Chapter 7: They Couldn’t Tell Me What it Was For

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

March 23, 2003

It was Sunday morning in BC’s largest city. Jake awakened to the feel of a soft hand stroking his manhood to erection, to the feel of a pair of large pregnancy enhanced breasts and a medium sized baby bump pushing into his back, to the feel of a soft mouth kissing the back of his neck.

“Again?” he asked once he was fully awake.

“Again,” Celia whispered into his ear.

“We just did it like eight hours ago,” Jake said. “For quite some time. We haven’t even showered up from that.” Or brushed our teeth.

“I don’t care,” she said. “I’m horny. I’m dealing with second trimester hormones here. You remember what that was like with Teach, don’t you?”

“I remember,” he agreed, resigned to his fate.

She wanted it from behind so Jake gave it to her that way. He alternated between holding onto her hips, playing with those big breasts and nipples, stroking her bulging stomach, and holding the back of her neck. He brought her to first one, then another orgasm. He tried to finish up but could not make the final connection to trigger an orgasm. It was not that he was not enjoying what he was doing—he quite was, actually—but he had already ejaculated twice inside of her body during last night’s session. Celia was able to help him out by having him lay on his back. She mounted him in the female superior position and took over the thrusting duties while encouraging him to suckle her big nipples. That did the trick. The pleasure erupted and he shot up inside of her.

“Madre de Dios, that was good,” Celia panted as she lay atop of him, both of them sweaty and quite ripe smelling.

“Yeah,” Jake panted back. “Nothing like making good use of morning wood.” I’m not going to have enough energy to do this again tonight, he thought sourly. And that was a shame, because Celia was going to want him to do it again and doing it was one of his favorite things to do in life.

Celia went to the toilet to pee. She had long since lost her shyness about performing this act in front of Jake and/or Laura. She then began the morning routine. It was a travel day. They would be flying to Calgary in a little more than two hours. There would be three shows there starting in three days, followed by two shows in Edmonton.

While she showered, Jake brushed his teeth and then took care of his other morning essentials (shutting the door for his sit-down—none of the trio wanted to see or smell the others doing that and never had). By the time he was finished, the shower was free for him. He washed thoroughly, cleansing himself of all the various bodily secretions he had been marinated in over the past twelve hours. He washed his long hair as he had not done that during the after-show shower the previous night. He felt clean and refreshed as he toweled off in preparation for getting dressed for the day.

They made sure all of their belongings were packed up and ready to go and then went downstairs to have breakfast in the hotel’s café. None of the other bandmembers were down there yet, but more than a few of the crew were. The crew were not the types to turn down a free breakfast (or a free lunch or a free dinner). Jake and Celia nodded at a few, spoke a few words with a few, and then made their way to an empty booth. The smell of bacon, sausage, and toast in the air was heavenly.

A waitress appeared almost immediately and wished them good morning. She handed them menus and asked if she could bring them anything to drink.

“Coffee and orange juice for me,” Jake said.

“Coffee and apple juice for me,” said Celia.

“I’ll have that right out for you.”

And she did. By the time they decided what they were going to have for breakfast, she had their glasses and cups set down before them. Celia ordered a north country scramble, which consisted of eggs, sausage, cheese, and crispy potatoes. Jake ordered the French omelet, which was made with Swiss cheese, black forest ham, and crispy potatoes. Both asked for fresh fruit and sourdough toast as their side dishes. The waitress wrote all of this down on her little pad and then disappeared.

Jake took a sip of his coffee. It was not bad, but was certainly not Jamaican Blue Mountain. Jake’s attention was then drawn to the large television set that was mounted on the wall in front of him. It was tuned to CNN. They were talking about the war in Iraq, which was now into its third day of ground combat operations. On the bottom of the screen the headlines moved horizontally across from right to left. Jake saw that something significant had happened since he had last caught the news. US SUPPLY CONVEY AMBUSHED BY IRAQI FORCES. DOZENS OF US SOLDIERS KILLED OR MISSING IN ACTION.

