by Clea Simon
‘No, thanks.’ Tara hadn’t yet sussed out the etiquette of the clubs, but she knew she didn’t want to owe this guy. She was saved by the bartender, who brought over a Rolling Rock without asking.
‘I’ve seen you around.’ She drank, nodded, willing the conversation to a close. ‘You follow these bands?’
‘Some of them.’ She wiped the hair from her face. Squinted through the cigarette smoke. She must know someone else here.
‘Do you write?’
That turned her around. ‘What?’
‘Do you write? I’m putting together a ’zine. A fanzine on the Boston scene. Something like Rat Turds or the FreeP, but I want it to have real substance. Maybe interviews, maybe reviews. But something with some thought to it.’
Tara took another drink and held the cool beer in her mouth for a minute. Time to think. ‘Yeah, why not?’ She’d been looking for an in, a way to become a member of this community. She’d spent some time at the college newspaper during her years at BU, too. ‘I can write. Do paste-up, too.’
‘You can do production?’ The fat guy smiled suddenly, changing his face from menace to beaming full moon. ‘Excellent! You can be one of my editors.’ He pulled a bulging wallet out of his back pocket and fingered through the papers, very little of it currency. ‘Here’s my card.’ It was damp and dog-eared. ‘Scott, Scott Hasseldeck. Good to meet you.’
‘Tara Winton.’ They shook hands and Tara realized she was smiling back. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you.’ Thus it had all begun.
‘Who’s the fat guy?’ Gina had surfaced next to her, gesturing for the bartender’s attention.
‘His name’s Scott. We’re going to do a ’zine.’
Gina beamed at her. ‘Cool. You’ll write about me?’
And that was it. After a few months on the edges, wondering how to get in, to be a part of this frantic set, she’d done it. She and Scott and after a few months two or three others, as well, would gather in his Allston triple-decker and talk about the bands they’d seen. Who was coming up, who was coming to town. Everyone had their pets, and what was covered was decided often enough by Flicka, the photographer. If she wanted to shoot it, they had a cover.
Scott had already found a printer, back in Maine, who’d do a press run of a few hundred copies. They’d been to school together, and Scott put him up whenever he came to town – to party, meet girls, hear some music. That must have paid for the first issue, Tara couldn’t see how else it came together. After a while, Scott sold some ads, too, though God knows how he convinced the used record stores and T-shirt places to part with that twenty-five or fifty bucks. And then, once a month or so – the first year, especially, the schedule was loose – she and Scott would make the long drive up to the printers, sneaking in on a Sunday, most times, and Tara would lay out the type like she’d done for her college paper, though her college paper never had a drunken printer or a leather-clad editor looking over her shoulder, egging her on to some of the worst headlines.
She’d sleep all day Monday, when they got back. But in the back of the van, they’d have those bundles and for the rest of the week, they’d be bringing them around. A tied bundle was as good as cover on a Tuesday or a Wednesday, the doormen waving them in when they came around. The bartenders, often enough, pulling a draft for her as she cut the twine binding on a fresh stack.
That was how she met everyone. Underground Sound never became a must-read, nothing like Boston Rock and with everything that happened, it didn’t last long. But while it did, it got her name around. And Tara was glad to have her own way in, something besides her friendship with Gina. The paper got her into bigger shows, too, once it became established. Once people could count on it coming out on time. She remembers the first time she went backstage, into the cramped closet they called a dressing room at the Rat. She’d come to bring in an issue, but had forgotten about it from the moment she walked through the door. The room was tiny, and covered in graffiti. Sharpies, paint, ballpoint. The band names alone mesmerized her. She could’ve spent hours reading the walls, and she watched as the Painkillers, the band on the cover, added their names, dripping and sloppy with red nail polish.
That was where she first met Frank, too. The band name must have sparked the memory, but she could picture him, remember how startled she’d been, at first, to see his hulking form in the corner. The Painkillers were a post-punk girl group in the mode of Salem 66 or Oh OK. Despite their raucous laughs and tour-toughened looks, their sound was dreamy, all jangly guitar and vocal harmonies. Perfect for college radio, but Frank didn’t seem like the romantic sort.
