Chapter Thirteen
Chaos…
It had taken a lot longer to do the two interviews and the appearance at the statue than I thought.
We couldn’t believe how many fuckin’ people fit into the park, and I don’t think I’d signed my name so many times ever.
My hand started cramping and I had to stop or I’d play like shit later.
I didn’t want to disappoint anyone, but there were just too many people.
Terrance, our security, had his hands full keeping the screaming women off us. It was a total trip.
With only a half hour until the sound check I didn’t think I’d have time for the nap I really wanted.
Even a beer would have hit the fuckin’ spot, but the no alcohol rule, my freakin’ no alcohol rule before the show stopped any hope of that.
Staying sober for the Garden show worked, so I wanted to keep it going.
I didn’t care if the guys bitched about it all the way back to the bus.
Arguing about who signed more autographs, we climbed into the bus. Joe’s snores as he slept in the reclined driver’s seat greeted us. He was out cold. I turned to the guys and held my hand over my mouth so they’d quiet down but it was too late, Joe shot up like he’d been fired from a gun.
“Hey, guys,” he said through a yawn. “How’d the interviews go?”
“Great, and the signing too.”
“We were fucking swarmed, man, you should have seen all those bitches,” Fury cut me off. “They were everywhere. I don’t know how they fit so many in one place. I think every chic in Philly came to see us.”
I laughed, oh yeah exaggerate much?
Wrath and Flame laughed too. “You’re out of your mind, bro. Been smoking the weed again?”
Fury grimaced. “You know I’m not, but there were a lot there.”
Joe laughed. “I bet there were. You guys still don’t realize how big Raining Chaos is, but you will before this tour’s over. I just hope you don’t change.”
He looked genuinely concerned and I slapped him on the back. “Don’t worry, Joe. We’re good. We’ve got this, been through too much to let this go to our heads now.”
“I hope you’re right. You’d be surprised how it affects some people, even if they think it won’t.”
He had a weird look on his face, like a bad memory. Whatever he was thinking about wasn’t our business, but it definitely didn’t look like happy memory.
I grabbed bottles of water out of the fridge and threw them at the guys. “Hey, Joe, where’s Cyn?”
“She went out for a walk a while ago. She’ll probably be back soon.”
“You let her go walking alone?”
“I’m not her father.”
There was the look again. Had something happened while we were gone?
“Sorry, I know you’re not. I guess I just worry about her out there alone.”
Wrath raised his eyebrow at me. “Dude, you’ve got it bad. What are you going to do about Sweets?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Besides, Sweets isn’t going to be a problem. I talked to her last night.”
“Are you sure? Is that why they didn’t come with us today?”
“Nope, they didn’t because Rod said it was just for us. He doesn’t consider them part of ‘the band’.”
“What kind of shit is that?”
“No fuckin’ clue, but I didn’t find out until he’d already made the arrangements and it was too late to do anything to change it.
I’m fuckin’ sick of all his shit. He’s showing his true colors now we’re bringing in money and I think we need to do something about him.
He’s a fucking dickwad and he’s pissing me off. ”
They all nodded. Thank God we agreed, although we usually did on most things. It sucked but we’d probably end up having to hire a lawyer to get out of this contract. Rod Dixon was a fucking boil on my ass and I needed him lanced.
The phone alarm buzzed telling us it was time for the sound check. At least I didn’t have to say anything, they were already getting their shit together and moaning loud enough about it to wake the dead.
“You need to quit your bitching about everything and being tired. We’ve got a long way to go yet. We should have a few hours of downtime after this.”
“Good. I thought we used to run around a lot before, but this is fuckin’ ridiculous,” Rage grumbled.
“Get used to it, bro, this is only the fucking beginning.”
He nodded, grabbed his good luck sticks and we followed him off the bus.
Joe was sitting outside on a chair when we left. “Joe, could you do me a favor?”
He squinted at me in the afternoon sun. “Sure, Chaos, what’s up?”
“If Cynda gets back before we do will you text me?”
“No problem.”
“Do you have my number?”
“Yeah, the bus company gave me all of them in case I needed to reach you.”
“Great. Okay, we’ll see you in a while. I think we might go in search of cheesesteaks when we get back.”
“I know some great places.”
“Cool. You can tell us on the way,” I said and winked at him. I think I might have surprised him asking him to tag along, but he’d been with us for all east coast road trips for the last year, not the same as this but he was almost part of our family now. I didn’t want him to feel left out.
It was strange having constant security with us, but after the signing this afternoon, we’d seen how things could get fucked up fast. If Terrance hadn’t been there, we’d have been screwed.
But no one was going to mess with a six foot five, three hundred pound ex-wrestler if they were smart.
Stopping by the other bus, we grabbed Candy and Sweets.
They hadn’t been happy to be left out of today’s shit, but like I’d told the guys, it wasn’t my doing.
I would make sure they were fuckin’ included from now on.
I tried to get Sweets’ attention but she avoided looking at me.
Fine, we’d play it her way. I didn’t care as long as she didn’t mess with Cynda.
It was past time to admit I had it bad for her.
Where the hell could it go? We were going to be on tour for almost a year and I’d never see her.
Maybe we just needed to fuck and get it out of our systems and move on.
Terrance led the way into the building and backstage.
Standing in the wings and seeing our equipment set up on stage, then looking out at the empty seats took my breath away.
Fuck yeah. Last night was fanfuckingtastic but tonight we were headlining.
Sometimes I wished my parents knew how far we’d come, but it didn’t matter now.
Jack and Sally were proud of us, they’d been thrilled at the gig the other night and the tears in their eyes got me all choked up. They were amazing people.
Wrath smacked me on the back as he walked on stage looking over his shoulder at me, and I flipped him the bird.
