href="#litres_trial_promo">8. hot rocks, or: the igneous apartment
9. in defense of subjective reality
15. it’s hard to be a saint in the city
16. why we fought world war II
21. a cappella in the underpass
22. a little help from my friends
25. spirits in the material world
epilogue. oh, you mean that checker secretti
Praise for Checker and The Derailleurs
Checker’s favorite color is red
Foreboding overcame Eaton Striker well before The Derailleurs began to play. Much as Eaton would have preferred to chum obliviously with his friends, he could only stare at the stage as the drummer stepped up to those ramshackle Leedys and the damned skins began to purr.
“Who is that?” asked Eaton, not sure he really wanted to know. The drummer percolated on his throne, never still, bloop, bloop, like coffee in the morning—that color; that welcome.
“Checker Secretti,” said Brinkley, with irritating emphasis. “Where have you been, the moon?”
“He’s talking to his traps!” exclaimed Eaton, in whose disturbed imagination the instruments were answering back.
“Yeah, he did that last time,” said Brinkley the Expert. “Checker’s a bit touched, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t.” Eaton slouched in his chair.
The humidity here was curiously high. A plumbing problem in the basement dripped right on the heater, so the whole club felt like a steam room—there was actually a slight fog; vapor beaded on the windowpanes. A proliferation of candles sent soft, flickering profiles against the walls. With its vastly unremarkable decor, Eaton couldn’t explain the crawling effect of the place as he nestled down in the seductively comfortable chair, taking deeper, slower breaths and saying nicer things to his friends. Eaton squirmed. He tried to sit up straight. He looked suspiciously into his Johnnie Walker, thinking, Black, hah! since places like this bought gallons of Vat 69 and funneled it into name-brand bottles. Yet this was confoundingly good whiskey, some of the best he’d ever tasted. The waitress, though definite woof-woof material at first glance, now looked pretty. Eaton felt he was drowning and fought violently to rise to the surface, to breathe cold, hard air, to hear his own voice with its familiar steeliness, instead of the mushy, underwater murmur it had acquired since they’d sat down.
The drums sounded so eager, so excited. Checker laid a stick, once, bip, on the snare and it jumped; so did Eaton. Every time a quick rat-tat rang through the room, the audience looked up; the waitress turned brightly to the stage. When Checker nudged the bass
