Auburn: Outcasts and Underdogs

by Valerie Thomas

  Chapter 24

  A week later, Mom told me she’d managed to snag tickets for a Misadventure Galley concert. I didn’t know what she was talking about at first; she had to remind me that a long time before she’d promised to buy me tickets the next time they were in town. She assumed I’d go with Charlie or Joey.

  I went with her. I didn’t care about being the only teen who’d come with her mother. It was a great excuse to spend a couple of hours trying to talk to her—trying being the operative word—and just enjoying her presence. I’d outgrown Misadventure Galley in freshman year, but we didn’t go for the music.

  It was near the end of February when Diane called with our first gig. It wasn’t anything too exciting: a half-hour at a sleazy club, for which we’d clear two hundred dollars if we managed to pack the house, which we probably wouldn’t. Tickets were eight bucks, and after the club and Diane both took their cut, we were set to see half that much per person. It didn’t seem like much, but it was a gig, so of course I said we’d be there.

  We were supposed to invite friends and fans, but we didn’t know of any fans and as for friends… Well, we didn’t have enough to split between the three of us. There was only Will, who had become Charlie and Joey’s friend as much as mine. Jessica was back from her suspension—Principal Wroth hadn’t told me what her punishment had been, but everyone guessed after she didn’t show up four days in a row—and even though she wasn’t bullying me I knew we weren’t about to carpool to school together. Other than that, we were part of a group that tolerated us, but only if we didn’t make too many waves.

  The Underground Club wasn’t very crowded when we started to set up on a Thursday night. It was past ten pm (and therefore technically past curfew), but no one there seemed to mind. The dozen or so kids watching me plug in my mic had paid their cover, and that was all that mattered.

  The room was probably around thirty feet by thirty feet; big if it had been a room in a house, but small for a concert-style venue. The walls were painted psychedelic purple, with neon graffiti that could have been intentional, but just as easily could have come from unwanted vandals. When we told Charlie’s dad where we were going, he insisted on driving us and waiting outside in his car until we were done. It was that kind of place.

  Our ‘stage’ was separated from the rest of the room by a string of barbed wire that I hoped was only for effect, and given the atmosphere that seemed to be the case. It was obviously set up for a harder style of music than we played, so I wasn’t sure how the crowd was going to respond.

  Once I’d gotten everything plugged in, I looked at Joey and Charlie to make sure they were ready too. Nods from both of them. I turned to my microphone stand and smiled. “Hey everyone. We’re Auburn, and we’ll be playing a few songs for you tonight. This first one’s called Add One More.”

  There wasn’t much response to that, but I hadn’t expected there to be. They hadn’t heard the song before, so of course the name meant next to nothing. On cue, Charlie started playing the first chords.

  “To one pain, we add another. When you’re hurting like no other, sometimes you just can’t take it in stride.” They weren’t exactly eating it up, but I could tell from the faces looking at me that they weren’t totally put off by the song. It was nice to start off with one of our slower songs; Add One More was somber, but it was emotional too.

  “If you can’t stand, you hopeless sufferer, to one trial, here take another. Don’t collapse until the day you survive. And maybe you’ll find—no not happiness, but just a little less sadness. Just a little less pain to deny.”

  I had to keep myself from laughing when a boy near the front, decked out in all black and with chains hanging from a pocket, started head banging to the slow rhythm. I’d never thought of the song as a head banger, but if he wanted to… Hey, more power to him. “Not satisfaction, but perhaps just some compassion. Something you won’t have to keep inside.”

  The one thing that worried me was that, as we launched into the chorus, it was clear the audience wanted a faster song. I figured I couldn’t speed it up without risking a million problems, so we were stuck playing the rest of a song that wasn’t what they wanted. I guess all I can do is make a mental note to practice changing the tempo mid-song, I thought as I kept singing. We’d gone through the song so many times that I could move through the words without paying too much attention.

  But the less attention I paid, the less attention our small audience paid. The setting was so intimate that I could see each pair of eyes on me, check for their response to everything I was doing. They didn’t like my dwindling enthusiasm, so I cranked it up a bit. “Maybe you’ll remember, that this isn’t our December. The end doesn’t have to come as planned.”

