full flaming autumnal bloom, and an unseasonably warm window dancing in the trees.
In true fucking egomaniacal fashion, the world was a beautiful place because Marc Warner was happy.
He wasn't sure exactly why he was happy, but he was. Nothing had really changed, a still didn't get along with the rest of the band, the tour was still a meaningless commercial shell, Daphne still despised him and he was still going to lose everything if he didn't complete the tour that he was increasingly uninterested in. It was all just the same as it had been at the start. But somehow everything had changed.
He had spent the bus ride from Washington locked in his cabin playing guitar. He played timidly, as quietly as he could so nobody would overhear it. He was both ashamed of it and thrilled by it. He tried playing songs he only half remembered, and songs which had never before been written. Snatches of melody seemed to be floating around him, tantalizingly close but still out of reach. Nothing to do but grope blindly for them through the darkness. He stayed up all night playing, looking out the window at the starlit countryside.
There was this thought which had occurred to him, an idea that he only half allowed himself to acknowledge, that if he wrote something new, something good, he could play it for Cal. That was stupid. Of course it was stupid. Cal wasn't going to be impressed by anything he strummed out. He was too rusty, too clumsy, too uninspired. He didn't know if he really had it in him still to create something new.
The music had used to flow so easily. It was like it was all just drifting in the air about his head, and all he had to do was reach up and pluck it out of the sky. It had once been so easy that he'd taken it for granted, assumed he'd always be able to do it. Writing had been literally effortless, all he needed to do was open the tap.
Well, it was open now, but nothing much was going out. Only drips and drabs, only the sludge that was clogging the pipe. Was it gone for good, or could he get it back? Ten years since he'd last written a song, last really felt that thunderbolt of inspiration. He hadn't tried for a long time after the band broke up, because he hadn't need to. He'd been sick of music, sick of writing it, sick of recording it, sick of performing it. He'd gone to sleep.
Not it was time to wake up again. But how the fuck was he going to manage to do that?
Sometimes life passes by. Sometimes the things you give up aren't going to be waiting for you when you try and pick them back up again. Sometimes things were just gone forever.
But he had tried, that was the important thing. He'd reached out for it, feeling awkwardly in the darkness. That burning flame had gone out, but he thought there might still be some little spark of it glowing in the ashes. And he was going to find it.
He felt naked in the back of the taxi, like an impostor without his mask. They'd arrived in Charlotte on the third, and it was the sixth now. He was nervous, couldn't make his feet stop bouncing or his fingers stop drumming on his leg. They were playing tomorrow, but he wasn't worried about that. Not much, anyway. He'd played a thousand shows before, and never felt so much as a flicker of what people called stage fright. He loved being on stage and he always had. Ever since he was a kid, standing on his chair and belting out the national anthem at the top of his lungs in front of the whole class, he'd felt most comfortable in the spotlight. He was nervous about seeing Cal again.
The address Cal had given him was scribbled on a piece of paper folded and tucked in the pocket of his jeans. He'd read it out to the cab driver, half dreading that the guy was just going to laugh at him and tell him that there was no such place. Apparently there was, however, and they were going towards it now.
He took the paper out once more and looked at it, feeling like he might be able to see some kind of clue in the handwriting. Small jagged letters, scrawled with fingers all bunched up at the front of the pen. A cramped and hurried cluster of half-formed letters each bleeding into the next. What did it tell him? Informal early education, he hadn't been trained how to hold a pencil like everybody else. A sense that the words were written for the writer more than anybody else who might read it. So not a natural performer, not an extrovert like Marc. What was it he said? It had been his sister's idea to form a band, he hadn't wanted it, wasn't interested in fame. When he played he seemed to hide behind his hair, as if he wanted to become anonymous.
But of course the music spoke no matter how he tried to hide it. He was laid bare when he sang, and he sang and played with the whole force of his being. Something of a contradiction there, a tension. Maybe that was part of what made it so potent. Cal wrote songs like he didn't ever expect anybody else to listen to them, and so he wrote truly and personally on a level that Marc could barely even imagine. Naked as pages torn from a diary, with no sense of posture or performative aspect. It was raw and true.
