Rock and Roll

By Greg Benevent

I didn't think ghosts were sup-posed to follow you around. Someone says "ghost," and I think of big, ugly castles covered in mist, a white shape moves past a window and disappears. A couple weeks ago I'm just chillin', listening to some good music; I have a couple drinks, sit back - I look over, and there's a guy on my couch. A leather jacket, purple bandanna, mid-30's, pale blue eyes and a silver, metal skull about the size of a quarter hanging from the bottom of his goatee.

I get all freaked out for about a second, then I laugh. I shake my head, and offer him a drink. No matter how many questions I ask him, he doesn't say much. He just kind of mumbles some-times, or smiles. Figuring an acid flashback, I go to sleep.

He's watching MTV when I wake up. He's scowling, shaking his head.

Other people don't see him, I think. In the supermarket, I watch him stare at a woman's breasts for five minutes - nothing. (I yell at him in the express lane: "You come back from the dead to be arrested again? ")

I wanted to say to the checkout boy: "You know who this is? This is Layne Staley. Lead vocals, ' Alice in Chains.' He might have had more dissonance than any other rock star in the history of time - and you don't even recognize that he left the afterlife to watch me buy Doritos?!"

I think I figured out why he came back. And what I have to do. The idea hit me pretty hard - I keep rationalizing to myself that it's kind of like "Field of Dreams," only. with music. It all seems pretty wild, I'm trying to do it sober.

I planned all night, last night.

I think he can go through walls. When I get up this morning, he's lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. I don't see him downstairs, but he's in my Porsche when I leave the house. He's in the backseat, staring at the window. He hasn't moved, or said a word all morning.

He even stays in the car during the first part of the plan. He doesn't ask why we're down at the newspaper, he never says anything. hell, I don't think he moves. He doesn't notice when I open the trunk, and we tore ass out of there.

Today's my day to take my son to school. He's a pissy little smartass, but he seems to be coming around. Crooked hat, half-metal half-rap, that whole thing. I don't want to piss Layne off, so I turn off Jake's garbage and put on "Dirt." Jake looks like he just sucked a lemon.

"Dad, this music sucks." Jake mumbles as he stares out the window. I almost get whiplash swinging around to look at Layne - he just stares out the window. "You think he cares what your goddamn kid thinks?" I think to myself.

  Thump - thump thump -

Jake must've heard the sounds from the trunk, he gives me a look. I keep my eyes on the road.

We ease up to the school, one of those giant suburban high schools that looks like a college or a courthouse.

"Turn this shit off! Bitches can't see me rollin' up with this, " he grunts, opening the door before the car stops. He swings his legs out, and slams the door -

  "This is your last chance."

"Jake!" I yell, and dive across to reach my hand out the window, and grab his arm.

"I haven't done the best parenting, for either one of us." I blurt out, not at all what I want to say.

"Okay," he says, shaking his arm free. "So what?"

  Thump thump -

"What are you doing tonight?" I ask, quasi-calmly, hoping none of the teeming hoards of high school kids heard a thing. Layne blows kisses at a few field hockey players in pleated skirts.

"Aw, Dad, there's a concert in town. It's gonna be badass -"

"Yeah, well. what if your Dad had a concert tonight? Could you come to that?"

He looks at me like I've just asked him to help dissect an alien.

"I. I gotta get to class," he stutters, and runs into the school. He doesn't look back.

  Thump - tha-thump thump -

Screw this.

The tires shriek as I slam the pedal down, ripping past school buses and stunned kids. I stab my finger into the stereo so hard I almost stove my finger,

"Hate to Feel" roars out of the car stereo at a volume I didn't think possible.

"That went well," I think I hear Layne murmur to himself, as I spin the wheel towards downtown.

Robeson, Marks and Palmer is a big-time law firm. Multi-billionaire clients, celebrities, politicians, big corporations and offices that resemble a gothic castle.