  The second verse spoke to the mentality of fighting against a seemingly infinite number of trials. I remembered how that felt, and without meaning to my voice lost its controlled edge. “So go on, give me more. ‘Till I’m falling to the floor. ‘Till I beg for mercy, make me scream.” If I’d been losing them before then, I couldn’t tell; eyes that had started to droop were fully open, hungering for each new word.

  “Because life can be a chore. And the worst afflicted, are those who never add one more… So add one more.” Going into the chorus, I felt good. Better than good. It felt like I’d reached another plane of existence; I was a prophet, sharing whispered truths with her disciples.

  When we finished, I took a bit of time to rest. And more importantly, to figure out a song that would be a little more fun to head bang to. I’d just started to turn to the boys when a shouted question made me stop.

  “Hey, what’s that song about?” It was the boy near the front, wearing a thoughtful look on his face. His brow was drawn down and his arms were hanging on the wire; I nearly warned him to be more careful.

  “Um…” I wasn’t sure about the protocol involving talking with fans. I’d never seen a band stop mid-performance to do that. Then again, our performance and the setting were hardly the kind I’d seen before. “It’s about those times in life when you feel like every day is just a little harder than the one before, you know?”

  As if engaging him had given everyone else permission to do so as well, three other kids tried to shout questions too. I held up a hand to get them to be quiet. “Guys, I’m happy to sit here and talk about the song with you all night. But would you rather do that, or would you rather hear some of our other songs?” No question about that; a chorus of ‘other songs’ answered me.

  “Okay guys, you got it. How about Plastic Hearts?” That was probably the fastest song we had, with a steady, pulsing rhythm. I knew that would give them something to head bang to, even if it hadn’t been on our original set list.

  We started in on Plastic Hearts; taking my lesson from the last time, I didn’t stop for long once we’d finished. I named the next song and launched into it. There weren’t any clocks in the room, so I had no idea how much time had passed. Our songs were all around three minutes, so by the time we finished the third one I could estimate that we’d finished nine of our thirty minutes.

  A weird thing happened: the longer we played, the less I had to worry about whether the audience would like our next song. Once they were on our side, they were into everything. Well, not everyone… There was at least one girl in the back who wasn’t buying what we were selling, but she left halfway through our fourth song. It was hard to watch, but I tried to focus on the kids who were obviously into the performance.

  I’d messed up the last time I’d tried to move away from my mic stand, but halfway through our set I knew it was time for me to try again.

  “Alright, let’s try something different for this next one.” I pulled my mic from the stand and turned to Joey. “Do you have your acoustic guitar?”

  In answer, he reached behind the amp and held up the cheap toy. Our audience laughed, and instead of letting it hurt me I just rolled with it.

  “In case you were wondering, we’re really poor,” I joked, lo
oking over my shoulder and sticking my tongue out at them. “I promise, if you all buy our CD we’ll get a real acoustic guitar. But anyways, here’s my idea for this song. I want to play it with all of you.” Since there were only eleven of them, I figured there wasn’t much risk of getting mobbed or overwhelmed if we stepped outside the barbed wire.

  On second thought, maybe this would be better without a mic. I worked it back into the stand and took a step forward, grimacing as I looked at the barbed wire. “God, this seems so creepy.” Laughs from more than one source. It was like I had a roomful of friends.

  I ducked under the wire, and just like I’d expected, no one tried to trample me. Actually, the boy who’d been closest to the wire held out a hand to help me stand up.

  “Ash, should I come out there too?” Joey asked. It was weird to have him come to me for direction, but I nodded and gestured for him and Charlie to duck under the wire too.

  In amongst the audience, it felt like there were more people than when I’d been standing separate. I smiled at each face I saw as I worked my way toward the middle of the floor. “Okay, the chorus is: Yeah, he took the early flight home. Who could tell him he was wrong? He took the early flight home, and now that he’s gone, that early flight is movin’ on.”

  I wasn’t even sure what I wanted them to do. Sing along? “This is a hard song for us to sing, because it kinda divided our band for a while,” I said to no one in particular.

  A short girl with a chirpy voice spoke up. “Ooh, you guys split up? Why?”

