Bang Bang

He was an ass. I hated him. I hated the air that he was breathing. I hated ground he walked on. I hated the strut in his walk. I hated his brown loafers.

I'm in the bushes beside the stairs that lead up to the second floor where his apartment was. The apartment where he fucked my marriage over. Where he stole from me something far more valuable than gold. My arm is raised holding my 20 pound hammer. The bush hid me and my hammer from observation.

He was whistling as he came down the stairs. As his foot landed on the step I swung with all my might bringing the hammer down on the top of his foot. The scream he let loose was like Daltrey's, the crunching of his bones in his foot was reminiscent Moon going nuts on his drums and the thuds as he slammed on the steps thunders so beautifully like Entwistle on bass. Townsend would have been happy with the orchestration of my little composition.

I slipped away through the bushes. Let's see the bastard make his date with my wife now, I thought, with a maniacal smile plastered on my face.

I drove over to Tom's house. We smoked some weed, cracked a beer and got back to working on our next tune. I guess it was about 2 am when I got home. Overall I was pleased with the evening. The new tune seemed like a hit.

She was asleep in our bed when I got home. I crawled into bed and kissed her. "I love you sweety". She shifted, but didn't respond. Maybe she was asleep, maybe she was faking it. I don't know.

The next week was busy. We needed four more tunes for the album. The suits from The Lable were getting antsy. It was 11 months ago we dropped our 3rd album. It did ok. But, not nearly as well as our second album. It went platinum in four weeks. The touring for our last album had gone on for almost six months.

That was when she decided to step out on me.

Hip Hop was the thing. It was squeezing rockers like us. It was also way cheaper to drop a hip hop album. Most of the time, the producer screwed around on a keyboard that was plugged into a computer, twisting and ripping off tunes already owned by a label. Then one guy would rap over it. Fast cheap and easy. The Label's suits loved it. They were making bank.

After we finish writing tunes and getting every thing sorta hashed out we would head into the studio to cut an album. The Label charged us a fortune for the studio time, and a King's ransom for a Label's producer and the post production. By the time they loaded on marketing cost, it was hard to make a buck selling albums. With everything digital, folks ripped us off right and left. So, album sales really didn't pay the bills.

Touring, that's where the money was. We control (mostly) our tours. Months of busting our ass on the road is where we made our money. You wonder why old rockers never seem to stop touring? Hey it's easy, that's where the money is.

I've been at this long enough to know marriages have a hard time surviving rock and roll. Crazy band mates, groupies, drugs and months away from home...most marriages didn't last past the second album. Many don't make it past the first tour.

I saw that. That's why I after I figured out that something was going on I had her watched. She never knew, and I wanted it that way.

About two weeks later I was back at his apartment. They had another date tonight. The bushes where I hid last time had been removed. I was under the stairs this time. He had gotten a walking cast just that morning. He wasn't that steady on it yet.

He was slower coming down the stairs this time. It didn't matter, when his foot stepped on the stair, I reached out and grabbed it. He tumbled down the stairs, bumpin and thumping like a surf beat. He put out his arm to break his fall.

All it did was break his wrist. And when his head smacked the cement at the bottom of the stairs it knocked him out. I stepped around and used my hammer on his hand.

I stole away. Back at Tom's house we started writing a new tune. It came so easy. It is like the Gods just dropped it out of the sky on me. Sweet with just enough bad ass. It felt like a hit. We were stoked.

She was asleep in our bed when I got home. I crawled into bed and kissed her. "I love you sweety". She shifted, but didn't respond. Maybe she was asleep, maybe she was faking it. I don't know. Not that I really cared.

The next morning I got up, my wife was still in bed, so I made some coffee. A suit called. He wanted to know how close we were to getting into the studio. I teased him a bit. "Maybe next month if the writing goes well".

It seems the studio we were due to have is booked for the next three months. Some old guys are cutting a come back album, I guess it wasn't going too well. But with their name and fan base, the suits figured it would be a slam dunk.

I took the news in and promised to chat with the boys to see if we would be up for working in one of the other (i.e. not nearly as nice) studios. I hung up and made a note to myself, we had some extra leverage on the suits. Always good to have that in our back pocket. You need all the help you can get with those sharks.

She finally emerged. She wasn't looking all that well. I guess she was a bit upset that her "date" had canceled, again.

"So how was ladies night?"

"Ok, Kathy showed up, but Bianca was a no show."

"You have fun?"

"It was ok".

She grabbed some coffee. It was about 11 and I had a meeting at noon, so I kissed her good bye and headed out the door.

On my way to my meeting my PI called me in my car.

"She is on the phone now, want me to send you the file when she is done?"

