Freeway and the Vin Numbers Read online

PART 1

  Saturn

  The Halloween show at the Heartbreak. Where do I begin? You’ve probably seen some of the videos by now capturing the mayhem. They’ve gone viral on the Internet. They’ve only added to the buzz behind the band. Let’s just say Freeway & the Vin Numbers won’t be playing at the Heartbreak again anytime soon.

  I managed to get that night off mostly because it was a Thursday show and I was already lined up to work Friday and Saturday night. Vin and his band mates were in the dank little warm-up room passing around some fat joints and chatting with members of The Afterglows, the headliners, in between finalizing their set list. That’s when I walked in to make sure they still wanted me to do my part in the little sideshow they had planned.

  “Saturn!” Vin shouted, jumping up from the nasty couch to greet me and smelling of pot. “Happy Halloween!”

  I kissed him with some hesitation. He seemed a bit fucked up as he backed up a few inches to check me out. I wore a short, tight black dress with my brown hair teased up wild and long black heels. And yes, my ample tits were falling out as requested by the band.

  “Hi Vin,” I said.

  “You look perfect,” he said, wearing a black T-shirt with a street light on it. All three lights were bright blue instead of green, yellow and red. “Who are you for Halloween again?”

  “J-Woww from ‘Jersey Shore,’” I said, referring to the MTV show about a bunch of guidos and guidettes. There are plenty of those in Rhode Island, too. “I told you who I was gonna be.”

  “Oh yeah,” Vin said. “Are you all set for your part?”

  “Yeah, I got it,” she said. “Just make sure Friday doesn’t whack me with that thing when he’s running around with it.”

  “Don’t cut her up, Friday!” Vin yelled toward the couch.

  Friday smiled, gave the thumbs up and then took a big drag on his joint. That was reassuring.

  “I’ll see you after the show,” I said, turning to walk away. Vin grabbed my arm.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “It’s gotta be something,” he persisted, his pleading brown eyes more focused on me now.

  “I just have a weird feeling some shit is going to go down tonight,” I said prophetically.

  “Weird shit? In general or between you and me?” Vin asked.

  “Probably both,” I said, leaving him to mull that over as I quickly left the room.

  The Heartbreak already had nearly filled to capacity in the time after the opening band finished and before Freeway & the Vin Numbers took the stage. Most Friday and Saturday nights didn’t get this busy until midnight, but this was Halloween. All the hell-raisers were either in the building or standing in the long line outside by 10:30. The costumes were pretty standard: Barack Obamas, Sarah Palins, witches, French maids, naughty nurses, tons of “Jersey Shore” and “Twilight” characters, etc. There were also dozens of sluts and groupies — oops, they dress like that year round. Wink, wink. I also noticed more cops than usual near the entrance and outside. And of course, there was Morgan. She was dressed like a genie, happily exposing her size-zero midriff to the world. Her and a male DJ were set up in a booth next to the mixing station with the WBRW banner draped over it.

  I tried to ignore her, but she made a point of waving at me so I gave her a beauty queen parade wave as I walked by quickly and headed for the bar. There was no sign of Danielle, Vin’s mom, this time. Then again, there were so many people at this show that she could’ve been there and I would never have known. Amy hooked me up with a shot of Jagermeister and a beer chaser. She and I both knew this wasn’t going to be a wine kind of evening.

  When the stage lights went dark, everybody screamed and jammed closer to the front of the stage. At first, only Freeway walked out and the blue spotlight glared on him. His afro was even bigger than usual. He wore the same shirt Vin had on, with the street light on it, and crazy, multi-colored stage pants. It also looked like he had some cool, pointy alligator-skin boots.

  Freeway strapped on his red Les Paul guitar, smiled at the anxious crowd and led off with the sleepy, melodic blues of the Jimi Hendrix classic, “The Wind Cries Mary.” The screams of the crowd died down instantly and we could hear every beautiful note. Freeway began his amazingly soft and soulful vocals by singing the third verse instead of the first or second. Suddenly, the band’s T-shirts made sense:

  “The traffic lights they turn blue tomorrow

  And shine their emptiness down on my bed,

  The tiny island sags downstream

  ’Cos the life that they lived is dead

  And the wind screams Mary.

