Don’t get me wrong. If my nephew is somewhere out there havin’ a good life, bein’ a good man, loved by his folks, his friends, his woman, if he has one, or his man, whatever…good.

Good.

But I’ll never know that.

Penny’ll never know that.

A woman’s gotta have a choice.

And it’s gotta be her choice.

’Cause it’s gonna be her, not the guy, not some white man behind a pulpit, not some other white guy with a senate seat, who lives with the consequences, either way.

Or it’s gonna be her who doesn’t figure out how.

So, yeah.

Band started with me, Timmy, Nick and Rick Pileggi.

We went on the road, still as Zenith, and we were Preacher McCade, Tim Townes, Dave Clinton and Jesse Simms.

We picked up Tommy on the way.

Later came Josh.

And we were gonna take rock by the balls.

And then came Lyla.

Tommy Mancosa

Jesse Simms, bassist, Preacher McCade and the Roadmasters, formerly Zenith:

You seen the movie Roadhouse?

[Off tape]

Yes.

[Laughs]

Well, in the beginning, that’s the kinda gigs Preach and Dave could find us.

[Shakes head]

I still don’t know how Dave and Preacher found the money to buy that old truck-bed camper shell and pickup.

I know they both had cars and then they both didn’t, but we had that truck with the camper shell on it. The kind that went up and over the cab of the truck.

We rolled out, fittingly they picked me up last, so we did this outta my parents’ driveway, heading to our first gig, which was outside Cincy, and Dave slipped a tape into the deck and the opening theme from Star Wars played.

Preacher is behind the wheel and he’s bustin’ with laughter.

Never seen him laugh like that. By then, I’d known him near-on a year.

Never seen him laugh like that.

We were on our way, man.

We were on our way.

Now, I sensed Preacher was a serious dude when he stared down three drug suppliers.

And I was pretty impressed with what he did to Nick, but Nick was an eighteen-year-old fuckup.

Still, Preach was six foot four and a powerhouse.

Back then, you could stand him up and ask a hundred people, “What’s this guy do?” and not a soul would say, “Lead singer and guitar of a rock and roll band.”

I’d bet there’d be a lot of answers of enforcer, though.

I mean he was tall and packed and ripped.

You know, Rocky-style ripped.

We had no money to go to a gym, you hear what I’m sayin’?

But he’d put on that Rangers baseball cap backwards, his cutoff sweats and you didn’t talk to him.

The man could do pushups from his fingertips.

[Shakes head]

Yeah.

His fucking fingertips.