Chapter 26: The Tour Packages

Oceano, California

June 15, 1998

It was Monday morning, the start of the new workweek, and there was a slight difference to the routine in the Kingsley household. Jake, Laura, Caydee, and Meghan still gathered at the breakfast table at 7:20 AM to eat what Elsa had prepared for them (it was a kielbasa, egg, and cheese scramble with onions and peppers, served with toast). Jake and Laura were freshly showered and dressed for the day. Caydee was still in her pajamas because she always ended up wearing a good portion of her breakfast, making it pointless to dress her until after the meal. Meghan took her showers before going to bed, but she was dressed in her clothes for the day: a pair of white shorts and a maroon sleeveless blouse. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail. She seemed a little restless this morning, unable to sit still. Elsa, like normal, did not eat with them. All of this was pretty normal. The difference was the radio was playing as they ate. It was turned on and tuned to the SLO hard rock station, KLBA. At any moment now, Matt’s first release from his new CD—the title cut—was supposed to be aired for the first time.

Fuel, by Metallica, was currently in its outro. It had only been released for airplay the previous week and Jake was still not quite sure what he thought about it. It had energy, and some good riffs by Kirk Hammett, but it seemed to be missing some fundamental element that had always been present in classic Metallica. He was not quite able to put his finger on just what that element was, but he could tell it was not there.

“All right!” the DJ—he went by the handle Big Johnson, which was the subject of endless complaints to the radio station manager from local parents, but the Cal Poly students loved it—said enthusiastically when the song finished. “That was Fuel, by Metallica, the latest from one of the greatest. And speaking of the greatest, we have more new music coming up after the break, something from Matt Tisdale’s latest CD, which will be on sale on June 30^th. Stay with us and give it a listen. You won’t be disappointed.”

A commercial for Central Coast liquor mart then began. It was an appropriately placed advertisement aimed at the hard rock audience who tended to be listening at this hour—namely young working-class people commuting in their cars and college students heading for their morning summer classes.

“Good job, Big Johnson,” Jake said with smile of satisfaction. “You got the plug in before the break.” That had not been required by Jake’s promotion instructions to National. He had just directed that they play Faithless after a commercial break and intro it at that time. Johnson had gone above and beyond.

“That’s a dumb name,” Meghan said with a shake of the head.

“And I bet his Johnson isn’t really that big either,” added Laura.

“I don’t know,” Jake said, pondering. “Those DJs score their share, especially in a college town. You would think you would have to be at least a little bigger than average to declare that’s your name, wouldn’t you? Otherwise, word would get around.”

“How do you know it hasn’t?” Laura asked.

“Well ... I don’t, actually,” he said. He then looked at the nanny. “What’s the word, Meghan? You’re part of the younger crowd. Any rumors floating around about Big Johnson’s Johnson?”

She blushed a little and shook her head. “I don’t really have much of a crowd,” she said. “And the crowd that I do have has never discussed his Johnson.”

Jake laughed and took another bite of his scramble. He chased it with a swig of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee. Laura, meanwhile, was looking at the nanny with a little concern.

“Are you okay, Meghan?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“You seem to be squirming around a lot. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, sure, everything’s fine,” she said quickly, her face flushing a little more. “I guess I’m just restless.”

Laura did not look convinced, but she let it drop. Jake elected to stay out of the issue. He turned his attention to Caydee, who was smearing a mixture of scrambled eggs and pureed squash all over her face.

“Are you getting any of that in your mouth, little girl?” he asked her.

She looked up at him and smiled. She stuck her tongue out and raspberried in his direction, spraying some of the mixture out over her high chair tray and onto the floor.

“I guess she is,” Jake said with a chuckle.

The commercials droned on for the better part of ten minutes and then Big Johnson returned to the air. Jake shushed everyone so he could hear the debut of the tune. All except Caydee obediently quieted down.

