16 Feb The Road Crew – Part Seven

Part Seven! At last, Gentle Reader(s)—here it is! I have relocated to Ink South for a break from chilly Santa Fe, though seeing as how it has been The Winter That Never Was out West it’s actually a bit redundant. Yes, it is warmer in New Orleans, but not by a whole lot. We do have that nutty carnival thing going on at the moment though, so that’s something. This installment of the TRC saga finds the boys launched into the unknowable mysteries of post-gig nocturnal Wichita—sort of a Lynch-ian type late night scenario… minus any backwards-talking tap dancing dwarves or mysterious teen queen murders or anything like that. Actually, there’s no Twin Peaks resemblance whatsoever, but hopefully you’ll read it anyway. Until next time…

Part Seven

Backstage at Croaker’s the band lounged around on a couple of ratty brown naugahyde couches, mopping themselves off with towels and chatting about the set. Rob had pulled a notebook and a pen out of his briefcase and was making some notes about the set list.

I walked down to the bar at the far end of the joint and got beers for all of us and carried the five icy green bottles of Heineken back through the crowd that remained, milling about and dancing to a Blondie song on the illuminated dance floor. I gave the Goof, Beano, Rob and Vinnie each a beer and went back onstage to secure the instruments, shut off the amps and start breaking down the stage gear.

The Gopher and Gordy had stayed for the show and came backstage to hang out and shoot the shit with the band. They had received a Cretins promo pack in the mail from the ‘management office’ back in Albuquerque (probably assembled, packed and mailed by Beano) and had been playing the band’s meager vinyl offerings in advance of the gig. The band thanked them and did their best to chat them up and give the best impression of the Cretins’ prospects for hitting the big time. Or the bigger time.

This was the kind of bullshit that Beano and Vinnie excelled at and the routine was standard issue: If we were in the Midwest, as we currently were, the locals were confidently advised that the Cretins were big on the coasts. If we were on one of the coasts (not that we ever made it to either coast), the band was big in the Midwest or on the other coast. If we were in the South then the band was big up north, and so on.

Wherever we were, the explanation for the Cretins being totally unknown locally was because ‘here’ was not as tuned in to our impending superstardom as ‘there’ was, regardless of where ‘here’ or ‘there’ might be.

And of course it went without saying that we were huge in Japan.

The band might actually have been huge in Japan, but if that was the case the word had yet to filter back across the Pacific to us. For all we knew, the Cretins might had have some sort of cargo cult-style following in the Melanesian archipelagos where a giant statue of a barefoot Beano was worshipped as a god behind an altar in the form of a 5-Flavor Life Savers drum kit.

It would have been encouraging news and Beano would have taken it as natural validation.

Either Gordy or the Gopher had proposed that we should accompany him, or the other him, to another bar where things kept going until late. We didn’t have to hit the road too punishingly early in the morning and Vinnie was full into lathering the DJs up with his impending Michael Jackson fantasies so he was anxious to go.

The Goof was always up for a party and, as usual, he was insistent that if he went I had to go with him.

Beano was finding the DJ dudes a receptive audience to his rock star posturing so he agreed to go as well. The rule was that, if we weren’t staying at a hotel and could safely stow the guitars and basses in our rooms, at least one of us always had to remain with the bus and the gear, no matter what. Rob was more than content to do so, lucky bastard. A quiet evening reading in the bus sounded pretty much ideal to me.

After about a half hour I had everything ready to go with the exception of the drum kit. The two Strats in their original black Fender cases, Rob’s basses in their two Anvil road cases with ‘CRETINS’ stenciled in big red block letters on both sides, the two Bassman heads, the two Marshall cabinets, the two SVTs, the road case for Rob’s amp, wireless rig and cables, the old blue suitcase that the Goof’s guitar pedals lived in on the road, his wireless rig and cables, the Fender reverb unit, the two Taurus synth pedals and their direct boxes, three guitar stands, the red tool box with the Shoe, strings and other guitar gear, a couple of sturdy extension cords and power strips and the vocal mics.

We used Shure SM series mics—a 57 for the Goof, a 58 for Rob and a Unidyne III SM 56 for Beano. The 56 model was fixed to a metal swivel mount base that screwed directly into the gooseneck on Beano’s mic stand. This allowed him to swing it back and forth as forcefully as he wanted without having to worry about the mic popping out of a clip. The base of Beano’s mic stand was augmented with a ten pound weight to keep it from toppling over when he swung it back and forth. Shures were industry standard and ours were all marked with a band of red tape to identify them as part of our kit.

