Chapter 5A: Never Kiss a Groupie

January 1, 1983
Interstate 95, Southern Maine

Jake woke up slowly, his head throbbing, his mouth dry and tasting of rum, his stomach knotted with hunger pains. He felt the familiar rocking of the bus, heard the familiar rumbling of its diesel engine as it pulled them up a hill, but he was not in the familiar confines of his fold-down bunk near the back. He opened his eyes slowly, wincing a little at the sunlight streaming in from the windshield up front. He found he was sitting at one of the tables adjacent to the bar. He was still dressed in the jeans and T-shirt he wore last night. He still felt a little drunk as well.

"Christ," he muttered. "What time is it?"

He raised his head up and looked around. The inside of the tour bus looked a little like the hotel room scene on the cover of their album. Empty booze bottles, beer cans, drink glasses, and overflowing ashtrays were everywhere. All that was missing was the naked woman. Matt was lying on the floor, his mouth open, snoring drunkenly. Coop and Darren were lying on the two couches. Only Bill was actually in his bunk, although his arms were hanging limply out.

Sitting across the table from Jake was Greg Gahn, the National Records Artist Development Department representative who had been assigned as Intemperance's "tour manager". Greg was a short man, perpetually grinning, with a strong car salesman personality. His hair was cut short and always neatly styled. He always wore a suit and carried a copy of the Book of Mormon with him. He proclaimed himself a devout follower of the Principles of Mormonism.

"I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't engage in fornication," he told them four days before, when they'd set out from Los Angeles to head for the opening date of the Losing Proposition Tour in Bangor, Maine. "That's why they send me out with you boys. I can keep the tour moving along without succumbing to the pleasures of the flesh or the gross alcohol intoxication that sometimes crops up on these things."

It seemed that the Principles of Mormonism didn't cover cocaine use - or at least Greg pretended they didn't. In the four days they had been on the road, Greg had sniffed and snorted from a seemingly endless supply of high quality blow - blow he was more than happy to share with the five band members he was babysitting.

He was crunching up a few lines of it right now, as a matter of fact, going about it with the anal precision that drove all of his tasks. A bottle of expensive mineral water sat next to him. There was a slice of fresh lemon floating in it.

"Morning, Jake," he said cheerfully. "How you feeling?"

"Pretty shitty," Jake replied, running his hand across his face and feeling a two-day growth of beard there. "Where are we?"

"Within sight of our destination. We just crossed the Maine state line about twenty minutes ago. We should be in Bangor by noon."

"Bitchin," Jake said. "It'll be nice to get off this bus for awhile."

"I agree, although it seemed like you boys have been having a good enough time on our little trip from one corner of the country to the other. We had to stop twice to pick up more liquor for you."

Jake shrugged. Yes, they had partied rather hard since leaving Los Angeles. There was booze and cocaine and high-grade marijuana readily available for their pleasure and there was nothing else to do. There were portions of the trip that he didn't even remember. He would be the first to agree that they were off to a good start in the department of living up their band's name. It was very annoying, however, to have to listen to the self-righteous tripe this little coke-sniffing religious fanatic was always spouting at them during their brief interludes of sobriety.

"Well," Jake said, "you gotta keep the talent happy, don't you?"

Greg laughed as if that was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. "Yes indeed," he said, grinning wildly. "That is my job, after all." He leaned down and made the two lines disappear. He sniffed pertly, tapping the sides of his nose for a second and then looked at Jake. "Care for a little wake-up?" he asked him. "It'll probably get rid of your hangover."

He was right. A few lines would nicely erase the headache, the sour stomach, and the dark fatigue that was pulling on him. But he declined nevertheless. He had been snorting a considerable amount of cocaine for the last four days and he thought it might be a good idea to take a little break from it. "That's okay," he said. "I think I'll just grab some aspirin and drink a quart or two of water."

"Suit yourself," Greg replied, his grin remaining firmly affixed. "But don't hesitate to ask if you change your mind."

Jake nodded and stood up, doing it slowly to keep the nausea and the spins to a minimum. He made his way to the front of the bus, toward the small bathroom/shower room. His eyes were now more or less adjusted to the brightness and he took a glance out the window, seeing they were driving down a four-lane Interstate that had been cut through a thick forest. Though the sky was now a brilliant shade of blue that was never seen in Los Angeles or even Heritage, it was clear that a terrible blizzard had recently swept through this area. Snow covered the ground and the evergreen trees. Drifts thrown up by snowplows stood nearly six feet high on either shoulder. It looked cold out there, frighteningly cold. The kind of cold that killed if you ventured out in it without an Arctic protection suit.