Marc wondered how long Cal would be able to keep that up. Playing like that, night after night, it would have torn Marc up inside. In the bar in New York nobody paid much attention to the band, the Chaos Club that Marc remembered had been so anarchic that he'd barely heard himself over the shouting of the audience, and in Washington the place had been such a circus that Wilderlands had almost vanished into the general reverie. Maybe that was why Cal had been able to do it. All those venues had given him something of a cloak, a shield between himself and the audience. Maybe that had made it easier to open up like that.
He wondered if they'd be able to survive a real show.
The city was far behind when the driver finally turned off the highway and struck out. How far had they come? Half an hour at least. Civilization was long behind. The houses now were of a more sparse and ramshackle quality, separated by vast distances from each other and many of them looking like they were close to falling apart. With every turn the quality of the road diminished, until at last the taxi was rattling down a long dirt drive, the driver shooting nasty looks in the rear-view mirror at every sharp jostle.
Then they came around a bend and out a cluster of trees and there it was. A low single-story house with a crooked chimney and a cluster of chickens pecking their away across the yard. The silver van was parked on the grass, looking about as run down as the rest of the place. Marc left the driver an extra tip.
"You sure you don't want me to hang around for a minute, Mister?" the cabbie asked, casting doubtful glances at the mossy door and papered-over windows.
"I'm fine, thanks," Marc said, stepping out of the car and looking around. "This is the place."
He crossed the yard slowly, picking his way around the pools of ankle-deep mud and clusters of animal dung. It was rustic, that was for sure, but it wasn't so bad. The air was clean, and there was a wild bucolic charm to the place. It might have actually been nice, given a lick of paint and a few repairs. Beyond the shabby little home the land dropped away, and below there spread out a wide valley of pastureland and meadows and little trickles of branching river.
"Hey there, friend! Don't be shy, come on over." A deep and booming voice came from the darkened doorway of what Marc had at first taken to be a pile of rubbish and timber scraps but was in actuality a barn of sorts. A huge round man was coming out, his ruddy face beaming with one of the biggest smiles Marc had ever seen, hidden behind a massive shaggy red beard. He held his arms out - at first Marc thought the guy was going to rush him and catch him in a bear hug, but it seemed that he was simply indicating the rustic splendor of his abode. "You like the place?"
"It's a sight," Marc answered, aiming for tact and hoping he didn't sound as dubious as he felt.
The big man laughed, a big belly rumble of a laugh. "That it is. Bought it off a farmer who couldn't afford to keep it up anymore. My retirement chateau."
"What are you retiring from?" Marc had tried to dress down, but in his brand new jeans and suede jacket and patent leather dockers he still felt pretty drastically overdressed.
"Oh, the rigors of high finance, my friend. Stocks, capital investiture, brokerage, yadda yadda yadda."
"You're kidding."
"Not a lick." The guy crossed the yard and caught Marc's hand in a crushing shake, giving it three or four solid pumps before letting it go. "Straight from Harvard to the New York Stoke exchange. Made a killing, but the only thing I was really doing was killing myself. Gave it up ten years ago and wandered the country for a while, ended up landing in this little Texas commune, left them most of my money, used the rest to buy this place once I'd decided to move on. Now here I am, happy as a clam and not a care in the world."
"That's some story."
The guy nodded happily. "I'm Pat. You're here for the kids, I guess. They said you'd be coming by." He gave Marc a long look of an indeterminate nature. "Didn't say how old you were though..."
Shit, did he look old? Christ. He just shrugged.
"Never mind. Come on, they're in the house."
"Alright..." Marc followed him, stepping carefully. Pat himself didn't bother, tromping on quite heedless of any filth which might be in his path. Marc supposed that it was the sort of thing a person got used to eventually.
"The kids were just a couple teenagers when I meet 'em. Quite a thing to see 'em all grown up like this. People from the commune stop by here sometimes when they need to see a friendly face. Good to catch up on old times."
"So you've known Cal for a long time then."
"Good while, that's for sure. Great kid. Quiet sort. Always had his nose in a book. Hard worker, though." Pat threw open the door, "Come on in."
The house looked a lot nicer on the inside than it did on the outside. It was more than a little cluttered and primitive, but the floors were clean and there was electricity and running water. Not exactly a palace, but it seemed comfortable. The girl Dance was lounging on a pile of cushions just inside the house, weaving something with her fingers.
She laughed when he came through the door. "Hey, it's the stalker! Didn't think you were going to make it."
"Hey now, Stardancer, don't be inhospitable. Everybody's welcome at Pat's," the big man rumbled.
