And Preach says, “I’ll totally tell her you said hi. But you can tell her yourself seein’ as you’ll meet her backstage.”
Then Tommy gives the guy passes for him and his whole family to the show and this guy is beside himself.
He’s eating this shit up.
Preacher shakes his hand, claps him on the shoulder, and he’s got a way with this kind of thing. He always did.
It’s not the first he’s done, or we’ve done.
But he could do that. The handshake. The clap on the shoulder. And do it without it being obvious he’s not putting his full force behind it, so they’re not reminded they’re sick as fuck and going to die.
There were a lot of things I admired about Preach, as you can tell.
Gotta say, the way he was with people who got a shit hand in life and they wouldn’t have the time to wait for a re-deal, that was near to the top of the list.
We’re gettin’ in the limo after, Shawn’s in, Tim’s in, Preacher’s folding in, and Tim does this cough to hide him saying, “Faker,” and as he intended, what anyone intends with that bullshit, he meant it to be heard.
And it was heard.
Now, I’m pissed at Preacher but what are we?
Ten?
So now I’m also pissed at Tim because we got issues to hash out and it ain’t gonna happen like that.
Preacher pulls a Lyla and gives Tim a look that would melt iron, but he settles in and just stares out the window, acting like we aren’t there, and he does not say a word.
Shawn’s also sittin’ there, staring out the window, and Tim’s sitting right next to him, and I got half a mind to let that lie and half a mind to drag Tim outta striking distance from Shawn because Shawn’s vibe is lethal.
The drive to the station wasn’t all that fun.
The last week since Tim went off set in Phoenix hasn’t been all that fun.
The last few months have not been fun.
Now the drive back to the hotel seems like it’s gonna be even less fun.
And Dave can’t hack it.
So, he says, “Are we gonna talk this shit out, or what?”
Then for whatever fucked-up reason, Tim throws at Preacher, “You know, if she wants to get clean, you shouldn’t stand in her way.”
And yeah.
[Lifts eyes to the ceiling, shaking his head before he again lowers them]
Like calling Preacher’s shit out onstage, that is the exact wrong way to approach things with Preacher.
Preacher engages to say to Tim, but, mind you, it’s a direct shot, and a successful one, a damaging one, at Dave, “It wasn’t me who gave her her first taste of that shit. I didn’t want her anywhere near it.”
So now Dave engages.
“Oh, was it a Preacher McCade clone that I saw all those times holdin’ a spoon to her nose? ’Cause if it is, this doesn’t make me too happy seein’ as one of you is more than enough right about now.”
“Close it down,” Tom cuts in. “Everyone go to your corners and cool off. We’ll have a band meeting after we get to Portland.”
“Fuck that,” Tim says.
Now I’m engaging and I say, “Timmy, seriously. Just close it down.”
Then Tim asks me, jerking his head at Preacher, “Wait, now you’re the boss of me after he’s been the boss of me for the last nine years?”
And that was when Preacher lowers the hammer.
“You got a problem with it, Tim, maybe you’ll hand over the keys to your Malibu pad and your convertible GTO and you can go back to Mooresville and flip burgers, which is where you’d be right now if I did not become a member of this band.”
[Sits back in his chair, links fingers in front of him, elbows to the arms of the chair]
Now, mark this, sister, with hindsight, I’m gonna make a grand statement.
But I’ll tell you what, anyone asked, I’d have said the same thing back then.
Tim deserved that.
He felt like a schmuck that Leeanne had latched onto his balls and didn’t let go, he’d drifted through life on a guitar string and a surfboard with his head always in a tune or on a wave, so he let that happen and that played out in front of most of the band.
He was probably worried about Preacher.
He was definitely worried about Lyla.
And he was feeling the band sinking into quicksand and he didn’t know what to do about it so he’s lashing out, settling blame.
But we had occasion to brush shoulders with a lot of people in the industry by that time, the first bein’ Bobby Fuckin’ Sheridan.
Okay, Lyla hates it when someone uses the term “diva” to refer in a derogatory way to a woman in entertainment.
She says, give a diva a pair of testicles, he’d be called a visionary or a perfectionist, and everyone would race around breaking their necks to give him what he wanted because he’s gifted, knows what he needs, knows what he’s doing and the result will be worth it.
And she’s right.
But to serve my purposes for this story, I’ll use that terminology.
We’d had our run-ins with a fair share of divas, Bobby Sheridan being our first, and I’ll tell you this, most of them had dicks.
Preach was not that.
And Tim knew it.
So, he’s hitting below the belt and he’s known Preacher a long time. He knows, he breaks that particular seal, Preacher is all in for a dirty fight.
In other words, he bought it with that “faker” bullshit and that boss comment and all the way back to going off set in Phoenix.
The problem is, the band is unraveling.
And the person who’s held it together since 19-fuckin’-86 is Preacher McCade.
I’m waiting for him to get a handle on it or give Tom some sign he’s unleashed to sort shit out.
But Preacher just turns and scowls…
At me.
Lyla:
I love Jesse.
I named my son after that man for a reason.
But he fucked up.
From Phoenix, even before, all the way home, he fucked up.
And he did it huge.
Lyla:
We were in Seattle for two days and it felt like two years.
I had no idea what happened when they did their thing at the radio station, I just knew by the way Preacher was acting when he got back, it was really not good.
He wasn’t in the mood to talk because of that, but we’d also had our thing before he left, and for the first time, he does not come back after being a dick to me, remorseful and intent to smooth things out, make amends.
So, my bad situation gets worse because things are deteriorating so rapidly, it feels like my whole life is slipping through my fingers.
And it’s turned to sand.
No way to grab hold.
But I was desperate to find a way to do just that.
So, I needed to make a decision.
Wait Preacher out and hope things improve so he’ll talk to me, which does not seem very likely.
Or try to find out what’s happening.
I will say now that I knew this was risky.
Talking behind Preacher’s back.
As I’ve mentioned repeatedly, he did not like that.
But I loved him, and everything was falling apart.