Title
Copyright 2014 Bull Garlington
Here’s the don’ts.”
Benny’s about 10 minutes out from Minsk in a converted cargo plane that smells like barn animals with the headliners, a bunch of hairy post-collegiate nerds playing laptops instead of guitars. They drink Red Bull and play Sudoku and read books about disappearing niche eco systems. They could bathe more. The kid taps a thumb drive on Benny’s sleeve.
The don’ts are listed on this tiny device in the five separate rider contracts the venue has to honor in order to convince these dipshits to walk on stage. Back in the day, this was just a liquor order with “broads” and “dope” scrawled across the bottom in angry capitals. That was back when Benny would do nipple checks at the back door and the private photographer carried a Ziploc bag full of coke in his lens case. But these guys, these vicious little brainiacs; here’s some of their don’ts:
1. Don’t supply superfluous machine-made paper goods of any kind including documents requiring signature.
2. Don’t provide visible advertisements except from products contracted FOR THE CURRENT EVENT, including but not limited to:
a. Back Pack Straps
b. Headphones
c. Non-contractual electronic equipment
d. Hats
e. Belts and buckles
f. Coffee Mugs
3. Zedd’s area requires one couch and table with a scrabble board and tiles for two, open and ready for play.
4. Moi-St’s area is to be non-adjacent to and visibly distinct from teamsters’ area.
If it weren’t for the snarky little bass player, built like a rope and wired on caffeine day and night, they’d just be a bunch of panty-waste gravers—but that bass player rocked like a champion. She played bass like she was solving some kind of roaring math problem at a thousand miles an hour. Benny dug the kid for being unwittingly old school, despite her lack of dope sense. The rest of the band was lackluster shits. Also, the bass player had a one sentence rider that Benny put right up there with Zepp and Foghat. In the very center of a pristine 8 x 11 page, she had a single admonition:
Please disregard.
The light techs and the parkers fucking loved it. They’d do anything for her just for being easy—but that’d crack The Don’t. So, they built the stage and ran wire and tested equipment and the bass player would wander around checking everything until the stage was more or less clear, then she’d perch on the lip of it and stare. Her name was Frank.
Benny ran their road crew for four weeks now. Their manager, Syd, had called him up and asked him to take the band to Russia to headline a string of shows. Nobody knows Russia like you, Benny. You been there. You know The Don’ts.
Benny zoomed out from the thumb drive tapping on his sleeve. He glanced into the pale gray eyes of the laptop jockey across the aisle from him and jacked it into his Blackberry. They hated smack but they fucking loved their Blackberries. Couldn’t see the difference if you sketched it out on a napkin (he’d tried). Junk is junk. The pusher changes. They landed with a spine-snapping thud and skidded into Minsk.
The stage went up like clockwork and about the time Benny was measuring reverb on the lead mic, he noticed Frank standing next to him.
“Benny, can we push it to point three milliseconds?”
“Sure. Why?”
Frank about faced, looked up at the back of the auditorium.
“There’s a lot of architectural junk in the balconies. Nobody’s gonna sit there, so they pile all kinds of crap in ‘em. Makes the room smaller than it looks. Swallows up the tail end of the reverb on Zilch’s vocals. Point three millisecond opens it up. It’s a fake but it’s a good fake.”
“Ok.”
Benny carefully went back to punching in the reverb but Frank was still there, reading a brochure for Viennese tourism. Benny whispered for a mic check. The voice crawled way back up into the rafters before it disappeared. He cocked his head and pointed his chin at Frank.
“I don’t mean to be a dick, but you don’t seem old enough to know shit like that.”
Frank didn’t even look up from the pamphlet. In a second she wandered off.
They had the pre-show buffet. Syd showed up and motioned Benny out of the makeshift cafeteria. Benny walked up to Syd with a plate full of chicken wings in his hand. He could see the busses parked down the back lot through the big doors Syd had walked through.
“Bernard, you have to take it easy with Frank.”
