Voice (25 page)

“Give it another couple of shows,” Case said. “If you can’t take it after that, we’ll figure something out. But I’m telling you, what happened after the last show was a fluke. It
can’t
get worse than that.”

“Yeah,” Quentin said. “You’re probably right.”

***

To Quentin’s relief, the next show went well, as did the one after that. Johnny’s creepy friend didn’t come around, and the strange behavior of the audience had all but stopped. Quentin doubted the two were unrelated. Johnny still worried Quentin, and some of the songs still gave him a bad feeling, but overall, Quentin was optimistic and even starting to have fun again.

Erin continued to deliver one record crowd after another, and soon they were moving to bigger venues. Christmas came and went, and the old year sloughed away like so much dead skin, revealing the shiny pink new year beneath it. They ended the year on a high note, playing New Year’s Eve to a sold-out crowd, and the band had a blast and got good and drunk afterward. It was like the old days, almost, only better.

“Only good things from here on out,” Quentin said, raising his glass.

They all drank to that.

From the
Dallas
Observer
, February 12, 2010:

Ragman Draws Crowds

When you ask Ragman
frontman Johnny Tango who his biggest influence is, he gives you a look designed to make you think you’re the dumbest son of a bitch he’s ever set eyes on.

“Dylan, man.” He shakes his head. “You need to do your motherfucking homework.”

And that’s how the interview starts.

We sat down with Ragman’s
lead singer Johnny Tango and guitarist Case, representatives of the band that took home our Readers’ Choice Award for Best New Act for last year. The pair of them are Dallas’s up-and-coming current answer to the dynamic duo of Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, or the Toxic Twins Steven Tyler and Joe Perry—comparisons Case, at least, seems to relish.

Johnny, it turns out, is more of a Dylan fan.

The two of them are a study in weird contrasts and unexpected similarities. Case won’t sit on the couch—she pulls out a wooden chair from the table nearby and perches on that, coiled as though ready to strike at any moment. Johnny affects a more languorous attitude and stretches out on the couch with his arms spread wide across the back—but if you look closely, you can see that he, too, is vibrating with barely controlled tension. He grins and sneers and sulks and swears like a sailor. She keeps her face deadpan during the whole interview and also swears like a sailor. He’s got the leather jacket, and she wears the leather pants. They both wear white T-shirts. He slips back and forth from coarse vulgarity, a caricature of pool-hall machismo, to academic English-speak without being aware of it. She looks at you like she just might decide to break your nose, and never wavers. They seem as likely as any pair to be the latest bastion of rock and roll in Dallas.

We asserted that we had not, in fact, done our motherfucking homework, and picked up the interview from there.

Observer: Bob Dylan?

Johnny: Yeah.

O: That’s a strange influence for a band as heavy as yours.

Johnny: It ain’t that fuckin’ strange. Dylan was as heavy as they come. Loud, too. Pissed a lot of motherfuckers off when he went electric, but he didn’t care. Doesn’t get heavier than that. Had a nice bike, too.

O (laughs): Still, you have to admit it’s not typical.

Johnny: Only because people don’t listen to what the man said. Apocalyptic visions, impassioned rants against the establishment, drug addiction, cryptic messages from wherever-the-fuck. He was fearless. He tackled everything, head-on. Nobody was as rock-and-roll as Bob fucking Dylan, not before or since.

Case: Except maybe Johnny Thunders.

O (to Case): Johnny Thunders—now there’s a name you don’t hear much these days. Is he one of your major influences?

Case: Yeah.

O (after a pause): Who else?

Case: Anybody who ever hung a heavy fucking piece of mahogany around their neck and played no-bullshit guitar.

O: Such as?

Case: Jimmy Page. Joe Perry. Slash. Neil Young—he gets some of the ugliest sounds out of a Les Paul you ever heard. It’s fucking great. Martin Barre. Clapton, before his balls fell off. Kerry Buchanan, from Crashyard
.
He doesn’t get enough credit.

O: Your band has had a fair amount of success locally in a very short time frame. What do you attribute that to?

Case: Good PR.

Johnny (glares at Case): Good fucking music.

O (to Johnny): Anything specific?

Johnny: Yeah. We rock the fuck out without treating our audience like eighth graders. (He pauses, thinking for a moment.) Plus we put on a hell of a show.

***

“It’s time,” Erin said, putting the paper away. “Thou shalt go to Austin.”

Later, Case would trace a bitter wealth of misery back to that statement. For now, she just raised her eyebrows. “Oh?”

“Sure. The band’s doing pretty well in Dallas, but you guys are never going to make any money playing to the same hundred people every month. Time to start spreading the love. Austin’s a good place to start making regular visits.”

Case sighed. “A new town. Empty rooms. It’ll be just like starting over again.”

“No guts, no glory. Besides,” Erin said, adding a wink, “I know a few people.”

Case laughed—it was hard not to. “All right. Let’s set something up.”

***

“Austin.” Gina’s voice betrayed no emotion.

“Yeah,” Danny said. “We talked about it, and it makes sense. Good music scene, lots of college kids. If we’re going to be serious, we can’t sit in Dallas and hope the world comes to us.” He smiled nervously. She didn’t smile back. “You wanna come?”

“No.”

“It’s just an overnight trip. We’ll be back before you know it.”

She gave him a brittle smile. “I really don’t feel like driving three hours to go sit in a smoky bar. Especially not on a weeknight.”

