Running on Empty
Chapter 2 (word count 9,350)
"Another town I've left behindAnother drink completely blind
Another hotel I can't find
Another backstage pass for you
Another tube of superglue…"
- We are the Road Crew - Lemmy Klimester (Motorhead)
Dean's never been to what he'd call a real job interview before, but he's pretty sure this one is a little unorthodox. They're crossing the arena floor, which is littered with amps, speakers, struts, cases, and cables, with more of the same being dumped by steady process wherever there's a square of open space. Four or five guys are crawling over the wreckage, calling to each other and occasionally cursing, rolling cases in, stacking amps to one side, taping cable into obscure patterns. It looks like chaos, but Dean can see there's a stage somehow gradually taking shape at one end of the oval surface.
Michael explains that his brother is currently engaged in "flying the PA," and drags Dean over, grinning and as excited as a five-year-old as he threads his way through the maze of equipment. He's practically bouncing, all but tugging at Dean's shirt, and it's weird and kind of embarrassing, but it does make Dean feel less like he's crawling in to beg for something here.
Michael leads him toward a lanky guy standing toward the front of the stage area. He's probably somewhere around thirty years old, with longish blond hair that is already starting to thin. He's wearing a black t-shirt with white lettering that informs Dean that his "give-a-shitter is broken."
A big man with a bushy white beard is bent over a line of four-foot speakers across from him. It looks like they're trying to hook together a chain of about a dozen, wrestling and pushing on the big black boxes.
"This is my brother Joe, and the ugly one there is Bear," Michael says to Dean as they approach.
Neither looks in their direction, but Bear answers Michael with a raised middle finger as he straightens up and kicks at a speaker, shoving it back into line before going back to tightening connectors.
"Guys, this is Dean…remember, I told you about him, from the bar the other night?" Michael says. Both Roper and Bear raise their heads at that and turn to look at Dean.
"So, I hear I owe you one, Dean," Roper says, stepping around the block of equipment.
"It was just a right place, right time deal, Mr. Roper," Dean says.
Roper raises his eyebrows like he doubts that assessment.
"Call me Joe. I guess everybody came out of it alive, at least. One of these days when I've got more time I'm going to find out the real story," Joe says, cutting a glance at Michael, who avoids his eyes. Joe sighs and looks back at Dean.
"You say I don't owe you, but maybe there's something I can do for you anyway?" Joe says.
Dean hesitates before answering. He's not very good at asking for anything at the best of times, and he might be impaired right now, what with the concussion and all. Probably is, if he's even entertaining this. He almost tells the guy to forget it right there, but then he thinks about the disabled Impala and grits his teeth.
"Your brother said you might need some help and I…need the work."
Roper sighs, nodding thoughtfully.
"We do. We're behind schedule today—and on every other gig for the rest of the tour, if I don't get some warm bodies in here ASAP. I don't guess you have any experience?"
Dean just shakes his head.
"Well, like I said: warm bodies. A lot of the shit we do just requires a strong back and a thick skull," Roper says, smirking.
Dean smiles ruefully. "Guess I've got what it takes then."
"Good enough," Joe replies, smiling a little bigger. "Seriously, man, it ain't rocket science. If it's on the truck it goes in the arena; if it's in the arena it goes on the truck."
"This is the 'load in,'" Michael says. "We'll 'load out' right after the show and head to…wherever we're playing next. Michigan, I think?" He looks at Joe for confirmation.
Joe shrugs. He's looking at the string of PA boxes again, fiddling with the hoist control in his hands. Bear gives him a thumbs-up and Joe pushes a button. The caterpillar-like assembly begins to rise slowly toward the ceiling.
"One gig at a time, Mikey. Speaking of, why aren't you working? You got sound check in two hours. Get your lazy ass in gear," Joe says, turning back to Michael with a stern look. He gives him a slight shove to the shoulder.
"Sure, boss," Michael grins, giving Dean a nod and trotting off.
The older Roper brother turns to Dean with an appraising look. Dean's still fighting the urge to just tell him to forget it, but he forces himself to meet the steady gaze. He knows what he looks like—he stopped by the restroom on the way in and cleaned up a little and the face in the mirror was basically unmarked, just a swollen lip to show for the beating he took. Maybe whaling on the back of his head took too much energy for them to bother with his face.
That, and kicking him in the ribs, he figures, although he doesn't remember that part at all. A broken rib buys you at least a month of pure misery, Dean knows from experience.
That son of a bitch better hope I never see him again, Dean thinks darkly.
Joe interrupts Dean's revenge fantasies.
"Look, you could be a serial killer for all I know, but if we keep running behind like this, getting knifed in my sleep will be a pure mercy killing. Besides, my brother likes you. Of course, if Mikey was a better judge of character, my life would be a whole lot easier," Joe adds, huffing a laugh.
"I'm not trying to trade on what happened at the bar the other night. I'll pull my own weight," Dean says.
"Yeah? And how are you going to do that with a broken rib?" he asks.
Dean narrows his eyes slightly.
"I'm fine."
Joe doesn't say a word, just steps forward suddenly and feints a jab in the direction of Dean's right side. Dean's too well trained to actually flinch; he just sidesteps smoothly and turns slightly away from the movement. Roper smirks, nodding.
"That's what I thought. Don't sweat it. Plenty of time for you to show me how tough you are later, when that rib heals a little."
There's a booming crash from behind Joe. The noise sends a spike of pain through Dean's temple and he can't suppress a wince. Joe whirls on the offender.
"Jesus Christ, Jake! That amp is worth a hell of a lot more than your sorry hide!" he shouts, then turns back to Dean and sighs. "I've got to go before they destroy more than I'm worth and get my ass fired. Mikey will show you around and we'll put you to work after the show tonight, all right?"
