Chapter 10c

"You know something, Nerdly," Matt said. "All kidding aside, I have to tell you, that bitch of yours is all right. She's a good sport."

"Uh... thanks," Nerdly said. "I like her a lot. She's got a good ear for music."

"How's her titties?" Matt asked. "It's hard to tell with those baggy clothes she always wears. She got a premo rack, or what?"

"The specification of Sharon's breasts are not your concern," Nerdly said.

"Oh come on, Nerdly," Coop said. "Give it up. Was she a virgin when you tapped into her, or what?"

"Doesn't that hurt?" Charlie asked. "I've never popped a cherry before. I like my chicks loose and ready."

"I don't think my sex life with Sharon is a suitable topic for conversation," Nerdly told them.

"Get the fuck out of here with that shit," Matt scoffed. "I've watched you lick a bitch's asshole out while another bitch sucked your schlong from behind. I've had a contest with you about how many bitches we could bang in one night. And now that you're scoring some regular pussy you don't want to give up the details?"

"That's right," Nerdly said self-righteously. "Those were women of loose and non-existent virtue. Sharon is a lady, and a gentleman does not reveal details about his affairs with ladies."

Matt rolled his eyes and shook his head. "That's it," he said. "I knew it would happen at some point, and I guess we're here now. Nerdly's gone faggot."

"I have not," Nerdly said. "I have never once engaged in homosexual activities."

"It's a state of mind, Nerdly, not an actual butt reaming," Matt said. "And you've definitely got the faggot state of mind going on right now."

"What exactly makes a person a real faggot?" Charlie suddenly asked.

"What?" Coop asked.

"Well," Charlie said, "if you just sucked a dick one time to see what it was all about and didn't like it, does that make you a faggot?"

Matt was looking at him with renewed hostility. "Why the fuck are you asking this shit, freak boy? Are you telling us you've sucked a dick before?"

"No," he said. "I've never sucked a dick. I was just wondering at what point you officially become a faggot. Is it the first time a dick passes your lips, or is it if you decide to do it again, or is when you..."

"I'll tell you when you become a faggot," Matt said. "It's the first time you ever wonder what it might be like to have some other dude's schlong in your mouth! You start thinking about shit like that, you're a fuckin' faggot! Now someone better change this conversation topic real soon before I either barf or kick freak boy's ass."

Nerdly immediately took up this particular challenge. He blurted out, "Sharon's going with us when we go out on tour."

Everyone stopped and slowly turned to stare at the diminutive piano player. He stared back at them, a challenging look on his face.

"Sharon's doing what?" Jake asked.

"She's coming on tour with us," Nerdly said. He looked at Matt nervously. "That's assuming that Matt's current legal entanglement doesn't prevent us from embarking on this adventure."

"You asked a bitch out on tour with us?" Matt said. "Are you high or something?"

"No, I am quite sober," Nerdly said. "I made the decision to ask her after much soul searching and contemplation of the dilemma I was facing."

"What dilemma is that?" Jake asked.

"Surely you must know what I'm talking about, Jake," Nerdly said. "You have to be engaged in the same dilemma yourself regarding Helen. Maybe you too, Matt. You and Kim have been seeing quite a bit of each other lately, haven't you?"

"Boning a bitch a couple of times a week and taking a bitch out on the road with you are two different things, Nerdly," Matt said.

"Sharon and I are doing more than just engaging in sexual intercourse," Nerdly said. "We're a couple now. Couples share things with each other; they strive to stay together if possible. I asked her to go with me because I knew that if she didn't... well... it would be the end of us."

"You think your relationship wouldn't survive a four month separation?" Jake asked.

"It's not just the separation," Nerdly said. "If I were a soldier deploying to South Korea or some other active destination, I don't think it would be a problem. I'm not a soldier though. I'm a famous musician who will be touring some of the most exotic cities in the world. There will be women dying to have sexual relations with me and I'm only human. If Sharon were not with me, I would give into the temptation of meaningless fornication. You know what I'm talking about, don't you, Jake? Didn't you go through this on our first tour?"

He was talking about Angelina, of course, who Jake had been seeing and moderately in love with when they'd left for their first cross-country tour. He had stepped onto the bus in Los Angeles and had never seen or talked to Angelina again because the temptation Nerdly was talking about had gotten to him on the very first tour date in
Bangor, Maine. The last he'd heard, Angelina was a crack cocaine addicted prostitute doing time in the Los Angeles County jail. It was not a part of his life that Jake was particularly proud of. "Yeah," Jake said sourly. "I know what you're talking about."

"I learned from your mistake, Jake," Nerdly said. "Forgive me for bringing it up and reminding you of it, but I didn't want to repeat it. I grew up a nerd, with women having no interest in me. Now that I'm a rock star, the most beautiful women in the world all want to have relations with me. I wouldn't be able to resist the temptation if I were alone out on tour. And Sharon would never be able to maintain a relationship with me if I faltered in that way. It's just how her basic persona is set up. I agonized over the dilemma for weeks and I'm afraid I wasn't the most pleasant person to be around during that time. I didn't know what to do."

"So that's why you were being such a fuckin' bitch?" Matt asked. "Because you didn't want to leave your snatch here in LA while you went on tour?"

"Correct," Nerdly said. "I must say that I actually contemplated resigning my position with the band to keep from going on this tour."