Security's not hard to get by, because who suspects me of anything? I flash a winning smile, my credentials, and a magic name, ("I'm here to see Bill Campbell,") and the secretaries and guards are more than happy to let me by, the highlight of their day they've seen me.

It's a long elevator ride to the top floor. I smell something, and look around - Layne came with me after all. He plays with the skull hanging from his chin.

A smoking hot secretary opens the door to Bill's office - she doesn't notice as Layne pinches her ass.

Bill's sitting down at his desk, "He's wearing glasses now! Can you believe goddamn Wild Bill wears glasses and is a LAWYER?!?" my mind yells at me.

"My God-!" he yells, and practically jumps out of his seat to shake my hand. We do all the "Oh my God/it's you/ you look so good/ it's been so long!/ how are you??" bullshit garbage till I put my hand on his shoulder -

"Bill. Wild Bill. you still rock a guitar?" His brow furrows.

"I played at my nephew's Bar Mitzvah a couple years ago."

Not the answer I was looking for. Screw it.

"You wanna play a show tonight? I got us a gig tonight, down the Kickass Amphitheatre at eight. Ever hear of it?"

"Ummm." He looks around, hand on his jaw, "What are you talking about?"

Layne chuckles, I roll my eyes. "You saw this guy once swing a hooker by her ankles into a basement wall, and then saw them both explain it to the cops, totally high, as 'a mattress malfunction."

"Time is vicious and cold," Layne says. He yawns and runs his finger across Bill's law books.

I lean into his face, "Don't you want to play again? A big show, the whole band"

"Um, uh. you have the whole band together? Rich and Mark-?"

I nod, and look at my watch. Three thirty-two. If we're going to rehearse and play tonight -

"But Mark lives in Florida -"

"I took care of that. Bill, let's go. Time's wasting."

He looks at me, and sighs. His head drops. His eyes meet mine:

"I'm sorry, I'd love to. I'd love to. rip off this sport coat, and rock again with the Dead Bastard Relay Races, but. I'm sorry."

"Bill, we don't have time for this."

"Umm. I'd really like to, but I don't even have my guitar anymore -"

"I bought all new equipment. This is taking entirely too long, Bill."

Layne taps the desk, it's the beat to some song but I don't recognize it, not yet.

Bill stands up, puts on his sport coat, and grabs a suitcase.

"I'm sorry. Listen, it's great seeing you, and we should get dinner sometime, but I can't play tonight-"

Goddamnit.

I pull the gun out and put it in Bill's back. He yells, and whimpers - I lightly put my hand over his mouth.

"We're going to walk real calmly past your hot-ass secretary, we're going to be cool in the elevator, and then we're going smile and wave as we walk out the building."

Bill says something, it sounded pretty tough. I couldn't really tell I had my hand over his mouth. Layne keeps pounding out that beat on the desk -

"I'll shoot you in the calf if I have to, and carry you downstairs. Don't make me do it, then I can't put you in the front of the car with me, and it's going to be awful cramped in the trunk."

I let go of Bill in the elevator, but I keep the gun on him, so he doesn't forget how intent I am on rocking hard tonight.

"Real Thing!" I yell. "I can't believe I couldn't tell you were drumming Real Thing!" I say to Layne, he shrugs again. Bill's voice shakes as he gives me a look - I shake my head.

The elevator door opens, and we wave to security as we stride out, just two successful white guys in suits. I smile wide.

Bill sits in the front seat, silent, with wide eyes. I close his door and walk over to my own -

  Thump - thumpthumpthump -

I open the trunk and lift the little guy into the backseat. He sits next to Layne. Layne sticks his tongue out at him.

"Okay, buddy, neither of you give me any trouble," I take off the little guy's gag. "Either one of you screams or something stupid and it's going to be hard for them to rock out for a while." I say, as I climb into the front seat. I start the car.