He’d been scary in those days. Heavier and always scowling back before he got married and found Jesus. She remembers stepping back, her quick intake of breath as she saw him, leaning up against the wall (‘Circle Jerks! 1982’).
‘Hey.’ He’d nodded, recognizing her from around. She managed a grin, a little lopsided, and nodded back. He was waiting, she realized. He’d slipped in to see the band before their sound check. That’s when she figured out that he was in a band, too. Into the music, like she was, and once again remembered the paper. She ripped open the bundle and handed him a copy. He said ‘Thanks,’ and almost smiled. She was part of the scene, too. Legit. And nothing scared her.
TWO
In the end, it’s Peter who comes with her. Peter with his old-school manners, insisting that nobody should have to go to a funeral alone. Tara had asked Min. Pressured her really, stressing the common friends who would be there, the fact that they had both spent time with the deceased and his widow. That Min had done more than that, all those years ago.
‘It’s been ten years since I saw her,’ Min had responded. ‘Maybe twenty. I don’t even know that I’d recognize Neela. Or that she’d want to see me.’
‘Come on, Min.’ Tara tried. ‘That was ages ago. Bygones and all that.’
Min had laughed at that. ‘My point exactly. Another lifetime ago.’
Tara knew she’d lost her then. She doubted that the widow would remember Min as anything other than another scenester. Doubted Neela even knew about Min’s fling with Frank all those years ago. They hadn’t been married then, and Frank had still been drinking. They all had. But Min remembered. She’d gotten pregnant as the result of their on-again, off-again affair. Tara’d gone with her to the clinic. Years later, when she’d miscarried, she’d blamed that clinic – the abortion – for messing her up. She was working toward her master’s by then and full of theories: septic conditions, micro tears, infection. She’d stopped talking about it, once Tara – by then a proper journalist – had presented her with facts and figures about the procedure’s safety, about the clinic’s reputation. She hadn’t stopped thinking about it, though, Tara realized later.
Not that she’d told Peter about this, when he called to check in. He was as dismissive of Min as he was of all her old crowd.
‘She can’t make it,’ Tara had said. ‘She wishes she could, though.’
‘Huh.’ Peter’s response – a noncommittal grunt – had said it all. Right after that was when he’d told her he’d pick her up at nine. ‘Someone’s got to be there with you.’ She’d been too grateful to turn him down, no matter the cost to her pride.
He looks smart in a suit. She has to give him that. Certainly better than most of the small crowd assembled in the church. While the women pull off mourning pretty well – every onetime rocker having at least one black dress – the men all look like they’re in costume, their jackets ill-fitting, their ties stained or ten years out of date.
‘That’s Gina.’ Tara keeps her voice low. ‘You remember her.’
‘Kind of.’ He follows Tara’s gaze. Nods as she smiles at the latecomer, who has turned and waves as she squeezes into a pew two rows up. ‘She’s still kind of a mess, isn’t she?’
Tara bristles. Gina’s face is blotchy and swollen, her eyes delineated only by the smudged, dark liner. ‘She and Frank were friends,’ she responds. She can hear the edge to her
voice and takes a deep breath to let it out. Peter has done her a solid, accompanying her. They are no longer married, after all, and this crowd has never been his. ‘I think everyone is just in shock,’ she says. She works to keep her voice neutral.
Peter nods, his silence his own peace offering. He is trying, she knows that. He hasn’t commented on her car, for once. Hasn’t pointed out that she could upgrade now to something newer and more reliable. Instead, he brought her a flier from a local open house – a condo development near his. ‘It’s a good deal,’ he’d said, as he pressed it into her hand. ‘If you buy in before they finish, you can get them to customize the furnishings too.’
‘I can’t think about that now,’ she’d said. He’d held his tongue then too. It was a discussion they’d had before. How she was unwilling to move ahead – to make a life for herself. In her defense, she always pointed out how she had taken his advice. She’d left the newspaper where they’d met not long after he had. She’d met with the headhunter he had steered her way and landed her current job, handling corporate communications at three times the pay. Besides, she had wanted to point out, owning a home wasn’t any sign of success. Not anymore. Frank and Neela owned their house, a ramshackle two-family in Somerville, and she knew they’d been struggling to get by. And now Frank was dead, having fallen down the basement stairs to the concrete floor below.
