"Oh my God," Darren whispered, backing away, his eyes wide.
"You okay?" Jake asked him again, looking at him with more than a little concern this time.
"I can't do this," Darren said. "I can't go on in front of that many people! Holy shit!"
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Matt asked. "You goddamned well better go on! It's a little late to get cold feet now!"
"Dude," Darren said, backing even further away, "it's just that... I mean... shit, dude. Five thousand fucking people! We ain't never been in front of that many before!"
"Darren," Jake started.
"What if we fuck up?" Darren yelled, approaching total panic now. "I mean, there are reporters and everything here. What if we go out there and just fucking bite?"
"If you chill out and play like we do in rehearsal, that ain't gonna happen," Jake said. "Get yourself under control, man."
"And do it fucking quick," Matt added.
All of this commotion attracted the attention of Greg, who had been over talking to the head of security about something. With a look of concern he came over. "What's the problem?" he asked.
"Nothing," Matt replied dismissively. "Darren's just getting a little stagefright. He'll be all right."
"He doesn't look all right," Greg observed.
"We'll get him chilled out. Don't worry."
But Greg wanted to worry. He stepped over to one of the tour security guards and whispered something to him. The guard nodded and spoke into his portable radio. Greg then stepped back over to Darren.
"Don't worry, Darren," he said. "I'll get you fixed up in no time."
"What do you mean?" Matt asked.
"You'll see."
Jake, meanwhile, continued to talk soothingly to Darren, telling him that everything was cool, that he needed to stop freaking out about the number of people out there, that he should pretend they were performing at D Street West instead of the Bangor Auditorium. Gradually, after two or three minutes, his words seemed to have an effect. Darren's breathing slowed. His hands stopped tremoring. He began to look a little less tense.
"Just like D Street West," Darren said, latching onto this thought.
"Fuckin' A," Jake said. "Just like D Street."
A security guard suddenly emerged from the tunnel entrance. He carried a black leather bag in his hands - a bag that looked like an old fashioned doctor's bag. He brought it to Greg, who took it and walked over to Darren. He set the bag down and opened it, fishing through it for a few moments and finally coming up with a brown pill bottle. He opened it up and removed one of the pills.
"Here, Darren," he said. "Take this."
"What is it?" Darren asked.
"Just a little something to help you calm down. Use Jake's water."
Darren reached out to take it but Matt grabbed his wrist, preventing the transfer.
"Wait a minute," Matt said. "What exactly are you giving him?"
"Just a mild anxiety pill," Greg said. "It's nothing."
"What is it called?" Matt demanded.
"Diazepam," Greg said. "It's a very common treatment for anxiety. It'll keep him from having a panic attack out on stage."
"Diazepam," Matt said, shaking his head. "That would be the generic name for Valium, correct?"
Greg's confident grin faded as he heard this. "Uh... yes, it is Valium, but..."
"Don't ever try to jerk me off about drugs, Greg. I've done too many of them. He ain't taking Valium before he goes on stage."
"Matt," Greg said, "this isn't an intoxicating drug. It's just to keep him cool."
"He'll keep himself cool."
"But what if he doesn't? I've got the show to think about."
"So do I," Matt said. "No Valium. He's a professional musician. He'll have his shit together."
While they continued to argue about it, discussing Darren as if he weren't even there, Jake wandered over and sat down next to Greg's open bag. He looked inside to see what else was in there and found a variety of pharmaceutical vials lined up in little holders on one side of the bag, packaged syringes lined up on the other, and multiple pill bottles secured on the bottom. He read some of the vials. There was Narcan, morphine, epinephrine, Demerol, Versed, sodium pentethol, and a lot of Haldol. Jake didn't know what Haldol, epinephrine, or Versed was, but he certainly knew what the rest of those things were. They were narcotic painkillers, except for the pentethol, which was an anesthetic (what the hell does he use that for? Jake wondered) and the Narcan, which was a medicine that reversed the effects of narcotics. He glanced at the pill bottles next but there were far too many for him to read them all. He saw enough though. There was Dexedrine, Flexoril, Vicodin, codeine, Quaaludes, Phenobarbital, Percodan, morphine, Seconal, Nembutal.
"Look," Greg was saying. "You go onstage in twenty-five minutes. He needs to take the pill now or it won't have time to take effect before you start."
"He's not going to take the pill, Greg," Matt said forcefully. "I'm the leader of this band and I will not allow it!"
"And I'm the leader of this tour," Greg retorted, "and he will take what I tell him to take. I know what I'm doing here."
"Oh?" Jake interjected. "Are you a doctor?"
"What?" Greg asked, turning to Jake and blanching a little as he saw him going through his bag.
"You got some heavy-duty shit in this bag, Greg," Jake said. "I'm pretty sure you need a medical degree to dispense most of it."
Greg rushed over and snatched up the bag. "Don't worry about what's in there," he snapped, his grin fully gone for the first time.
Jake turned to Darren, who was sitting impassively, as if he were meditating. "Darren, you cool?"
"I'm getting there," Darren replied, his voice level. "I'll be okay."
"There you have it," Jake said. "He doesn't need your pill. Let him face his fears on his own. That's what the rest of us are doing."
"But..."
"That's the final word, Greg," Matt said. "He ain't taking the pill. If you want to push a breach of contract issue because someone didn't take a prescription medicine that wasn't prescribed to him, you go ahead and do that. I have a feeling the judge won't rule in your favor."
Greg sighed and bit his lip for a moment. Finally a vestige of his signature grin returned. "All right then," he said, dropping the pill and the bottle back in the bag and closing it up. "Just don't screw up out there, Darren. Don't jeopardize the show."
"I won't," Darren said.
"He won't," Matt and Jake said in unison.
The clock turned seven and the recorded music was turned off. The murmur of the crowd picked up a few notches as they sensed that the first portion of the show was about to begin. The band stood in a group near the stage access door, Coop holding his drumsticks, Matt and Jake fingering guitar picks, Bill chewing his fingernails, Darren taking a few last puffs from a cigarette. They had already taken off their backstage passes.
"Ten seconds 'til the lights go down," said Steve Langley, the production manager. "You guys ready?"
"We're ready," Jake said, looking at his bandmates.
They put their hands together, doing their customary show of camaraderie for the first time in months. Langley counted down the last few seconds and everything went dark. As it did, the crowd began to cheer, the sound dozens of decibels louder than any cheers they heard in the past.
Listen to that, Jake thought. That's for us. Holy shit.
"Okay, go!" Langley barked at them. "It's showtime."
They had rehearsed this a thousand times. It was not pitch black on the stage, just dim enough that the audience couldn't see what was happening. Each band member moved to his position, operating half by sight, half by feel. Jake found his guitar and picked it up. He checked to make sure his cord was plugged in and then turned the volume knob all the way up. He touched his microphone stand briefly, just to orient himself, and then put his lips near it, ready to speak. He took a deep breath, beginning to feel a little of what Darren had been feeling. It had been months since they'd performed live and there were five thousand people out there! Five thousand! Sure, they'd rehearsed this set endlessly, had taken dance lessons and done tri-weekly aerobic workouts to keep in shape. But still...