"Wassup, Ken?" Jake asked as he approached the small door to the bathroom. Ken Adopolis was one of the two bus drivers assigned to the Intemperance tour bus. Robert Cranston, the other driver, was currently crashed out in his small bunk next to the bathroom.

"Jake, my man," Ken greeted, turning towards him for a few seconds before putting his eyes back on the road. "How you doing this morning? A little hung?"

"I've been worse," Jake said, looking at the mess that surrounded Ken's seat. There were several empty soda cans, the crumpled remains of various fast food and processed food wrappers, and, of course, the inevitable ashtray full of cigarette butts and marijuana ashes. Ken was a voracious smoker of pot. He claimed he didn't know how to drive the bus when he was straight.

Ken picked up a marijuana pipe that he always kept loaded. He offered it to Jake. "Care for a little hit?"

"Maybe later," Jake replied.

Ken nodded, putting the pipe back down. "I heard you guys' song three more times on the radio since I got on shift," he said. "They're playing it on all the rock stations I've been getting."

Jake smiled a little. "That's what I like to hear," he said, although by this point the novelty of hearing himself on the radio was starting to wear off, especially since during waking hours - which consisted of about eighteen out of every twenty-four so far - the drivers had made a point of blasting Descent Into Nothing at top volume whenever they happened across it on the radio waves. When this happened everything else that was going on would stop instantly and they would all sing along and play air guitars and cheer - their revelry proportionate to the amount of intoxicants they had in their systems. This was something that happened fairly frequently on the trip because Descent was fast becoming one of the most played hard rock songs in the nation. The single had been released to the radio stations on November 20, more than two weeks before being made available to the public. Thanks to the National Records Promotion Department - who had connections with pretty much every major radio station in the United States and Canada - rock DJ's across the country had started playing Descent the very next day, at first during new music segments and then as a regular part of their programming.

Jake would never forget the first time he'd heard the song on the radio. He had been in Angie's apartment and they had been naked in her bed, cuddling after an extended session of lovemaking. Both had just been drifting towards sleep, the radio alarm clock nothing but background noise, when Justin Adams, the night DJ for KRON had come back from a commercial break.

"New music here on the Krone bone," he said. "We just got this tune the other day. The album is not even in stores yet. It's a band from Heritage if you can believe that. You ever heard of Heritage? It's a little cow town up in northern Cali somewhere that makes Bakersfield look like friggin Beverly Hills from what I'm told. Its where they grow most of our tomatoes and our rice and where having a good time means shutting down the still for the night and going over to the grange hall."

Jake's eyes popped wide open and he sat up, startling Angie. "Holy shit," he said.

"What?" she asked, looking around.

"Shhh," he hushed her. "They're talking about us! They're gonna play our song!"

"Your song?"

He hushed her again.

"Anyway," Justin Adams continued, "I guess they're capable of producing something other than produce and cheap moonshine up in those parts because I gave this tune a listen and... well... it friggin rocks. Here it is for your listening pleasure. The band is called Intemperance..."

"That's you!" Angie had squealed. "Oh my God!"

"Shhhh!"

"... and the tune is the title cut from their up and coming album: Descent Into Nothing."

And then the opening riff of Matt's guitar began to sound from the tinny speaker. Jake reached over and turned it up and both of them listened transfixed as the power riff began, as the piano chimed in, and then, finally, as Jake's voice began to issue from the speaker.

"It's really you," Angie had whispered in awe. It was the first time she had heard the song.

"It really is," Jake agreed, just as awed though he'd heard the song a thousand times.

They'd listened to it all the way through and then Angie had looked at him seriously, a tear running down her face.

"What?" Jake had asked. "What are you crying about?"

"Nothing," she said. "Just love me."

He'd loved her, sliding into her naked body less than five minutes later.

On the day they'd left Los Angeles for Bangor, the album and the single had been in stores across the nation for twenty-three days. Album sales were less than twenty thousand at this point - well over ninety percent of those from the greater Heritage region - but sales of the Descent Into Nothing single had broken into Billboard's Hot One Hundred with a bullet - a remarkable feat since techno and punk music were the current fads. It was projected that the song would be played on the Top Forty countdown the following week.

"Both the fifteen to eighteen and the eighteen to twenty-five crowd loves the song," Acardio had told them. "It's going just how we planned. As soon as the song peaks and starts heading back down the charts, we'll release Who Needs Love as a single and get the radio stations to start pushing that one. When that happens, album sales will start to pick up dramatically. It generally takes two hit songs before people start buying the album in droves. And if we can squeeze three hit songs out, the album is almost guaranteed to go platinum."

