by Cecilia Tan
I was somewhere below the back wall of the hall. The backstage doors were locked and no one answered my knocking. I had to go around another building to get up to the front. A single student stood in the lobby, his back to the closed double doors. With his crewcut and at-ease stance he looked like a junior soldier boy. Or maybe a football player. I admired his wide shoulders.
"Excuse me," I said as I tried to go past him.
"No admittance." He put a hand on my shoulder.
"Look, the backstage door was locked. I need to get in there."
He looked down at me like he couldn’t understand a word I had said. "Look, there’s no admittance after the show starts."
I pulled the laminated tag I wore around my neck from under my shirt. It said NOMAD in their signature style, ALL AREAS. "I’m on the crew."
He seemed to think that was funny. "Where’s your entertainment committee pass?"
"My what?"
He pointed to a patch of cloth adhered to his pant leg with the university logo on it. "These were passed out after soundcheck to all band, crew, and entourage." SECURITY was handwritten in black magic marker on his.
"Well, I missed that." It was getting late. "Look, I need to get in there, now. I’m supposed to be onstage in ten minutes."
"Yeah, I believe that, too. Get out of here." He moved from foot to foot, as if moving his bulk alone should intimidate me. It did, a little.
The only thing I had to heft was the fact that I was right. "Get me the stage manager."
"I told you I can’t open these doors."
"Fuck that! I told you..." I took a step back as he took a step forward.
He flicked my hair off my shoulder with the back of one hand. "Townie punk, you can just get off the campus before I call the campus police."
I backed away from him. He was probably going to grow up to be a very mean and stupid rent-a-cop and I hoped it got him killed someday. But that didn’t help me, now.
I went back around to the stage door. There was still no answer. I circled around the building, looking for the door I had slipped out before. Every door was locked. I was pulling and kicking it, trying to force it open when a flashlight interrupted me.
"Hey, there, hold up." The voice came from behind the light. A uniformed man took the beam out of my eyes and stepped forward. "What are you trying to do there?"
He was campus police. I started talking. "I came out this door and it locked behind me. I’m on the stage crew. They need me in there."
He muttered to himself. "Five and a half feet, long brown hair. You’re coming with me."
"No! I have to get in there!" Have cops ever been reasonable? "I have a crew pass, see? Just talk to the stage manager and you’ll find out. The head technician’s name is Matthew..."
He wasn’t listening. "Are you going to come along, or do I have to get rough?"
"Somebody’s going to be really pissed if you don’t let me in there. They’re paying me to do a job, here." But he was poking me with the flashlight, herding me toward his car.
"Can I see some I.D."
I produced my RIMCon I.D. from my back pocket.
"Got anything else? Driver’s license?"
I shook my head, familiar with this particular problem already. It didn’t make a difference. He patted me down for weapons or drugs or something that he didn’t find, and put me in the back of his car, talking into his handheld radio. All he’d found in my pockets was a few dollar bills. Then he got in and drove me to a local police station. I guess in the state of Wisconsin it’s a crime not to have a driver’s license.
He handed me over to a real cop in the lobby and I learned the charge. Vagrancy. The cop made me sit down in a little room with a window and closed the door. I felt like I was an extra in a film and someone had changed all the sets while I wasn’t looking. I tried to think back to the exact moment when everything had gone weird on me. But it made me think of Carynne. I had sunk so low I couldn’t even have that sinking feeling anymore.
Mr. Uniformed Officer came in and sat down. He didn’t even look that old, like he could have been twenty-two or -three if he’d been in civvies. But the uniform changes everything. He was smiling and shaking his head, looking at a paper in his hand. "So, you’re the vagrant the CPs dumped on us. Daron Marks."
The sound of my name, my former name, gave me a jolt. I looked at my hands, wondering what they were going to do to me next. "I guess so. What a mess."
"You want to tell me what you were doing on the campus?"