Dean tilts his head in assent and extends his right hand. Joe shakes it quickly and he's gone, leaving Dean to wonder what the hell he's gotten himself into. Apparently he's managed to become a roadie. For a bunch of jokers calling themselves Night Shayde, no less.
But there's something he's got to take care of first.
**
Leaving his girl behind in a little metal box of a storage locker sucks. Dean lays his hand on the Impala's roof like a promise, gives her a last look before he locks the door behind him. Be back as soon as I can, baby.
Michael followed him over and he drives them back to the arena in one of the utility trucks. Dean's starting to wonder if he should have just walked—he's not sure the ride is worth being a captive audience for the kid's chronic case of motor-mouth—but he writes it off under the heading of "no such thing as too much information."
"This is a pretty big venue, I guess, but Night Shayde is going to get a lot bigger, you wait and see," Michael says, glancing at Dean.
The truck's stiff, heavy-riding suspension isn't exactly doing Dean's injuries any favors and he's getting a little queasy as they bump and weave through the light mid afternoon traffic. But Dean feels like the kid's expecting some sort of answer from him and anything is better than puking right now, so he figures talking is as good a way as any to take his mind off his physical troubles.
"Never heard of 'em before yesterday," Dean allows, and gets the reaction he expects, considering what he's already seen of Michael: stunned disbelief.
"You gotta be shittin' me, man! 'You Know You're Right'?"
Dean frowns for a second, confused. His vision has pretty much cleared up, but maybe he's still not over that crack to the back of the head…
"Right about what?"
"No…I mean Night Shayde's hit song? Dude," Michael says, shaking his head. "It's all over the radio. Did you just crawl out from under a rock or something?"
Dean breathes a short laugh through his nose.
"I'm more into classic rock, you know…Metallica, Zeppelin."
"Oh, sweet. That's cool. Night Shayde is a grunge band…well, more post-grunge, really. Think Nirvana meets Black Sabbath."
"Sabbath, I know."
"Fuckin' Ozzy, right? Did you hear about that one time he snorted up a line of ants? The dude is unbelievable…"
Michael babbles for the rest of the ride, seeming satisfied with Dean's monosyllabic answers and Dean just guts it out, bracing himself against the truck's motion with an elbow on the window ledge. He realizes he's gripping the curve of the door handle too hard when his fingers start to ache and he wonders why he's holding on so tight. It's not like he's going anywhere.
**
No one seems too upset when Dean and Michael stroll back into the arena fifteen minutes late for sound check. Dean's still got nothing to do but watch and that gives him too much time to think. He tries to focus on the set up for the show and he's got to admit he's really pretty impressed at the changes in the place since they left, the stage set full of instruments and equipment, order pulled out of chaos in the few hours they've been away.
Meanwhile, Dean's not anxious to fuck this up before he gets started, but he's got no idea what his job even is, and he's getting a little antsy wondering how he's supposed to figure it out. There's really no one to ask, because the floor is pretty much deserted at this point except for the guy at the sound board and Michael. Michael has been up on the stage tinkering with the various band instruments for the last several minutes, tightening the drum heads, tuning the guitars. Apparently he's the drum tech, the guitar tech and the bass tech all in one. It sounds to Dean like a lot of responsibility for one scrawny kid, but whatever.
Dean's running on fumes, himself. He knows how to handle pain but hours of dealing still take their toll, and he's hitting the wall from the poor night's sleep. He walks up a few steps and eases himself down into one of the stadium seats to wait for the pain medication to kick in. His headache has subsided to a dull discomfort at the base of his neck, but his rib is aching like a son of a bitch. He leans back and closes his eyes, letting the odd burps of sound from the stage flow past him.
A burst of real music suddenly pours from the amps and Dean's eyes fly open. Michael is standing on stage with a guitar strapped across his skinny shoulders. He keeps his eyes down, totally absorbed in what he's doing, hands moving over the strings sure and smooth, like he's coaxing the guitar to give up its music. He's picking a series of fast Zeppelin riffs, starting with Heartbreaker and ramping up into the rolling boogie of Rock and Roll. Dean watches his fingers fly over the frets, fascinated. The kid's good.
Dean glances toward the guy at the sound board. It's the bearded man he met earlier, Bear, who turned out to be the sound engineer. Dean watches him fiddle with the controls for a minute or two, twisting a knob here, bumping a slider switch there, and then Bear just sits back and watches Michael play.
Dean leans back, closes his eyes and listens.
**
It's nearly show time and Dean is standing behind the stage watching the crew make last minute adjustments to the setup, while keeping half an eye on the arena as it begins to fill. He notices idly that most of the fans don't look old enough to be out of the house alone, but most of Dean's attention is on Squinty, the lighting tech, who's running around looking for his "pole." Dean doesn't get the reference, other than the way too obvious joke, but the rest of the crew seems to be finding the whole situation to be high entertainment.
Then the house lights go down, the stage lights come up and the opening act takes the stage, some group called Cobra Starship. The guitarist isn't bad, but the singer sort of makes Dean feel like the guy is trying to drill a hole straight through his skull with the sharp nasal tone of his voice. The crowd seems to like them well enough, though.
Michael walks up beside Dean about half an hour in.
"Ready to rock and roll?" he says, grinning.
It's corny as hell, but the kid's lit up with excitement and Dean can't help but grin back.
"I doubt it makes much difference whether I'm ready or not," Dean says dryly.
Michael laughs then, harder than the joke warrants, Dean thinks.
"Stick with me. I'm right next to the stage for the whole show. You can see everything," Michael says, motioning him closer.
Dean takes a second look at Michael's face then and wonders if his eyes don't look a bit on the glassy side. Maybe he's lit on more than just rock and roll. Dean shrugs it off. He's not the guy's keeper.
