In the previous post dealing with Part One of Chapter Four of Talent For A Mission, I posted how The Prodigal Band Trilogy used the three novels within the trilogy to encapsulate the Gospel of Luke Chapter 15 Parable of the Prodigal Son. The first of the trilogy novels, Battle of the Band, relates to the first three verses of the parable: how the ‘riotous living’ of the six members of a top-rated late-80s and 90s rock band ‘wasted’ their lives and true selves, which led to heart attacks of two of the band members in the novel’s climax, leading them to realize they needed to ‘change their ways.’
In Part Two, I will post how the second novel of the trilogy, The Prophesied Band, shows and tells them giving up their ‘wasted ways’ as a beginning to them ‘returning to their father.’ This novel climaxes with the spirits of Good telling them how they will accomplish this ‘return.’ But they still have real issues they’ll have to deal with, as did the prodigal son, as seen in the continued parable below. Part Three deals with what those spirits of Good tell them so that they can choose, or not choose, to ‘return to their father.’ Since I did not want to make this post very long, I will post this ‘spirits of Good’ part right before Christmas.
Part One featured Luke 15:11-13. Part Two features Luke 5:14-17, below—
{15:14} And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.
{15:15} And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.
{15:16} And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.
{15:17} And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!
I will only feature one snippet showing the spiritual “hunger” the six band members experience due to their “riotous living” and the consequences, both physical and spiritual, of that lifestyle. In Chapter Four of The Prophesied Band, band singer Erik and bassist Keith—who nearly died of heart attacks in the final climax chapter of Battle of the Band, realize the “hunger” for meaningful lives as not only members of ‘the band of the 90s,’ but as husbands and fathers, as well as their true selves outside of the celebrity spotlights—for they both know it will take a bit of time to physically recover (and later, they have their Asia-Pacific Island tour rescheduled over it). They discuss this “hunger” while recovering in a private hospital in the town they grew up in, Walltown.
That night
Even with all the drugs given to Erik and Keith to help them rest and recover, neither slept well after their friends had left the hospital. Fitful, at best. Nagging thoughts, remembered from coma-consciousness. As if they’d died and got a foretaste of judgment.
Erik, tossing and turning. Doctor said it would be at least three months at home before I’d be well enough to work with the band again. Three months! Sitting at home doing nothing! Laying around watching TV. Right! Can’t smoke, can’t drink. Shit, shit, shit! What the hell am I gonna do? My problems are there. The reason I needed to drink in the first place. Home. South Hold. The place where I always drink my problems away. Clutched the pillow. So glad Ger’s back with me, but when I get back home though I’ll have to face my son, Alec. My father said—
He sat up and looked around furiously. “Keith,” he called. Heard his blood brother give a loud snore.
Fell back on his pillow. Snicker. “My father said!” Snort. “My father said? What kinda crap is that? I was dreaming! It wasn’t like I’d died and gone to Heaven, met him and—”
But he couldn’t remember that he’d ‘met’ suicidal Wolfin singer Spradlin, who told him he had to balance bad with good.
It was so clear, like it really happened. My father forgave my hate, and told me to live again to make it up to Alec. Be a dad to him. Can’t even talk to him. Can barely get close to him! A tear came to his eye, but then he pounded the bed and shouted aloud to himself, “Just how the hell am I gonna get through to him? For the next three months he’ll be there to remind me I’ve been a sorry excuse for a father. What can I do to change that?”
And then he thought about his baby daughter Amethyst, called Amyla. He had no problems with her—cute and cuddly and girlish—and even looked after her at times while he had been separated from Ger the previous two months. Was it Alec’s moodiness? Was he just like daddy?
So what am I gonna do with him? He doesn’t like my singing the way Amyla does. When I try to get on the floor and play with him, he gets up and leaves. He doesn’t want to play outside with me, and he runs to Ger or the nanny instead. “How the hell am I gonna get to him?”
He stared at the white wall, open-mouthed, desperate.
Keith’s dreaming began to stir the bassist as well. For years I tried to ignore the promise I made to Charlie. Uphold The Code or my soul would rot in Hell. I promised it that night in the White Horse when Jack and Erik told me I’d be back in the band soon. But back then, upholding The Code while in the band seemed easy. I wasn’t in the band. I wasn’t travelling the world, loving those gorgeous women. Wasn’t living like a king then. Wasn’t the fat-cat star. It was easy to believe back then I could be the way I always was! He made grumbling noises. What an ass I was! Promised him something I should have known I couldn’t keep. Just like I promised to love and cherish Jarris, then I go and nearly break up my marriage. Just like I promised to kill—
Mullock sprang up. “Huh?” he shouted.
“Keith!” Erik turned to him. “What happened?”
Disoriented, Mullock did a double-take. ‘Oh! I was only—dreaming. Like, I thought I was back in that white tunnel or something, and—I was about to—” Look of anxious wonder. “Kill?” Stared into space. “I dunno.”
“Kill, Keith?”
Still stared into space. “I dunno, bro. I was chasing someone into a dark hole or cave or something. I don’t remember who it was.”
Keith wasn’t allowed to remember that he almost had the brutal—dead—Gus Melby within his grasp. He’d promised Jarris in front of The Tooters years ago to kill her dad if the brute ever tried to lay a hand on her again. As Melby did, the Ides of March, 1994. A hired guard shot him in the chest just as Keith had flung her to the morning room floor, clearing the way for a lethal bullet. He wanted to remember, but couldn’t.