Platinum, Jake thought as he entered the bathroom and closed the door behind him. So we can make an honest fourteen grand. His mind wanted to be bitter at this, as it had so many times before, but it simply wouldn't take today. His hangover - which was really a four-day hangover - coupled with his nervousness at their first real concert, simply wouldn't allow it. And then there was his parting with Angie. That weighed heavily on his mind as well.

He had grown very close to Angie during the last few months - at least as close as he'd been to Michelle during the peak of their relationship. Parting with her had not been easy, especially since their tour schedule - which was quite grueling when you sat down and looked at it - would not even begin to approach the west coast any time soon. So far, the first leg was all that was planned out. Jake remembered reading it over for the first time.

Jan 1 - Bangor, Maine; Jan 2 - Concorde, New Hampshire; Jan 3 - Boston, Massachusetts; Jan 5 - Buffalo, New York; Jan 6 - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Jan 7 - Cleveland, Ohio; Jan 10- Cincinnati, Ohio; Jan 11 - Indianapolis, Indiana; Jan 12 - Chicago, Illinois; Jan 13 - Minneapolis, Minnesota; Jan 14 - Des Moines, Iowa; Jan 15 - Peoria, Illinois; Jan 16 - Kansas City, Missouri; Jan 17 - St. Louis, Missouri; Jan 18 - Springfield, Missouri; Jan 20 - Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Jan 21 - Amarillo, Texas; Jan 22 - Albuquerque, New Mexico; Jan 23 - El Paso, Texas; Jan 24 - Austin, Texas; Jan 25 - San Antonio, Texas; Jan 26 - Houston, Texas; Jan 27 - Dallas, Texas; Jan 29 - Little Rock, Arkansas; Jan 31 - Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Feb 01 - New Orleans, Louisiana; Feb 02 - Jackson, Mississippi; Feb 03 - Memphis, Tennessee; Feb 04 - Nashville, Tennessee; Feb 05 - Louisville, Kentucky

And that was just the first leg. Five legs were planned. There were days off included in there - occasional ones - but those were mostly due to particularly lengthy travel times between shows. It wouldn't be until at least the first week in February when he might get a chance to get back to Los Angeles to see Angie. A two-week break was included before the second leg of the tour began.

"I'll be back then," he'd told her at their last meeting - just hours before he'd climbed onto the tour bus for the first time.

"I know you will," she responded, kissing his face again, her arms around his body, hugging him tighter, not wanting to let go.

"And I'll call you every day," he added. "Twice a day when I can."

The tears had started to run at this point, glimmering drops that slid down her cheeks. "I know," she answered. "I know."

And then she reluctantly released him and walked back to her car, openly sobbing by that point. Jake had looked after her, puzzled, wondering why she was so emotional. It was only going to be about six weeks before he saw her again. She was acting like they were saying goodbye forever.

The convoy Intemperance was traveling with consisted of six tractor-trailer rigs and six tour buses. The road crew, or "roadies" as they were known, occupied three of the tour buses. The other three were the two rock bands and their management staff. Contained within the trailers was a complete stage assembly, scaffolding to hang lights from, a complete stage lighting set with swivels, gimbals, and cooling systems, twenty-seven high performance amplifiers, more than a mile of electrical cable and power cords, and, of course, all of the instruments for both Earthstone and Intemperance. The convoy crossed the Bangor city limits just before noon on New Year's Day. The bulk of the vehicles headed towards Bangor Auditorium downtown, the site of tonight's show. The tour buses belonging to Earthstone and Intemperance, as well as one other that belonged to the management staff, peeled off and headed for the Bangor International Hotel near the airport.

The hotel was not nearly as classy as it sounded. It was, in fact, just a half step up from your standard Motel 6. The buses pulled around back and sat at idle, the heaters continuing to blow, the band members remaining onboard, while Greg and Joe Stafferson, who was Earthstone's tour manager, went to check in. About twenty minutes passed before they returned.

"Okay, boys," Greg told them. "You have room 107 and 108. How you want to divide yourselves up is up to you."

"We only get two rooms?" Matt asked. He had imbibed in Greg's offer of a powdery wake-up/hangover potion and his eyes were glinting quite brightly. "The guys on Earthstone all get their own rooms. What's up with that?"

"It's Earthstone's tour," Greg told him. "The headliner gets certain privileges. Now, as for your laundry. Just bag it up and put it in the back of the bus. Ken and Robert will see that it's cleaned. Be sure to label your bags. This will be the procedure for laundry in every city we visit, so get in the habit."

