ROCK STAR RISING Page 2

  “Good-night.”

  “Good-night, Nick the Greek.”

  “Good-night, Sleeping Beauty.”

  “Ah, that's nice,” she murmured.

  3 – JUNCTION IN THE ROAD

  The next morning Alan and Connie hit highway 15 back to Santa Maria, California, five hours ahead. Alan was relaxed with Connie sitting next to him in his new Mercury Cougar. She hadn't asked any more questions about where he'd been the night before, so everything was cool, except perhaps for Connie's slight irritation that they woke up just before check out time, and she didn't get any morning sack time as she liked to put it.

  As they crossed over the Nevada State Line, the flat-lands turned upward toward the East Mojave mountains. Seeing the desert mountains on each side of him, Alan shook his head slightly, as if trying to shake off a bad dream.

  Connie noticed he was troubled. “What's wrong?” she asked.

  “Oh, nothing.”

  “It didn't look like 'nothing'.”

  Alan shrugged his shoulders and kept his eyes on the road. “These mountains give me the creeps, that’s all.”

  “Well, we can't have that,” Connie said, giving Alan a quick kiss on the check. “Let's get something good on the radio to cheer you up.”

  A wailing blues rock song came on the radio. Connie turned it up loud and starting singing along with it. “I’m waiting for you and that’s all I can do. Hey you, look at me. Touch me, feel me, take me anywhere that you can.” She put her arms around Alan. “Oh, I love this song. It makes me hot.”

  Alan smiled. “I thought the song was supposed to cheer me up, not make you hot.”

  “First one thing, and then the other,” she said, unbuckling her seat belt. “Just trust me.”

  “Ah, just keep your seat belt on.”

  “Don't worry about it. Just drive.”

  Connie pushed the sun roof button and the roof slid back, letting in a loud rush of air. She quickly kicked off her shoes and stood up through the roof opening. Alan failed to hear the sound of silk sliding down her bare legs, but he saw the white silk as it hit Connie's ankles. She widened her stance inviting Alan's attention.

  Steering with one hand, Alan obliged her, as she sang along with the radio, hitting high pitched notes that the singer on the radio could have never hit. Finally she became like a siren on top of a speeding police car.

  A few nights later, Alan drove over to Connie's apartment for their usual mid-week date. However, as he drove down the main street of Santa Maria, his mind kept going over his Hard Rock night with Medusa. Wasn't once with her enough? he asked himself. The answer came back, No.

  He wanted to experience Medusa again, for sure. His girl Connie was wild and free, for sure, but alas, she was now number two since Medusa had worked her magic on him that night. So much so, that his night with Medusa got more mental plays in his head, than Connie's highway 15 sunroof performance. He quickly pushed Medusa's image out of his mind as Connie opened the door to her apartment.

  “Hi. You're early,” she said.

  “Yeah, I couldn't wait to see you,” he said as sincere as he could. “You ready to go?”

  “Yeah, sure. But my brother is up from LA and I want you to meet him.

  “Oh....Okay...Of course.”

  Unprepared, Alan reluctantly walked in. He wasn't exactly anxious to meet the competitor for LA's next Puerto Rican Godfather. Once inside, Alan saw sitting at Connie’s kitchen table, a 35 year old, extremely handsome Puerto Rican man, decked out in a suit and jewelry that would have embarrassed Sammy Davis Jr.

  “So, ah, Consuelo, this is the guy you've been banging, huh?” the man asked Connie with sly humor.

  “Oh, come off it, Reynaldo,” she said, tapping him on the shoulder. “Stop trying to make an impression. Don't listen to him, Alan. He's always trying to get one up on white boys.”

  “Ah....The hell I do,” Reynaldo said. “I don't need to do that.”

  “Alan, this is my brother, Reynaldo.”

  Alan extended his hand. “Ah, nice...nice to meet you.”

  “Yeah,” Reynaldo said, shaking Alan’s hand. “So, ah tell me what's so good about banging my sister.”

  Alan put his hand up and looked at Connie, then back at Reynaldo. “What?...Hey look, I mean...You know...Tonight we just planned to see a movie, okay? I mean, if it ever happens, I'll be sure to give you a report.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Reynaldo chuckled. Sure you will.”

