van's gone and we need to find it.” Assuming it had been stolen, I asked if she’d called the police. “No, I don't want to involve the cops. Chloe is missing, too.”

Fuck, I muttered and quickly dressed.

Even Nails, who had a nickname for everybody, had stopped calling Coven’s drummer Bonzo. It wasn’t funny anymore. Chloe obviously had a serious drinking problem. Something that became impossible to ignore after what happened in Dayton.

I slid behind the wheel of the Trans Am and the unlocked the passenger door. Nails was a tall woman, with an hourglass figure, which her fondness for tight sweaters only enhanced. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as she gracefully folded her long, curvaceous body into the front seat. “Eyes on the road, Donkey. I catch you staring at my tits again and I will poke your eyes out.”

It seemed like a hollow threat since I needed my eyes to drive, but saw no reason to chance it. Nails may have been built like Loni Anderson, but the dominatrix persona she adopted on stage sometimes spilled into real life. She scared the hell out of me.

Keeping my eyes straight ahead, I pulled out of the Motel 6 parking lot onto highway 51. There had to be fifteen bars within a three-mile radius of the motel alone. “How are we supposed to figure out where she’s at?”

Nails shook her head as if the answer should have been obvious. “We start with the nearest bar and work our way up and down the street.”

“If we have to get out of the car and check every bar, by the time we find her, Chloe will be bombed out of her skull,” I countered.

She gave an exaggerated sigh. “How about instead of getting out of the car, we just check the parking lots for a dark blue van with the Coven logo painted on both sides?”

“Yeah, that could work, too.” I felt my cheeks flush. Caught up in getting to Chloe before she did something stupid, I had forgotten all about the van. God forbid she got arrested for drunk driving or, worse yet, had an accident. There would be nothing Ginger could do to save her. Joel would insist she be kicked out of the band.

“You just drive and leave the thinking to the adult.” I was only eight years younger than her, but I let the comment slide. Her tense tone told me she was as concerned about Chloe as I was.

The first two places we came to had half empty parking lots. We could see from the street, the van was not parked in either.

“Don't worry, we'll find her,” I said, trying to keep positive. But we both knew how high the stakes had become.

For three weeks we had crisscrossed Ohio, playing mostly mid-sized college towns. Youngstown, Akron, Athens, Miami, and of course Dayton. Pittsburgh was the first big city we’d been to.

And during the eighties, there was no bigger club in Pittsburgh than The Decade. Bands like the Ramones, The Police, and U2 had been playing there for over ten years. Even Bruce Springsteen, who was in town on his Born in the U.S.A. tour, had just a couple of weeks earlier stopped by unannounced, and played a couple of songs.

The place had a reputation for only booking the best acts, and Coven had blown the crowd away. Even more importantly, a columnist from Scene magazine had been among those in attendance. All of these years later, I still carry a copy of her review in my wallet.

Last night at The Decade, Pittsburgh was introduced to the future of heavy metal. The five incredibly talented women that make up Coven turned the genre on its head.

Backed by blistering licks from guitarists Grace Smith, and the singularly named Nails; vocalist Bunny Wiggles captivated the crowd with lyrics that were both original and timeless. Her voice was so unique and full of range, it can only be compared to what a love child of Vince Neil and Janice Joplin might sound like.

Percussionist Chloe Dalton and bass player, Paige Hester, were equally impressive. Yet in what this writer can only assume to be rooted in the misogyny of male music executives, Coven has yet to be signed to a recording contract.

Wake up, boys. These women are too talented for you to ignore. It won’t be long until they are selling out arenas across the country.

Although the article does not mention me by name, the writer did say a few complimentary words about the lighting and sound quality.

“You want to know something, Mark?” It was unusual for Nails to use my given name. I turned to look at her. “When Ginger and I were putting Coven together, I told myself if things didn't work out this time, I would give up on music. Go back to Wharton, get an MBA, and join my father on Wall Street.”

An image of the statuesque Nails dressed in a power suit like the ones Joan Collins wore on Dynasty made my dick twitch.