“This is the latest from Matt Tisdale here for you on KLBA, Ninety-three Rock,” Johnson told them. “The CD is called Faithless and the rumors you’ve been hearing about it are true. It was produced by none other than Jake Kingsley, Matt’s former partner in crime from the Intemp days, and was engineered by none other than Nerdly and Sharon Archer, also of Intemp fame. That’s right, they were able to work together to record this CD up in Oregon. Could this be the first step in an Intemperance reunion, perhaps? Time will tell. In any case, this song is the title cut of the CD. I give you Faithless on KLBA, Ninety-three Rock!”

Jake frowned a little. He had instructed National to instruct the DJs to intro the song and let the listeners know that he and the Nerdlys had produced and engineered it. He had not asked them to speculate on a possible Intemperance reunion, although he guessed that such speculation was probably inevitable and unstoppable. And who knew? Maybe it would even drive the sales.

The intro to the song began. Though Jake had heard the tune a thousand times or more by this point, he still got that little thrill that came with hearing something he had worked on airing for the first time. He tried to imagine the listeners out there, all of whom really were hearing it for the first time. How did it sound to them?

The intro that Jake had talked Matt into adding to the piece started with Corban playing a slow, fingerpicked melody similar to what would be in the choruses. Jake’s professional ear could hear the overdubbed string strikes that he himself had laid down atop of this. It played out for two measures and then Matt’s guitar played a slow solo over the top of it, matching the slow tempo. The drums played out a soft, military march style accompaniment in the background. All of this was new ground for a Matt Tisdale tune and was hopefully catching the attention, not just of his fans, but of other hard rock aficionados who maybe had not really appreciated Matt’s previous work as much.

After twenty-three seconds of intro, the piece launched abruptly into the first verse—the point where the tune had begun when Jake had first heard it played for him all those months ago. The tempo nearly doubled. The clean guitar switched to a distorted drop-D grind and mixed with Matt’s powerful five-chord riff that was the primary melody. The drums and bass began to pound out the rhythm. And Matt’s powerful, though limited range voice began to hammer out the lyrics in an angry, spiteful tone. Jake smiled as he heard it, bobbing his head to the beat. He was rather proud of how they had shaped Faithless.

The first chorus measure came and the tempo shifted back down. Corban’s guitar switched back to the clean, finger-picked melody with Jake’s string strikes atop it. Matt’s voice became less angry and more mournful as he described the essential hopeless nature of the human race and how nobody who was a part of it could be trusted.

“Such a dark theme,” said Meghan, who was hearing the tune for the first time.

“Yeah, that’s Matt for you,” Jake said. “Hard rock fans are going to love it though.”

“The jazz fans will pass on it, I’m pretty sure,” Laura said. She had heard the CD a few times and it had not captured her interest in the least.

Caydee, on the other hand, seemed to be enjoying the song. She was giving it the attention she did most music and even kicking her feet a little to the rhythm. Keeping cadence, as it were.

The tune went through two cycles of up-tempo verses alternated by slow-tempo chorus and then entered a medium tempo bridge section in which Matt laid down some long, drawn-out solo notes while Corban kept a simple version of the riff going behind him. And then everything stopped for a moment and Matt launched into the primary guitar solo, playing it out at the up-tempo rate used for the verses. Corban played a full version of the primary riff behind him while multiple drum fills were hammered out behind that. From there, it shifted to an extended reprise of the chorus that served as the outro. Matt repeated versions of the main chorus hook “Faithless I will stand and Faithless I will die” while playing slow, melodic solos. Gradually the tune began to fade out, the volume getting lower until Johnson keyed up the next song on his list—Sober, by Tool—and it disappeared completely.

“All right,” Jake said, happy. “Good tune. I think they’re going to like it.”

“If you say so,” Laura said sourly.

“I say so,” he assured her.

They finished breakfast and Elsa appeared as if by magic, using her sixth sense to know the precise moment everyone was done. She shooed them out of the kitchen nook so she could start cleaning up and doing the dishes. Jake went to his office to organize and collect his notebook. Laura grabbed Caydee to take her to her bedroom and get her cleaned up and changed so that Meghan could assume her duties. Meghan followed Laura to Caydee’s room.

“I got her for now,” Laura told her. “I’ll get her changed and wiped down before we leave.”

