Different Circles

“Yep,” Jake said. “They of little faith. Of course, they’re still making money from the sales, but not as much as they would have had they taken the CDs a little more seriously. And every percentage point that they don’t get to keep is money in KVA’s pocket and Matt’s pocket.”

“Between the royalties and the touring revenue, is this going to get him out of his tax troubles?” Obie asked.

“It’ll go a long way toward that,” Jake said. “He owes them almost twenty-five million. I don’t think he’s going to make enough to pay that all the way down, but at least he’ll get on top of it a little and won’t be in danger of losing his house.”

Obie shook his head. “It’s hard to believe the man got into that much tax trouble.”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “You don’t want to fuck with the IRS, that’s for sure. A good chunk of that is from the interest and penalties they tacked on.”

“Well, it was good of you to work with him on this,” Obie said. “Not sure I would’ve been so generous if he had put me through as much shit as he put you through.”

“Hey,” Jake said, “he’s making me money as well. And it’s always better to put things behind you when you can, isn’t it?”

“I suppose,” Obie said.

The Celia Valdez Living in Limbo tour of 1998 rolled across the northern portion of the United States through September and into October. They played in cities large and small, usually staying for two or even three shows in the larger cities and only one in the smaller ones. The schedule had been designed so they would hit all of the higher latitude venues before the snows of winter started to fly and then hit the southern venues during the winter months. They played three shows in Chicago, two in Milwaukee, one in Lansing, two in Detroit, two in Cleveland, one in Cincinnati, one in Toledo, one in Buffalo, and then they worked their way into New England, playing one show each in Bangor, in Portland, in Montpellier, and then were scheduled for three shows in Boston.

By the time they reached Boston, Celia and everyone else in the band and roadcrew were well acclimated to the grind of the road. It was not as bad as previous tours, for the band themselves and for the roadies. Lots of extended travel days and breaks had been scheduled in. Though the roadies had to travel on buses with the trucks from city to city, they often had a day off, or even two, when they arrived at their new destinations and often got to stay in actual hotel rooms instead of sleeping on the bus for weeks at a time. As for the band, they had it even better. They traveled from city to city in a chartered Cessna Citation business jet and stayed in luxury hotels every night.

But no matter how many breaks were put in, or how you got from one place to another, the road was still the road and it always would be. It was an endless succession of days and nights of doing the same thing in a different place. There were music store autograph sessions, there were radio station interviews, there were sound checks, there was greasy catered food, and, briefly, for two and a half hours at a time, there was the bliss of performing before sixteen to twenty thousand enthusiastic fans.

The Citation landed at Logan International Airport on October 12^th after flying there from Montpellier. Their first of three shows would be tomorrow night. After that, there would be a one-day break and then a show in Providence (the Brainwash crew had been given tickets for that one), a show in Albany, and then it was onto New York City for a two-day break followed by three consecutive shows at Madison Square Garden. Celia was very much looking forward to New York City. Jake and Laura were meeting her there for a little reunion. It was about time. While the rest of the band (except Little Stevie and Liz, who had each other) made frequent use of the request system to satisfy their sexual urges, Celia had remained faithful, as promised. But she had grown tired of paddling her pink canoe back in Chicago. Not that that stopped her from doing it almost nightly.

A limousine took her and the band from Logan to the Hilton Harbor Hotel on the waterfront. They checked into their rooms shortly after three o’clock. Celia tossed her travel case at the foot of the bed. She never bothered to unpack anything, even if they were staying for four days as they were here in Boston, because it was too much of a pain in the ass to repack. Her plan was to lay down and take a nap—you were always tired on the road—and then get up around six or so and have room service bring up something for dinner. She would have them include a nice bottle of wine with it and then she would change into her sweatpants and sit on the couch watching mindless television. It was a good plan.