Marc wondered if he was going to have to reconsider his standard policy of not trusting anybody who talked about themselves in the third person.
"Okay, okay, I'll be good." She hopped up off her feet, bouncing across the room. She snatched up Marc's hand and gave it a firm shake. "Let's start over. I'm Dance, and you're a big fan of Cal's, so that's cool."
Marc smiled, shaking his head a little. "Nice to meet you again. I'm Marc. Like I said, you guys are great."
But she was shaking her head. "Not me. It's all Cal, I'm just along for the ride. He just tells me what to hit and when to hit it."
"Oh, come on, you're great."
She stuck out her tongue. "Gee thanks, mister..."
"Marc."
"Mister Marc," she said, rolling her eyes and flopping back down on the cushions.
"Look, Marc, I'll level with you," Pat rumbled, "you don't look like the sorta guy gets his hands dirty that often."
"Not really, no..." he said, immediately suspicious.
"We were just going to start making dinner. Cal's in the back, right through there. Why don't you go find him and help kill the chickens, so to speak."
What the fuck was that supposed to mean? Marc preferred his food packaged and already prepared if possible. He definitely wasn't the sort that wanted to watch his dinner run around before he ate it. But he didn't suppose there was much point asking a whole bunch of questions. Pat didn't seem like the sort to give a straight answer when an aphorism would do instead. He sighed and headed through the house.
There was a room filled floor to ceiling with bookshelves, a single chair in front of the fireplace and a tea kettle on the table beside it. In the next room herbs hung from the ceiling in thick bundles, swaying like soundless wind chimes. The heavy scents of sage and lavender flooded into the hall.
At the end of the hall there was a wicker door hanging slightly open. He pushed through and stepped back outside.
Cal was standing in the backyard with an ax in his hands, a chopping block beside him. His shirt was hanging draped over the fence post beside him and his chest shone in the late afternoon sun with a sheen of sweat. His hair was tied back in a loose ponytail, though a few loose locks had slipped free to hang over his brow.
"Jesus, I thought Pat was joking about the chickens."
He looked up, and when he saw that it was Marc he grinned a little. "Huh? What's up?"
"Pat said he wanted me to help kill chickens."
Cal snorted. "He's teasing you. Pat's a vegetarian."
"So what's with the, you know?" He mimed hefting the ax.
"Fire wood. Gets cold here at night. And we'll need a fire to cook. Wood burning stove is the only heat source around here."
"That's, uh... that's something."
"Bit on the primitive side for you? You should have seen where I grew up. This place is a palace compared to that."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I loved it. Bit of a culture shock going to all these big cities, really. Too crowded, too noisy. Can't even hear myself think sometimes. This feels better."
Marc came around and leaned against the fence post. Cal picked up a hunk of wood and set it up on the block. He took a step back, breathed in and, with one long smooth motion, he lifted the ax over his head and brought it swinging back down. It hit the wood with a solid thunk and the log split right down the middle, pieces falling one to either side of the chopping block.
"You're pretty handy with that thing."
Cal shrugged. "You get used to it. Couple more pieces, then we'll head in."
"I mean... I'm not that handy with an ax, but I'll give it a shot it you need a breather." You know, 'cause I was hoping to embarrass myself a little more in front of you, thanks.
Cal looked at him for a moment, the ax slung casually over his shoulder. He squinted at Marc as the sunk sank down behind the hills. "It's not an ax, really, it's actually a splitter. And I got it. But thanks."
"Sure." He leaned back against the fence, biting his lower lip and trying not to look like too useless and urbane. But why? He liked being useless and urbane, took no small measure of pride in it, as a matter of fact. He'd come from a small town, and toured through plenty of redneck shit-holes, and he'd developed a strong aversion to the gun-toting tobacco-spitting knuckle-draggers of the world. This place was different though, he saw that at once. It was more pure, a lifestyle chosen rather than forced. And Cal looked so comfortable there, his skin shining in the rosy pink light of a gathering sunset, his powerfully muscled torso naked in the chill air.
Marc found it difficult to take his eyes off him. He had to force himself to look away, pretending to study dirt between his shoes.
He couldn't really explain to himself why he was acting this way. He'd never been shy, never been quiet. He did hide himself, didn't keep secrets about the way he was feeling. His emotions were direct and directly expressed, he was a simple guy at heart. So what the fuck was going on?
