IN PROGRESS: EXCERPTS

FROM THE VOICE
By Robert Yehling
Publish Date: Summer 2007

PROLOGUE
August 15, 1987

    Cheers erupted and rolled through the arena like a hurricane swell. They engulfed whatever air remained after three hours of dancing, singing, screaming, swaying, swooning and shouting. Thousands of lit matches and cigarette lighters flickered before the central attraction of this night, a tired man standing on a catwalk that jutted from a stage bathed in floodlights of every color.

    Tom wiped a layer of sweat from his forehead and stared at the ecstatic fans. Only a few rows of faces were visible before the stage lights faded into darkness. A roaming floodlight, mounted from the rafters enabled him to catch brief glimpses the people in the upper tiers. His body shook from the rumble, the exhaustion of playing another lights-out set, the sheer adulation directed at him.

    “One more tour!” a college student in a Psychedelic Furs t-shirt yelled.

    “Tommy T, come home with me!” The heavy-set, wild-haired young woman shrieked so hard that her thick-framed glasses fell off her face.

    I’ve Got The Fever, said a placard. The sign’s fat, multicolored letters arched above a microphone like a rainbow 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. Her wavy, barely-covered breasts and bouncing body caused her boyfriend or husband to stumble as she rode his shoulders. Tom had faced those breasts every time he pranced on the catwalk, just as he’d faced breasts and bodies wherever he went. It brought to mind all of those delicious teases, uneaten candy, not to be touched, verboten since his bachelorhood and the sixties steamed into the sunset together. Since he was immensely more popular than the leader of the free world, he’d received ten thousand, maybe twenty thousand direct offers—shout-outs at concerts, notes passed backstage, whispers in the ears of roadies, managers, and lighting crew, encounters in clubs, chance meetings on city streets, women from 15 to 50, married, single, divorced, those into group love. Learn to say thank you. Learn to move on.

    Tom shook his head, opened his eyes and pointed his microphone at the woman, acknowledging her support. If she fell forward, she’d tumble directly onto his boots. A mixture of exhaustion, adrenalin and pure sadness spread throughout his body and pooled in his eyes, threatening to sweep him away. The woman’s swaying took on the tempo of a goodbye wave.

    He’d anticipated this moment for all fifty dates of The Fever’s farewell tour, rehearsed a final speech, written out a hundred times over the final set he, Chester, Will, Raylene and Trig would play, rehearsed how he’d handle the final cheers … the final cheers. It’s a moment no young rock god envisions during his season of immortality, but all middle-aged rock icons must face—especially those who play for enough years to see their peers reunite and embark on nostalgia tours. The rocking-chair circuit. The newest rage in the eighties. Here’s what we did. They’re only buying tickets because today’s music can’t compare
.
    Tom wasn’t interested.

    He aimed his microphone at the throng and lowered his head as tears rolled down his cheeks. How do you contain it? How do you answer it? How do you step away from it? How do you step away from playing the music you love and becoming the center of your fans’ universe, the undisputed god of the night, night after night after sold-out night?

    How do you say goodbye?

    He wiped his face again. The tears kept rolling. Screw it: we’ll cry together. He lifted his head and showed the audience a still-chiseled, whiskered face moistened by tears and sweat framed by curly black locks, once chest-length, now cut back to his ears and flecked with gray.

    Fans in front of the catwalk began to chant. “When a place goes mad! When a place goes mad! When a place goes mad!” Within seconds, the whole place erupted in a bacchanalian bonfire of dancing, stomping, embracing and singing.

    Tom swallowed the catwalk with his stride and returned to center stage. He glanced down at his boots and the half-dozen echo and fuzz pedals in front of them. He followed a line of wires to the monitors, and looked up. Chester met his eyes, then slung his guitar around his ribcage and onto his back. Since they were crash pad buddies in the Haight, Tom had looked to his left at virtually every reputable club, theater, hall, campus, arena and stadium. Always, Chester and one of his three guitars stood in place. What a rock.

    The rock also wiped tears from his face. Tom strode over, wrapped up Chester with one of his long arms, and faced the crowd.
   
    “When a place goes mad! When a place goes mad!”

“Wanna give ‘em anything else?” Chester yelled into Tom’s ear. Sweat matted Chester’s still-long, still-crinkly, now completely gray hair.

    Tom shook his head. “You don’t think four encores is enough?”

    “Not for them. They want the night.”