We carried a few mic stands with us just in case but they generally never left the bus as the venues always had their own. If the venue had a local stage crew I usually had to run them off to keep them from jumbling up any of our gear with theirs—Beano’s mic stand not the least. We expected the locals to assist with the load in and the load out, but generally nothing more than that. No one outside of the road crew was allowed to touch any of the instruments.

I corralled the pile of gear at the back of the stage and went back to the dressing room to see what was going on. The Goof, Beano and Vinnie were still yammering with the DJs but Rob had already gone back to the bus. I went out the club’s back door, making sure to prop it open with a cinder block that was sitting nearby for the purpose, and walked over to the bus. Rob had changed into shorts and a long sleeved t-shirt and was putting his stage clothes away. He looked up and said ‘Are you ready for the bus?’

‘All ready except for the drums,’ I said. ‘Give me ten minutes and back it over to the door.’

‘Righto,’ Rob said. ‘I wish they had a shower at this place. One more day and things are gonna start going critical.’

‘No shit,’ I said. ‘But the gig tomorrow should have full facilities, right?’

‘Kindler and his boys would insist, I’m sure. But it doesn’t matter—we’ve got hotel rooms, brother!’

‘Hallelujah! Thank you Sweet Baby Jesus!’

I went back into Croaker’s and looked into the dressing room. No one had moved. The Goof and Rob were usually pretty good about helping with the load in and load out but Beano was always reluctant to be seen humping gear as he considered it beneath his dignity. He wanted the world to think that the roadies (meaning me) handled such lowly tasks and would often insist on waiting until the venue was more or less deserted before he would return to the stage to break down his kit. Vinnie also felt that humping gear was beneath his level of seniority and exalted status as… whatever his status was. The Goof was easy prey for the assorted distractions and temptations of the post-gig scrum—those of the feminine variety in particular—so it sometimes required some prodding or judicious butt-kicking to get the knuckleheads off their collective duff.

I had disassembled most of Beano’s kit—taking it apart was easier than putting it together—and had laid the open drum cases out onstage. The drum cases were self-explanatory but Beano’s hardware case was more complicated. All of the drum and cymbal stands and kick drum gear had to go into it and and if it wasn’t stowed just right it was difficult to fit it all in there. I had never mastered the process to Beano’s complete satisfaction and the Goof advised me not to bother—if it wasn’t precisely to spec Beano would end up taking it all out and repacking it anyway. It was more efficient just to leave it for him to do himself. When it came to setting up the kit I just did the basic unpacking and placement and let Beano do the rest. I never did figure out how to assemble the hi-hat correctly, complicated little bastard that it was.

I had done about as much as I could do, or was willing to do on my own, so I walked around the stage once more to make certain that nothing was being left behind. I looked out back and found that Rob had backed the bus up to the rear door. Then I went back to the dressing room and stood in the doorway. No one paid me any mind.

I stood there for a minute or so finishing the last of my beer. Tossing my bottle loudly into a nearby garbage bin to get everyone’s attention I said ‘Pardon me, ladies! This gear isn’t going to load itself! A bit of help, if you wouldn’t mind?’

Rob and the Goof got up off the sofa and headed towards the stage. Beano shot me the skunk eye.

To their credit, the DJ dudes jumped up and offered to help as well. In danger of losing his audience, Vinnie followed them.

Within a few minutes we had everything but the drum kit loaded into the back of the bus. Beano went back to the stage and started putting the kit into its cases which only took him a few minutes. The drum hardware case was one of the heaviest pieces of gear in the Cretins setup, almost as heavy as the Marshall cabinets, which weighed in at around 80 pounds. The hardware case had wheels mounted on one end but it still had to be lifted on and off of the stage and into and out of the back of the bus.

Unlike the gleaming chrome Greyhound-type highway cruisers commanded by our touring betters, the Cretins tour bus was a creature of a significantly more modest species. It was, in fact, a retired Albuquerque public school bus of the classic Partridge Family ilk, purchased for the band by Sonny Ulrich at a city government auction about two years earlier. It was painted a nondescript light brown color and had no logos or adornment of any type. The rear third of the bus was walled off by a plywood barrier to create a cargo area sufficient to accommodate all of the band gear and our luggage with a bit of room to spare.

