September 1993 #3
Dean stared at Zane’s hand while he stretched it out. “Can you play?”
“Of course.”
He looked over at Mike. “What about you?”
“I’m fine,” he snapped. “Not that I want to get back on stage with that dickhead again.”
“You don’t have a choice, do you? Because in about two hours, over a hundred thousand people are gonna be out there waiting for you, most of whom spent money they don’t have to see you live,” Dean said.
He let out a heavy sigh and shook his head at them, and when he spoke, his tone was low.
“We’re a family. Sometimes families fight.
That’s normal. What we don’t do is get violent or steal each other’s women. ”
“I didn’t,” Zane said.
“But you want to,” Mike snapped.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Mike! Who cares what Zane wants?” Claudia shouted, surprising them all. “I don’t want him. Okay? So screw him. He can want me all he wants—which he doesn’t—but even if he did, I’m not interested.”
Mike flared his nostrils. “If he doesn’t want you, why’d he write that fucking song?”
“He didn’t write it,” she snapped, quickly following that with, “Not for me. It’s just a story. It means nothing, but if it’s so goddamn upsetting to you, we won’t sing it again. We’ll give it up and bury it.”
Zane scoffed. “Like hell we will. Have you heard how the crowds react to it? They know every word already. We’re not giving up what will likely be the biggest hit of our lives because Mike’s got his nose out of joint.
” Glowering at him, he said, “Grow the fuck up, man. We’re too old for this shit. I’m in love with my wife.”
“I agree with Zane,” Steven said. “It’s a huge hit. We gotta play it. Just… maybe not today.”
Mike glared at him, but Steven, who had a good six inches on him, towered over Mike. “Get over it. We all do what’s best for the band or none of this works.”
Rusty nodded. “Steven’s right. It’s what’s best for the band.” He glanced at Claudia. “If that means we replace Claud, so be it. But we keep the song.”
Tears filled Claudia’s eyes, and Zane could see her physically shrink.
He resisted the urge to pull her in for a hug.
Instead, he said, “Claud’s not the problem.
She never has been. It’s a song. And that stupid article was only meant to sell magazines.
It doesn’t make it real. Just because some dumbass reporter spent a few days with us and decided that he’d be insecure if he were you.
Who gives a shit what his hypothetical feelings would be? ”
Mike lifted the back of his hand to his chin to dab up the blood.
Zane stared at his best friend, softening his voice, guilt coming over him for the damage he had done to Mike’s face.
Zane was supposed to protect him. Not hurt him.
And until that day, that’s what he had done.
“There’s nothing between us. I swear on my mom’s life.
We keep the song. We keep Claudia and we keep our tempers in check from now on.
You’ve been my best friend since I was fourteen years old.
You think I’d ruin that over a piece of ass? ”
He knew it was a cruel thing to say, but he was fighting for everything that mattered to him. If the band split up over this, he’d not only lose the brotherhood he relied on, but there was no way Sienna would believe the rumors weren’t true. He’d lose his wife, too.
MIKE
Mike leaned against the wall. The muscles in his body were so tight, they felt as if they might snap. The vision in his left eye was blurry and blocked on the edges by swelling. He glared at Zane, but his friend no longer looked angry. He looked pale and shocked as he gazed at Mike’s lip.
It was just the two of them now. Best friends who shared a long history of ups and downs, who’d fought to make it work despite a wicked power imbalance that threatened their relationship at every turn. They didn’t have to talk about it to know it was there.
Maybe it was time to let go of the dream.
Deep down, he knew this wasn’t working. Perhaps today was the day to let it die.
He could free himself from the tangled mess and ugliness that their friendship had become.
Walk out that door and never come back. Mike could see himself stepping onto the sidewalk outside the stadium and hailing a cab.
It would be so easy. Where would he go? A bar.
The seedier the better. Then… anywhere he pleased.
They stared at each other for a long time, the heat of rage evaporating into the air, leaving only the question of where they would go from here.
After thirty long, amazing, awful, tumultuous years together, they could let it slip away with the throw of a punch.
Mike tasted the blood from the cut on the right side of his lip, and a flood of memories clouded his mind.
He was that scrawny kid again. Powerless. Hurt. And very much alone.
