“It appears as though the closest Ryuji is going to get to us is Cincinnati,” Mavis told George as she stood in the kitchenette of their fifth-wheel preparing dinner. George looked up from his computer monitor and watched Mavis cut up a carrot.
“How do you know that? From what I read, the schedule is a closely-guarded secret.”
“I sent Ryuji an email a while back. Remember, I have his business card.”
George started typing Richmond into his favorite search engine. “I take it you know how many hours it would take us to get there,” he said.
“Actually, I don’t.”
“Eight hours, forty-six minutes,” he read from his computer. “You’re aware that the shows are sold out.”
“We’ve got tickets.”
“We do?” George asked, surprised since he had no idea Mavis had been making plans to attend one of the concerts.
She turned around, smiled at George standing at his desk. “Yeah, and I’ve arranged to meet with him after the show.”
“Well, well, well … you’re one secretive little minx. So, are we going to go back stage and hang out with all the other groupies? Maybe, we’ll join in with smoking the ganja they’re trying to force this country to legalize,” he said with more than a tinge of sarcasm. Mavis considered that. I hope so.
After Chicago, the Dogs moved on to Indianapolis and were slated to perform in one of the oldest concert venues in the Midwest. The main hall was not large, held around 2000 people, but the building had an unusual Middle Eastern design with minaret-looking towers on the corners and was constructed of a light-colored stone. All in all, it was a glorious place situated downtown in the Arts and Theater District.
“You know, I think we played here once back in the early 90s. If I remember, the main hall has some cool chandeliers and shit,” Sophie told Karl as their taxi drove up to a side entrance of the theater complex. The ride from the airport took less than 30 minutes.
After they left the taxi, they looked for the entrance marked on the map Madelyn had sent by email.
“What do we do now?” Karl asked. “Is someone going to meet us here or what?”
“Ms. Choice?” a young white woman with a slim figure but rather chubby face greeted them once they got inside. “You remember me? I’m Diamond’s friend.”
Sophie looked (with ‘relief’ written over her face) at Emily, smiled broadly and replied, “Of course I do. How have you been holding up so far? Tours can be a real bitch. This handsome young man, by the way, is not my lover, it’s …”
“Her son Karl,” he interrupted, reaching out to shake hands. She obliged and smiled as they went through this simple ritual.
An hour later, Karl, Sophie and Emily were sitting in red-velvet theater seats a couple of rows from the front as the Dogs and their road crew were on the stage going through a final sound check before they started to rehearse a couple of songs with Sophie.
“It was a relief Summit decided to cover the expenses and a bigger relief they agreed to pay for Karl as well,” Sophie babbled to Emily. “The reason Summit did so, of course, was that I refused to do the show unless I had my son along for protection.”
“Since I have no classes on Friday and don’t need to be back until Monday, it worked out perfectly,” he said to Emily sitting on the other side of his mother.
“So, this is the first time you’ve seen the Dogs perform, right?” Emily asked.
“Hell, it’s the first time I’ve seen my mother perform since I was a kid.”
“Probably six or so, I think,” Sophie said. “Damn, you’re making me nervous. Not only am I freaked out having to sing live for the first time in months, I’m not used to the band, and my son is going to be judging me.”
Emily for some reason giggled. “Not to mention the fact that you’ll be on stage in front of several thousand people in just about three hours.”
“Sophie, if you could join us, we’ll try to go through a couple of songs,” Diamond called out from the stage.
Of course, not everyone in the Diamond Dogs was happy with having different members of the TRinkets sitting in on their gigs. Not only was it disruptive in that one of their members had to sit out a couple songs or pretend to play along, but it forced the band to perform songs they weren’t necessarily skilled at playing. During the rehearsal, it was decided they would focus on the couple of TRinket songs done with Ryuji in St. Louis and Chicago. Of course, since Sophie had written or helped to write many of the TRinkets’ hits from the 80s and 90s, some people in the audience would probably want to hear not only a couple songs from the latest CD, but several from the past. Therefore, in the last few days, they had spent a little of their dead time, learning “Hopped-up Manifesto,” which was the TRinkets’ most popular old song online. Diamond and Bowen didn’t feel too stressed by it since they had learned it earlier when preparing for the ill-fated Waikiki concert. Canus, the backup vocalist, percussionist and sometimes keyboard/synthesizer, wasn’t worried since that song didn’t demand keyboards or extra percussion and Sophie would be singing with Diamond. Dickie the bass player, however, since Ryuji had played the bass in the first two guest-member performances, didn’t feel up to the challenge of having to play a quick rendition from the TRinket songbook.
The most tension about the situation, though, had to do with ego. For the most part, the Dogs wanted to be known for their music, not for being a TRinket backup band. It was bad enough having Ryuji step in and hearing the crowd erupt, but when Sophie walked on stage while they were still in the middle of their most popular song, the audience went ape-shit; evidently, most had expected Ryuji since he had played the previous two shows. Not only did this huge and instantaneous burst of excitement unnerve the Dogs, but they were very annoyed since she appeared on stage earlier than expected. Even so, they stuck to the plan and transitioned what they were playing into “It Don’t Bother Me.”
It was rather unnerving to experience the crowd’s response when they had transitioned into “Sensibowl” for Ryuji in St. Louis, but the cheers from the crowd now definitely bothered the Dogs even more: their only ‘real’ hit was being eclipsed by a middle-aged, anorexic bitch who was too senile to realize that she was supposed to come on during the next song.