Jake tuned his ear into what the broadcasters were saying, picking up more details. It seemed the supply column had been ambushed inside some city called Nasiriyah (Jake had never heard of it) by Iraqi units with small arms fire, RPGs, and possibly even tanks. People were expressing outrage at this, calling the Iraqis war criminals. Another horizontal headline proclaimed WORST LOSS OF US TROOPS SO FAR IN THE CONFLICT.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Jake said, shaking his head.

“What?” asked Celia, who had been sipping her coffee and woolgathering.

He told her what he had just learned. She too shook her head, especially about the part where Americans were expressing outrage at the attack. “I’m sorry it happened,” she said, “but we are invading their country. They have a right to defend themselves. This is not a war crime, at least not based on the information they’re presenting.”

There were unconfirmed reports that some of the soldiers attacked were females. This was particularly outrageous to those interviewed about the subject. The Iraqis were killing our women! Gunning them down like dogs!

“This whole thing is just fucked up,” Jake said sadly. “There is no reason for our soldiers to be dying over there other than we want their oil. And how many of them have we killed so far? How many Iraqi soldiers? How many Iraqi civilians?”

“They’re not even speculating on that, Rev,” Celia said. “Not on anything that I’ve watched anyway.”

“And yet we keep on waving our flags and cheering them on and now a bunch of them will be coming home in boxes with an American flag on top of it.”

“I know,” she said. She had definitely caught that Jake was considerably more passionate about this particular topic than he had been about anything else political in years. He had once been very into politics and social issues, but that had faded out in his early-thirties, about the time they threw all their efforts into KVA and making moo-zick for the peoples.

“There is nothing you or I can do about it, Rev,” Celia told him. “You know that.”

He nodded. “I know that. I can’t even let my voice be heard to be in opposition. It would alienate a lot of my fan base.”

“It is what it is,” Celia said. “It’s sad and it’s horrible that people are dying over there because we want to control their oil supply, but it’s something that is going to roll on with or without us.”

“I suppose,” he said with a sigh as picture on the screen showed a smashed up truck full of bullet holes. Whether it was a US or an Iraqi truck was unclear. The screen soon switched to a view from a camera in the hands of an imbedded CNN reporter somewhere in southern Iraq. The view was from inside of an armored vehicle of some sort and it showed nothing but endless desert rolling by, dust, and the occasional silhouette of other armored vehicles traveling along. The headlines about the ambush continued to scroll across the bottom, however.

Jake forced himself to draw his gaze away from the television when their breakfast was served. The food was pretty good and he was able to take his mind off of the stupid, pointless war and put it back on Celia, where it belonged. They had a good conversation about Calgary. Both had been there before and had pleasant memories of it.

Everyone met in the lobby at noon and the limo picked them up. They were driven to Vancouver International Airport, a much larger and busier airport than they usually operated from, but it was necessary as there were no conveniently located secondary airports nearby that could accommodate a business jet. The Citation was waiting for them. They all went through the ritual weigh-in of baggage and themselves and climbed aboard, settling into their normal seats. Jake and Celia sat next to each other in the rear, the closest seats to the bathroom, which Celia often had to use with depressing frequency. Soon they were taxiing. They lifted into the sky at 12:55 PM and landed at Calgary International at 3:27 PM, right on schedule. Celia only had to make two trips to pee on the way.

A limousine picked them up and took them to the Hyatt Regency Hotel downtown. Their suites were on the 21^st floor and they were quite luxurious, with views of downtown and the snowcapped Canadian Rockies, which they had just flown over, off to the west.

“Nice place,” Celia remarked casually as she took in the view.

“It’ll do,” Jake agreed.

“I’m gonna order up some room service,” she said, picking up the menu. “The little passenger wants some chicken strips with honey mustard.”

“The little passenger wants it, huh?” Jake said.

“He does,” she said sweetly. “Do you want anything?”

“Maybe a turkey, Swiss, and bacon sandwich for later.”

“You got it.” She thought this over for a few seconds. “That sounds really good. I think I’ll get one for myself too.”

Celia ate the chicken strips—every last one of them—and then the two of them climbed into the bed for a nap. It was a real nap, not a euphemistic one. They slept for a few hours and then stayed in the room the rest of the night, lounging and relaxing in their sweatpants and t-shirts. They read some, talked a little, listened to a little music. Celia discouraged Jake from turning on the TV because she knew he would just stare transfixed at the war news and get pissed off. When it was bedtime, they both stripped naked. Jake was able to rise to the occasion with a little effort.

