I always felt sick before a show. Needed to sit alone for a few minutes and just meditate on my breath. Try to exorcise all the fear so that my hands could steady and play. I’m not sure what exactly brings on the upset stomach tonight. Maybe it’s Angela’s signed guitar, secured in the hard-shell case and resting at my feet. Hidden underneath the instrument in a secret pouch is a 45 record of Angela and me playing “The Poison Flood.” The guitar is Russell’s if he wants it. I can still deny my involvement in the band if he shows it off, just say it was a kind present from a childhood friend. The record is different. It feels more like a full betrayal, one where I’m still contemplating whether or not the money is worth it.
The plan is to blend into the crowd as best I can and sell the memorabilia afterward. Caroline, however, is dressed for attention. Tight jeans and a dark halter top. Wedge heels and scarlet lipstick. She checks her reflection in the side mirror, and I know I’ll be noticed just standing near her. As we climb out, some high school boys exit the bar. Country music washes out on their heels and fades as the door swings shut behind them. They lean against the banisters that hold up the rusted metal awning, share cigarettes and swig from longnecks.
The pack notices Caroline right away, but she keeps moving forward through the catcalls, dodging the deep puddles in the road as she carries my guitar case. Russell’s black hearse is parked by the front door where a man struggles to unload a drum kit from its rear. He deposits the bass drum next to the alley entrance and returns to retrieve the snare. After all the drums are accounted for, I watch as he strains lifting a Vox amplifier. Caroline and I step to the side while a bouncer holds the door open for the staggering roadie.
“Wouldn’t a van be easier?” Caroline asks.
The bouncer shrugs. “These are some strange cats. Five-dollar cover charge.” His eyes move over her body, down to the guitar. “Unless you’re with the band.”
Caroline hands him two crumpled fives. The bouncer never looks at me, just keeps his eyes buried in Caroline’s cleavage.
Inside, the dead blue haze of cigarette smoke swirls as butts burn in outlaw satisfaction at the broken no smoking laws. Men sit upon unsteady Naugahyde stools that sway as they shift. Bar lizards with leathered skin and unlit smokes bend toward offered flames. Glasses clink in the quiet. On a small stage raised only a few feet higher than the dance floor, a man begins tuning a Telecaster while another bends behind the drum kit, his beer belly hanging pendulously over his rodeo belt buckle.
Caroline orders a Jack and Coke at the bar while I climb up onto the stool beside her. I notice no one tips the gaunt, pigtailed blonde who digs low into the cooler, pulling deep in the ice to get regulars the coldest High Life possible. All around is the sense of a community. Acceptance through forced camaraderie like soldiers in foxholes, love at the knowledge one has no other tribe. I wish I was a part of it. I haven’t felt included in something since the band, and that was all Angela.
Onstage, The Copper Thieves, the opening act of the evening, begin a low-pitched rendition of Dwight Yoakam’s “Guitars, Cadillacs” that sends a few couples swaying to the beat, boot heels stomping a rhythm. I steal a sip from Caroline’s cocktail and feel the whiskey burn its way down. She lays a fat tip on the bar despite the obvious breach in etiquette. The blonde’s smile looks eerie through the tobacco cloud brightened by red stage lights. The patrons have yet to notice my ugliness. Maybe the haze works as a shroud. If so, I’m thankful for it.
“What’s with the hearse outside?” Caroline asks the bartender.
“The Excitable Boys tour with it.” The bartender shouts to be heard over the music. “You heard of them?”
“Yeah,” Caroline replies. “I’m looking for a certain singer.”
“Ain’t we all?” The bartender gives her a conspirator’s grin.
“His name is Russell Watson,” Caroline says. “You know him?”
The blonde shakes her head hard enough to send her pigtails lashing. One wraps around her neck like a constricting serpent. “Don’t know them personally, but they put on a hell of a show.”
The band plays a southern rock tune that gets the women out on the dance floor. The men slide close and grind. Even though the music is all wrong, the same sort of hoodoo that used to pump from Angela’s guitar is in the air. I can feel the power of it infecting the audience, whittling away the hard work week, the cousin in jail and the hollow pain inside all of us poor rednecks that whispers you’re nothing but country trash, that if there is such a thing as a soul, yours is made of dog shit. Music was the only thing I ever found that could mute those voices for even an hour, but since I left the band, songs bring on memories of Angela. I wonder if anything good will ever be free of her.
After the Garth Brooks and George Strait covers end, the bearded man with the Telecaster strapped shotgun high across his chest tells the audience to stick around for something different. He leaves the stage to a plump roadie who begins exchanging the equipment for the next set. Couples wander outside or return to the bar for refills. I watch as the crowd begins a slow metamorphosis. Cowboys slink out, as men without a stitch of clothing a brighter hue than gray stalk in. Both males and females are raccoon-eyed with mascara, their faces full of piercings. The Excitable Boys’ fan base.
The band comes onstage to the ominous sound of an organ. A fog machine belches across the crowd, catches the purple and blue stage lights as Russell hobbles his way to the microphone on a silver-capped cane. He wears a black suit smeared with dirt, the white tuxedo shirt so soiled it looks as if he’s been buried in it for centuries. The shoulders and lapels of his jacket writhe under the lights as live night crawlers hang from his clothing. The slimy bodies drop atop his shoes to writhe blind across the floor. Behind him, the rest of the band stand caked in makeup to resemble ghouls. Ashen faces with bits of drying gore at the corners of their mouths. Bloody wounds drawn on foreheads or throats. Victor plays bass and is the only member not in the black suit of a pallbearer. He wears a new cream-colored Stetson hat and dark boots with rusted spurs. His gun belt is strapped low on his hip. The peacemaker still rides in the holster.
“These are The Excitable Boys,” Russell says, pointing at the band.
No further introduction. The drummer and guitar player blast into a deafening barrage that shakes the small space. The crowd surges, slamming into one another and the stage. Maybe fifty kids in all, but the cramped dance floor makes it seem like a swarm beyond comprehension. Russell leans down, occasionally offering the microphone to a fan screaming lyrics. I can’t make out all the words through the buzz and distortion, but the kids eat it up. They sing back the chorus. Scream as the guitar player leads the band into a solo.
Even as I watch Russell vomit fake blood on the front row, the music incites a pang of nostalgia. It carries echoes of my own adolescence fueled by hate of The Reverend. Worse, I envy the stage presence. Russell prowls, twirls the microphone or falls to his knees crushing worms into the floorboards. I was always stationary. A man cemented to a barstool or a chair, my body unable to carry the guitar if I stood. Sitting so rooted in place made me feel vulnerable before the audience. Russell controls them.