11. Mohegan Sun
11
MOHEGAN SUN
ARCHER
The band that bathes together, slays together.
The venue at the Mohegan Sun was either a tiny stadium or a huge theater, and it was packed. Before we went on, the stage manager told us they’d opened the wings to allow for extra seating. People had come out of the woodwork to see Aftermath.
Phil was right. There was no such thing as bad publicity.
O’Connor’s posts about teaching me to be a better date were humiliating, but they were paying off. Her video of our first “lesson” was unintentionally hilarious, and while Ian wasn’t too happy about being seen by the world in nothing but a towel, I was very pleased to see evidence of the power of my squats-and-lunges routine to keep the glutes tight and appealing.
The boxer briefs were definitely the right choice for me. And the comments on O’Connor’s video agreed.
So, even though I was being publicly humiliated by O’ Connor’s “dating school,” I ended up feeling pretty fucking good. In fact, I felt buoyant enough about riding the crashing wave of applause when we took the stage that I turned my back to the audience and slapped my ass.
“Still look okay?” I asked.
They screamed in delight.
We owned them from the very first moment. Time to prove that we weren’t just a flash in the pan. Aftermath could shred.
Our set list had changed since our tenure as the opener for Sheree that summer. Ian had cranked out so many hits (inspired by Nicky) that we’d rejiggered our act, but Mal’s song “Lizabella” was still the perfect opener. Happy, fast, dance driven . . . it was designed specifically to get people out of their seats and moving.
The three of us checked in with each other. Ready? Ready.
Mal hit the opening riff, and I knew in my bones that it was going to be a great gig. We’d all end up high from the energy we gave and got. Ian’s guitar was like a razor, carving away any fat and leaving nothing but a perfect, lean cut.
My fingers flew on my bass, thumping out the link between the acid of the guitar and the power of the drums. I felt as strong as steel when I opened my mouth to sing.
Lizabella, to lay with her is to hold a flame
To roll with her, step up your game
So much more than a pretty young thing
If she takes your hand, you must be a king
Ian and Mal both joined in on the chorus, the harmony slotting together perfectly. You could build a house with this sound.
Lizabella, dance with me
When you are dancing, I feel fre e
If we’re together, you’re all I see
Lizabella
The audience was a seething mass. They were lost in it—in the energy, the strength of the music. They were united with each other, and we were united with them.
Lizabella tosses her hair, she’s courageous and strong
Has no intention of just going along
Can’t be owned, she thinks that’s odd
If she kisses your lips, you must be a god
The bridge was Mal’s. From his drum kit, it took a moment for the audience to realize who was singing, and the energy shifted higher once they realized it was him.
Asses shake, dance floors quake, rhythm drives the feet
Got no breaks, lives at stake, pounding every beat
I took it back for the final chorus—solo the first time, and with the harmonies on the second time through. By the end, the audience was sing-shouting with us. The day would come when I didn’t sing at all and they would serenade us, but that day was not yet. It was coming, though.
Lizabella, dance with me
When you are dancing, I feel free
If we’re together, you’re all I see
Lizabella
They’d come to see Archer Armstrong, the bad kisser. They’d discovered how wrong they were. In the darkness, bodies writhed, open mouths shouted, and hands pounded in applause.
Which was nothing more than we deserved.
“Hey, you guys!” I shouted in greeting. “We’re Aftermath!”
I let them scream their primal joy for a moment. The rush got deep into my bloodstream.
“That’s Mal Becker on drums . . . and Ian O’Rourke on guitar. And I’m Archer Armstrong.” They screamed their excitement, and I let them welcome us. Just before the applause peaked, I held up a hand. “But where’s our fourth member? Where are you, baby? What a good dog. Here she is—come here, Charlotte.”
They went nuts when the stage manager dropped her leash and Charlotte wriggled her way onto the stage, collapsing at my feet. Belly up for pets, tail wagging, long tongue flopping out of her huge maw in a massive, goofy grin.
I gave her a good belly rub to the coo of envy from every woman in the audience, and then sent her on her rounds. “Go say hi to Ian. Go on. There you go. And now Mal—say hi to Mal.”
