Chapter 17: End of Innocence

Port of Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
November 1985

Twenty-nine forty-foot standard shipping containers filled with Japanese electronic goods were offloaded from the Panamanian registered Nobel Princess on the morning of November 26th. Each was properly noted on the manifest and left the ship to be placed in a holding area pending shipment to the U.S. distribution center of Kymo Electronics Ltd. Cheap televisions and video recorders, stereos, children's electronic toys, and many other items with a total retail value of 34.1 million U.S. dollars were included. No one knew who Kymo was at the consumer level. Absolutely nothing shipped from the factory with its own brand name on it. These were all labeled as house brands for Kmart, Sears, JC Penny, and other major retailers in the U.S ... Kymo had only two concerns: their products had to last out the 90 day warranty and they had to be cheaper than the competition.

Once offloaded the Nobel Princess began taking on cargo for its further destinations. This included twenty-nine forty-foot standard cargo containers of farm implements mostly paid for by the U.S. Government to prop-up a fledgling democratic government in South America. The manifests were correct and all containers had the proper serialized seals attached. Destination: The Port of Montevideo in Uruguay. Less than an hour after the Nobel Princess left port no trace could be found at the Port of Los Angeles of farm implements ever being loaded on her. Indeed, no such government program existed. Uruguay's government had been stable for forty years. The Brotherhood was nothing if not thorough.

Between this and one stupid teenager's attempt to corner the Asian semiconductor market by buying out an eclectic variety of only six types, the cheapest made at that, it was going to be a very poor holiday season for Kymo Electronics Ltd. The two events were so unlikely and unrelated that one would indeed have to be seated on the thirty-second floor of Kymo's headquarters in Kyoto to see the relationship at all. But neither issue would manifest itself for many days and the connection between the two wouldn't become apparent for a while longer.

Savannah, Georgia
December 1985

Riley Porter was a popular boy at school. He was the Junior Class representative on the student council and everyone knew it was only the doctors keeping him from playing outside linebacker. He was the star player on the otherwise mediocre soccer team and starting third baseman when baseball season came around.

It wasn't unheard of to date a student in another school, but it wasn't usual either. Some people understood who he was talking about when he described Tina as playing in the band from homecoming the year before, but she was a mystery to many of his friends and most of his acquaintances. Given her schedule, like it or not, Riley had to hang around with Tina's crowd if he wanted to spend time with her, and he certainly did. Not that he minded the band and their crowd. He realized he was actually becoming one of them when Jenny came in to beg the use of his word processor earlier in the week. He had his copy of Lotus 1-2-3 running and was creating a spreadsheet that would help track the status of, of all things, wheelchairs.

Could he really be turning into one of that crazy over-achieving group of his girlfriend's? Oh well, it was time to round up Jenny and fetch Peter. If the band was coming to their school to do a Christmas dance the least they could do was pitch in and help set up the gear. Tina had explained it long ago, but once he'd seen it for himself it was obvious that playing a high school dance was little more than a charity event for Chaos.

The three arrived as the band's truck was just backing up to the auditorium doors. Matt and Jerry climbed out of the cab and came over to greet them. Within minutes several more cars arrived including the entire band and a few extras both Matt and Riley had recruited, then everyone began in earnest to move equipment into the building.

At this point to do a full set up in a place as large as the Riverside cafeteria/auditorium, which pretty much included everything the band owned, took two-and-half hours. Another half hour of sound checks and everything was ready to go nearly an hour before the dance would start.

"Man you guys still have a ton of gear," Riley commented as he rested against the stage with a cold drink in his left hand and his right arm around Tina's shoulders.

"Last time we'll need to do this for a while I'm sure," Matt replied.

"Yep," Tina said. "Three more weekend club dates then off to the studio for at least three months. After that I'm not sure. I suppose promotional dates for the spring and summer, but as far as I know those will all be done by production companies. Basically all we'll need is our own instruments."

