The Prince of Punk Rock (45 page)

“Oh my God.”
 
Jessi covered her
mouth with her hand.
 
“Angel, I’m so
sorry. I have no idea how that started, and then I couldn’t stop.
 
One minute I was peeking out onto the stage,
and the next I was screaming at the crowd.
 
Please don’t be mad.
 
I’m so sorry.”

“Mad?”
 
He was smiling.
 
“Are you kidding?
 
That was the best fuckin’ introduction we
could have asked for. You got that crowd crazy!”
 
He kissed her on the mouth.

“You sure you’re not mad?” She covered her lips with her fingers
again.
 
“I think I said fuck.”

Angel laughed.
 
“It’s a rock and
roll show.”

“OK.
 
Good luck.”
 
She kissed him, and then she kissed
Tommy.
 
“Knock ‘em dead, baby.”

Tommy smacked her bottom and winked. “I liked the part where you stuck
your ass out to the audience.”

Jessi was giddy with anticipation.
 
She grabbed Alyssa by the hand, and they both watched the band head onto
the stage to make their debut.

Tommy led
the way onto the stage with his signature guitar riff.  The crowd
thundered with applause, thanks to Jessi. 
Without You
was as their
opening song.  No talking.
 
No
introductions.
 
They jumped right into
the music.  As Angel sang, he looked into the crowd.  There were
probably 500 people gathered around the stage to see Immortal Angel.  He
had to “wow” them.  He put everything he had into his performance. 
He reached down, deep into his gut, and pulled out notes that could shatter
glass.
 
His voice was pristine, and it
echoed into the open air.

Tommy was
right beside him, playing the hell out of that guitar.  His guitar solo
was superb, and the crowd went wild, but Angel wanted more.  Tommy could
do better.

“Wait a
minute.”
 
Angel held his hand up to the
audience.  “Hold on, now.”

They
stopped cheering to listen to what Angel had to say.

“Did you
like that?
 
Did you think that was a good
guitar solo?”

The audience
hollered with praise.

Angel
frowned and shook his head.  “Maybe for an average guitar player that was
good.
 
But, ladies and gentlemen, Mr.
Tommy Blade is
anything
but average.
 
Tommy Blade is the Prince of Punk Rock.”
 
He shook his head again.
 
“That
wasn’t a Tommy Blade guitar solo.
 
People, that only tapped into the talent that Tommy Blade possesses on
the guitar.”

Tommy was
laughing, but he had a look of fear in his eyes that said, what the hell are
you doing to me?  But Angel knew the depth of Tommy’s talent.  He
knew that Tommy could floor this audience, and he wanted them to remember
Tommy’s name.

“Do you
want to hear a Tommy Blade guitar solo, people?  Do you?  Do you want
to hear the musical genius of the Prince of Punk Rock?”

They
answered each question by screaming louder and pumping their fists in the air.

“Tommy,
give these people what they want to fuckin’ hear!”

He saw
Tommy take a deep breath.  For one second, there was dead silence, and
then Tommy’s fingers curled around the neck of the guitar, his pick kissed the
strings and notes danced in the air.
 
The
chord progression was unique and improvised, but it blended together like a
well-rehearsed arrangement.
 
Bits of
heavy metal infused with punk rock, creating a genre of its own.
 
It was a compilation of hardcore whammy bar
abuse and fast-paced edgy riffs that transcended logic.
 
Veteran roadies and music professionals gathered
at the side of the stage to witness rock and roll history.

Tommy ran
to the front of the stage and slid down on his knees.  The twang of the
guitar strings reverberated into the crowd and they howled back.
 
When Tommy played the last dramatic note of
the extensive guitar solo, the crowd went ballistic.

Angel
bowed to Tommy.  The man was a god.  That was the way to “wow” a
crowd.  That was the way to make a first impression.

The
forty-five minute set flew by.  The reaction the band received from the
crowd, a crowd made up of mostly newcomers who never heard Immoral Angel’s
music before, was astounding.  Angel was overwhelmed.  He could
barely talk after it was all over.  He hugged Tommy in the dressing
room.  “You fuckin’ killed it tonight.  I was hoping you would play a
crazy guitar solo like that.  I knew you wouldn’t let me down.” 

Tommy let
out a deep breath and laughed.
 
“I can’t
believe you did that to me!
 
