Story test-run - The Frontman's Journey

This is not the final version of this story, but I wanted to give it a brief test-run so that my friends could see it. Please feel free to leave a comment or email me, especially if you have any suggestions for improving it.

Caution: There are a few swear words. ;-)
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THE FRONTMAN'S JOURNEY


Aug jammed a finger against the radio button labeled "tune". This only brought forth a hiss of static, louder than before.

"Bloody hell!" he snarled. With his attention to the radio – or rather, his lack of attention to driving - the vehicle wandered to one side of the road. Not a good thing when he was driving on a major three-lane freeway. To his right, someone else's horn blared. "Fuck you, too" he yelled, yanking the steering wheel with his left hand while continuing to stab at the radio tuner with his right.

Joe let the drama stay on his friend's side of the car. He cradled one hand beneath his head and settled back against the seat. It had long since ceased to bother him that, when he brought a hand to his head, he no longer felt the flowing locks that had helped label their group as one of the "hair bands" of the 1980s. Never one to kid himself, Joe had decided to bow to his receding hairline and let it shine. Joe's embracing of his baldness earned him much ribbing from Aug, who showed no signs of thinning up top and who still wore shoulder-scraping lengths of hair.

A red Mustang jetted past them on the road, thudding with a deep bass line. Joe glanced over to see a shaven-headed, lip-pierced guy in the back seat looking back at him. The moment their eyes met, Mustang Dude's sagging lids snapped open. He was wearing a t-shirt whose washings had doused its color from death black to grey, but the faded Hyper Pitbull: Hyper Hungry logo was still quite clear. Joe grinned and lifted an approving fist, pinkie and index fingers raised high.

Seconds later, the guy's O-shaped mouth had been carried down the highway. Joe chuckled as he had his last glimpse of the scrawny hand jabbing at the driver's shoulder. He could imagine the frantic cry of "Dude! Dude! Wait!" Of course, the Mustang's driver wasn't going to believe that his buddy had really seen Joe Montgomery and Aug McCobb of Hyper Pitbull chugging down the freeway in Wisconsin, USA. In a soccer-mom SUV, no less.

"What's funny?" Aug wanted to know, somewhat mollified now that he had gotten the radio to tune properly. He'd managed to find something resembling a classic rock station. Def Leppard's Armageddon It pounded from the speakers. "You spotted another fellow with no trousers?"

"No. Just watching people. They're funny."

"Some funnier than others." Aug lifted a brow, groping between the seats for his water bottle. He dropped the bottle between his thighs, twisted the cap off, and took a draught. He studied the road for a few moments before he spoke again. "You know, Grace Slick once said that old people shouldn't be on a rock 'n' roll stage."

"Good," Joe said mildly. "Let her stay off it, then. Less competition."

When Aug failed to crack a smile, Joe tapped his knee. Now they were getting down to the meat of their trip. Well…in a roundabout sort of way. Same old Aug. Couldn't get to the point without slogging through a swamp of rubbish that made sense only to him.

"We're not even fifty yet, Aug. That's not old. Besides, there's no expiration date on bands. If we weren't having fun anymore or if we'd been playing to empty seats, that would be one thing. But that's not the case." In fact, they had just played to a packed amphitheater in Houston two days earlier; they'd driven straight up here while the rest of the band headed for their homes for a brief holiday.

The band of Brits who'd made it big in 1980s America had survived better than many of their compatriots of the day. Sure, their sets were Greatest Hits lists now with any new material slipped in like contraband. These days the legions of mullets, lip gloss and white Capezios had been replaced by banker haircuts, love handles, and mom jeans. The band could still keep a crowd on their feet and Aug, still the charismatic showman, worked the stage dancing and pointing and exchanging loving bellows with the audience. The magic was still there. Love boomed back and forth between band and fans.

No better way to make a living, that was for sure.

Recently, though, Aug's eyes were haunted with the loss of his wife. Janet had never been able to kick the hard-partying lifestyle, even years after Aug and the rest of the band had successfully rehabbed. Liver cancer was a gruesome way to die. Yet even at the last, she'd attempted behind Aug's back to get people to smuggle Jack or heroin into her hospital room. The few who'd agreed had been banished from Aug's life forever.

Now he'd lost his father, too. Not much of a father, but Aug was taking it hard. Harder, it seemed, even than the loss of Janet.

That was the reason for this mini-holiday. Fresh sights. No obligations. No plan. Just a couple of mates getting away.

Joe gave his old friend a sidelong glance. Just last night Aug had said that the band's tour was keeping him from going mad. He seemed to be hinting at something different now.

The two of them had known each other since the day in Sheffield in 1976, when a bloodied 15-year-old Aug had appeared at the door of Joe's parents' home, begging that they hide him before his father killed him. After a start like that, Aug and Joe had no reason to be anything but flat-out open with each other.

"Are you trying to tell me you're thinking of retiring?"