Mullock then faced Manning. “I don’t remember that. But the other thing was I remember that when I was in a coma, I met Charlie.”
Wide-eyed, Erik shouted, “But he was killed in Ulster! How the bloody hell—”
“Right!” Keith moved to sit at the edge of his bed. “But I guess I dreamed I met him again. And Roddy was with him. They were pissed at me ‘cos I’d promised to live by The Code when I joined the band.” Snort. “I did everything but. Still, I dreamed they gave me another chance. And I made another promise. Do you believe that?”
“But that promise was in your dreams.”
“So what? I still feel I have to keep it. I have to teach my son Brent The Code.”
Erik sighed. “All I have to do is teach Alec to love me. I actually told my father—”
“Your dad? You were with your father in your dream?”
“Yeh,” he laughed. “You not the only one with dreams about dead people. Only I can’t remember who else was with me.”
“What did you tell your dad?”
“I told him I was—sorry.” Sarcastic laugh. “Would you believe I apologized to a dead man? And I told him I was sorry I was never there for Alec, like I was gonna make it up to him. Not make the same mistake twice so Alec would keep hating me.” A tear began to form.
“How do you know he hates you?”
Pounded the bed again. “Because, man, he won’t even let me near him!”
“Well, why the hell is that?”
Fell back on his pillow with a slam. “How the hell do I know? He’s only two, Keith. He probably doesn’t know either—except I’m never around, and when I am around I’m—” A light came on in his head. “I’m—” Turned to hide his shame. “I’m boozing, man. And sometimes, I’m falling down drunk.” He wiped his face with his right hand as if to wash his guilt away. “That’s it!” Turned to Keith. “That’s it, bro. He was born in June, 1993. A week later, we went back on tour. The next time I saw him, I came home wasted. He musta smelled it on me when I took him in my arms. I’d just gotten in the car. I held him. A minute later, he flung his limbs around as if I was hurting him. And I know I reeked, because I’d been drinking on and off all the way home in the jet. Ger told me later she thought I’d dowsed a whole fifth o’ whiskey on me before I got off the plane.” Reached for a glass of water and sipped. “For weeks after that, Alec wouldn’t sleep at night ‘cos he was used to Ger being there in his room. Not way down the other end of the hall with me. So nanny would ring our room and Ger would go to him. Sometimes right in the middle of love-making. Well, one night, right after Drew”—his accountant—“rang, interrupting me and Ger, nanny called. Alec couldn’t sleep. But this time, I went to him first. Alec just went crazy. I gave him to Ger and he immediately calmed down. By then, I’d had it with his nonsense. Which led to my drinking binge. You remember that, bro?”
“Yeh, but hey, I was too busy skuzzing. That didn’t seem to bother Brent. Then again, I didn’t see the kid until Lisa Brent left, I settled with Jarris and her dad was threatening. I had no choice if I was gonna help Jarris. I had to try to stop skuzzing. Rehab, eh? When I got out, I spent time at home when I wasn’t with the band. I was clean. I wanted to be with Brent. He’d make me stay clean.” Reached over and sipped some water. “Anyway, Brent knows who his father is. And don’t forget, bro, I had a dad when I was growing up. You didn’t. I know how dads act. You don’t. You too bloody hard on yourself about it, eh? Maybe when you not drunk you try too hard. And when he does treat you like he hates you, that’s when you take it personally and get drunk.”
“Yeh,” he sighed. “My usual solution.”
“At least now you know where you can start. Don’t drink when you’re around him.”
“I got news for you, bro. I’m gonna have to stop drinking. Maybe then I can save what’s left o’ me liver. Doctor told me two months ago it’s a bit gone.” Sarcastic laugh. “Right. Stop doing something I’ve done since—my dad left us.”
“I hear you, bro. And this is gonna be even harder. I’m gonna have to start following The Code again.” Laugh. “There goes the fun o’ life. No more groupies, no more highs, no more—fun.
Erik smirked. “I don’t think you have to go to those extremes!”
“Well, bro, it wouldn’t be right for me to keep on living in sin when I have to be a Code-abiding example to my son. And you know what’ll happen if I don’t, away from home. Bloody Tattle Tales’ll make sure Brent knows about it!” Looked straight at the singer. “Erik, I’ve never tried to be a hypocrite—except to Jarris, eh? But I swore I wouldn’t again. I want me life up front.”
“Me too.”
“Except I got a problem.” He shook his head rapidly. “I don’t know The Code. The real Code, that is. I don’t mean the gang version of it. That’s the hypocrisy. I mean the real Code.”
“You mean like the Ten Commandments, eh?”
“They say there’s no difference. There’s not meant to be, bro. And how do I teach it to my son? By living it. And, bro, that’s gonna be just about impossible for me, Keith Mullock, who never met a woman I didn’t want to—”
Laugh. “Yeh, what?”
“Make love to.” Then implied a cuss, but wouldn’t use the cuss word. “Shit, Erik, am I gonna go for sainthood, or what?”
A loud laugh. “Shit, Keith, I hope not!”
Both laughed easily.
Part Three of Chapter Four of Talent For A Mission will be posted this coming weekend right before Christmas, and it deals with Luke 15’s the Parable of the Prodigal Son verses 18 and 19, where the prodigal son decides to become a ‘hired servant’ upon ‘returning to his father’. It will feature the finale of the final chapter of The Prophesied Band, when the prodigal band is given their ‘hired servant’ ‘missions of God’ by God’s angels, the Tooters, missions that they can choose to accept, or not.
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