Chapter 4a

National Records Building, Los Angeles

June 16, 1987

The argument had been going on for more than thirty minutes now with Matt holding firm to one extreme, Bill holding firm to the other extreme, and Jake trying to get the two of them to meet somewhere in the middle. They were in one of the mixing rooms of the recording studio in the basement of the building. It was far from the first argument that had taken place within those hallowed walls.

They had entered the recording studio on April 1 after finalizing the tracks they planned to record for It's In The Book, their fourth studio album. Once the band agreed to record Jake's controversial tune and name the album after it, National became very open to any and all other tracks. The only one of the thirteen songs Intemperance had submitted in their demo tape that caused any question was I Am Time.

"No lead guitar?" Crow and Bailey had asked doubtfully, both wondering if the song was another one of their joke songs like they'd submitted during the contract dispute. Those songs had been about picking boogers, choosing a brand of soup in the grocery store, and angry tirades full of gutter profanity. I Am Time was a song from a hard rock group with no lead guitar, only a lead harmonica.

"It's an experimental piece," Matt had explained to them. "We know it's a departure from our normal shit but we all like the tune a lot and we want it on the next album."

"But a harmonica?" Crow asked.

"It's a harmonica that rocks," Jake said. "We're not asking for you to release it as a single or anything. It's just a deep cut filler tune."

Crow and Bailey had balked at this for the better part of two days, urging the band to pick another tune as filler, but eventually they gave in. They wanted to get It's In The Book recorded as soon as possible and using their veto power on a filler tune just didn't seem worth the effort.

The band had worked six days a week, nine hours a day for two solid months and recorded all of the musical and vocal tracks for the new album in near record time. They were now veterans of the recording process and did not require nearly as many takes per track as they had in their earlier albums. Now that every guitar track, every bass track, every vocal, piano, and drum track had been captured to near perfection on individual reels, they needed to mix them together, blending all the tracks at proper levels onto a master recording tape. It was here where the differing philosophies of the three core Intemperance members began to cause tempers to flare and the process to bog down in arguments and disagreements.

I Am Time, the so-called "filler" tune, was the subject of the current mixing room argument. Jake, Nerdly, and Matt sat in chairs before a complex soundboard, headphones hanging around their necks. George Harmon and Roger Covent, the head studio technician and his first assistant, sat at another soundboard across the room, listening helplessly as the three musicians pounded another minor detail into the ground. George and Roger had both liked it a lot better when Intemperance had been operating under their first contract and had had no official input whatsoever in how their songs were mixed.

"I'm telling you," Matt said for the tenth or twelfth time, "Time sounds perfect the way it's mixed now. There ain't no fuckin' reason to put any overdubs at all on it, let alone a goddamn synthesizer track."

An overdub was an additional track to a song put on after the basic tune was recorded and mixed. Generally the overdubs were minor enhancements that would be barely noticed by anyone but a professional musician or a professional sound mixer but that served to make the music blend together more harmoniously on the recording. All of the previous Intemperance albums had overdubbed additional guitar, cymbal, and piano tracks on almost every song. Matt hated the very concept of the overdub because by using them it meant more instruments were being played than the band actually possessed. Nerdly loved overdubs and thought they weren't used nearly enough. Jake was somewhere in the middle. He didn't have a problem with the concept of overdubbing when it served to smooth out the rough edges on the recorded tunes but he didn't want them used to the extent that the basic sound of the song was changed in any way.

"It's just a slight intro synthesizer track," Nerdly said, "and then a gentle background melody that will mix with the piano tracks. At least listen to what it sounds like before you start ranting about it."

"I don't have to listen to it," Matt said. "There's no fucking synthesizer in our band, Nerdly. Have you ever fucking noticed that?"

"Well maybe there should be," Nerdly said. "Led Zepplin used a synthesizer on their last two albums. Is there a law that says Intemperance can't use one too?"

"Yes, there's a law," Matt said. "It's my fucking law. There will be no synthesizers on any Intemperance song, period! That includes live and in the studio! And there's no fucking reason to put any overdubs at all into Time. The song is intended to be a simple piece."

