"Can I ask you sothing?" I asked Vick, lowering my voice.
"Sure. Anything. What’s up?"
"What’s she like? You know. To work with?"
"The Boss?" Vick smiled wide. "She’s great."
"Really? Because...you know. All the shit in the tabloids."
"You don’t have to worry about that bullshit. That’s all in her rear-view mirror. She’s grown up and has her head on straight."
"You sure?" I pressed.
"Well, she’s an artist, so there’s the normal amount of crazy we all have to deal with, but she’s got a good heart and she’s loyal as hell. You gotta rember that this all started before she can even rember. I can’t even imagine how hard that must have been to deal with."
"You been with her a while?" I asked.
"I did my first tour with her as a keyboardist ten years ago and then she offered the MD gig. Rod’s been with her longer than any of us. He can tell you exactly how much working with lody has changed over the years."
I cleared my throat. "Yeah. I’m not so sure Rod’s excited about my being here."
"He’s super tight with the boss, and he’s protective of her. That’s all. Give it so ti. He’ll warm up to you."
"Or set my bunk on fire," I said.
He smiled. "We’re all still pretty charged up about everything that went down with Gill, so try not to take anything personally."
"I get it. Thanks, man."
"My office door is always open," Vick said, pointing to his keyboards.
The first half of the setlist was made up of songs from the early part of lody’s career, which consisted of mostly straightforward pop tunes. Running through the second half of the set was a bit trickier as it contained newer, more sophisticated songs. As we played the whole set, I could see how much her writing and arranging had matured over the years.
During our first eting, lody had explained her vision of this tour, and now playing through the setlist for the first ti, I was beginning to understand. For this tour, the setlist was in chronological order. Starting with the first song on her first album, all the way to her latest single.
We were in between songs, discussing whether we’d jumped to the bridge of the last song a asure too early when lody walked in with Brandy and a mber of her security team.
"How’s is goin’ in here, fellas?" she asked cheerily, taking off her Jackie O shades. She wore gray sweatpants, a black tank top, and her hair was piled on her head in a ssy bun. She was undoubtedly the sexiest woman I’d ever seen, and for the first ti, I doubted if I should have ever taken this job.
So far, I’d been too hyper-focused about the music or scared shitless about the show to think about what it was going to be like to stand on stage with a goddess night after night. Of course, I already knew lody was impossibly beautiful before I’d t her, but I’d always assud she was so vapid pop-tart. But now that I’d t her and her band, I knew she was a woman of substance, which made her far more attractive to .
"They givin’ you a hard ti?" she asked , motioning to her bandmates.
"Perfect gentlen," I replied.
She chuckled. "Now I know you’re lying."
"Can’t rember the last ti I saw you in the tuning room, lody," Vick said. "Everything good?"
"Yeah. Just thought I’d check up on the new guy. Make sure you hadn’t scared him away."
"D’you hire Mr. Muscles here to make us all look bad?" Puddin’ cried out.
"Says the man ti forgot," lody said. "When was your last birthday, anyway? Twenty years ago?"
"It’s the clean livin’, love. One beautiful day at a ti," Puddin’ replied.
"That’s our boy," lody said in a way that conveyed a deep connection between the two of them. "So, you feeling okay?" she asked, turning back to . "Nervous at all?"
"I feel like I’m about to be shot out of a cannon. Does that count?"
"You’ll be great. Besides, our show is nothing like that," she said.
"No?"
"No," she said with a smirk. "The cannon guys use safety nets."
I laughed.
lody waved the man she walked in with over to us. "Train, this is Chip Robertson. My head of security."
He shook my hand. "Pleased to et you, Train. I understand, you’re to serve as extra security at Ms. Morgan’s request."
"I’m not here to step on your toes, sir. This is your show. I’m happy to help wherever I’m needed."
"I appreciate that, son," Chip said, before handing a security badge. "Keep that with you at all tis. Are you licensed to carry a firearm?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good," Chip said. "Now, the last thing to do is assign your code na."
"Code na?" I looked to lody.
"This tour we’re the Marx brothers," she replied. "Vick is Groucho, Rod is Chico, Puddin’ is Harpo—"
"And you’re Gummo," Chip said.
"Gummo? Who the hell is Gummo?" I asked.
"He was the least known of the Marx Brothers," Chip said. "He was drafted into the war."
"Sounds like our Train," lody said.
"Why can’t I be Zeppo?"
"Because Gill was Zeppo," lody said. Disgust dripping from her voice.
"Gummo it is," I said.
"I should get going and let you boys get back to work," lody said, turning to leave.
"You wanna sit in on a number before you go, boss?" Vick asked.
"Sure, but none of the lody Morgan shit," she said, and Vick handed her a microphone.
"How about we do one that’s a wee bit dirty, eh?" lody asked, mimicking Orange Salad’s late great lead singer Dennis Moore’s intro to "She’s a Thief," and Puddin’ counted us off.
"One, two, free, four!"
What happened next can only be described as an out of body experience. I was playing one of the first songs I ever figured out how to play with Puddin’ Daily himself and lody Morgan on vocals. I swear to God an asteroid could have broken through Earth’s atmosphere, crashed into the Rose Garden, and hit square in the nut sack and I wouldn’t have felt a thing. I was both hyper present, but also completely disconnected from myself. By the ti we played through the second chorus I was floating.
"Co on new guy, let’s go!" Puddin’ shouted into his mic, cuing the guitar solo.
I moved my hand to the correct position on the fretboard and then it happened. My mind went completely blank. No guitar solo, no nothin’.
Guitar? What’s a guitar? I was drowning in sea of darkness for what felt like five minutes, but in truth was only a nano-second. But by the ti my fingers were on the strings, the notes flooded back to my mory in an instant, and I began to play like my life depended on it. It was both terrifying and exhilarating.
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