Aug snorted. "Come on."

"Then what do Grace Slick and her 'old people on a rock stage' have to do with anything?"

"Never mind. It's just talk." Aug gave his water bottle a look of annoyance as he realized he had drained it. "Will we be getting there soon?"

"We're getting near. The exit we want is three miles up. West on Highway C. We'll be going about fifteen miles before we hit it."

Ten minutes after they left the freeway for a single-lane road, Aug looked at their surroundings in puzzlement. A farmer's cornfield was to their right; patches of trees separated by the occasional clapboard house was to their left. "We're in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. Are you sure you know where we're going?"

"Not entirely." Joe broke into a wide grin as he finally revealed his surprise. "I picked the place by having Petey hold up a map. Closed my eyes and went at it with a Magic Marker. Wherever the marker landed was the place we'd go. Just wanted to see where we'd end up."

"We drove 17 hours to a place you don't even know, just to see where we'd end up?" Aug took his eyes off the road to stare incredulously at his old friend. Then his shoulders relaxed and he broke into that dry, deep laugh of his. "Brilliant. I love it."

"Thought you might." If it weren't for the cloud simmering over Aug, Joe would have felt like a boy in a toy shop, he was so stoked to see where they were going.

With assistance from his manhandled Mapquest printout, they easily found themselves to Silver Lake, the little town that he'd found with the help of a paper map and a Magic Marker. The four-block radius that constituted Silver Lake's "downtown" consisted of a video rental store, an Italian restaurant, an auto repair shop, a beauty shop, and several empty storefronts.

"Amazing this place was even on the bloody map," Aug muttered as he parked the SUV along the main street. He eyed the Italian restaurant. "But at least it looks like they've got a decent place to eat."

"Wait." As they left the SUV Joe pointed in the direction they'd come, where the lake stretched out in murky blue laziness. "Let's try that little café I saw by the lake. Get a real taste of the town."

"Café? I believe the proper American term for it would be 'greasy spoon.'" Aug looked amused. "We'll get a taste of the town, all right. Be up through the night, too."

"Might be worth it. You never know." Joe thrust his hands in his pocket, already drawn to the lake. He loved the water.

Aug clearly felt out of his element as they strolled through the tree-lined main street. Joe grinned. Certainly a couple of middle-aged fellows in jeans and rock t-shirts were no more strange than the pierced, tattooed teenagers they saw loitering near the town hall, or the long-haired mechanics at the auto repair shop.

Before they could approach the diner, Aug used a quick jerk of his head to indicate that he preferred to continue on across the street to the lakefront. A tidbit of sandy beach right off the main street stood vacant. The swimming crowd all seemed to be packed at the much larger stretch of beach directly across the lake. The multicolored blurbs of swimsuits and beach toys bobbed and moved over both sand and water.

Joe and Aug perched atop one of the two wooden picnic tables. For a long time, neither man spoke as Joe waited for his friend to decide to explain himself. They simply watched the lapping of the water at the shore, the motorboats dragging water skiers through the waves beyond the beach. There was something about being near the water that felt and smelled pure. Cleansing.

Finally, Aug opened his mouth. And shut it again. He shook his head, rose, and headed to the water's edge.

Joe found that his mouth had gone dry. Something was going on, and it seemed to point in one direction. If Aug were truly contemplating retirement, it meant that the band would cease to exist. Aug was the frontman; he was the voice. There was no Hyper Pitbull without Aug McCobb.

He strode across the sand. "Enough of this. Get it out. What's on your mind? You choosing now to pull the rug out from under us?"

Aug dragged his gaze away from the water to stare hard at his old friend. "I already told you 'no'. If I wanted to retire, I would have told you so the first time you asked. Is that all you've gotten out of everything I've been trying to tell you?"

"Until I learn to read that mess of a mind of yours, I don't know what to think," Joe shot back. "What do you mean, everything you've been trying to tell me? All you've told me is that you didn't want to go home. Okay, here we are. Oh yes, and then you came up with some obscure quote from Grace Slick about old people on a rock stage. If you didn't mean that you want to retire, would you mind telling me what you do mean? Has this got something to do with the old man? With you, it usually does."

Aug stepped back. Without warning, his fire collapsed into utter defeat. "Joe," he said quietly, "right now I need for you to get away from me. Go get something to eat at that greasy spoon of yours. Go for a drive. Anything. Just get away from me."

Joe lifted his hands in surrender. All he could do was mutter, "Good idea" before he walked away.

The only other occupant of the diner was a plump, droopy-eyed woman at a far table, tapping out a text message before a plate stacked with a double cheeseburger and onion rings. The place was as clean as it was possible for an old joint to be, but the floor was yellowed and the cracks rippled the plastic padding in booths that had clearly been in use for a number of decades. It had character, Joe thought as he slid into a chair at the counter.

