Wackos to Obliterate: Book Two (Chapter 9)

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Within an hour, Trink and the rest of the band were sitting around his living room while Diamond played the guitar riffs to a few of their songs.

After he finished, Ryuji nodded his head and smiled. “The kid sounds pretty decent to me.”

“He sounds about as good as Barry. That isn’t saying a whole heck of a lot, though,” Nils added.

Sophie glanced at the middle-aged has-beens surrounding her and grinned. “Beggars can’t be choosers, man. He’s got the job as far as I’m concerned.”

“We can’t offer you much for the session, but if you’re willing to give it a try, drop by later at 7:00,” Trink said.

“Tonight?”

“Can you make it?” Ryuji asked.

“I’ll be here,” he said, looking at the others through the eyes of a fan.

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After Diamond left there were still a few hours to kill. Trink excused himself to make a phone call to Madelyn as the others continued sitting in the living room. Nils sat with his tablet, reading an e-book, while Sophie watched him stare intently at the machine.

“What’re you reading?” Sophie asked. “Something about the days when men walked with dinosaurs?”

Ryuji turned to look at her. “Why don’t you let him be? Everyone has the right to his own opinion.”

“That’s ‘their’ opinion. Don’t be sexist,” she replied, switching her focus to him.

“I’m not being sexist.”

“Actually, he’s right. ‘Everyone’ takes a singular verb,” Nils said, looking up from his reading.

“Well, the language’s sexist and racist. Just look at the color ‘flesh’ as an example. Honky color like yo’ white ass, Nils.”

“Are you trying to pick a fight or what?” Ryuji asked.

“What else is there to do this afternoon? I don’t know why we can’t get the recording done now. I was hoping to make a few miles tonight. Otherwise, I’ll get home late tomorrow at the earliest.”

“How long did it take you to drive out here? It took us two days.” Ryuji said.

“What do you mean us? I don’t see anyone with you. You have an invisible rabbit friend?”

“Harvey?” Nils added.

“Oh that’s the name: Harvey. That was a great old movie. Good ol’ Jimmy Stewart – my kind of Honky.”

“What’s all this ‘Honky’ bullshit?” Nils asked. “How about your son; you call him that, too?”

“How do you know what ethnicity he is, anyway?”

“We used to see him every day when he was little,” Ryuji said.

“Well, it’s hard to say exactly what subset of Asian or European Neanderthal DNA mixed with his Mama Africa.”

“Wow, now we’re all Neanderthal, huh?” Nils said, smiling.

“Of course, you Creationists don’t believe in human migrations from Africa. People must have been pretty busy in six thousand years for all of that to happen, huh?” Sophie said, smiling back.

“Who said anything about Creationism?” Ryuji asked.

“Nils has a divinity degree and all, right? Aren’t all of those graduates taught that either people lived in the age of dinosaurs or the devil placed those bones into the ground to trick people? Isn’t that right, Nils?”

“Is it?” Nils replied with a smile still covering his puffy face. Of all the band members, he looked the oldest being corpulent with a splotchy complexion and mostly bald except for thin, whitish hair that grew slightly above his ears to his shoulders and wrapped around the back of his head like a collar.

“You tell me,” Sophie said, turning to Ryuji with a broad grin covering her dark chiseled face. The older she got, the thinner her face had become with her cheekbones prominently displayed, while the rest of her looked a little settled by the gravitational pull of aging.

“We were provided with a pretty balanced viewpoint.”

“But you’re a Creationist, right?” Sophie asked.

“How did we get into this discussion? I thought you were asking Ryuji about his invisible friend.”

“Oh no, don’t bring it back to me.”

“Oh that’s right, Ryu and his companion. I don’t see anyone accompanying you.” Sophie said, turning back to Ryuji.

“Malcolm and I came here by camper. We were in transit when Trink made the connection. My roomie is out getting some supplies for us.”

Sophie raised her eyebrows and turned to Nils for encouragement. “Malcolm? That’s not a chick’s name.”

Ryuji blushed and said, “No, it isn’t.”

“Why do all of my old lovers become pudding pounders?”

“What did you say?” Ryuji asked, surprised she said that.

“Well, first Trink, now you. How about Nils, here? Who do you fuck? The Lord?”

“How about you? Oh yeah, I know the answer to that: everyone,” Nils said.

“Hey, fuck you!”

“As I said yesterday, been there, done that.”

Ryuji couldn’t resist and said, “I take it that when you say ‘everyone’ you mean ‘male’ since she appears to be too much of a homophobe to ever make it with a woman.”

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By the time Diamond returned, the pissing contest appeared to subside, but Sophie chose to avoid the rhythm section by opting to ride with Diamond in Trink’s car. Ryuji rode with Nils and the instruments.

“Kind of like the old days, with ‘the stars’ in front while we pull up the rear,” Nils said as he followed Trink’s hybrid on their way to Marden’s.

Sophie, forever the flirt, kept staring at Diamond sitting in the front with Trink. “I’m so impressed at how someone so young can be so skilled with his instrument.”

