“No, I think we’ll be able to cover it,” Jim agreed.
“What about taxes?” Margaret said.
“Oh, we got hit pretty hard this year,” Jim told her. “Mostly because of that advance money KVA gave us. We were kind of worried about how we were going to pay it.”
“How much?” she asked.
“About ten grand,” Jim said.
“Ten thousand dollars?” she said, horrified. “Jim, why didn’t you tell us? You know we would have helped you out.”
“We don’t want to take money from you and Dad, Mom,” he told her. “We dug our hole; we can crawl out of it without help.”
“That’s just your pride talking,” she admonished. “We’re family. When you need help, you just ask.”
He nodded. They had taken their share of help from his parents over the years, and every time they had to, it had gnawed at him for months. Not that his parents had ever held it over his head or even so much as made mention of it ever again, but because it made him feel like he was a failure, that he couldn’t support his family. “We don’t need help now, Mom,” he told her. “I think our ship just came in.”
“The taxes!” Marcie said suddenly.
“I told you, they’re covered,” Jim told her. “We’ll deposit this thing on Monday morning and send out the checks for our tax bills at the same time. These checks will clear long before the IRS and the RIDT deposit our checks.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Marcie said. “Jake told us that we’re responsible for figuring out and paying the taxes on our royalties. We don’t get to keep all of this money.”
“Oh ... yeah, I guess you’re right,” Jim said.
“How much are they going to take in taxes?” Margaret asked.
“I don’t know,” Jim said. “Thirty or forty percent of it maybe?”
“I think you’re going to need to figure that out,” Margaret said.
“Yeah,” Jim agreed. “I’m thinking that another one of our projects for next week will be to find ourselves an accountant.”
Los Angeles, California
April 19, 1995
The dinner party that night was at Jake and Laura’s house; its purpose to serve as a going-away gathering of sorts for Greg Oldfellow, who was leaving on a chartered flight the next morning for Chicago, where principal photography for Us and Them was scheduled to begin on Thursday morning. The mood at the dinner was a bit somber, however, and the conversation mostly dominated by the topic that everyone in the nation was talking about on this day: the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City that had taken place that morning. This act of terrorism, it was being reported, had cost hundreds of people, many of them children, their lives.
“Fuckin’ ragheads did it,” Greg opined as they ate bacon wrapped filet mignon and sipped Merlot from the Napa Valley. “When they catch those scrotes I hope they just take ‘em out behind the building and bust a fuckin’ cap in their skulls.” Greg said this roughly, with a Midwest drawl, using crude terms he had picked up during his two weeks of ride-a-longs with Chicago PD. He had learned how to talk and carry himself like a hardened street cop and was already working on getting into character for the upcoming project, much to the amusement and sometimes annoyance of his friends and family.
“They have that sketch of the suspect,” Jake pointed out. “Haven’t you seen it? It’s definitely a white guy.”
No one knew at the moment, including the police and FBI agents investigating the incident, that the man in the sketch was already in police custody on a firearms charge. And Greg was advancing the most common theory being floated by most Americans. “I’m sure that dude in the sketch is not the actor,” Greg said assuredly. “He’s probably some tweaker that just happened to be making himself scarce after the bomb blew so he didn’t get jacked up. This has Muslim terrorism written all over it. Just you wait and see.”
“I guess we’ll have to,” Jake said. “I just can’t conceive of anyone blowing up a building with regular office workers and their children inside. It’s horrible.”
“And in Oklahoma City,” said Celia, shaking her head sadly. “Not New York, or Los Angeles, but Oklahoma City. If they will hit there, they’ll hit anywhere.”
“That was undoubtedly their point,” said Laura. “Nobody is safe.”
Finally, they tired of talking of it and switched to other topics. Everyone had long since gotten bored with the endlessly ongoing OJ Simpson murder trial, so they talked instead of the ongoing success of the Brainwash project.
“I must admit,” Greg said. “When Celia first told me about this band of teachers, I had my doubts, but you made the call, Jake. They’re selling like wildfire.”
“I am actually kind of surprised by how right I was about them,” Jake said. “I knew they would be popular, but this thing is turning into a monster.”
“I like this kind of monster,” Celia said with a smile.
“What’s the next move with them?” Greg asked. “Are you going to send them out on tour? Are they going to make any music videos?”
“We’re not in a position to finance a Brainwash tour at this point in time,” Jake said. “And, truthfully, we don’t really need one. The album is selling quite well without the tour. And, as for music videos, we don’t really do that at KVA, as you might have noticed.”
“Yes, I know that you and C don’t believe in them,” Greg said. “But maybe it would help Brainwash to get their music out in that format?”
Jake shook his head. “I can’t see that being cost-effective, as Jill would say. The money we would spend producing a video would not increase sales enough to justify the expense. Besides, we kind of like to keep the Brainwash members somewhat of a mystery. So far, they’ve not given a single interview or appeared on any media. A few rags did some stories about their background as teachers in Providence and their popularity in the New England clubs, but we don’t even have pictures of them or basic biographies on the CD insert. Just their names and the instruments they play.”
“Do you think the mystery adds to their popularity?” asked Laura.
“To some degree, yes,” Jake said. “But that’s not the only reason. They’re camera shy. They know they’re not glamorous-looking and they would just as soon keep in the shadows for now.”
“And they’re going to keep working as teachers?” asked Greg.
“For now, that is their plan,” Jake said. “We’ll see what happens after a few more royalty checks come rolling in.”
They polished off two bottles of Merlot during dinner. After Elsa shooed them out of the dining room so she could start cleanup, Laura and Celia opened a bottle of white wine and sat on the couch to discuss girl things while Jake poured Greg and himself snifters of Cognac and grabbed a few cigars out of the humidor. Greg was still apparently unaware that his wife enjoyed a little puff on a stogie on occasion herself.
They lit up out on the deck, looking at the city lights of Los Angeles and enjoying the pleasant night breeze of spring.
“It won’t be this nice in Chicago,” Greg said whimsically. “I checked the weather there earlier from our computer.”
“From your computer?” Jake asked.
“That’s right,” Greg said. “We’re on this internet thing now. Nerdly set it up for us a few weeks ago. It’s actually quite amusing. I can call up weather reports from anywhere in the world, basically.”
“He’s been telling me that,” Jake said. “So far, I haven’t jumped on the wagon. I’m afraid that if I start getting into it, I won’t spend as much time working on my music. Especially once the porn starts rolling in.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about that,” Greg said dismissively. “While the world wide web is interesting and it’s easy to look up something like the Chicago weather or to send one of those email messages to someone, I don’t really see any practical use for it in the long term.”