She was a natural ham, her tail going so fast that her whole back end was wagging. She licked and kissed and bumped her head into hips and then came back to me.
“Down,” I said sternly, and down she went, ever obedient onstage. I didn’t know why she couldn’t do it at home, but onstage, she was a champion. The audience cheered.
“This is one clean dog,” I told them. “Did you hear she found a skunk?” They roared their recognition. “In fact, this whole band is scrubbed to within an inch of our lives. We smell awesome.”
Whistles, stomps, catcalls. They were ours to own.
“But we also rock. Pretty hard too. Here’s one you might know.”
Ian’s song “Blood Burn” had been one of our biggest hits until he went on a hit-writing streak, and that video had jumped up in views again once the others started charting. So people were primed for that one, too.
From there, we went into our back catalog with a few songs that had no videos, so they were less well-known, but by then the audience was primed. We could have played them nursery rhymes and they would have danced to them.
Once they were good and sweaty, we treated them to a slow dance. “Charlotte’s Lullaby.” The day had finally come: Charlotte was too big for me to hold like a baby while I sat on a stool. We’d found a low bench, and it worked perfectly. I sat on one end, Char sat on the other (at which point she towered over me, to the audience’s delight), and I crooned to her as I hugged her. She usually put her head on mine, curving over me.
Hambone.
And heart-melting.
My song “The Salesman” still brought the house down. Everyone liked to sing their contempt for bitchy customers who thought they could get free shit if they insisted they’d leave a bad review on Yelp or alert their fourteen Twitter followers to ban the store, and the final line practically shook the dust off the rafters:
Get you a latte? This is a mattress store, Karen
Darling, do your worst, you blackhearted turd
Ian sang “You Found It,” his love song to Nicky, and we forged the audience into one massive dance party with “Street Dancing.” My point was, anything we’d lost because Opinionated O’Connor had shredded my ego? We got it all back and more. And sold-out shows, even at a smaller venue, didn’t hurt either.
We gave them two encores and left them exhausted and exhilarated. Fuck Opinionated O’Connor . They loved me. They loved us.
We grabbed our victory showers, and Ian (who was under strict orders from Nicky) checked with the venue management about how many of our hoodies we’d sold.
“We’re going to need to order more,” he reported when he came back. “The signed ones are selling, too, even at double the price. If we could get Charlotte to chew more of the hoods, we’d be able to triple the price.”
“Well, she’s still teething,” I said, thinking of my hiking boots. Still in one piece, but with some large scuffs and dents in the left one. Dog. Grr.
We were on the road by two in the morning, heading for the campground Mal had found for us in Pennsylvania. He’d become our unofficial navigator and knew to keep us away from the site where we’d met Monsieur Le Skunky. We had four days to go a little more than 1,300 miles, so we could take our time.
And on Thursday, we all listened to the Opinionated O’Connor podcast to see what she had to say about things.
“It’s kind of like being able to talk to God,” Mal said. He’d hit pause before leaping ahead during the first ad break. “You can ask her all kinds of questions when you meet with her in Nebraska.”
“About the face-cleansing mask?” I asked, feigning sarcasm. In fact, I’d made a note to give her recommendation a try . . . once I got over having to lard on the moisturizer to counter the drying effects of bathing repeatedly in tomato juice and hydrogen peroxide.
“About whatever she talks about. It’s cool that you know her.”
“I don’t know her. You know her too.”
“Yeah, but you’re dating her. ”
I frowned, piloting the BFT around a panel van creeping down the slow lane. “I’m not dating her.”
“You kind of are,” Ian said.
“Shut up. She’s on again.”
After the health-and-beauty section, O’Connor had a discussion with the main receptionist at one of the biggest entertainment legal firms in LA.
“She gets great stuff by talking to the least powerful people,” Ian said. He was right. Her interview uncovered a regular policy of staff mistreatment and some wild imbalances between clients—including some very overt differences between the way male and female clients were handled.
“Aren’t you afraid they’ll fire you when they hear this podcast?” O’Connor asked the woman.