"I’ll tell you what I told them and see if it makes more sense to you, okay? Because it’s the truth." I forced myself to make eye contact with him. I remember hearing somewhere that people will believe you more readily if you make eye contact. (But I think a politician said it, or maybe it was Digger, so who are you going to believe?) "I’m a member of the traveling stage crew for that band they’ve got playing on the campus. They didn’t give me one of those stupid campus passes. This," I held up the laminate, trying to keep my voice down but only partly succeeding, "is good enough for any professional arena in the States, but some buttheaded student bully..." Cool down, kiddo, I told myself, "wouldn’t let me back into the hall once I’d left. I was trying to get back in some other door when the campus cop stopped me."
He shrugged. "You’ve got less than $20 on you, no identification, and you look, well, you look," he shrugged again, "like a vagrant."
"Since when is it a crime to have less than $20? I’ve got five bucks worth of pizza in my stomach that I bought just down the street." I felt angry, but he didn’t seem to be taking it personally. "Do you believe me?"
"I believe you." He stood up. "The CPs are always dumping people off here. You haven’t been arrested. You don’t appear intoxicated, armed, mentally unstable, or otherwise dangerous. I’m going to let you go."
"Thanks." It was good news, but relieved as I was I couldn’t act happy about it. "How the hell do I get back to the campus?"
He called me a cab and held the door open for me as I got in. "Get yourself a state liquor ID if you don’t learn to drive by the time you’re twenty-one," he said. "And don’t take any wooden nickels."
"Yeah, thanks." I decided I didn’t like friendly cops all that much, either.
The cab let me out by the front doors of the concert hall. The doors were wide open, students milling all around. I walked straight through the lobby and no one even looked up to challenge me. Mr. Muscle Brain was gone.
So was almost everyone else. The only person I saw was Matthew, standing by the sound board. I ran up to him.
"Daron! Holy shit, where have you been?" He sounded more relieved than angry and I relaxed a little.
"The damn police picked me up and charged me with vagrancy. I’ve been all over the fuckin’ place." As the knot in my stomach loosened, I realized I was hungry. "They wouldn’t let me in the goddam door!"
Matthew put his arm around my shoulders. "Pinheads. Well, Remo just carried on the set without you. It was okay."
"Remo. Oh fuck." I could imagine what Waldo must be saying right now.
Matthew steered me toward backstage. The equipment was already packed. Matthew pointed his nose toward the students lugging cases. "This is great. We have like thirty kids helping out. I haven’t had to lift a finger."
"Was Remo worried?"
"About you?" Matthew shrugged. "I guess you better talk to him."
"He’s pissed, isn’t he."
"He’s at the hotel. You and me are the only ones left here. You can talk to him when we get back." He dug in his pockets. "I’ll go call us a cab. You keep an eye on these kids." Oh yeah, like any one of them would even listen to me.
Message In A Bottle
It was a different cab. This one had that stale, wet smell, like the inside of a shoe. Matthew and I climbed into the cavernous back seat. I put my feet on the seat and hugged my knees. "Is it far?"
"It’s a little ways. We’re staying by the airport." Matthew pulled on his mus
tache, smoothing it with one finger. "You know, we wouldn’t have even noticed you were gone at first if Carynne hadn’t made a big deal out of it. She was pretty upset."
"Oh, no." I wondered what she could have said. I rested my head on my arms. As the cab jostled down the road, my skull felt heavy against them. Too much on my mind.
"Everything alright between you two?" Matthew’s eyes were turned toward the window, watching the streetlights go by, but I felt like he was watching me, looking at my insides.
"No." It would have been an obvious lie to say otherwise. "I, she just..." I left it at that.
He continued smoothing his mustache with little downward strokes of his finger. His voice was calm, like a public radio announcer’s. "You don’t like her much?"
"That’s not it. She’s great, a lot of fun. But.."
"But...?"
"Is she always like this?" Let’s talk about her, I thought, and get the subject off me.