"Bill Campbell, successful attorney and once and future cosmically-gifted guitarist for Dead Bastard Relay Races, meet Ray Cummings, legendary music critic and journalist."

Silence. Bill's stone motionless except for his shaking lips, and Ray's hyperventilating.

"Ray went on tour with Skynyrd once. The original band." I say, and pull out of the parking lot.

".it's true." Ray mutters, between frenzied breaths. Layne hums "Head Creeps" to himself. I drive through town to the Kickass Amphitheatre, light and happy for the first time since. I don't know when. If I could just share this with the world. I smile at my fellow artists, and I say:

  "Oh, don't say that, it's cheesy. Then again, when else can you ever really say it in life.?"

I sigh to myself. "Cliches only have power when you use them right," Ray wrote in his review of Alice in Chains' Unplugged album. I disagreed with the review, but he was right about the line.

We fly through town.

"We have a mission tonight, men!" I say, pacing around the drum set. The "personal storage" cabin I rented for our rehearsal is eight by eight, wall to wall concrete. Bill huddles in the corner with Rich and Mark, breathing on their hands. Layne stands over them, he looks kinda bemused.

"Rock music is not dead, nor is it on life support." I start slowly, warming to my lecture. "Rock and Roll is a slutty, trashy teenage girl with a heart of gold who's been hanging out with the wrong crowd !" I beam at them.

"Please don't kill us." Mark whimpers. Rick puts his arms around his shoulders.

"We're going to have to do it ourselves!" I wave my hand across the air. Layne salutes me. "I know we were just a garage band, I know we never went anywhere, but it's different now.

We have to get that wayward girl home."

Ray slumps over onto his side, still bound. I had to put the gag back on in the car, some kind of nonsense about how Stone Temple Pilots never figured out exactly how they wanted to sound and everything suffered as a result. I did admire the guy, though - still spouting critic's bullshit with a gun in his face.

"That girl's been hanging out with the art kids. I don't want her hanging out with the jocks, and she knows enough about her heritage to run with the black kids. But. she has to get back with her parents' crowd, the kids that understand the only real self-destruction is holding anything back." I spin and smile at them, arms outstretched. "Time to rock.!"

And, after a couple false starts, we do; (Mark needing his bass tuned for him and Rick's hands were shaking so bad he couldn't hold his sticks.) We start with our old opener, "All Your Lies" by Soundgarden. It pretty much blows. I remind them, in a rocking way (waving the gun) that this effort is unacceptable.

"This is fucking crazy, man," Layne whispers to me, into my ear as I'm belting out "Handslide" by PushMonkey. "Look at them. You're kind of not sucking, but, look at them."

Rick concentrates on his drums with a frenzied intensity, his eyes wide, (Of course, he could be afraid, I guess.) Mark just stares ahead, his eyes looking kind of dead. Bill glares at me, his lip curled up, as if it's physically painful to play. Ray has his eyes closed, and his body is still, sitting against the wall. I shake my head - this music sucks.

Layne grabs my shoulder, his eyes wide: "They're here!" He hisses. I drop my guitar, and put my finger to my throat, and make a slitting motion. Rick shrieks and crawls to me:

" PLEASE! Please! Don't kill me-!" I push him off of me:

"No, you don't understand-" BASH-! A bright pain in my head - Bill has cold-cocked me with the guitar -

"Run! RUN-!" Bill screams and points to the door - Rick leaps to his feet and follows.

I shoot into the ceiling.

They stare at me. Little bits of rock fall gently to the ground.

"There are men, coming to stop Rock and Roll. You seen 'Footloose?' It's like that with machine guns, big uzis that mean business. You got that?" None of them move. "We have to get out of here now. Leave the equipment. I'll buy more, and have it delivered to the gig. All right? Move." I lead them out of there with the gun, to my car. Layne pats me on the back:

"Bob Dylan couldn't have said it any better. Even if you gave him a gun."