  “You boys play nice while I take care of a few things, all right?” Connie said, heading toward her bedroom. “I'll be right out.”

  Reynaldo motioned for Alan to sit down at the table. “So, Connie tells me that you live in LA.”

  “Yeah. Marina-del-Rey,” Alan said, sitting down.

  “Ah, nice place.”

  “Yeah, lots of fresh air.”

  “So how was the drive up?”

  “Hmm, good,” Reynaldo smiled. “People always make way for a Ferrari. I just shot up here to do a little business with a guy I know in town and ah, lay a little bread on Consuelo.”

  “Ah. Oh what, what kind of business are you doing up here?”

  “It's a kind of...ah...delivery service.”

  “Oh....I see,” Alan said, putting two and two together.

  “Yeah, yeah? You see what?” Reynaldo asked sternly.

  “Huh?....Oh...nothing,” Alan said leaning back in his chair. “I mean...just...ah...You know... I see.”

  “Oh, okay. So....Consuelo’s been telling me a lot about you,” Reynaldo whispered. “I think maybe it's good that she's got you. So ah...just take good care of her, okay? Keep her happy. Think of it as a special favor to me.”

  “Oh...I will.”

  Reynaldo suddenly turned towards the bedroom and raised his voice. “Hey Consuelo, stop powdering your butt and get out here.”

  Try as he could, when Medusa and her band played at a nightclub in nearby Santa Barbara, Alan couldn't resist going. He sent her flowers before the show, with a note that read, "Break a leg. From your Hard Rock lover."

  When the show started in the small club, Alan took a seat in the back. Medusa put on a good show. Alan was surprised that she had the voice and confidence to hold the audience's attention for the full hour set. She did mostly Shane rock oldies, but sounded good in the two ballads she sang with the lyrics to one of them being, “You said the whole affair was over. Promised to never see her again..."

  When the show ended, and the club started emptying out, Alan made his way back over to where Medusa was signing her last minute autographs, as the band members loaded their van.

  “Hey, great show, Medusa,” Alan said, as he approached her.

  “Yeah, thank you,” she said, signing the last autograph.

  Alan waited for the fan to leave and then asked, “Did you get my flowers I sent to you?”

  “I'm sorry. I got a few. Which were yours?”

  “Oh, sorry. I, ah, I thought you'd remember.”

  “Hey, come on Medusa. We're ready to roll,” a band member outside yelled to her.

  “Yeah. Almost ready,” she called back to him. She then looked at Alan directly for the first time. “I'm sorry. Hum? Do I know you?

  “Yeah,” Alan said, a little mystified. “We met a few months ago in Las Vegas.”

  “Oh, at the show? I'm sorry I don't remember your name.”

  “It's Alan, Alan Bartlett.”

  “Well Alan, thanks for coming to tonight's show, too,” she smiled.

  “Yeah...yeah...sure...”

  “....Well, I've got to catch my ride back to LA,” she shrugged about to leave.

  “Hey listen. I'm driving down to LA myself tonight. I mean, so if your ride is overcrowded, I'm all by myself and I would like the company.”

  “Yeah?....What kind of car do you have?”

  “It's a Cougar, a Mercury Cougar. It's clean. It's got a sun roof. Fresh air, ya know. You can lean back in your seat, relax and look at the stars.”

  “How's your driving record?”

  “It's clean, like my health,” Alan joked, but wanted to get the message across. “And I'll drop you off anywhere you want to go.”

  “I think I do remember you.”

  “You ought to.”

  “Oh, I should, should I? Were you that interesting?” she asked, tilting her head slyly.

  “We'll, yeah... We we're that interesting.”

  “Oh yeah?” she nodded, with a smirk...”Prove it.”

  On the way to Los Angeles, Alan and Medusa talked about the music business for a while, and then Medusa tilted her seat back and fell asleep. Alan drove with his thoughts on what might happen once he reached the city with his Hard Rock conquest.