Maybe he should get away from here. Cal was like an enormous star which had just dropped into Marc's solar system and warped the gravitational cycle of each and every planet spinning through his head. The young guitar player bent every thought in Marc's mind out of its orbit, and sent it all into whirling chaos.
Whack! Two more logs fell splintered to the ground. Cal leaned the ax - splitter, whatever the hell it was - against the side of the house. He came towards Marc, walking right at him. He pulled the rubber band out of his hair and shook it loose. It fell in dark waves about his pale face, like cloud across the moon. He stood just in front of Marc, breathing hard, his sculpted chest rising and falling. He reached out, and for a second Marc felt his heart skip, swooping into his stomach. Cal grabbed the shirt off the fence post behind Marc and stepped back, shrugging it on and buttoning up it. "You hungry?"
Marc swallowed. "I could eat."
* * *
Dinner was a vegetable stew of Pat's invention. Marc was initially dubious about the huge pot of burbling liquid, but it turned out to be surprisingly tasty. He had two bowls, mopping up with one of the cheddar biscuits Dance had made in the wood stove oven. They ate at a low wooden table, sitting with their legs crossed on cushions laid directly on the bare floor. Pat dominated the conversation, rumbling contentedly about whatever subject crossed his mind, from turnip cultivation to the impending financial meltdown he predicted to the finer points of the oeuvre of the Grateful Dead. Eventually Marc just phased his voice out, and it moved comfortably to the background, like the gurgle of a deep stream.
Cal and Dance ate quietly, sharing frequent looks full of portent and private communication which meant nothing to Marc. Marc said very little, content to watch and eat and listen.
Pat leaned back from the table, rubbing his paunchy belly with his big hands and belching with a thoughtful expression on his round face. "Now then... Cashmere..."
Marc turned to look at the self-styled frontiersman. He cocked his head to one side, feeling that familiar little dip in his gut. He hated having to listen to people talk about his work, but he'd gotten used to it by now as something which he simply had to suffer through. He found Pat studying him, an odd gleam in his eyes that belied the smile on his face.
"Cashmere was really something back in the day."
"You a big music fan?" Marc asked.
Pat scoffed. "A big fan, he says! Dancer, tell him about your uncle Pat."
Dance shook her head, smirking. "Oh no, don't put me on the spot."
Cal took over, "Pat knows his stuff. He gave me half my favorite records when I was a kid."
Pat frowned. "Only half?"
"Okay, maybe more than half," Cal admitted ruefully.
"So what do you think of Cashmere?" Marc asked, steering the discussion back around to the original matter at hand.
"Hell of a singer they got," Pat said, and there was a mischievous glint in his smile. He was staring at Marc as if looking for something, waiting for a sign. "Hell of a singer. What's his name again?"
Marc felt his blood run cold. He knows. Shit, this wasn't how he'd wanted to do it. He couldn't tell Cal like this, he'd look like a two-faced liar. Well, it wasn't entirely inaccurate, but still... He hadn't meant anything, didn't have any malicious intent behind it. "Look..." he said.
"Marc Warner," Dance said, leaning in to fork a carrot bobbing on the top of the stew and bring it to her mouth. She froze halfway through bringing it to her mouth, then froze. Her eyes snapped over to Marc.
Pat's smile widened. "Right. Marc Warner. Say, what was your name again, man?"
Cal frowned, "What's going on..." he asked, noticed that Dance and Pat were both staring at Marc. Then his expression changed. "Oh."
Marc cleared his throat awkwardly, "Look, I didn't mean to..."
Dance jumped up off the cushion, gawping down at Marc with her mouth open. She grabbed two fistfuls of hair and laughed. "Holy shit! You're him! You're Marc fucking Warner! Our stalker is Marc mother-fucking Warner!"
Marc could feel his cheeks getting warm. "Well... yeah."
Pat smacked his thigh. "Ha! I knew it! Thought there was something about you I recognized. I mean, you've put on a few years since the last photo I saw, but I knew it."
Cal just sat back. He took a bite of biscuit and chewed thoughtfully. "Huh. Makes sense."
"Whoa whoa whoa," Dance interjected, "It totally does not make sense. It makes no fucking sense."
"Stardancer, language..." Pat said under his breath, with the long suffering air of a person who knows that their admonishment is being completely ignored but feels compelled to make it anyway.
"You're not a fucking roadie, dude, you're a goddamn rock star," she said, shaking her head in amazement. "This is too crazy. Can you believe this, Cal?"
