The Gathering Storm

After I got back from Jamaica, the first thing I did was check in with the guys in the band. Mark was feeling much better, and his Hepititis was pretty much past. He and Barry were both anxious to get back to work, and with a lot of new music written, I was looking forward to getting into rehearsals, since I knew that in a little more than thirty days, I'd be meeting with Tony Oteda and we would be signing a management deal which would change all of our futures forever. I needed to keep the band focused on the music, and not the calendar...and if I could do that, the time would go by quickly. Charles seemed to be indifferent to my return, except for my awareness that he was glad free cocaine had returned. It was almost as if I sensed a resentment from him. I couldn't tell if he thought I should have left him a large batch of cocaine in my absence, so he could amuse himself until I got back..or if he thought I should have taken him to Jamaica with me, but whatever it really was... something felt different. He had always been easily influenced by the people around him, and I also wondered what kind of crap Nick or Bonnie might have been feeding him for three weeks, without me being there to keep him positive and focused. He immediately showed up at my house the first night I was back, looking to spend a few hours trying to get news about the band situation from me, even though he knew I hadn't even had time to unpack yet, and I didn't have anything new to report. Of course he ended up needing to be appeased with a few hundred dollars worth of cocaine, and I did my best to remind him about our management deal in a month, and the five new Avalanche songs I had written while I was away...but the healthy glow and positive energy I had returned with wasn't destined to last nearly as long as I had hoped it would, because his attitude was, if anything, worse than when I had left. I wasn't sure how to get him to calm down...booze made him crazy, coke made him wired, and our lack of work was making him angry...and although I kept telling him everything was going to be OK, it didn't take too long to realize that I wasn't really talking to Charles...I was talking to the booze and the drugs...and regardless of whoever or whatever was filling his head with fear and doubt about the band...and I didn't know who was doing that, or what that was about...it was definitely worse than I remembered it being a few weeks earlier...and I didn't really know for sure what to do about it...