Chapter Seventeen
“No True Love, for all your kin,
While they prioritized their needs,
And know just what it is to win,
Their prize through heartfelt deeds.”
Lyrics from the folk song “Crossroads Coyote”
Although Johnny was too big a star for The Kitchen, he liked to try out new songs there a few times a month. It made the locals feel special and he got a rush out of the applause. Tonight, he felt none of his usual gratification, as he arrived for his set and moved through the crowded saloon. People were whispering about him.
Not ego-inflating “oooh, he’s famous” whispers.
The snickering “look at that loser” whispers he’d endured all through high school.
He thought he’d left that behind when he’d gone to college and reinvented himself. With his improved looks and streamlined moniker, he’d been able to date the hottest girls on campus. Not just Mamie O’Rourke. (He hadn’t been about to tie himself down to some dumb whore, who couldn’t even get him on her dad’s TV show. Johnny was still pissed about that.) No. He’d been popular with lots of women.
He was still popular with lots of women. All chicks wanted to fuck a genuine celebrity. It was indisputable. Johnny took full advantage of his status, too. It was his right!
So, why did he keep dwelling on his decision to not take Clem to Homecoming? Why did it feel like a huge mistake that had set all this current wrongness into motion?
Fucking Pecos Bill. That’s why.
That dirty coyote had confused everything . Clementine should be at home, making chicken and dumplings, while she helped Johnny with his new song. He missed her bright eyes and sweet smile. Instead, she was imprisoned at Bill’s rat-trap apartment, while Johnny dealt with the entire band by himself.
“Johnny?” Tony Beaver’s eyes widened as Johnny approached the bar. “What are you doing here?”
“I have a set in twenty minutes.” Johnny said dismissively. “Is the bourbon here organic? I need a drink, but I don’t want any unhealthy chemicals…”
Tony cut him off. “Fiddley-i-o, didn’t you get Dinah’s message?”
“What message?”
“You don’t have a set here. Word got around that you’ve been badmouthing The Kitchen and Dinah says she’s through with you.” Tony didn’t seem very sorry to impart the bad news. “Plus, you fired Clem. That was a dumbass thing to do, considering Dinah loves her.”
“I didn’t fire Clem. We’re just restructuring our partnership.” Outrage filled Johnny. That old bitch couldn’t push him off stage. He was a star! “Who told Dinah I was badmouthing The Kitchen? Was it Pecos Bill? The coyote has it out for me, Tony. Everybody knows it.”
“If he does, you’re losing the contest, my man.” Tony sounded delighted with Johnny’s struggles. “Bill played the Lone Prairie tonight and brought down the house. First, with his performance and then when he wrecking-balled some douchebag who touched Clem. Dinah laughed when she heard about it.” Tony leaned across the bar and lowered his voice. “I’ve never heard Dinah laugh before.”
“Clem said Dinah wouldn’t even put Bill on stage here.”
“Yeah, because he won’t kiss her ass. Everybody else does, but Bill just walked out, when she pulled her typical bullshit. Dinah threw a fit. Between you and me, though, she seemed damn impressed with the guy.”
Johnny rubbed his forehead. The meanest lady in town was warming up to Pecos Bill? He couldn’t handle this shit. He just couldn’t. “That coyote is trying to steal my happily ever after, does no one get that?”
Tony arched a brow. “What exactly did he steal from you?”
“Clem, for starters!”
“You threw her away, Johnny. That’s just about the stupidest thing I ever heard of. You know how many artists in this town would kill for a muse?”
“I don’t need a muse. I’m a creative genius.”
Tony scoffed. “You’re a damn idiot. Nothing can do what muses can. Their powers turbo-charge talent. People try to fake that kind of boost with Hasten-2. You had everything an artist could want --free, safe, and smiling at you-- but you screwed it up.”
Johnny’s eyebrows tugged together. “Hasten-2 gives inspiration.” He recalled. “Same as a muse.”
“ Nothing like a muse. That elixir is illegal for a reason. It’ll burn out your creativity forever. I seen it happen to a buddy of mine. All your ideas get worse, and darker, and then, pretty soon, they’re gone forever. Watch out for that shit. It’ll torch your whole life.”
Tony was so dramatic.
Johnny’s phone vibrated in his pocket, and he fished it out. Susannah Alabama had texted him some long, panicked diatribe. Why had he ever let that woman into his pants? She was a constant trial.
All females were a trial. Susannah was a bland, whiny dishrag. She just provided a convenient mouth to suck him off and some background music on a record. Clementine was blinded by that scheming coyote. A sweet little rosebud, too naive to navigate a man’s world. Rosalee was a harpy, filled with complaints and demands and inaction. She was a slut, too. She’d fucked him the first time he ever pressured her the littlest bit.
He was too Good for all of them.
