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“A few days later me mum figured out who stole her money, and asked me what it was for. I was afraid she’d make me take the guitar back if I told, so I said it was for sweets. She said that was a hell of a lot of sweets, and where were they. I couldn’t think of anything, so I told her I gave them all away to my friends. So she thrashed my hide, but at least I got to keep the guitar.
“Anytime I was alone – which was quite a bit, actually – I snuck up to the attic and plugged away at it. Basically taught myself to play. I would ask street musicians how to do such and such, and they would laugh and show me, and then I would go back to the attic and practice what they showed me, and that’s how I learned.
“Then one day me mum found the guitar, and brought it out and asked, ‘Where’d you get this,’ and I said, ‘I bought it.’ And she said, ‘Where,’ and I said, ‘The pawn shop.’ And she said, ‘With what,’ and I didn’t answer her. And she said ‘Tell me or I’m goin’ to give you a beatin’,’ so I said, ‘With that money I nicked and said was for sweets.’ She got all angry at me, tellin’ me how she was going to go back to the pawn shop and sell back the guitar – until I yelled, ‘But I can play it.’ And she said, ‘No you can’t, you’re too little,’ and I said, ‘Yes I can.’ So she gave me the guitar and I played it for her. It was bloody awful, though I guess it wasn’t too bad for a five-year-old who taught himself to play. And Mum was gobsmacked. She started crying, and after that she bought me a proper guitar, and she found a fellow round the way who was in a band, and he gave me lessons, and that was that, as they say.”
The way he recounted the story in his lilting accent was charming. I could imagine a five-year-old Killian defiantly standing up to his mother, desperate to keep his guitar.
Ryan looked at him strangely. “I never knew that.”
Derek looked in the rearview mirror. “Neither did I.”
Killian sighed, exasperated. “I’m giving up all my secrets today, apparently.”
And he did. I grilled him for the entire car ride, finding out when he had joined his first band (he was 14 – everybody else in the band was 17 and 18, but they let him in because he was ten times better than any of them). I found out when he had started smoking pot (14 again – he was introduced to it by his fellow band members). I found out that he was an only child, that his father had died when he was a baby, and that his mother had raised him by herself with help from her parents.
Plus I heard a host of colorful stories about Miles.
They had met when Killian was 24 and did some session recording for a band that Miles was managing. Apparently Miles was every bit as scary back then, too. No one knew where he’d gotten the scar on his face, but he had it when Killian met him. It was rumored that he’d gotten into a knife fight with a thug who ran a venue and cheated one of Miles’ bands out of their cut of the door proceeds. Miles got thirty stitches; the thug got two weeks in the hospital.
“But that’s just a rumor,” Killian said.
“Do you believe it, though?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” he said seriously.
It was funny – over and over again, Derek and Ryan would exclaim, “I didn’t know that.” Apparently it wasn’t just me; Killian was extremely reserved with everyone around him. But he kept to his promise, and answered every question I posed him.
The one thing I couldn’t pin him down on was his romantic history. He hemmed and hawed, and would only admit to ‘seeing some bird named Lucy’ or ‘going around with a lovely girl named Jane.’
“As in ‘Mary Jane’?” Derek joked.
“Come on, Killian,” I prodded. “Details.”
“A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell,” he said primly, and would say no more on the topic.
60
On the way to Joshua Tree, we stopped in a little town called Yucca Valley to get provisions. It was so small and out of the way that not a single person in the tiny grocery store recognized the band.
“Don’t forget the orange juice,” Killian commanded. “We have to have orange juice.”
“I didn’t know you liked orange juice so much,” I said.
“It’s for all of us,” he explained. “Helps with the mushrooms. Intensifies the high. And helps you wash them down, since they taste like shite.”
“Literally,” Derek said. “Since they grow in cow shit.”
“Great,” I muttered, my stomach turning – and not just from the image of what I was going to ingest being plucked out of cow patties.
No, my stomach was upset because now it was real.
This was really going to happen.