"No," he said, shaking his head, "I really can't."
Marc felt a sinking feeling in his chest. Had he fucked things up? Why not, he'd fucked up every other relationship he'd ever had. Maybe he could introduce Cal and Daphne, they'd get along splendidly.
Dance was still flush with excitement. "This is so cool! It's really you. Oh my God, Cal and I used to dress up like you guys, you know."
"Really?"
"Only once or twice," Cal muttered.
"Ha! Once or twice a week maybe. We used to fight over who got to be you."
"That was a long time ago, Dance."
"This is crazy. What were you doing watching us play? How'd you find us? Why?"
Marc shrugged. "It was kind of an accident. But I do think you're amazing, I really do. That was all true. I mean it."
Cal looked at him, a special consideration in his ice blue eyes. "I believe you," he said.
Pat rocked himself to his feet. "Well, you're a special guest, so that makes this a special occasion."
"Oh... please, nothing on my account..." Marc said, and was quite thoroughly ignored.
Pat clomped out of the room and reappeared in the doorway a moment later with an armful of records. "Come on," he said, cocking his head in the direction of the den where Dance had been lounging earlier.
Dance hopped after him, still laughing.
"Look, Cal, I really didn't mean to-"
Cal waved his hand dismissively, and he flashed a rare grin from under his hair. "Don't worry about it man. I get it. Knew there was something weird going on. But you get it now, right? I mean, obviously you get it."
"Get what?"
"Back in Washington, you seemed surprised when I told you I didn't want to be famous. You get it though."
Marc sat back on his cushion. He and Cal looked at each other, and he felt... something. He couldn't really put a name to it. "Yeah. Yeah... I guess I do."
"Come on, let's see what going on in there."
Pat was already spinning a record in the player when they came into the room. Cashmere's third album, Jaundice Kick, was blaring from the speakers. Pat had a pretty killer sound system hooked up, good old sixties speakers with a warm full sound. He had his eyes shut, and he was tapping his finger in the air in time with the beat. Dance was already living up to her name, shaking her wild hair as she moved her hips to the thundering bass and her hands to the hypnotic synth lead.
Cal flopped down in a nest of cushions and pulled a tattered paperback novel from his back pocket. The cover was folded back so Marc couldn't see the title. The pages were yellowed and dog-eared and water-stained. He lay back and read as the music filled the room.
Marc stood in the doorway. Trying to hide a grin as the sound of his voice came howling through the speakers. He never listened to the old records anymore. It seemed narcissistic now that so much time had passed. Like a middle-aged man still polishing his high school sports trophies.
Pat waved him into the room and he came reluctantly closer.
"This is the part I like right here," Dance said, as the song kicked into high gear, she started bouncing up and down on her toes, biting her lip and singing along under her breath.
Pat took an old cigar box from the shelf behind him and held it in front of him, clasping it with both hands and drumming his thick fingers on the lid. "As I said, this is a very special occasion." He lifted the lid, revealing two neat rows of hand-rolled joints. "My own cultivar," he beamed as he took out an impressively large specimen and held it between his knuckles while he fished a lighter out of his pocket. He sparked up and took a long drag, a smile of slow toad-like satisfaction spreading across his rotund features.
Pat held the joint for Dance, who waltzed her way across the room and stuck it in the corner of her mouth. She danced past Marc, blowing a puff of smoke in his face as she went by, then passed it to Cal. Cal set his book aside for the moment. He took a deep drag, then motioned to Marc. "Come on," he said, patting the cushions beside him.
Marc settled in gently, resting himself on the plush cushion and lying back. Cal scooted a little closer; they were side by side now, Cal's flank against his leg, his shoulder against Marc's shoulder. "You want some?" he asked, softly, "Uncle Pat knows his stuff, it's good."
"Yeah, alright," Marc said, and took the joint. Cal watched him intently, his eyes intense and keen. It was good, Pat clearly did know what he was doing. Marc lay back, letting the feeling wash over him. He finally felt himself relax for the first time since he'd arrived, really relax. No more secrets hanging over him, no more subterfuge. And it hadn't all blown up in his face. That was a win, no question.
"So Marc," Par rumbled, "you got a third ticket to the show or what?"
Marc smiled. He lay still beside Cal, not wanting to move, just savoring the sensation of the other man's body against his own. He nodded. "I'm pretty sure I could manage that."