"You were gonna quit the band for a bitch?" Matt asked, thoroughly appalled at this blasphemous uttering.

"That's when I realized how much I really cared about Sharon," Nerdly said. "And that's when the simple, yet practical, solution hit me. If Sharon is out on tour with me, I will not have to worry about the women of loose virtue who will be in constant pursuit of my affections because I would have Sharon to... well... take care of my base needs. If you know what I mean."

"So if you have Mrs. Nerdly to fuck out on the road, you ain't gonna want to fuck any groupies?" Matt asked, still trying to comprehend this queer logic.

"Exactly," Nerdly said.

"That's got to be the most twisted fucking thing I've ever heard," Matt said, shaking his head in dubious wonder.

"How does Sharon feel about all this?" Jake asked. "She's right in the middle of her master's degree, isn't she? Is she willing to drop everything and spend four months crawling all around the world with you?"

"It's only a semester off," Nerdly said. "She was quite happy when I asked her, actually. She said yes even before I finished asking her the question. In truth, I think the same dilemma was causing insomnia and stress related disorder in her as well."

"What about National?" Coop asked. "What did they have to say about it?"

"Basically, they remained true to form," Nerdly said. "They agreed as long as I paid for her portion of the trip and as long as we tried not to let it be known that Sharon was out there with me. It goes against the image they're trying to foment for us."

"So you already set it up?" Jake asked.

"Indeed," Nerdly said. "I've got Bailey and Crow doing the calculations and putting Sharon into the reservation and booking system. I tried to get them to employ her as a sound technician — she's already better then most of those tone-deaf morons they have employed — but they wouldn't agree to that."

"Well," Jake said, unsure how to feel about all of this. "I guess... uh... congratulations are in order, right, Nerdly?"

"It would seem so," Nerdly said.

"What's gonna happen if you and the bitch find out you can't stand each other out there?" Matt asked.

Nerdly shook his head. "No chance of that," he said. "This is going to be my best tour ever."

The rehearsals went on and gradually they started to dial in the show they would be presenting to their foreign fans. As they worked together nearly forty hours per week over the next thirteen days, the bickering and arguing tapered off and was replaced by the camaraderie they'd enjoyed in the past. Nerdly, in particular, seemed like his old self. He was now actually looking forward to the coming tour and visiting all of the historical sites with Sharon. They spent their evenings looking over brochures from a travel agency and booking tours they planned to go on during the waiting periods in Japan and Europe.

Jake didn't get to see very much of Helen during this time. He was busy with tour production and learning various phrases in six different languages. Helen was busy teaching ground school and taking beginner pilots up in the new plane. At night, both were usually too tired for either of them to make the thirty-minute drive to each other's residence. They did make a point of getting together each weekend, however. They played golf (Helen always beat him) and went surfing and usually rounded out the evening with a gourmet meal prepared by Elsa and a rousing round of enthusiastic sex in Jake's bedroom (or his hot tub, or on his pool table). If Helen had any worries about what was to become of them when he left for the tour, she didn't articulate them. She seemed to just take things a day at a time.

Matt took things a day at a time as well. If he was worried about his legal troubles and the possibility that he might end up doing a stretch in prison, he never articulated it and did not let it hamper his work. His Maserati had been sprung from police impound but he didn't drive it or any other vehicle. He stayed in his apartment in Los Angeles and rode in the back of limousines whenever he needed to go somewhere. Kim was starting production of a new movie — it was called Mississippi Yearning — so they were only able to get together on the odd Saturday or Sunday. They tended to stay at Matt's place or at Kim's place since Matt could not be seen publicly drinking alcohol.

On December 5, Matt and Perceville Maywood were back in the Orange County Superior Court room of Judge Waters for the evidentiary hearing regarding the cocaine and marijuana found in his house. The hearing was brief and to the point. Deputy DA Sparks presented his argument that the search of the "courtesy bowls" in Matt's residence was a reasonable thing to do, even though the officers were in the house to search for a person. He cited multiple cases to back up his position, most of which had to do with the "plain view" doctrine.

Perceville then countered with his argument, that the sheriff's deputies had permission to search for a person in Matt's residence, but not to go searching through small sealed containers lying around on the furniture, regardless of what those containers resembled.

"Just because Officer Worthington feels that small silver bowls of that type typically are used to store cocaine," Perceville argued, "does not give him carte blanche to start opening them up. Using that logic, it could be argued that when Officer Worthington sees Mr. Tisdale's filing cabinet sitting in the corner of the office, it's okay for him to start digging through it and reading Mr. Tisdale's private files because he's heard that criminals keep records of their wrongdoing in filing cabinets."

Perceville then submitted his own case briefs on the subject, most of which also had to do with the plain view doctrine, although his were cases in which that particular doctrine was found not to apply. He had done his research well (or at least his paralegals had). Two of the cases were almost identical to the situation Matt was facing. In the first, police responding to a domestic dispute call had spied a wooden box with a marijuana leaf on it sitting on a shelf in the living room. Without asking for permission, one of the officers had opened it and found half an ounce of marijuana and a considerable amount of hashish. In the second case, a police officer performing a routine traffic stop spotted a small zippered case in the glove compartment of the suspect's car when he'd reached in to get his registration. The officer demanded that the suspect hand the case over. He opened it and found two grams of cocaine, a mirror, a razor blade, and a gold plated straw.