"Yea, bounce it over, I'll listen after my meeting unless it's urgent." I hung up and pulled onto The 405. By the time I was on The 10 my PI was calling me back.

"I think this one might be urgent." My PI said.

"Shit, I can't blow off this meeting. What's going on?"

"Seems she is planning on picking him up at the hospital and is going to give him some "nursing".

Crap. "Which one." I asked. I really had no choice, I had to make the meeting.

******

The meeting was kinda important, but I couldn't really pay that much attention. My mind was turning my options over. Nothing looked good. Finally after an hour and a half, I said cool, we shook hands and I was out the door in a flash.

I drove over to his apartment. Sure enough, her car was there. Fuck. I was pissed, I could feel my anger rising. No good. When I get angry I fuck shit up. I drove slowwwwwly by the apartment.

It was the middle of the afternoon, so I didn't stop. One of the downsides of my job is fame. Too many people know who I am. Don't get me wrong, sometimes it works in my favor. But most of the time it's a pain in the ass. You go out for some drinks with your bud, chicks swarm all over you wanting autographs, or to drag you back to their place. Don't do that, because some asshole with a phone snaps a pic or two, it gets all over, your wife divorces you and the lawyers get rich. Not good.

So I took off. I headed home. I was pissed. I would bet I looked like cartoon with steam shooting out my ears. I pulled into my driveway and parked. I just stayed in the car, I was beating the steering wheel with my fist and screaming. After a bit I calmed down.

Time to take this shit to another level. I called my PI. We talked, he didn't like the way I sounded, the way my mind was working and he really didn't like my plan. In the end, he agreed to do as I asked, I pay him a hell of a lot of money.

She didn't come home until dinner time.

"Where you been Vicki?" I said casually.

"I went over to Shelly's, did you know Jake is dropping a new album next month?"

"Yea, I heard they have been in the studio for a while."

We ate dinner in mostly silence. She knew something was up. "You ok Baby?"

"Yea, I'm fine. I gotta head over to Tom's we gotta get at least two more tunes in the box before we head into the studio. The fuckin suits are all over my ass."

She bought it.

"You know you can do that. I bet they will be just great."

Ahhh, such a supportive wife. Bitch. I headed out.

I met my PI at a dive bar not too far from where I lived. I liked the joint, you could get a booth that gives some privacy. The owner, Sandy and his patrons didn't like folks who took pictures, as a rule there are some bad ass dudes who hung there, frequently planning or doing illegal shit. Sandy was hooked up with a motorcycle club, this was "their bar". They liked having a rock star as a "regular", especially one that dropped albums they loved. Every now and then I would get friendly with folks, but they mostly left me alone. My kind of place.

Frank, my PI slid into the booth and shoved a paper bag my way, slammed a scotch on the rocks, then slipped away.

I killed three shots of tequila and walked to the back where Sandy had set up an outdoor smoking area. He handed me the keys to a bike, a helmet and a club jacket. I would be flying some colors today. He headed back in, I put on the wig, long blond and grabbed the helmet pulled it on, crawled over the back railing with my paper bag. I pulled out the mace, stuffed it in a pocket and shoved my trusty hammer in my belt, got on the bike and roared off.

It was about 35 minutes later when I pulled up to the apartment complex. I parked, and headed up to his apartment.

I knocked on the door. I didn't hear anything. I knocked again. Now I hear some shuffling around inside the room. I knocked again. The door opened and I hit him with the mace. I pushed my way into the room, he went over backwards and landed on the floor with a thud, his one good hand on his eyes, and a scream emanated from his lips.

I kicked him in the balls, hard. That shut him up. I closed the door.

He looked bad.

I said, "you don't fuck married women." Bang bang my hammer rained down on his good foot. Bang bang my hammer hammered his good arm.

I love the sound of crunching bone in the evening.

Next on the Hit Parade was his his left hip. Breaking that actually made me work up a sweat. He wasn't going to be in any shape to fuck my wife again.

He was moaning, it looked like he was going into shock. I said again, "you don't fuck married women". I grabbed his tee shirt and ripped it off him. I used it to wipe the door handle and then opened the door. I walked down the steps, climbed back on the bike and roared into the night.

I returned to the bar. Gave Sandy the helmet, jacket and bike's keys. I put the wig and the mace back into the paper bag. They went in the trash out back. I got in my car and headed over to Tom's.

It was an incredibly productive session. Three new tunes. We were stoked. We called the guys the next morning. Time to get together and knock the new songs around to get ready for the studio.

*********

She moped around for a couple of days. She wasn't going out that much anymore. She was drinking more, lost some weight. She looked at me with haunted eyes.

