Wackos to Obliterate: Book Two (Chapter 7)

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“Yeah, the number of hits for that song has been pretty amazing. What is blowing me away, though, are the comments people have made on the site. We still have a lot of fans out there.”

“That’s one of the reasons I contacted you. Money aside, we have influenced people’s lives.”

“Sure shit, according to some of the comments, we were a large part of growing up for a lot of people.”

“Hard to believe, eh?”

“I don’t know about that. Don’t you feel influenced by the old San Francisco bands, the British groups, and all the stuff that was going down in the late Sixties? Music has certainly meant a lot to me.”

“No question about it.”

“So, what’re you proposing? You think we could try to put something together? You know Barry is out. He’s too busy with his psychiatric practice.”

“That’s always been a problem.”

“You’re telling me, man. You know that plus the crap with Maddie.”

“Com’on man, that wasn’t just her.”

Nils was quiet for a moment and then continued, “Yeah, maybe, but it’ll be pretty hard to bring Karl and Sophie around.”

“I knew this would happen; we can’t even have a conversation on the phone without it coming up,” Trink said, wondering if he should just hang up.

“No surprise, there, eh? It’ll just keep happening. We need to deal with it now or there’ll never be a resolution to it and any reunion we’d want to bring about won’t stick.”

“That’s true.”

“So, who’s going to approach Sophie?” Nils paused to wait for Trink to say something. When he felt he waited too long, he added, “You know the answer to that one, eh Trink?”

“Obviously, you can tell me how to get in touch.”

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It had been at least fifteen years since Trink and Sophie last spoke. That time, as hundreds of times the final year and a half of their association had not ended well. Nils had stated the typical response: Madelyn was at fault. That was the main line of reasoning used in the media, chat rooms and fan sites, but Trink knew there was much more to it. Sure, Madelyn’s supposed jealousy played a factor, but not to the extent everyone stated. It may be true the other band members avoided Trink in large part due to acrimony towards Madelyn, but it was not the result of any specific action of hers. Rather, it seemed the act of demons – or whatever you wanted to call it - within each of them. Maybe, there was just too much water under the bridge for them to dare the crossing.

The only way Nils could contact Sophie was by email, so Trink tried to write something that would spark a reply, but all he could come up with was an inane “long-time-no-see” message; even so, he got a response. It wasn’t from her, though, but was from Karl, her son. He had been just five or six the last time Trink saw him. Since the pregnancy, he often wondered if Karl was his kid, but it was impossible to tell since Sophie slept with all the band members and she never would give consent to a DNA test. In fact, Sophie was determined to raise Karl herself.

“We were wondering when someone would contact. The TRinkets have had a great uptick in popularity lately, haven’t they? No doubt, you’ve seen the viewing numbers on some video sites. If you want to talk, her cell is: 316-733-94XX.”

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“What’re you waiting for? You know there’s no alternative,” Madelyn said, looking over his shoulder at the email on the computer screen.

“I could always try to cut a song alone.”

“It wouldn’t sell. You know that. You never had a solo career. As you said yourself, you worked in that store for a couple of months before anyone recognized you.”

“Yeah, but Brad hasn’t said anything about the rest of the band. Maybe he’s got something else lined up; perhaps, some studio musicians, or some idea about forming a super group of members from different bands.”

“I doubt it; if you want to see some cash flow quickly, the only alternative is to get some live gigs set up with the original members. From there you can do whatever Marden wants,” she explained, watching him stare out a window.

“Are you okay with that?”
“Damn straight, I am. Either we get some cash flow or start getting used to living on the street. Frankly, who gives a shit what anyone says anymore. I think we’ve gotten past that by now. Besides, you’d love to see Karl, wouldn’t you?” Madelyn asked as she got up from her chair and started to rub his back.

“Not really.”

“He’s an adult now. Who knows?” He wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but he knew she was right; it was time.

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From this kick in the pants, all of the members except for Barry the Shrink, agreed to get together. An appropriate venue had to be chosen since the four of them lived in different states. They finally decided that the best place would be Trink’s since everyone was curious about Brad and wanted to make a visit to the Pixie Palace.

The night before they were to arrive, Trink and Madelyn decided to view the TRinket cuts that had been uploaded to several video-sharing sites.

“I know this is cutting into your valuable drama-viewing time,” Trink said as he mated a laptop to the TV.