“Fuck it,” she replied. “This town is shit anyway. I can go back to Knoxville and get a better job for people who aren’t anywhere near as slimy.”
“Good for her!” Mal cheered.
O’Connor went through “Products I Love Today” (a list that included the Aman in New York City, with some truly eye-popping details about what that kind of really shocking fees would buy you) and then answered “Messages from My Followers.”
“Only two about you this time.” Mal frowned. Was that too many? Too few?
“She chose two,” Ian corrected. “There were probably more that she didn’t read.”
I thought he was right. The video of our call had hundreds of comments (most positive; very few insisting that I would burn in hell or that she would) and thousands of likes.
She got to her final segment, “On My Mind Today.”
“I’ve been thinking about honesty,” she said, her voice pouring out of my speakers .
“Oh, here we go,” Mal muttered.
“I’m not talking about honesty to others. This isn’t about little white lies like I love your new haircut or big go-to-hell whoppers like, No, I’m not married . I’m talking about internal honesty. About how well we know ourselves.”
“So, not a very big topic,” Ian said, raising his eyebrow in sarcasm.
“We all have a sense of who we are,” O’Connor went on. “And over time that self-image builds up a kind of protective layer. Maybe you, like me, get to thinking of that protective layer as an oyster coating a tiny grain of sand to make a pearl. Don’t we all want to believe in our most private places that we’re a beautiful, softly gleaming treasure?”
“Yep,” Mal said. I grinned at how readily he was buying her monologue.
“But instead, let’s consider that protective layer as the tartar your dentist ought to be scraping off your teeth every six months.”
“Oh, shit.” Mal again, in the back seat and becoming very vested.
“So I’m wondering. If we could get in there with those nasty picking and scraping tools—if we could peel away all that false self-image—what would we find? Are you still the person you thought you were when you first started overlooking or explaining away character flaws or biases or ugly spots in your sense of self?”
“Jesus,” I whispered. Girl was going deep.
“I’m not saying it would be easy to do this,” she said. “It takes a dentist years of study—and a willingness to put their fingers in someone else’s mouth—to scrape your teeth clean. But it’s probably worth taking a moment or two to sit quietly and consider the difference between who you think you are and who you actually are. Want a hint? ”
“Fuck no,” Mal said, but he kept listening.
“The trick isn’t to look at what you say you value. Take a long, hard look at what you do . That’s where your true character lies. If you say you’re a compassionate person but you hoard every penny you have, maybe it’s time to scrape a little tartar. If you love animals but wolf down hot dogs and hamburgers, you might not be entirely honest with yourself. If you say you’re committed to the truth but regularly mislead people? Well, then you’re only human, but maybe you can do better.” The pause invited alarming reflection, and she timed it just right. “Maybe I can do better,” she said.
Guh. Who couldn’t?
“Anyway, food for thought. If you can’t be honest with yourself, what chance do you have of being truthful with others? Or expecting truth from them?”
“I think I have to kill myself now,” Mal said.
“It’s almost over,” I muttered.
“My life, you mean? Or her podcast?” Mal was glum.
“Anyway,” she said. “This Saturday I have my next dating-school lesson with the beautiful, arrogant Archer Armstrong, so watch for the video. I’ll probably post it sometime on Monday. And as always, I’ll talk to you again on Thursday. Stick around for the last three minutes, will you? And don’t hit the thirty-seconds-ahead button—my sponsors paid to get in your ear. Help me give them their money’s worth. Until next week. Remember—it’s just my opinion . . . but I’m right.”
“She sounds so fucking cheery,” I complained, “after eviscerating poor bastards across America.”
“Yeah.” Ian’s eyebrows were drawn in and down, and Mal had Charlotte’s head in his lap so he could pet her.
“That woman. I mean, damn.” Ian, as usual, spoke in as few words as possible.
“Tell me about it,” I commiserated. “And I’m the one who has to have dating lessons with her. And the next one is just days from now.”
“And will be broadcast to the world.” The thought seemed to make Mal feel better.
“Oh, you think you guys are safe?” I needed my guys to keep suffering with me. “We’ll just see about that!”