The camera panned over there and, sure enough, there were nearly a hundred people holding up signs and chanting "Intemperance go away! Don't come back another day!" over and over. The camera panned over some of the signs, catching slogans like: GLORIFY TEMPERANCE INSTEAD, PROTECT OUR CHILDREN, INTEMPERANCE SUPPORTS DRUG USE, FRIENDS DON'T LET FRIENDS SEE INTEMPERANCE, or JUST SAY NO - TO INTEMPERANCE.
"Isn't this beautiful?" asked Greg, who was hovering just behind the band, nearly drooling as he saw the coverage. "You can't pay for this kind of publicity. I couldn't have planned this better myself."
"What's so great about it?" asked Coop. "The news in our own hometown is bagging on us. Our own mayor told people we were an unhealthy influence."
"It's publicity," Greg said. "When your target audience are teenagers and young adults, the best way to get them to buy your product is for their parents and elders to be against it. People who didn't even like you or that haven't even heard of you will go buy your albums now. They'll pay more attention when a DJ announces that one of your songs is about to play. Having that writer observe you in your after-show debauchery was brilliant, just brilliant!"
Jake sighed, watching as Bob Goldman walked over to interview a few of the sign carrying FVCH members. He found a fat, middle-aged redhead, and as she began explaining about obscenity and drugs and Satanism and how the band Intemperance was evil personified, the camera panned back a bit, showing some of the other protestors. Jake's breath froze as he caught sight of a familiar face. He leaned forward. "Holy shit!" he yelled. "There's Michelle!"
"Michelle?" asked Matt, leaning forward as well - which served to jerk some of his hair right out of Doreen's hands. "You mean that bible-thumper bitch you used to fuck?"
"That's her!" Jake said. "Right there!"
And it was. She looked a little older and more mature, but it was definitely her. She was nodding in agreement every time the interviewee said something negative about Intemperance. In her hands was a sign that said: INTEMPERANCE IS SATAN'S TOOL!
"Son of a bitch," said Darren. "That is her!"
"Satan's tool?" Bill said. "She really is a bible-thumper, isn't she?"
"She's the bitch that let Jake eat her pussy out one last time before she broke up with him, but then wouldn't let him tear one off in return," said Matt. "Remember that shit, Jake?"
"Yeah," Jake said sourly. "I remember."
"Did she really do that?" asked Doreen.
"She really did," he confirmed.
Doreen seemed appalled by this. "Some people just have no manners," she said.
"Listen to that," Jake said in wonder as the sound of the audience filled the backstage area. It was 8:15 PM, fifteen minutes after Voyeur had finished their set, fifteen minutes before Intemperance was to take the stage, and everyone out there was shouting out In-temp-erance, In-temp-erance, at the top of their lungs and stamping their feet against the bleacher seats or the floor.
"I guess the fucking family values bitches didn't change that many minds, did they?" asked Matt.
"Nope, I guess not," Jake agreed.
He had glanced out at the audience a few minutes ago, peeking through the stage access door and out over the auditorium. It was packed to standing room only on the floor, which was the general admission area, and it was equally packed in the bleachers, which were reserved seating. Their fans had signs of their own, signs that said things like, HERITAGE LOVES INTEMPERANCE, ROCK ON INTEMPERANCE, and FUCK FAMILY VALUES!! He even saw one gorgeous young woman holding one that read, YOU CAN SNORT COKE OUT OF MY ASS ANYTIME!
Greg confirmed that not many people had stayed away. "We sold 9200 tickets for tonight's show," he said. "As of ten minutes ago, 8925 people had come through the doors, and there's still well over a hundred partying out in the parking lot. You see how it works? Even if a lot of parents did refuse to let their teenagers come see the show, the tickets were just sold to someone else. I checked a few back issues of the local paper and flipped through the classifieds. Intemperance tickets were selling for sixty to seventy dollars. And Jack tells me that the scalpers out front were charging ninety bucks for them. Ninety! Can you believe it? I haven't heard of tickets going on the black market for that much since the Rolling Stones tour!"
The time clicked by and the chants for In-temp-erance grew louder and louder. When the lights were finally turned down just before the show, the cheers grew deafening. Jake was grinning as he heard it, as he basked in it. True, he had played before seventeen thousand at Madison Square Garden, but that didn't have shit on this. That was Heritage out there! Those were his people!
"It's time," said Steve Langley. "Hit the stage."
They all took a deep breath, clasped hands in a circle, and then released. Moving in darkness they went through the door and out on the stage. They picked up their instruments and got ready. The cue came, the lights blared to life, and they began to play. The audience was so loud they nearly overrode the amplification system.
Since they were now the headliner, and since they now had two hit songs (Who Needs Love? was currently at number 16 on the chart and rising fast), their set had been changed around and an additional thirty minutes had been added to it. They opened with their first hit song, Descent Into Nothing. They closed with the hard driving Who Needs Love? And then came the encores. They did three more songs, Point of Futility, which was slated to be the next single released, Living By The Law, which hadn't been recorded yet but which any fan who used to catch Intemperance at D Street West would recognize, and Almost Too Easy, which was the last cut on the album and was slated to be released as a single after Point of Futility peaked. Through it all the audience cheered wildly and steadily, holding up their signs, holding up their lighters, dancing and singing along with the music, throwing panties, bras, and marijuana pipes up on stage. For once Jake didn't have to struggle to remember what city he was in during his between-song banter. He didn't have to fear that he would accidentally blurt out the name of the city they'd been in yesterday, or the one they would be in tomorrow. He was home and performing before people he actually knew: his parents, his sister, his friends from high school, girls he had slept with and guys he had drank beer and smoked pot with. This was his town and, though performing on stage was always the highlight of every long tedious day on the road, never had it felt this good, this real, this satisfying.
The set actually ran ten minutes longer than usual because of the extended cheerings after each number they did. And when it was finally over they were given a standing ovation that was still going on long after they left the stage and the house lights were turned back on. It died out only as the roadies took the stage and began disassembling the show.
Jake had taken Greg aside before their set and asked him politely to keep the dressing room spread confined to only alcohol while they were in Heritage.
"My parents are going to be in there tonight," he explained, "and I'd just assume we maintain a little bit of an illusion for them."
"Of course," Greg had promised. "Consider it done." And it was. When they arrived there, still sweating and out of breath and sipping from their Gatorade, there was no marijuana bong or cocaine mirror in sight.