Jake would never forget the first time he'd heard the song on the radio. He had been in Angie's apartment and they had been naked in her bed, cuddling after an extended session of lovemaking. Both had just been drifting towards sleep, the radio alarm clock nothing but background noise, when Justin Adams, the night DJ for KRON had come back from a commercial break.
"New music here on the Krone bone," he said. "We just got this tune the other day. The album is not even in stores yet. It's a band from Heritage if you can believe that. You ever heard of Heritage? It's a little cow town up in northern Cali somewhere that makes Bakersfield look like friggin Beverly Hills from what I'm told. Its where they grow most of our tomatoes and our rice and where having a good time means shutting down the still for the night and going over to the grange hall."
Jake's eyes popped wide open and he sat up, startling Angie. "Holy shit," he said.
"What?" she asked, looking around.
"Shhh," he hushed her. "They're talking about us! They're gonna play our song!"
"Your song?"
He hushed her again.
"Anyway," Justin Adams continued, "I guess they're capable of producing something other than produce and cheap moonshine up in those parts because I gave this tune a listen and... well... it friggin rocks. Here it is for your listening pleasure. The band is called Intemperance..."
"That's you!" Angie had squealed. "Oh my God!"
"Shhhh!"
"... and the tune is the title cut from their up and coming album: Descent Into Nothing."
And then the opening riff of Matt's guitar began to sound from the tinny speaker. Jake reached over and turned it up and both of them listened transfixed as the power riff began, as the piano chimed in, and then, finally, as Jake's voice began to issue from the speaker.
"It's really you," Angie had whispered in awe. It was the first time she had heard the song.
"It really is," Jake agreed, just as awed though he'd heard the song a thousand times.
They'd listened to it all the way through and then Angie had looked at him seriously, a tear running down her face.
"What?" Jake had asked. "What are you crying about?"
"Nothing," she said. "Just love me."
He'd loved her, sliding into her naked body less than five minutes later.
On the day they'd left Los Angeles for Bangor, the album and the single had been in stores across the nation for twenty-three days. Album sales were less than twenty thousand at this point - well over ninety percent of those from the greater Heritage region - but sales of the Descent Into Nothing single had broken into Billboard's Hot One Hundred with a bullet - a remarkable feat since techno and punk music were the current fads. It was projected that the song would be played on the Top Forty countdown the following week.
"Both the fifteen to eighteen and the eighteen to twenty-five crowd loves the song," Acardio had told them. "It's going just how we planned. As soon as the song peaks and starts heading back down the charts, we'll release Who Needs Love as a single and get the radio stations to start pushing that one. When that happens, album sales will start to pick up dramatically. It generally takes two hit songs before people start buying the album in droves. And if we can squeeze three hit songs out, the album is almost guaranteed to go platinum."
Platinum, Jake thought as he entered the bathroom and closed the door behind him. So we can make an honest fourteen grand. His mind wanted to be bitter at this, as it had so many times before, but it simply wouldn't take today. His hangover - which was really a four-day hangover - coupled with his nervousness at their first real concert, simply wouldn't allow it. And then there was his parting with Angie. That weighed heavily on his mind as well.
He had grown very close to Angie during the last few months - at least as close as he'd been to Michelle during the peak of their relationship. Parting with her had not been easy, especially since their tour schedule - which was quite grueling when you sat down and looked at it - would not even begin to approach the west coast any time soon. So far, the first leg was all that was planned out. Jake remembered reading it over for the first time.
Jan 1 - Bangor, Maine; Jan 2 - Concorde, New Hampshire; Jan 3 - Boston, Massachusetts; Jan 5 - Buffalo, New York; Jan 6 - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Jan 7 - Cleveland, Ohio; Jan 10- Cincinnati, Ohio; Jan 11 - Indianapolis, Indiana; Jan 12 - Chicago, Illinois; Jan 13 - Minneapolis, Minnesota; Jan 14 - Des Moines, Iowa; Jan 15 - Peoria, Illinois; Jan 16 - Kansas City, Missouri; Jan 17 - St. Louis, Missouri; Jan 18 - Springfield, Missouri; Jan 20 - Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Jan 21 - Amarillo, Texas; Jan 22 - Albuquerque, New Mexico; Jan 23 - El Paso, Texas; Jan 24 - Austin, Texas; Jan 25 - San Antonio, Texas; Jan 26 - Houston, Texas; Jan 27 - Dallas, Texas; Jan 29 - Little Rock, Arkansas; Jan 31 - Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Feb 01 - New Orleans, Louisiana; Feb 02 - Jackson, Mississippi; Feb 03 - Memphis, Tennessee; Feb 04 - Nashville, Tennessee; Feb 05 - Louisville, Kentucky
And that was just the first leg. Five legs were planned. There were days off included in there - occasional ones - but those were mostly due to particularly lengthy travel times between shows. It wouldn't be until at least the first week in February when he might get a chance to get back to Los Angeles to see Angie. A two-week break was included before the second leg of the tour began.
"I'll be back then," he'd told her at their last meeting - just hours before he'd climbed onto the tour bus for the first time.
"I know you will," she responded, kissing his face again, her arms around his body, hugging him tighter, not wanting to let go.
"And I'll call you every day," he added. "Twice a day when I can."
The tears had started to run at this point, glimmering drops that slid down her cheeks. "I know," she answered. "I know."
And then she reluctantly released him and walked back to her car, openly sobbing by that point. Jake had looked after her, puzzled, wondering why she was so emotional. It was only going to be about six weeks before he saw her again. She was acting like they were saying goodbye forever.
The convoy Intemperance was traveling with consisted of six tractor-trailer rigs and six tour buses. The road crew, or "roadies" as they were known, occupied three of the tour buses. The other three were the two rock bands and their management staff. Contained within the trailers was a complete stage assembly, scaffolding to hang lights from, a complete stage lighting set with swivels, gimbals, and cooling systems, twenty-seven high performance amplifiers, more than a mile of electrical cable and power cords, and, of course, all of the instruments for both Earthstone and Intemperance. The convoy crossed the Bangor city limits just before noon on New Year's Day. The bulk of the vehicles headed towards Bangor Auditorium downtown, the site of tonight's show. The tour buses belonging to Earthstone and Intemperance, as well as one other that belonged to the management staff, peeled off and headed for the Bangor International Hotel near the airport.