He had balls sometimes but we’d been together the longest and we were tight like brothers.
Fury and Flame had come within days of each other about six months after Wrath and me.
Rage was the last one to come to the Sherman’s house, and he kept the most shit to himself.
You’d think after all these years he’d want to let it out, but not so far.
I picked up Eleanor and grabbed a pic from the line taped to the mic stand, and I checked to make sure everyone was in place. “Ready?”
I put in the earbud and checked with Sean on sound and Pete our light man. Getting the all clear, I played a couple of warm up chords.
“Count us in, Rage.”
Holding his drum sticks above his head he counted. “One, and two, and three…”
The playlist was taped to the floor by the mic stand. It was the entire first album and a few covers. I really wanted to sing some of our new songs, but it was in the contract we couldn’t without Symmetry’s approval first. Fuckin’ contracts.
Playing the first notes of Hell On Wheels, I emptied my mind and focused on the music.
We played through five of our songs and stopped a few times for sound or lighting adjustments but it went well.
The acoustics in the arena were nothing compared to what they’d be later when it was full.
Almost twenty thousand fans again. It was sold out, and so was tomorrow’s show. Hell yeah.
We ran through Step Into My Nightmare a second time because it sounded off to me, but I was satisfied after the second play through. “We good?”
Lots of nods all around, and only Sweets didn’t respond. Rolling my eyes, I wondered how long she was going to keep this fuckin’ shit up. I guess I should have listened to Wrath when he first mentioned her crush on me, but I didn’t believe it, and now we were all going to pay for it.
By the time the sound check was done, we only had about three hours until the show.
I saw a cheesesteak and soda in my future.
I needed the carbs. Then it’d be back to the bus and chilling ‘til show time. Tomorrow we’d only have the show so we could do some sightseeing if we wanted.
Would Cynda want to tour Philly with me?
That reminded me, my phone never vibrated. Either she was still wherever or Joe had forgotten, but I was betting on the first. Where the fuck was she? When we’d left for the interviews earlier she’d been fine. Shit. Sweets better not have started more shit with her.
Slowing down, I let the guys pass so I could talk to her. Wrath raised an eyebrow and I shrugged. He shook his head. He figured I was poking the bear, but I needed to find out if she’d done anything else.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
She didn’t even look at me when she answered. “What did you guys do today?”
“Nothing. Just hung out on the bus.”
“You didn’t go anywhere? Do anything?”
“No, we didn’t. But would it matter if we did. You had your freakin’ thing and we weren’t included.”
“I told you it was Rod who’d fuckin’ arranged it. It won’t happen again I can fucking promise you that.”
“Oh yeah, and your promises are good?”
“What the fuck does that mean? I’ve never broken a promise to you.”
“Friends forever? Remember that one?”
“Yeah, and we’re still friends.”
“You think it can be the same now? After yesterday?”
“Sweets, nothing’s changed, I’ve always felt the same. I’m sorry you have a crush on me, I never wanted to hurt you.”
“Fuck you too,” she snarled and stopped walking. “You’re an asshole you know that?”
“What did I ever do other than try to take care of all of us?”
“Nothing, absolutely nothing, except fuck a bitch on your bus. You going to tell her she’s just like a sister to you too?”
“What Cynda and I do is none of your fucking business. If you hadn’t started with her yesterday, none of this would’ve happened. I’ve known you since you were twelve, we grew up together, it’s totally different. You are like my sister. Why is it so hard for you to see that?”
“Bullshit. You go ahead and tell yourself whatever you want, but you’re gonna realize you made a huge mistake.”
“Are you threatening me?”
She smiled, but it wasn’t happy, instead it gave me the creeps. She was up to something.
“Not me, I’m Sweets remember. My sister and I are just your dumb backup singers, we don’t count for shit.”
“Stop, just fuckin’ stop it. That’s not true and you know it.” Fuck, I was yelling and we were in the middle of the parking lot. Everyone ahead of us stopped and watched the entertainment. How was I going to fix this? Was it even fixable?
“Whatever. Just leave me alone, okay?”
She ran to catch up to her sister. Candy turned and gave me a nasty look. Fuck. What a friggin’ mess.
I lagged behind the rest of them. I didn’t really want to hear any fucking crap.
I’d figure out a way to fix this, it’s what I did best. I was a fucking fixer, that’s how I’d come up with the idea for the band.
Fury and Rage had started getting into trouble after school, and we’d decided to come up with a way to keep them out of jail, or getting tossed out on their asses.
That’s when Raining Chaos was born. It worked too, it brought us closer together and kept us out of fucking trouble.
It’d been really rough in the beginning, but forming the band changed everything.
Hopefully this thing with Sweets wasn’t going to ruin it.
Success definitely came with a price. And a lot of pressure we never expected, not that one of us would give it up for a minute. It just made everything more complicated and living on the buses wasn’t going to help.
Hearing Cynda’s voice I looked ahead. Thank God she was back. She was talking to Joe and turned with a smile on her face to say, “hi.” She must have seen Sweets because I watched her smile fade but neither of them said anything. Sweets and Candy continued walking to their bus.
“Hey, Cyn, everything okay?”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?”
“I don’t know, I figured you’d be here when we got back.”
“I went for a walk, it felt good to get off the bus and be in the sunshine.”
I nodded, what could I say without sounding like a fucking douchebag. I was worried about you. I thought you’d be waiting. Yeah right, that would be fucking brilliant.
“We’re going for cheesesteaks wanna come?”
“You mean THE famous Philly Cheesesteaks?”
“Uh huh, Joe says he knows the best place.”
“Oh hell yeah. Count me in. When are we going?”
“As soon as everyone gets ready.”