Page 93 of Beneath the Stain

Where Trav got to see Mackey shine.

For one thing, they all knew he’d been writing like a lunatic in rehab. They got to the studio planning to do all of the stuff they’d been practicingbeforerehab as well as the songs he’d sent from the place. AndthenMackey pulled out five different notebooks—some of them obviously with pages ripped out—and passed them around.

“I wrote forty-fucking-five songs in rehab,” he said grimly. “Instrumentals and fuckin’ all. You guys gotta play this shit, and we can only record fifteen. Take a look at what I’ve got, decide on the ones that make you curious, and we’ll go from there.”

“Are we keeping the songs we were working on before?” Stevie asked, not complaining, just making sure.

“I figure half of ’em,” Mackey said. “There’s some good work there, some hard hooks, but not all of it was my best work. This here—this is my best work. I figure we pick the very best shit so the CD sells like a motherfucker, and we work on the rest of it on the road. There’ll be bootleg YouTube shit out the yang, and we’ll have another CD in a year.”

Trav tried not to gape. God,hewas supposed to be the manager here, and for a minute, he thought about charging into the studio, grabbing Mackey by the sleeve, and pulling him out with an “Uhm, excuse the fuck out of me, but….”

And then he saw that Grayson was nodding.

“Good idea,” Grayson said. “If you guys are out of the country and want to record, let me know. You going to Europe?”

“Sixteen stops,” Trav confirmed, because he’d made those bookings himself.

“Ireland?” Grayson said hopefully. “I’ve always wanted to visit.”

Trav had to laugh. Well, it was pretty much the middle of the tour. “Dublin, then,” he muttered. “I’ll start making contacts for studio time.”

And Trav’s little ego tantrum was effectively erased by thestunningcompetence and creative brilliance that was McKay James Sanders when he was clean, sober, and on a fucking roll.

“The I’m Sorry Song” got a unanimous vote. So did the song called “Fiddlefuckin’ Around,” another one called “Window,” and “Words in a Glowing Box.” So did Trav’s song, “Fixing.”

“I like the words one,” Kell said hesitantly when that decision was being made. “But Mackey, it’s… it’s a love song. Aren’t people gonna, you know, freak? ’Cause they know you’re singing to Tr—a guy?”

Mackey stared at his older brother and grimaced.

Trav tried really hard to ignore the look of disbelief from Grayson.

“Man, did you know ‘Wish You Were Here’ was written for Syd Barrett, the guy in Pink Floyd who burnt out before they got big?”

Kell blinked. “No.”

“Did you know Nina Simone did ‘Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood’ before Eric Burdon?”

Again that slow blink. “No.”

“Did you know Melissa Etheridge recorded ‘Tuesday Morning’ as a tribute to one of the guys on that airplane that crashed who was gay?”

Kell grimaced. “No.”

“So you know what people are gonna think of when they hear that song?”

“What?”

“Their own fuckin’ problems, that’s what. They’re gonna hear that song and they’re gonna think of their own fuckin’ world and how perfect that song fits the personthey’rein love with, so just don’t worry about the gay thing. We don’t make a gay thing about it and the world will just shut the hell up.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay. It’syourheart up there on the fuckin’ stage, Mackey, don’t blow a gasket.”

Mackey grunted and proceeded to other business.

Grayson kept staring at Trav.

“What?” Trav snapped after a minute.

“Is he really in love with you?”