Most of the original bench seats had been removed from the forward two thirds of the bus—only the front two rows on either side remained. A thrift store sofa was installed on the left side behind the seats with a bunk bed above it and two bunk beds were installed on the right side. The bunk beds had cords strung along their top and bottom lengths with sliding black fabric curtains attached. We all brought their own pillows on the road along with sleeping bags and an assortment of towels. We kept our most immediate material needs with us in the front of the bus but the bulk of everyone’s luggage rode behind the plywood partition with the gear.

Between the bunks and the sofa and the plywood partition there was a small open area for us to lay about in. There were some packing blankets and a few chunks of foam rubber on the floor and large map of the continental United States was affixed to the partition with black duct tape. Various tour routes drawn in yellow hi-lighter indicated the last couple of years worth of the Cretins’ road assault on the provinces.

At the top of the map, just above the Great Lakes, was affixed a linoleum plaque that read ‘Out of respect for patients NO VISITORS.’ The Goof had stolen the plaque from a hospital psychiatric ward during a brief period of cautionary confinement resulting from a mental health crisis a while back. It was one of the Goof’s prized possessions and he displayed it as a badge of honor—a talisman of sorts. Validation of his Unholier Than Thou status.

The lines on the map all emerged from Albuquerque and extended primarily to the north, northeast, south and southeast. The vast empty expanses west of New Mexico had always proven too daunting for the Cretins. The towns offering potential gigs were too few and far between, the mountains too high, the valleys too low, the temperatures too extreme. The band’s ultimate goal was Los Angeles, but until such time as Sonny and the band deemed it opportune, the Cretins were staying clear of the West Coast.

The southern and eastern touring routes were more forgiving and most of the highlighted routes on the map strung together gigs ranging south from Albuquerque to Socorro, Las Cruces and El Paso or east to Amarillo, Lubbock, Austin, Dallas/Ft. Worth and Shreveport. If we headed east from El Paso on I-10 it was San Antonio, Houston, Lake Charles, Lafayette, Baton Rouge and New Orleans. To the north it was Santa Fe, Taos, Trinidad, Durango, Colorado Springs, Denver, Grand Junction, Fort Collins and Laramie. These were some of the towns where audiences actually had prior experience of the Cretins and, hopefully, might sign up to receive another dose of whatever the hell it was that we were dishing out.

The interior of the bus was a light shade of mint green metal and the lower portion of the windows were inexpertly blacked out with spray paint. The bus had no air conditioning, minimal heat up at the front, no sound system besides the factory installed AM/FM radio mounted in the dashboard, no interior lighting other than a weak dome light in the ceiling—no creature comforts of any sort, really. In the evenings we read with the aid of headlamps or flashlights.

Our solution for relief in hot weather was to fashion a bag out of a folded bath towel and duct tape, fill it with ice, and hang it in one of the windows in the hang out area in front of the plywood barrier. We’d take turns sitting underneath the bag, letting the melting ice drip on us. It probably didn’t do a damn thing to cool the bus, but the chilly trickle was invigorating.

The bus held us, it held the gear, it moved (most of the time), and we could sleep in it. That was pretty much it. Still, we considered it superior to the alternative: A van hauling an equipment trailer. We could stretch out on the bus, flop around and such, whereas touring in a van was only marginally better than a station wagon. Too bougie for the likes of us. And we could honestly say we actually had a tour bus… such as it was.

Inspired in part by the green interior I had started referring to the bus as the PeaPod, as both a pun on the ill-fated Pequod of Moby Dick fame and the notion that those of us contained therein got along like peas in a pod.

The Goof thought it was funny and said ‘Good one, Ink! That’s why we pay you the big bucks… NOT!!’

Rob just smiled and shook his head. Beano didn’t get it.

Beano, Rob and Vinnie used the bunk beds while the Goof and I took turns sleeping on the sofa and on a foam rubber pad in the hang out area in front of the barrier. The Goof slept on his sofa half the time when he was at home, so he was used to it. It wasn’t quite long enough for him to stretch out full length but it fit me perfectly. I was looking forward to Vinnie leaving the tour so that the Goof could claim a bunk and I would have the sofa full time.

Considering how cramped the quarters were, we all generally slept quite well. Everyone on the crew had a cassette Walkman and in the later evening all that could be heard on the bus was the jumbled buzz of five pairs of headphones. No one snored badly and we were usually pretty beat in the evenings, even when we had done nothing but drive all day long. It’s amazing how exhausting doing nothing can be.

