The Van

Our first look at the van was underwheleming. It was your standard commercial van a little larger than your average family van, stripped down to its welds and the joists of its skeleton. Swifty was right, there was enough room in the back for the equipment and us, just enough. He was right, again, in that it was used, there were dents and dings everywhere on it, but it was road worthy. I learned to love the van, when you got it up to seventy-five miles an hour or so, it started rattling, we’d take turns driving, when it was my turn to drive, I would get it up passed seventy-five until the band and the equipment were bouncing around like flowers in a storm, yelling at me to slow down.
"Should we paint it like the Partridge Family bus?" Mitchell asked
"Nah, that's kind of lame," I said, "how about Kesey's bus, Furthur. That might be the better reference."
"Well, I think we should christen it something?" Mitchell said.
"It's just a van." I said.
"How about the van-ity?" Ian said.
"The what?" I asked. I wondered if it was one of their smirking inside jokes, I looked around trying to see if any of them was suppressing a smile, but they weren’t.
"The van-ity. It's a van, right? Like in chitty, chitty bang bang, get it?"
“Not really.”

Then there was Tom, the 'roadie' bequeathed to us by Swifty, also underwheleming. He looked like a headbanger who had banged his head one time too many, he had long frizzy hair and his clothes looked dirty, he was a rocker who knew the history and lore of Rock 'n' Roll, but that knowledge mysteriously stopped at 1979 with Pink Floyd’s The Wall. He talked about “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”, or some triva about Black Sabbath for no other reason than that’s what he thought was expected. Or maybe he was a little slow, but in the end, I could see he was malleable. I hoped the reason Swifty had put so much trust in him went beyond Tom being his nephew.
"Have you been a roadie before or is this your first time?" I asked.
"Oh, man, no, I've been doing this for a while."
"You tour with anybody we'd know?"
"Sure, Cheap Trick."
"Cheap Trick!" We all said, shocked. Then I asked, "THE Cheap Trick, the band that played Budokan, The Dream Police. That band? And not some band that did something gimmicky like spelled Trick with a y, or something, was it?"
“Or cheap without the A or a umathingy over the e?”
"No, dudes. They’re probably the biggest band I ever toured with."
"How'd you get to roadie for them?"
"Total accident, man. I grew up in Rockford, right? I was out one night, you know, I went to get a burrito and there's this guy in front of me. He had on a jacket with John Lennon on the back of it. I was in a boisterous mood, you know, so I said, 'oh, it's John Lennon, ' and the guy turned around, looked at me and said 'are you a lawyer?' I had no idea what he was talking about, but we started talking and it turned out this guy was Rick Nielson. But not Rick Nielson from like CHEAP TRICK. Just Rick and he kept talking about his band and he asked if I wanted to be a roadie. I figured it would a good way to get into parties and bars for free, so I said ‘sure.’ This was when they were still playing around Rockford and just about to start touring around the Midwest, way before Budokan. I've also toured with Scratch Happy and Thor."
"Never heard of them."
"No one has, dude."
"Do you like being a roadie?" Brian asked.
"All the traveling is fun, there are the chicks who'll do anything to get to the band. The only bummer is a band can leave you any place they want. You can get fired in the middle of nowhere. I've had to hitch home a few times."
"Why'd you have to hitch?"
"One band just ran out of money and it was, sorry dude we can't afford you anymore." Then he turned to Johnny, "what instrument do you play?"
"Guitar."
"I thought so, man. You should grow your hair out."
"What for?"
"You need hair to play guitar, man, or it's really boring."
"All right," I laughed, "let's load the van and get going."
"Anyway, I doubt I'll be left behind on this tour." Tom said.

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