Johnny skimmed Susannah’s message without much interest. Didn’t he already fire her? About halfway through the block of run-on text, the name “Vulture Valente” jumped out.
The sick feeling in Johnny’s gut got worse.
Tony let out a low whistle, reading the phone over Johnny’s arm. “Gossip site’s got copies of some sexting messages between you and your bandmate, huh? That’s gonna be a scandal. Especially, that part right there.” He pointed to the screen. “Did you really make her call you ‘maestro’ in the sack?”
Johnny yanked the phone back. “It’s all lies! Vulture can’t prove anything!”
“Gossip sites don’t gotta prove anything. They just have to report it.” Tony smirked and went to go refill beer glasses.
That was all he was good for, anyhow. That beaver couldn’t drum his way out of an ungated corral. Everybody knew it. He wasn’t a real artist. Just some loser who played farmer’s markets and worked part-time at a friggin’ wedding chapel, because he couldn’t…
“Johnny!”
His head swiveled around, just in time to get slapped in the face. “Shit!” He bellowed, gripping his throbbing cheek.
Rosalee stood in front of him, breathing hard. She was wearing one of her elegant poncho-dresses, but her eyes were anything but cool and refined. “You bastard!”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” He demanded, aware that everyone in The Kitchen was now staring in their direction.
Rosalee held up her phone, like it was some kind of evidence. “I’ve got Vulture Valente emailing me details of your affair with Susannah Alabama and asking for an official comment!”
“Well, give him one, then! Only make it better than how you cleaned up that Ti-Yi-Yo mess.” Johnny glowered at her, in no mood for some female tantrum. “That ‘support women in music’ thing Bill started is getting bigger . And why can’t you make people stop using my real name?”
He couldn’t stand that everyone knew he’d been born John Jacob Jingleheimer-Schmidt. It made him feel exposed and dirty. He was so much bigger than his loser teenage self.
Rosalee refused to do her damn job. “You have been cheating on me!” She railed, only focused on herself.
“Blowjobs aren’t cheating.” Johnny waved that nonsense aside. “They’re just something guys do. It’s not like you and I were exclusive, anyway.”
Several nearby men nodded in solidarity, solidifying the righteousness of Johnny’s cause.
“Of course we were exclusive.” Rosalee hissed. “We were talking about marriage! ”
“Well, now we’re talking about my career. Put your personal bitch-list aside for a minute and act like a professional. Stop the texts from getting out.”
“It’s too late. They’re already up on Vulture’s site.”
“How could you let that happen?!” If Tony had ever bothered to get him a drink, Johnny would be throwing it at Rosalee’s smug face. “You’re the worst goddamn manager in Red River Valley!”
“How fortunate that you won’t have to put up with my incompetence any longer, then.” Rosalee’s smile was rich-girl mean. “I quit.”
Something like panic flared in his chest. A sense that everything was falling apart around him. “Don’t be stupid. You love having me as a client. The Yellow Roses is going to be the biggest band in town and everybody…”
She cut him off. “You were going to be the biggest band in town. Were , Johnny. Past tense. Present tense, you’re a cautionary tale. Your reputation is in tatters and the second album isn’t working.”
“It is working. I just need more time to refine the new sound.”
“The new sound is shit. There’s no refining shit. It’s always shit.”
“You said you loved it! You said it was sophisticated!”
“I lied. It’s just something managers do.” Her expression was like an assassin’s right before they fired the kill shot. “It’s becoming very clear to me that the real talent on The Yellow Roses was always Pecos Bill. Clementine saw it, too. It’s why she’s just become his muse.”
“No.” Johnny swallowed hard. It felt like his chest had just been hollowed out with an ice cream scoop. “She wouldn’t do that to me.”
“Except she did . I heard it from the bartender at the Lone Prairie. He does my hair.”
Johnny tried to think through the frantic pounding of his heart. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t need a muse. You’re the one who told me they don’t contribute anything. I am the star of the band.”
“There is no band, anymore.” Turning on her Herring Box heel, Rosalee walked away forever. “Maybe I was wrong about muses. Maybe some artists do need them. By yourself, you’ve got no music in you.”
Johnny stood there, a bubble of awkward silence surrounding him. No one looked him in the eyes, but they were all staring. It was exactly like going back in time to high school, only suddenly there was no Clementine to cheer him up with her laughter. She’d moved to Pecos Bill’s lunch table.
He couldn’t let this happen.
He wouldn’t .
He wasn’t weak and ostracized John Jacob Jingleheimer-Schmidt, anymore. He’d become Johnny fucking Jacobs and Johnny fucking Jacobs didn’t lose.
“Tarnation, pal. That was hard to watch.” One of the guys who’d been nodding along with his side of the argument now looked pitying. “Sit down. I’ll buy you a drink. You need it.”
Johnny slowly shook his head. “I’m gonna need something a lot stronger than bourbon.”