"This is the cervix of rock," I mumble to myself, setting up the drums on stage. The bartender, a nice, tubby guy with a beard - "Pure Rock," I call him - gets out the mics, the stack, etc. "When I give the signal, the spotlight goes up on the Mystery Box, right?" He nods.

I pat him on the back and walk through the kitchen. Layne follows, humming at pots and pans. I open the meat locker:

"Wh-wh-when. are we gonna. go on?" Bill says, his teeth clattering. Mark and Rick are huddled in a corner, beneath a hanging slab of beef.

"Oh, soon. Yeah, let's.let's get you guys warmed up, huh?" They fly out of the locker, I grab some nearby table covers on a wall, and throw them to the guys. Bill rubs himself down with his, Rick and Mark stand over a stove, warming their hands. Mark gives me a withering look, and opens his mouth to say something - he screams, his hand dipped into the flame.

"Hey, Dead Bastards, you're on." Pure Rock says, peeking his head in. I beam at my crew, my charges - "The men you'd ride into hell with," Layne says. He's right.

"Let's rock!" I say, for probably the millionth time all day. The band moves a little slow, so I pull the gun out again - we jog backstage. The lights peek in through the swaying curtains, shafts of light cutting over our feet, flitting away again.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Pure Rock rumbles deep into the microphone. "Back, by an extraordinary lack of demand, don't call it a comeback, but don't call it a midlife crisis either, ladies and gentlemen.Dead Bastard Relay RACES!!" We run out on stage - there's some applause. The lights are blinding - I can't tell how many people are there. Layne looks out and gives me a "thumbs-up." I smile at him - the lights are shining exactly how I want them, leaving the Mystery Box a mystery. Perfect.

"The Inuit Promise" kicks ass likes the stomping hooves of Satan. "Flaming Heart" kicks ass like it's kicking the ass of the stomping hooves of Satan; and "And the Experience" kicks ass like it's kicking the ass of the guy who's kicking the ass of the stomping hooves' of Satan's asses. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, if you can't think of something so crisply deafening and bright that it renders you profoundly incoherent, leaving you only able to describe it with a small dimebag of words, many of them "ass," and making any marginal possibility of loosely ramming them together as possible as human combustion. then you've been rocking.

I look over at Layne, smile, and sing: "Went down. as a little boy." He laughs, and we sing a duet, "Real Thing," an old song of his. It's stunningly gorgeous.

A spotlight reveals a giant cardboard box on the stage. "Looks like somebody left me a present," I say, and pull off the cover: "Look at my booty!" I exclaim, "It's a music critic!" Ray's eyes look red, he looks wildly out at the crowd. "This is him, ladies and gentlemen! Pearl Jam is an awful 70's band. Soundgarden is garbled noise!" I stand over him, swaying as I yell at the crowd: "Tool is junk, the 'opiate' of idiots! And yet, and yet." I step on his arm, and scream at them, "In 2002 he bemoans the end of the grunge era, and I quote, 'I never thought I'd miss that bullshit, because everything that came after was even WORSE!!" I swing the microphone and beat him upside the head.

"We've waited so long for this," Layne whispers.

Chuckling. A few scattered laughs, then it builds. It's louder: suddenly, they're cackling at me - they're laughing loud - they're applauding! They're cheering -

"No, no!" I yell, waving my arms. "You don't understand! This isn't a joke! We let them-" I point at Ray, "We let them, and the higher-up corporate types control rock! You gotta be the right age! The right look! It doesn't matter the hooks, the meaning, the introspection -! We let the morons with the money decide, and this one plays right into their hands.!" They're still laughing, all of them are clapping wildly. "No, you don't understand."

Suddenly, the front door kicks open - "The suits!" Layne screams - I drop the mic. Jake yells out: "What the fuck-?"

"Come here!" I scream, and pull him up on stage. We run through the back of the stage - I trip over the drums, sending them flying. "Dad!" he yells and shoves the curtain out of my way and we run for the kitchen.