"Like what?"
"So, persistent."
Matthew smiled out of one corner of his mouth. "Sort of. She only comes on tour during the summer—I think she goes to school. Last summer we did that big thing, all those outdoor arenas with opening acts and all. I always thought her thing was to play hard to get, and then lose." He looked at me, now, letting his shoulders curve back against the seat. "She must really have something for you."
"Ah." I buried my face again. I thought all those hours of wandering might have dulled the image in my mind. But no, I could still see her coming toward me, still feel her hands on my thigh.
"Too deep?"
"What?" I looked through my hair to see his lips move.
"Is it too deep for you."
"You mean, am I in the shit too deep?"
"Well, that too. I mean, are you afraid her feelings for you are more than you can handle."
"Well, that’s one way to put it." I wondered if Matthew could help me. If he would help me. I might be able to avoid the whole thing if he could keep me busy enough. "I never wanted to get deeply involved. No, that isn’t even it. I never even wanted to... to anything! But she sticks to me like a leech! Matthew, what am I going to do?"
The cab turned onto the highway and it became harder to see Matthew’s face. But his voice was the same, quiet and calm. "This is a first."
"What do you mean?"
"Just that most guys want to get in bed with her, that’s all."
"Well, I guess I’m just not like most guys." That was too close to the truth. I clenched my eyes shut as if that might shut my mouth, too. In the dark, with the hum of the tires and the creak of the seat, it was impossible not to think about Matthew sitting there. My fantasy played inside my eyelids.
His hand touched my shoulder. "Are you alright?"
I wanted to fall over and cry. I wanted him to reach over and hug me and tell me everything was okay. But I said "Yeah, just stressed out is all."
"You could tell her you’re not interested." He stopped himself and thought. "But I guess it’s too late for that. If I can make that assumption?"
He knew what he’d seen. "I’ve tried. She seems to like it."
"It’s the hard-to-get mentality. She thinks she’s playing the other side of the game this time, that’s all."
"You sound like you know a lot about her."
"I’ve been watching." He gave me another half-smile in the light of a passing car. "I have a degree in human behavior."
"Oh." I felt as if his X-ray on me just intensified. "Do you like her?"
His hand went to his face as he smoothed his mustache yet again. His voice dropped low. "She’s, you know, not my type."
"She’s not my type, either." I felt my jaw go loose then, a silent gasp as the fuller significance of what he’d said sank into my brain. And I’d said the same back to him, already. It wasn’t possible. But through the rush of blood in my ears, through the tangle of thoughts trying to figure out where I’d betrayed myself, I thought I heard him whisper "I know."
Frozen, I tried to pretend I wasn’t there. Like a deer in the woods, I could be invisible when I wasn’t moving. Matthew had folded his hands in his lap. Neither of us moved. The cab driver must have thought we went to sleep.
She’s, you know, not my type. I could hear him saying it. It could have been my imagination. But I looked at him still as a statue like me and I knew something secret and private had passed between us. We had exchanged hostages and we were both safe.
I uncurled my legs and my breath came out slow and even. "Do you... have a new book for me to read tonight?"
His head twitched toward me like I had hit an ON switch. "I might."
You can’t have Matthew, I told myself. If you can’t have her, you can’t have him either. But I wasn’t listening. I stretched in the cab, hearing my shoulders pop. Matthew’s finger went to his mustache. I ached for an excuse to touch him.
"Were you scared?" he asked. "When they arrested you, I mean."
"No." I wondered how far the hotel could be. "They didn’t really arrest me. They just, detained me, I guess." I leaned my head against the high back of the seat. "Shit. I hope Remo’s not too bent out of shape about it."
Matthew watched me stretch. "He’ll get over it." He let his voice drop again. "You really are an amazing player. He should be proud of you."
"Thanks."
"I hope we get there soon," he said, and I felt I had him, uncertainty ebbing away as I listened to him talk. "It’s late."
