Fast Lane - Kristen Ashley Page 0,57

and be gutted when we did.

And I’ll tell you what, I never really got it, because the people that gutted the most were Preacher and especially Lyla.

As great as that album was, as meaningful as it was, to the band, to music, to those two and Sonia and Jules [shakes head] I just never got it.

It was like a new death every time, you know?

Like losing them over and over again.

And then I saw Laurie Anderson accept for Lou Reed when he was inducted into the [Rock and Roll] Hall of Fame.

And I sat there and listened to Anderson talking about how you die three times. When your heart stops. When you’re buried or cremated. And the last time someone says your name.

I watched that, her saying that, and the audience chanting, “Lou, Lou, Lou.”

[Turns head, takes a moment, coughs, looks back]

[Quietly] This is it, sister. Listen carefully.

This was the kind of man Preacher was.

This was the kind of thing that Preacher knew.

It was right there in front of me and I was so close to it, I did not fuckin’ get it.

It was all in the title.

Audie and Lynie Live On.

No matter it cut him to the bone to do it, he gave them to the world, but especially to Lyla and her sisters, in a way that they will never die.

That was Preacher.

[Clears throat]

That was Preacher McCade.

When their declining health made the decision easy for her, Lyla decided to move to LA.

Preacher found a house…

Strike that, Tom found Preach and Lyla a house a lot like that first one we had out there that Tommy rented, except smaller, more secluded, whole fuckin’ place was surrounded by green, even the front, and it didn’t have a view, but it had a pool.

[Chuckles]

So not like that first house at all, except it had a pool. But it felt like it since we were all there so often.

We all had our own pads by then, but it felt like we were always with Lyla and Preach at their crib.

Maybe because that’s the only place we could get good, home-cooked food and we all liked our food.

[Bursts out laughing, then quiets]

But mostly, we liked bein’ around Lyla and Preach.

She got a job in the school system, which was a disaster from the start.

First, she’s famous and living with a famous guy and you cannot be the first one of those and have a job in the Los Angeles Public School System.

Second, being a teacher was her mother’s dream, not Lyla’s, and she didn’t take to it.

It could be the first had to do with the second.

After a while, she moved from the public-school system to a private school, but it didn’t get much better on either front.

In the end, it was just clear, although Lyla loves kids, that wasn’t her calling.

This was probably the worst thing that could have happened.

Lyla trying to make a go of teaching, giving up on it and then she’s cast adrift.

She felt like a failure.

She felt like she was letting her mother down, her grandparents.

She was lost and the man who could make her feel found was in Singapore or Berlin or Vancouver or wherever the fuck.

Yeah.

That was not good.

We were all burning out, man.

Preacher was the only man taken in the band, but he’s from Louisiana. Even if his woman is half a world away, he can party and do it where it doesn’t end with his dick getting sucked.

And the man could party hard.

But it wasn’t just booze and weed and blow and a good time after every gig.

It was a pill to wake up and a pill to get some sleep and a pill to knock you out on the plane and a couple of lines before you go onstage, which would turn into someone getting a solo so the rest of us could walk off because we needed to do a couple more.

Lyla doesn’t know any of this shit is happening.

Preacher doesn’t understand all that’s going on with her seein’ as she’s putting on a brave face when Preacher phones home.

And Preach isn’t exactly hiding, but he isn’t being forthcoming.

But then she’s not working, and she starts flying out on occasion to join the tour for a while, and suddenly she’s in that mix, at his side, full bore.

[Shakes head, smiling]

She could party too.

Or if we’re on a break and he’s with her and they go out, especially after that album and all that was in it that people now know, it’s almost