Broken Strings (A Rock Star Novel) Read online

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  The DVD...

  It’s almost two before Gabby finally returns from the closest Target with our DVD’s. The cover is an amazing shot of the band on stage performing one of their hits. The whole stage and background is completely blacked out, but each band member is lit by an eerie light positioned on the floor and shinning up at them. It gives them a ghostly quality and makes them look even more like the rock gods they really are.

  Gabby passes my copy to me and I’m just about to open it when I hear someone down the line from us begin to scream. If I didn’t already know the reason for the ruckus, I’d have thought somebody was in the process of being brutally murdered. Someone’s celebrating finding the tickets. Damn, fat chance we’ll get one too!

  Quickly we both tear into our packages to confirm that we are in fact just as unlucky as the other million people who undoubtedly just purchased their DVD today. I decide to go down the line and take a few pictures of the lucky couple for my blog. That should actually generate a lot of new traffic. It’s not everybody that's close enough to a winner to get some pictures. Maybe I can even get my picture taken with the winners.

  I tell Gabby what I’m up to and head down the line. There’s still a huge gathering around the lucky person. As I walk up I can hear offers being thrown out from hopefuls. Most of the offers are from women so the winner has to be guy.

  “I’ll show you my tits if you give me one,” offers a cute blond.

  “Hell, you can feel mine,” shouts another.

  “Wanna fuck me?” Shouts still another girl.

  Hell, I can’t compete with any of those offers. If Gabby were here she’d certainly try but I’m not prostituting myself just to get backstage at a Fringe show no matter how much I love the band.

  Slowly I push my way through the crowd and just about fall over when I see the lucky guy. It’s Brand! He smiles at me and winks.

  “I guess I got lucky,” he says in the understatement of the year as I walk up.

  “Yeah, you could say that. So which of these tempting offers are you going to take?”

  His eyes suddenly bug out. I turn around, following the direction of his gaze. There’s a gorgeous brunette standing there with her tank top and bra in her hands. She does have a pair of very shapely breasts. She is definitely one hot Latina. I turn back around expecting Brand to offer a ticket to her. I really don’t think he’s gonna get a better offer.

  “Come on baby,” she says to him in a very seductive voice. “You can have these now,” and she gives her breasts a little shake, “and you can have the rest later.”

  And we have a winner… I turn back around to face Brand. “Well, looks like a good deal to me.”

  “Really? I think I’ll pass. Besides, I’ve already chosen who gets to go with me.”

  “Of course, you came with someone. Hey if you get any good pics, I could really use one for my blog.”

  “Why don’t you just use your own?”

  “Mine? Iots of people can get front row pics; I’m looking for something not just anybody can get.”

  “Like I said, you can just use your own.”

  “Huh?” I seem to be missing something here.

  “That is, if you’ll come with me.”

  “What? Are you kidding me?” Is he giving me a backstage pass?

  “I want to take you. I’m not really that much of a fan, but you are. If anyone should go it’s you June.”

  Suddenly I’m feeling very faint. I mean, I had dreamed…fantasized about this moment the second I heard my first Fringe song, but I never really believed I would have the chance to meet the band in person.

  “Well?” He’s waiting for my answer.

  The crowd is getting noisier and even more riled up as they are starting to realize that their chance at a ticket is rapidly disappearing.

  “Brand, you got a lot better offers on the table here, and I’m not gonna sleep with or even flash you for a ticket so…”

  He looks hurt. “I know that. It’s not why I’m offering you a ticket June. You should be the one to meet the band, bottom line. I really want you to go.”

  “Bitch!” Someone hisses in my ear.

  Someone tugs on my arm. I turn around and it’s the topless woman. Up close, she is stunning! She looks at me and then points to her breasts. “When he gives you your ticket, I’ll make the same offer to you, these now,” and she gives her breasts a squeeze, “and the rest later.”

  I just about choke. I can’t believe this is happening.

