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EXCERPT FROM THE VOICE, by Robert Yehling
©2007 Robert L. Yehling and Word Journeys, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Reproduction Strictly Prohibited
PREQUEL
August 15, 1987
Cheers
rolled through the arena and engulfed whatever air remained after
three hours of dancing, singing, screaming, swaying, swooning and
shouting. Thousands of lit matches and cigarette lighters paid
tribute to the man slumping on his microphone stand as he perched on
the strobe-lit catwalk. Behind him, floodlights of every color bathed
a stage draped in purple.
Tom
wiped his sweaty forehead and stared at the ecstatic fans. Only a few
rows of faces were visible before darkness consumed the crowd. A
roaming floodlight, mounted from the rafters, enabled him to catch
brief glimpses of the people in the upper tiers. His body shook from
the rumble and exhaustion of playing another lights-out set, the
sheer adulation directed at him.
“One
more tour!” Half the lettering on the shag-haired fan’s
Psychedelic Furs t-shirt was rubbed off from excessive use.
“Tommy
T, come home with me!” The heavy-set young woman shrieked so hard
that her wire-rimmed glasses fell off her face.
A
flash of movement on one side of the catwalk: “I’ve Got The
Fever,” the placard proclaimed. The sign’s fat,
multicolored letters yo-yoed above a microphone, trapped in the
sixties. The sign-holder’s son, a young teen, threw his fists in
the air.
“I’m
yours—right now!” a thirty-something blonde screamed. She bounced
on her boyfriend’s shoulders. He stumbled forward, bracing to
balance himself on his uncollapsed leg. She encompassed all those
delicious teases, candy not to be tasted, verboten since his
bachelorhood and the sixties dissolved together. In the ensuing
years, he’d received thousands of direct offers—shouted proposals
at concerts to marry, date or go right to bed—or do it backstage—
notes and flowers passed along in the dressing room, whispers in the
ears of roadies, managers, and lighting crew, encounters in clubs,
chance meetings on city streets. The women ranged from fifteen to
fifty, married, single, divorced, students, professors. Executives.
Learn
to say thank you. Learn to move on. The advice of a wise man
he’d taken long ago.
Tom
shook his head and pointed his microphone at the woman, acknowledging
her support. If she leaned any further forward, she and her
boyfriend would take him out. Exhaustion, adrenalin, relief and
mounting sadness swept through his body and pooled in his eyes. The
woman’s swaying breasts and arms took on the rhythm of a goodbye
wave.
He’d
anticipated this moment for all sixty dates of The Fever’s farewell
tour, rehearsed a final speech, written it out a hundred times
against the final set he, Chester, Will, Raylene and Treg would play.
For three months, he’d contemplated the final cheers , the moment
no young rock god envisions during his season of immortality, but all
middle-aged rock icons must face. Especially those who play long
enough to see their peers reunite for nostalgia tours, the
rocking-chair circuit, the eighties’ other New Wave. Here’s
what we did in our heyday. We’re selling tickets so that you
can rekindle your youth and we can cash in.
Tom
wasn’t interested.
He
aimed his microphone at the throng and lowered his head. Tears rolled
down his cheeks. How do you contain it? How do you stop giving fans
the music you—and they—love? How do you step away? How do
you replace the euphoria of serving as the center of your fans’
universe for a few hours each night, the god of the night, for night
after night after sold-out night?
How
do you say goodbye?
The
tears streamed. Screw it: we’ll cry together. He lifted his
head and showed the audience a whiskered face framed by curly black
locks, once chest-length, now cut and swept back over his ears, now
flecked with gray.
“When
a place goes mad! When a place goes mad! When a place goes mad!”
Within
seconds, the shouts of a few fanned a bacchanal of dancing, stomping,
chanting, high-fiving and embracing that engulfed the crowd. Throw in
a mountainside, bonfire, barrel of wine and a few maenads, Tom
thought, and Dionysus himself would descend.
He
swallowed the catwalk with his long stride and returned to center
stage. He glanced down at the foot pedals and echoplex. He followed
the wires to the monitors and looked up. Chester Craven met his eyes,
then slung his guitar around his ribcage and onto his back. For
twenty years, Tom looked to his right at virtually every club,
theater, hall, campus, arena and stadium that hosted bands. Always,
he’d see Chester and one of his guitars. He even sat on the right
before that, on the broken couch they lugged from flat to flat in the
Haight, on the gruesome nights following the worst day of his life,
when she flew away.
