The House of Life 1

by Vann Chow

  “The Psychic Engineers!!” The Chad screamed out to the throng, jumping up and down on his spot. The crowd screamed in response. Now he pointed the microphone to the thunderous crowd trying to amp it higher.

  “Yo. Yo. Yo. Listen up people. We really appreciate it. We truly appreciate it.” Chad said after another round of applause for them. He lowered his voice trying to get the crowd to get ready for this next song. “Now Ian right here,” panting, wiping beads of sweats dipping down his chin onto his T-shirt, he extended his right arm to direct attention to Ian who sat on the right hand side of the stage. “He’s an amazing musician, my main man. And now he is going to play a very special song for you guys tonight. It’s unlike anything, I repeat, ANYTHING we have ever covered,” He paused again for the dramatic effect of it, “that ‘The Psychic Engineers’ has ever brought to you before. So all the brothers out there who came with a beautiful shawty, why don’t you put your hands around her waist and pull her just a little bit closer. Whisper in her ears her how much you love her.” He said in a deep, sexy nasal voice, the crowd was intrigued. “But if you are alone tonight,” Pulling the microphone out from its holder and walking closer to the edge of the stage, he said: “We want to let you know that everything’s gonna be okay.” He said. Right then he replaced the microphone and stepped away backstage as fans hooted and clapped, worked up for the next song. When he returned to the front he had a bass guitar plugged and tuned to perfection being strung over his right shoulder. He nodded to someone on the second level. The spotlight focused into a warm yellow glow around Ian, who had been sitting on a bar stool center stage. Ian clutched the microphone in the center closer to his lips.

  “Hi, how’s everyone tonight?” The audience screamed unanimously. Ian was pleased. “This song is called My Beautiful Love, by the Afters.”

  “Oh my gosh! He’s cute!” A girl shouted from beneath.

  “Yeeah, sexy! Another female voiced in agreement.

  It made Ian blushed. His smiled shyly at the comment and that simple change of expression made a couple of the girls' hearts melt right then right there.

  Ian flipped the score in front of him to make sure it’s the right one and waited for Mickey in the drummer podium to begin his count. Soon enough, Mickey banged his drumsticks together — one, two, one, two, three — and on the forth count Chad and Ian started plucking away on their guitars. The entire room was filled with the bright ringing tune of guitars.

  “Faraway,

  I feel your beating heart.

  All alone,

  Beneath the crystal stars.

  I’m staring into space,

  Such a lonely face.

  I’ll try to find my place with you.

  What a beautiful smile.

  Can I stay for a while?

  What a beautiful night.

  We’ll make everything right.

  Maybe a greater thing will happen,

  Maybe all will cease.

  Maybe our love will catch like fire,

  As it burns through me.

  My beautiful love.”

  “Great show tonight!” exclaimed Tommy, a thirty something businessman who owned the cheekiest, hottest and the one and only live band club Club Gloom in SoHo, Central. He had come over backstage to congratulate them on their first jaw-dropping performance of the summer. “I’ve got fans telling me that they have been waiting for the entire year for you boys to come back. You are simply incredible.”

  Already filled up with beers, free for the performers, Chad stood up and wobbled over from the bar to give Tommy a hug. Tommy staggered.

  “What do you think of our new guy Mickey? We spent five days of auditioning, listening to all kinds of crap before we found that son of a bitch.” Chad turned his head to Mickey and asked him: “Hey, Mick! You didn’t piss in your pants, did you?” Mickey, who was a year younger than the others, was horrified by that comment. It was understandable that he was mortally daunted by the task of performing on stage in front of so many people in such a short notice. He was so nervous at the beginning of the show that a little pee did come out.

  “Stop messing with him. He had a long day.” Ian walked over to shake Tommy’s hand. That’s when he realized that his own hand was dripping with sweats.

  Ian stayed at the back starting pack up his belongings. He noticed from his wristwatch that it was 4 AM already and he had an unshakable desire to just drop to his knees and just fall asleep right here right now. The past few sleepless nights in preparation for the performance were starting to catch up with him.

