The members of Intemperance are demanding and specific when it comes to their after-performance pleasures. After leaving the stage they return immediately to their dressing room where ice chests full of beer and a complete array of hard alcohol and mixers are laid out, along with a supply of both marijuana and cocaine. While cooling off after an hour of performing, they imbibe in all three of these substances, which puts them in the mood for phase two of their after-gig festivities: The shower. Now most bands simply get into the shower after their performance and get clean. Intemperance, however, likes to utilize their shower-time to get dirty. Their security force has orders to bring back a young female fan for each member of the group - that's five girls - and these girls then undress and join the band beneath the spray. The sex in the shower is usually oral in nature and the band members use terms such as "bitch" and "ho" and even the dreaded C-word as they instruct the girls on just how they like to be administered to.
And that, like the actual events themselves, was just for the warm-up. She chronicled exactly what each band member drank, smoked, and snorted. She frequently quoted the banter that went on between them. She told how the security force brought in thirteen more girls to go with the original five and how they loaded onto the tour bus and went back to the "opulent suite overlooking Central Park" and engaged in a sex and drug party that "defies description or terminology. Merely calling it an orgy is like saying the World Trade Center towers are merely tall buildings".
And then she got to the part that was going to make Intemperance a household name and put her article into the running for a Pulitzer Prize.
By this point in the party I was speechless, beyond appalled at the debauchery I was witnessing. All of my years of watching rock acts party after their shows had led me to believe I had seen it all but it was obvious I hadn't. These musicians had managed to shock me. But the greatest shock was still coming. It came when Tisdale, still completely naked and unashamed, ordered one of the girls to perform oral sex on another one of the girls. He then grabbed yet another girl and ordered her to hold open the buttock cheeks of the girl performing the oral sex. Once this was done he actually poured cocaine in between her buttock cheeks and snorted it out of there with a drink straw. He then offered the straw to the girl who was holding the cheeks apart. She seemed reluctant but she finally took it and did what she was told. After that, Tisdale called Kingsley in from the other room (where he had taken another two girls - presumably Kingsley has at least a little shame) and poured some more cocaine into her buttocks for him to snort. Kingsley's only remark was "this is different", before he took the straw and snorted his fill as well.
"Oh, man," Jake groaned as he read this. Yes, Greg was probably right. This story was going to make them infamous. But infamy was not exactly what he had been shooting for when he signed up for this gig.
At 7:30 that night, Jake was sitting up in front of the bus next to Ken Adopolis, who was behind the wheel for this last stretch. He and Ken had just taken a few hits of marijuana from Ken's pipe and both of them were drinking from bottles of beer when the sign appeared out of the darkness in front of them.
HERITAGE CITY LIMITS
Population 343,316 Elevation 44
"There it is," Jake said, smiling as he saw it. "I never thought I'd be almost crying to see that sign."
"It must be like totally awesome, dude, to like come back to your hometown as a fuckin' star," Ken said.
"It's just nice to be home," Jake said. "To be able to see things I'm familiar with." He looked out the side window. "The river is right over there, and in a minute we'll be able to see the buildings downtown. God, I missed this place."
"I can dig it, dude," Ken said. "I can really dig it."
Ken drove them to the Royal Gardens Hotel - the same place they had met with Shaver for the first time. Since this was their hometown and the local media attention was going to be quite intense - even without the controversial article in Spinning Rock - they had been given deluxe accommodations, the best available in Heritage, in fact. WELCOME HOME, INTEMPERANCE!!! read the marquee in front of the hotel. KEEP ON ROCKIN' AND ROLLIN'.
Their check-in was quiet and uneventful. They were handed their keys and led to the sixteenth floor and their individual suites. Jake found that he had been given the exact suite they had negotiated their representation with Shaver in. He found a strange sort of irony in this.
He lay down on his bed and picked up the phone, excited about calling a local number for once. He dialed from memory the number of his sister's house in Gardenia - a house not far from that of Matt's parents. It was the second time he'd contacted her since going out on tour, the first being a collect call from a Seattle hotel room while rehearsing for the opening night of their headline tour.
"What's up, overachiever?" he asked her when she picked up the phone.
"Well if it isn't my little brother the rock star," she responded. "I've been reading about you today. Very interesting article in Spinning Rock."
"Oh great," he groaned. "I was hoping no one had seen that."
"Everyone has seen it," she told him. "You guys are all anyone talks about in this town since you got that first single on the air. They play your songs three or four times an hour on every radio station, even on stations that don't play rock music. The news has been reporting for a week that there was going to be an article about you in Spinning Rock. I hear every copy they sent to the Heritage area has sold out."
"Wow," he said. "I didn't realize people were that... you know... into us here."
"You're the first musical group from Heritage to gain nationwide popularity," she reminded. "What the hell else does this town have to be proud of?"
"I never thought of it that way," he said. "So did... you know... Mom and Dad see it?"
"Their only son gets his picture on the cover of a famous national magazine and you want to know if they saw it?"
He sighed. "Well, when you put it that way... Did they say anything about it?"
"Dad didn't. You know how hard to read he can be. Mom seems to be hoping its all just fabrication."
"This is so embarrassing," he said.
"So... did you do it?"
"Did I do what?"
"The butt-crack thing, you idiot. What do you think everyone's been talking about?"
"I thought the blowjob in the shower and the drugs might've taken precedence as the topic of conversation."
"Well, they're talking about all of it, of course, but it's the butt-crack that seems to stand out the most. It has a little bit of the sex and the drugs all in one story."
"I see," he said.
"So how much of the story is true?" she asked him.
He sighed again. "It was written in a slanted manner - very slanted actually - but the basic facts are pretty much true."
"Hmmm," she said thoughtfully. "I can see why you're concerned about the price of all that cocaine if you're dumping a quarter-gram at a time into some bimbo's ass. Does that sort of thing go on every night?"
"Usually not to that degree, but... yes. It goes on pretty much after every show."
"Well I have to admit, little brother, you're job is certainly more interesting than mine."
"If not better paying," he agreed. "Were you able to get a copy of our contract?" That had been the subject of the first call from Seattle. He wanted a lawyer to look over the contract and see if everything Gordon Strong had told him was true, and, if so, if it were enforceable. And since Pauline was the only lawyer he knew, he had turned to her for assistance. In order for her to legally get her hands on a copy of the contract, she had instructed him to send her a signed, notarized piece of paper proclaiming that she was representing him in a legal capacity and that he authorized release of all documents to her. This had been embarrassing in and of itself because in order to do this she had to wire money to him.