Read The Five for Free Online

bad-ass or sorry-ass cars and—as Mike put it—pick-me-up trucks, numbers that had some meaning for him, a whiskey bottle here, a burning joint there, the bars of a cell, a long country road, a skull spitting fire, bass axes he had loved or lost or pawned, a white dog, a black dog, a devil, an angel, his little Sara’s face, the names of the bands he wanted to remember which did include The Five, declarations such as Trust Is Earned and Live Before You Die and everything in a progression from the past to the present, shoulders to wrists. Everything, as well, underlaid by a phantasmagoric deep blue star-speckled background against which the trails of fiery red and yellow comets passed between the artwork. It had occurred to Nomad, as it surely must have to Mike, that he was running out of room.
    Moby Dick? The first book Mike had read that he liked. Actually, he’d stolen it from the Bogalusa Public Library when the librarian said he was too young to check it out. He’d rooted for the white whale to make it out alive.
    “Right,” Terry said when it seemed safe to speak again. He was talking directly to Mike. “Repositioning is just what I’m doing.”
    “Why shouldn’t we pull over and let you reposition your butt on the side of the road right now?” Berke asked, in her charming way.
    “Because,” he answered with great dignity, “I’m in it just like George is. For the tour. I’m going to do what I’ve always done. Nobody’s going to say I’m slacking, don’t worry about it.”
    “I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it,” Ariel was saying, and Nomad thought he’d never heard her sound so hurt before. “It’s over when you go, Terry. Nobody can step in for you, no matter who it is.”
    “I don’t know about that,” George offered. “There are—”
    “I think you ought to shut up,” Nomad interrupted, and George’s mouth closed.
    “Fucking tell him,” Berke said.
    “Plug your lava-hole too,” Nomad shot back.
    “Happy happy joy joy!” said Mike, with a gravedigger’s cackle. “Ain’t nothin’ like the real thing, bro!”
    Nomad put his fingers against his temples and slid down in his seat. The air-conditioner was racketing, but was it working ? He put his right hand against the nearest vent. A weak breath of cool air, but not cold. Hadn’t George taken the Scumbucket in for a road check last week, like he was supposed to? That low, grating hum—sounded to him like an E minor chord strummed on a cheap Singapore guitar—seemed to have amped up in volume, and it was going to drive everybody batshitty by the time they reached Waco. Bastard was already screwing up on his job, and they were hardly out of the gate.
    “So,” Terry said with a quaver in his voice, “Does everybody hate me now?”
    God, it was going to be a long tour.
    The last tour, with this lineup. Maybe the last tour with any of them together, because once a band started unravelling the emperor got naked real quick.
    The thing is, he was the emperor. He’d never asked to be. Never wanted to be. But he was, and that was it.
    He realized, as he listened to the hum from the dashboard and felt the oppressive silence at his back, that this shit could tear the band apart before they even finished up the weekend. At best, they were in for heavy weather. What could he do right now—right this fucking minute, while it counted—to show them he was still the emperor, and that The Five was still a band until he said it was not?
    He found something amid the chaos, and he latched onto it.
    < >
    Nobody hates you. I ought to, but I don’t. I guess everybody has to do what they think is right,” he said. “And I’m thinking we ought to write a new song.”
    No one else spoke.
    “A new song,” Nomad repeated, and he turned around to gauge the response. Berke’s eyes were closed, Mike was staring vacantly out his window, and Terry was polishing his glasses on the front of his shirt.
    Only Ariel was paying attention.