  “Good job tonight, everyone!” Tommy yelled it out so the entire backstage crew can hear him. “Another round of beers for everyone on the house!” His generous offer was met with unanimous chant.

  Tonight’s performance was indeed phenomenal. There was only a handful of clubs with live bands in Hong Kong. And local rock bands that could swing and groove like ‘The Psychic Engineers’ did were few and far in between. What Tommy thought was the most important attribute of the band that kept bringing customers back year after year yearning for more was Ian and Chad. Certainly, on the musical level, they were still slightly immature. But he knew that the charismatic duet, armed with good-looks, charming and westernized personality, would win the more open-minded bar-hopping, party-goers over, the people who were coming here to seek something different. And the fact that they could cover a wide range of artists from Oasis to Westlife, from Bon Jovi to 50 cent, was pretty incredible. The versatility of the band makes them the top choice on Tommy’s booking list because of the flexibility they offered him. He could use them in multiple special theme nights worry-free.

  This was the third year the ‘The Psychic Engineers’ had been playing for the club. Ian and Chad started the band about six years back and over the years they had written many amazing songs together. Thanks to Ian’s mom whose persistence persuaded her husband to spend fifteen thousand dollars in decorating their study room in the house into a band room, furnished with all the necessary instruments and sound insulating pads anyone could ever need, Ian and Chad were able to make music and practice there freely without any disturbance. So if it wasn’t for Ian’s new dad, the band wouldn’t have happened. Hence every time when Chad came around to Ian’s place he showed more than the usual level of respect he had for elders towards Mr Fung.

  Like any other teenagers, they started out very optimistic. They were expecting to see phenomenal overnight success that could bring them from rags to riches once they got their voices ‘out there’. Over the years, however, they had learnt that fame doesn’t come that easily. They had tried to knock on the doors of recording labels in Hong Kong with their self-recorded demos. Most of the music producers were impressed with their musical talents but all of them inevitably came to the same conclusion that Hong Kong’s market was not ready for heavy rock music and sent the two kids back on their way. “It’s not just rock. Damnit. It’s ‘Nu Metal’. It’s alternative music genre. It’s new-world trashy metal. It’s…fuck it!” Chad once lost it in front of a rather under-informed producer.

  One night three years ago, however, Ian’s dad halfheartedly mentioned to his friend, who happened to have a brother who was in turn the house manager of Tommy’s Club Gloom, that his son was in a band and that he wished his son could spend his time on something more practical, something that would bring home some money—not that they really needed it — before he would go off to that expensive college in the States. His sympathetic friend put in a few words for ‘The Psychic Engineers’ and next thing they knew, ‘The Psychic Engineers’ became the live cover band of Club Gloom. Since then, they were welcomed to come back and perform for them every summer. It wasn’t exactly where they had hoped to be, a cover band, but it was a step towards fame and recognition, a chance to show the world what they could offer and they certainly did not hesitate to say yes to the proposition. Someday, Chad sworn, he would get to wear a twenty-four carat gold spinning wheel on his neck and hug sexy women in
both arms just chilling in the hot tub inside his fancy pad overlooking Beverly Hills. He would be the first, world-famous Chinese rapper. Some day.

  After another hour of celebrating and tedious tidying up, Ian finally got back to his apartment at six thirty in the morning. He stealthily sneaked back into his room on the second floor without waking his mom and dad who were in the master bedroom down the hallway. His parents, being educators of the young minds, did not approve the idea of Ian playing music in dodgy places like that, where, they imagined, drug dealers and gangsters congregated. Once, he had an argument with his step-dad about it. He thought his step-dad was being ridiculous. If he had ever been more open minded and come to listen to his shows once in a while, he would see that the folks over there at Club Gloom were all decent and well-behaved people who came to the club to enjoy the same music that he did, at least that’s what he would say. He didn’t tell his dad what he thought about it because no one he didn’t know well had ever approached him anyway. He did not really mix well with the locals because of the way he looked. His European features, he felt, had always alienated him from the rest of the people he considered his own.