“Uh ... yeah, sure,” Meghan said a little hesitantly, “but there was something I wanted to ask you.”

“Sure,” Laura said, putting Caydee down on her changing table and unceremoniously stripping her jammies off. “What’s up?”

“Uh ... well, I know you told me that it’s okay for my sister or my parents to visit,” she said, “but I just wanted to let you know anyway. Danielle is going to swing by here for a few minutes on her way home from work. I just wanted to make sure it’s okay.”

“Yeah, no problem,” she said with a shrug. “I’m sure she’d like to see the baby she helped deliver and how big she is now.”

“She does,” Laura said. “She won’t be staying long. She’s just coming to drop something off for me. I’ll show her the house and Caydee real quick and then she’ll head home so she can sleep.”

“It’s fine with me,” Laura said. “Will she get here before we leave?”

“Probably not,” Meghan said. “She’s just now leaving work.”

“Well, tell her that Jake and I say hi,” Laura said.

“I will. Thanks, Laura.”

“No problem.”

Meghan gave a little sigh of relief as she left the room. She was grateful that Laura had not asked any questions about the nature of the visit or what Danielle was bringing for her. It was embarrassing.

She took charge of Caydee five minutes later. Jake and Laura both kissed their daughter goodbye, told her that they loved her, and headed out the door. She took Caydee into the entertainment room, where she had a blanket on the floor covered in her favorite toys. There was also a mechanical swing and a standing bar that Caydee still did not use but was starting to express interest in. She put the child down on the blanket and then popped quickly back into the kitchen to let Elsa know about her impending visitor. Elsa merely grunted out a reply and went back to rinsing and cleaning the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher.

She sat down on the couch and continued to squirm back and forth, more freely now since no one but Caydee could see her doing it. Caydee played contentedly for ten minutes, at which point the intercom began to buzz out the sound that indicated someone was at the front gate and had pushed the button. That would be Danielle. Relief was here! Hopefully, anyway.

Caydee was still not crawling, so it was still safe to leave her unattended on her blanket for a minute or two. Meghan trotted to the office and looked at the computer screens. Sure enough, Danielle’s Toyota Camry was parked at the gate and her face was peering into the camera. She pushed the intercom button.

“Hey, Dannie,” she said. “I’ll open the gate for you. Pull forward just out of range of it and then stop there until it’s closed again. After that, just follow the road up and park in the circular driveway.”

“Okay,” Danielle’s voice replied.

Meghan went back to the entertainment room and picked up Caydee, hefting her into the crook of her arm. Caydee came willingly enough. She was always up for adventure and was never happier than when someone was holding her. Meghan carried her to the front door and opened it. She stepped out onto the porch. It was a beautiful central coast morning and the air smelled fresh and clean.

Danielle parked in the circular driveway and then stepped out. She was wearing a pair of jeans and a pullover shirt. Her hair was in a ponytail and her face looked tired. She carried a small, white plastic bag in her hand. It was the sort of bag that was usually found in hospitals to hold personal hygiene supplies for the patients.

“Hey, Meggie,” Danielle said. “Nice place you live in.”

“Yeah,” Meghan agreed. “It really is. Did you find it okay?”

“I missed the road on the first pass,” she said. “It’s not really all that well marked.”

“Jake and Laura don’t really like to advertise that this is their place,” she said.

“I guess that makes sense,” Danielle said. She walked up to her sister and gave her a one-armed hug. Meghan returned it after shifting Caydee a bit in her grasp. Danielle then looked at the child in her sister’s arms. “Wow,” she said. “She really has gotten a lot bigger since I saw her come into the world. I don’t usually get to see them again after they come out.”

“She’s sixteen and a half pounds now,” Meghan told her. “Caydee, this is Dannie. You probably don’t remember her, but she helped pull you out of your mommy’s tummy.”

Caydee looked the newcomer up and down placidly, showing no sign of distress or discomfort. She traveled a lot and met new people frequently and, as such, had not developed the instinctive fear of strangers that most nearly eight-month-olds displayed.

“Hi, Caydee,” Danielle said. “You really are a cutie, aren’t you?”