  Will the wind ever remember

  The names it has blown in the past,

  And with this crutch, its old age and its wisdom

  It whispers, ‘No, this will be the last.’

  And the wind cries Mary.”

  Freeway waited a second to enjoy the moment. The crowd savored the pure beauty of the song and so did I. Then, as the cheers went up, yellow stage lights hit the other members of the band in their positions. They all wore matching afro wigs, black-and-blue street light shirts and huge smiles as Freeway’s monster riff led the charge into the second half of the Hendrix montage that kicked off the show. The band performed “Fire,” sequenced beautifully, just as it follows “The Wind Cries Mary” on Jimi’s album, “Are You Experienced.”

  Again Freeway did the singing:

  “You don’t care for me

  I don’-a care about that

  Gotta new fool, ha!

  I like it like that

  I have only one burning desire

  Let me stand next to your fire

  Let me stand next to your fire”

  Later, Freeway had a little fun with the lyrics:

  “Oh! Move over, Rover

  And let Freeway take over

  Yeah, you know what I’m talking about

  Yeah, get on with it, baby!

  Partially wasted or not, Vin seemed to have no trouble jamming away on the fast bass parts, and you could tell the whole band loved the song. The crowd completely fed off that, raising their hands, dancing it up and going wild.

  After the song ended, Freeway managed to utter a few words into the microphone in between screams.

  “Happy Halloween Heartbreak Lounge!” he said with a smile. “We are Freeway & the Vin Numbers. Yes, we’ve got some tricks and we’ve got some treats for you. Here’s a brand new treat called, ‘Sirens & Songs.’ Feel free to raise your freak flag high!”

  Vin sang this tune as the whole band powered into a fast-moving groove:

  “Damsels in distress

  Various states of undress

  Thrill of the chase!

  Thrill of the chase!

  Thrill of the chase!

  Not a second to waste

  Crossing yellow lines

  Blowing red lights

  Not knowing rights from wrongs

  Not knowing sirens from songs

  Don’t …

  Crash on the rocks!

  Crash on the rocks!

  Crash on the rocks!

  Balloons, bananas, kites and tambourines

  Mushrooms, bandanas, pipes and submarines

  Black leather, pink lace

  Thrill of the chase!

  Thrill of the chase!

  Thrill of the chase!”

  I could see that little bitch Morgan blowing kisses at Vin after that song, but he seemed pretty absorbed in his own world, not looking much in her direction or mine at that point. He clearly enjoyed wearing his afro wig and looking down at all the tramps’ bouncing cleavage in the first few rows.

  In between the band performing previous favorites “Jamming by the I” and “Shaggin’ Dragon Paddy Wagon,” a tune which also proved to be prophetic later in the evening, Freeway sang a new song called “Crazee Leaf,” obviously an ode to whatever the band was smoking before the show:

  “Whoa woman!

/>   You got my heart skippin’ beats

  Irregular rhythms

  And triangular prisms

  Of psychedelic rainbows

  Crossing from east to west

  In the midnight skies

  Of my daydreams

  Your love’s a crazee leaf

  Curing my purple grief

  So come what may

  While here I lay

  Looking up at you

  Falling down on me

  Hey, crazee leaf

  Don’t fall too fast

  On this summer’s day”

  Indeed, that crazee song was my cue to head back stage and participate directly in the circus that was to follow. The stage went dark and people shuffled around. The blue stage lights glared on only Freeway once again.

  “Having fun?” he said with a laugh.

  The crowd roared its approval. I took my spot on the far side of the stage not too far from Freeway as he said:

  “The band would like to ask you for your vote.”

  More screams went up.

  “Who here is the most boring fan?” Freeway said with a big smile. “Find that wallflower and point him or her out right now.”

  The crowd went crazy with this rare opportunity to see somebody get publicly embarrassed. And every person in the club wanted to make damn sure he or she wasn’t at the receiving end of this Halloween trick.

  Naturally, the crowd targeted a skinny, pimply white kid up against the back wall who didn’t even bother to wear a Halloween costume to the show. The stage lights captured the chaos as fans pushed him forward, eventually hoisting him up and bouncing him along in a wave toward the stage. Cameras and video phones were following every second of the madness. With the help of some security staffers, the geeky kid with the tie-dye shirt and blue jeans was deposited in front of Freeway, who helped him up and put his shoulder around him as he spoke again to the crowd. The kid tried to smile, but he looked like he already might have pissed his pants.