The first of the Calgary shows would be on Thursday, March 27^th, so they had three days to do whatever they wanted. On the first day, Jake rented a four-wheel drive jeep and he and Celia drove west into the Canadian Rockies, climbing up steep mountain roads until they were above the snowline. The scenery was incredible as all of the rivers were running high with meltwater from the beginning of the spring thaw. They visited a few small towns along the way, ate lunch in a little café, and were not bothered by anyone even though it was plain to see they were widely recognized.

“You gotta love Canadians,” Jake remarked as he ate a bison burger and sipped from a local craft beer. “They mind their own business.”

“An admirable trait in a culture,” Celia agreed. She was eating a club sandwich and French fries (they did not call them Freedom fries in Canada, they had found) while sipping from iced tea.

Jake managed to avoid most news reports during the Calgary stay and, as such, his mood remained reasonably serene. On the second day they did some foot exploring of Calgary’s downtown area around the hotel. They walked through Chinatown to the Bow River and crossed a footbridge to the other side. There they found a nice restaurant to have an early dinner in, enjoying a five course meal that took more than ninety minutes to complete. Jake had some red wine with his courses, followed by a cognac after dessert. They slowly made their way back, walking hand in hand most of the time, stopping every once in a while to browse through some of the shops. Again, none of the Calgarians bothered them, though they were clearly recognized multiple times.

As was typical during extended breaks, the bandmembers did their own things. Even Nerdly did not hang out with Jake and Celia, though they did have breakfast with him on the morning of the 26^th. After that, Nerdly caught a taxi to the nearby Calgary Science and Technology museum. It was raining that day so another walk was out of the question for Jake and Celia. Instead, they decided to spend their last day of freedom at this stop lounging in the hotel again. They ordered room service for lunch and then went to the fancy-ass restaurant on the 18^th floor for dinner. After, they retired to their room and called Laura, both of them chatting with her for around twenty minutes. They then had a lengthy session of pregnant marital sex. Both marked if off as a good day.

The next day, after a group breakfast in the café, the grind began again. There were record store signings for Jake and Matt. There were radio interviews for them after that. Celia stayed back at the hotel and entertained herself the best she could.

The shows went on, all three of them. Coop, Charlie, and Matt all enjoyed the services of groupies all three nights (Charlie was currently heterosexual again). Matt went on and on about how much he enjoyed Canadian gash. It was a little better than American gash because, while the sluts did still keep themselves up to American grooming standards down below, they did not come across as so slutty here. There was almost a wholesomeness to them. And they were so polite. They said please and thank you and smiled a lot, even after you splooged in their faces. They were not as good as Ukrainian gash, of course (even though the Ukrainians didn’t tend to shave said gash), but that was a high bar to meet.

“Thank you for that well-researched dissertation, Matt,” Celia said sourly after he explained all this to them at breakfast on the morning of their travel day to Edmonton. “You should write an article on all of this.”

“Maybe I will,” Matt said. “Or even a book? Can you image a tell-all Matt Tisdale book about my life and experiences?”

“I’m thinking they would have to sell that one behind the black curtain in the bookstores,” Jake suggested, taking a bite out of his eggs benedict.

“Do you even know how to write, Matt?” Nerdly asked.

Matt shrugged. “How hard can it be?”

“Pretty fuckin’ hard is my understanding,” Jake said.

This just prompted another shrug. “I’ll just get one of those ghost writer motherfuckers to put it on paper. I’ll tell him the stories and he can write the shit up.”

“Be sure to sign a copy for me when it comes out,” Jake said.

“Fuckin’ A,” Matt promised. “You’ll be a big fuckin’ part of the story.”

Jake opened his mouth to say something about this and then closed it again. There was no way that Matt would actually go forward with something like this so there was no point arguing about it.