To make it worse, after “It Don’t Bother Me,” members of the audience chanted “Whores Implore” (an old TRinket standard). Sophie was more than willing to oblige, but Dickie cocked his head to one side, waved his hands and shook his head negatively. Instead, they played the one they practiced, followed by a couple more from the recently released album.
After she left the stage, she grabbed Karl and squeezed him close to her. “Damn honey, they loved me; really loved me. Damn!”
“You were great. It was amazing,” Karl responded as Emily stood next to them. She tried to share in their excitement, but she was a little concerned how the audience would react after it was clear Sophie’s segment was over. At the last show, once people realized Ryuji would not return, they began to leave. Here at Indianapolis as well, even though it was dark, she was sure she could sense people exiting the hall. The Dogs continued playing, but within a couple of minutes it was obvious a sizable portion of the audience had cleared out. In desperation, Diamond made a signal and the band started to replay their ‘hit,’ the one that Sophie had interrupted. Unfortunately, that did not stop the exodus. Sophie rejoined the group for the encore and they performed “Sensibowl” to a greatly reduced audience.
After the concert, Dickie couldn’t restrain himself and said to Sophie, “Don’t ya think you were a little early?”
She was surprised at his brusqueness. “It was the right time,” she said with a tinge of sarcasm that seemed to say: “If I waited any longer, the hall would’ve been empty.”
Karl was relieved that the crowd accepted his mother when she appeared on stage. Also, he was relieved she was able to transform so easily from being a court reporter to a professional entertainer who was skilled at keeping the excitement from ebbing. Why then was he having difficulty getting to sleep? After leaving the concert hall, his mother and he shared a taxi to the motel at which Summit had booked rooms for both them and the band. He was relieved to learn that he had his own room. They arrived a little after midnight; he quickly took a shower and decided to go to bed since he wanted to do a little sightseeing (see the Speedway and Kurt Vonnegut’s Memorial Library) before flying back to Wichita. Who knows, maybe it was the bed that was making it difficult for him to get to sleep quickly, or was it the phrase, “your mojo don’t work on me,” he was sure he heard someone say in the midst of all the screaming and cheering?
What did it mean? It sounded as though it was taken from a lyric in the song made popular by Muddy Waters in the late 1950s. Karl knew that ‘mojo’ was originally an African-American folk belief term referring to a charm bag that held items meant to bring success or some benefit to the possessor. Did he really hear that? Was it intended to be racist or a threat of some kind? These questions kept going through his mind until he decided that the next time Sophie performed, he would be seated in the audience. Shortly after he made that decision, he fell asleep.
News that Sophie had made an appearance at the concert in Indianapolis made TV and the major media websites in addition to the regular entertainment aggregators. The surprise element was a very smart promotional strategy for Summit to utilize. It guaranteed record ticket sales for the concerts, it kept interest in the on-demand video stream, and downloads and CD sales continued for both the TRinkets and surprisingly the Dogs themselves. The biggest part of the news was how explosive Sophie was in Indianapolis. Several of the TV spots showed short segments of the performance taken from video uploaded onto social media by fans who recorded it with their phones and tablets.
Madelyn looked at Brad ensconced in his solar-powered chair, dressed in plaid and denim grunge, move among the once again healthy pot plants with Chelsea (dressed in matching grunge) by his side.
“I’m amazed that a local news crew hadn’t filmed a segment of the concert to use on their program instead of relying on the shaky uploads with rotten resolution supplied by fans,” Madelyn said as she walked slightly behind the old couple. Instead of wearing grunge, she had on a pair Marden’s Nursery overalls since earlier in the day she had been helping Peter and Tinker apply an anti-fungal to the plants. Just a few minutes ago, however, she had received from Summit a couple of news links concerning the tour.
“So far, we have discouraged news outlets from filming at any of the venues, except for short interview segments with either band members or fans,” Chelsea said, turning to Madelyn closely behind her.
“We were hoping the coverage they would get would be from the fans, and that appears to be happening. This should encourage even more people to try to get the best video possible – thinking they’ll be picked by the news outlets,” Brad added.
“Times have changed; that’s for sure. I know Ryuji mentioned in Chicago most of the people in the audience viewed the concert through their devices. He said it looked like a sea of screens watching them.”
“That’s an eerie image,” Trink said, walking behind Madelyn who he could see slightly jump at hearing his voice.
“Where did you come from?” she asked, startled.
“My mother’s womb, I think,” he said.
With a deadpanned expression, Madelyn looked at him holding Limey. “Are you sure?”
“Immaculate conception, perhaps, or aliens?” he replied, eyes turned towards the ceiling.
“That explains the last name: Mars,” Chelsea said, grinning.
“To get back to the subject at hand, after Cincinnati, who’s next? Do we have a volunteer?” Brad asked, looking at Trink.
Links to the previous chapters of Book Three
(https://steemit.com/fiction/@keniza/wackos-to-obliterate-book-three-chapter-1)
(https://steemit.com/fiction/@keniza/wackos-to-obliterate-book-three-chapter-2)
(https://steemit.com/fiction/@keniza/wackos-to-obliterate-book-three-chapter-3)
(https://steemit.com/fiction/@keniza/wackos-to-obliterate-book-three-chapter-4)
(https://steemit.com/fiction/@keniza/wackos-to-obliterate-book-three-chapter-5)
(https://steemit.com/fiction/@keniza/wackos-to-obliterate-book-three-chapter-6)
(https://steemit.com/fiction/@keniza/wackos-to-obliterate-book-three-chapter-7)
Copyright (©) by Kenneth Wayne