Page 38 of Accidental Fire
I nodded. “I’ll probably be back before then, but yeah, that’s fine. Have a great day.” I stood to get dressed, and he hugged me. “You freaking out yet?” I was teasing him, but if he was having second thoughts, it was better to know early on.
Kit shook his head and blew out a big breath. “I’ll get better at this, I swear. This is all brand-spanking new to me, and I’m trying to process it, but I don’t want to fuck it up before I get my footing.”
We both got dressed and, after a nice kiss, went our separate ways. I met the guys in the lobby, and we went out by the pool.
There was a round table with a yellow umbrella to block the late-morning sun. We all sat and ordered coffee. “How would you feel about taking a ride?”
Goldie stared at me. “What’s going on, River?”
“I think we need to talk about Marsh and whether he’s doing us any favors, but I don’t want to do it here. I don’t believe he’s acting in our best interests, and it seems smart to look into getting other representation.” I glanced around the table at the guys, seeing that they were as confused as I expected.
“What the fuck, Riv? He’s a dick, but he seems to know his stuff, right?” JD asked.
Glancing around the table, I knew someone had to look out for us. I was the only one who knew anything about the music business, and even my knowledge was limited. None of the other band members knew how people could get chewed up and spit out, based on the whims of other people. If we were going to make it as a band, someone needed to step up like Skyler had done for us last fall. Could I do that? Could I be the voice of reason to protect us from being like the Claymont Sprites?
After bribing Clancy with lunch at his favorite fast-food place, he took us to a park not far from the hotel. We rolled off the bus with our acoustic guitars and Arlo’s little keyboard. Hardy had a fucking shoebox, which made no sense, but we were there to talk about our future and plan the next steps of our career.
We found a picnic table and sat down. Hardy put the shoebox on the table and pulled out a pair of drumsticks from his pocket, tapping out a rhythm that surprised me.
I grabbed my guitar case and opened it, so the other guys followed suit. It seemed as if they were following my lead, which was good. That was what I wanted.
We all tuned our guitars, and when we stopped, all eyes were on me. “So, I know we didn’t hate the idea of playing again at The Van Buren on Saturday, but we can’t do so many back-to-back shows or we’re gonna be burnt out and not able to give good performances toward the end of the tour, and what’s at the end of the tour?”
“Black Rock,” they said in unison.
“We owe this chance to that performance last year, and this year, we’re playing the east stage on Friday at four, so we have to be in top form. Michael Cruz was our connection to Masterson Management, but with Michael and Marsh no longer working together, I don’t know if we’ll get the opportunity to get a better slot if someone drops out. He won’t exactly have any pull when it comes to Michael. I think we need to get some advice from Mr. Ashby about representation.” Of everyone we had on our team, I believed Mr. Ashby would be the most honest with us.
“Dude, he owns the record label. He’s always going to work it to his advantage,” Arlo griped.
“Maybe, but you can’t say Marsh isn’t as well. At least we’d only have to have one fight on our hands.” Sounded reasonable.
JD reached under that stupid fedora he’d started wearing and pulled out a fat joint. “We need to chill. We don’t have a gig until Saturday night, so let’s blaze.”
I couldn’t lie and say I wasn’t strung pretty tight, so after he lit it and passed it my way, I took a big hit, holding it in as long as I could before I puffed out smoke rings. I passed it to JD as we heard the quick siren blast.
The four of them started to get up and run, but I wasn’t leaving my old Yamaha acoustic behind. “Guys, seriously? Pot’s legal in Arizona. Let me do the talking.” I could handle it, but I cracked up when I saw Arlo holding the joint. I thought he was going to eat the damn thing.
“Gentlemen, what’s going on here? Let’s see some IDs, please,” the shorter of the two cops asked.
We all pulled out our wallets and fished out our driver’s licenses. I had one, but I rarely drove anywhere. Maybe I could talk Kit into teaching me to drive his huge truck?
The taller black cop collected our IDs and walked back to their patrol car. Goldie kicked me under the picnic table. “Ouch.” I gave him the evil eye and turned toward the short cop. “We’re practicing.”
“Practicing what?” His right eyebrow was lifted, which was a red flag.
“We… Uh, we’re a… We’re a band. Accidental Fire. We’re playing The Van Buren Saturday night.” I sounded scared—which I was. That wouldn’t put forth a strong, confident image at all.
“So, do you know where you are?” The cop looked around, his eyes settling on the playground about a hundred feet away.There was a little boy on a swing, and a woman was helping another kid go down the slide.
“We’re in Phoenix. Like I said, we’re playing The Van Buren on Saturday. We just wanted to get outside and work on our set list,” I said.
The taller cop returned. “Mr. Timmons, I’m afraid you’ll have to come with us. There’s a warrant for your arrest.” He removed zip cuffs from his back pocket.
“And you and you, come with us. It is illegal to smoke marijuana in a public space, especially a park with kids nearby.” Shorty grabbed two zip cuffs from his pocket and stepped around the table to where Goldie and I were sitting. I hadn’t thought about not being able to smoke pot in a public space. How damn dumb was I?
That left Hardy and JD sitting at the table. “Can you get our stuff back to the hotel and tell Kit we need a lawyer?” I then turned to the cops. “Which station are you taking us to?”
“Central City. Let’s go, guys.”