“I appreciate the praise Ms. Choice, but you’re just trying to relax me. You know, I’m scared shitless,” Diamond said, turning to respond to the still attractive, moderately petite woman sitting with his guitar next to her in the back seat.

She lightly brushed a hand across the neck of his instrument. “So are we, darling, so are we. By the way, I know it sounds like a cliché, but just call me Sophie.”

Trink could not miss the opportunity to say: “That sounds pretty lame nowadays, doesn’t it? Do you still use your stage name in daily life?”

“How about you, Trink Mars?”

“At least, Mars is my real name.”

“But, how about Trink? What was your real name, Stink? Like when you pull it out of Maddie.”

Trink slowed down and stopped the car. Nils stopped his as well. “You can ride with Nils. That’s not your choice.”

She opened her door calmly. “Sure, God and I’ll travel the road together. That way, you and Ryuji can hit on Baby Butt,” she said, getting out and motioning for Ryuji to take her place.

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Luckily, at Marden’s they were taken to the studio without delay. No doubt, due to experience with conflicting egos, Marden knew that the sooner they recorded the better. After a sound check and a little warming up, they played the song twice. Actually, the first time was good enough, but since the equipment hadn’t been used for a while, Brad wanted to make sure they had a decent take. Following the session, Brad had Chelsea present each member with a complimentary packet of the finest bud from the Pixie Palace and they all were offered to partake from a big hookah set up in the middle of the studio.

Brad wheeled himself in from the control room to join them. “That was fantastic!”

“I guess it proves that anger can be channeled,” Sophie said.

“How about disgust and hatred?” Ryuji added.

Trink frowned and said, “Well, we did it, and once again, it was real. Thanks for the past couple of days. We’ll soon see if it were all for naught. I’m going to call it a day. I’ll give you a ride to your car, Kid,” he said, nodding to Diamond to follow. “Ryuji, you need a ride back, too. You can help me explain to Diamond the specifics about compensation.”

“What about the Pope and me?” Sophie asked.

“You can ride the ‘Popemobile’ back, can’t you?”

“We’ll follow with the instruments,” Nils said.

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While Nils and Sophie were returning in his car to Trink’s, she looked out the passenger window and said, “Don’t tell the others, but when we started to record, I think I came.”

“You know, I was pretty thrilled, too. I hate to admit it, but it’s quite a rush to help Ryu create a beat for you and Trink to explode.”

“Did we?”

“Not quite like the old days, but yeah, you sounded hot together.”

“Too bad there’s too much baggage to carry.”

“Back in the day, I was as pissed about how it all went down, but I don’t really see why you’re still so fixated on what happened with Maddie.”

“Fixated! Don’t you feel as though we were thrown under the bus? It just tore our careers apart and for what? They could have kept it a fuckin’ secret. No one knew Maddie wasn’t a chick. Maybe nowadays it wouldn’t have been such a big deal, but back then? You know who our fan base was. You know how the mystique of a black nympho singer doing it with the dudes in her group was their perpetual wet dream.”

“It’s true our audience was dudes craving musical orgasms on stage.”

“A visual and vocal copulation.”

“Then the news broke about Mr. Macho porking a tranny. That didn’t sit well.”

“Hell, it still doesn’t; even with same-sex marriage all the rage in corporate media.”

“What still gets me is how they couldn’t stop digging the hole deeper.”

“See what I mean? They wrecked it for the rest of us.”

“So, why do you think our videos have started to go viral?”

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By the time they got back, Sophie had resigned herself to the new situation. She tried to keep her emotions in check and leave with an amicable vibe. She knew that with her current finances, it was best to go with the flow everyone else appeared to crave. Practically two decades have come and gone after all. What bothered her so much that it could poison her from taking advantage of the new opportunity? Her love for Trink or any other member of the group had waned long before Maddie entered the scene. All the talk about her son Karl being sired by one of the band members was hype promoted by their management. In reality, the days of their group grope consisted of a very short time period; actually, just the first couple of months after she joined the band. At that time, she had an on-again and off-again relationship with each of them, which had mostly been the result of their checking how they could work together.

Since music is emotional, since they were all young and since she was the first black girl any of them had socialized with, a little experimenting seemed pretty natural at the time. The only time they did have group sex was one night they had dropped acid together. She ended up feeling like an earth mother who would gift herself to them to assure growth for their future together. From there, her sexual relationship with each of them would come and go, but it was rarely consummated due to the typical run-ins with groupies and the development of more lasting and emotional attachments. The latter is where Madelyn came in.

What was it about Madelyn, really, that bothered her so much? Was it due to what happened to the band or did it run deeper? Was she really homophobic? Did she really find herself disgusted by people with a different sexual orientation from her own? What would she do if she found out her son was gay? She was sure she would not eject him from her life. Why then did the relationship between Trink and Maddie upset her so much? Did she feel some resentment toward Madelyn or transsexuals in particular? Did she resent it that a faux woman could be more attractive? Did she feel jealousy such a relationship could succeed – was it true as some scholars of the theater arts claim that male kabuki actors who play female roles are better in conveying female emotions and mannerisms than most women? Does it all boil down to stereotypes each sex has of the other, stereotypes that can be perpetuated by members of the same sex since they try to emulate the stereotypes they grew up learning? Perhaps, media portrayal of actresses like Marilyn Monroe or Audrey Hepburn as classic ideals of feminine sexuality can explain why both have been popular for female impersonators to emulate.

