Chapter 1: Confession

Coos Bay, Oregon

June 28, 1994

Dinner this Thursday evening was taco salad, prepared by Jim and Marcie—or at least it was the Scanlon family version of taco salad. A bowl of ground turkey meat spiced with taco seasoning. A large salad bowl filled with chopped iceberg and romaine lettuce in which garbanzo beans, kidney beans, chopped green chilis, and shredded cheddar cheese had been added. Three family sized bags of Doritos nacho cheese chips. Last, but certainly not least, bowls containing freshly made guacamole, sour cream, and chipotle salsa. The idea was to take a plate, crunch up some of the nacho cheese chips across the bottom of it, put a healthy serving of salad atop this, put a healthy serving of the meat atop that, and then add in some guac, some sour cream, some salsa, and mix the entire concoction up before eating it.

It was absolutely delicious. Jake himself had two large helpings. Laura, who sat beside him at the large family dining room table in the rental house, had three small helpings.

“That was incredible, Marcie,” Jake told the thirty-two-year-old mother who had been the primary engineer of the meal. “I had my doubts when you first told me what you were making, but it was delicious.”

“And filling,” added Laura, who had just had to restrain herself from belching at the table.

“Yes,” said Sharon, who was rubbing her belly, which was now noticeably swollen with her second trimester pregnancy. “My little passenger certainly appreciated it. He’s kicking up a storm in there.”

“It is unlikely that it is genuine fetal motion you are perceiving,” Nerdly told her.

“It’s the baby,” Sharon insisted. “I know it is.”

“You are only eighteen weeks and five days gestation currently,” Nerdly said. “Statistically, primigravida women such as yourself do not begin to feel actual fetal movement until well into the twenty-third or twenty-fourth week. It is most likely gas or some other form of hormonal-related gastrointestinal upset you are experiencing.”

“Seriously, Nerdly?” asked Stephanie Zool, who was sitting just to the right of Sharon. “She tells you that she feels the baby moving and you go all scientific on her?”

“My statistics are valid,” Nerdly told her. “Why would I not point out the fallacy of her perception?”

“Because she says it’s your baby kicking her and that makes her happy,” Steph said. “You shouldn’t be pissing on her perception; you should be encouraging it.”

“But that would be dishonest,” Nerdly said, genuinely confused by her words.

“It’s okay, Steph,” Sharon said with a smile. “Bill is Bill and his honesty in spouting off such things is part of why I love him. I knew what I was getting myself into when I agreed to marry him.”

“That’s sweet,” said Jenny White, Jeremy the bass player’s wife. She was a chubby little woman with auburn hair and large breasts. Pleasant natured and a born nurturer, she was in charge of the pack of children that had invaded the house, part of the baggage brought by their parents. For this task, KVA Records was paying her four hundred and fifty dollars a week, a bit more than she had been making selling appliances at the Providence Sears store.

“Besides,” Sharon said. “I still know it’s the baby kicking me.”

“My old lady told me she felt the baby kicking well before the second trimester started,” said Rick Jackson, who, at forty years of age, was the oldest member of Brainwash. “And she’s a nurse, so she should know what she’s talking about.”

“Having an education in a medical science does not necessarily qualify one to judge whether a perceived sensation in one’s own body is factual or not,” Nerdly told him. “What is required is empirical and repeatable evidence that suggests the hypothesis is correct.”

“Uh ... yeah,” said Rick, a puzzled look on his face. “I suppose that makes sense.”

“I will always remember the first time I felt little Meghan kicking,” said Marcie. “I was in bed, at night, and Jim and I had just finished ... you know?”

“Finished what?” asked Nerdly.

“Uh ... practicing up for when it was time to make little Alex,” Jim said.

“Oh, I see,” said Nerdly. “You had just engaged in legally sanctioned sexual relations.”

“Uh ... yeah,” Marcie said. “A good way of putting it. Anyway, we were laying there and I was drifting off to sleep, and then I felt this fluttering inside of me. It would start and then stop, start and then stop. It was subtle, but it was definitely Meghan getting a workout in.”

“Exactly!” Sharon said triumphantly. “That is what I’m feeling right now. A fluttering in my uterus. And it started right after I finished eating.”

