We're NO RADIOHEAD

or

OK COMPUTER, TAKE ME TO THE BEGGAR'S BANQUET ON ABBEY ROAD CUZ I DO BELIEVE I've HAD ENOUGH

"Get up, fuckbrain." A growling in his ear. Shane Glory's eyelids fluttered open. Fuckbrain?

The world had gone white-light silent, except for the wah-wah reverb echoing off the inside walls of his skull. Probably an RPG, he thought. Fuckin" Somalia.

He was laid out on his belly. The thump of his heart in his ears made him relatively certain he was alive, though the final verdict was still out. His mouth appeared to be full of small pebbles and blood and his body felt numb. A hot, wet sensation had replaced the spot where his chin usually occupied. The promise of future pain hovered in the background like an approaching thunderhead.

And to top it all off, Master Sgt. Tinker was labeling him with a ludicrous moniker that reeked of gratuitous f-word usage. It all seemed, well, a bit uncalled for.

Wait, they didn't call you a fuckbrain in wherever you went after you died, did they?

But hold on a minute — this wasn't Somalia. He and the boys were on tour weren't they? Some sort of a corporate-sponsored, summertime freakshow caravan the record company had forced them to join, the name of which he couldn't remember. Something about scrubbing or bubbles or something. The bloodbath in Africa was a decade gone, Sgt. Tinker was long dead and, furthermore, this wasn't your standard Mogadishu street dirt/sand wedged between his cheek and gum. This was big city asphalt. He could taste the tire rubber and bum urine.

Shane lifted his face to spit and realized that he'd left some of his skin smeared on the pavement below. Sharp shafts of stabbing painbolts shot through his jaw, paralyzing it.

"Now, you worthless fucking maggot!"

Maggot, eh? Fuckin" Tinker had some nerve for a dead guy.

Shane somehow got his feet under him and stood up to sway unsteadily in the middle of an empty, four-lane city street. He felt a dense heat on his back and turned around. The one-story, red-and-yellow, building behind him roared with inferno. The arching flames were beginning to melt the thick plastic that seemed to be the structure's main building material. Inside, streams of red and brown and yellow were beginning to merge into a seething, obscene, clown-like orange. The chemical stench of burnt, overly processed meat and potatoes was hideously overpowering.

Shane stared into the flames like a retarded shaman. Then, with a giant, sucking whoosh, his senses and sound itself flooded back in.

His first thought: The bomb went off early. His next thought: Where was Renner?

Shane ran toward the burning building. The last thing he remembered they'd just set the timer and taken only a few steps away when the world around had ignited, picked him up and threw him skidding across the street like he was a cheeseburger wrapper caught in the wind.

Shane felt heat and panic rise in his throat and he swallowed it, hard. He chastised himself. He knew Renner hadn't been ready to build a bomb yet, — this was only their third time, for fuck's sake. But, like a doting teacher, he'd indulged him anyway. And, yes, that's exactly what it had been, too — a goddamned indulgence. Shane knew better.

Sirens howled in the distance.

"Ren!" he yelled above the din. "Renner!"

The sirens were closing fast. Out front on the street he heard a car stop, a door open. A yell: "Hey! You alright?" he'd been spotted. don't look. Concentrate.

Shane ran to the other side of the building and swiveled his head from side to side, ordering his brain to focus.

Stop! Out of the corner of his eye, Shane caught a glimpse of red coming from a clump of weeds in the vacant lot next to the burning building. Renner had been wearing red Adidas.

Shane ran over and knelt beside him. Renner Tylo lay unconscious in a bloody heap surrounded by broken liquor bottles, petrified dog shit and scraggly weed stalks. Shane turned him over. Blood poured down Renner's face. A cut above his right eyebrow had tapped a gusher. Shane quickly felt the back of Renner's head and around the rest of Renner's body but couldn't find any other wounds. One of the kid's legs was bent in a direction no human leg is meant to bend, however and Shane knew it was broken. he'd seen it before. Hell, he'd done it before — to other people.

"Renner!" Shane said. "Wake up, brother. Come on…!"

Renner didn't stir. Shane ripped off his own T-shirt and tore it in two. He pressed it hard into Renner's forehead, then tied it around the kid's skull. The sirens were nearly on them. They had to move. Right now. Shane threw him over his shoulder and ran down the alley just as the first fire truck and police car rolled into the parking lot.

________________

Shane booked it like fuck on fire. Renner was heavier than he looked. Or maybe it was that Shane was approaching 30 and he wasn't the super-human killing machine he'd once been. Shane forced such superfluous questions from his head. Now was not the time for internal debate on the machinations of aging.