"Any idea where those are going to be yet?" asked Riley.

"Well as close to home as we can get them in the spring. Atlanta, Jacksonville, Orlando, and New Orleans are a few of those. Surely we'll do the Civic Center here. Come summer anything goes. They asked us to, ahem, try again to open for Ziggurat in July; three nights in a row at Madison Square Garden. That's probably the biggest thing we'll do all summer."

"You guys are really going to do all that stuff?" asked a boy Tina vaguely recognized as an acquaintance of Riley's.

"Yep, by the end of April our album will be released. If that works out, and it will, you should start hearing us on the radio then."

"Man, that sounds insane. What's it like?"

Tina laughed. "I have no idea. We played to about ten thousand over the summer once in New Jersey. I suppose it will be like that every night. Most of it's going to be all new to us too."

"Ten thousand!" the boy exclaimed.

"Yep, with a 38 piece orchestra backing Rebecca up, it was pretty big."

"How does this happen? I mean how does a high school band from here end up making an album?" the same boy asked.

"Mostly an accident I think. We were invited to a music festival during the summer. We were the only rock musicians invited and as a finale they had lined up Ziggurat. We were supposed to open for them, you know just play six or seven songs as the warm-up band, but Cal got appendicitis. So Jerry ended up singing for them and Dewayne played guitar. It really was pretty good, but in the time they had they could only learn a few songs together. Anyway they had showed up with this whole live album production crew so instead of recording Ziggurat they recorded us. That tape got passed around and next thing we knew we had four record deals offered to us.

"I'm not saying we aren't that good. Hey we'll be playing here in a bit, decide for yourself. But we were caught at the perfect time. I mean we were literally plugged into the most expensive and elaborate sound system in a perfect environment and someone just happened to have a semi-truck full of recording equipment running at the time. No one would have done it just for us. It just happened and a lot of people in the industry heard the result. I've got a copy of that concert and sometimes I can't believe it. The strange thing is that we've never made a demo to send into the recording companies." Tina replied.

"So in six months or less, this girl," Riley squeezed Tina's shoulders, "is gonna be a bona-fide superstar."

"Hah! I've got three songs on the album, Rebecca has four, and Tony has eight, though all those won't make it to the final cut. We don't really know yet which ones will. I think my brother is going to be the superstar. I can see the panties flying up on stage now."

"Of all people," Riley said with a chuckle. "Tony really doesn't want to be famous."

"Oh he's OK with fans. He just gets annoyed at reporters. He doesn't really like them much. He's gonna have to learn to deal with them though. OK, I guess I need to hit the girls' room and change into something a little more for the stage." She slipped from underneath Riley's arm and stood on her toes, and laid on a kiss that neither Riley nor his friends would soon forget. "Stop by between sets Riley?"

"Don't I always? Besides, I'll probably be right there keeping Cheri company as usual. I think she feels left out sometimes when you guys are on stage."

Tina laughed. "The girl is a certifiable genius, but there's not a musical bone in her body. You've finally met someone with less talent than you boy-o!"

"Ack, off with you then!" Riley made a shooing motion with his hands as Tina walked off.

"Gotta hand it to ya Riley, she's something else," his friend said.

"Yeah, that she is. Just keeping up with her is half the fun."

There was no doubt that this was the last school dance the band would ever perform. They simply went through the band's set lists from the last year and lined up all their favorite covers. Once the album came out they would be expected to play almost exclusively their own original music and this and their last few club dates were probably the last chance they would get to perform some of their favorites in public.