  Upon arriving at the San Diego Freeway junction, he shook her gently. She woke up slightly startled. “Ahh...What the hell?” she said, under her breath.

  “Well, Good morning.”

  “Morning?”

  “It’s about 2am.”

  “Oh. Yeah.”

  “Where in LA do you live?” Alan asked, keeping his eyes on the road.

  “What?”

  “We're here in LA now. The 405 is coming up. I mean, where should I take you? The 405 or the 101?”

  “Go down the 405. I'm in Westwood.”

  “Okay, got it.”

  “Where do you live?” she asked him.

  “Well, actually I plan to hotel-it tonight.”

  “What? Why's that?”

  “Well, it's Friday and I think I'm due for a change of pace. Maybe I'll go to Santa Monica. Maybe the Miramar or Loews Hotel on the beach, you know.”

  “You stay in Santa Monica often?” she said, rubbing her face to get completely awake.

  “Not often enough.”

  “Where do you live in LA?”

  “Actually, I live back up there in Santa Maria.”

  “Hmm.” She looked at Alan. “I thought you said you lived in LA.”

  “I said I was driving to LA.”

  “Well, the beach should be fine for you tomorrow.”

  “Do you like cycling?”

  She knew where this was going, but didn’t let Alan know she knew. “Sometimes I use the stationary ones at my gym.”

  “Well look, I mean, if you'd like to go cycling with me tomorrow, I'd...I'd Like to have the company. And for that matter, I mean, if you'd like to get a late snack at my hotel, you're welcome to join me.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said with an I knew it tone in her voice. “Room service?”

  “If you like.”

  “The Miramar, huh?”

  “Or Loews,” Alan said, gaining more confidence.

  “Ocean view room?”

  “Ah, it's the only type I get.”

  Medusa chuckled. “You go there often?”

  “Ah, yeah, starting tonight, hopefully.”

  For the third time that night, Medusa imploded under Alan. He watched and listened as if hypnotized. Momentarily turning his attention from her to gaze out the window at the Ferris wheel on the pier, Alan thought, Is this the only reason I pursued this woman? There must be something more to it than that. But no, no answer came to him. He looked back at her, as she gasped for air like a newly caught fish laid out on the deck of a boat.

  The night continued like a dream for Alan, until, exhausted, they both blacked out.

  4 – GET TO SEA

  The next morning, fresh ocean air entered the room from the open balcony door as Alan and Medusa ate their room service breakfast. They were dressed in white robes supplied by the hotel, making them look more like honeymooners than one-night-standers.

  Medusa set down her cup of coffee. “So how long do you plan to stay here?”

  “Ah, just till tomorrow,” Alan said. “Then it's back to work on Monday.”

  “What kind of work do you do?”

  “I'm a computer programmer, a team leader now actually. I manage a group of twenty programmers.”

  “That sounds all right.”

  “Well, it ain't rock and roll.

  “Everybody wants to be a rock star,” Medusa said, picking up a piece of toast.

  “Actually, in college I wanted to become a writer.”

  “Everybody wants to be a writer.”

  “Yeah, but, I mean, I was serious about it. I studied it in college and worked for a newspaper in Denver for a while.”

  “What happened?” Medusa asked, but didn’t really care.

  “Ah, life is what happened. I had to make some more money, so I quit and got a better paying job. But it would have been great to write at least one novel, just one Moby Dick or one Crime and Punishment.”

  Medusa was lost in thought for a moment and then said, “Well, come to think of it, I've always had a hidden desire to write a book myself. I've had an idea in mind for a long time.”

  “Oh yeah? What's your idea?”

  “Ah, I don't wanna say,” she said, getting up off her chair. “Let's hit the pier while it's early, before all the jerks come out.”

  The Santa Monica pier was almost devoid of people, save for a few early morning fishermen, as Alan and Medusa slowly walked it. The sun was rising from behind them, giving everything a pink, filtered look.

  “So tell me about your book idea,” Alan asked, breaking their silence. “I mean, I really do want to know because writing is really something I'm interested in, still interested in, I should say.”

  Medusa gave him a quick look and smiled. “Wow, you really never give up on anything whether it's my tail or my book idea.”