There's a sort of nest walled off by amps and equipment just to the left of the stage and Michael sets up there. He's got a couple of cases opened beside him and at a glance Dean can see drumsticks, guitar strings and picks, and a lot of tools he doesn't recognize. He watches Michael fidget and pace the small area, fiddling with his tools and bits of hardware for a few minutes. He's just begun to settle a little when the members of Cobra Starship take their bows and jog off the stage.
A short, balding man huffs his way up the steps at the side and walks to the main microphone. Dean recognizes him. Joe introduced him after the sound check as Tony Hudson, the Tour Manager.
"Cobra Starship, ya'll!" he shouts into the mic.
Dean thinks the "ya'll" sounds pretty alien coming out of a guy who looks more like—and probably is—an accountant, but the crowd screams anyway and they keep getting louder as he starts to introduce Night Shayde, so that Dean can barely hear it when he does.
Dean looks out over the seating area. He's been to a couple of concerts when they happened to be in the right place at the right time and he managed to sneak in, but it's a completely different experience from this side of the stage. He can't really see the crowd as individuals, it's too dark, but he knows now why they call it a "sea of faces," because that's how they move, like waves in a big body of water.
And he can feel them. It's eerie, the energy baking out from the seats, and it hits him strangely when the word that comes to mind isn't "crowd" or "fans," but "mob."
Night Shayde takes the stage then and starts to play. It's the first time Dean's actually seen the band since he got here. They're not too out there as far as looks go: some long hair and plenty of beards, piercings and tattoos, but nothing you couldn't see walking down a city street.
By the time they've played a couple of songs, Dean decides that they're pretty decent. They remind him a little of Alice in Chains, a band Dean knows because Sam was into their music for a while. Sammy would really like these guys,he thinks.
Dean realizes immediately that he shouldn't have gone there, evoked the image of his brother in connection with what he's hearing, this place. He's been mostly able to ignore the hollow feeling he's been carrying around under his ribs since Sam walked out, but it splits suddenly wider with the shock of memory and he instinctively curls his arm across his middle. The stage area is getting hotter by the minute and Dean swallows around the queasy roll of his stomach that's become all too familiar over the last couple of days.
He's not really listening to the show, but he's vaguely aware that the band has finished the song and the singer is talking to the crowd, pausing occasionally to wait for the swelling cheers to fade away. Dean turns to look at Michael then, just to give himself something solid to focus on.
Dean gets the distraction he was looking for, because he can see even in the faint light that Michael is looking worriedly at something on the stage. Dean glances over at the musicians, but he can't see anything wrong. As he looks away, he catches a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. Something large and heavy flies toward them and Dean's hand snakes out, blocking it right before it slams into Michael's face. Dean has his fingers curled around the neck of the guitar before he even registers what it is.
The guitarist follows pretty closely behind the missile, snatching the spare instrument Michael already has in his hand and slinging the strap over his shoulder.
"Learn how to tune a guitar, you fucking moron!" the guy snarls in Michael's face and stomps back into position.
Dean hands the discarded guitar to Michael and he sets it aside without a second glance, like he already knows there's nothing wrong with it. He slumps back onto his seat.
**
By the time the show ends, Michael has swapped the guitar out again, this time for a broken string, adjusted the bass pedal and replaced a drumhead. The crowd is still filing out of the arena when the crew starts tearing down. Dean settles on rolling cases out to the trucks as about the only work he has the training for at this point. His rib complains the whole time, but it's just pain and pain don't hurt.
Fuck. Now he's quoting Roadhouse. His life is a cheesy movie.
The case Dean is pushing is as tall as he is, and apparently lead weights are an essential part of staging a rock show, because Christ, the sucker is heavy. He leans into it a little harder and the motion causes the ends of his abused rib to grind together with a sickening, wet crunch. A strangled groan escapes him and he staggers sideways and leans against the wall of the hallway, panting shallowly, leaving the case where it stopped. The procession of roadies diverts at the obstruction like a stream around a sandbar, until a guy Dean doesn't know gives him an odd look and then throws his weight behind the stranded container, pushing it away down the hall.
It should probably hurt his pride, but Dean knows he's done for tonight. Toughing out the pain is one thing, but choking on his own blood from a punctured lung is an experience Dean figures he can live without. So to speak.
Dean straightens up carefully, wiping beads of sweat from his forehead on the back of his forearm. He walks to the parking lot, hiding the shakes that are shivering up and down his legs, threatening to unhinge him at the knees. He takes a seat on a low wall to watch the load-out, in sight of the bus just in case. That way if they decide to leave his useless ass behind, he can grab his stuff before they pull out.
The stream of equipment has slowed to a trickle when Michael finds Dean still sitting at his observation point.
"Hey, man," Michael says as he approaches with a bright grin. "So what did you think of the show? Sweet, right?" he asks, sitting down next to Dean.
"Yeah, sweet. Right up until that fucker launched a Fender at your head," Dean says, throwing him a sideways glance.
"Aw, that's just Rick…it's no big. Musicians are…well creative people get emotional sometimes," Michael shrugs.
Dean grunts. "It's your head, dude, but the guy needs an attitude adjustment if you ask me. And I can get pretty creative in that department, myself."
Michael chuckles. "I know you can, believe me. I've seen you in action remember? But it's okay. I believe in karma, you know? What goes around comes around."
A sudden flood of flashing lights washes across the parking lot, as an ambulance pulls up to one of the buses. Judging from the fancy paint job, Dean figures it belongs to the band.
"Speaking of karma…" Dean mutters, as the subject of their conversation emerges from the door of the bus. If he's moving under his own power, it isn't by much, and he kind of slithers down the steps of the motor coach, with Tony and the lead singer on either side of him. They dump him into the waiting hands of the EMTs and the ambulance carries him off.
