Dave didn’t need it.
Dave needed drumsticks, pussy, pot and blow, and Dave was all good.
[Chuckles]
I got my first blowjob in Michigan City.
It was a Preacher castoff, he told her to blow me, she did, and I did not and still to this day do not give that first fuck.
I’ve had more experience since.
[Grins]
So now I know.
That woman gave righteous head.
Lost my cherry, as it were, in South Bend.
She was not a castoff.
She was mine.
Her name was Beth.
Even though she was just a one go, guys sang “Beth” to me for the next I don’t know how many months.
Don’t care about that either.
[Grins again]
I love that fuckin’ song.
I don’t know how he got it, or if Tommy got it, it was probably Tom, but they got it.
It was Preach that gave it to me, though.
My mom had wanted me to go to the doctor. Always on my ass about picking, so I didn’t pick.
Or squeeze.
I didn’t want to think about it. I just wanted to wake up one day and it’d be gone.
Preacher and Tom did something about it.
Took two months using that cream they got their hands on, prescription shit, and then not a single zit.
Never came back.
[Points at face]
That’s Preacher’s, sister.
It was Tommy and Preacher who called my shit out.
It wasn’t long after South Bend.
The seal was broken, and I was on a tear.
I don’t know where the guys were, but I was in the camper getting laid.
Got off, she took off, and I was gonna try to find the guys, so I cleaned up, took off after her, still tucking my junk in my jeans.
Saw Tom first, he was down the lane from where we were in the RV park.
He gives a head lift, I think to me, but I closed the door and Preach is there, leaning with his shoulders against the camper.
I’m all “Hey, dude.”
He’s staring in the distance and all “You figure your shit out.”
“What?” I ask.
That’s when he looks at me.
“I listened to that whole thing, it didn’t last even ten minutes and it was about you, brother. Figure your shit out.”
Needless to say, I repeated my question because I didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about.
“You get her off?” he asked.
You know…
[Shakes head]
Shit.
I lived more than half my life wide open and not every second of it was stellar.
And it is no lie, I have never felt as humiliated as I was right then.
“Learn to eat pussy,” Preach advised. “You need pointers?”
I think I broke a record tellin’ him I did not.
Even though I probably did.
“Fingers too, brother. Until you figure out the g-spot, and after, man. She’s got a clit for a reason. You hear?”
He waited for me to nod and then waited more, like he wanted me to know how important this was.
I figure I somehow communicated that I got it because he took off and joined Tommy to do whatever it was they did.
Mostly planning world domination.
It’s stone-cold, but true, that Tommy was about brand even before anyone called it a brand.
A fan did not leave a gig without being satisfied, you get me?
For Preach, it was something else.
You know about Lyla.
So, I figure you get that too.
It was Christmas when they told me.
We were home, had some gigs Tommy set up in Indy, but we all got to sleep in beds in our own houses.
Or our parents’ houses.
Penny had just had the kid and she was a hollowed-out shell, and that is no fuckin’ pun.
They told me, and I scoured town until I found whatever chick’s bed Preach had fallen into and I knocked on the door until he answered, barefoot, no shirt, jeans not done up, and no words needed to be spoken what I’d interrupted.
He took one look at my face, and it was her pad, but she took a hike and he got the Jack and we sat in her living room, me on her couch, Preacher sitting on her coffee table in front of me.
“Dad’s got cancer.”
He caught me at the back of the neck with his hand and just held on, staring in my eyes.
You know, that moment lasted so long, when I think about it now, I’m surprised I’m still not sittin’ on the couch, looking into Preacher’s eyes.
I told you about getting those notebooks at Kmart.
I didn’t tell you, it was Preach that drove me around to all of them, miles and miles, until I thought I had enough.
He didn’t bitch once.
We were in Pennsylvania when we got word.
Pittsburgh.
Me and Preach, a map and a Yellow Pages so we could find Kmarts.
I wrote that down too.
That’s somewhere in the first notebook Dad gave me.
I wrote down those patches of road Preach drove in Pittsburgh the day Dad died.
Every stretch.
Preach and me flew home. The band voted. Tim stood down, because he was my oldest friend, but he knew Preach was the one who should go. Not for me, for Mom and the girls.
We didn’t make dick and every penny we could, we set aside ’cause Tommy played it that way.
He wanted us in a studio. He wanted us to cut a demo. Studio time cost a fortune.
He was getting us more money and sometimes managed to get us takes of the door. That was part that Tommy was a man it was hard to say no to and part that we were getting a following.
Seriously.
Sometimes, we’d play “Give Then Take” and people would sing it with us, not that first record pressed, not a joke.
Tommy found the cheapest seats he could get, and I’ll always owe it to the boys that they let us have the money so we could fly home for Dad’s funeral.
Preach was the rock, you know? Not just for me. For Mom. Penny. My baby sister, Lana.
He did dishes, man.
[Leans forward, shaking head then hangs it]
[Mumbling] He did everything.
[Long silence]
[Coughs, lifts head, but does not sit back]
He slept on the floor by my bed in my old bedroom. Mom hadn’t moved anything out. We didn’t have a guest room. He didn’t sleep on the couch. He slept on a sleeping bag on the floor by my bed the whole week we were there.
One of those nights, that was when he told me.
Told me how he knew his version of giving then taking and how fuckin’ serious-ass ugly that shit was.
Told me about his parents.
About why he was not in Louisiana but in Indiana and, “We’ll tour one day, brother. But we will not go down there. We will never go down there.”
New Orleans is a party town and it’s a fantastic place. I’ve been there more than once.
But we never played there.
Not once.
He didn’t tell me that to lay a heavy vibe on me.
He told me that so I could rejoice even after my loss.
Preacher had what he had.
My dad cowed to my mom, hated doing it, didn’t hide it, didn’t stop doing it, ended up hating her for it.
But in the end, she stood by his side and she took him to his treatments, and she held his hand when he slipped away and she wept at his funeral holding my hand and Lana’s hand, while me and Preach held onto Penny.