"How many you got out there?" Matt asked him.
"I have twelve young ladies who are anxious to make your acquaintance."
"Twelve?" Matt said, pondering. He looked at Nerdly. "Is that gonna be enough?"
"I don't know," Nerdly said. "I'm going for a four by two tonight."
"A four by two?" Matt asked. "That's fuckin' impossible. No fuckin' way it can be done!"
"Would you care to place a wager on that hypothesis?" Nerdly asked.
"Yeah," Matt said. "I'll put my fuckin money where my mouth is. A thousand bucks!"
"I accept your proposal," Nerdly said.
"And I'm going for it too," Matt said. "Jack, I think you might need to scrape up a few more bitches for us."
Jack sighed. "I'll see what I can do."
What Matt and Nerdly were talking about was a contest that had developed between them over the past week. It had started when Nerdly had boasted during the bus ride between Raleigh and Charleston that he had "copulated with" three women in his hotel room the night before.
"So fuckin' what?" Matt had asked. "I had eight of them lined up one night and I plugged every one of 'em."
"No, you fail to understand my accomplishment," Nerdly replied. "I copulated to completion with all three women last night. And I left each of them satisfied."
"You mean you fuckin' came in all three of them?" Matt asked. "And made each of them come too?"
"That is exactly what I am saying," Nerdly said, a smug expression on his face.
"Fuckin' bullshit!" Matt said. "Three comes in one night ain't possible."
"Maybe not for you," Nerdly said. "I, however, am blessed with superior sexual regeneration genes."
And so it had started. Matt challenged Nerdly to prove his claim by doing it again the next night. Jake didn't ask for details but apparently Nerdly was able to convince Matt that what he boasted of was reality. Matt then attempted to duplicate the feat the next evening and, after nearly three hours and six lines of cocaine, he was able to. That had led to further challenges in which each of the groupies participating in the contest were to be made to have two orgasms instead of just one. Thus the terminology of three by two and now, four by two.
"I need some carbohydrates if I'm going to do this," Nerdly said. He got up and heaped a mound of Charlie's pasta salad on a plate.
"And don't even try to fake no fuckin' orgasm, Nerdly," Matt warned. "If I'm gonna pay up for this shit I wanna see all four of them fuckin' rubbers before you toss 'em."
"Jesus, Matt," Jake said. "That's pretty fuckin' gross."
"And kind of gay too," Coop added.
"Hey," said Matt, "we're talkin' about a thousand bones here. It ain't like I'm gonna touch the fuckin' rubber."
"How about you, Jake?" Nerdly asked. "You up to try a four by two?"
"No, I don't think so," Jake said. "Sex should be an exclusive, giving act reserved for two people who care deeply about each other. It shouldn't be a contest."
All four band members stared at him for a moment and then started cracking up. After a moment, Jake joined them.
"No, seriously," Matt said. "Why don't you start out slow and try a three by one first?"
"I've done the three women thing before," Jake said. "I like one or two a lot better. With three you kind of get into sensory overload. I have, however, done more than my share of two by fours and one by eights."
"Try a two by six then," Matt suggested. "I'll give you a thousand bucks if you can pull that off without the bitches eating each other."
"Maybe after I get back from LA," he said. "I'm gonna skip the party tonight and catch some sleep. Remember, they're dragging my ass out of here at six o'clock tomorrow morning."
"Oh yeah," Matt said. "Almost forgot about that."
There was a hint of resentment in his voice, partly directed at Jake but mostly directed at National Records. The Grammy Awards were taking place in two days and Intemperance — despite all of the controversy of the past year — had been nominated again, although this time for only a single award: Best Rock Song By A Duet Or Group. The song that had been nominated was I Am Time, which had turned into a surprise hit since the album's release and was threatening to surpass Point Of Futility as the band's all time best selling single. Since Jake had written the song and since National knew that it didn't stand a chance in hell of actually winning the award, they were only paying to fly Jake back to Los Angeles long enough to attend the actual ceremony (the pre-Grammy party had been held the previous week and none of the Intemperance members had been in attendance). The rest of the band would head on to Fort Lauderdale and enjoy two days off before their scheduled concert there on March 3.
"Can you believe how much people love that song?" Coop asked, shaking his head in bewilderment. "What are you gonna do if it actually wins, Jake? You got a speech all set up?"
"You'd better fuckin' mention the rest of us if it wins," Matt said.
"We ain't gonna win anything over Bruce Springsteen," Jake said. "Captain America will always triumph over the bible stomping girlfriend beater."
"I guess you're right," Coop said. "That's the way the fuckin' world works, man."
In truth, Jake was just as astonished by the runaway success of I Am Time as anyone. It had been intended as nothing more than a deep cut on the album, something not meant for radio airplay. National had never even considered releasing it as a single, not even as the B-side. The band had not intended to play the tune during the tour since it would require Matt to sound check and play a harmonica during each performance. But within a month of It's In The Book's release to the public some DJ in Trenton, New Jersey had played the song on the radio during a request hour show. All who heard it had been so impressed they started phoning the station and asking for more plays of it. Soon, other stations began to play it and by the time the band was just finishing up tour rehearsal and getting ready to hit the road it was the most-requested tune nationwide, passing up even It's In The Book — the song — which National absolutely refused to release as a single so people would be forced to buy the album in order to get a copy of it.
National had no such compunction about releasing Time as a single once the potential of it became apparent. They quickly produced a million copies of the song on 45-rpm vinyl and released them for sale. The song shot up to number one in less than two weeks, cutting across every demographic there was. Sixteen-year-old girls, college age men, and middle-aged women were purchasing copies of the song as fast as they could get their hands on it. Reviewers loved it as well, even those who had slammed everything Intemperance had done in the past. They touted it as a unique and endearing mixture of hard rock and classic blues with timeless lyrical development. National had strongly suggested the band work the song into the tour — which they did. They had also insisted on a video to accompany the tune. And so, with less than a week before the start of the tour, Jake and Erica Wilde, who had produced every Intemperance video since I Found Myself Again, quickly composed and shot a video that featured clips of home movies from the band members as children, shots of people dying in convalescent hospitals, and shots of the band lip-syncing the song in their rehearsal warehouse. At Jake and Matt's direction Charlie's face was never shown in the video, only his hands, legs, and body on the bass. This left the viewers with the impression that it was actually Darren Appleman who was playing bass on the tune. The video was expected to be nominated at the next MTV awards.