"I'll go see what I can find out," Michael says, and trots off.
Dean's still waiting when Joe comes striding out of the arena a few minutes later. He motions Dean over and he goes. His t-shirt says, "Here's some glue—get your shit togther."
"I assume you can drive, the way Mikey's been going on about that car of yours," Joe says, over the noise of shouting and slamming truck doors.
"Sure," Dean says.
"How many fingers am I holding up?"
"Uh, none?" Dean answers uncertainly.
"Good enough," Joe says and starts toward the crew's bus. Joe stops at the door and motions to the driver's seat. "Can you handle this pig?"
Dean's never driven anything remotely this large, but he figures it can't be that hard. It's got an engine; Dean can make it go.
"Yes sir," Dean says, grinning.
"Good. Because you're the only one who hasn't been working his ass off all day. You've got about twenty minutes before we pull out," Joe says, and then he's gone, striding off on some other errand.
It's been a long day, but his vision has cleared up and his head has mostly stopped hurting and Dean can feel a second wind coming on. This is something he's good at. He walks around the big vehicle first, getting a feel for how much space it takes up and estimating the turning radius, which looks to be roughly the length of a city block.
Dean climbs into the driver's seat. He can drive a stick, his dad made sure of that, but there's no need; the transmission's automatic. He scans the dashboard. Nothing he hasn't seen before, except for the video monitor designed for use while backing; that will take some getting used to. The bus is equipped with a really nice GPS, too. Now if Dean just knew where the hell they're supposed to be going.
Dean rifles through the storage compartments. He's about to give up and go look for someone to ask when he finds a slick binder marked "Tour Itinerary" and checks the list of dates.
Looks like Benton Harbor, Michigan is their next stop. Dean enters it into the GPS and it spits out a distance of a little over four hundred miles. It's a pretty long stretch for this late in the day, but nothing he hasn't done before and he's used to driving at night. He checks the RV's refrigerator, snakes an energy drink from the door and he's golden.
**
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.
- Unknown
True to Joe's word, the crew is loaded in twenty and Dean has them cruising down I-34 in less than half an hour. Threading through traffic and hitting the on ramps keeps Dean occupied for the first several miles, but they're on the open highway when Joe slings his long body into the seat next to Dean with a heavy sigh.
"Damn, I'm getting too old for this. Get out now, son. This life'll kill you."
Dean chuckles while glancing in his mirror, looking for the little piece of shit car that's been tailgating him since the edge of town.
"I just got into it," Dean says. "And you're what? Thirty?"
"Yeah," Joe nods, then takes a swallow from the longneck in his hand. "But I feel like I'm eighty most days."
"What happened to the dick…I mean Rick? I saw them pour him into the ambulance."
Joe laughs. "No, you had it right the first time. The guy's a total dick. And as for what happened to him, I don't know…crank? Prescription shit? What's the Cocktail of the Week? I can never keep up."
"Sounds like a regular thing."
"He'll be fine," Joe says, shrugging. "That fat bastard Tony would have called me by now if we were going to have to cancel a show."
Dean turns that over for a minute, then says, "So why do you stay in this line of work?"
"Family business, I guess," Joe answers, shrugging. "My old man did it for years, until he keeled over from a heart attack. Right in the middle of a show, too—Skynyrd reunion tour, 1987."
"Wow. And your brother?" Dean says, raising his eyebrows.
"Mikey?" Joe chuckles, shaking his head. "Kid was begging to come on the road with us since he could talk. I made him wait until he finished high school."
Dean watches the white lines scroll by for a minute or two.
"It's none of my business, but how come he's not playing with a band somewhere?"
Joe frowns a little, then understanding dawns and he nods.
"Oh, that's right—you were at sound check this afternoon." Joe pauses, like he's thinking about it.
"A lot of roadies are frustrated musicians, especially band roadies like us," he continues. "Cobain was one for a while, and Billy Powell worked for Skynyrd before he played piano for them. Hell, even Lemmy—he roadied for Hendrix years before Motorhead."
"Didn't know that. But not your brother?" Dean asks, watching Joe out of the corner of his eye.
Joe smiles ruefully.
"Mikey can play, but the music business…it would chew him up and spit him out. That performance at sound check every night—that's his fifteen minutes of fame. All he'll ever get."
Dean drives in silence for a minute or two.
"He seems happy enough," Dean says.
Joe grunts in response.
"My brother's good at two things," Joe says after a bit. "Playing the guitar, and picking out the alpha male in any group and rolling over. The first one's liable to kill him and the second one keeps him alive."
Dean thinks about it for a moment before he answers, and he should probably just keep his mouth shut anyway, but he's never been too good at that. Besides, if he's reading this guy wrong, their relationship is going to be short-lived anyway.
"So which one did you teach him?" Dean asks, glancing at Joe.
His face wavers between irritation and amusement, then relaxes into the latter as he chuckles shortly.
"Just keep us between the white lines, smart ass," he says, getting up and stretching. "I'm going to get some sleep."
**
It's not exactly an easy drive, as worn out as he is, but Dean's inclined to distrust "easy" anyway so he's not much put out by it. He only stops once to fill the RVs tanks and drain his own, and that's enough to keep him awake and going. He squints into the mid-morning sun as he pulls into the parking lot of Lake Michigan College in Benton Harbor. He thinks they've made pretty good time.
Dean kills the engine and stretches carefully, slowly working out some of the stiffness in his side. There's a thump from the back of the RV and Joe comes staggering down the center aisle, fuzzy with sleep.
"Looks like we're still in one piece. Good job," he rasps. He peers blearily out the window, then looks back at Dean. "Where are we?" he asks.
"Benton Harbor?" Dean replies.
