War for the Oaks (2 page)

Eddi McCandry stared bleakly at the dim little stage with its redand-black flocked wallpaper. The band's equipment threatened to overflow it. She'd tried to wedge her guitar stand out of the way, but it still seemed likely to leap out and trip someone. She was glad the keyboard player had quit two weeks before—there wasn't room for him.

The first set had been bad enough, playing to a nearly empty club. The next two were worse. Too many country fans with requests for favorites. And of course, Stuart, as bandleader, had accepted them all, played them wretchedly, forgot the words, and made it plain that he didn't care. They were the wrong band for this bar.

"I think," Eddi said, "that this job was a bad idea."

Her companion nodded solemnly. "Every time you've said that this evening, it's sounded smarter." Carla DiAmato was the drummer for InKline Plain. With her shaggy black hair and her eyes made up dark for the stage, she looked exotic as a tiger, wholly out of place in the University Bar.

"It would have been smarter to tell Stuart it was a bad idea," Eddi said. "Ideally, before he booked the job."

"You couldn't know."

"I could. I did. Look at this place."

Carla sighed. "I think I'm gonna hear the 'This Band Sucks Dead Rat' speech again."

"Well, it does."

"Through a straw. I know. So why don't you quit?"

Eddi looked at her, then at her glass, then at the ceiling. "Why don't you?"

"It's steady work." Carla was silent for a moment, then added, "Well, it used to be."

"Tsk. You don't even have my excuse."

"You mean I haven't been sleeping with Stuart?"

"Yeah," Eddi sighed, "like that."

"Sometimes I take my blessings for granted. I'm going to go up and scare the cockroaches out of the bass drum."

"Good luck," said Eddi. "I'll be right behind you."

She almost made it to the stage before Stuart Kline grabbed her arm. His face was flushed, and his brown hair was rumpled, halfflattened. She sighed. "You're drunk, Stu," she said with a gentleness that surprised her.

"Fuck it." Petulance twisted up his male-model features. She should have felt angry, or ashamed. All she felt was a distant wonder:
I used to be in love with him
.

She asked, "You want to do easy stuff this set?"

"I said fuck it, fuck off. I'm okay."

Eddi shrugged. "It's your hanging."

He grabbed her arm again. "Hey, I want you to be nicer to the club managers."

"What?"

"Don't look at me like that. Just flirt. It's good for the band."

She wanted to tweak his nose, see his smile—but that didn't make him smile anymore. "Stuart, you don't get gigs by sending the rhythm guitarist to flirt with the manager. You get 'em by playing good dance music."

"I play good dance music."

"We play anything that's already been played to death. All night, people have been sticking their heads in the front door, listening to half a song, and leaving. You in a betting mood?"

"Why?"

"I bet the nice man at the bar tells us not to come back tomorrow."

"Damn you," he raged suddenly, "is that my fault?"

Eddi blinked.

"You pissed him off, didn't you? Why do you have to be such a bitch?"

For a long moment she thought she might shout back at him. But it was laughter that came racing up her throat. Stuart's look of foolish surprise fed it, doubled it. She planted a smacking kiss on his chin. "Stuart, honey," she grinned, "you gotta grow where you're planted."

She loped over and swung up on stage, took her lipstick-red Rickenbacker from the stand, and flipped the strap over her shoulder. She caught Carla's eye over the tops of the cymbals. "Dale back from break yet?"

Carla shook her head, then inhaled loudly through pursed lips. "Parking lot," she croaked.

"Oh, goody. The whole left side of the stage in an altered state of consciousness. Let's figure out the set list."

"But we've got a set list."

"Let's make a new one. May as well be hanged for Prince as for Pink Floyd."

"But Stuart—"

Eddi grinned. "I want to leave this band in a blaze of glory."

Carla's eyes grew wide. "You're—Jesus. Okay, set list. Can we dump all the Chuck Berry?"

"Yeah. Let's show this dive that we at least flirt with modern music, huh?"

They came up with a list of songs in a few gleeful minutes. Stuart hoisted himself on stage as they finished, eyeing them with sullen suspicion. He slung on his guitar and began to noodle, running through his arsenal of electronic effects—more, Eddi suspected, to prove to the audience that he had them than to make sure they worked.