A teenaged waitress emerged from the kitchen and approached him with a menu. He didn't feel much like trying to pick his way through food selections. Without opening the menu, he turned on the public-ready Joe Montgomery smile. "Never been here before. What have you got that's good?"

"Most people get the burgers, but I think the chicken chimichangas are the best. My dad makes them homemade," the girl told him, her eyes brightening beneath the elaborate hump of blonde hair topping her head. "They come with homemade salsa."

"Then I'll take your recommendation. One chicken chimichanga with salsa. And water, please."

"I love your English accent," she said, round-eyed, as if she'd never heard one in person before. She probably hadn't. There most likely weren't many Brits traveling through Silver Lake.

Even though his accent had been diluted from all the years of living in the USA, he obligingly thickened it so much that he was barely intelligible. American women seemed to like that. "Came straight from the UK with me band before you were even a twinkle in your mum's eye."

He smothered a laugh as the girl bounded away.

When the waitress returned with his glass of water, he asked in his normal voice, "I noticed something about your beaches. This one right out here is empty. Yet the one across the lake is crawling with people. What's up with that?"

"The other one's a lot better." The girl flapped her hand as if this ought to be self-evident. "Lots bigger, and it's got concession stands and lifeguards. The one across the street is the old beach. Hardly anybody bothers with it. There's nothing there. You know what's funny," she added contemptuously, "is that everybody calls the beach across the lake 'the new beach', even though it was built way back when my mom was a kid."

"I like your 'old beach' better. It's not true that there's nothing there. Sometimes it's not better to look for the newer, grander things."

"Um. Yeah." The teenager, having apparently been well-taught to be polite to customers, fled with her quizzical expression.

Then he glanced out the window and his amusement faded. Aug was back to sitting on the picnic table, shoulders bowed. Fans assumed that when the Hyper Pitbull frontman had penned the lyrics to the band's most passionate songs such as Man Alone and How Could You Do It?, that he was referring to a broken love affair.

Joe knew the truth. The songs were Aug's way of coping with the knowledge that with all his success he couldn't earn his father's love, and with all his money he couldn't buy the old brute's love either.
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An hour later Joe crossed the street.

Aug turned when he heard the clap of boots against the pavement. He had been standing near the lake once more, hands clasped behind his back as he observed the water. "So how was the food?"

"It was quite good, actually. They have homemade chimichangas, of all things. Not at all greasy." Joe studied his friend. "Have you got things sorted out?" he asked, even though he knew it wasn't possible to sort out Aug's problems in an hour.

"Hardly. But I can tell you why I came up with that damnable quote of Grace Slick's. The old man never did anything new or tried anything different. He was always the same. Always. And here I am, singing the same songs I was singing twenty-five years ago."

"So you think that means you're like him? Come on, man. That's just ridiculous. You're nothing like him."

"No, you still don't get it. It was him who told me I was too old, the very last time I saw him. Said I looked like a silly old poof prancing around on a stage with long hair…"

"So? Back in the day he said you looked like a silly young poof. What's the difference?" Joe's lips curled. "And what does it matter now, anyway? He's gone. I say good riddance. Remember how he congratulated you when we got our first record contract? You had to go on in London that night with a cracked rib and both your eyes swollen shut, thanks to that bastard. Twenty years old and you were still taking that shit from him. Why?"

"You still don't…" Aug raked a hand through his hair with frustration. He took a step towards the water and kicked savagely, spraying clots of wet sand over his own jeans. Then he turned back to Joe. "That last day. I knew he wouldn't last much longer, so I had to go. I had to see if his knowing he was dying would change anything. Anything at all."

"And did it?" Joe countered, even though he knew the answer.

Aug gave a bitter snort. "More of the same. I let him spout off. Then I told him that this would be the last time I would ever see him and that if he had anything else to say to me, it had to be now. I knew better than to expect miracles. I didn't even expect an apology. I just thought I might finally get a kind word. A 'good job, son.' Something. So I asked him if he didn't have one last thing to say to me. He reached out a hand to me. I walked over to his bed. Do you know what he did? He slapped me across the face."

Joe had to look away from the pain in his friend's eyes. "Christ. I'm sorry."

For a moment they weren't far from the boys they'd been over thirty years ago. Quiet poet Aug McCobb would likely never have befriended the boisterous Joe Montgomery if not for the night Aug had sought shelter from his father's fists.

Joe expelled a breath, hoping that the old man was well on his way to burning in hell. "If you want to look at it this way, some of our best songs came about because of him. We might not have been as big as we were without them. You could even say there'd be no band if not for him. He'd hate knowing that, wouldn't he?"

Aug cracked a wan smile. "What do you say we go back to some mode of real civilization? It'll only take an hour to get to Chicago. Real restaurants and real hotels. We've had our adventure; now these two old men need to rest up for the second leg of the tour. Besides…" He took one last look across the water. "I want to get to writing."

Joe rested a hand briefly on his old friend's shoulder. "All right, then. Let's get back on the road."


THE END