“But now we’re fucked and the thought of selling my soul to the corporate devils depresses the hell out of me.” I had never heard her sound so hopeless before. “Even if we find Chloe before she gets arrested or wrecks the van, she’ll just find another way to screw things up.”

In order for you to understand Nails' pessimism, I should probably take a moment and tell you about what happened in Dayton.

We arrived in town a day before the show. Even if it hadn’t rained the whole time, there wasn’t much to do. The day of the gig, most of us just hung out in Paige's room playing cards and watching TV until it was time to leave for the venue.

Despite Ginger having a strict policy against the band using drugs or drinking alcohol before a show, Chloe had holed up alone in her room with a fifth of Jack Daniels. Her drinking never affected her drumming, so none of even noticed she was hammered when we got to the club.

It was a place called The Hanger, out near Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The show started without a hitch. There was a nice sized crowd. A mix of college students and military personnel.

Chloe was on fire that night. Her drum solo during Witches Brew was a highlight of the evening. Like I said, her drinking never impaired her performance. But the same could not be said of her judgement.

As director of sound and lighting, any special effects should have been run past me first. But I was not consulted, nor was anybody else, when Chloe decided to channel her inner Keith Moon. The legendary drummer of The Who was infamous for his onstage antics, including the time he blew up his drum kit.

While setting up, she had attached a pair of M-80’s to her bass drum. If she had asked my opinion, I would have told her the fireworks were far too powerful for a venue as small as The Hanger. It would sound as if a bomb had gone off.

Which is exactly what happened during the encore, when Chloe lit the fuses while Ginger played the last few notes of Devil's Thunder.

Since Chloe had kept the stunt to herself, nobody else in the band knew what was happening and ducked for cover or jumped from the stage. There was a stunned second of silence before the crowd rushed for the exits. The club's manager, believing it was a terrorist attack, called his friend, the commander at the Air Force base; and then the local cops.

We were all questioned by the police and a pair of AFOSI agents. Except Paige, who had been struck in the back of the head by the crash cymbal, needed stitches. With what I knew about the pink-haired girl, and from the length of time she was in the back of the ambulance, I figured she'd fucked the paramedic or at least given him a blowjob.

Once I gave my statement to the police, I surveyed the damage on stage. Most of the skins were blown out or ripped. They would need to be replaced before the next gig. As would the hi-hat, which was bent beyond repair. Eager to get out of there, I quickly started tearing down and loading the equipment into the van.

Chloe, too drunk to coherently explain what had happened, was placed in handcuffs. It would not be till the next day when she sobered up that we would learn she did not know how powerful the explosion would be. Her goal had simply been to make the night memorable for those in attendance. She certainly did that.

Ginger and I convinced the authorities to release her with the understanding we get out of town immediately and never come back. We might have been able to keep the whole thing quiet, were it not for a reporter from the Dayton Daily News hearing about the incident on his police scanner. He reported it in the next day’s paper and the AP picked up the story.

Three days later, our promoter, Joel, saw the report in the New York Post. Which coincidentally was the same day his American Express statement arrived with a large charge from Pete's House of Drums.

The article didn’t mention any names, but Joel was not an idiot and quickly put two and two together. When he called Ginger at our motel in Pittsburgh, he was not happy. His exact words were, ‘If you can’t control that crazy broad, fire her and hire another drummer. I am too old for this shit. One more incident and you can find someone else to fund the rest of the tour.’

The girls in the band were not the only ones with something to lose if Joel severed his ties with Coven. I was saving almost every dollar I earned from the job to get a place of my own when the tour ended. Without that money, and the $1,000 bonus Ginger had promised if I stayed on for the full three months. I would have to return to Parma. Where there would be no choice but to move back in with my alcoholic mother. Assuming she had not rented out my room yet.

We’d been driving around for almost an hour and we're no closer to finding Chloe or the van than we were when Nails showed up at my door. I like to think of myself as a positive person but was losing hope. We'd been up and down the main drag, but not seen the van. A voice in the back of my head told me to try the side streets.

But then Nails spun in her seat to look out the rear window. “Go back,” she yelled. “I think I saw the van.”