‘Oh my God.’ Even two rows away, Gina is audible, and Tara feels rather than sees Peter’s eyebrows go up in a wordless rebuke. Still, she understands Gina’s outburst. The pale, sagging woman who is being helped up the aisle is a far cry from the rambunctious rocker Tara remembers. Neela Turcotte looks twenty years older than her forty-odd years, her strawberry blonde hair faded to a washed-out grey.
‘Poor woman.’ Tara keeps her voice low, and Peter reaches for her hand. His touch is a comfort, still, if just because they know each other so well.
The service isn’t long, and Tara is grateful for that. The minister gives an anodyne eulogy about Frank’s steadiness as a husband and a father. He mentions the grandson and makes the usual vague reference to ‘trials of faith’. Only when the assembly sits for yet another psalm that Tara doesn’t know does she lean over to her ex and voice the question that had been echoing through her head.
‘I wonder what happened?’ she asks. ‘I mean, it’s so sad. Falling down your own stairs?’
Peter’s face is unreadable. ‘He was probably drunk,’ he says.
‘No.’ She shakes him off. ‘Frank was a twelve-stepper. Had been for years.’
‘People lie about drinking all the time.’ The censure is clear in Peter’s voice. ‘They fall off the wagon, and they’re too embarrassed to admit it.’
‘I don’t think so.’ Tara thinks back to the last time she’d seen Frank. He’d changed since those wild days with his band – with Min. He’d seemed to contract and condense, as if he were hunkering down to the real business of living. ‘Being a parent changed him, and then the whole deal with their grandson.’
She can feel Peter watching her. The singing has ended; the minister is reciting some final prayer. Bestowing a blessing.
‘I wonder if there was something else going on?’ she asks again. Her neighbors turn toward each other. The kiss of peace ending the service.
‘You still think like a writer.’ Peter leans toward her. She feels his lips, warm and dry, on her cheek. ‘But this isn’t some story, Tara. This is real life.’
THREE
‘What do you mean, there’s no booze?’ Gina’s voice cuts through the hushed conversation like jagged glass. ‘It’s a funeral, isn’t it? That’s not right.’
Tara winces, grateful that Peter has left. He’d gotten that pinched look once the service ended, when Tara said she’d wanted to go to the gravesite and to the house after. At one point, that would have gotten Tara’s back up. But the time for arguments has passed. ‘Go home,’ she’d said instead. ‘I’ll get a ride.’
‘It’s the Cooper deadline.’ He’d been embarrassed.
‘You did enough.’ She absolved him. ‘Really, I’m grateful.’
Now she’s glad she insisted, that she waved him off with a smile when he pulled up to the curb. He doesn’t fit in with this crowd. Never had, though he had tried when they were first dating, pursing his mouth in that same pinched fashion when he came back from the bathroom at the Rat. When he heard her friends – Min, Gina – laughing, drunk and happy.
She remembers all of that, including how she began to see their world – to see clubland – as he did. Sad and small. Funny how he stays in her head that way, even now. But she can feel those memories slough off her like dead skin, and she relaxes into her old self even as she makes her way up the cement walk. The door looks freshly painted. Peter had tried, Tara knows that, but she’s glad she doesn’t have to explain. That the toilet is broken and the pitcher on the back is for flushing, for example. Or whatever minor obstacle had been one too many this week. It doesn’t bother her, not anymore. Even before Gina’s outburst, Tara had been aware of a shift in herself. Peter would call it a regression, she knows. Funny how she still hears him. Funny now to think that they were ever married.
‘Neela, I’m so sorry.’ She’d gone straight to the widow. Her mother would be proud, even as she’d disparage this crew. This – Tara can visualize the way her mouth would tighten on the word – ‘lifestyle’. That’s when she hears it – when everyone hears it: Gina’s cry of deprivation and of grief.
‘Gina!’ A hiss of warning. Someone’s taking Gina out back, and once Tara has patted Neela’s hand, hugged her daughter Mika, she follows, more concerned for her old friend than she wants to admit. She finds her on the tiny patio, sitting where a matronly type in a black cardigan has seated her. ‘This is a sober house,’ says the matron, standing over her. That hiss, surely Tara knows it. Carla, Tom’s wife, her face grown hard with the years.