  “No, I never give up on anything, at least recently I don't.”

  “Well, naturally my book would be about the time I was in Shane's band, my life with him and the rock scene then. Of course, there's been books on him, but mostly kiss and tell. Nothing that really captures what was going on with him, nothing by someone who was really inside.”

  “Hasn't anyone, like one of his band members, written something about Shane?”

  “Some of them planned to write something, but were scared off or bought off, or knocked off.”

  “Killed?”

  “Just an expression, but OD'd, yes.”

  They came to the end of the pier and looked out over the ocean. “Do you have enough material to fill a book?” Alan asked.

  “Are you kidding?” Medusa said, turning and leaning her back on the pier railing. “I remember enough stuff to fill ten books, songs he stole, dirty deals his agent did, all the stuff that happened on his bus, which was just a portable whore house for Shane.” She turned back to look out at the ocean again. “Like the time when Shane took us in his bus to Las Vegas to see Elvis at the International. We get to Vegas and get this four or five room suite, and he gets some of his boys to pick up a shit load of woman and bring them up to the room. Well, I'm not one for gang bangs, but anyway, it gets out of hand, and this one older housewife wants to leave and Shane starts slapping her around because she wouldn't do some God awful thing in front of the group. And finally he knocks her out, so Shane gets scared and says 'Let's get the hell outta here'. So we just leave that housewife lying there in the room and everyone piles back into the bus and we drive off for LA.” She took a breath and shook her head as she said, “And it didn't end there. It got worse on the way back.” She stepped back from the railing, looked at Alan’s engrossed face and said, “Well...anyway....God, I haven't been out this early in the morning in ages.” She took a deep breath of salt air. “This ocean ...yeah...It seems to...connect us with everything in the world.”

  “Yeah,” Alan agreed, as he searched his mind for an appropriate quote to impress her with. “...It seems like. ‘Whenever I find myself bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet, I count it high time to get to sea.’"

  “Thank you, Captain Ahab.”

  Alan gave her a surprised look, not figuring she’d be the type to tackle a book as long as Melville’s. “Ah, the name’s Ishmael, actually.”

  “Yeah,” she chuckled, “You and that Dick.”

  “Moby, actually,” he corrected, “Moby Dick.”

  Back in their hotel room, Alan and Medusa picked over what was left of the room service breakfast while drinking their coffee. The fresh ocean air from their walk on the pier had enlivened Medusa. She now ate, drank and chatted with gusto. “This is great,” she said, as she let the coffee warm her. “I feel like I'm on a first class gig. Thanks for ordering all this.”

  “Ah, my pleasure,” Alan said, lifting his coffee cup at her in a toast.

  “Yeah. It's been my pleasure, too.”

  “Ah...So speaking of gigs. You said before that the drive back from Las Vegas was even worse?”

  “Well, that wasn't a gig. That was just the trip to see Elvis, like I said. But anyway, just to tell you what I'd put in my book, if I wrote one, that is. I'd continue the story about how we were driving back from Vegas that night and everyone's partying and getting crazy. And then, Shane notices this kid, maybe he was nineteen or twenty, on the bus and starts picking on him. And Shane jabs a needle full of heroin into the kid’s arm and then kicks him off the bus in the middle of the desert.”

  Alan took a breath of surprise and then said, “You....you we're there and actually saw that?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Medusa said, nonchalantly, like she was explaining an everyday occurrence. “But that's just when things really got started, cuz there's this square type of chick, another housewife, I think, who's there for some thrill or something and Shane drags her off into his private bedroom that he has on the bus. And we could hear her screaming all the way back to LA. And I'm not talking about orgasm here. Anyway, she turns out to be a doctor's wife... Well, doctors have lawyers, so the police start coming around asking questions a few days later. So then Shane takes off for Hawaii, leaving the rest of us to take the heat and have to answer all kinds of questions. Anyway, that housewife got paid off or something, 'cause that finally blew over, too. And then when Shane came back, more stuff happened.” She shook her head while taking a deep breath. “Damn. It's like that Elvis night never ended. And with all that, we never did get to see Elvis at the International, either.”