Dale, the bass player, ambled on stage looking vaguely pleased with himself. Dale was all right in his own disconnected way; but he liked country rock and hated rock 'n' roll, and consoled himself with dope during breaks. Eddi cranked up the bass on her amp and hoped it would make up for whatever he was too stoned to deliver.

Carla was watching her, waiting for the cue to start. Stuart and Dale were ready, if not precisely waiting. "Give us a count," she said to Carla. Stuart glared at her. Carla counted, and they kicked off with a semblance of unity.

They began with a skewed version of Del Shannon's "Runaway."
It was familiar enough to pull people onto the dance floor, and the band's odd arrangement disguised most of the mistakes. Eddi and Carla did impromptu girl-group vocals. Dale looked confused. Then they dived into the Bangles' "In a Different Light," and Stuart began to sulk. Eddi had anticipated that. The next one was an old Eagles song that gave Stuart a chance to sing and muddle up the lead guitar riffs.

Perhaps the scanty audience felt Eddi's sudden madness; they were in charity with the band for the first time that night. People had finally started to dance. Eddi hoped it wasn't too late to impress the manager, but suspected it was.

Carla set the bass drum and her drum machine to tossing the percussion back and forth. The dancers were staying on the floor, waiting for the beat to fulfill its promise. Eddi murmured the four-count. Dale thumped out a bass line that was only a little too predictable. Stuart shot Eddi an unreadable look and layered on the piercing voice of his Stratocaster. Eddi grabbed her mike and began to sing.

You told me I was pretty
I can't believe it's true.
The little dears you left me for
They all look just like you.
Ugly is as ugly does
—
Are you telling me what to do?

Wear my face
You can have it for a week
Wear my face
Aren't the cheekbones chic?
Wear my face
See how people look at you?
Wear my face
See how much my face can do?

They were still dancing. The band was together and tight at last, and Eddi felt as if she'd done it all herself in a burst of goddesslike musical electricity.

Then she saw the man standing at the edge of the dance floor. His walnut-stain skin seemed too dark for his features. He wore his hair smoothed back, except for a couple of escaped curls on his forehead.
His eyes were large and slanted upward under thick arched brows; his nose was narrow and slightly aquiline. He wore a long dark coat with the collar up, and a gleaming white scarf that reflected the stage lights into his face. When she looked at him, he met her eyes boldly and grinned.

Eddi snagged the microphone, took the one step toward him that she had room for, and sang the last verse at him.

I've seen the way you look away
When you think I might see,
You say I scare you silly—
That's reacting sensibly.
Why should people look at you
When they could look at me?

It was Eddi who had to turn away, and the last chorus was delivered to the dancers. The man had met her look with a silent challenge that made her skin prickle. His sloping eyes had been full of reflected lights in colors that shone nowhere in the room.

She almost missed Carla's neat segue into the next song. She nailed down her first guitar chord barely in time, and caught Stuart's scowl out of the corner of her eye.

Eddi had wanted to close with something rambunctious, something the audience would like yet that would allow Eddi and Carla to respect themselves in the morning. Carla had hit upon ZZ Top's "Cheap Sunglasses." Halfway into it, with a shower of sparks and a vile smell, the ancient power amp for the PA dropped dead.

As the microphones failed, Stuart's vocals disappeared tinnily under the sound of guitars and bass and Carla's drums. Stuart, never at his best in the face of adversity, lost his temper. He yanked his guitar strap over his head and let the Strat drop to the stage. The pickups howled painfully through his amp.

Eddi heard Dale's bass stumble through a succession of wrong notes, and fall silent. She supposed he was right; Stuart had made it impossible to end the song gracefully. But for her pride's sake, she played out the measure and added a final flourish. Carla matched her perfectly, and Eddi wanted to kiss her feet for it.

The dancers had deserted the floor, and people were finishing drinks and pulling on jackets. She swept the room a stagey bow. At the corner
of her vision, she thought she saw a dark-coated figure move toward the door.

Stuart had turned off his amp and unplugged his axe. His expression was forbidding. Eddi turned away to tend to her own equipment, but not before she saw the club manager striding toward the stage.

"You the bandleader?" she heard him ask Stuart.

"Yeah," said Stuart, "what is it?"

