Jake sighed. He had hoped they could at least start off in a civilized way. Apparently not. "This meeting is not over, Matt," he said. "You can't unilaterally make a decision like that without consulting with the rest of us."
"The fuck I can't," Matt said. "Intemperance is my band. Me, Coop, and Darren were the founding members. I named the band, I am the leader of the band, and what I say is what fuckin' goes! Darren is back in and Freakboy is back to the fuckin' Speedy-Lube."
Jake looked at Pauline. She nodded. "Actually, Matt," she said, "Jake is right. You don't have the authority to make that decision on your own."
"Don't start spouting your lawyer bullshit at me, Pauline," he snapped at her.
"Lawyer bullshit?" she asked. "Would that be the same lawyer bullshit that got you out of a fucked-up first time contract and into a second contract that made you a millionaire?"
"I'm not bitching about that lawyer bullshit," he told her.
"No," she said, "just the lawyer bullshit that doesn't agree with your position, right?"
"That's not what I'm saying," Matt said. "I'm saying that the law and our contract don't have nothing to do with this shit. Freakboy was hired as a temporary replacement for Darren. Darren is better now and able to resume his normal duties. That means Freakboy is outta here and good fuckin' riddance. There's nothing to argue about."
"That's where you're wrong, Matt," Pauline explained. "There is nothing in Charlie's contract about him being a temporary member of the band. He was added to your main contract with all the same rights and privileges as everyone else. He cannot be removed by a simple decision from you."
"Who the fuck did that?" Coop asked.
"We all did," Jake said. "It was to keep Crow and the rest of his cronies from screwing him out of his royalties."
"Hey now," Crow put in. "We weren't trying to screw anyone out of anything. We wanted Charlie to have a separate contract for this very reason — so there would be no dispute when it came time for Darren to return."
"Your concern for band harmony is touching, Steve," Jake said. "In any case, what's done is done. Charlie is just as much a member of this band as anyone else and he cannot simply be cast aside because that's the way you want it, Matt. He has to be voted out of the band by a majority vote."
"Well then we fuckin' vote him out of the band," Matt said. "You can spout on and on about the legalities of this situation if you want, but everyone in this room knows that Freakboy was hired as a temporary fucking replacement. Freakboy knows this himself. So now that Darren is better, we hold our little vote and kick his ass out so Darren can come back. It's very simple, isn't it?"
"No," Jake said. "It's not that simple."
Matt glared angrily at Jake. "Are you fuckin' denying that we hired Freakboy as a temp, Jake?" he asked. "Are you going to sit right there in front of me and tell me you thought his ass was replacing Darren for good?"
"No," Jake said. "I'm not gonna tell you that. We did agree that Charlie was nothing more than a temp."
"So what is the goddamn problem?" Matt demanded. "We don't need a temp anymore. It's time for his ass to go. Darren is back and ready to play."
"The problem," Jake said, "is that Darren is a fuck-up with a long history of fucking up. He's unreliable, he has a problem with staying sober, and he lies to cover up for it. How many times has he gone behind our backs and started using drugs before shows and rehearsals? How many times has he screwed up our shows because of this behavior or out and out caused them to be canceled?"
"That's in the past," Matt said. "He's off the heroin and the painkillers now. He's off all the Xanax and Valium and all that other shit. He's ready to go back to work."
"For how long, Matt?" Jake asked. "How long do you think it's going to be until he starts popping those pills again, or injecting that shit into his arms?"
"He told me he's done with that shit and I believe him," Matt said.
"I don't," Jake said. "His track record sucks. The reason he was gone all this time in the first place was because he was using heroin — something he'd promised not to do anymore — and got botulism from it."
"He learned his lesson from that," Matt said. "Trust me when I say he ain't gonna be skin popping any more heroin."
"Yeah, but what about popping painkillers? What about popping Valium or tranquilizers? What about simple drinking and pot smoking and cocaine? He's proven to us time and time again that he's not able to control himself when it comes to things that get you high. He doesn't know when to stop and he doesn't think it's important not to use the shit when we're performing."
"He deserves another chance, Jake. If he fucks up again, then we'll kick his ass out."
"I don't want it to come to that, Matt," Jake said. "There's no reason why it should. We have a perfectly good bass player in place right now."
"He's a fuckin' freak!" Matt yelled.
"True," Jake had to agree. "He's obviously got more than a few synapses that aren't firing quite right."
"I would say," said Nerdly, "based on my observations of him, that he suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and quite possibly some form of repressed latent homosexuality."
"Exactly," said Matt. "He's a fuckin' nutcase who wants to suck dick."
"He's also a goddamn good bass player," Jake said.
"I'll admit that he's good," Matt allowed. "I'll even admit he's better than Darren on a strictly musical level, but that shit doesn't matter. A bass player only needs to set the rhythm. Darren does that just fine."
"I disagree," Jake said. "When we were using Darren we were keeping our backbeat simple and straightforward. He would bitch every time we tried to put down a multi-tempo piece. With Charlie, we're allowed to be much more complex with our backbeat. We've even been able to incorporate some of the bass into the main riffs of the songs. He's an all around better player musically and despite his weirdness, he's reliable. We can count on him to show up sober to rehearsals and shows. We can rely on him not to get strung out on some fucked up drug and drag one of the other band members down with him."
"Hey, man," Coop said warningly. "If you're talking shit about me, it ain't fuckin' cool."
"I'm just trying to speak plainly here, Coop," Jake said. "I'm sorry if it offends you, but I think you know what I'm talking about. I seem to recall you spending a stretch in rehab because you let Darren talk you into shooting heroin."
Coop glowered but didn't say anymore on the subject.
"Let's just get this shit out on the table," said Matt. "Just so we know where we're standing here. Are you, Jake, and you, Nerdly, telling us that you will not vote to kick Freakboy out of Intemperance and to bring Darren back in?"
"Yeah," Jake said. "That's what I'm saying."
"Uh huh," Matt said, his eyes shooting daggers. He looked over at Nerdly. "And you, Nerdly?"
"I'm afraid I must take Jake's position on this matter," Nerdly said. "Charlie is the superior musician and he is less likely to succumb to the temptation of substance abuse."
"You just like him because he's more of a fuckin' weirdo than you are, you fuckin' nerd!" Coop yelled.
"Coop," Pauline said levelly, "I don't think we need to start being nasty to each other."
Matt's face, meanwhile, was turning a darker shade of red. He suddenly slammed his hand down on Crow's desk hard enough to make the drink glasses jump. "This is fuckin' bullshit!" he yelled. "You motherfuckers agreed that Freakboy was a temp! You fuckin' agreed to that! Don't you have any loyalty at all? Just because the temp plays a little better and likes to look at our bare asses after a show instead of snorting coke, you want to throw Darren away?"
"I'm sorry, Matt," Jake said. "I don't dislike Darren, truly I don't, but we have Charlie here now, he plays better, he's more reliable, and I think he needs to stay on as the bassist. I'm a loyal person by nature but Darren used up all of his loyalty chips with me when he went back on the heroin. Yes, I know we planned to bring him back when we could, but I didn't know at the time that the temp was going to turn out to be a better prospect. I'm not going to vote for Charlie to leave."