Joe frowns.
"Shit, Dean, that's not for three days. What the hell made you think we were supposed to be in Benton Harbor today?"
Dean reaches between the driver's seat and the front console, pulls out the tour itinerary.
"This," Dean answers, thrusting the binder at Joe.
Joe sighs heavily and grinds the heel of his hand into his forehead. He grabs the binder and holds it up by his face, waggling it back and forth.
"Today's lesson…listen up. This says 'tour itinerary.' Every roadie in the fucking world calls it the Book of Lies."
Dean closes his eyes briefly, inhales and puffs the air out. Somebody could have just told him that to start with. On the other hand, he didn't ask. But then he's never really had to ask for marching orders before this.
"Where are we supposed to be right now?" Dean asks.
"Mears, Michigan. "
"I'll get us there."
Joe looks at Dean steadily for a few seconds and Dean meets his gaze, not about to be the first one to look away. Joe nods finally.
"Then I suggest you get this piece of shit back on the road ASAP. Load-in is at noon. I'm going back to sleep."
Dean sinks into the driver's seat and pounds his head into the steering wheel a couple of times before he straightens up and plugs the new destination into the GPS. He's got a hundred and twenty-five miles to go and two hours to do it in. Fucking awesome.
I hope this tin can is insured, Dean thinks, as he cranks the ignition. The engine turns over with a deep diesel rumble and they roll out of the parking lot.
**
Dean wakes up hot, sticky and aching. It takes him a minute to recognize his surroundings as a bunk in the crew's RV. The interior of same currently feels like the inside of a pizza oven and smells like dirty socks and old fast food wrappers. Both of which have spent all day inside a pizza oven.
He groans and rolls out of the bunk, trying not to aggravate his rib any more than it already is from lying flat for…Dean checks his watch…about five hours. He maneuvers into the tiny closet of a lavatory and relieves himself, studying his face in the mirror while he's at it. The scrutiny is kind of compulsory, really, since his reflection is only about six inches away. His eyes are bloodshot and swollen, but his busted lip has mostly returned to its normal size. He still thinks he's looked a lot better.
T-shirts and jeans seem to be the standard crew uniform, so Dean's had no trouble in that department. He thinks about changing his shirt—he's been wearing this one for three days and he can't smell himself yet, but he figures it's got to be getting pretty ripe. But then there's no telling when he'll get a chance to do laundry either, so he decides to wait until he can shower before wasting a clean one.
Dean's has no idea where he's supposed to be or what he's supposed to be doing. Hell, maybe bus driving is his job now. He steps out the door of the RV and blinks into the blinding sunlight. Tonight's show is an outdoor venue, some sort of amphitheatre, and Dean wanders through the gate. What he'd really like is some food and after that a shower, but at the moment he'll settle for the sight of a familiar face.
He can see right away that the stage is pretty well set up and ready to go, so it looks like they let him sleep through the load-in. Not like he was much use with the heavy lifting anyway. And he's still so tired, like he slept but didn't rest much. He feels faded, like a ghost passing through other people's lives and leaving nothing behind. He's been told ghosts are more solid when they're angry, but at the moment he can't even dredge up that claim to substance.
The sight of Joe Roper heading toward him with his characteristic loping stride snaps Dean out of his weird thoughts.
"Hey, it lives! You feeling up to working the floor tonight?"
"Yes?" Dean answers, no idea what that entails, but Joe doesn't seem bothered by the question in Dean's voice, just keeps rolling.
"Good. Meet me in front of the stage in an hour," Joe says, and disappears down a hallway.
Dean's a little irritated by the guessing game, but he's picking up a faint smell of food now and that becomes his prime objective. He wanders, following the scent, until he finds a small conference room with a table loaded down with sandwiches, little bags of chips and Snapple. He's got no idea whether he's supposed to be here or not, but at this point he's ready to eat the tablecloth so he dives in.
The food improves his mood considerably and the rest of the night picks up from there. He meets Joe down front for instruction while the "cattle," as Joe calls the fans, are starting to pour in. Working the floor turns out to be mostly just standing in front of the stage making sure the crowd stays where it belongs, and keeping an eye out for the occasional thrown foreign object.
When Night Shayde takes the stage, Dean is stationed just forward of stage left, with Joe himself in the same position on the opposite side. The band crashes into their opening song and Dean scans the crowd. It's the first thing he's done since he started this gig that feels normal to him and he relaxes into it as the show ramps up. The audience's excitement grows and the front line starts to edge forward into Dean's perimeter, pushing up against the tape that marks the stage boundary.
Dean knows he's nowhere near fighting form physically, so he compensates by using his facial expressions and body language to communicate, try to discourage potential trouble before it starts. It works better on the guys, actually. The girls are mostly too engrossed in the performance to even see Dean, which is kind of a new experience for him.
One girl in a tube top suddenly decides to launch herself across the space between the crowd and the stage. Dean grabs her around the waist with one arm and pulls her back against his uninjured side.
She's kind of cute, but her eyes are glassy—she's obviously high on something other than the music—and her face is inches from Dean's when her eyes finally focus. Dean grins.
"Gotta stay behind the line, sweetheart," Dean says, picking her up and dropping her back into the mass of swaying fans. She grins and blows him a kiss, but she doesn't try it again.
That's really the worst they have to deal with and before he knows it, the concert is over and Joe is slapping him on the shoulder.
"Good job, man. You're a natural. You handled that girl like a pro," Joe says.
"Well, I've had a lot of experience handling women," Dean says, smirking.
Joe snorts.
"Call me in ten years, Wet-Behind-The-Ears. Maybe you'll have half the stories I do."
"Maybe, but I'll still have hair left by then," Dean cracks.
Joe flips him off, which in Dean's experience usually means a person's out of comebacks.