‘But it’s a funeral.’ Gina is on the edge of tears, and Carla isn’t helping. ‘And there wasn’t even a wake.’
‘Come on, Gina.’ Tara sidles up to her, pulling over another of the white plastic lawn chairs, and nods to Carla. She’s taking over. ‘You know that Frank didn’t drink anymore.’
Gina sags forward and Tara pulls her close. Over Gina’s head, Tara sees Carla shake her head. Exasperated. ‘Go.’ Tara mouths the word.
‘We’ve got to respect what Frank would have wanted.’ Tara talks softly, as if to a child. Carla rolls her eyes, casting a glance full of meaning at Tara before retreating back inside. ‘And Frank would have wanted all his friends here, but he wouldn’t have wanted anyone getting drunk.’
‘He might have.’ Gina, rallying the dead to her side. ‘I heard they were fighting a lot. That’s why people are saying he … you know.’ Gina stops, as if to pronounce the word ‘suicide’ was to make it real.
‘That’s not how people kill themselves.’ Tara nips that in the bud.
‘It’s that Neela.’ Gina sniffs. ‘She’s become such a tight ass.’
Tara chuckles, covers her mouth with her hand. If she can lash out, then Gina’s going to be OK. She won’t melt down here, today anyway. And she’s right. They’ve all gotten older, but it’s taken them all differently. Gina’s gotten sloppier. Carla, apparently, has grown harder, though Tara reminds herself that, despite the bulldog jaw, the other woman did take the time to escort Gina from the room. Did try to reason with her. Neela and Frank, though – they’d changed tons. Frank for the better. Despite his sobriety, he never became one of those holier-than-thou types. He’d turned in on himself, from what Tara hears. She remembers him as a somber man, the few times their paths had crossed over the last couple of years. Quiet and serious. But never sanctimonious. Whereas Neela? Tara closes her eyes, leans on Gina’s head as if she were a baby, as if they were children still. It’s warm out here, the early autumn heat captured by the close-set houses. As Gina complains, getting it out of her system, she remembers. Twenty years like it was yesterday.
‘What’s the rush?’ Tara had been laughing, a little high. They’d smoked a bowl, back at Min’s, while Min had gotten dressed. The liner, the mascara, painted on with a brush. Tara had shown up ready, hair slightly teased. It was Min who had held them up, changing her shirt three times and fussing more about her make-up than Tara had ever seen. Now she was grabbing Tara’s hand, pulling her down the sidewalk.
‘Just hurry.’ The hardware on Min’s jacket sparkling in the streetlight.
Tara had let herself be dragged. Min always kept things close, but it was clear this mattered to her. When they’d gotten to Oakie’s, smiled their way past Brian at the door and down the stairs, she’d understood.
‘Hey, Oaksters.’ A scrawny man, his hair as black as his leather jacket, hunched over the mike. ‘We’re Last Call.’
A windmill and he sounded the first chord. Fast and loud, the band joined in, the beat coming strong from all three. The guitarist sang, too, his voice a rough bark. Only when he soloed did she get a look at him, the rooster hair almost reaching Oakie’s improvised lights. A face like a hawk, eyes deep set even then. Something about his size, the way he stood looked familiar.
‘They’re good.’ Tara turned toward her friend. Min nodded, her body bobbing with the music, and suddenly she was moving forward, making her way through the crowd.
‘Min!’ Tara reached for her. Oakie’s didn’t have a mosh pit, not really, but the crowd up front could get intense, especially with a band this high energy. ‘Wait!’
She managed to grab her friend’s arm, the leather cool to the touch, but when Min turned, she dropped it. The look in Min’s face – there was no disguising it. She was ready to turn on anyone who stopped her. She’d have torn her own arm off if Tara hadn’t let go, and suddenly Tara understood. Min had been distant for weeks. Had become vague about where she was going. Had even disappeared a few times, leaving Tara to find her own way home. Nothing major – clubland was home territory for them both – but curious, in its way. It was this guitarist. He drew Min like a magnet.