170. You May Be Right

After Bart and I ate, we sat around in the mostly-empty restaurant in no hurry to leave. Late night patrons still laughed loud at the bar in the back and waitstaff drifted back and forth with new bunches of fresh flowers for the tables and full salt shakers.

Now that I was full, and probably better grounded, I brought my mind back to more concrete problems. “I don’t even want to see him right now.”

“Ziggy, you mean.”

“Who else.”

My mop-topped bass player of a best friend shrugged. “Sleep in my room again. We can shuffle everybody, or, I don’t care, three of us can stay in the one. You’re really angry at him, huh.”

“Angry’s not the right word.” I pushed a half-eaten serving of liquored-up custard around on its enormous dish with a spoon. “I think I’d just feel better if I didn’t see or speak to or deal with him for a while.”

“Okay, boss. That’s probably easier to arrange than um, I don’t know, counseling or something.”

I barked out a laugh. “That’s a good one, inter-band counseling, like marriage counseling or something. God, I bet there even is such a thing in LA.”

Bart cleared his throat. “You want to hear my current Grand Bart Theory on the situation?”

“Sure.”

“I think you’d be getting along fine, or well, if not fine, a lot better, if you weren’t always butting heads over creative issues.”

I was shaking my head. “That’s backwards.”

“Is it? It’s a chicken and egg problem, I think.”

“Then there’s no telling which came first, is there.” I put my spoon down. “I just think we should give it some time to cool off.”

“Well, let’s try to get back before he does, then.” Bart stood up. “I’m on the job, boss.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I was stuffed and sleepy and tired of angst and feeling the decadence of the city, so we hailed a cab to take us the half mile back to our hotel where we were once again greeted by the night-time army of bell hops. Bart rubbed his stomach in a slow circle as the elevator took us up and smiled to himself. Chris was happy to move into the suite (“Last one back can have the couch, hey?”) and I moved some of my crap into Bart’s room.

He was brushing his teeth and I was getting under the covers when I thought to check the day book. The wake up call would come in too few hours, then it would be eleven more on the road until we reached the next hotel outside of Austin. This would be my first time in Texas and I didn’t look forward to it.

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