  “Uh…sorry,” I say to her. “It’s a very attractive offer… but I think I’ll just go with my friend here.”

  “Right, you’re gonna fuck him for it aren’t you?” She says with a nasty look in her eyes. This is really starting to get ugly here.

  Ignoring her remark and turn back around. “Hey uh Brand, if you really want me to go, you better come with me. Otherwise these girls are gonna lynch us both.”

  He looks around nervously. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

  I grab his arm and together we push our way through an angry crowd and up about thirty feet to where Gabby is standing wondering what is going on. When we walk up I flash her the ticket and backstage pass that Brand has slipped me.

  Her eyes literally pop out of her head. “Oh my freaking god, you’re going back stage!” And then she hugs me and we celebrate quietly.

  One last time I give him the chance to change his mind. “Look Brand, you can give my pass to someone else if you like. There are some pretty hot girls around here that would love to trade for the pass.”

  To his credit he quickly shakes his head. “No, I want you to go, so quit trying to give up your pass.”

  I give him a quick hug. He smells really good. Whatever I thought about the guy before is quickly being replaced with respect and…and, well I really like the guy.

  Chapter Three

  Backstage

  The next six hours fly by and the atmosphere becomes more and more party-like. All up and down the line there are clusters of people watching the Denver DVD and psyching themselves up for the Sacramento show.

  Arco Arena is a good place for a concert. It’s pretty big but it was designed in such a way that there are not a lot of bad seats in the place. No matter where you sit, you aren’t too far from the stage. In other words, there are no nosebleed seats.

  According to the tickets, doors open at six. It’s seven and the doors are just now opening. The line is slowed by Arco Arena guards who insist on searching every single person before they go in. The first 300 get to watch the show from a special roped off area in front of the stage.

  The stage is big enough that the three of us should be able to get right up against the stage, hopefully near the center. Rumor has it that arena guards are not allowing cameras for the show. I need my camera. Not to worry though, this isn’t my first show. I have a light jacket that I’m wearing so I take it off. I wad it up around my camera and when I step up to be searched I hold my arms out away from my sides with my wadded up coat and camera clutched in my right hand.

  They quickly pat down everything without bothering to ask me to open up my hand. Kewl, I’m home free. Five minutes later Gabby, Brand, and I are right up against the stage just off from the center. This is going to be a fantastic show.

  I can feel my heart start to pound and my breath quicken. I can hardly stop moving. It’s like my feet have a mind of their own. They’re playing some metal mix over the speakers so each time a song starts playing my feet start moving, then my knees, hips, shoulders, arms and head. I can’t help it. I’m a typical girl. I love music and I love to dance. Damn this is gonna be the best night of my life! I can feel it in my bones.

  “Excited much?” Asks Brand in between songs.

  “This is the best night of my life!” I confess.

  “Really? You don’t get out much do you?”

  “Hey I’m a Lunatic. This is what I live for.”

  “You do realize I’m gonna in
terview their new guy and try to find out what his story is, you know, find any dirt. If not I’ll just find someone else, but you have to admit, this is a chance of a lifetime for me. No way am I gonna be able to get close enough to any other rock star to pick their brains.”

  “Yeah, I kinda forgot about that; Enemy!”

  “This is my career June, I mean this could really fast track me to the big time like it did Hector Oh. I work nights now at Alta Bates Medical Center as a security guard and I hate it. This could be my time to really become a writer and to write something that really matters.

  I’m having a little bit of a hard time swallowing all this. How is ruining a guy’s career writing something that matters?

  “Hey uh… how exactly is ruining some guy's career writing something that matters?” I ask.

  “I’m a journalist. I write the truth, whatever it turns out to be. If this guy is clean I got no story here and I’ll move on. I got tickets to see Disturbed in LA next month, and Spineshank a week later. Somewhere there’s a story about a guitar player that’s just waiting to be written and I’m gonna be the guy to do it. I just hope its tonight though. I really hate my day job.”

