Chapter Twenty One

I was nearing the end of my rope, too, and I tend to have a pretty long rope to reach. I was living under a siege of non-stop Bobby O'Bannon, from morning til night, day in and day out, Saturdays and Sundays included. He was either in my room, outside my store, in the car, or at the studio whenever I was awake. I continued to work extra long days just to get away from him, and add the rehearsals on top of that, I was exhausted, cranky, and losing it. I kept telling myself it was only X more days, and was even counting down the hours when finally "the big day" arrived. Roy had us going on stage at three o'clock sharp, playing until three thirty. My plan was to get to the Festival early, see some old friend, relax and hang out and generally have a good time as much as I could, then get up there, get it all over with, and remind my mom of her promises.

I had been begging, pleasing, cajoling, asking, threatening, you name it. It was either him or me. I just couldn't take any more, and neither could Joey Anthony Francesco. The last two rehearsals were especially tense. Joey Anthony would bristle whenever Bobby so much as looked at him. A mere glance would suffice to make him stop playing, throw down his sticks in disgust and stomp off on a cigarette break. Roy had finally worked up the nerve to have a little talk with Bobby, to get him to agree to leave us alone, but Bobby's word was like water. It easily flowed and was gone. The man just couldn't help himself. He had become so micro-controlling that the decay of the cymbal was never the proper duration. My dual bass lines were jarring to his sensitive ear, yet still he refused to pick up the guitar and play his actual part. He had become a conductor, a ringleader, a tyrant, a know-nothing expert who thought he knew all.

We barely made it through that last night. Joey Anthony had come close to threatening to kill him. I'm serious. He said as much to me outside on the sidewalk.

"If that Irish bastard looks at me one more time", he menaced. "I'm going to wring his scrawny neck with my own bare hands", and with the state of his hands I believed that he could. The man was definitely strong, and irate. I was tired of pleading with everyone, of wishing that things would be different. None of this was any of my business, I kept telling myself. I know that it was. I was part of it too. I was just wishing I wasn't.

On the morning of the Festival Bobby announced that he wanted us to wait until later to go. He didn't want to have his "system polluted" by any other band's sounds. He was in an altered condition, more hyper than I'd ever seen him. I wanted to go. My dad wanted to go, but Bobby insisted we "keep ourselves pure", and not show up until it was time. I don't know why we always let him get his own way. It meant we were stuck with his tension all morning and well into the afternoon too. He herded us into the living room, where he forbade any kind of music at all. My dad was especially annoyed. An hour without music was hell for my dad. He literally lives for the stuff.

I wouldn't have minded some genuine peace, but Bobby didn't have that in mind. He was pacing the floors and declaring his performance intentions. He was going "to rule", "to rock", to "crack the world open". Our show was going to not only change the world, but alter reality itself, introducing new curves in the space time continuum. The flux of the universe was about to be shifted. No remnants would be left behind. He would be dragging the planet into the eleventh dimension, by the force of his will, by the strength of his character and the sound of his voice. He demonstrated for us just how it would go, with a red cape he'd found in some thrift shop sometime. He swept it around like an alien matador. That was his term. Bobby and the Bedouins were the lever of construction when it came to the new incarnation of soul.

We tried hard not to laugh, my father and I. We sat on the couch and just watch this guy blaze. It was like our very own lunatic sitcom. Mom was feeding us veggies and fruit, keeping herself busy out in the kitchen. Whenever she entered the room she made faces which had us in stitches. She made signs to me affirming her intention to boot the guy out of the house that same night. I was relieved about that. I had only one worry; Joey Anthony. At one point I got out my whiteboard. I believe it was the very first time I deliberately communicated that way with him. Until that moment it had always been gestures and hand movements. He had never paid much attention to those anyway, but this was important. I had one thing to tell him. Only one thing and I needed him to know that I meant it. I wrote this down on the board and presented it to him until he acknowledged it directly:

LEAVE JOEY ANTHONY ALONE

He promised he would. I didn't believe him, but I felt that at least I had done what I could. I was washing my hands, so to speak, of the problem.

We had to listen to his bombast all the way to the Festival too. Imagine a family held hostage by a talking machine and that's us. We listened to him while we drove in the car. We listened to him while we waited to park. We listened to him while we walked to the stage. We finally arrived at two forty five. The rest of the group was already there.