Soon, the surprisingly fresh sound of a live performance by the group bombarded their senses. Trink watched a little mesmerized at how young he looked. The other members looked the same as he remembered since he had not seen them older than the clip they were viewing, but he looked so much younger and the interplay of his voice with Sophie’s was more alluring than he remembered.

There were not many rock bands that had two lead singers of the opposite sex. Jefferson Airplane with Marty Balin and Grace Slick came to mind. Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham and others usually had at least one of the singers playing an instrument as well, but with the TRinkets, both Trink and Sophie were vocalists – well, vocalists and dancers. Sophie exploded on stage, and surprisingly to Trink, he appeared to as well.

It really was rock ’n’ roll at its loudest and hottest; just before the rise of hip-hop. Some said they were rock’s answer to the death of disco. For a brief time, they took over the roll Led Zeppelin had filled earlier in the seventies. When groups like Aerosmith and heavy metal bands were getting a little too predictable in the AOR playlists on FM radio, the TRinkets took the sound someplace fresher. Sophie being a young black female singing lead in a band with a white male co-singer and a group of white, American Indian, and Asian members helped make the band have a unique look and sound: slightly reminiscent to the way Sly and the Family Stone did in the late sixties.

“This is better than I remembered,” Trink said as he sat on the sofa with Madelyn. She held on to his arm and snuggled up to him as they watched the TV like they did in their younger years together.

“Let’s keep positive, okay,” she said. “I decided it’d be best that I won’t be here when you meet. You know Dad’s been bothering me to drop by, so I thought this provided the perfect opportunity.”

“Oh com’on, you have to be here.”

“No I don’t; not at the initial stages. You formed as a group way before I arrived on the scene, so it’d be best if you start your reunion without me,” she said as she disengaged and rose from the sofa. “By the way, I need to relieve my bladder.” She pulled his ponytail and quickly skirted away, giggling.

“Be careful, there’s not too much left to pull,” he said, reaching for his hair as he quickly jumped up and made a faux attempt to chase her.

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Once everyone had arrived and was seated in the living room, Trink turned on the TV and replayed the first video Madelyn and he watched the night before. As it played, he glanced around at the other three very familiar people, who now looked differently from the musicians performing in the aged video; all except Ryuji who was about the same as the thin, Asian male playing bass.

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“We look like ghosts,” Nils said with a befuddled expression on his puffy face, which was much rounder than the man on TV pounding the hell out of the drums surrounding him.

“Ghosts of our former selves?” Trink asked.

“No, the film is full of ghosts frozen in a past unable to return.”

Sophie directed her gaze from the TV screen to face him. “That’s a pretty negative way to put it.”

“But it’s true; we won’t be able to reenact that,” Ryuji nodded in agreement with Nils; even though, he looked as though he might be willing to give it a try.

Nils glanced at Ryuji as his shoulder-length dark hair flowed around his angular face. “Not only reenact it, we won’t be able to make anything new beyond just trying to rehash a past that’s impossible to bring back.”

“Frankly, I don’t want to bring back that bullshit anyway. I mean, who wants to go through it again? There’s too much water under a bridge that’s been torn down long ago,” Sophie said, still thin but more padded and settled than the lithe body gyrating on the TV.

Trink raised his hand like a student in a classroom. “If that were true, there wouldn’t be so many hits on these videos, would there?”

Ryuji grinned. “Probably, there’re so many because you keep clicking them every day.”

“Not much to do with your time, eh?” Nils added. “What else does a washed-up ‘has been’ do to fill in the day?”

“After taking all the cocaine and shooting up all the heroin, and having entered and reentered rehab for the umpteenth time, I guess becoming a nerd is the healthiest choice,” Trink said, grinning.

“At least, you aren’t shooting it into your veins,” Nils said.

“Cheaper, too,” Sophie said.

Nils looked at Sophie’s still pretty face and smiled. “You don’t live in my neighborhood and have to pay the insanely high provider fees the local monopoly charges for broadband.”

She returned the smile. “Okay, for some people, the internet isn’t cheaper than smack!”

“Hey, hey, hey … one question: which one of you uploaded those videos in the first place?” Trink asked.

“Yeah, who had copies of those tapes? Frankly, I’ve never seen any of those before,” Ryuji said.

Nils added, “You know, the only ones I ever knew about were the few times we were on TV.”

Sophie smirked. “Ya can’t forget the brainless music video we did for MTV.”

“Hell, it’s also available online,” Trink said, grinning.

“Damn, never want to see it again, never and I mean, never!!” Sophie shouted.

“I think it has over a million hits,” Trink said as the grin on his aged face refused to disappear.