  “Wow…well I do hope you get your dream job but I don’t think it’s right if you gotta trash someone else’s career to make your own.”

  “But I’m not trashing anyone’s career. If the guy is into some shit, I’m just here to report it. Maybe if he’s like into drugs it will be the stimulus that will motivate him to change his life.”

  “Oh come on, you expect me to believe you're this noble person here to…to promote change through honest trashing…I mean, reporting on someone’s life?”

  “Hey I think giving you the backstage pass counts for something yeah?”

  “You certainly sacrificed quite a bit,” I reply thinking of the topless girl.

  “Hell yes, I could be in here somewhere…” he pauses as he looks around. “Okay in a bathroom somewhere having hot sex with a stranger. What could be better than that?”

  “My friendship?”

  “Obviously I valued that more or I’d… never mind.”

  “Thank you!” Now every time I look at him I'll be reminded of the girl with incredible boobs. That’s sure to keep our friendship forever stuck in the friend zone.

  We chit chat back and forth between songs for a little while longer until the lights dim. At first the crowd is screaming at the tops of their lungs, but after five minutes and no sign of the band, a silence falls over the arena. If not for camera phones and light sticks it would be pitch black in here.

  Suddenly several things happen at once. There’s a huge explosion and about twenty flash pots that are lining the front of the stage go off. I am so close I can feel the heat on my face. The sparks must extend a good thirty feet up. The very moment the flash pots go, Fringe’s new lead guitarist hits the first chord on Straight Jacket and I can feel that heavy grinding rhythm in my chest.

  When you hear the music on your iPod, it’s so one dimensional. When you’re at a Fringe concert and you feel the music in your body, it’s like going from a black and white movie to a 3D movie in one electrifying split second.

  I’m standing here front and center and my body is literally vibrating with each chord struck on the new guy’s guitar. After 3 revolutions of the same grinding riff, Marcus and Lance join in with their drums and bass guitar and it’s like I have a second and third heart thumping in my chest. Without thinking I lay my hand on my chest. I really can feel my sternum and ribs vibrating to the rhythm of the song.

  They’re purposely keeping the lights extra low on the new guitarist which just adds to the mystery and makes me want to see him all that much more. I look over at Gabby and she’s screaming something I can’t even begin to hear.

  Her face has been transformed from her normal bored expression to a manic, hedonistic Fringe worshiper; probably just like mine is. I grab Gabby’s head and pull her face to my ear so I can hear what she’s saying, but then her mouth is so close to my ear it just distorts all to hell and I can’t make out a thing.

  I give up trying to hear my best friend and take a look around myself. There’s not a person in the arena that is not on their feet moving in unison. If only this energy could be harnessed, we could really make a dent on our country’s dependence on oil.

  Metal has such a frenetic energy to it, you can’t not move. Your body does it whether you want it to or not. Listening to Straight Jacket and the next 14 songs I feel like I’m standing in the surf on some beach and wave after wave is crashing over me and scrambling my brain. No wonder I always feel so disoriented after a show.

  The next 100 minutes fly by and before I know it, it’s the second encore and they’re playing Solitary. This really is the end this time and normally I would start coming down, but with the prospect of meeting the band so close; I can feel myself getting jacked up again. I am about to have the most memorable encounter in my life. I look over to my left and Brand is standing there with his backstage pass around his neck; it’s go time!

  Having been to dozens of shows now, I know how to find the backstage entrance even if I have never been in this particular venue. All you have to do is follow the line of cute girls and you’ll find the door, along with a guard whose task is to only let the hot girls back, and the occasional cool guy.

  Other than that, unless you have a backstage pass like the one around my neck, you don’t have a ghost of a chance of meeting the band. We are about fifty Lunatics back and waiting anxiously for our turn. As I look around I can’t help but get this feeling knowing that I am going to get in no matter what, and most of these girls will not. That’s power!

  As we get within about a dozen hopefuls, my heart really starts to pound. My palms are sweating and I’m feeling flushed. I’m beginning to think maybe I should have taken a puff of one of the many joints that were passed my way. I’m pretty sure I’d feel a hell of a lot better than I feel right now.