Caydee smiled. She knew she was a cutie. People told her that all the time.

“Come on,” Meghan said. “Let’s go inside.”

They went into the foyer and then into the formal living room and dining room beyond it. In the entertainment room, Elsa was waiting for them. Meghan made the introductions and the two women pronounced that they were happy to meet each other.

“I’m just going to show her the house real quick,” Meghan told Elsa.

“I would be happy to hold Miss Cadence for you while you give the tour,” Elsa said.

“Really? Thanks, Elsa.”

“My pleasure,” Elsa said, quite sincerely. Caydee was actually one of the joys of her life and she took every opportunity she could to interact with her.

Meghan handed her over and then turned to her sister. “Let me show you my room first.”

“Sounds good,” Danielle said. “Lead the way.”

Meghan led her out of the entertainment room and into the hall. Neither of them saw Elsa giving their retreating backs a little eye roll and a shake of the head. They were not putting anything over on her.

“So ... here’s where I stay,” Meghan told her sister once they were in the guest room.

“Not bad,” Danielle said appreciatively. “This is a guest room? It’s bigger than our master bedroom at home.”

“Yes, it’s very comfy. And I have the run of the whole house. Anyway ... did you bring the stuff?”

“I brought the stuff,” Danielle assured her, “although you could have just bought some at the drug store and saved me the trouble of swiping it from the hospital supply and bringing it all the out way here.”

“Are you kidding?” Meghan asked. “If I would have bought some, the whole town would’ve been talking about it. Pauline got them to kill that story about me, but I’m still the subject of endless gossip. I can only imagine what they would say about something like this.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Danielle said. She opened the bag she was carrying and pulled out a tube that resembled a travel size tube of toothpaste, but that was not what it was. The word Miconazole was written in large letters on it.

“You’re sure this will help?” Meghan asked, taking the tube and looking at it.

“Well, you have itching and a rash down there and you haven’t been having sex with anyone, right?”

“Right,” she said. “I told you that when I called last night.”

“It sounds like a yeast infection to me,” Danielle said. “And this is the cure. Want me to look at it to make sure that’s what it is? Believe me, I’ve seen my share of them where I work.”

She shook her head, mortified at the thought of her sister examining her vagina. “No, you don’t need to do that. I’ll take your word for it. But how did I get it? I’ve never had one before. I’m a clean person. I shower every night and wash myself down there. How does this happen?”

“It’s not necessarily being dirty down there that causes it,” Danielle told her. “In fact, sometimes having too good of hygiene can be the cause.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, confused. Being too clean caused yeast to grow on and in your cooter? What kind of bullshit was that?

“Well, this is a little gross maybe, but a woman’s hoo-hoo is supposed to have a fairly good colony of bacteria living on it and in it. That bacteria is a woman’s friend. It keeps the Ph where it should be. And it keeps any yeast from growing there.”

“No kidding?”

“No kidding,” she said. “If you disrupt that bacteria, the yeast can grow unchecked. Are you taking any antibiotics?”

“No,” she said. “Just my birth control pills.”

“Have you been douching or anything like that?” she asked next. “Douching is not really good for you for this very reason.”

“No, I’ve never douched in my life,” she said.

“Hmm,” Danielle said. “Something must have killed those bacteria.”

A thought occurred to her. “What about the hot tub?” she asked. “It has chlorine in it. Could that do it?”

Danielle shook her head. “It shouldn’t unless they’re really flooding that thing with chlorine. That much would probably make it hard to even get in the water though.”

“It seems like the normal amount in there,” Meghan said. “And Laura has never mentioned anything about getting yeast infections—although I’m not certain we have that kind of sharing relationship with each other just yet.”

“It must be something else,” Danielle said. “If you’ve never been prone to them before, there’s got to be a reason why you’re getting a nasty one right now.”

And then, Meghan’s mind went back to the douching suggestion. And suddenly, a horrible idea occurred to her. She flushed visibly. “Uh ... wow...”

“What is it?” Danielle asked.

“Uh ... well ... suppose that that chlorinated water out in the hot tub was ... uh ... was...”

“Was what?”

