Page 66 of Pistol Whipped

Thoughts of the past fail to hold my attention thanks to a tap on my shoulder. A girl stands there with ebony skin that glows because it’s been dusted with gold highlight everywhere it’s exposed. I noticed it on some of the other party-goers, but it turns out those are club staff, and the gold is part of the uniform.

She leans in and says, “Mr. Braun has asked that you come with me.”

She turns to the guys too.

“All of you. If you’d please follow me this way.”

She spins and walks deeper into the club, behind a dark curtain and through a door marked: Authorized Personnel Only. That takes us into the back, warehouse-style hall of the club, and from there, it’s a short journey down one floor in a service elevator.

When it stops, our guide stays behind, points, and says, “Straight ahead.”

There’s another dark curtain, parted just enough that we can see the stage lights reflecting off its surface. Not that we needed it, because Lou’s voice is ringing out.

“This summer, for the first time in ten years, the Deviant Dreams Festival is coming back! And this time, it’s going global, baby!”

The whispers in the crowd spread, become claps, and from there, eventually cheers. That’s how you know this room is all industry. Actual music fans, the people who really love and care about music itself and not just the money it makes them, they would have gone fucking bananas. There’s another lull.

“I think that’s our cue.” Cohen charges ahead. “Let’s get this over with, because the second this is done, we need to talk. The four of us. Privately.”

Lately our private, band-only conversations haven’t been what I or anyone would call friendly. Cohen’s sour mood tonight guarantees this one won’t be either. Still, we all want this: our headlining shot at Deviant Dreams, the world tour we never got the first time around, all of it.

We follow him forward, through the curtain and right out onto the stage just in time for Lou to call out, “And making their triumphant comeback to the world of music as your headline act…for the very first time, The Preaching Pistols!”

That’s our cue to smile and wave. Gone is the surly version of Cohen we’ve been dealing with all night. The smile he offers the crowd is radiant. Dutch too. He waves to the crowd. There are a couple of women in the front row that I get the urge to drop kick because they’re looking at him like he’s fucking meat.

I do my best to plaster on a smile, and when Dax and I share the briefest look, I know I’m not the only one faking it. It didn’t used to be this hard, but all the marketing, the selling ourselves, all the industry shit, never came easily to either Dallas or me.

Cohen takes the mic and, in that raspy voice of his, thanks the crowd before promising that the tour will make rock and roll history. At which point, Lou snatches the mic back, and though he should be looking out over the full club, he’s not. He’s looking sideways, right at me, when he says,

“You’re damn right it will, because joining The Preaching Pistols as co-headliners…” My eyes widen. Cohen is doing everything he can to hide his confusion. At no point since Lou suggested the reunion has there ever been any mention of co-headlining.

Any sound from the audience is drowned out by another sound effect. This time, a drum roll ending with a collective inhale from the crowd waiting for Lou’s next words. This time he looks away from me, from us on his left and over to the stage at his right as he calls out, “Blue and the Graces!”

There is another round of applause, but all I hear is the roaring in my head. The deepest, darkest, black void in my memory is screaming. I pray the stage opens up and drops me in hell. I wish for my own instant death. I want to drown myself in whiskey until it strips this second from memory the same way it did that fateful night. More than any of that though, I want to run. Because there is no way I’m sharing this stage with the man who raped me.

Not now, not on a world tour, not ever.

Interlude 12

Lightning Crashes

Rain – aged 20, that night ten years ago

The release of our third album is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. The hype is huge. Our faces have been plastered everywhere, on every magazine cover and every music channel that exists. I should be jumping for fucking joy. Only when the cameras turn away and the lights go down, I’m not sure I’m actually happy anymore.

I don’t know if any of us are.

But after three years in the spotlight, we’ve been conditioned to hide it well, which is why there isn’t a single person here wondering why four supposed best friends and bandmates haven’t spent more than a minute in each other’s company, at a party that is supposedly all about them.

To be fair, Cohen and I have stood arm-in-arm in the middle of the throng for a while now. Our past album launches and celebrations have always been downtown, not necessarily in The Neck, but close enough to feel familiar.

This time, Viktor Vetrov, the head of our record label, apparently hooked us up with this crazy mansion in The Head. Lou had sold us on the idea by claiming that we had “moved up in the world,” but it doesn’t feel like it. Judging by Dutch’s face and his too-strained smile as he chats with some suit on the other side of this gigantic room, I’m not the only one.

Meanwhile, there’s no sign of Dax anywhere, probably because he hates the phony small talk that comes along with shit like this.

A faraway voice calls my name, “Rain? Rainy?”

“Ray-Ray?”