We actually didn’t go to Joshua Tree National Park – at least not right away. Instead, we wound our way through dusty back roads, past trailer homes and barren fields of cactus and rock, until we wound up at a tiny group of cabins out in the desert.
“What’s this?”
“This is the fine establishment where we’re staying,” Killian said as he climbed out of the car. “Bob’s Desert Oasis.”
“…Bob?”
As we got out of the car, a barking pack of dogs – half a dozen of them – raced out of the main house. They were all mutts, though there seemed to be a lot of labrador in the mix. I jumped back in the convertible, but Derek bent over and held out his hands. The dogs raced around him, sniffing him, jumping up on his jeans excitedly.
Even strange dogs liked Derek.
They liked Killian, too, although he didn’t let them touch his hands (or his guitar). But he did murmur soothing things like, “How are ya, luv,” and “Ooh, good boy, good boy.” They seemed to realize that jumping up on him was off-limits, and behaved themselves accordingly.
An overweight man in a red flannel short-sleeve shirt and overalls came out of the main house and waddled after the dogs. He had a bushy white beard, rosy cheeks, and tiny gold-rimmed spectacles. For a second I wondered if we’d found Santa Claus’s summer home.
“Mr. Derek, Mr. Killian,” the man said jovially, and shook hands with both of them.
Everyone exchanged a few pleasantries – how was the drive, how have you been – and then Santa Bob said, “I see we have newcomers.”
Derek gestured to me. “Yeah, this is Kaitlyn – ”
“Hi,” I said nervously. I wondered if he knew we were there to do drugs… and what in the world was he thinking of me right about now?
“ – and this is Ryan. He’s our bassist.”
“Hi there,” Ryan said, and shook Bob’s proffered hand.
“Very nice to meet you. Any friends of Derek and Killian’s are friends of mine.” He fished some keys out of his pocket and handed them to Derek. “Got your cabins all ready for you. You’ve got the last two on the end, real secluded, just like you asked. Sorry I couldn’t get you three – but the one’s got two double beds in it, just like you asked.”
“Thanks, Bob.”
“Well, I’ll let you folks get unpacked,” he said amiably, then shouted, “Come on doggies, come on! Come on!” as he walked back towards the house, with the dogs yapping and yipping and racing all around him.
I looked over at Derek. “Where the hell did you find this place?”
He looked at me like I’d just asked a very confusing question. “Why do you say it like that?”
“Well… you’re a rock star who just bought a ninety-five thousand dollar car on a whim. This isn’t exactly the Dubai.”
He grinned as he pulled our bags out of the trunk. “Not every place has to be the Dubai, Kaitlyn.”
“I found out about him through a friend,” Killian said. “Bob is known for several things: his friendliness, the isolation of his establishment… and his discretion.”
“Which is just as important as staying at the Dubai,” Derek said.
“Especially when you’re doing drugs,” Ryan said facetiously.
“When you plan to walk around trippin’ your balls off, it most definitely is,” Killian said. “Come along, then, let’s go, we’re burning daylight.”
61
Derek’s and my cabin was nice and cozy. Nothing fancy, but there was a queen-size bed in the bedroom, a den with chairs upholstered in a print only old people could love, and a kitchen with a refrigerator and stove-top. Derek and I stashed the groceries in our fridge, and then Killian and Ryan came on over after they’d got situated.
“Well, are we ready?” Killian asked gleefully, and pulled out a clear Ziploc bag, the type you might store sandwiches in. It was filled with dried-out mushrooms with long, skinny stems and flattened brown caps. “Pour the orange juice, will you, Derek?”
I watched nervously as Killian apportioned the mushrooms into three tiny piles on the countertop. Two were almost twice as big as the third.
“Why aren’t they the same size?” I asked.
“That,” Killian said, pointing at the small pile, “is for you. It’s a regular portion. As experienced cosmonauts of the infinite mind, I decided to give myself and Derek a double portion – but I can give you a bit more, if you – ”