  Brand hooks his arm in mine. “We’re almost in,” he says. Then he pulls a pen out of his pocket and clips it to the pocket in his shirt.

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  “What do you think it is?”

  “It’s either a ‘nerd badge’ or a secret video camera.”

  He looks down at himself. “I guess it does look a bit nerdy doesn’t it? I just don’t want to have to try and remember everything, so this thing will capture 3 hours of streaming video for me. When I get home I put it in the docking station next to my laptop and push a single button and it instantly gets uploaded to my computer. Pretty cool huh?”

  “Okay…”

  “Then I’ll just type it up at my own pace and hopefully I get some good information ‘cause I’m pretty sure I don’t rate cool enough to get in on my own accord.”

  “No comment.”

  “Couldn’t you at least have disagreed with me? Never mind. We go in together, we leave together; deal?”

  “Deal.” I say.

  I certainly don’t want to be back here alone with no one watching my back. Backstage parties have a way of getting pretty out of control and I don’t want to regret this. I check my own camera. Uh oh…it’s not turning on. How could I have not checked the charge before coming here? Shit! My one chance in a lifetime to get really good pics for the blog and my camera dies on me. Maybe Brand will let me use some of his footage.

  The trio of girls directly in front of us is denied. Their eyes bug out when they see the passes around our necks as they pass by.

  “How much?-” One of the skanks asks.

  “Forget it,” we both chime in simultaneously.

  We flash the door guard our passes and he opens the door with alacrity. I can hardly believe this. As we walk down the hall, sounds of a party in progress drifts our way.

  “Are you ready for this, Lunatic?” Brand asks.

  “Are you, Enemy?” I reply.

  He ignores my enemy comment. “Not even close.”

  “Well you�
��re in good company ‘cause I’m terrified.”

  Another twenty feet brings us to another door guarded by a guy so big he has me wondering if he can even fit through the door he is tasked with guarding. We flash our passes and he opens the door.

  We are definitely not in Kansas anymore. As I step into the room my eyes struggle to take in everything. First thing I notice is a group of girls slow dancing to the sounds of an acoustic guitar. Something about the girls lazy seductive movements and their glassy blank stares makes me think of sedatives and there’s really only one I can think of that would be in this room; heroin.

  You could put on a speed metal CD and these girls wouldn’t be able to change their tempo even if they wanted to. The dim lighting…actually the lighting isn’t dim at all. There’s just too much smoke in the air for the lights to do much good. The strong distinctive smell of marijuana permeates the entire room.

  I give myself about three minutes before I get a contact high; the smoke is that thick. Leaning up against a wall are two girls making out while some guy is recording them on his camera phone.

  The music seems to be coming from some guy I don’t recognize. He’s perched on a stool swaying dangerously. I’ll give him five minutes before his ass is on the floor. He’s not in the band, but he’s definitely got Hammers acoustic guitar. I can’t tell if the guy’s a horrible musician or the guitar is just out of tune. The fact that he can’t keep a rhythm doesn’t seem to matter to the dancing girls.

  On the far side of the room three figures, Hammer, Marcus, and Lance, are lounging on a plush couch drinking a variety of drinks. The new guy is nowhere to be seen. Hammer and Marcus are passing back and forth what I can only assume is a joint.

  The three guys are festooned with scantily clad girls and I can’t help but wondering something. I went up and down the line, and I pretty much know the hardcore Lunatics, and nobody was wearing anything like these girls have on. Either they changed somewhere, or these girls are the paid entertainment.

  There’s a girl on either side of Hammer and Marcus and they cannot keep their hands to themselves. Marcus is pretty much lost in his own trip and is ignoring them but Hammer’s got his hand under the micro mini of one girl who looks to be in high school. She doesn’t seem to mind his explorations. Lance is making out with two girls at once and sharing a joint with them as well.