It's our walking papers, Stu
, she thought sadly, knowing that he could save the whole gig now, if only he would be pleasant and conciliating. He wouldn't be, of course. The manager would tell Stuart what he should be doing with his band, and Stuart, instead of thanking him for the tip, would recommend he keep his asshole advice to himself.

And Stuart would make Eddi out the villain if he could. Well, she was done with that now. She finished packing her guitar and tracked the power cord on her amplifier back to the outlet.

"You're that sure, huh?" Carla's voice came from over her head.

"You mean, am I packing up everything? Yeah. You want help tearing down?"

Carla looked faded and limp. "You can pack the electronic junk."

Eddi nodded, and started unplugging things from the back of the drum machine. "You done good, kid. Even at the end when it hit the fan."

Carla shook her head and grinned. "Well, you got to go out in a blaze of
something
."

Over at the bar, Stuart and the manager had begun to shout at each other. "I booked a goddamn five-piece!" the manager yelled. "You goddamn well
did
break your contract!"

Carla looked up at Eddi, her eyes wide. "Oh boy—you mean we're not even gonna get
paid
"?

Eddi turned to see how Dale was taking the news. He was nowhere to be seen.

"Carla, you think your wagon will hold your equipment and mine, too?"

Carla smiled. "The Titanic? I won't even have to put the seat down."

They did have to put the seat down, but the drums, drum machine, Eddi's guitar, and her Fender Twin Reverb all fit. They made three trips out the back door with the stuff, and Stuart and the manager showed no sign of noticing them.

As Carla bullied the wagon out of its parking space, Eddi spotted Dale. He was leaning against the back of his rusted-out Dodge. The lit end of his joint flared under his nose. "Hold it," Eddi said to Carla. She jumped out of the car and ran over to him. "Hey, Dale!"

"Eddi? Hullo. Is Stuart still at it?"

"Still at what?"

Dale shrugged and dragged at the joint. "You know," he croaked, "screwing up." He exhaled and held the J out to her.

Eddi shook her head. "I didn't think you'd noticed—I mean—"

"Been pretty bad the last month. It'd be hard not to." He smiled sadly at the toes of his cowboy boots. "So, you going?"

"Yeah. That is, I'm leaving the band."

"That's what I meant."

"Oh. Well, I wanted to say good-bye. I'll miss you." Which, Eddi realized with a start, was more true than she'd thought.

Dale smiled at his joint. "Maybe I'll quit gigging. Friend of mine has a farm out past Shakopee, says I can stay there. He's got goats, and some beehives—pretty fuckin' weird." He looked at her, and his voice lost some of its dreaminess. "You know, you're really good. I don't much like that stuff, you know, but you're good."

Eddi found she couldn't answer that. She hugged him instead, whispered, "Bye, Dale," and ran back to the car.

Carla turned north on Highway 35. Eddi hung over the back of her seat watching the Minneapolis skyline rise up and unroll behind them. White light banded the top of the IDS building, rebounded off the darkened geometry of a blue glass tower nearby. The clock on the old courthouse added the angular red of its hands. The river glittered like wrinkled black patent leather, and the railroad bridges glowed like something from a movie set.

"I love this view," Eddi sighed. "Even the Metrodome's not bad from here, for a glow-in-the-dark fungus."

"Boy, you
are
feeling sentimental," said Carla.

"Yeah." Eddi turned around to face the windshield. "Carla, am I doing the right thing?"

"You mean dumping Personality Man?"

Eddi looked at her, startled.

"Hey," Carla continued, "no big deduction. You couldn't leave Stu's band and stay friends with Stu—nobody could. So kissing off the band means breaking up with Mr. Potato Head."

Eddi giggled. "It's a really
pretty
potato."

"And solid all the way through. This'll probably wipe the band out, y'know."

"He can replace me," Eddi shrugged.

"Maybe. But you
and
me?"

"You're quitting?"

"I'm not sticking around to watch Stuart piss and moan." Carla's tone was a little too offhand, and Eddi shot her a glance. "Oh, all right," Carla amended. "Stuart would scream about what a bitch and a traitor you are, I'd tell him he was a shit and didn't deserve you, and I'd end up walking out anyway. Why not now?"

Eddi slugged her gently in the shoulder. "Yer a pal."