Beano and the Goof were the primary hands at the wheel of the bus. Vinnie filled in on occasion but neither Rob nor I were very comfortable driving anything that big except over short distances in a parking lot.

The bus had power sufficient for highway driving but lately something had started to go a bit out of whack. The bus had begun to vibrate when we got up over 60 mph and, as a result we had been right lane cruisers all the way lately. The hazard blinkers were engaged for steep upgrades and we rarely got up enough of a head of steam to attempt a pass on anything speedier than farm equipment or the Amish.

The most likely scenarios for the source of the vibration were that the alignment was off or that new font tires were needed, or both. Taking into account the band’s current level of debt it was considered impolitic to hit up Sonny Ulrich for something that was less than critical, so we adjusted accordingly and soldiered on. The PeaPod got us where we needed to go, albeit slowly, and we regarded it with a fair degree of affection despite its assorted deficiencies and shortcomings.

With the band gear now stowed away in the bus I changed out of my gear humping shirt and work boots into my one shirt with a collar and long sleeves and a pair of suede desert boots. We had moved our luggage up to the front of the bus so that we could change clothes before and after the show but it would all have to return to the cargo compartment or there wouldn’t be enough room for us move around or for me to sleep in front of the partition.

The Goof and Rob both wore black faux-leather pants onstage and tight t-shirts with the short sleeves half cut off. The Goof switched between pointy-toed black Beatle boot-type footwear with metal studded straps straddling the ankle and canvas Keds hightop sneakers. Rob tucked his pants into a pair of tan suede cowboy boots. Beano wore t-shirts with bold geometric patterns and bright colors with a pair of striped spandex tights that went to mid-calf and, of course, no shoes.

We all jostled and shuffled around one another as we prepared to head out and Rob stashed the zipper bag with the cash in his brief case and carefully wrote down the evening’s take in his notebook.

A DJ dude—Gordy or the Gopher, whichever—who was to be our guide to the mysterious nocturnal pleasures of Wichita pulled his party van up next to the bus. Rob was already bunked down with his current book and his Walkman and the rest of us (reluctantly in my case at least) climbed into the van, bound for this wild party club that had been pitched to us.

The van was a bedraggled affair—a faded blue rust bucket with third-rate pin-striping and upholstered with questionable-looking orange polyester shag carpeting. There were no seats other than those for the driver and front passenger—the back of the van was a flat carpeted platform. Beano rode shotgun while Vinnie, the Goof and myself rolled around in the back.

It was still spring and a hint of chill remained in the evening air. The DJ dude had the windows rolled all the way down in front and the vent windows were cranked open in the back. I was wondering why this was but the reason quickly became apparent.

As we got rolling a noxious haze began to pervade the air. Engine exhaust was filling up the van. When we passed under a streetlight you could actually see the light filtering through the poisonous gray fumes.

I pulled out the bandana I always carried out of my left back pocket and it held it over my nose and mouth and moved forward towards the front passenger window. The Goof pulled his shirt up over his nose and mouth.

After a couple of minutes Vinnie crawled up to the front and said to the DJ dude ‘Hey man, what the fuck is going on?? We’re DYING back here!’

‘Oh, yeah, sorry!’ he replied with a nervous laugh. ‘There’s a blown gasket in the exhaust manifold and I haven’t been able to get it fixed just yet. Gotta pull the whole damn engine to do it.’

‘Christ almighty, man!’ The Goof said through his shirt. ‘How far away is this fucking place? We’re gonna be dead soon!’

‘Don’t worry—the faster I go the more air we’ll get inside. I’ll put the pedal down,’ DJ dude said.

Vinnie and the Goof put their faces next to the vent windows and tried to suck in as much outside air as they could while I was practically sitting on Beano’s lap. Beano had his head stuck out of the passenger window.

When we stopped for red lights the fumes quickly became almost unbearable. When we finally pulled up to the club we spilled out into the dirt parking lot in a gasping, nauseous pile. I leaned against the van, waiting for my head to stop spinning. The Goof was cursing at the DJ dude, although in a joking sort of way.

‘There’s no way we’re going to come back to this goddam town if you’re gonna kill the whole fucking band! You better be buying the drinks, ya psychopath!’

The DJ dude laughed nervously and said ‘Sorry guys! I guess it’s getting worse. I’ve got to get that fixed before it gets cold.’