“How far along were you when this phenomenon occurred, Marcie?” Nerdly asked her.

“I was just starting the second trimester,” she said. “I remember because it was right after that surge of hormones hit that made me ... you know ... want to have those legally sanctioned relations all the time.”

“Yes, of course,” Nerdly said. “Sharon is in the midst of that phase right now. She calls upon me to engage in intercourse with her at least once a night of late.”

“Bill,” Sharon hissed at him. “You don’t have to tell them that.”

“It’s true though,” he said. “And quite an interesting biological response as well. I mean, when you think about it, the surge of hormones that triggers increased sexual desire actually serves no purpose since the female in question is already pregnant. What is the point of it?”

“Some things,” Jake suggested, “you should just not question or seek a point to. Having your wife suddenly want to...” He looked over at the children’s table that sat near the doorway to the kitchen. Meghan and Alex, the Scanlon children, were sitting with Jeffrey and Jessica, the White children. The two older children seemed to be monitoring the conversation. He chose his words carefully. “ ... to, uh ... engage in that sort of activity more than the usual amount would be one of those things, wouldn’t you say?”

“Perhaps,” Nerdly agreed. “In any case, I have to assume, Marcie, that the sensation you are describing was probably not the fetal Meghan since it would have been too early in the pregnancy. You were probably just feeling post-orgasmic tremors in your uterus.”

“That’s assuming that there was an orgasm to trigger such a post-orgasmic event,” Stephanie said with a smile.

“Hey now,” said Jim. “Just because I’m a hetero doesn’t mean I can’t ring the bell.”

“What bell were you ringing, Daddy?” asked Meghan from the kids’ table. “Do you still have it?”

“He still has it,” Marcie said as the adults all laughed at Meghan’s words.

“Can we play with the bell?” asked Alex.

“Unfortunately, no,” Jim said. “When you’re older though... much older ... you’ll find your own bell to play with.”

Alex and Meghan declared this to be unfair, but Jenny was able to distract them by telling them it was time to start the cleanup. Rule Number 1 was still in effect in the house and everyone, even the children, were expected to do their part to keep it from being violated. The four kids started with their own plates, carrying them over to dump them in the garbage before carrying them to the sink and depositing them inside. They then went about the task of cleaning their table off with wet disinfectant wipes from a box that sat on the counter.

Jake and Laura’s job tonight was helping to rinse the dishes and put them into the dishwasher. Before they could start doing that, however, there was a problem with the garbage can. It was full and needed to be taken out.

“I’ll do it,” said Jim.

“No no, sit down,” Jake told him. “You helped cook the dinner. You don’t have any cleaning duties.”

“All I did was open cans and boxes and bags,” Jim said. “Marcie did all the actual cooking.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jake said. “Go sit your ass down. I’ll take out the garbage.”

“You said ‘ass’!” Jessica shouted out delightfully. “Put a quarter in the swear jar!”

“Shit,” Jake muttered, reaching into his pocket, where he had taken to carrying a roll of quarters with him. They now officially had a swear jar. Jenny had set it up after hearing the typical conversations that took place among the musicians and witnessing their inability to restrain themselves when the children were present. The going rate was a quarter per swear for typical profane utterings, a dollar when the F-bomb was dropped. There was at least five dollars worth of quarters and perhaps ten in folding currency in that jar from Jake alone.

“Two quarters!” Alex said with glee. “You said ‘shit’ too!”

“Two quarters, going in,” Jake said, pulling them out of his pocket and dropping them in.

“You know, Jake,” said Jenny, her mother’s gaze of disapproval upon him, “the idea of the swear jar is not to collect money for investment purposes, but to dissuade profanity.”

“Really?” he said with a smile. “Now you tell me.”

“Can I just drop a ten-dollar bill in there at the beginning of each week and talk like normal?” asked Steph, who had dropped at least as much currency into the jar as Jake.

“You may not,” Jenny said sternly.

“Well, that sucks butt,” Steph told her, just barely keeping on the right side of the swear line with that one.

Jake chuckled once more and then grabbed hold of the black Hefty garbage bag inside of the trash can. He pulled it out, struggling a little and having to brace the can with his feet, but it finally came free. He twisted it closed and then walked through the kitchen to the side door that led outside.