SEPTEMBER 1962
SPOKANE, WASHINGTON
MIKE
When Mike first met Zane on the second day of freshman year at Shadle Park High, his lip was swollen and split along the right side.
It had been altered the night before by his father, Vice Commander Michael Kurilla.
Mike had committed the crime of rolling his eyes when his father was talking about how his unit, the 92nd Strategic Aerospace Wing, was up for a big award.
They were the best at ‘being ready’ to go to war with Russia and could deploy their Atlas-E intercontinental ballistic missiles in under fifteen minutes if needed.
Mike, who didn’t believe a nuclear war would actually happen, was sick to death of hearing about it.
From an early age, Mike knew his father regretted giving him his name.
It should’ve gone to his younger brother, Charlie, who was his father’s son—athletic, studious, and a rule-follower.
By age nine, Charlie could make a bed that would please even the harshest drill Sargent.
Mike was lucky if he could find his sheets in the mess that was his side of the bedroom.
By the time the Vice Commander smacked his son across the mouth and his thick gold Korea Military Service ring that read ‘Freedom is Not Free’ split Mike’s lip open, his mother, Donalda, was already on her fourth gin and tonic.
She got up to prepare an ice pack for her son before being ordered back into her chair at the dining room table.
The rest of the meal was eaten in silence, with Mike carefully sliding his fork into the left side of his mouth while he cleaned his plate.
Outside, neighborhood kids played and dogs barked, and Mike longed to join them.
Or better yet, make a quick exit from their bungalow on Hemlock Street and never return.
Donalda, in her more sober moments, would tell Mike they should be glad they weren’t living on base anymore, because that had been hell, remember?
And it was true. The family of a high-ranking officer was under constant scrutiny, and two of the four Kurillas had never measured up.
Donalda didn’t wear pearls and house dresses.
She didn’t bake or exchange casserole recipes with the other officers’ wives.
She wore pants that were too tight, smoked enough to satisfy Humphrey Bogart, and wouldn’t cook so much as heat things up that came from a can.
Donalda wasn’t cut out for military life.
She had dreamed of being an English professor at Yale or Cornell, although back in 1948 there was no chance of that happening for a woman.
But her mother, seeing that Donalda was whip-smart and ambitious, sweet-talked her husband, Donald (a dentist) into paying for their only child to attend Amherst College for Women.
There, she flourished, devouring every book, play, poem, and novella she could get her hands on.
She was a star student, and the faculty had flirted with the idea of hiring her as an instructor someday.
Then along came Captain Michael Kurilla, with his dreamy hazel eyes and that blue hat that made him three inches taller.
They ate spaghetti and meatballs at a cozy place in Little Italy, then went for a long drive in his Pontiac Catalina Hardtop (with the top up due to the rain).
They parked near a cliff overlooking the city and made love in the backseat with thoughts of war and drama and romance filling Donalda’s mind while Michael filled her with a son.
And that was that.
Donalda the future professor became Mrs. Kurilla the drunk disappointment, who would stop her husband from fulfilling his own dream of being Commander.
And their eldest son was an apple that had landed right under her tree.
By thirteen, Mike was already sneaking booze from his parents’ liquor cart and topping up the bottle with water to hide his new habit.
But he wouldn’t turn out to be a drunk like his mother.
Mike was going to get the hell out of Spokane as soon as possible.
And once he got away from his parents, he wouldn’t need to drink anymore.
But until then, he’d let it ease him to sleep at night.
So, on that hot September day, when Mike met Zane, he was not only sporting a fat lip, but a queasy stomach too.
The music teacher, Mr. Monds, a man in his mid-thirties who was in a rush to do everything (including go bald), haphazardly handed out instruments at the beginning of class based on each student’s size.
The scrawny Zane and diminutive Mike both silently willed their new teacher to give them saxophones—Mike, so he could cosplay his mother’s favorite, John Coltrane, and Zane, who wanted to play the cool jazz of Stan Getz.
Instead, they were each given trumpets and told to go sit on the far left in the second row.
All the way to the end. You’ll be sharing a stand.
Zane plopped down in his chair and held his hand out to Mike. “I’m Zane.”