**********

Time to hit the Studio. We got a studio that was a bit long in the tooth. We were stoked, old equipment let our "sound" be different. We brought in our own producer. The suits wanted a label producer, but we were firm. Leverage is a good thing.

The Producer was kick ass. We dropped track after track into the can. It was so fast, we were out of the studio in under a month. The suits were happy to have the album into post production, but with our speed the bill for the studio was way under budget. They would need to come up with another way to suck blood from us.

She had gotten better. She was going out more, staying out later. I knew she was likely at it again.

My PI met me at Sandy's bar. He had pictures, times, dates everything I needed to kick her out. Our Prenup limited the financial damage. I wanted her gone before we dropped the album. I didn't want her to benefit from it. California's divorce laws, you know?

As for the asshole that she hooked up with, well, I was just too busy to deal with him right now.

On my way home I called my divorce lawyer and pulled the trigger. I got home, and started throwing the photos at her. She cried, she was lonely, tears tears tears. Of course after she got pissed, it was all my fault, yea right. Slut. 14 months of marriage down the tubes.

The locksmith showed up about a hour after she had cleared out.

Three months in post production.

It was the best album we had ever made. We were giddy. The suits were pretty happy too. They had visions of boatloads of money in the Label's pockets. Of course they wanted a hyper expensive marketing roll out. All expenses charged to the album of course. We were ready for them.

We refused to let the album drop. We had other plans.

We did a roof top gig, just a couple of the tunes. The press went wild. We did a bunch of little home made iPhone movies of it. We trickled them out on YouTube. Of course my divorce was all over the news. You could feel the excitement grow, with zero label marketing to be charged against the album.

We flew up to Seattle. We had arranged to do a couple of "secret" gigs, and on a Friday night in a dingy dive bar, we played a set. Then we flew to Nashville, then to Cleveland. Of course by Nashville the fans were hip and little clips of the shows were flying all over. We exploded on social media.

That's when we dropped the Tour dates on them. Another new round of hype hit the social media. The suits were pissed. They had all these mega plans for marketing we just didn't need. So, that cut way back on the album costs.

My divorce was final. She only got her car, clothes, jewelry and $500,000 from my take of our last album.

That's when we let the label drop a single, Broken Bones. It charted at number 7 on the first week. Week two, it was number 1. We teased the fans with an acoustic version of Bitch. We dropped it on YouTube the next week. Broken Bones hung at number 1 in the States. It was doing pretty well in Germany and England. It tapped into something. It was pretty Amazing. It seemed like Broken Bones was everywhere.

The critics were using words like powerful, raw emotions, break out. They talked about it as a resurgence of rock.

The hype was building.

I knew that this was really big when I had to quit going to Sandy's bar. Too many fans stocking me, too many paparazzi. I mean I knew what that was like, I was prepared for it. Been there done that, you know. This was not what I had expected, it was way over the top. It was getting pretty crazy.

Then we dropped another single, The Hammer knocked Broken Bones out of the number one slot down to number 2. The tour had sold out, we added 10 new dates.

Her lawyer was back. They wanted to go back and break the prenup. I got pretty pissed off. She was shacked up with the asshole she was fucking around with when I tossed her. A couple of Sandy's friends from the bar caught the asshole in the open one night, he spent the next week in intensive care. It's good to have friends that have your back.

We dropped the album, we called it Bang Bang. It debuted at number 1 on the Album Charts in the US, UK and Japan.

We hit the road. It was going to be a grueling 4 month international tour.

When we finally dragged our ass home Bang Bang was a mega hit. We blew past Jackson's Thriller. Some folks were talking about us being the new Beatles.

When we finally got back to LA it was a mad house. Our last stop was the Hollywood Bowl. We did the gig, we had it live streaming on our website. It was the most profitable gig in the history of rock. The revenue from streaming topped $225 million, The Label didn't get one thin dime from it. There was talk in the industry about the "new" way to tour.

Of course that asshole Trump wanted to have us come to the White House. Seems he was struggling and wanted some of our juice to rub off on him. We very publicly told him to fuck off.

The suits were besides themselves. Bang Bang was our last album we owed them under our contract. Their usual tricks to rip us off had fallen flat. We actually were racking in the bucks for the album and digital sales.

8 months after we dropped Bang Bang it fell out of the top 10 on the album charts. Bang Bang had 6 number 1 hits; Broken Bones, The Hammer, Watchers, Don't Mess with a Married Woman, Payback and Tears of a Slut.

My lawyers destroyed her. She had to pay her lawyers almost half the money she had gotten from me.

Yea, I guess at some point I loved her. Best thing she ever did for me was to inspire the album. Who knew a cheating wife would be good for my career. I guess I should thank her for that...but well, I wasn't in a charitable mood when it came to her.