The flight to Edmonton was a short one, only 22 minutes from wheels up to touchdown. Since it was such a short distance from Calgary, that meant the road crew in their ground vehicles could get there in just a few hours instead of slogging across endless expanses of empty Canadian terrain. Therefore, the first of the three shows in the city would be held on April 1, a Tuesday. This only gave the band and crew a one day break in Alberta’s capital city. It was also raining pretty steadily, making outside excursions unappealing. Jake and Celia decided to just stay holed up in the hotel. That was okay. They quite enjoyed each other’s company. Celia managed to keep Jake away from the news channels and it began to seem almost as if he had forgotten his country was engaging in a possibly illegal war of conquest.

This period ended on the morning of April 4^th. It was the morning after the final show in Edmonton and it was a travel day in more than one sense of the word. The band would be moving on to Winnipeg early that afternoon. Celia, however, would be heading home for the rest of the tour. She had an OB appointment on April 6^th in San Luis Obispo and had them scheduled for every two weeks after that until mid-June, when they would switch to once per week. As such, Celia and Jake got up early on this morning—very early for a touring band. They rolled out of bed at 6:30 AM and showered the scent of their previous night’s relations from their bodies. They were down in the café for breakfast by 7:00 AM, both of them sleepy and out of sorts. Celia had a 10:00 AM flight out of Edmonton on a WestJet 737-700 going to LAX. From there, she would catch a commuter flight to San Luis Obispo. They could have flown her directly home on a Gulfstream or a Citation, but the bureaucracy and hassle involved in traveling international in such a manner was more trouble than it was worth.

“I’m gonna miss you, Rev,” Celia said, tears running down her eyes from her pregnancy induced emotions as she got ready to board the limousine for the trip to the airport.

“I’m gonna miss you too, C,” he told her. “It’s only another month though. I’ll be back home for Elsa’s tacos on Cinco de Mayo.”

“I guess we’ve been apart longer,” she said.

“Much longer. I’ll call you when I can after your appointment to hear what the doc said. And if there is any issue whatsoever, you call me. You have our tour schedule and our hotel schedule. I will be home as fast as possible if I need to and fuck the rest of the tour.”

She agreed to this (knowing it would have to be something extremely grave before she would ask him to come home from a tour). They hugged tightly and kissed each other repeatedly. Her bag was loaded and she climbed into the limo. A minute later, she was gone.

Jake sighed and then went back into the hotel lobby. He rode the elevator back up to the top floor and returned to his room. He pondered laying down and getting more sleep—he did not really need to get up until 11:00 AM in order to meet his pickup time—but decided against it. After all, there was no show tonight, just the two hour flight and the hotel check-in process at the other end. He could sleep all he wanted after that. Besides, he had had two cups of coffee with breakfast and the caffeine was working on him.

He got a bottle of water from the bar and then sat down in the sitting room. He picked up the remote and flipped on the television, tuning it to CNN. He decided to check on progress of the war, as he had heard little about it in the past few days other than it was still going on. Two newscasters were sitting behind their desk, one an African-American male with glasses, the other a painfully skinny blonde with large, surgery enhanced breasts and an obviously surgery enhanced face. In the corner where the graphics were was a picture of a skinny young woman who appeared to be laying on a stretcher. It was somewhat of a grainy photo. She was dressed in a hospital gown and had what appeared to be a folded American flag on her chest.

“We have received confirmation now,” the female newscaster explained, “that Jessica Lynch, the female POW that was rescued from a hospital in Nasiriyah, Iraq three days ago, is now in Germany receiving treatment from the wounds inflicted by those who captured her. These wounds are said to be multiple gunshot wounds and stab wounds. Her condition is said to be critical but stable.”

The male newscaster then picked up the thread. “Lynch was rescued from captivity by American special forces soldiers after they received intelligence on where she was being held. The bodies of eleven other American soldiers from the ambushed supply column Lynch was attached to were recovered as well. Pentagon sources say that Lynch went down fighting, firing her rifle empty at the attacking forces before being captured.”

“She is a true American hero,” the female newscaster said solemnly. “She shows the brave spirit and determination of our fighting men and women in this conflict.”

Jesus Christ, Jake thought. We’re getting our women shot up over this shit now? She’s hardly more than a teenager. What the fuck is going on around here?