What
a rock, Chester.
The
rock also wiped tears from his face. Tom strode over, wrapped up
Chester with one of his arms, and faced the crowd.
“When
a place goes mad! When a place goes mad!” The chant was relentless.
“Wanna
give ‘em anything else?” Sweat matted Chester’s long, crinkly,
completely gray hair.
Tom
shook his head. “What else do we have? Four encores wasn’t
enough?”
“They
want the night.”
They
not only wanted the night, but continued flight into full musical
ecstasy. That’s the thing about rock. Once afflicted, you’re
never cured.
Thousands
of feet stomped in unison. Tom swept his eyes around the stage:
Will Halsey waved his drumsticks, his arms limp as wet noodles, a
towel draped over his shoulders. He was done. On the keyboards,
Treg Arbanne stared straight ahead, smiling, soaking in every cheer,
satisfied with a career well-done. Next to Treg, Raylene Quarles
stood at the ready, her long, callused fingertips poised like eagle’s
talons. All night, as every night, her throaty backing vocals and
thunderous note patterns seemed to rise from Inanna’s deepest
bosom. Still, her legs wobbled.
“We
don’t have anything left,” Tom yelled.
Chester
shrugged his shoulders at the man who’d lured him from the hollows
of Tennessee with the promise of fun and spirited freedom in San
Francisco. “Maybe not.”
There
they were for the last time, ladies and gentlemen. The Fever: A
quintet named for a smoldering Peggy Lee song that ignited an
orphan’s pubescent fascination with all things feminine—dance,
heat, heart, curves and hollows, dark fiery mystery. Years later,
the mystery morphed with hard rock to bring a wild, crazy grace to
live music—like a great surfer attacking and caressing a Hawaiian
wave’s face at the same time. That Tom had given the androgynistic
formula a masculine bite, set it to some of the “ballsiest,
grittiest, most beautiful, most meaningful music ever dropped onto
vinyl,” turned the band into legend by 1975. Media reviews came and
went, but when the oversized tabloid bible of music lays down
a line like that, you imbed it. Those remarks don’t happen often.
“When
a place goes mad! When a place goes mad!” The entire arena shook.
Chester
cupped Tom’s ear. “We’ve gotta give ‘em something, man.
Gotta.”
A
bouquet of roses landed at their feet. Chester picked it up and
walked it back to Raylene. She smelled them and waved them to the
crowd.
“When
a place goes mad! When a place goes mad!”
Tom
held the microphone as though it were a lifeline, a silver cord about
to snap. He felt so sure about leaving, so secure in his decision, a
decision the entire band shared…but he just couldn’t turn around
and walked off the stage.
“OK,
people! OK-OK-OK-OK-Ooooookayyyy!”
More
cheers. More foot pounding. More lighters. More kisses thrown by
women. More frenzy. A new chant: “Tommy T! Tommy T! Tommy T!”
Tom
turned to Will, who smacked his skins and peeled off a quick
drumroll. The crowd leaned forward in a united anticipation of encore
number five.
“Ladies
and gentleman …what can I say?” A yellow light trained directly
on Tom. His planned goodbye speech, rehearsed in the mirrors of hotel
rooms and friends’ houses all summer, evaporated from his tongue
faster than raindrops in Death Valley.
A
sign unfurled from the now-floodlit balcony: “Fever Nation!”
Megan
walked onto the stage, accompanied by a toddler. Recognition, wild
cheers, another switch in chants: “Mystical Megan! Mystical Megan!”
As
Megan waved, the toddler peered into the crowd. Her little body
vibrated from an energy intense as a trick-or-treater’s after an
hour of feasting on Halloween pickings. She tried to break her
mother’s grip, play with all these screaming people. The hand clasp
tightened.
When
Megan reached center stage, Tom wrapped his arms around her. Through
his swollen eyes, Tom saw the same dance of lights, love and mystery
that engulfed him long ago when she pulled aside her 16mm camera,
stopped shooting the Fever gig for she and her fellow fashion design
aspirants, and fell in love—on the spot—with the star who towered
on the stage above her. The romance that ensued was, in the music
world, rare as a blue diamond.
