Tumblin' Dice (23 page)

And it was like she was hiding.

Wasn't in her office, Frank standing there with the cop smirking at him when he went by, secretary didn't know where she was, no one saw her in any of the restaurants. But her car was in the lot.

Ritchie walked out of the casino and down the hall towards the entertainment centre, looking at the listing of the upcoming acts: Alice Cooper, Creedence Clearwater Revisited, Deep Purple with a symphony orchestra, Huey Lewis and the News,
KISS
, ZZ Top, George Thorogood and the Destroyers, plenty of country acts, and all those Chinese circuses and Cantonese pop stars.

He stood there looking at the board, all those names, and he started thinking, shit, we're just going in circles.

So, what do you want to do?

Then he heard a voice, a guy saying, “Ritchie Stone?” and he turned and saw a guy looking at him, smiling like he knew him, so Ritchie smiled back and held out his hand and they shook and the guy said, “You don't know me, do you?” and Ritchie said, “David Buchanan.”

“Yeah, that's right. Came to see the High. How are you?”

Ritchie said, good, “I'm good. How are you?”

“I'm good, man. It's been a long time.”

“Yeah, you live around here?”

“Toronto.”

“Shit,” Ritchie said. “Sorry you had to come all the way up here.”

“Hey, it's worth it to see the High. I haven't seen you guys since, wow, must have been '85 or '86, at the old Forum at Ontario Place,” and Ritchie said, yeah, “That was fun.”

“Yeah, it was. Before that was probably all those times you played
TISS
. Remember you guys played that dance and we had the power failure?”

“Oh yeah, Principal Mullins wanted to clear out the gym.”

“Would've been a riot. You played the acoustic, everybody danced slow, I got to dance with Helen Nivens.”

“How'd that work out?”

“All right.”

“That's good.”

“Yeah. So now you guys are back on the road.”

Ritchie said, “Yeah.”

“That's cool. You know, I really admire you, sticking with it all.”

“Even though it didn't work out?”

David said, what are you talking about? “Look at you — you look good, you're doing fine.”

“I guess. How about you?”

“Oh, you know, I've been downsized a couple of times, had to scramble a little but my daughter just graduated from Western and my son's got his own business, one of those junk hauling deals, 1-800-we-take-away-your-crap, making more money than I am,” and he laughed.

Ritchie said cool, and then he said, “You married Allison Gradenko, didn't you?”

“Like the Police song, yeah — are you safe, Miss Gradenko? She's in the spa.”

“Cool.”

“What about you, you ever get married?”

“No, never did.”

David smiled said, yeah, “Living the rock star life,” and Ritchie said, well, “I don't know about that.”

“Hey, you never had to use your backup plan, whatever that was.”

Ritchie said, no, I didn't.

Then it was a little awkward but David was cool about it, said, hey, “I've got to go for my massage; this place is all right,” and then he said, “as long as you don't gamble,” and Ritchie said yeah.

Walking away, David said, “Good to see you, man. Rock on,” and Ritchie smiled and said, yeah, “Rock on.”

He stood there for a few minutes and then walked back out towards the coffee shop in the lobby, not expecting to see Angie anywhere. She was hiding from him, avoiding him for sure, but he didn't know why.

Because he was a guy with no backup plan? He remembered all those times his mother or a teacher or the guidance counsellor at TISS asked him what he wanted to do with his life and he'd say, “Play rock and roll.”

No backup plan?

He'd always said, naw, “You have a backup, you'll use it. You want to be a rock'n'roller, you have to work without a net.”

And whoever he told that to would always shake their head and look at him like they knew something he didn't, and now he was wondering, was this what they knew? That when you work without a net and you fall it fucking hurts.

Then he was thinking, oh well, too late to change.

Still, he'd like to find out what happened with Angie — it seemed to be going so well.

• • •

Frank got to the private elevator just as the doors were closing, and he said, “Yo,” and Angie held them up, and stepping on, Frank said, “Where the hell have you been? I haven't seen you all day.”

“Around.”

“Oh yeah, you been hiding?”

