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I shot Marcos a questioning look. He shrugged and rolled his eyes like he didn’t know what the fuck that was about either. “Later, man.” He fist-bumped me and sauntered out after his friend.
“That was an interesting couple,” Wolf commented.
I didn’t actually think they were a couple or that Wolf meant it that way. But I chuckled anyway as I said, “I never knew Marcos swung that way.”
“I remember him from that show we did last time. It wasn’t here, but Fox Theatre.” He pointed with one finger on the same hand that held his beer bottle.
“Much smaller show.” The Fox held around four thousand, but we had about an eighty-thousand crowd tonight. A world of difference.
“Right. Good show though. So I take it Marcos is a friend of yours. Were you hoping to hook up?”
I practically spit my beer. “Friend. Only friend, dude.” Thinking about Marcos that way made me want to puke. “More like a brother.”
“Ahh…plus you have Coleman. Where is he, anyway?”
That was the million-dollar question. He had been with us for almost all of our last tour. And when we recorded. Fuck, we had been practically inseparable since the band got back together at Rocktoberfest two years ago. Now he was a fucking ghost.
Finally, back in the hotel room. I stripped down and showered with my eyes closed. Didn’t even have enough energy to jack off. I needed sleep. I hadn’t been kidding about that early interview. We didn’t have to do a soundcheck or anything the next day since we kept the same settings, which were dead on. So Kai filled the time with interviews and another major meet and greet.
I face-planted on the bed after my shower with nothing on but the towel around my waist. I expected to be out in a matter of seconds. But that wasn’t what happened. My body was down for that game plan, but my brain was not.
It decided to kick around those words in my head again. I did an extremely difficult pushup and grabbed a notebook out of my duffle. We all carried them around because inspiration hit when it hit. So I jotted down what was in my head, hoping to get them out enough to calm that brain down so I could sleep.
You threw my heart in a pine box
My love went deep, six feet -- repeat
Can’t even claw my way back—nowhere left to dance
With me you buried another chance or no second chance
There’s no second chance
I could hear Miami really screaming the last line of that. I tapped the notebook with my pen. I was shit at putting notes to the words. I was never great at reading music. But drum notation, I could do. I picked up drums for the more physical aspects of it, but I never regretted it. Drum notation always felt like a personal love language written just for me. I learned it quickly and writing it felt like a breeze. I added some beats to words but kept it simple. I’d let the guys play with it before I really laid down the rhythm, but I could practically hear it all in my head, so I knew it was one we could work on. I jotted down a little more…
You came to me with offerings
A life and more
Flowers and verve
But you bring only death in a carriage of black
Leaving my heart a fatality
That part wasn’t as good. It felt forced, and it didn’t flow. But I knew better than to scratch it out. Instead, I drew brackets around it and wrotework on thisin the margins. The guys would see what I was going for and play with it until it felt right. Wolf and Jinx were super good at that. They generally wrote most of our songs, though hits came from different places. From life, from our hearts and souls, but often they were from fun things.
It was pretty clear that this one had Coleman’s fingerprints all over it. Sharing that with the guys would be hard. I did not like tobe vulnerable, even in front of them. But a song was a song, and if they said something mushy, I could tell them to fuck right off.
With that out of my system, I rolled back over on the bed and was out like the old proverbial light.
The next morning, I woke up early and looked out the window at the sunrise over the skyline. It was incredible, so I grabbed my phone and snapped a few pics. We would be going to a lot of places, and I knew from having done this once before I needed to appreciate all I could.
I got on the floor and did my yoga. I needed to stretch and help strengthen my back. I wasn’t getting any fucking younger, and I’d learned long ago that backs for drummers could be an issue. Repetitive Stress Injury was real. So was Carpal Tunnel and a host of other things. That list made yoga vital.
I slowly went through my practice, ending flat on my back with my eyes closed and arms out to my sides, palms pressed to the floor. I could lie like that all day.
But my cell rang. It was Coleman’s ringtone.