The club was located in some more remote region of the city, or perhaps the county—darker, wooded and isolated, with a sort of road house vibe.

DJ dude conferred with the doorman and got us all into the club which, despite giving every external indication of being more or less of a dump, was charging $5 a pop at the door on a Thursday night. Keep the riffraff out, I supposed.

The place was called Carl & Jake’s and it was a fraction the size of Croaker’s, dimly lit and loud. We walked into a low ceilinged, dark paneled room filled with people sitting at small tables and at a long bar running about halfway down the right side of the room. Towards the back there were wine red Naugahyde booths on either side. There was a tiny DJ booth crammed into a back corner with no one in it but there really wasn’t a dance floor anyway. A selection of current mainstream rock and roll staples were blaring out of a juke box: Journey, Rush, Tom Petty, the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, AC/DC, the Police, Hall & Oates, that sort of thing.

There were a couple of pinball machines against the back wall and a partition on the left led to a smaller room. The smaller room had two pool tables, some chairs lined up against the walls between the racks for the cues, and the doors to the bathrooms were at the back. As Gordy and/or the Gopher had pitched it, the place was pretty much packed.

The Goof immediately started looking around to see if they had a Dragon’s Lair machine in the joint. This was one of the Goof’s more recent obsessions. Since late last year he had dropped untold sums of money into this particular high-tech video arcade machine, gradually becoming expert in maneuvering his way through the various levels of the animated fantasy story.

Regardless of how buzzed the Goof was when he pumped in his quarters he could usually get all the way through the game in one go—slaying the dragon, saving the princess, and entering his name at the top of the list of winners. Whenever he found a Dragon’s Lair machine he would wait casually to the side while the local yokels floundered around, barely getting one or two levels into the story. When they had all bombed out he would sidle up and, with a combination of practiced nonchalance and dramatic flair, cruise through level after level to the growing astonishment of the crowd that inevitably gathered to watch.

Dragon’s Lair aficionados were typically young geeks but pool tables sometimes attracted a rough and tumble crew including rednecks, bikers and the occasional hustler. The Goof was reasonably handy at the pool table but Minnesota Fats he was not. I usually tried to make sure that he only played with me—I was reliably miserable—rather than with the locals. If we played a couple of games together he always got to win and I was usually able to get him away from the tables before we got sucked into any kind of scene. If the Goof started playing the locals you never knew where that might end up and I preferred not to find out.

Before the Goof was able to line up any quarters on the edge of a pool table the Gordy/Gopher corralled us into one of the booths between the end of the bar and the DJ nook. Ours had several velvet ropes on stanchions cordoning off the area in front of it—apparently this was the VIP booth.

Well, that changed everything! Risking death and brain damage by carbon monoxide poisoning had been worth it after all.

DJ dude summoned the VIP waitress and ordered a round of drinks for us. Beano didn’t drink much, but favored gin when he did. Vinnie was into tequila sunrises because that was supposedly the preferred tipple of music biz people in LA. The Goof reliably went for vodka. I generally never drank anything other than beer.

The DJ dude was doing his best to impress the band with his show of magnanimity, ordering up the rounds and introducing the boys to the locals. I nursed my beer, nodded at everyone who stopped by the table, waved off the offer of Jägermeister shots. Vinnie and Beano were continuing their PR song and dance routine about the band’s brilliant prospects.

I usually tuned out all this inflated puffery but sometimes I couldn’t but help compose the alternative scenarios in my head.

Significant prospects? Nothing much, really. No, we weren’t actually big on either coast, or up north, or down south, or anywhere in between. All the money we made went into someone else’s pocket. We were living like cockroaches. The band was sort of a big deal in Albuquerque—that part was true enough, but that was more or less equivalent to saying we were a big deal on the moon.

But, hey—how about that show tonight? Pretty damn solid, right? Did we not rock the house? Did not everyone have a good time?

That much, at least, was full-on legit, and for the time being it was sufficient.

I never actually dared to verbalize these balloon-busting blasphemies to anybody, not even the Goof, but I often mused on what might happen if I did so. Beano would totally lose his shit, no doubt about it. Vinnie would likely consider it as unprofessional, a massive dollop of bullshit being integral to the rock and roll game. Rob would probably just shrug. Sonny Ulrich would start thumbing through his Rolodex for cut-rate hit men.