Both of them began looking at Jake to support their respective positions. He sighed, knowing that the middle ground here was not really a fun place to be. "Look," he said. "I have to agree about the whole synthesizer thing, Nerdly. We're a hard rock band and we don't go there."

"You see?" Matt said triumphantly. "Even Jake agrees with me. No fucking overdubs on Time."

"Well, I didn't exactly say that, Matt," Jake said.

"What? What the fuck you talking about?"

"I said there should be no synthesizer overdubbing on Time. I do think we should do some basic acoustic overdubs to help back up my rhythm guitar on the piece."

"Acoustic overdubs?" Matt said. "Jake, that puts two guitars in the tune in addition to the harmonica. Two guitars! We can't reproduce that live unless we hire another fucking guitar player!"

"It's nothing that anyone is going to notice on the album," Jake said. "I'll just play an exact acoustic version of the rhythm and we'll blend it in on top of the main distorted version. We keep the level mid-range for the string strikes on the overdub and low for the follow-through. That way we'll have the string-strikes come through in a way they don't when the rhythm is distorted."

"But what about when we play it live?" Matt asked. "We can't reproduce that. It won't sound as good as the recorded version."

"People don't expect the live version to sound as good as the studio version," Jake said. "You should know that. As good as Nerdly is at concert sound mixing, we would never pull something like that off anyway. We've done this kind of overdub on quite a few of our tracks. Has anyone complained about how it doesn't sound the same in concert?"

Matt fumed but had to admit that Jake was right. Intemperance's reputation as a live act was irreproachable. "Fine," he said, throwing up his arms in surrender. "Put in your fucking overdubs. It's your goddamn song, isn't it?"

"It's our song, Matt, and I'm just trying to do what I think is best."

"That's what I'm trying to do too," Matt replied. "I gave in on this. You don't need to rub it in."

"So... do we have a consensus here?" asked George Harmon.

"Yeah," Matt said. "We have a consensus. Go ahead and start setting Jake up to record an acoustic overdub for Time. No fucking synthesizers though. I ever see you playing one of them things, Nerdly, and I'm gonna take a shit on it."

"I was just trying to do what's best too," Nerdly said softly, obviously upset that his plans had been voted down.

Their tempers calmed a bit over the next hour as they started the basic mixing process for Can't Chain Me. All agreed that no overdubbing was necessary in this tune since it featured two grinding electric guitars and had a passion to its sound that didn't require any kind of enhancement. There were some mild disagreements about the sound levels on the piano and drum tracks but they worked their way through these without too much strife — or at least they did by 5:45 PM, which was their official quitting time for the day.

"You want to go up and take a look at the album cover?" Jake asked Nerdly and Matt as they left the recording studio and waited for the elevator. "Jim and Sandy told me they should have the final version done and ready for approval by the end of the day."

"Sure, I'll check it out," Matt said.

"I'll have to made arrangements to peruse it at a later date," Nerdly said. "I have someplace I need to be tonight."

"Yeah?" asked Matt. "You getting some puss tonight?"

"Is the speed of light in vacuum a universal constant?" Nerdly asked.

"That means yes, right?" Matt asked.

"Yes," Nerdly allowed. "I'm taking two lovely young ladies to the planetarium for a romantic evening. We're then going to proceed back to my place to engage in extensive fornication of the quasi-legal variety."

"The planetarium, huh?" Jake asked. "Who could resist that?"

"Exactly," Nerdly agreed.

The elevator arrived. All three stepped inside. Nerdly got off on the first floor. Jake and Matt remained aboard until it reached the fourth floor, where the graphic arts department was located. They walked down the hall and entered the windowless, brightly lit room where most of the company's album covers were designed. Dozens of shabbily dressed graphic artists of varying age sat at desks with computer terminals working on a variety of projects. Most of them smoked and the haze of cigarette smoke in the room was on the same level as that found in a crowded bar on a Saturday night. They found Jim Handy and Sandy Pearl — the team assigned to the Intemperance album — sitting at their desks near the back of the room. Jim was about forty years old, a poor dresser, morbidly obese and poor on hygiene, but a very talented artist. Sandy was about thirty, almost anorexically skinny, a lesbian, and, if anything, even more talented than her partner.

