Getting Real

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 f*cking 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.”

Sometimes Rand was too soft. Too willing to think the best of everyone. Why couldn’t he see this? “It’s not about Jake, it’s about Jonas. I don’t trust him.” She pinched Rand’s arm as he stepped ahead of her.

“Ow! Jonas is fine. He understands, he’s promised to—”

“He’s a junkie and you believe his promises.”

Rand stopped. He rubbed his forearm where she’d pinched. “I don’t think it’s that bad.” He considered. “If I thought it was that bad, I’d have him out of here in thirty seconds.”

Rielle stepped past him. “It’d better be all right.”

“You’re the one who’s not all right, Rie. I’m more worried about you than Jonas.”

She turned back, looking down on him. She shrugged. “I blew it last night. I beat myself up. I’m okay now. It’ll be easier from here. It was just first night jitters.”

He came up one step, almost meeting her eye to eye. He so wasn’t buying. “You beat yourself up worse than normal and you’ve never given yourself the excuse of first night jitters in your life.”

“Shut up, Rand.”

He stepped past her and called over his shoulder. “Yeah, that’ll fix everything.”


After a good fifteen hours sleep, Jake had a clear head but a cloudy conscience. He woke early and went for a run, hoping that pounding the pavement might help him forget what he’d said to Rielle. He could blame the Zanect, but it hadn’t made a liar of him. He did think she was a terrible fake. There was nothing real about her—not even that moment at the beach when she’d seemed vulnerable. It was all an act. Problem was, it was none of his business, and it’d been stupid, and hideously unprofessional to let her goad him into making those comments.

It was already hot and threatened to be a stinker by the time he got back to the hotel. He showered, dressed and was early to meet with Sharon, whose efficiency succeeded in making him as redundant as he’d known he’d be for the next couple of days.

If he’d had Bonne he could have taken off. Ridden out to the Margaret River and visited some wineries or taken a jaunt out to Wave Rock just for the pleasure of riding through kilometres of red dust. This unplanned leisure time weighed on him. He did a venue visit with Sharon, had lunch with the Perth-based concert promoter, took a taxi out to Cottesloe Beach for a swim, even read most of Brendan Cowell’s How it Feels.

He swam with Rand in the hotel pool. Had a drink at the bar with Roley, How, Stu and Ceedee, and then talked himself into taking care of some long overdue personal business. He didn’t see Rielle which was better and worse. Ceedee said she was hanging out with Jonathan, which was no surprise. By the time he’d see her at the stage inspection it would be three days since the argument on the plane. The thought of apologising made him want to eat his own tongue. He preferred the idea she might simply go cold on him, look through him like a sheet of glass. She had form. He could only hope.


Rand studied the list of names of the television production crew who’d be joining them in Perth and travelling through to Sydney, making a Behind the Scenes documentary on the concert for broadcast on one of the digital music channels.

The name Harry Young jumped out at him. No good reason, it was a common enough name, and it was a pretty sure bet the Harry Young listed as the producer would be male; probably smoked like a chimney, swore like a wharfie and had a beer gut. The Harry Young Rand remembered didn’t let anyone else call her Harry except Rand. She was Harriet to the rest of the world, pretty, blonde, shy and plagued with a determined stutter. She had bony elbows, skinny legs and a fringe that constantly fell in her eyes. She’d been too scared to get her ears pierced and to kiss him with her braces on, but for that once when he’d asked her to the school dance, the year end formal. She’d been excited then, got all flushed and kissed him back a bit too hard.

Rand never got to see Harry in her first formal dress. He never made it to the school dance. He’d spent the night moving between Maggie and Rielle’s rooms in the hospital, propping up Ben, and trying to take in what the doctors were saying. He’d called Harry to apologise, and he’d seen her once again, briefly at the funeral. She’d hugged him hard and cried into his jacket. He’d always wondered what happened to her. She didn’t move in the same circles as the other mates he’d kept in touch with, so she remained this faraway fond memory of a time before things got hard.

He hadn’t thought of Harry Young for years, but being home was dredging up all sorts of memories and seeing that name on the list had triggered this one.


Jake nearly walked past his room. The ‘Do not disturb’ tag on the door handle threw him off. He figured it was something housekeeping must have done. He found Jonas barely breathing—almost choking in his vomit, the near empty packet of Zanect and four drained green Heineken bottles on the floor beside him. He tried to wake him, then rolled him to his side, supported him with pillows, and called an ambulance.

The wait was agony. But the paramedics were efficient and quick once they arrived, bundling Jonas into the back of an ambulance and speeding towards the hospital. Jake followed in a taxi, and waited on a hard plastic chair in a hot corridor, praying he’d have good news to report. He delayed calling Rand until he knew more, but once it was clear Jonas was going to live he dialled Rand’s mobile.