Sugar Plum

Predator Press

[LOBO]

eremy opened the limo door for the gentlemen, exactly as his uncle taught him.

“Above all else,” his uncle reminded gently eons ago. “Never ever ever speak unless asked to.”

And Jeremy was fine with that.

-He didn’t much like talking anyway.

One might imagine this to be good advice particularly when driving for Caesar the Rat; Caesar, an unprecedented eight litters old, had grown to such immense girth the entire vehicle tilted as he entered. You couldn’t miss the groaning sounds from the vehicle's suspension, but none in his presence ever spoke of it.

Two more rats flanked Caesar on either side: one administrative-looking and adroit, the other a thug or bodyguard.

“Are you sure you don’t want a ride?” the administrative rat called. The steam from his breath blew through his manicured, gloved paws.

“No thank you,” she called, rapidly diminishing in the distance.

Jeremy noticed her bare prints in the snow led from the side door of The House a Go Go –“The House” as it is known. Diminutive in size in stature, Sugar Plum must have quietly slipped by him unobserved.

The bodyguard had a cellphone glued to his ear, removing it only briefly to duck inside the vehicle.

Having closed the door, Jeremy walked around and climbed into the driver’s seat.

Warm.

Still shivering, Jeremy watched in the mirror and politely waited for instructions.

“You can’t run no topless joint without no goyls,” said Caesar. He had uncharacteristically taken the seat directly behind Jeremy, and they were almost back-to-back. Jeremy could see Caesar’s labored breathing in his shoulders as he spoke, and the big cigar swiveled alternately behind his silhouette.

“Well, I told her Boss,” stammered the administrative rat. “Three times the pay than bartending. Ten times the tips. She wouldn’t have none of it.”

“She quit?”

“Claimed she was insulted.”

Caesar heaved a sigh. Plucking the cigar from his face, he used it to point at the administrative rat. “Ain’t she a gaddamm titmouse?”

“Third generation!” the administrative rat protested.

The bodyguard flipped his phone shut. “I got nothing boss. Tryin to get dancers in here Christmas Eve is gonna be tough.”

Caesars ears flicked, and in the rearview mirror Jeremy could clearly see the big awful scars in them. The left was by far the worse of the two: Caesar had nearly lost it in a youthful scuffle.

“You can’t run no topless joint without no goyls,” Caesar repeated.

“Did Sugar Plum quit?” asked the bodyguard, watching the barefooted figure vanishing in the cold darkness.

“Yes,” replied the administrative rat.

“I thought she might,” said the bodyguard. "That’s too bad. She mixed a mean Bloody Mary.”

“You can’t run no topless joint without no booze,” Caesar underlined, agreeing.

Almost on cue, the last three customers of The House staggered out, mumbling angrily amongst themselves. A waiter, clearly pleading, followed them out.

“Gentlemen,” he whined. “Please come again!”

Caesar alternated the cigar between the two lackeys in the back seat with him. “Either of you worthless fucks know how to stir boozes?”

Both cringed in silence.

Caesar growled, and jammed the cigar back in his mouth.

The waiter from the restaurant approached the car, and the bodyguard eyed him carefully as Caesar cracked open his window.

“That was the last of them sir,” said the waiter. “And as of now, we don’t have any support staff tonight.”

“You can’t run no topless joint without no one stirring no gaddamm boozes!” Caesar thundered.

“But Caesar,” the waiter protested calmly. “It’s the night before Christmas, and all through The House not a creature is stirring.” He gestured to the footprints. “Not even a mouse.”

In Jeremy's side mirror, Caesar's cigar broke the plane of the open window.

“Don’t get lippy with me, punk.”

Internet Swag

Predator Press

[LOBO]

The Day the Music Cried

Predator Press

[LOBO]

It’s a little-known fact that Brent Diggs and I weren’t always the bitter enemies we are today.

For instance, I didn’t recognize Brent immediately at Juilliard Music School. In fact I thought he was just another flashy and callow wanna-be rock band frontman.

But one night after my tuba solo, he insisted on meeting me. He was so moved by my performance, as we shook hands a single tear rolled slowly down his cheek.

Now everyone knows the tuba is the backbone of any good band; once I graduated, I probably could have ‘written my own ticket’ so to speak. I was featured in Musician Magazine as the “57th best Tuba Player EVER.” Band members of both Metallica and Van Halen threatened to fracture off in order to work with me on solo projects.

And I was good too: in the recording studio, all women had to be escorted out so the soggy panties hitting the floor wouldn’t mess up the audio.

But there was something about Brent’s youthful exuberance and vitality that appealed to me, and soon we were playing together with other promising underground musical acts. And one day Brent comes to me and says, “LOBO, we gotta start our own band.”

To which I replied, “What the hell are you pointing at?”

"Just point at anything and watch what happens."

"Cool!"

“Seriously,” he continues. “With my golden pipes and your saxophone thingy, there would be no stopping us!”

“I’ll only do it if we call it Danger Couch,” I says.

“Okay,” he says. “But only if we promise the band will never ever ever break up.”

“Deal,” I says.

***
In Brent’s defense, I was already well on my way to a substance abuse problem. I had been “experimenting” –recreationally- with Pop Rocks. Honestly, to this day I think it was the advertising aimed at my generation and colorful packaging.

I ate one packet of orange Pop Rocks during rehearsals. I ate two packets of grape while blistering live solos on my 'Tube.' Soon I was up to thirty-four packets a day -just to feel "normal."