  Ian stripped off his outfits that were stinking of cigarette smoke and spread them on top of the table in front of the opened window to air them out, hoping not to irritate his mom as much when she would see, and smelt them eventually in the laundry basket. Wearing nothing but his boxer, Ian climbed atop the softness of his mattress and closed his eyes. He thought of how people loved his newest addition of songs to their performance. The ‘Beautiful Love’ was definitely staying, Ian thought. In his heart he secretly dedicated this song to Elise. When he read her last entry, the song on his mp3 was ‘Beautiful Love’ and somehow the words and the melody seemed to fuse perfectly with each other and weaved into the most touching picture. That was how he had decided to add this song. Usually he wouldn’t challenge a new song on his first performance back, but he felt so strongly about its lyrical truth that he had coerced Chad and Mickey into an agreement. He imagined that Elise was hugging her knees in an airport with her earphone on her ears just like him thinking of the people she missed. Her big round eyes peering out into the clear blue sky dotted with occasional mechanical birds through the glass panels in the waiting area for her flight. While Ian was lavishing on the beautiful melancholic image, he drifted into sleep without knowing it. That night, Ian had the strangest dream ever.

  Eclipse

  “Fuck!” Chad said. It startled Ian. He opened his eyes and realized that instead of laying on his bed sleeping, he was back in his stinky clothing that night in Club Gloom with Chad, getting ready to leave all over again. He stared up the dark staircase that led to the exit where Chad stood. He was apparently upset with something. “It was raining like hell out there!”

  When they finally reached the exit at the top of the staircases, staggering under the heavy weight of their musical equipment and more than a few shots of something strong they were offered by various people in the club tonight, they could see that it was pouring like there was no tomorrow outside. The rain beat down on everything in its path, making dirty gray dots on the white decorative umbrellas overshadowing the now emptied outdoor cafes on the other side of the road, and bounced loudly on the metal bodies of the cars lined up on the side. People were running in the streets for the nearest shelters. Rain water collected into puddles of water mixed with dirt, gravels and trashes, and gushed down into the gutter like s waterfall into the underground water channels, making loud noises as it did so.

  “Where’d you parked?” Chad shouted out to Ian at a few steps below him on the staircase as he himself retreated back under the awning before his equipment get soaked in the rain. A few un-informed teenage girls in mini-skirts and dangerously high heels were trying to squeeze pass Ian and Chad towards the top of the staircase to leave.

  “My car’s at the back.” Ian shouted up the stairs as he jabbed his thumb back to convey his point.

  “Why the hell are we leaving from the front, man? Jesus Christ!” Chad admonished Ian as he pushed through the group of girls lingering at the staircase wedged between the two of them, still undecided whether to run through the rain or not as none of them had umbrella in their teeny-weeny designers’ clutches. “Back up! Back up ladies. Your man Chad is coming through! Back up, ladies!” The girls squeaked at each other as this gigantic mass of a bantering insolent drunk tumbled down the stairs towards them, breaking their strung hands. Chad didn’t forget to take advantage of the commotion and grabbed one of the girls’ butt as he shoveled down.

  “Nice ass, foxy!” He hooted, unabashed by the disgusted glances the girls had thrown at him. “You wanna go home with daddy tonight?” He stopped in the face of his prey and solicited shamelessly.

  “Just shut up and go before this place is flooded.” Ian shouted, annoyed at his friend’s behavior as usual. “He’s sick in the head.” He said to the girl closest to him.

  “Hey, can you drive us home?” The girl asked Ian. Ian noticed that her legs are shaking from the cold drafts. The other girls cocked their heads to listen for a reply eagerly.

  “I can, but I have a sports car and there’s not enough space for everyone plus our equipment.”