She took a deep breath. Her face was now an alarming shade of red. Her eyes were unable to meet the eyes of her sister. “Suppose it was ... uh ... you know ... a stream of that water and it was ... uh ... kind of hitting you in that area?”

Danielle’s eyes got wide. She nibbled her lip for a moment. “Uh ... well ... is that something that possibly happened to you?” she asked slowly.

Shamefully, Meghan nodded her head.

“Are you saying that you were letting the hot tub jet ... letting it spray on you ... down there?”

“Yes,” she said meekly.

“Why in the world would you do that?” Danielle asked.

“Because it feels good,” she hissed at her sister. “Don’t judge me. I don’t have a husband to stick his dick in me when I’m horny.”

“Well ... can’t you just ... you know ... do yourself the normal way? With your fingers? Or maybe a toy?”

“It doesn’t feel as good as the water jet,” she said shortly. “Not even close.”

“Really?” she said. “I almost want to try it now. How many times have you done this?”

Meghan looked down at the floor again. “Maybe ... uh ... ten times since I discovered this last month.”

“Ten times?”

“Give or take a few,” Meghan said, as embarrassed as she had ever been in her life.

“Well ... that’s your culprit then,” Danielle said. “You’re shooting high-pressure chlorinated water directly on your hoo-hoo. It’s blasting away the bacteria layer and then sterilizing the mucous membranes in the process. You created a perfect breeding ground for vaginal yeast.”

“What a rip,” she said with a sigh, employing a Jake-ism she had picked up.

“Yep,” Danielle said. “Unfortunately, everything in this world that is fun has consequences. Especially when it comes to hoo-hoos.”

“You’d think I would have learned that by now,” Meghan said, dejected.

Danielle patted her consolingly on the back. “At least you tend to learn from your mistakes, sis.”

“Yeah. I guess there’s that.”

Jake and Laura arrived at the warehouse in Santa Clarita where Celia and her band were rehearsing at 8:55 AM. Jake parked his truck and they were admitted to the facility by Jamal, the day shift security guard. Things were starting to look like an actual stage production now. All of the scaffolding and lights were now assembled and mounted so they could bathe the stage in light or have individual spotlights shine down in a particular place. The stage itself was now surrounded by a wooden structure that contained a large backstage area for the crew to work unseen by the audience. And, new to a KVA associated show, there were now two large video screens—each one forty feet high by thirty feet wide—mounted on either side of the stage. High up on the scaffolding at the rear of the building were two high-definition projectors that would send images taken by a series of twelve video cameras that were positioned throughout the room, thus allowing even those in the worst seats in whatever venue they were in to see Celia and the band doing their thing during the performances.

Jake and Celia had both always been opposed to the video screens on general principles, but had changed their views over the past year. The video screens were now considered a standard part of a show where people paid more than a hundred dollars a ticket, and the biggest criticism of the Tsunami Sound Festival that Jake and Matt had participated in was that no such screens had been there and the people in the back areas had barely been able to make out the forms of the performers.

And so, KVA agreed to use the screens for both Celia’s and Matt’s tours. This decision added considerably to the total cost of tour production, which KVA was paying fifty percent of. Although National was paying for leasing of the equipment and the screens themselves, KVA had to pay half the cost of employing six camera operators, fifteen technicians to install and maintain the equipment, an additional twelve roadies to heft and mount everything, an additional truck and driver to haul everything around, and two video producers who would be responsible for deciding which images to display on which screen at which time. The big positive from all this was that Jake and Pauline had negotiated that KVA kept the rights to the video and audio recorded from both tours and could do with it what they pleased once the tour was over and the contract was fulfilled.

The screens were blank now and the techs that operated the system were not on site. Everything was in working order and had been tested, but Celia and the band were still working on the basic setup of the show currently. They had the setlist nailed down at this point, but things had taken a bit of a step backward now that they had a new bandmember who was trying to learn the tunes from scratch.