“They appear to have weathered the storm pretty well, though,” Nils had said in the car. Was this fact one of the points that made her so upset? After all, none of her relationships lasted very long. How long has theirs lasted: more than twenty years?

Back at the house, Nils and Ryuji were getting ready to leave. Actually, Nils never even bothered to get out of his car. When they arrived, Ryuji, Diamond and Trink were waiting for them to pull the instruments and equipment out of the car. As they started to do so, Sophie opened her door and stepped out.

“You know, I think I’ll just call it a day and head back to the motel. I appreciate all you’ve done for us the past couple of days,” Nils said as Trink closed the back door on the driver’s side of the car.

“You’re the best, man,” Trink said, offering his hand to shake.

“I’m sure we’ll be on the tops-of-the-pops soon,” Nils said sarcastically.

“With our new guitarist, there’s no doubt,” Trink said, nodding to Diamond standing at his side.

“Yeah, I was amazed at how easily you were able to blend with the rest of us old fogies,” Sophie said, walking around the car.

“It’s a cool song,” Diamond said as his face reddened.

Trink patted Diamond on the back. “Let’s hope Marden can get a little promotion behind it.”

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As Nils drove away, a pickup and camper headed towards them.

Ryuji waved to the driver. “It looks like Malcolm has made it. I guess I’m out of here as well.” Both Trink and Sophie were a little surprised at how young he looked as they watched Ryuji's friend park across the street.

“It looks like everyone’s heading out, huh?” Malcolm called to them from the truck.

“Time to hit the road,” Ryuji said to no one in particular.

“That’s your roomie?” Sophie asked.

Ryuji shouted out, “Why don’t you climb out and I’ll introduce you to what’s left of the TRinkets. You just missed the drummer.”

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Shortly after Ryuji left, Diamond got in his beater and drove back to Emily. That left Sophie and Trink standing on the driveway of his house.

“Do you need to get anything from inside?”

“I think everything’s in the car.”

“Have a safe drive and give my best to Karl. He was really helpful in getting us back together,” Trink said, glancing at her and then turning to look at her late-model but rather modest car parked at the curb in front of his house.

She followed his gaze and said, “I feel like I should apologize for something, but I just can’t. You still piss me off too much.”

“I know. We’ve got a lot of baggage.”

“I said the same thing to Nils.”

“Madelyn should be back soon. It’d really be good if you two could …”

“Could what? I really don’t see any good that would do. If this song goes anywhere, I’m sure we’ll have time to shoot the shit.”

“That time may have come sooner than you thought. That’s her car,” he said, pointing to a hybrid similar to his own.

“I’ve got to go,” Sophie said and started walking toward her less expensive car – definitely, no hybrid.

“At least you can …”

“Too much has happened today. Send an email when you get some info from Marden,” she replied, opening her door. As she did so, Madelyn had already parked beside Trink’s car in the driveway.

Trink turned to watch Madelyn get out of her car and then turned to see Sophie get into her own. “This is insane … You can’t even exchange a common greeting? What’re you running away from? Hey, Bitch! Stop for a second!” Trink yelled as he rushed to Sophie’s car. As she gunned the accelerator, she had put the automatic transmission into drive. The car jumped and emitted a loud metal-on-metal sound. In panic, she hit the brake and the car jerked. Trink grabbed its metallic blue body with his arms and straddled a good portion of the hood and windshield with his body.

“Get off my car, you fuck!” she shouted.

“Not until you show some common courtesy and greet my wife.”

“She can’t be your wife in this state!”

“Well, well, well, it appears that little Ms. Choice is still a royal pain in the ass,” Madelyn said as she stood next to Trink sprawled across the car.

“You should know all about pains in the ass!” Sophie replied.

“Oh that voice is music to my ears, eh Trink.”

“Yep, I love it when I’m compared to ass pain.”

“Don’t have to compare, asshole!”

Madelyn looked at Trink and smiled. “The negativity is either a symptom of a terrible recording session or a great time was had by all.”

“What other choice is there? I think you covered the gamut,” he said, still on the car. He looked inside at Sophie’s angry face staring at him as he continued to smile.

Madelyn said, “No, there’s Sophie’s choice. I’m sure she’s got …”

“A dickwad on her car who’s going to suffer ASAP!”

“Come on, Sophie. Just cool it and come inside for a while. Don’t you think it’s time to talk this over?” Trink decided to attempt a little diplomacy. Immediately, the car moved while he instinctively jumped up and away as she floored the accelerator and sped away.

“That was freaky,” Madelyn said as she grabbed her husband and watched Sophie’s rapid departure from their neighborhood.

“Consider the source.” Trink said, breathing heavily.

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Links to the previous chapters of Book Two

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8

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Copyright (©) by Kenneth Wayne