"Hey, guys," Sandy greeted, putting out her smoke and immediately lighting up another one. "Glad you could make it up. We were just about to hit it for the day."

Jim had to finish the Twinkie he'd just crammed in his mouth before he could speak. When he did, he greeted them as well. "I think you'll really like what we came up with, Jake. It's pretty much just what you told us. I showed it to Crow earlier and he just about came in his panties."

"That's probably because he was checking out your ass, Jimmy," Matt said, making reference to the fact that Crow was a notoriously horny bisexual who hit upon just about anything that walked on two legs.

"Hey, there are some things that even I won't eat," Jim said, laughing much more than his joke actually warranted.

He reached into his desk and pulled out two sheets of photo paper, each the size of an album cover. They represented the front and back of what would appear on the next release. He handed them to Jake first, since it was Jake who had dictated what he envisioned.

"Wow," Jake said, impressed, as he perused the front cover. "You outdid yourselves on this one."

The centerpiece of the front cover was not a graphic design or a drawing but a photograph that Jake himself had taken. It was a picture of the cross that had been cemented into his front lawn on the night he'd moved into his new home. JESUS SAVES and REPENT SINNER! JOHN 3:16 were plainly visible in the photo, as was the front of Jake's house. Jake knew that most people, upon seeing the album cover, would know what this was a picture of since the incident had been reported on the AP wire the day following the event and published in newspapers throughout the nation, usually as a comedic type of piece in the back of the entertainment sections — a little amusing story about how the satanic domestic abuser Jake Kingsley had been put in his place by his virtuous neighbors.

Over the top of the album cover, above the cross, written in bold black calligraphy was the title: It's In The Book. Above that, in much smaller letters, was the band's name: Intemperance. Arrayed around the cross in overlapping fashion were multiple photographs and graphic representations of atrocities committed in the name of Christianity. There was a famous painting of the crusades in which Christian soldiers were slaughtering those who did not believe as they did. There was a picture of American Indians being marched off to a reservation under armed guard by American soldiers. There was a scene from the Holocaust of Jews being marched off towards the gas chambers of Auschwitz. There was a picture of Jimmy Swaggert crying as he confessed his sins to a nationwide audience. There was a picture of a water fountain in the White House that read "Whites Only". There were pictures of religious protestors outside of Intemperance concerts carrying their signs. There was a picture of protesters at the annual Gay Pride parade in Los Angeles holding a banner that read AIDS IS GOD'S PUNISHMENT FOR YOUR SINS!

There were also several pictures that were very personal to Jake. Just below the cross was a picture of a black bowling ball upon which someone had written in white paint: GET BACK TO BABYLON, SINNER! That particular bowling ball had been launched somehow through Jake's front window at 2:30 AM the second week he lived in his new house. The police had taken a report, dismissed the incident as mere vandalism, and no suspect had ever been caught or even questioned.

There was also a picture of five gallon sized containers of muratic acid lying overturned on a piece of stamped cement. This was perhaps the most personal of the pictures, and the most infuriating from Jake's point of view.

The incident that had led to this picture occurred a month after Jake had moved into his new house. At this point Jake had already been subjected to multiple visits by the LAPD as a result of calls placed by his neighbors. The patrol teams who showed up were usually accompanied by his good friend Lieutenant Baker, the watch commander who had shrugged off the cross-placing incident and suggested Jake should just do as suggested and repent. Three of these visits were for noise complaints about loud music — all of which had taken place in broad daylight when he'd had nothing but a radio playing at moderate volume while out in his back yard. Two had been because of reports that he was doing drugs (one had been because he'd smoked some pot out in his patio while cooking steaks and one of his neighbors had smelled it, the other had been completely unfounded — neither Jake nor Rachel had even been home at the time). The other visit had been just after nine o'clock one evening as he and Rachel had been swimming naked in the swimming pool. The complaint that time had been "indecent exposure", even though no one could have possibly seen anything that took place in his back yard unless they had climbed onto a ladder to peer over his privacy hedges.