It was only six days past the summer solstice and, as such, the sun was still well above the western horizon even though it was past seven o’clock. The sky was cloudless and a brilliant blue. A slight onshore breeze was blowing and the sounds of waves crashing to shore at the base of their cliff could be heard.

Jake carried the bag of refuse over to the plastic can that had been issued to the house by the County of Coos for weekly garbage collection. He opened the lid and dropped it inside. He shut the lid again and then walked over to the driveway where he stood facing the ocean. He stood there for a moment, enjoying the breeze on his face, the smell of the salt, the sound of the waves, the relative serenity of the environment outside of the house.

Brainwash and families had been living in the house with Jake, Laura, and the Nerdlys for a week now. It was an interesting experience, to say the least. Having children around was definitely a change in the usual dynamic of communal living. One had to watch what one said these days or risk having to feed the swear jar. One stepped on toys in the hallway. One walked across scattered beach sand in the entryways. One had to listen to complaints that there wasn’t anything to eat around here. One had to wait one’s turn to use the bathroom, especially if one wanted to use one of the downstairs ones. The Scanlon and the White children were starting to grow a little on Jake—they were all reasonably well-mannered and engaging—but he was always the first to volunteer to take out the garbage, or make a run to the store, or anything else that let him step out into the quiet and calm of the outside for a few minutes.

So far, Project Brainwash was on time and only slightly over budget. KVA had flown the entire bunch of musicians and family members from Boston to Los Angeles on June 7^th, put them all up in the Hilton Hotel in Santa Clarita, and provided them with rental cars (including a rental minivan for Jenny to drive the children around in). There, the band, the Nerdlys, and Jake had spent two and a half weeks working eight-hour days in the KVA rehearsal studio, picking out the fifteen songs they were going to work up, and then culling that down to the ten that would appear on the album.

This turned out to a little more difficult of a task than Jake had been anticipating. It was not because Brainwash had to struggle to find suitable tunes to work-up, it was because they had too many to choose from.

“How many songs to you have in your repertoire?” Jake asked them on one of the first days, after listening to them name off several dozen possible pieces to work on.

“Sixty-eight that we have composed and worked-up enough over the years to be played live in front of an audience,” Jim told him.

“Sixty-eight?” Jake asked incredulously. “You mean ... like ... ten times six, plus eight? That kind of sixty-eight?”

“That’s right,” Steph said. “Of course, at least twenty or thirty of those we haven’t done in a few years. I’m thinking we should stick with our classics and the newer stuff.”

“That’s incredible,” Jake said. “And they’re all as good as what we’ve been hearing from you?”

Marcie laughed. “That statement is open to debate,” she said. “I, myself, have more than a handful that I’m not particularly proud of these days.”

“Yeah, me too,” said Steph.

“Not me,” said Jim. “All my tunes are freakin’ masterpieces.”

“Oh really?” Marcie challenged. “Even Lock and Load?”

“What’s wrong with Lock and Load?” Jim asked with a smile that implied he knew exactly why Marcie objected to it.

“You know very well that Steph and I both hate that song,” Marcie said. She turned to Jake. “He wrote it back when he was playing with Courage. It’s a misogynistic rant about bagging groupies and then leaving them behind.”

“It’s a realistic portrayal of the life of a traveling musician,” Jim insisted. “I’m sure Jake can relate.”

“Groupies?” Jake asked. “You mean those mythical women of loose morals who come backstage after the show hoping to engage in meaningless fornication with a band member?”

“Mythical?” Steph asked, raising her eyebrows.

“Yeah, mythical,” Jake said. “I personally don’t think they really exist.”

Those were still the early days and it took a few moments for them to realize he was joking—and that he was also changing the subject.

“In any case,” Jake told them. “Having sixty-eight songs to choose from is incredible. You must’ve been very prolific writers and composers.”

“Yeah,” Marcie agreed. “There is a chemistry between us that makes it easy for us to work up a new song.”

“True that,” Steph agreed. “We’ve been playing together almost ten years now.”

And so the first few days had mostly been composed of Brainwash going through a good chunk of their repertoire, song by song, so Jake and the Nerdlys could help them pick out the very best. And while Marcie and Steph had been right—there were quite a few clinkers in the inventory—most of the songs were impressive pieces that, with a little work, would sound amazing on a CD.

