he would sleep. He closed his eyes and thanked Zanect for making everything all right.
12. Zombie State
Jake almost slept through landing and was in a zombie-dazed state at the luggage carousel. He watched from somewhere outside himself as Sharon deftly gathered the talent and their luggage, avoided a small group of journalists and a TV crew and a bigger group of fans, and bundled them all into waiting cars.
He watched while Rielle avoided him and snuggled up to Jonathan, letting him carry her bag, trotting after him to get in the same hire car. He ended up with Rand and Roley, and Problem Children’s drummer and lead guitarist.
“You look totally out of it, man,” said Roley by way of greeting, peering at him before sliding on his sunglasses.
“What are you doing here?” asked Rand. “I thought you were coming with the staging trucks.”
Jake said, “Yeah.” Hire cars were cool. So much cooler than planes.
Roley laughed. “What have you taken?”
“Zanect,” he muttered. “It makes me a little groggy. I’ll be all right in an hour or so.”
“Hah,” said Roley, “it’s a wonder you’re conscious.”
“Why are you here, Jake?” Rand repeated.
Jake’s head tipped back against the headrest. He closed his eyes. “I am a mere mortal. I obey the Ice Queen’s command.”
Even the driver laughed. Rand reached over and slapped him across the knee. “Sorry buddy. You know, it’s okay to say no to her.”
“Though you might not continue to be anatomically correct afterwards,” stuttered Roley, making the other men laugh again.
Jake acknowledged their fun with a sloppy grin. “I’m too much of a wimp to ignore her.”
“No, you’re not, Reedy,” said the drummer, whose name Jake couldn’t recall. “Remember the brown snake on our last festival tour?”
Jake remembered the snake, deadly poisonous, curled up asleep on a bass drum. He remembered grabbing it firmly behind the head, and stuffing it in a bag to get it off the set.
“Remember that ticket scalper who crashed backstage?”
Jake remembered the ticket scalper. He’d been particularly obnoxious when asked to leave, and had taken a swing at someone. He remembered he’d wrestled the bloke to the ground and held him til security arrived. He’d copped a bloody nose and a black eye for his trouble.
“Don’t believe him about being a wimp,” the nameless drummer appealed to the others. “Not this bloke.”
“That snake was asleep, wouldn’t have hurt anyone,” murmured Jake, thinking David, no Darren, no Damien, definitely a D name, ah—
When they got to the hotel, Sharon took his elbow and pressed a room card into his hand. “Go sleep it off, boss, I’ve got this.”
He nodded.
“I’ll come meet you for breakfast tomorrow and give you an update.”
He stood in the foyer and watched the two bands dump luggage and pick up room slide keys and get back in the hire cars for their inspection of the Perth Stadium. Half of him wanted to join them. There were things he needed to do. But the half that had a thick tongue and a woozy head and knew he wasn’t even supposed to be here, headed for the elevators.
Jake swayed on unsteady legs when he’d joined them at the luggage carousel, so Rielle knew he wasn’t himself. Still what he’d said stung. A wild shot, she guessed. The sort of thing I would say. He might not remember he’d said it. He couldn’t possibly appreciate the accuracy of his arrow. Bullseye, baby.
When they arrived at the venue, Rand caught up with her. “What’s the story?” He slowed his pace so they dropped back from Jonathon and Dale.
“Meaning?” Let’s see how long it would take her to piss off Rand as well.
“Jake.”
She sighed. “What good was he to us three days away?”
“Rie, we have a three day break here. We don’t need him yet.”
“Yeah well, he’s paid to do what we want.” Was Rand kidding, anything could go wrong, they needed all their resources on hand.
“What gives?”
“What do you mean?” She skipped up a few steps ahead of him. She could hear Sharon explaining about the green room facilities.
Rand took the steps two at a time and was in front of her. “You can be hard to get along with, but you’re not normally so pig-headed or so fucking mean. That was dirty what you did to Jake.”
“He could’ve said no,” she snapped, coming level with him. Jake was a sap for saying yes.
“Yeah, and have you up his butt the rest of the tour for it. He’s smarter than that.”