  “What’s your name, bro?” Freeway asked the kid.

  “Stan,” he said shyly.

  “So, are you sure Stan here is your vote for most boring fan?” Freeway asked the crowd, not unlike what Pontius Pilate did with Jesus and the blood-thirsty Jews more than 2,000 years ago.

  The fans reaffirmed their vote with a loud cheer and Freeway giddily set the gag in motion.

  “We’ve got just the cure for your boredom, Stan,” Freeway said as the spotlight flooded down on me and he shoved Stan in my direction. “Go play Twister with Saturn, goddess of the Solar System. She’s even hotter than Venus.”

  Shit yeah I was nervous with all these people looking at me, but it also was kind of fun. I bowed to the audience and guided slimy-palmed Stan over toward the Twister mat. The people in the crowd were laughing their asses off as this kid looked around like a dumbfounded deer in the headlights. Yes, his schoolboy fantasy suddenly had come true, but I’m guessing the scene was far different than what he had imagined. Poor kid or not, I couldn’t help but chuckle a few times myself.

  “Drum roll please,” Freeway requested of Buck, the normally cue ball-headed drummer who now looked pretty goofy in his afro as he pounded the skins under a lime-green spotlight. “Saturn, do all four of your spins at once for the benefit of the crowd and Stan here. Then Stan can spin.”

  I spun the Twister wheel four times, then placed my hands and heels on the proper colored dots, contorting my body for maximum erotic impact. To put it more crudely, I turned myself into a fuck-me pretzel and watched virgin Stan practically blow his load to the delight of the live studio audience. They hooted and hollered in all their slutty and ghoulish costumes as I peered at them from a strange angle. Perhaps a career as a game show host was in my future yet. And don’t forget. Hundreds of video cameras were capturing all of this insanity, people. Good thing both of my parents were dead and my grandmother, who raised me since I was 13, didn’t know what YouTube was.

  “Stan, your turn,” Freeway bellowed into the mike. “Spin that wheel, man.”

  Stan nervously spun the wheel, saw the result and got ready to approach me on the Twister mat. This was the one moment in time in which all my hopes and prayers rested with that pothead gangster Friday, of all people, who was supposed to come to my rescue. I didn’t want some sweaty, pimply, nervous virgin within six feet of me, never mind wrapping his limbs around mine and copping a feel.

  Thankfully, before Stan brushed up against me, I heard the sound of that revving chainsaw reverberating from somewhere back stage. Talk about sweet music to my ears.

  A second later, Friday pounced onto the stage with his grotesque “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” mask and a huge orange and white Stihl chainsaw blaring as loud as it could. No, this “trick” had not been sanctioned by Heartbreak Lounge management. Fortunately for all of us, and especially Stan, it was all over very quickly. Stan took one eyeball-popping look at the lunatic running toward the Twister mat and instinctively dove head first into the crowd. The people quickly dropped the poor kid onto the floor because they couldn’t believe their eyes and ears, and they didn’t want to miss a thing. Friday jogged the length of the front of the stage with his crazy mask and waved the chainsaw around above his head, and then he disappeared back stage again within seconds. The frozen looks on the faces of all those costumed weirdoes in the crowd could only be described as way beyond priceless. Before they went fucking crazy in the ensuing moments, they all were completely stunned for a second. Nobody had expected a stunt like that, All-Hallows-Eve or not. Friday had made them look like a bunch of first-time trick-or-treaters at a kindergarten Halloween party. Some even had to replay the video of it on their cameras and phones right away to relive those precious seconds because it had happened so fast.

  The stage went dark again for 30 seconds or so, and I slowly returned to the buzzing crowd.

  The show did go on. Live chainsaw or not, nobody pulled the plug on Freeway & the Vin Numbers at that point. That would come later because, yes, the mayhem was far from done. Figuratively speaking, I have to catch my breath. Part two of the infamous Halloween gig is coming up next.

  CHAPTER 12: HALLOWEEN MAYHEM,