He reached the end of the alley and peaked around the corner. Residential neighborhood. All quiet. He took a step into the street when a set of headlights swung toward them. The lights were coming from the direction of the former fast food restaurant. Shane dropped back into the alley and hit the deck, letting Renner's body to fall on top of his. Shane put his arms around Renner's shoulders in a bear hug and rolled them both into a clump of bushes.

He could hear the car approaching slowly. He peaked through the leaves and caught a glint of red from its top. Cops. Shit.

The cop car crept closer, its searchlight sweeping the sidewalk and alley. Shane held his breath as the light washed over him and Renner. He braced himself. When his Delta buddies heard about him getting pinched like this, shit, he'd never hear the end of it. He and Renner had barely gotten started, dammit!

Then he realized the cop light and car had kept on moving down the block. Shane waited another minute then crawled from beneath the bushes. He needed to secure transportation. He left Renner under the bushes where he was and sprinted down the block. he'd gone less than a 50 yards before he found what he was looking for. He ran to the driver's door of a 1984 green Mercury Cougar and quietly lifted the handle. It was unlocked.

______________

The fluorescent, rotting reek of slow death singed his nostril hairs and made Renner's facial muscles involuntarily tense with offense.

"Get in the fucking wheelchair, Renner," Shane said. Only it didn't really sound like that because his jaw was so traumatized and sore he could hardly move it. It sounded more like: "Het in ha hucking eelchair, Enner."

"Shane, you're the singer and you can't even move your jaw. How the hell are we going to play?" Renner said.

Renner didn't like hospitals anymore than anyone else. But he was tired, seriously injured and he felt like a fuck-up, so he'd just as soon chill for at least another day, pop a few more Vicodin and, you know, watch some TV. The nurse was due with more pills any second now, too, and he didn't want to miss them.

"I'll ee ine hy unight," Shane said. "Ow, let's oh!"

"I can't even understand what you're saying, bro. You sound like a drunken Norwegian."

"I'm not fucking around, hoss," Shane said, enunciating every syllable. "We're leaving this hospital and going back to the tour."

Not only did he sound terrible, Shane looked like a Halloween costume. The right side of his face — which had skidded across the pavement — was a dazzling kaleidoscope of black, blue, purple, red, scab and swollen. You could still see divets where the doctor had dug out pieces of gravel and rock. His chin contained 27 stitches, which he'd admired in the mirror for most of the morning.

"The doctor said you had a serious concussion, too," Renner said. "He said you should rest and stay away from loud noise. We won't be able to join the tour for awhile."

Renner hadn't fared much better. His right arm was hooked to an IV and his left leg was in a cast that ran from knee to ankle. His head boomed with ache. He reached up and felt his brow. The Frankensteinian pattern his fingers found there was, to say the least, concerning. He wondered what Jake would say when he heard about it.

"Yer wasting time, champ," Shane said. "Get in the fuckin chair so I can wheel us the hell out of here. And I don't give a fuck whether Doctor Rosenfetus, Florence Nightengale or Fu Man-fucking-Chu likes it or not."

Shane put his hand out to grip the headboard and steady himself. Those last words had obviously caused him no small amount of pain.

"It's not like they can say we didn't have an excuse," Renner said. "My leg is broken."

"You can still play and I can…"

Shane crashed to the floor. The obligatory sounds of upset metal and clinking glass accompanied him.

"Look at yourself," Renner said. "You're a mess."

Shane was still on the floor. He massaged the left side of his jaw. When he spoke, there was no hint of disability.

"Renner, we can't stay here. We can't afford to be tied to…last night. We have to get back on tour and pretend like nothing happened."

Renner didn't say anything. He couldn't stand it anymore.

"Shane I…it was my fault," Renner blurted out. "I'm sorry."

"wasn't your fault, brother. We'll do better next time."

Next time? Renner was about to ask about that when Shane got up from the floor. Renner noticed he was already dressed under his hospital gown.

"I'm leaving with or without you. Right now."

"Alright, alright," Renner said.

A minute later, Shane was checking the hallway and Renner was sitting in the wheelchair, his broken left leg, which was in a cast, sticking straight out.

"Get ready," Shane whispered. "The nurse is almost…"

"I want to get dressed," Renner said. "Where are my clothes?"

"Be quiet. They're not here, I checked. Yer going like that."

"Oh, your clothes are here, but…"

Shane thrust the door open and shoved Renner through it and into the hallway, banging his outstretched, broken leg on the door. They careened down the hallway and just made the elevator.

__________________

Minutes later, Wammo — the drummer for the Particle Board for World Recovery — and Whitey Osgood — the band's manager — were in the back of a taxi, on the way to the hospital to visit their beleaguered bandmates when Wammo sat straight up in the seat.

"Dude, there they are," Wammo said, pointing as Shane and Renner went streaking by, Renner's hospital gown blowing up and over his head. "Renner's nards are on serious display too, dude!"

