He was on his knees, surrounded by broken chairs, when they came in. They entered as if from another world. They looked like mad combinations of frogmen and masked wrestlers from parts unknown.
They drew his arms back behind him, snapped white plastic restraints on his wrists and ankles, and they hauled him out like yesterday’s garbage.
FOUR
Stone Church
FOURTEEN.
It wasn’t so bad. He’d paid money to stay in motels that were worse than this. But the bright orange jumpsuit…now, that was ridiculous. The thing had its own inner glow, and you still saw it pulsing when you closed your eyes. The huge black-lettered word JAIL across the back wasn’t too cool, either.
The situation being what it was, though, Nomad was impressed by the Pima County jail. It was clean, well-managed and seemed more like a strictly-run—very strictly-run—dorm for wayward men. The roach-overrun lockup was dead in the modern era of physical confinement. Now the “cells” were cubicles fronted with impact-resistant glass. Each cell held eight inmates, and eight cells made up what was called a “pod”, each pod with its own dayroom. The place was cheerfully lit and the air conditioning was kept on the chilly side. Books, magazines and a TV were provided. He’d already seen himself on the television screen, several times in fact, and he was a real celebrity around here.
It was nearing ten o’clock on Tuesday morning. He’d been in jail for about fifty-four hours, but who was counting? He didn’t care that he’d come to the end of this particular road; at his arraignment he’d been so tight-lipped and uncaring about the whole thing that the judge had wanted to run him through a battery of psychiatric tests. Nomad had just shrugged. “Whatever you want to do, man,” he’d told Your Honor. “Fuck it.”
Which had not gone over so well. He wasn’t going anywhere soon, because Your Honor had decided to postpone a decision on setting bail until the nutbag questions were done and some mental health geek had filed three hundred and thirty-three reports on the state of Nomad’s mind. But Nomad didn’t have anyplace he really needed to be, The Five was over, everything was done, so why not just stick here for a while?
His call had been to the University Medical Center. He’d asked to have Ariel Collier paged.
“John?” she’d answered. “Where are you?”
“Around. Any word on George?”
“They think he’s going to make it. They’re not sure yet, but they’re saying his vital signs are looking good. John, tell me where you are.”
“I went out to get something to eat. Maybe I went a little too far.” He heard a drunk guy shouting and raging over in the booking area. The cops would take care of that outburst in a hurry, but he figured Ariel had probably heard it too. “I might not be able to get back for a while.”
“What’s that noise?”
“Loud party goin’ on.”
“On a Sunday morning? What’s the number there? And what’s wrong with your voice?”
“Listen to me.” His voice was tired and scratchy. Tear gas was not gentle on the vocal chords. He’d been scrubbed clean, all the purple dye washed out of his hair, and he’d been allowed to curl up in a holding cell and rest until he had enough strength to talk, but it had taken some time. “I’m glad George is going to make it. I’m just going to hang out where I am, so don’t worry. Okay?”
“John.” The way she spoke his name told him she knew. “Are you in trouble?”
“A little.”
“Tell me where you are,” she said tersely. “I mean it.”
Nomad allowed himself a slight smile. It tugged at the scratches on his left cheek, which wore a pink shine of disinfectant. He’d never seen Ariel angry, never heard her lose her temper. She sounded close to it, right now. That would be a sight, he thought; Ariel Collier, in sympathy with the vibrations of the cosmos, going batshit. “You need to get back to Austin,” he said. “You, Terry and Berke. When Ash gets there, tell him… I don’t know, just tell him to get you guys home.” The drunk dude was really hollering now, about his rights and all that, as three cops were dragging him into a holding cell. “Go back and start over,” he said.
“Start over? What do you mean, start over? We’re still The Five, John. We don’t have to start over.”
“Oh yes, you do. Believe me.”
“What’ve you done?”
“I don’t want to talk about that. Get home,” he told her. And then he was silent and she was silent and he didn’t know what she was thinking but he was thinking he had really let them down this time, he had screwed up when they needed him the most and he couldn’t stand to look into her face again and see her disappointment. He couldn’t stand to look into the faces of any of them again, but especially not hers, because…because he thought she really didn’t need The Five, she was talented enough to go out on her own, and in these last three years he had known that and had never said anything. Never encouraged her to at least think about it, because he was the emperor and emperors could hide their jealousy under their crowns of tarnished tin.
He remembered her saying I’m still with you back in Sweetwater. Her loyalty was like a knife to his heart. She was wasting time in this party band, and that’s what The Five was. A band pumping out pablum to be washed down by a flood of cheap beer. A broken-down, sad merchandise machine. One song like ‘When The Storm Breaks’ didn’t make any difference. He knew she was a better guitarist and a better singer and a better songwriter than he, and he believed his leaden earthbound influence was keeping her from finding her own path, because—Christ love her—she meant it when she said I’m still with you.
So now was the time for him to find his guts and say it.
He did.
“You ought to go out on your own.” He had to pause for a few seconds, to clear his throat. “Put your own band together. You front it. Audition the players, make the sound you want. You can do it. You could’ve done it straight out of The Blessed Hours, if you’d wanted to.”
“Oh, no,” she answered, in a quietly stunned voice like a child being told to leave the house. “Oh, no.”
“You can,” he said. “It would be all yours. What would be wrong with that?” He recalled all the times they’d been working together on songs and he’d steamrolled her, just plowed her under when she’d made a suggestion to transpose it to a different key or add this or take away that or whatever. Even though down in his deep dark grudge he’d known she was right—usually right—he couldn’t have let her take control. Once she figured out she didn’t really need him, then where would he be?
But now it was different. Day was night and up was down. Mike was dead and George was shot, the Argo had sunken in a sea of broken drywall, The Five had played its final gig and Johnny, there is no roadmap.