It
survived.
Tom
swept up the toddler and bounced her in one arm. He gripped the
microphone. “It’s been a great ride, people. You’ve given us
lives beyond our dreams. I hope we’ve given you some nights to
remember. Live the music in your hearts. Make the songs your own.”
Tom
turned to Chester and tipped his head: the “let’s play” signal.
Years of head nods, bobs and turns, arm flaps, finger points, eye
gestures, leg kicks and sideways glances enabled the five to keep
time with each other through five, six songs in a row. Their signals
comprised a stage language more complex than a major league baseball
team’s—one of the many asides of long-term performing that beset
Tom with a sleuth’s level of intrigue. He considered a consummate
student of bands’ stage signals, perhaps the biggest student in the
music business.
“A
quickie! Reprise West!” Tom yelled.
Chester
read his lips. He nodded, mouthed the song title to the others, threw
up one finger and pointed at each musician, like he was counting
dairy cows back home. We’re only going one time around, y’all.
Tom
turned to the crowd. “Megan, Christina and I are heading out,
heading on our way, heading –“
“To
the west of the west!” a fan hollered. He sported salt-and-pepper
hair, a Fever t-shirt and sneakers…an overaged teenager. Aren’t
we all, in this business.
“We’re
heading to the west of the….Wesssssst!”
Chester’s
guitar and Treg’s keyboards cut loose. Tom’s radiant mid-range
tenor, the voice that ingratiated a generation, took flight. Tom
kissed Megan and pranced up the catwalk for the final time, young
Christina in his arms, his voice rising and falling on the contour
sof the song:
“We’re
heading to the west, we’re heading to the west,
We’re
heading to the west of the west!
Where
the stories of gold are forever told,
Out
here in the west of the west.
As
Tom bounced his leg up and down, Christina struggled to break free of
his hold. He relented, put the toddler down, and held her hand. She
started to dance, gawky arms and legs akimbo, blonde hair flying off
her shoulders, moving to a beat of her own.
“So
let’s jump in my car and let’s aim for the sun,
We’re
heading to the west of the west!
Where
our hearts and our dreams meet Highway 101
Out
here in the west of the west.
Let’s
go to the west of the west!”
Tom
looked down at Christina. The toddler laughed and began to twirl,
like she’d done countless times at home while listening to
sing-a-long albums. This time, she gave it up for 15,000 screaming
fans, half of whom would take her daddy home right now if
given the chance.
“Let’s
go to the west of the west
Let’s
go to the west of the west!”
The
warmth of pure love, the absolute joy of being daddy, filled
Tom as he incanted one of his generation’s definitive hooklines The
toddler was gone, lost in her spirit, her dance. He and Megan
agreed never to raise her on the rock-and-roll highway, a road strewn
with potholed marriages and totaled life flames—Jimi, Janis, Jim,
John, Jerry, countless others. It was unfit for child rearing.
Christina was about life, miracles, gifts, the best, the jewel of a
difficult pregnancy that worked out, the one creation for which Tom
would lay down the microphone.
Now
his little girl, his main reason for calling it quits, twirled up a
storm and lit up the fans. Now she was rocking.
Chester
and Treg converged on the final ascending chord, Raylene tied down
the bottom, and Will thumped away.
“I’ll
see you in the west of the Wessssssssssssssst…..”
Claps,
yells, fists, peace signs and single fingers thrust into sweeps of
light. “I love you Tommy T” Signs waved, feet stomped. Women and
girls bounced on shoulders and danced on seats. Guys bobbed up and
down or danced with their ladies in the aisles. That last moment of a
concert, along with the sheer joy of playing music, gave the band its
emotional fuel to unpack the next night and play again. The thrill
lasted two decades.
Tom
glanced down at Christina. She stared at the crowd, her wiry arms and
legs twitching. She wanted more. Tom shielded his eyes so he could
see the entire crowd beneath the houselights. “One day,” he
yelled into the microphone, “if I’m still kicking, I mayreturn in
some shape or form.”
Tom
took a bow. Christina watched her daddy, and did the same.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
The Rest of the Story: The Voice online