He continued to watch the coverage, getting caught up. The story of Jessica Lynch and her ambushed supply column and her subsequent rescue was discussed primarily, but there were other things as well. The Battle of Nasiriyah was over, with US forces securing the city and its bridges, and the main bulk of the forces were once again heading north, toward Baghdad. There had been a friendly fire incident during the battle, which had killed multiple marines. An American battle tank had been found sunk in a river, all crewmen dead. And still, there was no discussion of Iraqi military casualties or Iraqi civilian casualties.

He watched until it was time to head downstairs for the limousine and the trip to the airport. He was in a foul mood now, which he attributed to Celia being gone.

“It’s fuckin’ bullshit, Matt,” Jake complained as they made the flight later that day. “We’re sending women into a war zone and they’re getting shot up. The men are bad enough, but the women?”

“What the fuck do you want from me, dude?” Matt responded, irritated (he was hungover, like usual). “They all signed up for that shit. They all knew what they were getting themselves into.”

“Jessica Lynch was a supply specialist,” Jake said. “She wasn’t supposed to be in the combat zone.”

“But somehow she was,” Matt said. “Who knows? Maybe whatever asshole was driving the fucking truck made a wrong turn. You know how that shit goes.”

“How they got there isn’t the point,” Jake said. “They were close enough so something like that could happen.”

“If the bitches want to fight, I say let them fight. Might keep morale up out on the battlefield.”

“They say she went down fighting,” said Coop, who had been listening in. “Fired her fuckin’ gun empty before they took her down. That’s fuckin’ badass in my book.”

“Jessica Lynch isn’t the issue,” Jake said. “She’s just a symptom of it. There is no reason for this war in the first place. We invaded a sovereign country using a bullshit excuse and now people are dying. They’re dying for fucking oil.”

“People have been dying for oil for a long fuckin’ time now,” Matt said. “Why are you getting a hardon about it now?”

“Because it’s my country fighting a war of aggression,” Jake said. “A war that cannot be justified.”

“I heard the Jews were behind the whole thing,” Coop said wisely. “Saw it in an email. It’s the way the fuckin’ world works, man.”

“How about we leave the Jews out of the discussion?” Nerdly said sourly from across the aisle.

“Oh ... yeah, sorry, Nerdly,” Coop said. “I wasn’t trying to suggest that you yourself were involved in this shit.”

“Look, Jake,” Matt said. “I can see you’re getting yourself all worked up about this shit. That’s your fuckin’ right. But I don’t give a shit about any of it. Why the fuck should I? My life is going on just like it was—it’s getting better, in fact. Nobody is sending my ass over to the armpit of the fuckin’ world to fight fuckin’ ragheads. My concert revenue and royalties are still pouring into my bank account and I should be able to finally pay off the fuckin’ IRS and have lots of coin left over when it’s all said and done. My life is not affected by this shit. I just don’t give a fuck and I really don’t want to debate the shit.”

Jake sighed, but nodded his head. “Understood,” he said. “I’ll keep it to myself from here on out.”

For the most part, he kept his promise. As they continued to do three night engagements in Canadian cities, moving steadily east, he kept a close eye on the war news whenever he was able. He grew more and more disturbed as the days went by, both by the obvious propaganda being spread around and by the vast majority of the American public’s willingness to swallow it, to not ask a single question about what we were doing there, about their furious defense of the alleged justification for the war.

American troops reached Baghdad and then began to send incursions into it. They sealed off all of the routes in and out. There was an amusing clip of an Iraqi spokesman, clearly in downtown Baghdad, assuring his fellow countrymen that the Americans had not entered the capital city and never would, while a column of American main battle tanks rolled by just behind him. And, finally, on April 9, they took the city. Video of an American tank recovery vehicle helping jubilant Iraqis pull down a statue of Saddam Hussein in a public square was shown over and over. This video was becoming iconic, suggesting that victory was at hand and the common Iraqis viewed the Americans as liberators. American casualties at this point were relatively light. There was still no real reporting on Iraqi military or civilian casualties. The story of Jessica Lynch stayed in the forefront, with every step of her recovery and her journey home being reported. Jake thought it very odd that she had been shipped home so soon from Germany for someone who had been shot and stabbed multiple times and had been near death. After all, he had spent eight days in the hospital just for a single gunshot wound to the chest with a simple pneumothorax.

