Fast Lane - Kristen Ashley Page 0,3

eighteen, Preach was twenty. I mean, [laughs] he’s like, adult to a seventeen-year-old, you know?

But he strolled into my garage in that way he moved for his first jam with us and Jesus.

Shit.

Just watching him move?

I could practically see the groupies straining toward us, screaming our names.

But then he played.

And sang.

Shit.

We had a band meeting after he left, and Ricky did not like Preacher at all. Wanted nothin’ to do with him.

“What’s an old guy like that want with us? It’s creepy, dudes,” he said.

Preacher was two years older than Ricky.

I gotta say, hindsight.

[Long pause]

“He’s totally gonna edge you out, Timmy,” Rick told Tim.

If I remember, Tim shrugged.

Everyone talks about it. How Tim was the light to Preach’s dark.

Man, when we…when we.

[Pause]

Preach stage left.

Tim stage right.

The fuckin’ bass, me in the middle.

Caught between light and dark.

My parents’ love for me. My sisters. Their hate for each other.

Then the band.

And then there was Lyla.

Caught between light and dark my whole life, you know?

Tim was not an attention guy. He wanted to play his guitar. He was more into the music than me. Definitely more than Nick or Rick.

I mean, he didn’t talk much, but you got him rapping, it’d be about music. And he’d go on about shit I wouldn’t get until later.

About Bowie and Ziggy Stardust and how that shit was beyond. He was into Petty. And Springsteen. The dude listened to Joni Mitchell and Carole fuckin’ King. Stevie Wonder. Johnny Cash. Jackson Brown. Patti Smith.

None of us knew who the fuck Leonard Cohen was. But Tim did.

Preach did too.

Dolly Parton. The Eagles. Fleetwood Mac. Elvis Costello.

The guy did not discriminate.

Hell, when Paul Simon released Graceland, fuck. Tim listened to that so often, back then, if I heard “do, do, do, do…do, do, do, do,” [humming opening of “You Can Call Me Al”] one more time, I’d fuckin’ kill someone.

He blasted out the Runaways.

He was Joan Jett’s biggest fuckin’ fan. If she’d asked him to be in the Blackhearts, he would have dropped everything to follow her anywhere she went.

Yeah, he’d even drop us.

Believe it.

I think he had a little punk down deep in his heart.

It was quiet. Punk ain’t quiet.

But listen to his solos and tell me he wasn’t screaming about something.

And you know, when Mellencamp got airplay, we hadn’t even started the fuckin’ band. We were in junior high, for fuck’s sake.

And it was Tim who said, when we first heard “Hurts So Good,” “This is the guy.”

I mean, that wasn’t even “Jack and Diane.” And he was listening to Chestnut Street Incident and John Cougar and “Ain’t Even Done with the Night.”

It was also about Mellencamp for him, and all of us, I guess. Seein’ as we’re all from Indiana.

Except Preach.

So, Tim did not care that Preacher edged him out.

Especially when we heard the guy sing.

Tim got lead on a lot of songs. As you know. For sure. He was a decent guitar player, but with Preach in the band, we all got better.

We had to match him. The way Preacher played guitar like it was second nature, didn’t even look down at his strings. Moved his fingers, and miracles came out.

But there were a few songs he passed along to Tim to play lead guitar, also sing, but really, no one would sing lead, you know, regular, except Preach when we heard him sing.

That deep, raspy voice that had that Cajun lilt.

That was one of the things I thought made him even more badass. He’d say “dis” and “dat” and “dos” and “dem” instead of “this” and “that” and “those” and “them.”

You’d say something, and he’d reply, “talk about,” and you would not know what the fuck he meant. But it was a Cajun thing. After a while, we all said, “talk about” and every time we did in the beginning, it’d make Preach smile.

He was just him.

Twenty years old and he was just him. He wasn’t gonna change for anybody.

Like the Beatles, when everyone else from over there was singing in an American accent, they were all, “Fuck that.” They were English. They sang with an English accent. And that was that.

That’s rock ’n’ roll, you know.

You take me as I am or kiss my ass.

Preach was all about that.

Tim was all about that too, in Tim’s way.

I think he felt relief when Preacher came along, and he didn’t have to carry the band.

He could just play.

And when he could just play, he got better. So much better.

On “Best of” lists, you know. That much