Fever House (Fever House, #1)

by Keith Rosson

He became accustomed to the cadence of touring at a young age, the strange rhythm of it, the repetition—the promoter with the plugs in his ears and the tattooed face that they saw every time they played Lexington, Kentucky, how he would say What’s up, my champion? to Nick in the same funny voice, always pulling a ten-dollar bill from behind Nick’s ear, folded in the shape of a diamond, which he would then press into Nick’s palm. The same skylines of the same cities as they drove down the same highways. The skeins of sunlight rippling through tattered clouds, or a sky grown slate-gray and threatening snow. The quality of light depending on the time of year, the way it fell on his legs in the van. How he could tell what time of day it was by the sunbeams sliding slowly across the Econoline’s floor. How you could read the grownups’ moods by how they sat in their seats, their posture, how they talked to each other. How Doogy would play drums on the steering wheel for a hundred miles, for forever, until someone, usually his dad, yelled at him to stop. Arthur always with a book in his hand, talking up that evening’s hosts and trading the book he’d just finished for another from that person’s collection. Nick graduating from an air mattress to a folding cot as he got older, falling asleep in some back room while the grownups bullshitted quietly, the clink of glasses. The occasional groans and burst of giggles when someone dropped something. The pungent smell of joints drifting be...