"So, what now, boss?" Dean asks, throwing him a bone because he's feeling good, recharged from all the activity and excitement. "We headed for California? South Beach?"
Joe laughs.
"Sorry to disappoint, but no driving for you tonight, bud," Joe says, clapping him on the back. "We got three open days and only three hundred miles to the next gig. That means real hotel rooms and a day off tomorrow. Let's go find the beer."
**
When the load-out is done and they drag themselves into the lobby of the hotel, there's some bitching amongst the crew about the quality, but it actually looks a shade nicer than what Dean's used to. He drops his loose-packed duffle in the room Joe shows him, but then Michael pokes his head in the door before it can close.
"Hey, man…the beer's down here," he says, grinning and motioning down the hall.
Dean's not one to argue with free beer, so he follows Michael to a room which might or might not be Slam's. He's there, but so are all of the other crew members Dean knows, plus a couple of others he's never met, including one girl.
"This is Jennifer. She's the merch girl," Michael says, pointing to the girl sitting cross-legged in the corner of the room. Her hair is black and she's pretty average-looking except for her eyes, which are large and bright blue.
"You can call me Jen," she says, smiling faintly at Dean and taking a long swallow from the beer in her hand. She seems kind of detached from the rest of the group, like she's just there to observe. Dean can relate.
"Hey, I'm Dean," he answers, lowering himself to the floor beside her. "What's a merch girl? Is it something dirty? I'm kind of hoping, 'cause I've been hanging out with these smelly bastards for the last couple of days and let me tell you…"
She interrupts him with a lazy chuckle and picks up her cue.
"'Merch girl' means I sell t-shirts and a bunch of other worthless crap." She lowers her voice and narrows her eyes. "But on my days off, I put on a skin-tight leather bodysuit and fight crime, smite evildoers—blow random sailors in back alleys—you know, the usual."
"That sounds like a pretty dirty job, all right…" Dean starts and then they finish the sentence together. "…but somebody's got to do it," they say in unison, laughing.
Dean's comfortable here on the floor, so he stays. They drink and the beer keeps coming and Jen gets quieter while the rest of the room gets progressively noisier. The crew is trading stories and insults and Dean just sits back and listens. He doesn't have any stories suitable for the present company. In fact, he's pretty much lost the thread of whatever Joe is saying when Slam pounds his fist on the table and bellows, "You!"
Dean jerks his head up toward the noise and finds the big man's finger pointing straight at him. His mouth falls open. What?
The momentary silence breaks up with laughter and catcalls and Dean looks to Michael for an explanation.
"Dude, you're about to find out how Slam got his nickname," Michael says, laughing.
Slam motions Dean to the chair across the table from him and Dean goes warily, wondering if he's about to undergo some kind of new guy initiation or something. Then somebody sets a thirty-pack of beer on the table. Slam counters by slapping a worn church key down, and Dean gets it.
Shotgun.
Dean smirks and looks down at the table for a minute, then around at the crew before he returns to Slam.
"Okay, old man. You think you got it, bring it on."
The crew erupts again, like Dean knew they would. He's going to lose this contest and he's going to lose big, but he can't really get out of it without causing problems for himself down the road and at this point showmanship is everything. It won't be the worst thing he's ever had to do to fit in someplace new anyway, although he doubts it's going to do the hotel's carpet any favors.
He pats his jeans pocket for a sharp object, then realizes his knife is still God knows where. He looks over one shoulder and then the other, leaning back in his chair to grab the complementary ball point pen off the desk.
Slam sneers a little as he looks Dean in the eye and rolls a can out of the carton. He hefts it in his palm and picks up the church key like an Old West gunslinger. Dean eyes him back, one eyebrow lifted.
"Count us off, Mikey," Slam says.
"Ready? One, two, three…go!"
Dean slams the point of the pen into his can and seals his mouth over the hole, pulling up on the tab and sucking down beer for all he's worth. The chanting and cheering fills the small room and Dean feels more than he hears Slam's can hit the floor, at least a full second before his does.
Dean wipes his mouth on the back of his arm and laughs, and Slam shoves his shoulder too hard, nearly sends him flying out of the chair and onto the floor. Dean rights himself and Slam sets out two more cans.
"Good effort, kid! Best two out of three, now, let's go." Slam points at Dean as he says it, face solemn in the way that people look when they're trying not to seem drunk, and Dean thinks, why not?
"Why not" becomes obvious to Dean after another four beers in about ten minutes—or it might be ten beers in four minutes—he's mostly lost count and the floor is littered with empty cans. Dean's buzzed already and he's done this before, so he knows it's probably going to get worse before it gets better. His stomach is sloshing and everything is already starting to blur around the edges, but one thing is clear at that point: Dean's got to give it up or throw up.
Slam tries to set up another round and Dean shakes his head, and yep, there it goes…the rest of the alcohol hitting his bloodstream. He blinks hard, then waves his hand at the table for a few seconds before he manages to make actual words.
"No, no, no…I'm out, dude…you win," Dean says, pulling groans, calls of 'Pussy!' and other assorted trash talk from their audience. Dean ignores them. He's busy breathing, sucking air in hard to settle his stomach. The motion of his chest is violent enough to make his rib twinge beneath the alcoholic haze.
But apparently while Dean's body was busy reminding him why he can't afford to vomit, they've progressed to the philosophical portion of the evening's festivities, because Slam begins to speak.
"Now don't feel bad, young 'un," Slam slurs, and Dean frowns slightly. He's a little confused. His stomach seems to be giving up its effort to reject the beer and the pain in his rib has slunk off into the background, and he's actually feeling pretty good now. Why would Slam think he feels bad? Does he look bad? But Slam continues to talk and Dean loses what little train of thought he managed to string together in the first place.