Miles O’Leary was his name—his real name, that was not a stage name—and, assuming he worked out, he was to be the saxophonist for the tour. He was a short, gangly man who was thirty-six years old. He had long, stringy brown hair, an unruly mustache and beard, and was a licensed commercial pilot who flew a Grumman G-164 Ag Cat crop dusting plane for an agricultural air company based in Colusa, California in the northern Central Valley. Playing the sax was just his side-gig, but he was very good at it. And he declared himself to be a Celia Valdez and Jake Kingsley fan.

He was kind of an odd person. He looked like a homeless transient and often smelled like one as well. He was a voracious stoner who smoked close to an eighth of marijuana every day. He shamelessly admitted to Jake, when they started talking flying with each other on their first meeting, that he never got behind the controls of his plane without smoking out first.

“Not even sure I know how to fly a plane when I’m not stoned,” he declared in his thick Irish brogue.

And he also insisted that he could not play his saxophone unless he was stoned as well. This was almost a deal breaker for KVA when they auditioned him. One of the firm, nonnegotiable rules that Jake, Celia, and even Matt enforced in their production was that no intoxicating substances would be used before a rehearsal or a performance. But, as Jake had been known to point out on an occasion or two, everything is negotiable.

At his audition for Celia two weeks before, Miles had played like shit when he first stepped up to blow the horn. He could not keep in time with the rhythm, he could not phrase properly, even on material that he knew well. But then he pleaded with them to let him “smoke a few wee bowls” and try again. Reluctantly, they allowed this. And he had stepped back up there and blown them away with his skill and mastery of the instrument. He was not quite as good as Laura, not quite as good as Dexter Price, but he was in their league without a doubt. And he was the only prospect on their horizon currently since Dexter and Bobby Z were currently in the on part of their on again off again relationship and Dexter was unavailable. And they were supposed to hit the road for the first date in Seattle on August 14^th. The venue was already rented. The tickets would be going on sale next week. Their hands were a bit tied.

“Well,” Jake said doubtfully, “there is some precedent for the idea that getting loaded can help a performance. I mean, G and his boys get lit before every show. Who are we to judge?”

“Yeah,” Celia said slowly. “And it’s not like we have many choices here.”

And so, he was hired—with the stipulation that he pay for his own pre-show entertainment expenses.

“No problem, no problem,” he declared. “When I receives ye advance money I’ll buy enough to last me the entire tour.”

“It’ll have to travel in the trucks,” Celia said. “No pilot is going to let you load that much pot onto the band plane.”

“Understandable,” he said happily. “I still get to indulge in the after-show entertainment supplies, do I not?”

“Well ... yes, of course,” Celia said.

“And you be professional musicians,” he said. “There has to be an after-show ganja supply maintained by the tour manager, right? If ye say no, I’ll be reconsidering my contract here.”

“Uh ... sure, we do keep a supply on hand for those of us that imbibe in that sort of thing,” Celia said.

“Then we have no problem here, do we?”

“I guess we don’t,” Celia said.

And so that was the reason that while everyone else was getting their instruments out and ready to start rehearsing, Miles was in the back of the warehouse toking out of a pipe. He refused to even tune his instrument if he was not stoned.

“We heard Journey on the drive here from the airport,” Jake told Celia as she tuned her guitar. The End of the Journey, her first release from the new CD, had debuted as scheduled as well.

“On KPID?” she asked, excited. “I heard it too! It’s always such a thrill to hear your work on the airwaves for the first time.”

“It is,” Jake agreed. “It sounded great. And they followed my promo instructions to the letter. Hopefully that keeps up.”

“No reason why it shouldn’t,” Celia said. “National thinks the CD sales are not important anymore. They’ll just follow your directions and be happy because they won’t have to think about it themselves.”

“That is true,” he agreed.

Miles finished up his pipe hits and came over to the stage. He was now reeking of greenbud and body odor. He climbed into position and picked up his alto sax. Laura was up on the stage near him, her own sax in hand, so she could help him out on a section if he needed it. She tried to stay as far away from his as she could reasonably get away with. Though she rather enjoyed the smell of sweaty Jake or sweaty Celia in her nose—particularly if they were rubbing their sweaty selves all over her—she was not a fan of rancid BO. Miles quickly put his instrument into tune and then reported that he was ready to start.