“I think we’ve associated ourselves with a goddamn gold mine,” Jake told Pauline one day during the weekly business meeting. “They have sixty-eight songs in their inventory, at least forty of which are recording quality in composition and lyrics. We pull off this first album with them and there are at least four more that can be done even if they never write another song from this point forward.”

“That’s good to know,” Pauline said. “But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. How about we just concentrate on making this first Brainwash album everything it can be.”

“That’s the plan, sis,” he assured her. “That’s the plan.”

In the end they settled on sixteen of the very best Brainwash originals to work up. After another week in the studio rehearsing those sixteen over and over until everyone was sick of them, it was time to head north and get to work.

That had been a week ago. They’d made the move to Coos Bay on the 21^st of June. Nerdly and Sharon drove their new car—it was a 1993 Honda Civic, which had replaced their 1985 Honda Civic—up there while Jim and Marcie drove Jake’s Beemer up. Steph, Rick, Jeremy, and Jenny, along with the four children, were all flown from Van Nuys to North Bend on a private jet paid for by KVA. And Jake and Laura made the trip in Jake’s plane, heading out the day before so they would be there first.

Since then, everyone had pretty much settled in. Jake and Laura were staying in the master suite up on the third floor. Bill and Sharon were in the secondary suite on the second. Jim and Marcie were in the smaller bedroom with its own bath, while Steph was staying in the tiny, bathless room at the end of the second-floor hall. All of the children were installed in the bunk-bed room where Ted and Ben used to sleep. Jeremy and Jenny were in the small room just next to the bunk room. Rick, the drummer, was given the tiny room just off the kitchen, though if and when his wife and children came to visit, Jake planned to give him the master suite for the visit and he and Laura would move in with Obie and Pauline until the visit was over.

As far as the recording process went, they were only just beginning. So far, Brainwash had spent five full days in the Blake Studios building under the direction of the Nerdlys. Not much had been accomplished as of yet. The first day had been almost entirely taken up with just setting up the instruments and getting the basic sound arrangements dialed in. The second through fifth days had been occupied with just getting the order of operations set and starting on the rhythm tracks for the first song: Look at Me, Jim’s declaration that he was somebody. The band from Providence was quite unaccustomed to the glacial pace that was being set.

“It’ll get a little faster,” Jake promised them just before dinner this very evening, when Jim and Marcie had asked him if he really thought they were going to be done before school started up again in September. “As you and the Nerdlys—or, as we affectionately call them during this process: The Spawns of Satan—get to know each other a little better, as you start to see how they like things done and they start to see how you respond to direction, and as I start hounding their asses about not being so freaking anal about everything, the pace will pick up. One way or another, we’ll be done by the end of the summer break. We have to be. That’s all the studio time we have.”

“I suppose,” Marcie said, “but I have to ask. Is it really that important that the bass tracks and the drums are exactly perfect for each bar? I mean, I usually can’t hear any difference between one take and the next, especially when they’re complaining about the timing.”

“I know it seems like you’re in hell right now,” Jake assured her, “and you are, make no mistake about that, but know that it really is for a higher purpose. When you hear your master CD for the first time, you’re going to understand why we do things this way.”

“If you say so,” Marcie said.

“I say so,” Jake assured her.

Jake took one last breath of the fresh sea air. His moment of serenity thanks to garbage disposal was now at an end. He turned and headed back in to finish the cleanup.

The time immediately after dinner cleanup was leisure time in the house—as long as one did not wish to go out into the hot tub out on the deck. Though there had been no official announcement of the policy, and no one had proposed a new rule, it had somehow been written in stone that the after dinner cleanup period was when the children got to invade the hot tub. All four of them were out there now, with Jenny and Marcie supervising as they splashed and yelled and bordered on disturbing the peace.

“You sure you two know what you’re getting yourself into with this whole having a child thing?” Jim asked the Nerdlys as a particularly loud screech penetrated through the closed sliding glass door.