"Why are we running?" He asks, as he leaps over a stove. I save him off, run around the stove, and grab the door to the outside -

A hand on top of mine.

Bill, with my gun.

I look at him, trembling a little. He grimaces.

"I never thought I'd play again," he sighs. "You're going to need this." He hands me the gun, I mouth "Thank you" and my son and I fly out the door.

"You know you can't run from them forever," Layne says in the backseat, as I pull onto the highway with Jake. "It's like the future, man. You can slap it in the face all you want, but the bitch still walks out the door, man." I nod. He's so right. I look at Jake - he really is a good-looking kid. One of those ones you just know will be great with girls his whole life.

"Umm, Dad." He says. He looks nervous.

"Does he suspect?" Layne asks. I shrug.

"What's up, son?"

"Uh, I still have tickets to the concert tonight. I know you just played one, but, like, I don't know. If you don't want to go, I understand, but I'd really like to, and."

I laugh, loud and robust. "I can't think of anywhere I'd like to be more."

A half hour later we pull into the amphitheatre on the edge of town: it's teeming with people, in the thousands - looks like a big concert. I rub his head, and he runs down to the grass, looking up at the band on big screens above the stage. The music starts, he jumps around, God, it's like looking into a mirror on a time machine.

  "I'm doing the best I ever did. go away."

My jaw falls - Godsmack. Jesus fucking godhead suck Godsmack. "The worst band ever," I say to Layne. I throw one of my shoes at him: "The worst band EVER! This is your fault! " I scream, he looks at me. "Yes! This is your fault! If you hadn't been so fucking high you would've lived and this never would've -"

"The only real self-destruction is holding anything back," he whispers.

"No no, don't give me that shit. That was your life, I'm talking about your music-"

A hand clamps onto my shoulder. I close my eyes.

"Mr. Truant?" I nod. "Come with us-" I fall to my knees:

"No, please-"

There's three of them, in expensive suits. The tallest one leans down:

"You have to finish mixing the new Linkin Park album."

I crawl up his leg, crying and blubbering:

"No, Jesus, I'll do anything you want -" I stare into his eyes, and paw at him wildly: "But if I have to waste one more catchy, hard-hitting musical track on those soporific hacks I'll fucking kill myself right now!" I grab a nearby stone. The men in the suits look at each other, unsure of what to do.

"Come on," Layne says. "I know rock is melodrama, but this is a bit much." I look at him, sharp edge of the stone to my Adam's Apple. "We got through rap metal, we'll get through this." He says, and points:

Jake is banging his head, his hair flowing everywhere. A blonde girl, about his age, watches him from a few feet away. "We'll get through this, Layne repeats."

I turn to the men, get to my feet, and drop the rock. "Give me a minute."

"You have exactly sixty-seconds," the shortest one says. "We're under a lot of pressure to bring you in." I sigh, and walk down to Jake. I whisper into his ear:

"I have to go now." He looks at me confused:

"But, you're my ride!" I smile, and shoot a look to the blonde watching him voraciously.

"You'll be all right. But, I have to go away for a while."

He's fighting tears: "Are you going to jail?"

I pause for a moment, unsure of how to answer: "In a way, but. not really. I have to take something personal and great, and hack at it till it fits a very harsh, very narrow realm of parameters." He looks at me blankly, Layne laughs and shakes his head. "I have to go rock, son. I have to go rock." This he understands. He gives me the devil's horns. I walk up to the men - Layne isn't with me. I look around - he's standing by Jake. Layne waves goodbye.

I kick the tallest guy in the crotch. The other two beat me to the ground, and carry me off. As they're roughly holding me, and yelling at me my litany of sins, I see the blonde girl come over, and talk to Jake, and Layne smiling over them.

"It's a shame the music really sucks," I think to myself as the tallest guard gets to his feet and punches me in the face, right before I black out.