Wackos to Obliterate: Book Three (Chapter 16)

Cylvia stared at the ticket vouchers Julian handed her. “You’ve got to be kidding. How did you get them?” She looked at him sitting across the table they shared in a busy coffee shop located just a couple of doors from the Crime Museum.

“You might not believe it, but the band’s bass player who’s now in the news due to an accidental shooting …”

“I know about that. I just saw it on my news feed,” she interrupted.

Julian was pretty surprised at how excited she seemed to be and how she was so engaged in wanting to know the details. “Well, I don’t know the facts about that, but Ryuji and I just so happened to meet in the same town a couple of years ago and even went hunting together at the duck blind where the accident occurred.”

“You got the tickets directly from him?”

“Actually, they came from the record label in L.A., but yeah, he had them sent to me.”

“He hasn’t been charged with a crime, has he?”

“What I read was it’s being investigated, but so far it appears to be an accident; his gun discharged and hit an older guy in the foot,” Julian said, imagining the scene of Gerold being hit with buckshot as described to him by George just a few hours earlier.

A look of physical pain covered Cylvia’s pretty face as her mouth formed an “O” and she squinted. “Ouch!”

“Yeah, well anyway, I think we can predict Ryuji won’t be the guest TRinket at the D.C. show.”

“Do you think it’s true he’s a pedophile?” she asked Julian with a troubled look on her face. He picked up his coffee cup and took a sip before he answered. Her question had an accusatory tone to it as though she had concerns about Julian’s past as well; after all, the two of them were middle-aged and knew each other.

“Who’s accusing him of that? It almost sounds as though you’re accusing me for some reason: guilt by association. No, I don’t like to play with children. You’re the youngest playmate I have, thank you very much.”

“No, I wasn’t implying anything by asking that. News about that just came out.”

“Why?”

“It has something to do with a photo pasted online of the bassist with a teenage boy.” Of course, Julian knew about both the picture and the news, but he was a little surprised at how quickly the general public digested the latest morsel dropped into the blogosphere by the boys at the Bitmore Group.

Trink was surprised as well by the speed at which both the shooting and the pedophile accusations had spread. It even influenced his appearance in Philadelphia. It was almost as though the whole thing had been manipulated and planned well in advance. Of course the motto, “City of Brotherly Love” had been exploited to the max. There were people outside the concert hall holding signs with blown-up images of Ryuji and Jimmy with a slogan: The City of Brotherly Love Does Not Support Younger-Brotherly Love! Others read: Disagree? Just Shoot Me!

Of course, there were plenty of taunting messages addressing gay marriage, sex change, the horrors of drug decriminalization; yada, yada, yada. In the venue itself, there were no posters or taunting chants except the occasional shout-out from isolated people and/or some groups in the audience. Overall, he thought the show was very well received. In particular, the cheering was insane when he walked on the stage.

No doubt, most people were expecting Sophie and few thought Ryuji may appear in an attempt to deescalate the rumors and rising negativity in the media; he wasn’t in custody after all. By this late date in the tour, however, few guessed Trink would appear. Whatever the reason, when he made his presence known, a roar erupted from the audience accompanied with clapping, foot stamping, and hoots. The adrenaline rush made him feel he could do no wrong and broke into a hot set of several new songs and two of his biggest flashes from the past. For these, luckily, the other members had been practicing during their off days to ensure they would be able to comply.

While they were finishing off what they planned to be the last song of the set, Diamond’s main amp made some strange noises as sparks flew. Seconds later, it went dead. The cause at first was unclear, but some people started to make a lot of noise and a small scuffle broke out close to the front of the stage. From the stage it was hard to see what was happening; it appeared as though some members of the audience attempted to grab someone wearing dark clothes; the person broke free and quickly headed for an exit. Trink motioned for the band to stop playing.

“Stop that guy, he’s got a gun,” somebody yelled. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the announcement had the opposite effect to what was intended; it made anyone, who may have grabbed the fleeing person, back off and let him run past. Why security did not swiftly act was a mystery, but it did not and the suspect was gone. Back stage all the band members were freaked out, but Trink was affected the most. Life in shadowland is better than death.

Madelyn stared at the Pixie Palace, standing proudly in the Marden backyard, as she spoke by phone with her husband the morning after the scare in Philly. “So, the Dogs want to cancel the D.C. show?”

“Would you go on stage after that? Let me rephrase that: would you like me to do the show?” Trink asked as he sat on the king-sized bed in his motel room in Philly.

“But you’re not scheduled to do that show. It’s Sophie.”

“In that case, the show must go on.”