Hard to say how the Goof might respond. He might have thought it was hilarious or he might have been horrified that I had let the cat out of the bag. Close though we were, I really couldn’t be certain.

On the occasional occasion, after a less than optimal gig or a particularly arduous day when I was feeling fed up with… whatever, the prospect of a bus ticket back home beckoned tantalizingly. A bus ticket home was one of the few guaranteed aspects of my so-called employment, should I somehow manage to get myself dishonorably discharged from the road crew. But tonight I was content just to sit back and exchange discrete eye rolls with the Goof while Beano and Vinnie slathered it on thick for the benefit of Gopher/Gordy.

Insubordinate fantasies aside, these dates opening for the Kindler band were about as close to the actual Big Time as the Cretins had yet managed to get. It was a significant rung further up on the touring ladder and the band had to do everything in their power to rise to the occasion, to try and project the Cretins charisma, such as it was, to a couple of thousand people or more, rather than the more typical couple hundred.

This advance in the band’s touring status was apparently why Sonny had okayed the expense of adding another mouth to feed to the road crew—that being me. If the band showed up at arena gigs with no one but Vinnie to help hold the whole production together it would have just been too lame.

A couple of female acquaintances of our DJ host were granted access to the VIP section and sat down with us, the visiting royalty. They were nice corn-fed Midwestern girls who wanted to know if the band had any videos on MTV or if we’d ever toured with Pat Benatar or whatever. Well no, not with Benatar, not yet at least. But it could happen! Yes indeed, our manager is talking with some people who know some people… blah blah blah.

When the female of the species was introduced to the mix the Goof would sometimes climb aboard and commandeer control of the bullshit ocean liner. The only problem with the Goof’s participation was that he couldn’t resist launching off into preposterous flights of fancy, playing the provincials for all they were worth just to see how far he could go and still get away with it. In such cases I was expected to pitch in or or at least back him up with interjections and embellishments or, at minimum, confirming nods and grunts of approval.

This particular routine served the dual purpose of winding up both Beano and the locals, simultaneously. If the fairy tales got too preposterous there was always the chance that we might get called out for it, which worried Beano, but so far that had never happened. People seemed to just buy into the Goof’s fantastical yarns, regardless of how far fetched they got. Success encouraged him to push a bit further each time.

Prince? Oh, yeah, sure! He came to see us when we toured through Minnesota last year. He showed up backstage one night and wanted us to open some dates for him but we were already committed to that Billy Squier tour. You didn’t know about that? I guess that tour didn’t pass through here. Prince was totally cool—he wanted us to hang out at his studio and write some songs together but our management never got the scheduling thing straightened out. We’ll try to catch him up on the next tour. He’s only four feet tall, by the way! You didn’t know that? Oh yeah, he’s pretty much of a midget but he wears these massive platforms all the time. He’s even shorter than Inky boy here. Ha ha ha! Great guy, though. And right after that we went out on the Def Leppard tour. That was the tour with Mötley Crüe—we went on before them. Now those guys are some sick fucks! I could tell you some stories, believe me, but you have to sign a non-disclosure agreement just to be in the same building with those maniacs.

Would I lie to you? Of COURSE not! Right, Ink? Ha ha ha!!

Van Halen? Absolutely! We met them too. We’ve got this hot shit studio engineer in L.A. who’s lined up to mix our next album—he worked with them on Diver Down. They came backstage to meet us in… where were we, Ink? Was it Seattle? Paris? São Paulo? Cairo? I can’t remember… Anyway, one of their roadies told us that David Lee Roth’s hair is totally a rug—the dude is actually bald as a cue ball—and that Eddie is going deaf. Eddie keeps his hair long so you can’t see his hearing aids, poor bastard! Yeah, they came to see us again a while back. Maybe it was Detroit? Eddie wanted to buy my guitar, my black ’65 Strat, but no way that was gonna happen. Dream on! Not letting go of my baby for love nor money. Inky boy here is sworn to guard that guitar with his life, right, Ink? He once shot a guy in Reno cuz the guy touched it without permission. I know Ink seems a bit reserved, but I’m tellin’ ya do NOT piss this boy off! He’s a born killer! Right, Ink? Death on two legs right here, ladies! Don’t let appearances fool you.

The entire time the Goof was pitching the bullshit he would be surreptitiously kicking me under the table and I would be staring intently into my beer, trying not to laugh.

