He reentered the diner, stubbing out his third smoke since he’d first arrived. Taking advantage of some local’s unsecured Wi-Fi, he logged on to his favorite hookup site, both for gigs and bed partners, to cast a net over the area he’d be in for one night only—if he stayed that long.
M4M. Passing through. Good lkg, 26, NSA fun Friday nite. U host.
No need to reread his ad; he used pretty much the same message every time. “Good looking man seeking a no strings attached fuck at some nameless guy’s house.” That ought to bring a few closet cases out with the promise of anonymous, discreet sex. He’d check tonight for hits. “Hits” brought a derisive snort. He’d had plenty of hits, once upon a time before the world went to shit.
He checked his e-mail, ignoring the bottom feeders with their hands out and his manager’s, “Where the hell are you?” Fuck ’em. Fuck ’em all. The lineup could wait until later; it wasn’t like he couldn’t guess what songs he’d find.Highway.Everyone always wanted to hearHighway, Trickster’s biggest hit.
He pulled out a tattered leather wallet and tossed a five and a few ones down on the table, eyeballing the liquid a hovering waitress kept pouring in lieu of coffee. The paint thinner in a cup wasn’t worth finishing. Heartburn made a poor travel partner. No one so much as glanced at him as he strode out the door.
At one time he couldn’t walk down a street without being mobbed by fans and paparazzi. Of course, at the height of his career, he couldn’t have entered a rundown greasy spoon for breakfast without folks wanting pictures or autographs.
The seat of his El Camino fit his ass like a glove. They’d bonded years ago. While not the most inconspicuous of vehicles, the aged relic didn’t draw too much attention, even with the out-of-state plates. On the third attempt the engine fired up, and he added “new battery” to the growing list of things it’d need if he planned to keep on driving the darned thing. He only borrowed time. Without a major overhaul, the old relic would soon strand him on the roadside. BMWs, Corvettes, hell, even a Jaguar—all sitting idly in his garage. Even with so many pretty toys, he’d learned the hard way what really mattered. Cars sure as hell didn’t. If only he’d figured out the truth years ago.
Old Man Tate, his most recent employer, met him in the driveway of the ramshackle farmhouse he’d called home for a few weeks. No, not home. The closest thing to home once rode on wheels. God only knew where it ended up. Probably scattered across the country, a piece here and there in fans’ living rooms. Killy squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. Money-hungry assholes had literally ripped the twisted wreckage apart for souvenirs, to sell pieces of an expensive metal coffin online. There had to be a special place in Hell for those bastards.
“I sure wish you’d stay on with us. We got plenty more fence line to run,” the rancher said, handing over a plain white envelope. “It’s all there. Count it if you like.”
“Nah, I trust you.” Killy didn’t, but the pile of bills bulging the envelope’s sides paled against the need to believe in honest men.
“Sure you won’t stay?”
“I appreciate the offer.” And he did. “I gotta get on, though.” A month in one place made Killy’s skin crawl to be back on the move. Staying mobile kept him a step ahead of anyone looking for him.
He stopped a few miles down the road, giving in to curiosity about the contents of the envelope. His lips turned up on one side in a semi-smile of satisfaction, causing the deep scar at the edge of his mouth to pull. Old Man Tate was honest, after all. Killian tucked the money away into his laptop case.
The drive through Montana proved uneventful, miles and miles of unbroken I-90. “Gonna take the scenic route next time,” he promised himself, a promise usually broken for the sake of time. It seemed a man with no steady job should have plenty of the damned stuff, but he fell short all too often.
Under a camper shell in the back of the El Camino rode all he’d taken with him when he’d fled L.A., except for his laptop and guitar, crammed together on the passenger seat and on the floorboard. He lit a cigarette. It wasn’t a crutch to postpone the inevitable, not at all. When his cigarette burned to embers, he lit another from its dying corpse.
“Fuck it!” He tossed the half-smoked coffin nail out the window and blew out a nicotine-laced breath. Had he downed a Prozac today? Yesterday? A little rooting underneath his guitar produced a brown container. He shook the bottle. Damn, only one more pill. He’d have to get a refill soon, and filling ’scripts was a sure-fire tracking tool for those he wanted to avoid. Well, no help for that. Plenty of folks supplied what he needed, and off the grid. Last thing before leaving town, he’d hit a Mom and Pop pharmacy. By the time anyone pinpointed his location, he’d be long gone.
He slung the bottle aside. Stretching to reach into the glove compartment while driving, he fumbled out a CD and flipped the case over to hide the image of the smiling young men on the cover. All dead now, according to the media.
That whole dying thing made great public relations. If only his manager had thought of killing off a few band members sooner. Sales soared through the roof following the crash. Recordings of previously unreleased works, hastily thrown together to capitalize on the band’s name hijacking headlines, went multi-platinum and won a Grammy. Whose wall did it hang on?
He slid the shiny silver disc into the CD player. Time to knock some rust off the old vocal chords. A hard-as-diamonds guitar riff fired from the speakers. His fingers itched to play for real, bad memories notwithstanding. Soon enough, soon enough.One, two, three, four…Killy joined his voice to the music, beating time against the steering wheel.
His heart hammered and his hands grew sweaty when the first verse ended and the chorus began, heralding a voice that still echoed in his head after three long years. His brother’s gorgeous tenor wrapped around Killy’s “dragging the riverbed” growl, harmonizing like they’d sung together for years. They had. Nearly from birth. Now Killy sang alone, Elliot’s voice silenced forever.
Dang, but the sun was bright. Made his vision blurry. He blinked against the sting, swallowing around the lump in his throat created by singing with himself and three of the dearly departed. Dearly Departed would have been a much better name for their band than Trickster, a moniker conceived from Elliot’s obsession with Norse gods back in their teens.
The song faded and another began. Killy hit the “forward” button—hard. No way could he torture himself with hearing his brother and that jackass drummer, Rob, wailing about true love, like Rob even knew what love meant. Or Elliot ever got the chance to learn.
The CD played several times through before Killy stopped for a burger and to fill up the El Camino. Time to call it a day. He located a flea-bag motel near the interstate offering a free Internet connection. A truck stop next door might be the perfect place to solve other cravings; he’d keep it in mind. Since losing his virginity in the sleeper cab of a Peterbilt while Mama snorted coke on the tour bus, he’d come to see truck stops as mini-marts for sexual snacks. Barn stalls and closeted cowboys served the purpose during summers spent with Papa.
Faces and names—if he’d ever known them—created one big blur of memories. And no reason to remember. He’d gotten what he’d wanted, and so had they. Everyone walked away happy. Unlike Elliot, Killy didn’t write songs about fantasies like love. He stuck with the real world: sex and drugs and endless highways.
And rock and roll.
Elliot the dreamer. Killy the realist. “Life sucks,” he’d often told his brother. “Whoever survives longest is the winner.”
Sometimes winning and losing traveled hand-in-hand.
11
“I found us a new guitar player. He’ll play with us tomorrow night. Man, putting that ad in Craigslist was one of my better ideas,” Ted crowed during practice.
The conceited little prick.