“No shit?!” Sophie said, raising her thinly shaved eyebrows in mock surprise.

“So, back again to the question: who …”

“Fans?” Ryuji suggested.

Nils added, “Hell, probably Maddie did.”

“Did what?” Sophie asked.

Ryuji turned to look at Trink sitting next to him on the sofa. “By the way, where is she?”

“You’re still with hi … ah … her, right?” Sophie pretended to make a Freudian slip.

“Yeah, still together after all of these years.”

“Must have done something right,” Nils said.

“So, where’s Maddie?” Ryuji asked, still looking at Trink.

Trink returned Ryuji’s look. “Knowing she’d probably be a thorn growing in this young shoot, she thought it be best to visit her dad for a couple days.”

“So, you’re free to rock ’n’ roll; kind of like the parents have gone away for the weekend or something,” Nils said.

Ryuji said, “Like some crappy coming-of-age or whatever they call those pimply get drunk, wasted, and fucked type of stories that used to be the basic plot of movies a decade or so ago. Like the stupid one where the kid fucked up his papa’s Porsche. You know, one of those films we could really relate to when we were young’uns.”

“Yeah, I totaled my papa’s Benz and got grounded for a week,” Trink said.

“You think that’s a big deal? I burnt down the ancestral mansion while I was free-basing with Nils in junior high. You remember that, man?” Ryuji said, looking at Nils.

“That was the weekend we fucked the cheerleading squad, right?”

“Nah, that happened the weekend we took your uncle’s yacht to the Bahamas. Those were the days, eh?”

“So, what plans you got cooking while the Mad One’s away?” Sophie asked.

Trink frowned and turned to look at Sophie. “Not much; just thought I’d chill with a couple of buds.”

“You mean us or sinsemilla?” Ryuji asked.

“Couldn’t mean us since we couldn’t be considered buds, not with the litigation history we’ve had,” Nils added.

Sophie looked around the room. “You know, I was wondering how many of the rooms in this house were decorated from my share of the royalties?”

“Hey, hey, hey, let’s pull back a little, okay? You know, Sophie, I’d love to hear how Karl is getting along. He’s got to be …”

“A chip off the ol’ block; is that where this is going?” she interrupted Trink. “Do you all want to know whose sperm ended up impregnating my chocolate egg? Do I look like the Easter Bunny or something to you?”

“The good ‘ol days, hmm… Man, count me out of this reunion tour,” Nils said, no longer grinning and looking as though he was ready to extract his heavy frame from the sofa he shared with Ryuji and Trink.

“Yep, that about does it for me as well. Sophie, this chit-chat’s not going to be diverted towards allusions about making the singer sing for the good of the group, is it?” Ryuji asked.

“Hey, fuck you!”

Ryuji slowly shook his head as he closed his eyes. “Been there, done that. Let’s say we’ve grown up a little, okay? Let’s say, for argument’s sake …”

“You want to argue, man! We can …”

Trink quickly raised his arm again to interrupt them. “Let’s just say, I’m broke and maybe a couple of you could do with a recharge of your bank accounts.”

“Let’s just say that for a moment,” Nils said.

Ryuji shook his head in agreement. “You got my ears, man.”

“Let’s say we hate each other’s guts …”

“Got that right,” Sophie said.

“Okay, now let’s just say we got a pretty big fan base that’s willing to spend a little cash to see us perform a few places.”

“We got quite a few hits online,” Ryuji said.

“Exactly, but it’s obvious we don’t enjoy being around each other too much, do we?”

Nils looked at Trink seated on the opposite side of Ryuji. “Not the best of buds, eh?”

“Not even in the bloody ballpark, but if we could just recreate a faint illusion to what we saw on that video, we might be able to replenish our supply of nuts for the winter.”

“I don’t care about nuts; I just need some cash big time,” Ryuji said, watching Sophie sitting alone in a cushioned chair.

Nils looked ahead and addressing no one in particular said: “Speaking of nuts, I thought Barry was pretty nuts spending much of his down time studying rather than enjoying the limelight, but look at him now: fuckin’ making buko bucks with Fifth Avenue nut jobs as clients, while we’re talking about trying to recreate our twenties and hoping people will pay to watch us make fools of ourselves.”

No one spoke for a few moments until Sophie said: “As long as they pay, I don’t care what they think.”

“Okay, we found some common ground,” Trink said as they looked at each other and nodded in agreement.

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Links to the previous chapters of Book Two

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6

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Copyright (©) by Kenneth Wayne