As he had no doubt intended, the subject of what to do with their laundry distracted them from the subject of sharing rooms. He handed one key to Jake and one to Matt and then turned and headed out the door.

"I really don't like that guy," Jake said as they watched him go.

"He's not that bad," Matt said, clapping him on the shoulder. "He gets us some pretty bitchin' dope, doesn't he?"

"Fuckin' aye," Coop said.

"The coke's not as good as Shaver's," Darren pointed out.

Jake gave up. He went and gathered up his single suitcase, which contained pretty much everything he had been allowed to bring with him, and then stepped off the bus.

They decided that Jake and Bill would share one room, Matt, Coop, and Darren the other. They would then rotate roommates from night to night as the tour progressed, the scheduling for this rotation automatically assigned to Bill, their resident scientist, nerd, and mathematician.

"Jesus fucking Christ, its cold out there," Jake said as he emerged from the bathroom after shaving and showering, a towel wrapped around his waist. "What kind of morons live in a place where the temperature is three degrees at 12:30 in the afternoon?"

"I never felt wind like that before," Bill agreed as he stripped off clothes in anticipation of his own hot shower. "My dick isn't that big to begin with. I don't need a minus twelve wind chill factor to make it smaller."

Jake looked at him as he pulled a pair of underwear and a clean pair of sweat pants from his suitcase. "You know something, Bill? Not many people can work meteorological terminology into a witty retort, but somehow you pull it off."

Bill laughed his signature honking nerd laugh. "I guess it's just a gift," he said, pushing his underwear down and putting them with the rest of his dirty laundry. "And now, I'm going to shower and then catch a couple hours sleep before we go to the sound check."

"Amen to that," Jake agreed, dropping his towel on the bed so he could get dressed. "A little nap is just what I need. But first I'm gonna call Angie and let her know we got here safely. What time is it back in L.A? Is it three hours earlier?"

At that moment they heard the sound of a key turning in the door lock. The door swung open, letting in a cold blast of arctic wind, and Janice Boxer came into their room. Janice was a representative of National Record's Publicity Department. She had been assigned the position of Intemperance Publicity Manager. She was a tall, attractive, aristocratic woman in her late thirties, an almost perfect snob, and the wife of the head of the label's legal department. Rumor had it that Alvin Boxer sent her out on tour so he would have more time to spend with his various mistresses (and misters-but that was yet another rumor).

"Jesus!" Jake barked, quickly snatching up the towel and covering up. "Don't you know how to knock?"

Bill actually let out a squeal that was almost feminine. He had no towel handy. He grabbed his dirty shirt and held it over his genitals.

Janice looked startled for the briefest of seconds, but quickly recovered. "Sorry," she said, a hint of disgust in her voice. "I didn't know you were going to be..." A knowing look came across her face - with it, a little twinkle. "I wasn't uh... interrupting anything, was I?"

"Nothing but us taking showers and getting ready to crash out for a bit," Jake told her, irritated. "Is there some reason you came barging in here?"

His tone caused her expression to change to one of displeasure. "I do not barge anywhere," she replied. "I simply walked in. And as for 'crashing out', you can just put that thought out of your head. We're due at WZAP in forty-five minutes."

"WZAP?" Jake asked. "Forty-five minutes? What are you talking about?"

"It's part of the publicity campaign," she replied. "WZAP is one of the local rock music stations - one of the stations that has been playing that little song of yours and introducing our product to the people of Maine. You're going to go on the air with them for a ten minute interview and then you're going to record some sound clips for them."

"On the air?" Bill asked, his eyes widening in terror. "You mean... live?"

"I mean live," she said. "It's standard in every city we go to."

"What do you mean, 'sound clips'?" Jake asked her. "Are you talking about musical stuff?"

"No," she said. "I'm talking about radio station plugs that they can play before songs - usually your songs. That too is standard. And after that, we're going to a local record store so you can sign autographs. I need you guys dressed and ready to go in ten minutes."

With that, she turned on her heal and went back out the door. They were dressed and ready to go in ten minutes. Jake decided he would have to wait until later to call Angie.

The DJ's name was Mike Chesnay. They met him briefly when they first arrived - long enough to make introductions and shake hands - and then he disappeared from their sight. He interviewed them from a booth in one part of the radio station while they listened to him through headphones and responded to a microphone in a different booth next door. His questions were fairly generic and non-threatening. How does it feel to be on your first tour? How does it feel to open for a band as great as Earthstone? How does it feel to be doing your first show? What musical groups or individual musicians influenced you the most?