Chapter 9
(Johnny)
It was a sixteen-hour ride from Palm Springs to Portland, meaning we had to break it into two days for safety’s sake. Having Damage Control with us was a game changer, though. Despite the way I’d bristled when Draven first suggested that Blissfully Immune hire them the way Damaged Saints had just done, the incident in Palm Springs and the videos that popped up on the internet soon afterwards convinced me that he was right. Rocktoberfest had been an unexpected game changer for us in the best possible way, but I was still struggling to wrap my head around the crowd’s reaction.
I knew we were good. We wouldn’t have been issued an invitation to play if we weren’t. But back home I’d become a pariah, and even the people who used to kick it with me when I was still playin’ bars turned their backs when I walked down the street. I’d feared the same reaction from the crowd at Rocktoberfest so much that I’d dragged Jagger away from his band and gone down on my knees in the dust at my best friend’s feet, begging him to play my set for me.
My best friend could have easily said yes.
Hell, a lesser friend, especially one in his position, an unknown making his big debut on the grand stage, would have jumped at the opportunity to leap up there and show off. Playing with two bands in one night, especially with his talent and versatility, would have sent his market value skyrocketing. He’d have had bands trying to lure him from Damaged Saints, maybe even big bands that would have succeeded in dangling enough in front of him to get him to bite. Instead, my best friend, the man I knew with all my soul loved me the same as he had the brother he’d lost, went down on his knees in the dirt with me, hugged me and told me to get my ass up on that stage and fuckin’ sing.
His face and Draven’s were the ones I’d focused on when I’d launched into that first song. Front and center in the VIP section with the rest of their bandmates, they’d been the support I’d needed to do one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do.
Face the world after the crime I’d been accused of.
I was no angel. There were plenty of things I’d done that I wasn’t proud of. Excess had been a thing I’d reveled in, especially once I’d gotten my first taste of fame. But there were lines I’d never crossed, even if that meant staggering home down streets where I knew I risked getting mugged. I’d never driven impaired. Not drunk, not stoned, not even exhausted from an orgy after playing two sets. I walked when I couldn’t afford a cab after the buses had stopped running and when ride shares came along I utilized them, too, even if it went against all the preaching the old folks always did about not getting into cars with strangers. There were plenty of areas in my life that I was reckless about, but I’d never done anything, ever, to put anyone’s life in jeopardy but my own. I hadn’t caused that accident, not even close. I’d been as much a victim as the people in the other vehicle. Yeah, there was paint transfer from Rebel’s car to theirs, but I’d only hit it after we’d both finished spinning.
My vehicle hadn’t been the one to kickoff that chain of events. If it hadn’t been for the split-second decision I’d made when I spotted the green van whose driver I wished would come forward, they’d have been involved in the wreck, too. I’d grown up driving that stretch of road between New Bedford and Taunton. Route 140. I knew it like the back of my hand. On that stretch, there was no guardrail to keep you from running into the median grass, and that sloping ditch dividing the two-lane highway had a steep enough rise on the other side that out-of-control cars wouldn’t spin into oncoming traffic. Only that van had been there, rendering my plan of jerking the wheel in the safe direction an unthinkable option.
There had been nothing in the other direction but the patch of black ice that had sent me into that spin.
Investigators had found it, confirming that part of the story, but without the driver of that green van, they couldn’t corroborate the rest of the events, or the presence of the speeding, weaving vehicle who’d been treating that stretch of road like their personal racetrack.
The events of that night ran like a loop through my mind as we took our Portland exit in the diamond pattern Sully had set up. The guy had even thanked me for being a rider because it had given him the opportunity to zip up his leathers and get the hell from behind his laptop. He’d come armed with a route already planned out, suggestions for meal stops that were off the beaten path and holy shit, not a single place had been a dive, either. Homey food, cozy environment, dark corners with warm lights the same as my favorite haunts back home. My appreciation for Sully’s diligence and foresight had only increased with every mile that rolled past. They knew their shit, not that there ever should have been any doubt. That night on the street, when Draven had taken charge and gotten us safely back to our hotel room, I’d seen a side of him that I’d never known existed.
Fierce, protective and downright dangerous in his defense of me as he’d hauled me through that crowd, mowing at least two people down with his size and determination. Hell, he dwarfed me on my own bike and I knew we probably looked silly to some who passed and probably a few of the men who rode with us, but he’d never driven a Harley and no one drove my baby but me. If people wanted to think it strange that the big guy was clinging to the little one, then they’d better open their eyes and really check out who was tearing down the road on two wheels, ‘cause not every rider was male and not everyone clinging to the driver was a woman. Those old stereotypes needed to die. It was good seeing that Sully didn’t follow them, two of our guards were female former Marines and one was a former Air Force helicopter pilot who’d gone on to serve as a San Diago Police Officer and a member of the Border Patrol. She’d seen things, man, and after serving through Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, she’d come out and transitioned. That’s right, our guard was a six-foot-three badass Viking transwoman who I was grateful to have watching my back on this trip. Christine had taken one look at my Heritage Special and told me I needed to get a taller sissy bar before my backpack fell off. It had taken me a moment to get what she meant, ‘cause I wasn’t wearing a backpack. Then it dawned on me that she meant Draven, and I damn near bashed my head off the speedometer laughing so hard.
Portland was beautiful, holy shit, I couldn’t wait to explore. But first, we needed to hook up with the rest of our bandmates and get settled in at our hotel. Sightseeing would definitely have to wait for tomorrow, after we had the chance to work out some kind of itinerary. The age of spontaneity was dead, but I was ready to embrace that. If we’d had bodyguards of any kind the night of the accident, I’d have had eyewitnesses to back me up, instead of one drunken Rebel, who’d been the reason I’d been behind the wheel of his Firebird in the first place.