I didn’t
know what the hell I was going—”

“Shut
up.” An emotional lump settled in Angel’s throat, and he smiled at Tommy.
 
“Don’t you know how talented you are?
 
No one can do what you do out there.
 
No one inspires me the way you do.”
 
He kissed Tommy, and held him in his
arms.  The best thing that ever happened to him, the best day of his life,
was the day he met Tommy.

Jimmy and
Damien didn’t care that they were sharing an intimate moment.  They
wrapped their arms around the both of them, slapped them on the back and joined
in their embrace.

“How the
fuck did you figure out how to fuse old school metal with punk rock?”
 
Damien asked.
 
“I would have never thought of it.”

“It’s my
hard rock roots, man.
 
They never
leave.
 
Randy Rhoads is always at the
heart of everything I play.
 
It’s my
go-to place when I need inspiration, and it always welcomes me home.”

Jimmy
slapped him on the back.
 
“That was fresh.
 
You, Tommy, are the master.”

“Hey,”
Jessi started hustling them out the door.
 
“You guys gotta go out to the merch booth. Come on, let’s go.  We
can celebrate later.”

Jessi was
as serious-minded about the band’s future as Angel was.  She was
integral
to their success.  Just look at the impromptu introduction she gave
them.  She got the audience psyched about the band’s
performance.
 
She made sure they knew the
band’s name and, without her, most of those people probably wouldn’t have been
at the stage to begin with.
 
And if it
weren’t for Tommy, Angel would have never met Jessi.
 
He loved them both so much.

When they
got to the merch booth, fans were already lined up.  Jessi went right into
action, apologizing for making them wait and taking orders with lightning
speed.

Almost everyone
wanted autographs and photos with the band.  Jessi brought a silver
sharpie so their signatures would show up on the black shirts.  Then Angel
realized her motive – it gave people another reason to buy a shirt.
 
Her ingenuity constantly amazed him.
 
He watched her out of the corner of his eye,
surrounded by her own little fan club, made up mostly of adoring male fans who
wanted photos with her.

Angel
felt the vibration of his phone in his back pocket again as he signed an
autograph.
 
It had been buzzing since he
left the dressing room. Whoever kept calling would have to wait.
 
He wanted to finish signing autographs and
taking photos with the fans.
 
He shut his
phone off without looking at it, and put it back in his pocket.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Life slowly started to creep back
into Angel’s body.
 
His arms and legs
felt like dead weight, and a sledge hammer pounded inside his skull.
 
He tried to open his eyes, but the light of
day scorched them.
 
He squeezed his eyes
shut and reached for the covers.
 
He
wanted to pull them over his head, but the only thing he felt as he blindly
searched for them, was Tommy’s naked butt.
 
Something was wrong.
 
Tommy was
supposed to be on his right, not his left.
 
That meant he was on the wrong side of the bed, Jessi’s side.
 
Jessi hated the left side of the bed, and she
always threw a tantrum if he tried to lie down on her side.

Angel slowly squinted one eye open
and shielded it from the burning light with his hand.
 
Tommy was still in the middle, curled into a
fetal position, but sometime during the night, Angel and Jessi had switched
sides.
  
He didn’t remember much once
they started drinking at the bar after the show, but it must have been some
night.
 
Jessi was face down with her head
at the foot of the bed, and all three of them were naked.

He wanted to go back to sleep, but
his need to urinate was almost as bad as his thirst.
 
He stumbled over the pile of sheets on the
floor as he made his way to the bathroom.
 
His erection fought him, and he ended up peeing over the side of the
bowl and onto the floor.
 
He would clean
it up later.
 
Right now he needed to
drink a gallon of water.

The water extinguished his thirst,
but did nothing for his headache.
 
He
needed coffee and aspirin.
 
He wanted to
go back to bed, but it was almost noon.
 
He took his coffee into the living room and leaned his head back on the
couch.
 
His hand landed on a pile of
clothes next to him.
 
It was his jeans,
and Tommy’s, and the leather bustier Jessi wore last night.
 
He tossed them on the floor so he could lie
down, and his cell phone fell in his lap and hit him in the nuts.

He looked at the dark screen.
 
As soon as he turned the phone on, it chimed
in his hand and he cringed.
 
It sounded
like a buzz saw inside his head.
 
The
quickest way to silence it was to answer it.

“Is this Angel Garcia?”