X

Winter 2000

BANG! BANG! BANG!

What the ever-loving hell?

NOLA’s Junk had just wrapped up our second six-week tour with Cornered Cannibal, and we’d finally gotten the chance to get off the grungy fuckin’ tour bus and sleep in a goddamn hotel. The day after tomorrow, we’d be heading out to Switzerland to record our second album, Moniker Mayhem.

“The fuck?” grunted Flipper. He sat up, looking no more awake for it.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered, pulling my ass out of bed. Whoever has the fuckin’ nerve…

Wrenching open the door, I was about to unleash unholy hell on the asshole who had dared to bang on my hotel room at three something in the fuckin’ morning. The sight of Phil standing there—scared, hurt, and confused—halted my words in my throat. He trembled, and I could see him fighting tears.

“Can I crash here?” he asked.

I stepped back, allowing him to come in. “Of course, man. Is everythin’ okay?”

He shook his head. “Devon…we fought, is all.”

There was more to it than that, but he didn’t want to talk about it. He dropped his bag on the floor next to the couch.

“You’re okay though?”

Though I could see in his eyes that he wasn’t, he nodded and sat down. “I’m good.”

Flipper gave off a soft snore.

I headed to the couch and sat down next to my brother. “You’re not.”

“No.”

Covering his face in his hands, Phil broke the fuck down. I wrapped my arms around him, and he fell into my chest, sobbing his poor heart out. It was awkward, holding such a large man, but there was no one else who felt so right in my arms.

The world saw Phil as a hard-core badass. He was big with the potential to be mean-looking and had a voice that could punch terror into the very souls of people.

But he wasn’t any of that.

Phil might not realize it, but he was nothing but love with a soul created from music. He was sensitive, his true nature kind and generous, so much so that I thought maybe it had taken too much from him.

“Tell me what happened,” I softly said.

“Just…fuck, man. Devon hit this girl in the face and knocked her fuckin’ teeth out.”

“What?”

Sitting back and glancing at Flipper, making sure the punk was asleep, Phil then told me about how he and Devon would go out and pick up chicks and that, tonight, they’d shared one.

Why hasn’t he ever done anything like that with me? I wondered.

We shared fuckin’ everything. I’d be more than happy to bang a chick with him.

Because he’s never wanted to encourage our relationship in that direction. It would be more than just bangin’ a chick for me. It would be a way for me to be physically close to him without actually having him.

“He spit on her face. She was bleedin’. He looked at her, and he fuckin’ spit on her, X. And then he said…” He shuddered, fighting tears once more.

“What did he say?”

“That my Baby Girl deserved that.”

In that one instant, I fuckin’ hated that goddamn douche. Not because of Kenna—although I had met and liked the chick well enough—but because there was no way I would ever understand how anyone could want to hurt Phil like that. I cherished Phil’s Baby Girl because she was the one who would make him whole. I loved her for that.

“So, what now?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I know I never wanna see that fucker ever again. My Baby Girl don’t deserve anythin’ of the sort.”

“Of course she doesn’t.”

“I never thought…shit, man, he and I have done some strange fuckin’ shit, but I never thought he was capable of somethin’ like that, even bein’ jacked up on coke. I ain’t ever lost control like that.”

“Because you’re a good person, Phil. Taking a whack doesn’t change that.”

“He was on a hell of a lot more than a whack.”

“Then, maybe it’s a good thing this happened. We don’t need that shit around us all the fuckin’ time. We should have a talk with Jason about it, too. That motherfucker’s been snortin’ a fuck-ton lately.”

Phil nodded. “Yeah, that might be a good idea.”

“Look, man, there ain’t nothin’ so bad that you can’t be forgiven for. If you feel like this now, you know what you gotta do. Just keep movin’ forward. We’ve got months ahead of us where we just need to write and make music. Get lost in it, right?”

He sadly smiled, and my heart melted at the sight.

“How is it that we’re sittin’ on top of the fuckin’ world, and I ain’t ever felt it?”

“Bullshit. I see how you look onstage, man. You ain’t ever been higher.”

“But it doesn’t come with me when I step off. I always thought I wouldn’t be happy unless I was livin’ the fuckin’ dream with you. I’m so fuckin’ sorry I’ve been a lousy shit. We’ve fuckin’ made it, and I…I don’t feel it, man.”

“Maybe you just need to be reminded of why we’re doin’ this in the first place. It’s all about the music. We’re gettin’ back into the studio in a few days; we’re settlin’ down for a while. It’ll be good for all of us.”

“You’re right,” he said. “I need my brothers. This shit I’ve been doin’…I’m sorry. It was never supposed to be like this.”

“No worries, man. We all go through rough patches, right?”

He nodded.

I prayed I was finally getting my Phil back.

A month later, NOLA’s Junk did a small club tour around Zurich just to have something to do besides being stuck in the fuckin’ studio all the damn time.

Recording an album was the work side of being in a band. At our core, we were just a bunch of guys who loved to jam, and while that happened at the studio, it wasn’t the same fuckin’ thing. We had to perfect each little tweak, hit every fuckin’ note just right, create a handful of masterpieces.

We had been going stir-crazy. We’d gone from being cramped in a bus to being crammed in a shitty townhouse, living and working with each other. We’d just needed to let the fuck loose a little, and our manager, Tim, had booked us into some gigs to give us a damn break.

That was how the six of us found ourselves chilling in a sweet little club, the sweat drying on us as we threw back some drinks, feeling like a fuckin’ family once again.

Phil still wasn’t his old self. I was starting to think he never would be again, but he wasn’t as broken as he had been when we first started this European madness. Depressed, yeah, but right now, he was mellow, his arm slung around my shoulders, dragging my head into his chest to rub a noogie into my scalp.

“This was fun,” he said.

“Fuck, man. Studio time blows. There has to be a better way to record a fuckin’ album,” said Jason. “I mean, holin’ us up for eighteen hours a day ain’t right. We’re fuckin’ slavin’ away for Rattlesnake. We ain’t got no lives.”

“It’s only for a few more months,” said Tim.

“Then, we go back on tour,” said Sheri darkly.

“We’ve got a month off before that happens,” said Tim.

Sheri sighed and nodded. That woman worked her ass off for us, and while we weren’t fuckin’ divas with demands and shit, we couldn’t be easy to be around twenty-four/fuckin’-seven either.

Next to me, Phil straightened up in his seat. Across the club, he spotted something or someone of interest. I wasn’t sure if we should be on high alert. Maybe Devon had waltzed in, and the thought of that douche bag being anywhere near us boiled my blood. But I didn’t see him.

I did see a pretty little thing sitting at the bar by her lonesome though. And I was sure she was what Phil had seen, too. She was fuckin’ tiny, blonde, with a nice pair of tits under that black little top she was wearing.

Thank fuck.

Phil hadn’t gotten laid in a long-ass time. Maybe a nice shag would put him in a better mood.

“Go get her,” I whispered to him.

He glanced down at me, and I could see it warring inside him. What he wanted was his Baby Girl, not some chick with blonde hair. But she’d caught his attention, and that made him feel guilty, too—that he wanted to lose himself in something.

“She ain’t here,” I whispered. “And I doubt she’d blame you. Do what you gotta do to stay sane, man.”

He didn’t need telling twice. Like a flash, he was out of the booth and heading over to chat up the sexy little thing.

Sheri groaned. “Shit, not again.”

Jason snorted. “Fuck that. We might just be able to wrap up this album if he gets his fuckin’ rocks off.”

That perked Sheri up. “True.”