“No.”

“Could have fooled me,” Frank said, then he shrugged and forgot about it and said, “So, you going to the show?”

“No, I'm just going to go home.”

They got to the ground floor and the elevator doors opened and Frank said, “What?”

“Yeah, I'm tired. I'm going home.”

“You're not going to see the show?”

“No.”

Frank was standing in the elevator doorway, blocking it so Angie couldn't leave, and he said, “They're getting on the bus after the show, going back to Toronto,” and Angie said, yeah, “So?”

“So you don't even want to say goodbye to Ritchie?”

“No.”

Frank looked really surprised and then overdid the confused look, bugging out his eyes and shrugging and saying, “And he was so worried about you,” and Angie said, yeah, I doubt that, and Frank said, no, “He came to see me, worried about you.”

“Oh yeah, he's worried.”

“No, seriously,” Frank said, “he's worried. He said you drove out of the parking lot right after that guy was shot.”

“Yeah, he told everybody.”

Frank thought about that and said, “No, pretty sure he only told me. He really was worried.”

And then Angie got it and she said, “He only told you?” and Frank said, “Yeah.”

She said, “Shit,” under her breath and leaned forward and pressed the button for the fourth floor again, and Frank said, “What are you doing?” and she said, “I'm going to the show, but I need to change, I can't wear these,” and held up a foot, and Frank didn't get it but he stepped out of the way and let the elevator doors close.

Then she was thinking she should have known, Ritchie wouldn't tell the cop. He wouldn't get her involved, more like Ritchie to try and keep her out of it.

The old Ritchie was the same Ritchie.

Should have known.

Barry walked into the hospitality suite and Dale said, “Where the hell have you been?” and Barry said, “What?”

Ritchie watched him and thought for a second he was going to start punching. Shit, Dale was nervous like he always was before a gig but Barry looked ready to explode. Then he just smiled and said, “Hey Dale, how do you know there's a drummer at the door?”

Dale didn't say anything and Barry said, “The knocking speeds up.”

Then Ritchie noticed the girl who came in with Barry, thought he knew her from somewhere and then realized she was the hooker in the bar, and he was going to ask Barry how much it cost him to bring her backstage, but Barry was saying, “What did the drummer get on his
IQ
test?” and when no one said anything he said, “Drool.”

It had been tense backstage before all the shows on this tour but this was the worst. Last night before the break, so many days off before the next show — it was crazy.

And now Barry was saying, how many drummers does it take to change a light bulb?, and then right away, “None, there's a machine to do that now,” and then he pointed at Jackie and said, “And you better watch out, she could replace you with a machine, too,” and then Ritchie said, hey, Barry.

Barry looked at him, giving him his best Clint Eastwood squint, and Ritchie said, “So these two bass players walk past a bar,” and then he stopped and waited, waited till everybody in the room was looking at him, even the chick Barry brought, and then he said, “Yeah, right, as if,” and heard Jackie's loud laugh and then Cliff and then Dale started laughing, too.

Barry was still looking at Ritchie and said, “Fuck you,” and Ritchie said, “Oh yeah, baby, the High are back!” and raised his fist.

The most messed up tour they'd ever been on but the craziest thing for Ritchie was how good they were onstage. The four of them, Cliff, Barry, Dale, and Ritchie, stood in the wings and watched the lights go down and the whole auditorium become dark, and then Ritchie smiled as the audience started holding up cell phones, a whole lot of them with flickering flames on their screens, and he said, “Oh, yeah, baby.”

Cliff was vibrating, standing on his toes, raising his knees almost like he was running on the spot and Dale had drumsticks in his hands, rolling out paradiddles on his thighs.

The rumble was building, the audience starting to clap and stamp their feet and yell and make a lot of noise and the sound system started pumping in the sound of a jet engine.

Then Barry said, “Oh for fuck's sake,” and walked out onto the stage but it was still dark and no one saw him and the rest of the guys followed so they were onstage when the lights burst on and the jet engine turned into an echo and Cliff screamed into the mike and Ritchie pounded out the opening notes and Dale and Barry came in like a freight train and every person in the crowd was standing up and cheering and dancing to “Higher Than High.”