They vowed to have at least a little fun with it as well. One number, Pat Benatar's Promises in the Dark, found Tony on piano, with Anita playing rhythm guitar on her custom electric while Tina sang and played no instrument at all. Tony always found the distinction between the perception of a rhythm guitarist and a lead guitarist odd. The rhythm guitarist is generally always playing, where the lead guitarist may or may not be. If you asked anyone in the audience they would have told you the lead guitarist on the song was in fact a twelve-year-old girl when the really difficult stuff was actually being played, as usual, by Dewayne. It's just hard to quantify to the audience that the amplifier and distortion equipment is creating all that volume. The rhythm itself was only a two-chord repetition with an occasional four-chord bridge and then right back to playing the same two chords again. Anita surely wasn't going to tell the audience how easy it was, she was hamming it up for all it was worth and desperately trying to find Riley in the audience to rub it in.

There was no lack of professionalism. Tina had Anita firmly in hand. She allowed Anita on stage only when she was satisfied that Anita had everything down cold even for something as simple as backing vocals. As with all things concerning the band, what Tina said was, law and no one questioned it. Anita was never known to disappoint the rest of the band; she attended every practice and worked hard even if she rarely got to go on stage with them.

In the end the show was treated more like a concert than a dance by the students, something the band would have to start getting used to.

One good thing about playing for a high school as opposed to a club was the hours. The band started early and finished early, even after breaking down all the equipment and loading it into the truck it was just after one AM. Most of the band decided to head back to the Smith house to relax, their normal Saturday circadian rhythm in disarray at the early finish.

Some plans had been made in advance, Rhonda was sleeping over at Tina's, not an unusual event, but that really meant Matt would be around the house in a bit. Tina accompanied Riley to drop off Peter and his sister on the way.

Once the two younger kids were safely home, they drove towards Tina's house. As she often did Tina had a hold of Riley's right hand with her left as he drove along. She pulled his hand into her lap and held it there as they talked idly. While it was early December Tina had on a fairly short skirt that she had been wearing on stage, not bothering to change when the show was over. She was enjoying the feel of his hand on her smooth thigh.

Almost unconsciously, Riley began to gently caress her with his fingertips, not realizing the effect this was having on his girlfriend. Almost as unconsciously Tina was slowly pulling his hand up further, pushing the skirt farther up as she tried to get his hand closer to her juncture.

Up to this point the two had certainly not refrained from touching each other, and rather heavy make-out sessions often lead to one or more hands inside each other's clothes. Tonight though Tina was already feeling a definite stirring and they hadn't even made it to the house yet.

Riley knew where his hand had started and he knew where it was now; he knew enough about girls to know a signal as obvious as this one. His girlfriend was horny. Unfortunately for both, that was about the time he turned into the driveway.

While the rest of the teens had sought the sanctuary of Kalliste where they wouldn't disturb Tina's parents, Riley and Tina never made it past the couch in the basement. In no time they were stretched out facing each other. It didn't take long for their passions to rise, especially Tina's. As soon as his hand was back on her bare thigh she knew that a bit of play on the couch in the middle of the basement was not going to work. There had to be a solution to this. She reached down and put her hand over Riley's, stopping him.

"Hang on Riley, this won't work."

"Ah, Tina? Uhmm I'm sorry, I thought..."

"You thought right, just not here. Come on."

She pulled him up and headed for Tony's room. Her room was right beside her parents' and everyone else was on the boat. Tony's room was the only choice left. Once inside she closed and locked the door and picked up Tony's phone and called the boat.

"Hello?" It was Rebecca's voice.

"Hey Becs, it's Tina."

"Oh hey, everything OK, where are you two?"

"We're fine, in the house actually. Can I talk to Cheri?"

"Cheri? Uh sure," Rebecca replied.

Cheri came on the phone a minute later. "Hey Tina, what's up?"

"Uh, I need you to sleep down on the boat tonight OK?"

"Why? I normally just go up to Tony's..."

"Uh Cheri, Riley's here and well we can't exactly go to my room upstairs."

"Oh, yeah, um right. You know a bunk in the front cabin sounds really good. Well except Becs, you know how loud she can get. It amazes me sometimes that girl can still sing..."

"Cheri!"

"OK, OK. My bag is there. Toss it into the bathroom so I can come grab it later OK?"