“What?”
“I got a complaint. I was told you ignored Frank’s rider.”
“I thought she was the cool one.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? Kid’s a walking couch. She’s 20 on the outside but she’s a hundred and nine up here,” Syd pointed to his skull. Looked like vaudeville.
“Look, Syd, all I did was make a comment about her sound skills. Kid’s got a head like an engineer.”
“Yeah; she’s a genius. They’re weird as all fuck. Look, I know you didn’t mean anything but, seriously, don’t fucking talk to her again.”
“She can blow me, Syd. These kids need orgies and cocaine.”
“Don’t we all. Stick to the don’ts.”
Syd walked out to go to the box to count the take. Benny sees Frank out near the busses smoking a cigarette and staring into the woods. He wipes his greasy fingers on a napkin then flips Frank the bird and Frank turns around just then. Nothing he could do. Just for the fuck of it, Benny ceremoniously gives her both fingers, like a noble benediction. Frank just stares for a sec then turns back to the forest.
They come into Vilnius at three in the morning. Poland has good jazz and they have a layover. Benny hands over the reigns to his second, grabs his guitar, and catches a cab to the waterfront. He’s on stage at an open mic by 4:30 in a little place he can’t pronounce but is assured means “Local Pub,” when Frank walks in. Benny’s stepping up to the mic and everything. Nearly trips.
The band is a handful of Polish and Lithuanian die-hards who’d just capped off a set over in Gdansk. They’re happy Benny wants to play. They know the real shit when they see it. They know old school. Benny pops the kapo up a notch and belts out the jangly opening of “Fisherman’s Blues,” closes his eyes and everything disappears. He comes out of it a few minutes later. The crowd’s nodding and clapping and all looking at him. Even Frank. The two horn guys launch into a Van Morrison riff and Benny’s eyes nearly roll back in his head. After that, they do three Bowie numbers without stopping, follow it up with “Hoover Factory,” “I Write the Book,” and “Watching the Detectives.” They play like a runaway train until the sun comes up. They close out with a full-bored lush and luxuriously over-brassed rendition of “Redemption,” that morphs into a brief encore of “No Woman No Cry.” Two Lithuanian girls join him at the mic then follow him home.
When he wakes up, they’re parking his bus in Berlin. Syd gets on before he can even get his head straight and fires him.
“I told you not to mess with that kid, Benny.”
“She walked into the bar where I was already playing ON MY DAY OFF!”
“Ok.” Syd stares into his folded old hands. “Ok. You’re right. I’m letting the box get ahead of me here.”
“Look, I’ll finish out Vienna, then you’ve got a three day break before London. I’ll drag up. You bring in a new guy. I’ll stay out of the kid’s hair until then.”
“No hard feelings?”
“Fuck, Syd. Goddam rock and roll babies. I ain’t hurtin’.” Benny shakes his hand and pops a smoke in his mouth. Lights. Walks back through the curtains to the two Lithuanian chicks and grins. “You guys ever been to Vienna?”
Prague looks like an old photograph of itself. B
enny has a tech run breaks for him so if Frank comes into eyeshot, he’ll wait in the bus till she wanders off. He works the day out then takes the Lithuanian girls to a Greek place he knows. They have grilled Octopus and five servings of Saganaki, fire stabbing the roofbeams and the whole place yelling HOPAH! Benny loves European chicks. They eat like they’ve been starved to death, drink like Russian mobsters, and fuck like porn stars. He’s glassy-eyed and wobbly when they steer him into the Double Drum and push him up on stage. Same band. He’s barely grabbed the mic when the drummer clicks off a one-two-three and they fire up a couple of Jane’s Addiction pieces. He does “Jane Says” with just the brushes and the lightest touch on the bass while they tune a guitar then set the place on fire as they split “Coming Down the Mountain” with “The Ocean” from Houses of the Holy. People are screaming. The band simmers down and Benny lights a smoke and some