And it went from there, just kept getting better, kept getting higher and higher. The crowd was so into it, Ritchie walking around the front of the stage looking out and knowing every single person there had seen the High before, seen them when they were kids — the audience and the band — and it was like they were all back there, feeling like they did then.

One song after another, Cliff barely saying anything between them, none of his stupid stories, no jokes about how great he was and what a favour he was doing the rest of these guys getting back together, it was just one song building on another.

Ritchie could see people, couples, arms around each other, swaying to the slow stuff, and he was thinking, yeah, someone's getting laid tonight, that's what rock'n'roll is for.

And then when Ritchie picked up his acoustic and played the opening chords to “Red Light Street” and just before Dale and Barry came in, Cliff said, “Oh yeah, where were you when you first heard this?” and Ritchie played the intro again and Cliff looked out at the crowd, at the women, and asked them how big their hair was. Were they wearing shoulder pads? And they laughed and a woman yelled, “I wasn't wearing anything!” And Cliff made a face, looked shocked and then laughed and said, “Honey, nobody was by the time the song ended,” and Ritchie just shook his head and kept playing the intro over and over as Cliff kept talking. It sounded like it could have been rehearsed but then as Ritchie was looking out at the crowd he realized that wasn't it at all, it sounded like old friends getting together, telling the same old stories but ones they liked, Cliff joking with people as if he knew them all, and Ritchie realized this wasn't the same Cliff from back in the day, back when they were all trying to be rock stars and reaching for the top and all that bullshit, this was Cliff being himself, having a good time, the guy with grown up kids kicking back and relaxing with his buds.

And Ritchie was thinking, shit, finally we get to this point and it's the last time we play together. He could feel it. He just knew it — they'd never be able to keep it together. They hadn't changed at all, it was the same old story, the same old song and dance — Steven Tyler had that right.

Cliff stopped walking, stood completely still, right on the beat, spread out his arms like wings and Dale and Barry came in and Ritchie fired it up — okay, maybe he borrowed a little too much from Townshend there but Cliff could get off a good Roger Daltrey scream and they were airborn.

They were rocking.

The whole show was great, the crowd was totally into it, and when they played the last song on the setlist no one left the stage. Dale came out from behind the drums and the four of them stood there in a row looking at the audience and Ritchie was thinking, this is what bask means. This is what it means to bask in something.

And then he saw Angie standing at the end of the front row, over by the fire exit door, and she was looking right at him and he looked right back at her and then he couldn't hear anything at all until Cliff said, “Oh hell, let's do the first one,” and Dale said, “Yeah.” Ritchie looked at Barry and even he was nodding, yeah, let's do it, so Cliff held up his arms until the place got quiet and while Dale was going back to the drums and Ritchie was picking up his Gibson, Cliff said, “If it's okay with you, we'd like to do one more song,” and people screamed and cheered and Ritchie played the opening, his guitar almost sounding like Manzarek's Vox organ and Cliff said, “This was the first song we played when we got together,” and the audience cheered and then Cliff said, “And it's where we got our name,” and Dale and Barry came in and Cliff sang the opening, and the place went crazy.

Ritchie was smiling and looking at Angie and thinking this was the first he'd ever heard that they'd named the band after “Light My Fire,” and then he was laughing and thinking maybe way back when they were kids in Brockville and Cliff said, let's call the band after the song, he meant the Fire and then just went with the High when people liked it.

They finished up big, baby, you know we couldn't get much higher, and then just walked off the stage.

Ritchie looking at Angie and she nodded a little and walked towards him.

• • •

After the show Gayle walked out into the lobby with Felix, and he was smiling and saying, what a show, man, they can still rock, and she said, “Yeah, they sure can,” and Felix stopped and looked at her and said, “Some things never change.”

Gayle said, no, they changed. “They were good and then they sucked and now they're good again.”

“See how long they can keep going.”