In all of these cases no charges were filed — mostly because there were no grounds upon which to file any — but the cops had felt the need to give him stern lectures about watching his actions if he wanted to get along with his neighbors. They all suggested that maybe if he moved somewhere else — like Beverly Hills where such antics were commonplace — he wouldn't have to worry about it anymore.

And then came the morning of March 31. Jake and Rachel had just spent the week in Maui and had arrived back home around 10:00 PM, both of them still feeling like they were on Hawaii Time instead of Pacific Time. As a result, they had still been awake at 12:30 AM and had decided that maybe a little soak in the hot tub and a few glasses of wine would be just the ticket to get them re-aligned for the coming workweek in which Jake would begin the rigorous recording schedule. As they'd descended the steps from the bedroom balcony to the patio Jake spotted a large silhouette standing next to his hot tub, dumping something from a container into the water.

"Hey!" he'd yelled. "What the fuck are you doing?"

The figure dropped the container and began to run toward the back gate that led out to the street. Jake, dressed in nothing but a robe, chased after him, mostly out of instinct. The figure moved fast but was forced to a stop when he reached the closed gate. Jake slammed into him at top speed, finding that whomever it was he was chasing was well over six feet tall and weighed at least two hundred and fifty pounds. Amped up, he ignored the danger to himself and threw the figure down to the ground. The person began to kick and punch at him, landing a few shots on Jake's legs and side. Jake — who had always tried to walk away from battle when he could but who was nonetheless a veteran of many brawls (usually fomented by Matt) — threw three punches, each of them landing squarely on the intruder's face. He felt the crunch of a nose, the shattering of a tooth or two, and the thud of a cheekbone. The intruder, dazed, gave up the fight and Jake was able to drag him back to the patio and confine him to a chair until the LAPD — summoned by Rachel this time — arrived ten minutes later.

It turned out that the intruder was the sixteen-year-old son of his across-the-street neighbor — a kid who probably wouldn't be able to solve any physics equations but who played linebacker for the local Jesuit High School. What he had been pouring into the hot tub was five gallons of muratic acid, more than a thousand times the normal amount, an amount that had raised the Ph level of the water up to a skin-blistering reading of 4.1 when it was tested two hours later. A hazardous materials team from the LAFD had to respond in order to safely drain it and the tub was deemed a complete loss due to the acid damage.

"What would have happened," Jake asked one of the fire department's HAZMAT specialists as they did their work, "if we would have gotten into that hot tub with that much acid in there?"

"You would have gotten second degree chemical burns all over your bodies," the firefighter — an Intemperance fan as it turned out — replied matter-of-factly. "More than likely you would have been permanently disfigured everywhere the water would have touched and there's a good chance that you," he looked at Jake, "would have lost function of your... you know... your male parts."

"Jesus Christ," Jake said, shuddering at the thought.

"And that's not even the worst," the firefighter said, almost gleefully.

"What's the worst?" Jake asked him.

"You would've gotten really severe respiratory burns if you'd breathed any of those fumes in. The way the wind is blowing tonight, I'm thinking there's a good chance you wouldn't have smelled anything funny until it was too late. Once you got in the spa and got a good whiff of something this acidic you're talking chemical pneumonia at the very least, possibly even... you know... death from respiratory failure."

"This is attempted murder," Pauline told the detectives who responded to the scene. "Attempted mayhem at the very least. And I think we all know who is behind it."

Jake certainly had no doubt who was behind it. The father of the linebacker was Frank Overland, the owner of several car dealerships throughout Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley. Overland was the vice-president of the homeowner's association and one of the most vocal protestors regarding Jake's presence in the house. He was also a notorious bible-thumper. He had been accused several times of firing employees when he found out they were homosexuals or atheists. His car lots were always closed on Sundays — one of the biggest car-buying days of the week — and had large signs placed in front that read: CLOSED TODAY — SEE YOU IN CHURCH! Jake had no problem envisioning Overland instructing his teenage son in how to put the mark of God upon that heathen sinner with five gallons of muratic acid.