He kept his opinions to himself during this. He did not talk to his fellow bandmembers about his growing opposition to the conflict. He got up on stage during the shows and said nothing to the audience about his views on the war. He did not mention the war to the audience at all, although there were always a fair amount of Canadian citizens who showed up to protest the war at every venue. Even when he called Laura and Celia, he mentioned it not, though he knew that both were quite against the war and agreed with his theory of what it was really all about. They just didn’t want to talk about it. He tried to take Matt’s attitude about the war and just not give a fuck about it. He found himself unable to do this. Whenever he had free time, he would watch news coverage and read newspapers to keep up on the latest.

On April 25^th, he could no longer hold his tongue. News broke about Jessica Lynch. It was revealed by her herself that almost the entire story told by the officials about her capture was complete and utter bullshit. She did not fire her weapon empty trying to fight them. She did not fire her weapon at all. She had been knocked unconscious when the RPG had hit her Humvee and had woken up a captive in the hospital from which she was eventually rescued. Her wounds were not from gunshots and bayonets. They were orthopedic injuries and a major concussion from the impact of the weapon and the crash of the vehicle immediately after.

“It’s fuckin’ propaganda!” Jake cried at breakfast on this morning—which was a performance day. “They completely made that story up and released it before they even debriefed her!”

“So?” Matt asked with a shrug. “They got their facts wrong. That shit happens.”

“They did not get their facts wrong,” Jake insisted. “They made all of it up to make the whole thing seem heroic instead of a clusterfuck. They were trying to manipulate the American public with propaganda to keep support for the war strong.”

Another shrug. “It fuckin’ worked, didn’t it? You got all the dudes in this country wanting to bone her and all the bitches wanting to fuckin’ adopt her.”

“You seem surprised, Jake,” said Nerdly, “that the US military and the US government would misrepresent a story in order to make their cause more appealing. It has gone on forever.”

“I’m not surprised at all,” Jake said. “In fact, I kind of suspected that something like this was going on for several weeks. What surprises me is that no one seems to care. There is no outrage about this. Why not?”

“Because they’re throwing a good fucking war,” Matt said. “At least at this point anyway. We’re winning. We’ve removed the evil dictator. People love that shit. You should know that.”

“He does have a valid point there,” Nerdly said.

Jake had to concede that point. He did it reluctantly, but he did it.

“So ... this Lynch bitch,” Matt said. “I’ve seen her picture. Who here would fuck her?”

Coop and Charlie both replied that they would fuck her. Matt concurred.

On May 1, 2003, while hanging out in the hotel room in Montreal the day before the first of the final three dates of the Never Say Never tour, Jake watched the footage of President Bush being flown to an aircraft carrier off the coast of California so he could give a speech announcing the end of major combat operations in Iraq. He stood beneath a large banner that read MISSION ACCOMPLISHED as he gave his spiel to the nation and much of the world and all but actually declared that the war was over and all that needed to be done was establish order and begin the transition to democracy for the Iraqis.

“No way it’s going to be that easy,” Jake said to himself, shaking his head as he heard this. “No fuckin’ way.”

The flight home on May 5^th aboard an Air Canada Boeing 777 was an early one. Check in was 7:30 AM. The band and Jim the paramedic worked its way slowly through the security checkpoint (Jake made sure to confirm that Matt had no little travel stash of marijuana on him this time) and made it to the gate at 8:15, just twenty minutes before boarding. All six of them were quite hungover from the end-of-tour party that had taken place the night before and none had gotten more than three hours of sleep. All settled into their first class seats and ordered drinks to have a little hair of the dog that had bitten them. The plane pushed back and then lifted off for the direct flight at 9:10 AM. By the time it was in cruise flight, all six of them were asleep and would remain so until they were passing just north of Omaha, Nebraska and the meal service was delivered. They all ate their meals, had another drink, and then went promptly back to sleep afterward. The next time they woke up was when the plane began its descent into LAX. It touched down at 1:25 PM Los Angeles time.