Madelyn frowned and rolled her eyes. “Don’t be such a dipshit. I’ve been assured by Brad that security can guarantee a safe venue in D.C. It’s the nation’s capital, with all the anti-terror precautions, the Dogs and Sophie will be safer than at home. He said there hasn’t been a death in any theater or hall in D.C. since Lincoln.”

“Well, there’s a verifiable statistic that’ll reassure everyone. What happened here, then? There was no guarantee given before our show? It’s not as though there hadn’t been any negativity expressed at the earlier concerts, right? The TRinket’s weren’t allowed to perform live just because of that.”

“D.C.’s the last show. We’d love to back out, but frankly, the cause of the accident has yet to be determined. One of the engineers told us it looked like the typical fuck-up with dated electronics. Let’s face it, some of the Dog equipment is pretty-dodgy stuff.”

“That I have to admit; I was shocked when we started rehearsal. Summit should have supplied better gear for such a long tour,” Trink said, calming down. “So, the consensus appears to be faulty equipment rather than someone trying to assassinate my sorry ass.”

“You can calm those dogs down with that news, then board your flight and get back ASAP. We received some intriguing developments concerning the investigation.”

Shortly after he got off the phone with his wife, Trink left his room, walked down the hall and knocked on Diamond’s door. Emily opened it, dressed in a pink running suit.

“You’ve been out jogging?” Trink asked as he entered the room.

“I was in the middle of my Pilates routine until Mr. Rock Star forced me to answer the door.”

“So, where’s the ax grinder?”

“I’ll be right out; just brushing my teeth,” Diamond called from the bathroom.

Trink sat in a chair next to the desk/mirror wall cabinet typical of motel rooms throughout America, while Emily resumed her exercise routine on a mat placed under the room’s largest window. Diamond walked in, sat at the foot of the king-sized bed and looked at Trink. “What did you find out from Maggie?”

“According to her, some engineer looked over your amp and concluded it wasn’t a gunshot, but rather an electrical malfunction that caused it to short out.”

“A micro-Jimi Hendrix in there who smashed it with his guitar?”

“Something like that.”

“So, she said not to worry and on to D.C.”

“That’s easy to say when it’s not her man who’s going to be on stage,” Emily said from the mat.

Shortly after, Trink and Diamond joined the other members to inspect the destroyed amplifier. They reached a unanimous decision that it had not been hit by a bullet.

“So, everyone ready to take the capital?” Bowen asked.

“Let’s burn it down!” Diamond said as the other members shook their heads in agreement.

Julian was a little anxious about Cylvia. It was not that he was worried something would happen at the Dog show; rather, he was getting anxious about their relationship. As with many people who have not had an intimate relationship before, he may have been troubled about what could change in his lifestyle if they became serious. For him, it had always been difficult to deal effectively with the feelings and emotions of another person. Since it started getting sexual, however, he wondered whether too many entanglements would develop that would result in making it hard to pack up and head down the road when he had to do so.

In fact, such barriers had already started to appear. For instance, just weeks after they first met, he decided it was better to rent an apartment than continue to live out of his truck. This decision came after he realized they would very soon hit the stage where she would come back to his place. If the place was the truck, it would be awkward to explain why he had a multitude of electronic devices stuffed into the restricted space. On a more practical side, he realized it would be next to impossible to share the small sleeping space he had in the truck.

It was fortunate he moved when he did since, within a week, she had found a way to get herself invited to his place and shortly after that, her toothbrush was resting in the same cup with his. A few more days passed and she replaced the cup with a more conventional toothbrush holder. By the time the Dogs arrived in D.C., she was spending most nights at his place; just a couple of days before that event, Julian discovered a bug in his apartment. It was fortunate George returned the detector.

Sophie knew she was last at bat. After the initial reports of a gunshot in Philly and Karl urging her to cancel D.C., she almost backed out. But after talking with both Brad and Maddie, she was convinced it would be safe; of course, it wasn’t their skills at persuasion that did the trick, it was her desire to relive the rush she received when the audience went crazy in Indianapolis. No doubt since she had not been in a serious relationship for quite a while and had been living a pretty celibate life as a court reporter, she had no other chance to experience a boost of adrenaline or hit of dopamine to her system like she received in Indianapolis. Until that time, she had not realized how much she got off from performing. Gunshots be damned, she was not going to miss her chance to hit the last home run of the tour.

“As Brad said, ‘no one has died in a theater since the days of Lincoln.’” Sophie smiled as she looked across the kitchen table at her skinny son.

“Where did he get that statistic? Can it be verified?” Karl asked. She rolled her eyes and threw her hands in the air to signify she didn’t have a clue.

“The Dogs are on board, 100%?”

“Yep, so if you still want to come, our flight takes off tomorrow a little after noon.”

“There’s a stopover in Chicago, right?” Karl asked, frowning.

“Wichita isn’t a major hub, you know.”