“Yep,” Jake agreed.
She reached up and touched the purple bruise and swelling on Jake’s right cheek, the result of a blow by that three-hundred-pound bouncer while he had been on his back on the stage. The brute packed a pretty good punch.
“How is it looking?” Jake asked her.
“It looks like the swelling has stopped,” she said. “Does it hurt?”
Jake shrugged. “I’ve had worse,” he said. And this was true. The beating he had received from the truckers in Texarkana and the police in New York City had been considerably worse.
“I still can’t believe that Nerdly started a fight with Pantera’s crew,” she said.
“Well,” Jake said, “one could make the argument that it was Pantera’s sound guy who started the fight when he called Sharon a ‘dick sucking kike cunt’ and then grabbed his crotch and told her to drop down and start sucking.” Jake chuckled. “And man, did he laugh when Nerdly told him that was going to have to ‘engage in honor-defending hand to hand combat’ with him for making that remark. And then Nerdly did one of those straight punches right to the asshole’s forehead. He didn’t laugh anymore after that.”
“Who would’ve thought that Nerdly could do that,” she said. “I mean, I knew he went to karate classes and all, but I never, in my wildest dreams, imagined that he could take on three guys at once.”
Jake nodded. “I never would’ve believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes,” Jake said. “I mean, I’ve seen him take on three girls at a time before, but never three guys.”
Laura shook her head and rolled her eyes as another riff came blasting out over them, this one the riff from Early Grave. More adjustments could be heard as it played out.
“Adjusting down the midrange,” Jake remarked. “Just like it should be adjusted.”
“He really is doing them a big favor,” Laura said.
“I only hope Matt appreciates it,” Jake said.
“What about you?” she asked. “Does it bother you that the Nerdlys are helping them. You’ve got this competition thing with Matt, after all.”
“Yeah, we’ve got this competition thing going, I guess,” Jake said. “But no, it doesn’t bother me. Music should be as good as it is possible for it to be, even if it’s not my music. All Nerdly and Sharon are doing is following that rule.”
She nodded slowly. “I guess that makes sense,” she said.
The second and final day of the Tsunami Sound Festival rolled on. The lineups of the earlier bands were a bit different from yesterday’s show, but the last four bands were the same. The crowd was a little less than yesterday as well, but there were still nearly ninety thousand people out there. Jake and Laura were able to get a little bit of sleep after lunch was served, climbing into the main bed in the trailer and cuddling together under the blanket. When he woke up, his hand was throbbing so badly that he needed to pop some ibuprofen and Tylenol just to be able to keep flexing it.
“Are you sure you’re going to be able to go on?” Laura asked him, worried.
“I’ll be okay,” he assured her.
She looked very concerned but made no further mention of it.
Pantera took to Stage 1 on schedule. Their head of security was sporting a pretty spectacular bruise on his forehead and the large bouncer type, who was in charge of stagefront security, was forced to perform his role with a tight restraining band wrapped around his ribcage where Nerdly had kicked him. The band itself played as usual and made no mention of the event. Their sound, also as usual, was overly loud and atrocious. Still, their fans cheered them enthusiastically, maybe even more so than normal. By this point wildly inaccurate rumors had spread about the physical confrontation that had occurred. In all the stories it had been Dimebag Darrel and the boys who had had the confrontation with Jake and his boys. The Pantera fans all heard that Dimebag and Vinnie Paul had beaten the shit out of Jake and his drummer. And the Jake fans all heard that Jake and his bass guitarist had been the ones to beat the shit out of Darrel and Vinnie Paul (they had heard that martial arts had been involved and, since Ben was Asian, it had to have been him that practiced it). Nerdly’s name never came up in the discussion at all.
Jake popped another eight hundred milligrams of ibuprofen and another thousand of Tylenol just before they reported to the stage. Once again, Pantera’s final number, Walk, was winding down as they made the journey.
“Yeah,” Jake said with a smile as he heard the hook line for the tune, “we were talking to you, motherfuckers.”
Jake continued to flex and unflex his right hand as the crew worked their way through the volume checks again. It hurt each time he did it, but he determined he was loose enough to play and not fuck up. The medications started to kick in about five minutes before showtime, bringing the throb down to a dull ache. I got this, he thought confidently.
And he did have it. He stepped out onto the stage with his band and he played and he sang his songs. His hand throbbed the entire show, the pain growing worse with each song that he played, but his fingers kept doing what he told them to do and he put on another flawless performance. The crowd was just as enthusiastic as they had been last night and they were once more given a standing ovation after finishing up I Am High and another after the final number itself.
“Thank you, and good night!” Jake told them after flipping his final guitar pick into the crowd. A sharp stab of pain shot up his forearm to his elbow when he did it. He looked down and saw that the entire back of his right hand was quite swollen and purple now. By the time they finished their final bow and walked off the stage, he could barely move his fingers at all and could not grasp anything with his right hand.
“Good heavens!” Laura exclaimed when she saw the condition of his hand. “Are you okay, sweetie?”
“I think I might need to go see a doc about this,” he said.
“Absolutely,” she said. “We’ll go right now.”
“Not just yet,” Jake said. “I am drenched in sweat and need to take a shower first.”
“Well ... I guess you can do that,” she said.
“And you and I have a little business to take care of before I shower,” he said slyly.
She shook her head. “I don’t expect you to do that in this condition,” she said. “There will be other times.”
“I can’t think of when that might be,” he said. “We’re doing it. The show must go on.”
“Are you sure?” she asked.
He smiled. “I’m sure. I even scoped out the perfect spot.”
“Really?” she asked, that lustful look coming back into her eyes now.
“Really,” he assured her.
“Okay,” she said. “If you’re sure it’s safe.”
“It’s safe,” he said. “Come on. Let’s go.”
They broke away from the others and Jake led her to another section of band city. They went to the trailer that had been assigned to Seavey Circle. The band itself had cut out long before Pantera had even taken the stage, leaving the trailer empty. Jake had slipped one of the venue’s security guys a picture of Ben Franklin to provide him with the access code and not ask any questions. The security guy—who was a hard-core Intemperance fan, hated Pantera, and had heard a firsthand report of what had gone down earlier—thought this an acceptable business deal.
“I want you to leave your sweaty shirt on while we fuck,” Laura told him, her face now flushed with sexual excitement.
“You got it,” Jake said, feeling himself starting to stiffen despite the pain in his hand. “As long as you leave that dress on.”
She smiled. “Great minds think alike,” she said.