  “Um… Let’s just call it philosophical differences.” Joey had found a spot to my right, with Charlie a couple steps back. I nodded at Joey to start playing. The moment he did, the audience moved in, forming a tight circle around us.

  “He took the early flight home. Packed his bags and said ‘I’ve gotta go.’ Kissed me on both cheeks, said goodbye to everyone. Told me our time together was just about done. ‘Cause he took the early flight home.”

  My voice came out thick with emotion, and seeing it reflected on the faces of everyone around me only made singing harder. “All the love that we shared, the times that we cried. The times that we laughed, I still had to say goodbye. They fit neatly in his suitcase, next to pictures of his wife. I love him forever, but he left us last night.”

  “Yeah, he took the early flight home.” With a jolt, I realized I had to clue the audience in on the fact that we’d reached the chorus. They’d never heard the song before. I pointed at the closest one without pausing. “Who could tell him he was wrong?”

  One by one, the boys and girls started joining in as I pointed to them. I could tell some of them didn’t quite remember the words, mumbling at key moments. When that happened, I raised my volume so they could still hear the song.

  It was a fun moment, the first time I’d heard someone else—a whole group of people—sing along with me. But the moment that really melted my heart was looking over at Charlie and seeing him join the second chorus along with the rest. He was putting as much soul into it as the rest of them combined. I felt like he’d finally heard the message of the song.

  When we finished, the same boy as before asked, “Okay, now what’s that one about?”

  I didn’t answer; it wasn’t mine to answer. I looked at Charlie. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” He glanced down at his feet. “That song’s about… Not so long ago, I lost my grandpa. Ash and I wrote the song to help me process the way he left. He just checked out. He took the early flight home.”

  “Oh. So why did it split you guys up?” the short girl repeated.

  Joey started to say something, but I touched his wrist to stop him. I was worried that he might misspeak; given his track record, it seemed like a valid concern. “When we say split up,” I said, “We really mean Charlie and I. The band stayed together, but the two of us had some… Difficulties.”

  “Like what?” I could practically see the girl’s ears perk up, along with everyone else’s. It seemed as if our band drama was just as interesting as our songs. Or at least, almost as interesting.

  I looked for Charlie, not wanting to explain anything that he wasn’t comfortable with sharing. But the audience had pressed in, and my view was so obstructed that all I could see of Charlie were his blue jeans.

  Gosh, I hope he’s okay with this, I thought. “Well, we didn’t agree about that one line: ‘who could tell him he was wrong?’ I thought that it was okay to make that decision, but Charlie thought it was selfish. And he had a point, when you think about it.”

  The set devolved into a discussion on the merits and drawbacks of assisted suicide; we talked for a long time, sharing ideas and eventually coming to a general consensus that the final decision rested with each individual.

  After the conversation, we made our way back to the stage to sing a few more songs. I had hardly realized how long we were in the club until Charlie’s dad poked his head in and asked when we were planning on finishing up.

  “Just a few minutes, Dad,” Charlie said. “We’re hanging out with our fans. Speaking of which, does anyone wanna buy a CD or shirt?”

  It would be a wild overstatement to say everyone did, but we got a nice response. Sometime between when we rolled out the merchandise and started taking down our equipment, I finally had the sense to check a clock. We’d overstayed our welcome by over twenty minutes, but no one had showed up to kick us out. Charlie and Joey were both busy with the boy who’d been hanging out at the wire earlier and asking what our songs were about; he kept asking if we needed a drummer, and it seemed like he wasn’t going to leave until we said yes.

  I’d just finished packing the guitar cases and collapsing my mic stand, and the conversation hadn’t made any headway for a while. I grabbed both cases and turned toward the exit. “Guys, we can let him try out at least.” I looked at the boy. “Here, give Charlie your number. He can text you once we figure out what we’re gonna do.”

  Charlie scowled at me, but I just smiled back. Hopefully he’d realize the logic behind my decision. The boy was the only member of our audience to buy both a shirt and CD, and he’d been the first one to get into our music. If he wanted a chance to try out, I figured it couldn’t hurt to let him. We needed a drummer at some point, anyway.