Whitey stared out the back window. Shane — wearing a monstrous, shit-eating grin — was pushing Renner at close to Mach 2 down the sidewalk of the exceptionally busy street. Where the hell did they think they were going? Whitey wondered.

"Driver, turn around," Whitey said to the cabbie.

____________

Whitey Osgood looked around the backstage area of the Whatever Pavilion in Whatever Town, U.S.A (he knew they were somewhere on the east coast) and wondered how much longer he could take this shit. He was 42 years old but looked 60, thanks to nearly 20 years on the rock and roll road. He was nearly bald, and what little hair he had left had long since turned gray. His beard too. His belly was becoming a volleyball under his shirt.

Aw hell, maybe he was just tired.

Whitey didn't know what to make of the happenings of the last two days. Shane wasn't talking, Renner wasn't talking, John — the band's exceptionally talented guitar player — was still mourning his dead fiancée (who died last year) and, therefore, jabbing his veins in search of joy that wasn't forthcoming otherwise, and Wammo, well, Wammo was on the prowl as usual — and he didn't know anything anyway.

Whitey was about to close his eyes when he caught a glimpse of Shane entering the backstage area. Whitey shook his head. Shane wore over-sized bug-eyed wrap-around, Bono-style sunglassses, a pair of tighty-whities and flip-flops. Vain Glorious, or VG — as his bandmates gleefully called him — sauntered through the crowd, mumbling about the heat and inquiring as to whether the stitches in his chin and the scrapes on his face, made him look "tough like Clint Eastwood." Despite his cuts and bruises, he looked like a model for a class on male musculature. He was forever thinking up grueling new dips, crunches, curls, pulls and pushes with which to punish himself — a habit he said he'd gotten into in the army.

Shane's usual groupie crew came running, walking, strutting, stalking, slinking up to him like a well-greased harem. Squeals indicated approval of his wardrobe choice and sympathy for his wounds. Shane kissed and teased and grabbed and groped and rubbed and so did the girls. When it was done, Shane looked up and spotted Whitey in the corner and dislodged himself.

He made his way over and plopped down in the chair next to Whitey. He looked at the bottle of Budweiser in Whitey's hand, raised one eyebrow like John Belushi, then snatched the beer away and awkwardly poured it into his twisted, bloody mouth.

Shane put the beer down, stretched out his legs and locked his fingers behind his head.

"Sup bitch?" he said.

"How do you feel?" said Whitey.

"Cantankerous. I ache."

"I thought I ordered you to get some rest."

"It's too damn hot in that bus, honky."

"Then couldn't you have put on some shorts at least?"

"I coulda, yeah."

They sat in silence for a moment. Shane watched Renner, who was in the middle of an intense conversation with Jake — the singer from the Freight Train Suckers.

"How's our boys?" said Shane. "Any fallout I need to know about?"
"No. John and Wammo seem to have accepted your bullshit explanation."

"Excellent."

"Wanna tell me what really happened?"

"I told you: We got drunk, we fell down."

Shane closed his eyes.

"That how'd you get those burns on your legs and back?"

Shane didn't answer. Whitey was about to demand an explanation when G.O.D. entered the backstage area.

Whitey cursed. He should have known this would happen today.

G.O.D. — which, according to its band members, stood for Graceful Obedient Dreamers but according to Shane stood for any number of things, including Gruesomely Over Developed, Grandly One Dimensional or Gay On Demand — played a generic, vaguely Pearl Jam-ish sludge/ballad rock that meandered into Whitesnake territory as often as it mined the growling, rage-filled realm of Linkin Park and the rest of the anger bands who mistake dirge-like fury for passion and pop musicianship.

However, G.O.D.'s last record had sold an inexplicable 2 million copies, which meant they played after the Particle Board, which infuriated Shane to no end. Shane despised G.O.D. He hated their music. He hated their proselytizing. He even hated their fans.

The Particle Board had never sold 2 million records. They weren't that kind of band, Shane liked to say. The Particle Board for World Recovery had depth and meaning and artistry and integrity and talent, he said. Most of the critics agreed. And so did the Particle Board's dedicated cult following, though they didn't seem to number in the millions.

The bad blood between G.O.D. and the Particle Board started the first night of the tour. As fate would have it, G.O.D. was scheduled to play just after the Particle Board. It being the first night of the show, Shane decided to smash a guitar at the end of the band's set to give the moment added significance. A sliver of wood from the smashed instrument jetted across the stage and embedded itself into the head of the snare drum in the G.O.D. drum set, waiting backstage to be mindlessly pounded posthaste.