"It's like this, me fine boyo…when you get down to the short and curlies, you wanna play goddamned drinking games? You gotta be a pro, or they'll just eat you up and spit you out. Man, I used t'…every weekend when I lived in North Carolina about ten miles from Camp Lejeune…Sundays was all about outdrinking younger Marines."
"Sounds like a good weekend, Slam," somebody says.
"It was a good weekend every weekend. I got good at my skill…and if you're gonna drink like a pro, you gotta practice like you play. If you drink hard in practice and don't drink hard in the show? You got no game."
Dean's pretty lost; in fact, he got distracted back at the beginning of the lecture with the weird Irish thing Slam had going on there, and the sports metaphor really isn't helping, either. Actually Dean thinks he deserves a fucking medal for remembering a word like "metaphor" at all right now.
Slam keeps talking and at some point Dean slides off his chair and onto the couch. There's more drinking after that, too, but Dean's mostly done. His last coherent thought is that losing isn't so bad.
**
Dean's sore rib complains him awake again the next morning—or maybe it's afternoon, he's not sure. Waking up hurting is already starting to seem like a way of life. One thing that's not normal is the noise of heavy breathing and snoring he's hearing. He opens his eyes to check and a stab of pain lances through his temple. He looks down at himself. He's still wearing the same clothes from…he's not sure how many days ago…his back jammed into the corner of the shitty, hard-backed little hotel couch.
Dean eases to a sitting position with a groan and rubs at his face with both hands, then slides them away and looks at the room. Bodies are everywhere. Dean doesn't know enough to make an accurate count, but it looks like most of the crew just dropped and slept where they fell, except he doesn't see Jen anywhere.
Dean scopes out the best route to the bathroom because he needs to piss, vomit and drink some water, not necessarily in that order. He steps carefully over Michael, who's stretched out on the floor in front of the sofa, nearly lying on Dean's feet. He passes Jake and snorts, tilting his head slightly to appreciate the detailed and fairly artistic rendering of an erect dick over a pair of balls that's now inked on Jake's bare chest in black marker.
The front door clicks open as Dean's leaving the bathroom and Joe walks in and starts nudging random bodies with the toe of his boot.
"Rise and shine, ladies! Let's go, get your fat, lazy ass up, Phil. We're out of here in thirty," Joe says, wading through the room, stirring a wake of moaning and shifting behind him as he goes.
By the time Joe finishes stomping his way around the room, Dean can hear a telltale bubbling sound from one corner of the room, followed by the thick, sweet scent of pot smoke. He eyes Joe questioningly.
"I thought we had a couple of days before the next gig?" Dean asks.
"We do. Don't mean we don't have things to do," Joe answers, with a lopsided grin. "Thirty minutes!" he bellows on his way out the door.
Dean decides he needs a shower a lot worse than he needs a bong hit and he wanders down the hall. He tries his key card in three door locks before he finds the one where he left his stuff the night before. Home sweet home. For the next three days, anyway.
**
Joe is already in the driver's seat of the running bus when Dean steps in. Joe stops him and hands him a small wad of money.
"Advance on your per diem," Joe says matter-of-factly.
Dean thanks him and pockets the cash. He's feeling close to human again, just left with a slight residual headache he knows he earned, and it's not that bad anyway. Bear swings into the bus behind Dean and Joe closes the door and pulls out. The rest of the crew is already set up in the back with another bong and Michael passes it to Dean almost as soon as he sits down. Dean takes it, figures this whole trip has been a "when in Rome" kind of experience and there's no reason to change it now.
He decides it was a good call as the smoke settles easy in his bones and takes the edge off his headache. When Michael hands off to him the third time, Dean remembers to ask.
"What are we doing?"
Michael laughs, chokes out a lungful of smoke and the word "Go-carts."
"You're shitting me."
When they pull up to the Malibu Grand Prix and Mini Golf park five minutes later, Dean is forced to conclude that Michael was not, in fact, shitting him. And when they all climb into their miniscule cars, it becomes even clearer to Dean how utterly serious these guys are about the whole stoned go-cart racing thing.
Dean squashes himself into the third car back and checks out the controls while he's waiting for everyone else to get loaded. So to speak. The tiny cockpit is surreal after driving so many miles in the Big Pig, as he's taken to mentally calling the crew bus, and he spaces out the entire safety lecture. Or maybe that's the weed; it's hitting him kind of hard and he's not sure if it's something about the batch or if it's just that he hasn't done any in a while.
He looks for Michael and finds him just behind him to his left, revving his car with both hands on the wheel, gleeful expression on his face, and Dean thinks he could easily pass for a ten-year-old right now. Dean faces forward again to find Slam turned around looking at him from his position in the car ahead of Dean. He bares his teeth at Dean just as the signal flashes green and the attendant motions them out. Slam steps on the pedal and peels out without even turning his head back to the front, then laughs maniacally when the attendant yells at him to slow it down.
Dean jams his foot on the gas and swings out onto the curving, concrete track right behind him. He speeds down the straight, chasing Slam's car and fending off Jake's efforts to pass him. If these little turds want a piece of him they're going to have to work for it.
They drive and swerve and skid until all Dean can see is a whirl of color and smoke. He zones out on the smell of the exhaust, nothing but reflex taking him around the other cars. A weird sounds floats to him on the wind of his movement and it takes him a minute to realize it's his own laughter he's hearing.
There are a couple of near misses, but no one wrecks during the first round. Michael slaps him on the back as they climb out, laughing like idiots, and Dean realizes he came in first. He punches the air with a fist, grinning hard and throwing back the other guys' trash talk. Slam flips him off, but the big man is laughing hard enough that his beer gut shakes.