Jim was sitting on the couch next to Jake and Laura. Stephanie and the Nerdlys were sitting in the easy chairs. All except Mrs. Nerdly were sipping from a bottle of chilled white wine that Jake had opened. On the television, the news was playing. The lead story of the night was, as always, about OJ Simpson, who had, just eleven days ago, been charged with the murder of his wife and taken into custody after a nationally televised slow-speed chase across LA.

“We’re kind of committed to the project at this point,” said Sharon, giving her protruding belly a little rub.

“Precisely,” said Nerdly. “Although I will say that had I been exposed to the sheer noise and off-key manor of multiple children, the discussion whether or not to attempt reproduction might have gone differently.”

“Kids are noisy and a general pain in the ass,” Jim said, “but they’re worth every miserable second.”

“I love listening to them talk to each other,” Jake said. “They’re very amusing. Even if they do take over the goddamn hot tub every night.”

“I’m sorry, Jake,” Jim said apologetically. “I didn’t know it was inconveniencing you. I’ll tell Marcie and Jenny to not let them...”

“No,” Jake interrupted. “You just let this be their time out there. They’re having a blast. And I notice the nightly soak and scream seems to tire them out for bedtime.”

“Well ... yes, it does do that,” Jim said. “But I don’t want to kick you out of your own hot tub every night. We’re the guests here. We should be working around your schedule.”

“Bullshit,” Jake said.

“A quarter in the swear jar,” Laura said with a smile.

“That’s only when the kids can hear it,” Jake countered. “That’s the unwritten rule.”

“I suppose,” she said with a sigh, patting his leg affectionately.

“Anyway,” Jake said, “you’re not the guests here. You’re the talent. You are the reason we are all here. Stop thinking of yourselves as a burden. You’re here to get your music heard and make us all some money. Those kids can play all they want in that hot tub and scream as loud as they want. They’re part of the package, okay?”

“Okay,” Jim said. “Thanks, Jake.”

“Besides,” Jake said. “It’s doing Laura and I some good to have this kind of exposure to little ones. We might be wanting to have some of our own at some point.”

“Right,” Laura said. “We should know what we’re getting ourselves into.”

“I still can’t get over how beautiful that ring of yours is, Laura,” said Steph. “Was his proposal a romantic one?”

“Oh ... yes, very romantic,” Laura said, giving the ring in question a little twirl with the fingers of her right hand. “It was right out there in the hot tub, as a matter of fact.”

“Out there?” Jim said. “On the deck of this house?”

“That’s right,” Laura said. “This house is where Jake and I first got together, where we fell in love. And that hot tub is where we had our first kiss.”

“Awww,” Steph crooned. “That is romantic.”

“He asked me right at sunset,” Laura said. “Just as the sun dipped into the water out there on the horizon.”

“That is so sweet,” Steph said. “And you said yes right away?”

“Uh ... well ... he kind of caught me off guard,” Laura said. “I honestly hadn’t been expecting him to ask me to marry him. I was really just blown away at first.”

“And we had a few things to talk over first,” Jake said with a dismissive shrug. “Logistics and stuff like that. You know how logical and structured women can be.”

“Uh ... right,” Steph said, raising her eyebrows a bit.

“She did say yes though ... eventually,” Jake said.

“That’s right,” Laura said, holding up her ring for everyone to see. “We’re planning a destination wedding. Hopefully around Christmas. Celia will be off-tour then.”

“Celia Valdez?” Jim asked. As of yet, none of the members of Brainwash had met her, though she was one of their bosses.

“That’s right,” Laura said. “She’s the reason that Jake and I met in the first place. And she’s been a really good friend and mentor to me ever since. She’s going to be my maid of honor.”

“That’s really cool,” Jim said, seemingly in awe that he was talking to someone who was going to have Celia Valdez as her maid of honor. The band was still trying to get used to the fact that they were actually living with and working for celebrities.

The subject of Jake’s proposal and the upcoming wedding passed on by as the musicians began talking about music and the making of it once again. Jake was grateful. Whenever the issue of his proposal and how Laura had answered him that fateful night came up, it always made him feel a little awkward. Not because what she had told him had been shocking—though it had been—and not because he was ashamed of or upset with what Laura had done—he was not—but because attempting to explain the issue to anyone was simply out of the question. It was a very private thing, something that no one who was not directly involved needed to know about. Laura had told him that Celia knew her secret (which meant a better-than-even chance that Greg knew as well), and Jake now knew, and, of course, Bobby Z and his band and a few of the roadies and security guys knew, but aside from that, Laura’s experimentation with alternate sexual practices (as Nerdly would have termed it, had he known about them) was being kept well under wraps.