* * *
Maybe it was just in his mind, but it seemed to Marc that they had been on fire that night. He came backstage sweating and weary, which was always a good sign. He'd been throwing himself into it in a way that he hadn't been the last couple shows. He'd felt more comfortable, more in tune. The band had seemed to pick up on his energy; he'd been moving around the stage, getting in their areas and singing to them. Joanna had laughed when he draped himself over her keyboard and ever Roger cracked a smile.
It had felt good, like they were really in sync. He was going to have to find Jordan and tell him to bring the bass down in the mix a bit, but other than that everything had been perfect. They'd been Cashmere again, for real.
The crowd had felt it too; everybody completely lost it when he dove into the audience during their encore. The security guys had freaked out, of course, but he made it back onstage in time to keep singing so why the fuck not? He had known that Cal was out there in the crowd somewhere, watching him, and it had turned everything around, made it new again.
"Great show, Marc, really great!" Gregory said, clutching his clipboard and grinning like an idiot.
"Thanks, Greg."
The tour manager cleared his throat softly. "Hm, I prefer Gregory, thanks. Also please don't do that... jumping into the crowd thing again. Our insurance premiums are going to go up."
"I'll try to restrain myself," he said dryly. "Oh, Gregory, could you do me a little favor?"
Gregory lit up. "Of course I could. What do you need?"
Marc told him, and he scampered off to make it happen, looking quite happy about it. Some people just liked to have a job to do.
The rest of the band came piling back in, all smiles.
"God, I'm hungry," Tony said, stacking fistfuls of cold cuts into a bun and shoving it in his mouth.
"You looked great up there, Marc," Joanna said, giving him a little pat on the shoulder. "Really great."
"You too," He nodded, and she smiled. It was the first proper exchange they'd had since Washington. It felt good, the pressure between them dissipating.
Roger didn't say anything, but a quiet Roger was usually a happy Roger, so it was good all around.
Marc poured himself a glass of white wine, then changed his mind and grabbed the whole bottle to throw back a long pull. He saw Gregory coming in the doorway, "Hey everybody, we've got a guest here today. Little band I saw in New York, they've been following the tour and I invited them to come visit. They're a great bunch and I told them they could come say hi to everybody. So be nice."
"I'm always nice," Tony said around a mouthful of sandwich.
Gregory stepped inside, Cal and Dance and Pat trailing behind him, looking a bit nervous as they passed the No Admittance signs hanging up outside the room.
Marc introduced them all around. Pat cornered Tony right away and started rumbling about his favorite bass players of all time while Tony stuffed another bite of sandwich in his mouth and nodded approvingly.
Dance asked if the food was for everybody and Joanna told her to help herself.
Cal just wandered around a little. He hadn't done more than nod in greeting when Marc introduced him. He seemed to be measuring up the room, taking in the size and scope of the place, though Marc honestly couldn't say if he was impressed or disgusted by it.
"Drink?" he asked, holding the bottle out.
Cal had a sip and handed the bottle back, just to be polite, Marc thought. "Thanks man. And thanks for all this. Dance is going crazy."
"What about you? How'd we look up there? Dead? Inert?"
Cal blushed a little. "You looked good, Marc."
Marc grinned.
Cal scratched the back of his neck. "Like I said. Thanks."
"Come see us again next time. You tagging along to Atlanta, right?"
Cal shook his head slowly. "Nah. Afraid not."
Marc frowned. "Huh? What do you mean?"
"Van gave out. We broke down outside Charlotte actually. Had to get it towed to Pat's place. Can't afford the repairs right now, so I guess we're calling it quits. Might hang out with Pat for a couple weeks, maybe play a show or two around here somewhere. I dunno."
Marc felt his heart hit the floor. Jesus, this was it. It couldn't be. After finally tracking them down, he'd thought that maybe...
Then an idea came to him. He looked around the room, at Joanna and Roger and Tony, at Pat and Dance. At Cal. He smiled.
"What if I had another way?"
Cal's eyebrow lifted a little.
"What if I could guarantee that you find a show everywhere you stop, and that you had reliable transportation?"
Cal shrugged. "I'd say that sounds pretty good. What do you have in mind?"
Marc grinned. He reached out and slapped Cal on the back, then took a long pull on the wine bottle. "Calliope, my friend, welcome aboard the big time. Wilderlands just became Cashmere's official opening act."