When out of my 'supply,' I shopped for them bulk online with trembling hands -often paying extraordinary fees to have them Fed-Exed the next day because I couldn't pick them up at the warehouse that night.

Four months later, when I crashed the 1954 Bentley Type R, the cops found the floorboards covered in Pop Rocks packets.

"Son-" the cop started.

"What dead hooker?" I replied.

***
Brent, watching millions of dollars evaporate due to my rapidly accelerating habit, finally confronted me. And that night I swore I would never touch a single Pop Rock ever again. But at the very next show, through my microphone, everyone in the audience could here the distinct crackling joy.

In the dressing room, Brent found my stash: a thick, tight brick of Pop Rocks sealed in a waterproof ziplock bag floating in the upper toilet tank.

Truthfully, my music suffered. Stuff that was supposed to go "bum bum, bum bum" would come out "bum bum-bwah-bum": the surgical precision required to hit that note with just the right force seemed to escape me, and it was often either far too loud or completely inaudible altogether. Worse of all, the sound engineers never seemed to figure out why everything recorded sounded like angry Rice Krispies in violent milk.

I started showing up late for performances, play like five notes, and then leave without explanation in pursuit of the nearest fix. Rather than counting out measures on 398 pages of sheet music, I would fall asleep on them for entire shows. Once I accidentally grabbed the violin sheet music and played the whole goddamn venue like it was a Danny Elfman soundtrack. This earned me a promising spot on a hip, irreverent episode of Hee Haw ... but my downward spiral was impossible to mask even from them, and I was fired for calling Tom Wopat an asshole on live television.

My hygiene suffered, and my flesh started to seethe and bubble visibly like a live thing under filthy, neglected clothing. The only thing that seemed to still like me was my dog, which I eventually sold to a Korean restaurant chef for six packs of grape, two packs of apple, and a pair of well-worn Crocs. The howling and smell of burning hair still haunts my dreams.

Six months later TMZ tracked me down in a cheap motel room, and Doctor Harrold Toboggans, Doctor Drew Pinsky, and a camera crew from MTV's Behind the Music descended upon me like a plague of locusts. Unemployed, I was pouring Pop Rocks into a spoon and tonguing the inside of the packet. Eyes darting and bulgy, I had a lighter and a syringe, prepared for the Mother-of-All Pop Rocks high.

"I think it's time you faced the fact that you have a problem," said Brent.

"Nonsense," I says through purple teeth, twisting the thick rubber band over my elbow. "I can quit anytime I want. I don't need some goddamned intervention!"

Then, blammo.

Distracted, I let the paparazzi too close; the highly-unstable Pop Rocks in the spoon detonated in the machine gun-like camera flash.

Doctor Harold Toboggans, Doctor Drew Pinsky, the camera crew from MTV's Behind the Music and I survived by some incalculable miracle, having been thrown clear of the blast.

Thank God, I remember thinking.

-I was getting really sick and tired of hearing that ‘I’ve got a problem’ bullshit.

Deterrence

Predator Press

[LOBO]

“We don’t need Full Coverage,” I insist.

“Yes we do,” replies Terri, speaking more to the agent than to me.

“It costs twice as much!”

“Full Coverage,” Terri assures the agent.

“Don’t listen to her,” I says. “She orders avocado and spinach dip at restaurants. The nachos throw themselves off of the table attempting suicide.”

Terri turns to me. “Do you remember when you wrecked your last car? If you had Full Coverage, they would have cut us a check for the full value. We could have bought a new one.”

I turn to the agent. “Really?”

“Yes,” nods the agent.

“So you’re saying if I crash the car again, I’m covered.”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I’m parked on a ferry in the middle of Loch Ness, and a 747 falls out of the sky and smashes into it sending my car spiraling into the murky depths.”

“Covered.”

“Let’s say I’m driving down by Lake Michigan, and a 450 pound shark jumps out and-“

“You’re covered,” she says.

“-I’m not done,” I says. “A 450 fifty pound shark jumps out. Smashes my car. And smashes a nearby bulletproof Secret Service limousine full of foreign dignitaries.”

The woman goes to speak, and I hold up a finger warningly.

“-But the dignitaries,” I continue, “aren’t alone in the limo: it turns out to be full of cocaine and underage hookers. And dynamite. Yeah. But when Dan Rather shows up to cover the story, Walter Cronkite calls him a 'punk-ass-bitch' and punches Dan right in the face for trying to steal his story. Tempers flare, pandemonium ensues, and after a raging gun battle Chicago is ultimately burned to rubble, occupied only by a handful of radioactive mutant survivors.”

She examines the forms closely. “Does the dynamite go off?”

“Yes,” I confess. “During the gun battle.”

“You’re covered.”

“Baby,” I says to Terri. “I think we should go with the full coverage.”

“Good idea honey,” says Terri.

The agent puts on her glasses. “Do you want roadside coverage?”

“Have you seen these roads?”

Terri interjects. “She means the insurance for tow truck service, flat tires, …”

“They fix flat tires too?” Standing, I reach for my pocketknife.

“Easy baby,” says Terri. “We haven’t signed yet.”

Disappointed, I sit. “Well those tires aren’t getting any less bald.”

Endless signatures later, the agent was sliding a card to each of us.

“What’s this?” I says.

“It’s your Bond Card. If you get a ticket, this prevents the police from confiscating your license.”

“Yeah,” I says smiling at Terri. “Let’s go. I can’t wait to drive by some cops and flash this baby. 'Fuck you, pigs! Hahahahah! Lookie here ... !'"