  Upon his disappointing news, Chad immediately said that he could sacrifice himself and leave his guitar in the club with Tommy for now so they could all squeeze inside the car.

  “…” Before Ian could say no, Chad already put his arms around two of the girls standing next to him and started to shoo the whole group back through the club to the other exit. Ian sighed at this arbitrary decision, as it meant he had to drive extra miles to drop off four persons instead of one. But this certainly wasn’t the first time he was the designated driver. Given how ‘charitable’ Chad was to girls, this kind of thing happened all the time. Sometimes he just wanted to kick them all out when he arrived at Chad’s place to save himself some troubles but he felt ethically responsible for these naïve girls who would rather subject themselves to the embrace of a stranger than to pay for a taxi.

  The girls were starting to warm up to Chad jokes in the crowded two-door Eclipse now jam-packed with people. The girls were laughing and screaming hysterically at a dirty joke Chad had just told. Their hands and legs all were fraying all over the place in the tiny Eclipse but they didn’t care — their skirts were riding up their thighs and bra straps were slinging over their bare shoulders precariously. The two girls sitting at the back with Chad now had their eyes glued to him. They were no longer intimidated by Chad, a natural born show-off, who started to do an amazing impression of Twister's ‘Celebrity Overnight’ with powerful precision. Ian, at the driver’s seat, who had his eyes peeled on the road through the foggy windshield, got the back of his head jabbed by one of the girl’s heel three times in a row already. Irritated, he shot an angry glance at the chaos in the backseat but no one noticed. Sighing, he turned his head back towards the road but as he did, he noticed that the girl who was sitting next to him had turned and dived her long manicured fingernails into the black leather shoulder of the seat. One of her legs was on the cushion and another was stepping on the cup holder in an attempt to climb her way to the party at the backseat. Her mini-skirts had ridden so high up on her waist Ian could easily see everything that it was supposed to be covering. Somehow it did more of an annoyance to him than an arousal, especially when he was driving in the bad weather.

  “Seat the fuck down!” He reached his right hand out in an effort to pull the girl back into her seat.

  “Ahhh! Stop touching me!” The girl turned to look at him and said, not without a hint of flirtation. The whole group at the back giggled at the drama, mistaking Ian’s action as something else. Ian found himself fuming with anger and embarrassment.

  The storm was getting more and more menacing. The Eclipse was rocking on the road like a boat in a rippling sea. The louder these girls squeaked and squealed the more annoyed and anxious he became. Ian stomped on the gas pedal
down the deserted expressway, anxious to finish his task of delivering everyone home safely and eventually return to Hong Kong Island where he actually lived.

  He had just emerged from under the cross-harbor tunnel. The choppy weather hadn’t given up on them though, much to his disappointment. Ian turned his windshield wipers to full speed but the car was going so fast that it was almost impossible for the wipers to keep up with the influx of water pelting on its surface like metal bullets. Ian didn’t care. He’s going 110 km/h now. The car was capable of that, he knew and he wasn’t worried. Towering walls made of water splashed up from the sides of the wheels had shielded these five people from the outside world around them.

  A strike of lightning blazed through the sky in its silent terror somewhere ahead of them. A few seconds later, the sound of the thunder arrived. The rumble shook the carefree group sitting at the back and the girls screamed in a collective piercing voice before coming to silence.

  Taking this opportune break, Ian turned on the radio to listen to the traffic report. All that came through was spooky cracklings, much like the noise from an out of order television. He tried to turn it off but somehow the power dial was stuck.

  “Are we on Nathan Road yet?” The girl next to him groaned in impatient. Ian rolled his eyes at the stupid girl and controlled his temper so he wouldn’t open the door lock on her side and send her rolling off the highway back to Nathan Road.

  As to where they actually were, Ian wasn’t quite sure himself. He squinted through the blurry windows at the patches of lights shed by the high beam of his car with the last ounce of energy he had and saw a green highway sign bearing words that bore resemblance to where he intended to exit on the highway. He immediately swerved the car towards the exit.