Gayle said yeah, and then she saw Frank coming towards them shaking his head and when he got beside her he said, “Who the hell was that? Where did that come from?”

The lobby was filling up with people then, still shaking their heads, amazed it was such a good show.

Frank said, “They should release that as a live album,” and Gayle, her ears still ringing said, “Yeah.”

Frank said, “I need a smoke,” and started towards the back door but then they all heard the noise, the rumble seemed to come out of nowhere and just got louder and louder like a plane was landing on top of the casino, and Frank said, “What the fuck?” and cut through the lobby to the front door.

Felix looked at Gayle and he was smiling a little, amused, and she said, “What?” and he shrugged and said, “I don't know,” and they followed Frank.

Everybody from the concert, all eight thousand people it seemed like, were pushing their way through the front doors and out into the parking lot to see what was making so much noise, and Gayle started to smile and it was Felix's turn to say, “What?” but she just kept on smiling and pushing her way through the lobby doors as the noise got louder and louder.

Felix was following her, pushing and being pulled by the crowd through the doors and into the parking lot, shoved until he was standing beside Frank and they were both looking at it.

Gayle made her way beside them then, stepping out a little to the front of the crowd.

Felix said, “What the fuck?” and Gayle said, “Yeah,” but not loud enough for him to hear. She could have screamed and he wouldn't have heard, not over the sound of the motorcycles.

Hundreds of them, the two lines stretching all the way through the parking lot out to the highway and into the night.

Felix said, “This supposed to scare me?” and beside him Frank said, “Fuck, it scares me.”

In the lead Danny Mac stopped his bike and looked at his wife and Gayle was looking back at him, her hands over her mouth, just about crying. It was the most romantic thing she'd ever seen, Danny just sat there looking right at her, hundreds of Saints of Hell behind him, all wearing their colours, Gayle thinking he must have called every chapter in the province. Even Nugs was on his bike next to Danny, Gayle looking at him and he was looking back, too, serious, not smiling at all, but Gayle couldn't help waving at him a little. Years since Nugs had been on a bike.

She wanted to run up and hug Danny, jump on the bike and ride, but he just winked at her, held up his right hand, and signalled they were moving out.

Someone in the crowd, a woman, said, “Not one of them wearing a helmet,” and the guy next to her, a grey-haired hippie said, “Fuck no.”

Gayle watched the bikes roll out, Danny leading them in a big, slow parade past the front doors of the hotel and then the Indian mural on the side of the casino and back up to the highway.

Shit, she even saw J.T. on a bike, first time she'd ever seen him ride, and he looked back at her, nodded, and kept going.

Someone in the crowd started to clap and pretty soon they were all cheering and screaming and Gayle turned around and saw Felix and Frank staring at her, and she smiled at them and stepped a little closer and said, “We'll talk later,” and Felix said, “This doesn't change anything,” and Gayle said, “No?”

Felix said no, but Gayle could barely hear him over the sound of the bikes, and she was still smiling, every one of those guys like Danny said, “One of us,” and she looked at Felix and said, “Okay then, we don't need to talk,” and pushed her way back into the lobby.

• • •

When the crowd had mostly drifted back inside, Frank looked at Felix and said, “You gonna come see Cheap Trick?” and Felix said, no, “I've seen them as many times as I need to,” and Frank said, yeah, “Who would've thought the High would put on such a show?”

Felix started walking along the side of the building, going around back where his car was parked, and Frank walked with him saying, “We can still work out a deal here,” and Felix said, “Yeah?”

Frank said, “Sure,” and they walked together talking it over, talking about the management contract and the “other” business they were doing at the casino and the hotel and Frank saying he'd been negotiating deals since he was in high school in Toronto, booking Lighthouse and April Wine for school dances. Frank said, it's all about the deal — the terms change but they can always be worked out, and Felix said, yeah, I guess so, and they got to Frank's Barracuda and Felix said, “That really is a classic,” and Frank said, yeah, “But it's not authentic, I put in a Blaupunkt; here, look,” and he opened the driver's side door and the car blew up, a ton of American steel and glass, Frank and Felix both blown to pieces.