When we were on the road one of our standard routines for post-gig amusement involved me telling an overly long and insanely complicated joke which inevitably built to a standard punch line that had nothing to do with the setup and made no sense at all.

The Goof would say something along the lines of, ‘Hey Ink, tell us the one about the colorblind streetcar conductor!’ or ‘Hey Ink, give us that yarn about the tattooed lady and the cross-eyed paper hanger. This is a classic!’

Using that as a jumping off point I would improvise a convoluted setup, typically bringing in an assortment of characters drawn from central casting that might include a rabbi, a leprechaun, a priest, a talking horse or an Indian chief.

Regardless of the cast, the prolonged nonsense setup always culminated with the same punch line: ‘KEEP THE TIP!!’

The road crew would make great show of hanging on every word and then collapse in spasms of hysterical laughter upon the delivery of ‘KEEP THE TIP!!’ Uninitiated onlookers would, of course, be utterly mystified or would do their best to feign a similarly hysterical response to cover for having somehow missed out on the joke.

It was all in the spirit of good clean All-American fun, but I was too worn out to attempt a run at the Keep The Tip routine tonight.

By 1:00 AM the dimly perceptible charm of Carl and Jake’s was beginning to wear thin. It had been a long day and the Cretin’s bullshit machine was beginning to wind down, with the exception of Beano who had somehow managed to bamboozle one of the corn-fed coeds who had joined us into buying into the delusion that he was an Actual Rock Star.

In anticipation of the horrors of our ride back to the bus I went to the men’s room and pulled a small pile of brown paper towels out of the wall dispenser. I dampened them under the faucet for the guys to put over their noses and mouths. I dampened my bandana as well and headed out to the parking lot.

Like a recurring nightmare, back into the party van from hell we all piled, this time with Beano’s date in tow, poor creature. He had managed to talk her into coming back to Croaker’s with us despite the fact that there was no way in hell the rest of us were going to allow her onboard the bus. Apparently one of her fellow Doo-dahs was to follow later in her car after Carl and Jake’s closed, so Beano would have about an hour or so alone with her in the incomparably romantic surrounds of Croaker’s parking lot.

Since Beano was intent on rolling around in the back with his girl I snagged the passenger seat. Vinnie and the Goof tried to pull rank but I got there first and told them both to fuck off and gave them the damp paper towels as consolation.

‘Nice going, Ink,’ said the Goof, taking half of the pile. ‘Good thinking.’

‘That’s why you pay me the big bucks,’ I said. ‘NOT!’

DJ dude and I cranked the windows full open again and, as before, the van began to fill up with fumes the moment we got going. Beano was shamelessly groping and smooching his quarry in the back while the rest of us did our best to fight off the double nausea of this pathetic display and the toxic atmosphere.

At one point Beano emerged from an extended lip lock long enough to proclaim ‘Oh wow, this is so GREAT!’

So great. So totally fucking awesome.

It was one of those moments when more than anything in the world I just wanted to be back home in the blissful solitude of my humble alleyway apartment. Back on my own mattress on my own bedroom floor surrounded by my books and records, back where the rhythms of my day-to-day destitution were familiar and comforting and I didn’t have to bear witness to Beano’s disingenuous gropings.

When we pulled into the Croaker’s parking lot I expressed perfunctory thanks to Gopher/Gordy for his tender fucking murderous mercies and headed for the bus. Beano and his date uncoiled themselves from the back of the van and looked around for a secluded spot to continue their grappling.

Vinnie was still engaged in a final spasm of dick dance with DJ dude until the Goof grabbed him by the back of his shirt and pulled him away in the direction of the bus—Vinnie had the keys.

Rob was long asleep in his bunk, the lucky bastard.

I grabbed my plastic water jug and my toilet kit from under the sofa and went back outside. We each maintained a personal gallon water jug with our names written on them in black marker—the Goof’s jug decorated with a drawing of the Jolly Roger-type skull and crossbones character he referred to as Mr. Voodoo. I made short work out of brushing my teeth and dousing my face to wash off at least a bit of the exhaust grime.

The Goof had the sofa that night but I was perfectly happy to be on the foam pad back in front of the partition. I wanted to consign this day to the pages of history very badly indeed.

When I last glanced out the open bus window Beano and his girl were writhing on one another up against the wall of Croaker’s, between the back door and the dumpster. The boy had a romantic streak, I had to credit him with that.

I awoke momentarily when he pushed open the door and crept onto the bus some time later.