We arrived to find the hotel quiet. Matthew got our keys from the desk. I had forgotten my empty stomach, but it growled in reminder. "Think Remo will be asleep?"
"I doubt it. Maybe we’ll find him in the bar." Matthew pointed his chin toward the far end of the lobby.
I stopped. "I’ll see you upstairs."
"I’ll come with you if you want."
"Nah, that’s okay. You go on up." I felt myself blush as if it were too bold of me to say it out loud. But he gave me a half-lidded smile and squeezed my hand. I sucked down the adrenalin, watching him saunter away. Yes.
Old Man Down the Road
I went into the bar to find Remo and the bartender watching the news on the overhead TV. I pulled up a stool and leaned on the polished counter. "What a disaster tonight was," I said. At first, I hoped I sounded dejected, but buoyed by Matthew’s attention it was hard to. I used to do that with Claire sometimes. If I started first and sounded bad enough, sometimes she’d skip the morality speech. But now the words had a falser ring. Somehow putting on an act for my mother seemed right, but for Remo it was wrong.
Remo turned and put an arm on my shoulder. "I hear the police picked you up."
"Yeah, for having less than twenty dollars."
He shook his head.
"I’m sorry, Remo, I’ll be more careful next time."
"The next time you do what?" He sounded too tired to accuse me.
"Get separated from the group. It was stupid of me and I’m sorry." I looked at my feet wrapped around the rungs of the stool.
Remo finished the last flat swig of his beer. "You don’t have to apologize to me. I don’t own you, I never said don’t go wandering off by yourself. But what were you doing, anyway?"
"Nothing." I looked around the empty bar, filled with the sudden fear I had felt in Providence, fear of something like his disapproval. My tongue tasted sour and I didn’t want to answer any more questions.
Remo signed his tab. "Come on upstairs for a bit."
"Sure." I swayed off the stool.
"Are you alright?" He reached out a hand to steady me.
"I never got any dinner, what with being locked out of the damn hall by security."
"I could use something, too." He turned to the bartender. "Can we still get room service?"
The bartender switched off the TV. "Til midnight. Just dial four-seven."
So we went up to Remo’s room and ordered some sandwiches. I could picture Matthew at that moment, reading a mystery, his stocking feet stretched out on
the bed. But I couldn’t rush away from Remo without it seeming weird. We sat on the beds waiting for the food while Remo told me how the set went without me.
"I kept looking over at Matt by the monitors to see if you had shown up yet. He kept giving me the thumbs down."
I didn’t want to say any more about it, I wanted to forget that whole stupid incident. I flexed my fingers. I was probably going crazy on the doors or in the squad car around that time. "It sucked."
He was being too sympathetic, I thought. Maybe I just didn’t understand him. After the hard time he gave me over the Tygerz gig I didn’t expect such quick forgiveness for what felt to me like a mortal sin, missing a gig.
He was looking at me the way he had back at The Cage, like he was trying to read what my shirt said but couldn’t make out the letters. His face turned serious. "Just, just watch yourself, will you?" he said. His hair was almost the same color as Matthew’s, a little sandier and shot through with some gray.
"I will."
"No I mean it. You’ve got that thing about you. Well, you know."
"No. What the hell are you talking about?"
He knitted his eyebrows. "I mean, that’s just the sort of thing that would have happened to your Dad."
I said nothing.
"Something about him just attracted cops like flies."
"Yeah, the smell of bullshit." I laughed in spite of myself. I’d never said anything like that about Digger before, well, not to Remo anyway.
Remo laughed too. "He was a wild one." He looked at me close again. "I don’t know if you inherited that, though. The wild streak."
I waited to hear what else he was going to say about me.
"Daron," he went on, "you seem to see things a little deeper than your Dad ever did." He leaned back against the headboard. "Then again, maybe you did get the wild streak. You bottle up that wildness and let it go when you get the guitar in your hands." He seemed pleased with this conclusion.