The G.O.D. drummer had been slightly miffed about the incident, but went about changing out the head and seemed to be okay with the inadvertent vandalization. But G.O.D.'s lead singer — a righteous prick named Brad or Brent or something — had flown off the handle and gotten straight into Shane's face about it. This had been a mistake. Shane didn't react well to people getting in his face, especially when they were people he'd already convinced himself that he hated even though he didn't know them. Brent/Brad jabbed a finger into Shane's chest and that had been it.

Shane broke the finger, then knocked Brent/Brad out with a left roundhouse, during which he dragged his elbow Mike Tyson-style across his cheekbone, thus knocking Brent/Brad upside his head, as well as unconscious. G.O.D. had nearly had to cancel, though Brent/Brad recovered just in time. Sadly, his performance had been lacking (more than usual) and he'd been roasted by the critics, who were out in force for the opener. he'd been jonesing for pay-back ever since.

In fact, the rift was beginning to drive a wedge straight through the middle of the Comex Cleanser Twisted Summer Tour's roster. Shane had begun to call his "side" the Particle Board Front for the Liberation of Rock From Godly Fools.

Renner had seen G.O.D. enter too. He stopped mid-sentence and his whole body tensed. And even though Wammo had given up on the chick drummer from the Village Phreaks and was now trying to woo and possibly bed the mysterious and voluptuous Christina Black — lead backup singer for the Goth-metal outfit, Goethe's Request — he saw G.O.D. too and his posture became distracted.

Brent/Brad keyed on Shane right away. Brent/Brad began talking with the drummer and bass player for Citizen Chump — one of the bands known to be solidly in the pro-G.O.D. camp. Not far away stood members of Salty Dog, Tomorrow's Nightmare and Sleazy and Wine, who made up the tour's hard-core pro-G.O.D. posse.

Renner, Jake and the rest of the Freight Train Suckers — the most loyal members of the anti-G.O.D., pro-Particle Board faction of the tour — were watching closely for any hint of trouble. Whitey noticed that other card-carrying members of the Particle Board Front for the Liberation of Rock From Godly Fools, including most of Hogan's Smearos, Titty Twister, Grateful Strychnine and the female contingent from Key Lime Pie — were in the vicinity if needed.

Brent/Brad kept looking over at Shane with disdain. Shane, who still hadn't seen G.O.D. yet, scratched himself absently, yawned, and said to no one in particular, "Damn, I'm beat," though it sounded more like "Nam, nim neat."

Brent/Brad then began a posturing, processed cheese-laden march across the backstage area that Whitey knew could only end in one spot. He was followed by the rest of G.O.D., and a sad alloy of most of Citizen Chump, half of Salty Dog, the wimpy looking singer and percussionist from Tomorrow's Nightmare and the three-eighths of Sleazy and Wine who weren't already too stoned for ambulatory movement.

Renner and the rest of the Freight Train Suckers were on their feet and moving when Brent/Brad took his first step. They were followed by all of Hogan's Smearos, Stevie from Titty Twister, the hillbilly behemoth from Grateful Strychnine and, of course, the chicks from Key Lime Pie, who loved nothing better than a good fight. Best of all, at least from Whitey's POV, Titty Twister's guitar tech — a greasy hulk of a man who went by the name of McMadness, was a devoted Particle Board fan and who, by all accounts, once went the distance with Larry Holmes back in the late 70s (which was totally believable, too, if you ever tried to have a conversation with the guy) — had also clued in on the action and was heading their way.

Wammo kissed Christina Black's haughty hand and headed hurriedly toward Shane and Whitey. John was oblivious in the corner, plugged as he was into the mainline.

Brent/Brad arrived in front of Shane's outstretched, bare legs. As if sensing a disturbance in The Force, Shane's eyes snapped open behind the Bono shades and he jumped cat-like to his feet. His quickness startled Brad/Brent and the Citizen Chump boys, who took an involuntary step backward. Fear washed across Brent/Brad's face, though it was quickly replaced by vapid machismo. Brent/Brad puffed out his chest — he was King Cock here.

"I think you forgot something," Brent/Brad said, nodding down at Shane's tighty-whities. "That kind of dress is not acceptable."

Renner, Wammo and the rest of the Particle Board Front for the Liberation of Rock from Godly Fools lined up next to and behind Shane.

Shane stood there, mirrored bug-eyes staring implacably, face looking like he'd just gone 12 rounds with Floyd Mayweather. His tighty-whities gleamed in the late day sun.

"don't pull that thing out unless you plan to bang," Shane said, smiling though broken lips. "Motherfucker."

Brent/Brad couldn't believe what he'd just heard. He looked back at his posse as if thems were fightin" words.

And it was then — just before Shane opened up a can of Delta whup-ass on the pro-G.O.D. forces assembled against him — that Whitey realized what he'd already suspected: The Particle Board For World Recovery was finished.

END OF PART ONE

By J.J. Slander