“Take the next day off. It’ll be fun.”

“No thanks. I can only imagine what your boss would say if he knew why you were taking that Friday off.”

Danny laughed, showing more than a little strain. “My boss is older than God, and he thinks Lawrence Welk was the pinnacle of Western musical achievement. He’d want to know why I’d waste even a minute of my precious vacation on that goddamn noise.”

Gina just looked at him. He didn’t need her to make her point any plainer than that.

“Don’t have too much fun,” she said, and Danny cringed. Ever since that fucking show, there had been an ugly tension under the surface of their relationship, like a saw blade draped under a silk sheet. It threatened to tear through only when he talked about things related to the band, but it seemed like it was always there, just waiting for him to push against it too hard.

“I won’t,” he said.

She turned back to the contract she was reading. 

Another Dallas show, another packed house. The band’s momentum had picked up like Johnny never would have believed after they won the Best New Act award, and it wouldn’t be long before they’d have to move to even larger venues. Room for a couple hundred was no longer enough, amazingly.

Johnny woke the morning after the show, sweaty and shaking. Another Dallas show, another bad dream. Another bad dream that seemed a little too real. At least nobody was following him home anymore. Douglas had taken care of that problem, or it had gone away of its own accord—he didn’t care which.

He was rolling over in bed, trying to fall asleep again, when somebody pounded on his front door. Johnny got a sudden, very bad feeling, like ice water poured down his spine.

Let it go,
the voice suggested. Johnny thought that sounded just fine. Ignore it and it will go away.

“Mr. Tsiboukas, this is the Dallas Police Department. We’d like to have a few words with you.” More pounding.

Oh, fuck.
Johnny got up. Ignoring this would do nothing but make it worse. “Just a second!” he yelled, and he scrambled for some pants.

Johnny went out to the living room and opened the door. A heavyset guy in a cheap coat waved a badge at him.

“Detective Ortiz,” he said. “Dallas Police Department. Sorry if this is a little early.” He didn’t look sorry.

“’Sall right. What can I do for you?”

“Can I come in?”

Johnny flung the door wide so the detective could see past him into the living room, but he didn’t get out of the doorway. “Actually, I don’t have any chairs. I live in squalor, as you can see.”

The detective wrinkled his nose.

“Uh, yeah,” Johnny said. “Carpet gets wet every time it rains. Stinks to high heaven.” Johnny stepped outside and pulled the door shut. “Probably better just to talk out here. What’s going on?”

“Do you know Kevin Stevens?”

“No,” Johnny said, puzzled. “Who is he?”

“The young man who was killed behind the Curtain Club last night.”

Johnny’s eyes widened in real shock—and, he fervently hoped, nothing more than shock.

Relax,
the voice told him
. Dallas is a violent place. Like most big cities. Something bad happens every night.

The detective watched his face with interest. 

“Uh, sorry,” Johnny said. “That’s . . . kind of shocking. My band played the Curtain Club last night. I was right there.”

“Yeah. I know. We’re talking to everybody we can track down who was there. Did you see anything unusual last night, either in the club or outside when you left?”

“Not really. Just a bunch of drunk people, you know?”
Had
he seen anything unusual? He didn’t think so, no. In fact, he was sure of it. Douglas hadn’t been there, and even the crazies were nowhere in evidence these days. He was really in the clear—of course he was. So why did he feel so guilty?

The detective nodded. “Can you give me the names of anyone else who was there?”

“Sure.” He gave the detective the names of the guys in the band, the names of the other bands, and any other names he could remember. The detective wrote them all down dutifully. A short interview followed. The questions were all pretty basic. What time did you get there? What time did you leave? Did you leave by yourself or with someone?—and Johnny relaxed as it went on. There really was nothing to worry about.

“All right,” the detective said after about five minutes. “Thank you.”

That was it? “Anything else I can do?”

The detective smiled without humor. “We’ll let you know. Probably not.” He turned to go, then stopped. “You ought to have your roof fixed. That carpet is something else.”

Johnny managed a sickly grin. “Tell me about it.”

***

They went down to Austin just as they had gone to their long-ago college show in Wichita Falls, with the addition of Erin. She sat in the front seat of Case’s car and jammed Johnny in back with the gear. Johnny didn’t seem to mind—he stared out the window and fiddled with his notebook and generally kept quiet. That suited Case just fine. He’d been so edgy lately that it was starting to rub off. At least in the backseat she couldn’t see him bouncing his legs and folding his notebook.

The venue was about as Case expected—a dozen or so people hangin’ out in a badly lit little club.

“It’ll fill up,” Erin said, giving her a reassuring smile. “Maybe not a lot, but I’ve got some friends around here.”

Case shrugged. It wasn’t like she hadn’t played empty rooms before. The five of them waited around, each buried in their own thoughts except Erin. She had gone over to chat up one of the other bands that was scheduled to play that night, a bunch of bearded guys that looked like a bunch of scrawny lumberjacks.

Fucking jam band,
Case guessed, but she smiled a little.
I must be getting spoiled already—I’d forgotten all about the joys of new band night.

The joys were just beginning, it turned out. The jam band dragged their stuff onstage, and ten o’clock rolled around with no sound guy in evidence. There were now maybe two dozen people hanging out in the club, and no sound guy. The lumberjacks stood around staring at each other. One of them scratched his head while the rest bore the slack expressions of the terminally stoned.