Which was not to say that Jake didn’t think about what she had told him, what she had described to him, endlessly.

He was thinking about that conversation now, in fact, as Jim and Steph took turns narrating their story of the first gig that Brainwash had ever played.

“I want to say yes, Jake,” she had told him that night after he proposed. “I really do. I love you and I’d love to be your wife. Oh my God ... I can’t believe this is happening!”

“Uh ... I’m not sure here,” Jake said. “Did you just say yes?”

She sighed. “I didn’t,” she said. “I said I want to say yes.”

“But ... but you can’t?”

“Oh wow,” she said, shaking her head a little. “Before I answer you ... well ... there’s something I need to tell you first.”

“What is it?” he asked. This had definitely become a bit awkward.

“Well, it’s about something that I ... that I did out on tour. It might change the way you feel about me.”

“Something you did out on tour?” What the hell are we talking about here?

“I should have told you a long time ago, but I didn’t know you were going to propose to me. Oh my God, what a mess!”

“What is it, hon?” he asked. “What did you do?”

“I ... I ... well ... it’s complicated,” she said, her face now looking miserable, as if she were about to start crying.

“Complicated,” Jake repeated slowly. “Are you trying to tell me that you ... were ... uh ... unfaithful to me out on the road?” Like I have any place judging her for that, his mind reminded him.

“No!” she barked immediately. “I wasn’t unfaithful. I didn’t cheat on you ... well ... not in the strict sense of the word anyway.”

“That’s not exactly a clear and concise answer,” Jake told her.

“No,” she said with a sigh. “It really isn’t. This is kind of hard to spit out, Jake.”

“So it seems. How about you just start at the beginning and tell me what’s going on?”

She nodded. “All right,” she said. “Here goes. I was really ... you know ... lonely out on the road. Lonely and sexually frustrated. I really missed having sex with you, Jake. I missed it a lot.”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “I was in the same boat back here, remember?” Except for that one night in Portland, that overly-helpful part of his mind reminded him.

“I know you were,” she said. “And I’m not trying to justify anything ... not really anyway. I’m just trying to give you an idea of my state of mind. I was horny all the time. I got into ... you know ... pleasuring myself as kind of a release valve, but even that didn’t seem to relieve the pressure after a while. You can only ... uh ... paddle the pink canoe so much, right?”

“Paddle the pink canoe?” Jake asked, grinning. “I’ve never heard it called that before.”

“That was Celia’s term for it,” Laura said. “She had a few others too.”

“Celia?” Jake asked. “What does she have to do with this?”

“I told her about ... about what I’m about to tell you,” she said. “It was that night we went shopping together and got drunk, remember?”

“I remember,” Jake said instantly. The same night that Greg reported Celia developing a sudden interest in... Holy shit! What are we talking about here?

“I needed to talk to someone about this, Jake. The guilt and the shame were getting to me. And Celia was there, and she listened to me, gave me good advice even ... like the advice that I should tell you what I’m about to tell you.”

“Okay,” Jake said. “You certainly have my attention now. You were horny and paddling the pink canoe was no longer doing it for you. Then what?”

“Well ... as the horniness grew, I began to have some ... well ... some impure thoughts about Squiggle.”

“Squiggle?” Jake said, his brow furrowing a bit. “You mean the trombone player?”

“Yeah,” she said. “There was a little bit of chemistry between us, I won’t deny that. And Squiggle let it be known ... you know ... that if I wanted to do anything with him ... he would be up for it.”

“He hit on you?” Jake said. I knew there was something between the those two! I fucking knew it!

“Not in any overt way,” Laura said. “And we never touched each other, Jake. Squiggle and I did not do anything ... you know ... physical with each other. I was just trying to explain my state of mind. I was afraid that if I didn’t get my ... my horniness under control, that I might start thinking about doing something with him. And I didn’t want that, Jake. I didn’t want it then and I don’t want it now.”