Talk about the definition of irony. The one night I’d shown some restraint and hadn’t let a drop of anything pass my lips, due to the memory of the massive hangover I’d woken up with that morning, I’d landed myself in a world of shit. Not a good selling point for sobriety, let me tell ya.
My body rumbled even after I’d killed the engine, the tingling running up my thighs, over my hips, my body always pulsed with the energy of the bike even after I swung my body off. Draven’s nails scraping up the back of my neck helped ground me, trailing with it wicked promises of things to come later. Our vacation might be over but we had an amazing dream ahead of us, one of touring the country and even heading overseas, provided I wasn’t stuck in a jail cell.
As we headed to our suite, that was the one thing that cast a pall over the moment. That lingering knowledge that everything I’d worked toward, everything my bandmates and I had sacrificed, everything Draven and I had promised one another back in that hotel room, could get taken away in an instant if twelve people refused to see that I hadn’t done what I was being accused of.
“Johnny!”
Oh shit, I forgot to brace for impact. Jagger smacked into me with the force of a demented jackrabbit, our momentum carrying me backwards into Draven, the three of us hitting the floor in a heap. Of course Jagger ended up on top and I ended up squashed between him and Draven, while motorcycle boots stepped around us as people struggled to make enough space to close the suite door.
“Dude,” Draven wheezed from beneath me, voice even more strained than normal from the combined weight of Jagger and I sprawled across him. “You just saw him on video chat this morning.”
“Piff,” Jagger hissed, sticking his tongue out at Draven before licking my cheek. “Ain’t the same.”
“A little help?” Draven groaned as shadows fell over us.
Batting my hair out of my eyes so I could see just meant Jagger’s wound up tickling my nose. Before I could tickle him in retaliation, Keegan plucked him off me and tossed Jagger over his shoulder like he weighed less than a toddler.
“Let them breathe before you break somebody,” Keegan cautioned him as he swatted Jagger on the ass.
“And you put him down before we have a horny imp on our hands,” Robbie said as he helped me up and off Draven. “Dude, you got a tan.”
“That’s what happens when you spend ten days in shorts and tank tops,” Draven grumbled.
An afternoon of mostly silence, aside from the few times he’d spoken over meals, had left his voice strong enough that he didn’t need his device at the moment, but I knew he’d have to pull it out before the band meeting. We had a lot to go over, and I needed a bit of one-on-one time with Jagger to get a contingency plan in place. The thing I still needed to tell Draven, the thing I’d planned to tell him yesterday morning before we left the hotel but hadn’t had the opportunity to before we started wrestling around in the sheets, was that they were talking about revoking my bond and issuing another arrest warrant, for the new charge they were adding now that Mrs. McCall had died. If that happened and while I dealt with it, I needed Jagger to do what he’d refused to do at Rocktoberfest. I needed him to sing with my band as well as his own. At least until the final decision regarding my fate was handed down, we knew one way or the other if my band was going to need a permanent replacement for me.
Fucking hell, I didn’t even have anyone in mind. The one person I’d have gone to, the one person who knew every song just as well as I did, was the man I’d hooked up with the gig with the Saints. Did it make me a shitty friend if I wished I hadn’t? I’d known when I’d done it what I was facing, but I’d still had faith that the driver of the green van would come forward on their own, with the way details of the incident had been circulating in the media. Naive much? I wouldn’t have thought that about myself with all the things I’d seen, but as Keegan set Jagger back on his feet, all I could think about were the bleak possibilities that awaited me back in New Bedford, and the dreams of my friends that I refused to see squashed.
This time, when we crashed together, I clung to Jagger with all the strength left in my hands after a day of having them wrapped around the throttle.
“You good?” Jagger asked, low enough that in a crowded room I knew no one else would have heard, there too many welcome backs and you’ll never believe what the fuck we saws going around for anyone to notice our little moment.
“Not even close. Need to talk.”
“I got you. ”
Sound dulled as he led me away from the community space and into one of the four rooms I knew the suite contained. When we were in town, this was always where we stayed. As Blissfully Immune, we’d written several songs here. Back when we’d first started out and it had just been me and Rebel in search of the perfect band members to complement our sound, we’d come to an afterparty here. Holy shit, it had been amazing to see Adrien Lee and his boys live and get to party with them. As legendary as they were on the stage, the things that had gone down that night would have blown the minds of the dirt rag followers. Legendary didn’t even begin to cover it.
My thoughts felt like swirling sand, grating and rough, making everything look like it was trapped behind frosted glass. Oh wait, those were my tears and there was Jagger’s face swimming into view as he attempted to brush them away with his thumbs.
“What happened?” he asked, holding my face so I couldn’t turn away from him.
“M-mrs. McCall died, t-there g-gonna revoke my bond and s-slap a second c-c-charge on me,” I wailed, collapsing into his arms.
Teeth digging into my sleeve, I stifled my sobs as best as I could, not wanting anyone to accidentally overhear and come see what the fuck was going on. Like he always did, Jagger silently gave me time to cry myself out. He never bothered with platitude or hollow words we both knew wouldn’t bring the comfort the well-meaning intended when they uttered them. He’d told me once that in the days after his brother’s death, the words he’d come to hate most hadn’t been I’m sorry , they’d been time heals all things . I understood that now better than I ever had back then. Time was too unpredictable. The longest day for one person could fly by in the flap of a raven’s wing for another. Vicious and cruel, it stopped for no one, pitied no one, took mercy on no one and didn’t give a shit if you were right there, right fucking there, a fingertip away from your most precious dream. It ticked past the instant dreams were smashed the same as it catapulted us into a New Year. One second at a time. With deadly precision, from birth until they laid you in the grave.