It's the middle of the week and the park isn't crowded, so they run the little cars in almost back-to-back go-rounds. It's goofy as hell, but Dean's actually having a good time.
After a while Dean loses count of how many times they've gone and decides to sit out a round, grabbing a soda and flopping down onto a bench to drink it. That's how he sees it happen, spooling out in front of him like one of those slow-motion replays on ESPN.
Michael takes the second turn about five times faster than he should. There's a loud screech and a cloud of black smoke as his tires lose their grip on the track and the car goes airborne. Miraculously the car stays upright during the flight, bouncing to the ground, tearing across the mini-golf course and rolling gently to a stop about five yards short of a children's birthday party.
They're invited to leave the facility after that, of course, but Michael is laughing and happy, just rolling in the glory, and Dean can't help grinning and shaking his head over how thrilled he is over his wreck. The kid's going to be telling that story for years, Dean can tell. Nobody else seems too disappointed either, especially when Joe mentions food, and they straggle out of the park in a bedraggled, scruffy line.
Dean slouches into his seat on the bus. He's tired and his rib is sore from driving the stupid go-cart and laughing so much, but he realizes he's pretty okay with it all anyway.
"What was that?" he asks, more to himself than anything, but Michael answers him.
"Day off, man," Michael says with a shrug, like the rest of it goes without saying.
Dean thinks back over the low-stress, friction-free day they've just spent, and decides it probably does.
**
They fall into a rough routine after that, one day bleeding seamlessly into the next. Dean spends a lot of nights driving and everyone else hates doing it, so they're all okay with him for being exempted from load-in duties. He sleeps during the day, getting up in time to find something to eat before the show. That part is usually no problem. Getting a shower is almost always a lot trickier.
He's up early today because he's got something to do and that's what he wants to focus on right now. They're in Sioux City, which is about ninety miles from Council Bluffs and he just got his first paycheck. It's not enough money to cover the repairs on the Impala but he'll have the rest soon, and Dean feels okay with ordering the new transmission using part of what he's got already for a deposit.
Dean drives to Council Bluffs to give the mechanic the money himself, after talking Joe into letting him take one of the empty trucks. He could have called the guy, put it on the credit card he still has, but if he's honest, he really wants to check in on the car.
He pops the lock on the storage shed and opens the door. The heat is explosive and he steps back until the temperature equalizes. Dean climbs into the Impala and sits there sweating for a minute, soaking up the familiar feel, inhaling the smells of home. Then it hits him like it always does, but he'd forgotten…oh, shit, he forgot…the way every inch of this car makes him think "Dad."
Dean sits there a good five minutes before he gets himself under enough control to open his phone and press the button. And of course he gets the goddamned voice mail.
He ends the call, burst of anger washing away the last of his spasm of sentimentality. His dad can tell he's still alive, if he ever bothers to check. That's what the missed call log is for.
**
After the hundred-mile round trip in the Midwest summer heat, Dean decides a shower is a priority. It's an arena show and there's probably a ton of locker rooms somewhere in the bowels of the huge building. Dean's walking toward the back entrance of the arena with a towel and a clean t-shirt slung around his neck when he sees something that hits him wrong. Or more like somebody.
There's a big guy in a wifebeater undershirt peering into the back of one of the larger equipment trucks. He looks kind of familiar, but Dean's doesn't think he's one of the crew. Dean doesn't know all of them by name, but he's got a good handle on their faces. Besides, this guy has a shifty look, slithering around the containers like he doesn't belong, or at least doesn't know exactly what he's looking for.
Dean switches directions and slips back into the bus. He eases down the steps and outside with his Beretta ready in his hand. It's the worst time of evening to see anything, the last of the day's light washing away the clarity, like watching a movie in black and white. Dean stalks the dumpsters and empty trucks, stopping behind a light pole when he hears voices. He cranes his neck around the corner of the building.
The white undershirt shines up relatively bright against the shadow of the building and Dean creeps closer to see what's going on. He can tell pretty quickly that the man he's been following now has a smaller person pinned against the wall, and from his posture Dean's guessing he's holding a knife. There's no good firing angle here, so he just gets as close as possible before he gives away his position.
"Hey!" Dean barks, when he thinks it's the best he's going to get.
It startles the guy like Dean figured, but the punk is smart enough to grab his intended victim as he whirls, using the smaller person as a shield in front of him.
It's Michael.
Dean holds his gun steady in their direction, likes to think he doesn't betray anything on his face, but the big man sneers at him anyway.
"I'll have him gutted before you can get off a shot."
"Maybe, but if you do, I'll kill you anyway. Either way, you'll be dead," Dean growls, staring him down.
Dean watches him, sees the flicker of intent in his eyes a split second before the guy drops the knife, shoves Michael at him and runs. Dean grabs Michael by the shoulder one-handed and shoves him behind his body with one sweeping movement, but he's too late to catch the fleeing man. He's fast for a big guy.
Dean hesitates, comes within a hair of just shooting the attacker in the back as he runs off, but he lowers the gun instead. He'll probably regret letting the asshole get away, but right now he doesn't want to deal with all the blowback that will inevitably result from firing his gun right here in the middle of town.
"Shit, thanks, man," Michael says, breathing hard.
"Yeah, you're welcome," Dean says, scanning the area for further threat before he turns his attention back to Michael. "Now, you want to tell me why that guy wants you so bad?"
"I…I don't know. He just came out of nowhere, dude…"
Dean can see the lie in the kid's eyes and he interrupts what is undoubtedly going to be a totally lame explanation.
"This is a steaming pile of bullshit right here, Mikey." Dean points in the direction of the big man's flight. "That was the guy from the bar, the one that kicked the shit out of me the night I met you."
"Uh, how do you know?" Michael stammers.
Dean squats down and picks up the knife.
"Because this belongs to me."
